Tag Archives: God’s Word

After the Storm

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A storm tore through Lennox this week—fierce winds up to 80 mph, trees uprooted, branches scattered like matchsticks, power lines down, and debris everywhere. It was the kind of storm that shakes you. Not just the windows, but your sense of calm, your plans for the day, maybe even your confidence in how secure things really are.

But something beautiful followed: neighbors with chainsaws, strangers with trailers, folks hauling branches who hadn’t even finished clearing their own yards yet. In moments like these, you remember just how much strength there is in a community that cares for one another.

It also reminded me of Elijah.

You probably know the story—how Elijah, worn out and afraid, hid in a cave on Mount Horeb, waiting to hear from God. A mighty wind tore through the mountains, then an earthquake, and then a fire. But God was not in any of those. Instead, Elijah heard the voice of the Lord in a still small whisper.

It’s a powerful image: the God of all creation not needing to shout over the storm, but speaking gently, personally, quietly.

And yet here’s what we must remember—God doesn’t whisper anymore.

That’s not to say He’s silent. Far from it. God has spoken—and with perfect clarity. As the author of Hebrews tells us, “In these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son” (Heb. 1:2). He speaks today through His Word, which is sufficient to teach us what we are to believe concerning God and what duty God requires of us. Scripture reveals His will and His ways, not in shadows or signs, but in the fullness of truth centered on Jesus Christ.

We need not wait for another word or chase after whispers and signs, because God has already spoken everything we need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). To look beyond His Word is not an act of greater faith, but of forgetfulness—forgetting that every promise of God is “Yes” and “Amen” in Christ (2 Cor. 1:20).

As Beautiful Eulogy put it in their songs “Symbols and Signs:”

“Silly us, ignore the plain, we prefer a riddle
Dying to see a miracle while holding God’s diary looking for signs“

Or as the old hymn puts it:

“What more can He say than to you He hath said,
To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?”

We don’t need to chase storms or search caves to hear from God. He has already spoken in His Son. We just need to listen—to His Word, to His gospel, to the truth that still speaks louder than any storm.

SDG

A light in the dark

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How does it appear that there is a God?
The very light of nature in man, and the works of God, declare plainly that there is a God; but his word and Spirit only do sufficiently and effectually reveal him unto men for their salvation.

The Westminster Larger Catechism: With Scripture Proofs. Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1996.

Man is born in conflict.

As creatures fashioned by, and in the image of, our Almighty Creator God, there is within each of us a desire to know and be known by God, to enjoy the blessing of fellowship with God, and to find in God the meaning, purpose, and direction of life itself.

God has created the world in such a way that all things would point His creation to Him, that we would seek Him out in worship and obedience (Acts 17:27), that we would clearly perceive His eternal power and divine nature (Rom. 1:20), and that we would learn from the Eternal One the purpose of all life (Ecclesiastes 3:11). Not only does this “light of nature” direct us to know that there is a God, but so also does His mighty work of providence, the way in which God orders and ordains all things that come to pass, point us to find him. There is a super-abundance of evidence pointing us to the truth that there is a God who is worthy of our worship, praise, and obedience, so that “the fool says in his heart, ‘There is no god.'”

How foolish we’ve become.

While we have an inherent knowledge of the reality of God, there is also with each of us, as fallen creatures, a blindness of heart and mind (Eph 4:18; Rom 1:21), a refusal to bend the knee, an indignant balking at the Lordship of our Creator. We behold the evidence of the hand of our Creator and merely say, “How sublime.” We put the created thing in the place of the Creator. We turn, each of us to our own ways, and do what is right in our own eyes. We make ourselves to be gods, self-made men. We deny the evidence of God all around us, and we have become fools.

Such is the need, then, for something special to come along.

While the evidence of God is clear for all to see, because of our sinful hearts, the light of nature and God’s works in creation are insufficient to bring us to a saving knowledge of who God is and how we can be right with Him. We need something more. We need God to speak directly to us. And so He does, in the Scriptures. Through the inspiration of God’s Holy Spirit, the Scriptures were by God “to reveal Himself… to declare His will to the Church… to preserve and propagate the truth… and to establish and comfort the Church” (WSC I.I).

We can give God praise, then, for He has not left us to languish in the darkness of our foolish hearts, but has given His Word as “a light unto our feet” (Ps. 119:105), that we may know God and the salvation He has worked for us in Jesus Christ.