God Will Not Shut Up

<Please read on before any offense sets in>

After my senior year of high school I had the opportunity to go on a summer mission trip to Hawaii with my young adult church group.  {Go ahead; you can now have pity on me for suffering so greatly for the cause of Christ.} I assure you it wasn’t just a vacation incognito. Most of that month consisted of construction work on a small Baptist church and christian school on the relatively obscure (and poorer) island of Molokai. We slept in the church’s gym and warded off mice before and after every meal due to the drought conditions of the little island.

Other than the time spent on “The Friendly Island” I was able to spend one week in the Maui mountains and another on a Kauai beachhead as a young children’s camp counselor. Needless to say, during my month-long stay in Hawaii I was staggered by the sheer beauty of God’s creation.

True story: I took this pic in Austria...It's a picture of a postcard from an Austrian airport : )

On Saturdays, we’d get the day off to enjoy the riches of nature around us. I remember visiting one beach in Kauai where two massive rock edifices jutted out from either side of the short shoreline. Tourists and natives alike cannon-balled and jack-knifed from the bluffs into the aqua water. I plunged into the glittering sea and swam among the glowing exotic fish for about 150 feet out until I arrived at a coral reef. This reef had a smooth flat surface that kept the water only a knee-deep for yards at a time. Parts of the reef were curiously grooved and almost seemed to be fitted for a human buttocks. I obliged one of the reef’s chairs and reclined as I faced the shoreline.

I was awestruck.

A panorama of large green mountainous slopes rose above the sandy brown shoreline. I looked to my right and my left and saw that ominous green edifices whisped with clouds stretched down the shoreline as far as the eye could see. The canopy above me was the sky blue and clear. With a light cool breeze blowing through the hair I used to have, I thought:

This is ridiculous.

I felt a bit like Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration. “Lord, why can’t I just pitch my tent on this reef for awhile and chill with you?”

The apparent work and beautiful design of the Creator was all clearly laid out before me. The experience solidified for me what Scripture says about creation:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God has shown it to them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse. (Romans 1:18-21)

Let this resonate deep down into your soul’s sweet spot: God is never not speaking to us. 

If you’ve ever attempted to share your faith one sure objection will always rise up in the listener: What of the pagan one in an African jungle who has died without hearing the gospel?

One simple biblical (albeit unsatisfying) answer is “Will not the judge of all the earth do right?” (Genesis 18:25)

Another answer may be: Even if there is not a clear biblical gospel message preached by a messenger, then there is still a God born message that is always being accepted or rejected through a man’s circumstance, creation, or personal conscience. That man and all men are without excuse.

Psalm 19 makes it clear: God will not and cannot shut up. His speech continually “pours forth” through His creation. If we can’t hear Him it has absolutely nothing to do with the frequency or clarity of His message and absolutely everything to do with the deafness and dullness of our own hearts.

No man can ever plead ignorance before the Judge of all the world, neither the heathen in a Congo village nor the intellectual in academic America. All men have at least violated the law written on their hearts and despised the obvious graciousness of the One who gave them life and sustenance. They drank His water, ate His food, and splurged on His providential blessing, yet many never reached out for the Giver of these gifts though He is not far from each of us (Acts 17:27).

No man is innocent (Romans 3:11-18), no man is ignorant, no man has an excuse, all men deserve wrath. The heavens, the seas, the mountains, the sunsets, good food, family, and our own wounded conscience bears witness to this.

But let us rejoice in hope if God has granted us grace through Jesus Christ. Like Saint Augustine said, as he watched a blazing sunset plunge into the glimmering seas of North Africa:

“If these are the beauties afforded to sinful man, what does God have in store for those who love Him?”

Yes, indeed. What beauty and glory is reserved for those who know and love Him through Christ? Those eternal glories will make the natural wonders of Hawaii, the thrill of sports victory, and even the gift of sex taste like cardboard. There the Word of God, Jesus, the very self expression of the Father, will be communicated to us in ever increasing levels of glory forever and ever. Amen.

Bryan Daniels