The Silence of God

Between the Old and New Testaments there were four hundred silent years when God said nothing. And in our precious Lord’s case, He waited some thirty years to hear God say, “Thou art my beloved Son.” When He recorded for us, “Let thy words be few,” God practiced what He preached. The Bible (K.J.V. 1611) has 773,746 words; considering the fact God is infinite, that “ain’t” very many.

Blaise Pascal wrote a friend, “I am sorry to have wearied you with so long a letter but I did not have time to write a short one.” Well, time is something God has plenty of. God doesn’t waste words. His philosophy, it is apparent, is “Brevity is best.” You might say, He is not a big talker. He is truly a man of few words. The type person who follows His example, generally, can say a lot in few words.

It has been popular as far back as I can remember to hear the phrase, “The Lord spoke to me,” or “God told me.” And to hear this spiritually elite group talk about it, it happens frequently in lengthy conversations with the Lord. If this be true, I wonder why God spoke from heaven to his Son so infrequently, in comparison, while He was on earth. I used to be one of the above who boasted of God speaking to me on a regular basis. Now, I think it best to simply say, “I feel impressed God might want me to do such and such.”

 The true test of a prophet in the Old Testament was whether or not what God told him actually came to pass. I have found on more occasions than I’d like to admit, it didn’t in my life and ministry.