Katrina's Musings (Quietness of God)

From the journal of Jim Elliot, November 3, 1949.

"I think there is nothing so startling in all the graces of God as His quietness. When men have raged untruths in His name, when they have used the assumed authority of the Son of God to put to death His real children, when they have with calloused art twisted the Scriptures into fables and lies, when they have explained the order of His creation in unfounded theories while boasting the support of rational science, when they have virtually talked Him right out of His universe, when they, using powers He grants them, claim universal autonomy and independence, He, this great Silent God says nothing. His tolerance and love for His creature is such that, having spoken in Christ, in conscience, in code of law, He waits for men to leave off their bawling and turn for a moment to listen to His still, small voice of Spirit. Now after so long a time of restrained voice, bearing in Almighty meekness the blasphemies of His self-destroying creatures, now--how shall break upon the ears, consciousness, hearts, and minds of reprobate man the Voice of one so long silent? It shall thunder with the voice of offended righteousness, strike with lightening bolts on the seared consciences; roar as the long crouched lion upon dallying prey; leap upon, batter, destroy and utterly consume the vain reasonings of proud human kind; ring as the battle shout of a strong, triumphant, victory-tasting warrior, strike terror and gravity to souls more forecefully than tortured screams in the dead of night. O God, what shall be the first tones of that voice again on earth? And what their effect? Wonder and fear, denizens of dust, for the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a battlecry, with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet blast of God Himself, made more terrible, if that could be, by the long-suffering of His silence."