Silent Power | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 22, 1872

Silent Power.

The great forces of nature are silent. Light is noiseless, but every sunbeam is a rod of strength. Frost works so secretly, but the ponderous iceberg is its work of silence. Quietly the heat lifts the vapors of the oceans, they fall upon the mountains, and a thousand rivers roll forever to the sea. Unconsciously, and unheard, the heart every moment sends the current of life leaping along its channels, and we live, and think, and work. Thought is silent. In his chamber, the statesman secretly makes out the policy that lifts up or thrusts down nations. In his laboratory alone, the chemist communes with nature, and in the faintest whisper, she tells him of her hidden riches. Nature does her great works in silence. The seasons come and go. The sun sweeps his annual circuit in the heavens. The forests and fields put on their gorgeous robes. The staff of bread for the nations comes as the daybreak.

When the Temple of Solomon was reared, there was no sound of hammer upon the building. It was in silence. Only the shout came when they put on the capstone. The movements of history are not the roar of cannon, nor concussion of battle. Revolutions are not mere noisy tumults. Freedom has worked in the closet. She has struggled in the midnight of her sorrow with the strong one, till she has prevailed. God has not spoken with an audible voice. Omnipotence has not appealed to the ear. Power cannot be heard. It was a more subtle revelation. The silent word, the invisible spirit—they speak. Sinai was heard but once, but the still, small voice entrances the ages.

Faith is silent. “Only believe,” and the new creation rises within. The rapid tide of nature turns. Darkness flies away. The burden of guilt rolls off, and lightness sits upon the soul. The river of peace comes in. Jesus has all power. The Father has given it to him. The poor woman touched in silence the hem of his garment, and was healed. The silent power is here. We may wait for it, and our strength shall be renewed. “All things are possible to him that believeth.”

Jesus is moving in our midst. He is the silent force of history. The fountain of love opened in the eternal hills flows gently, but irresistibly, through the blighted fields of our humanity. We love to think of the power of the silent man of griefs. His cross has become the symbol and the realization of power. We believe in him.

Love is power. Working in the silence of suffering, it becomes in Christ the great secret of strength, and he being lifted, is drawing all men unto him. Him we desire above all things, and him we wish to see holding his sceptre over every human heart and every land.—Sel.