There is nothing about God's being, nature or ways which embarrasses us more than his gentleness. We readily think of power, majesty, greatness and sovereignty when we remember God. It is right and good that we should do so. These are all parts of his ways. They do not surprise or unman us because we expect them and are, in a manner, prepared for them. But God's gentleness is somehow awesome and overwhelming to our minds. It catches us off balance and staggers us by its very wonderfulness.

No doubt Noah felt such deep emotions of tenderness and awe when, after the flood, he saw the beauty and stillness of the rainbow in the heavens above his head. The wrath was past. The old world was gone forever. Sinners and the memories of their sin were now blotted out. The crashing of divine wrath was, on this occasion, over. A vast calm and stillness covered the earth as at the beginning.

The bow of God's fury was laid aside, his arrows returned to their quiver. In its place appeared the bow of covenant mercy, certified by the express promise from the lips of God himself that there would never be another universal flood to wipe out the earth. As Noah drank in the sight of this covenant sign in the clouds he doubtless covered his face in grateful worship. The God of power is as terrible in his gentleness as in his vengeance.

There was an occasion when Moses, newly disappointed and angered by the idolatry of his people (Exodus 32-34), needed the fresh strength which comes only from sacred communion with God. On the solitary heights of Sinai he bathed his vexed spirit in the calm delight afforded him by the gracious presence of Jehovah. With the boldness born of holy intimacy he cries out to the Lord, 'Show me thy glory' (Exodus 33:18). It is the highest request that any man can ask of God, and it was granted — at least, so far as it was possible for Moses to bear it:

It shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a cleft of the rock and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by; and I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.Exodus 33:22-23

It is not easy to explain all aspects of Moses' experience on the occasion. But he must assuredly have had a keen awareness of the tender care which is so apparent from the narrative. The divine 'hand' which for a time protected and covered him was removed only when it was safely possible for Moses to open his eyes on the uncreated glory of the God who is 'a consuming fire' (Hebrews 12:29). Among the emotions which moved him at the experience to 'bow his head and worship' (Exodus 34:8) was, we suggest, a loving appreciation that the God of eternal splendours is infinitely gentle in his dealings with those who love him.

The famous experience of Isaiah in the temple (Isaiah 6) has more of gentleness in it than we commonly notice. We are apt to pay attention to the sublime vision of the Lord lifted up and overawing all created beings, and to the experience of numinous awe, with its accompanying sense of sin, which the prophet underwent. These aspects are certainly present and they are central. But there is more to divine pity and kindness than we sometimes pause to appreciate.

What more appropriate acts of love could the Almighty have given to the alarmed prophet than were given on that occasion? Both by symbolic gesture and by verbal revelation, he was assured that his sin was entirely removed. Further, he received an immediate call to the prophetic ministry in order to save out of his guilty nation those elect persons who would continue the church's testimony till a better day would dawn.

When the soul of man is hot with a burning sense of sinfulness, nothing is so welcome as the immediate removal of guilt and the accompanying assurance that God remembers it no more. And when a man is brought to see the sinfulness of society around him, nothing so quietens his grief as the permission and command of God to preach to men the Word of truth. In both respects the gentleness and grace of God towards Isaiah are marvellously present in the experience.

The gentleness of God, however, comes to expression in one episode of the Old Testament which is exceptionally instructive. We refer to the time when Elijah stood before God on Horeb (1 Kings 19:8-19). No contrast could be greater than that between the prophet's triumph in the previous chapter and his sense of failure in this. The consequent emotional stress and strain on the great man of God are clear enough from the narrative: 'He requested for himself that he might die' (v. 4).

But the prayer for death, as so often with tired preachers, is but the effect of disappointment and a sense of failure. In his exquisite care, Jehovah surrounds him with special providences and experiences which reveal the measure of his preciousness to the God who called him to this difficult ministry. An angel must bake food for him. An angel must minister affectionate advice to him and bid him draw aside from ordinary duty to hold a therapeutic interview with the King of glory himself. It is exceptional treatment by any standard and it proves the nearness of God's care to tired servants in their time of trouble.

There is more, however, in this experience of Elijah on Horeb, and it is to one particular aspect of what took place there that we wish to draw attention — the 'still small voice' (v. 12). God displayed before the prophet's eyes a succession of breathtaking and spectacular exhibitions of divine power: a mighty wind, an earthquake and then a fire. Impressive as each dramatic display was, it had in it a deficiency to which the Lord himself repeatedly draws attention. Three times over, we are told that 'the Lord was not in' these things.

The lesson to be learnt from this remarkable passage of Scripture is too clear to be missed. The most sublime of God's works are not his prodigious acts of power but his acts of grace. B. B. Warfield handles the whole passage with consummate skill in one of his printed sermons and we cannot forbear to recommend it to the reader as we touch on this great passage (Faith and Life, Banner, pp. 1-13). But our particular concern now is to stress the wonderful truth in the passage that God's power is seen to best effect more in his gentleness than in his acts of force.

What, after all, is the highest expression of God's greatness and glory? It is not his outward displays of vast energy in the material world, wonderful as these are, but his inward acts of grace, performed silently in the hearts and lives of men.

It will repay our time and effort to reflect a little on what the grace of God is. It is a term we use frequently but seldom appreciate for what it is. The grace of God is his infinite power used gently and for our eternal good. There is something overwhelming about an infinite, all-powerful Being acting with infinite gentleness. Elijah felt it to be so. 'He wrapped his face in his mantle' (v. 13). This he did, not when he heard the rending and convulsion of rocks, but when he heard the 'still small voice' of God. It is too much for our emotions when we discover that the Almighty is infinitely tender and infinitely compassionate. It shames our crude notions of God's power and reminds us that his ways are 'above our ways' as the heaven is above the earth (Isaiah 55:8).

Perhaps it is one of the besetting sins of fallen human nature that we all put too much store by the dramatic, the sensational and the impressive. It comes out very often in the way we give our testimony, or the value we put on others' testimonies. It comes out, too, in the raw notions we sometimes hear about when men claim to be 'filled with the Spirit'. The feeling which comes natural to us is that God cannot be doing anything important if it is not done according to the noisy standards which we set for him. It is all too easy for us to equate 'life' with excitement and bustling activity. Similarly, we may fall into this same state of mind when we think about religious revival.

But it is not true to say that noise, sensational occurrence and dramatic activity, whatever part they may at times play in the life of an awakened church, are of the essence of God's activity. On the contrary, the most important acts of God's power are those which, all unnoticed by man, touch the secret springs of his soul and heart. Regeneration, sanctification, repentance, growth in grace — all are the product of divine omnipotence acting with marvellous gentleness and love upon man's inner being. These do certainly issue at times in violent praying, striving and crying. But the most vital and central aspect is not that which results in much noise but in much delight in God for his own sake.

No expression of divine omnipotence and grace comes near to that which is to be seen in the incarnation, life and saving actions of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet here again there is a noticeable muting by God of all sensationalism. The coming of God into our flesh, an event which might well have been trumpeted by every angel from the balconies of glory above, passed almost unnoticed except by a few select persons like Anna, Simeon, some shepherds and a few wise men. No event in history was greater. Scarcely any passed off so unmarked by what we might call the spectacular. There were angels certainly, but their exultant cries were heard by only a select few.

The life of Christ, and his ministry especially, was full of the miraculous and the supernatural. But even here we see a divine restraint. 'He shall not strive, nor cry; neither shall any men hear his voice in the streets' (Matthew 12:19). Nowhere in the ministry of our Lord do we see the slightest hint of divine power exhibited ostentatiously. Men, even the best, are occasionally in bad taste, but God never. Power is never used meaninglessly by God. All is wise, controlled and for a moral purpose.

Grace, we have argued, is God's infinite power working gently in order to bring us to himself. We do not mean by 'gently' that it is not equally infinite with other exercises of power, such as the creation of the world. But we draw attention to the fact that the effect upon the recipient is always benign and welcome. God saves no man to his harm. And God saves none against his will. Grace makes the sinner willing. It is a secret exercise of omnipotence on the hidden man of the heart coaxing and alluring him to salvation and glory by Christ. It is always effectual but it is never brute strength.

There is much for us to learn from this aspect of God's power. Perhaps we are too frequently guilty of limiting God to methods of blessing us which are according to our own understanding. Doubtless our age attaches far too much importance to visible and even spectacular happenings in the life of the church.

God, after all, is always working his gracious purpose out on earth, whether seen by us or unseen. Is our faith so weak that we must always have external signs of God's activity, according to our puny expectations? Unceasing, yet unhasting, the God of destiny is moving all things to their foreseen goal. 'Not by might nor by power' are all things to be brought to pass but by the Spirit who works as he will.