by A. W. Tozer
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God". (John 1:1)
A. W. Tozer wrote, "it is the nature of God to speak, to communicate His thoughts to others. . . . that self expression is inherent in the Godhead, that God is forever seeking to speak Himself out to His creation. The whole Bible supports the idea. God is speaking. Not God spoke, but God is speaking. He is by His nature continually articulate. He fills the world with His speaking Voice." We have in our hands the written word of God, the Bible.
The Word of God is quick and powerful. In the beginning He spoke to nothing, and it became something. Chaos heard it and became order, darkness heard it and became light. "And God said--and it was so."
That God is here and that He is speaking--these truths are back of all other Biblical truths; without them there could be no revelation at all. . . He spoke a book and lives in His spoken words, constantly speaking His words and causing the power of them to persist across the years. God breathed on clay and it became a man; He breathes on men and they become clay. . . .
. . . . The tragedy is that our eternal welfare depends upon our hearing, and we have trained our ears not to hear.
When God spoke out of heaven to our Lord, self-centered men who heard it explained it by natural causes: they said, "It thundered." This habit of explaining the Voice by appeals to natural law is at the very root of modern science. In the living breathing cosmos there is a mysterious Something, too wonderful, too awful for any mind to understand. He falls to his knees and whispers, "God." The man of earth kneels, also, but not to worship. He kneels to examine, to search, to find the cause and the how of things. Just now we happen to be living in a secular age. Our thought habits are those of the scientist, not those of the worshipper. We are more likely to explain than to adore. "It thundered," we exclaim, and go our earthly way. But still the Voice sounds and searches. The order and life of the world depend upon that Voice, but men are mostly too busy or too stubborn to give attention.
. . . . God's redemptive revelation in the Holy Scriptures is necessary to saving faith and peace with God. . . .
The Voice of God is a friendly Voice. No one need fear to listen to it unless he has already made up his mind to resist it. The blood of Jesus has covered not only the human race but all creation as well. "And having made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself; by Him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven." We may safely preach a friendly Heaven. The heavens as well as the earth are filled with the good will of Him that dwelt in the bush. The perfect blood of atonement secures this forever.
Whoever will listen will hear the speaking Heaven. This is definitely not the hour when men take kindly to an exhortation to listen, for listening is not today a part of popular religion. . . Religion has accepted the monstrous heresy that noise, size, activity and bluster make a man dear to God. . . God says, "Be still, and know that I am God," and still He says it, as if He means to tell us that our strength and safety lie not in noise but in silence.
It is important that we get still to wait on God. And it is best that we get alone, preferably without Bible outspread before us. That if we will we may draw near to God and begin to hear Him speak to us in our hearts. . . . Then the happy moment when the Spirit begins to illuminate the Scriptures, and that which had been only a sound, or at best a voice, now becomes an intelligible word, warm and intimate and clear as the word of a dear friend. Then will come life and light, and best of all, ability to see and rest in and embrace Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord of All.
The Bible will never be a living Book to us until we are convinced that God is articulate in His universe. . . .
. . . The facts are that God is not silent, has never been silent. It is the nature of God to speak. The second Person of the Holy Trinity is called the Word. The Bible is the inevitable outcome of God's continuous speech. It is the infallible declaration of His mind for us put into our familiar human words. . . . the Word of our God endures forever.
If you would follow on to know the Lord, come at once to the open Bible expecting it to speak to you. . . .
Lord, teach me to listen. . . . "Speak, for thy servant heareth." Let me hear Thee speaking in my heart. Let me get used to the sound of Thy Voice. . . (The Pursuit of God).