Accurate reporters of the flow of news find it hard to write with lightness and optimism about world events these days. Words such as “sorrow,” “pity,” “agony” follow each other accompanied by pictures of wounded and dying men, women and children, homes being reduced to rubble, cities and farms being devastated, while the living stumble in any direction that seems to promise some measure of safety. The great promises of people who were sure that the world was getting better and better, that peace was just around the next corner and violence soon would disappear, have become blurred words lost in the roar of cold and hot wars and in the rumble of diverse disasters. Screams of fear, calls for help, cries of alarm pierce the constant undercurrent of general noise. Who has ears to hear?
“Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? when I called, was there none to answer? Is my hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem? or have I no power to deliver?” (Isa. 50:2). God is asking a question: why, when he calls, do people not answer? God has spoken through the ages, and many have responded with only silence.
“I also will choose their delusions, and will bring their fears upon them; because when I called, none did answer; when I spake they did not hear: but they did evil before mine eyes, and chose that in which I delighted not” (Isa. 66:4). It was not only Eve and Adam who did evil before God’s eyes, and it was not only Cain who chose that in which God did not delight; but streams of people through the centuries have responded to God’s call by turning away and acting as if they did not hear. It was not only past centuries of people who did not listen to the word of God as his prophets verbalized it to them, nor was it only those who heard the Second Person of the Trinity when he walked on earth who seemed deaf to his call. Now, in this moment of history, his call so often brings no response.
“Hear the word of the LORD, ye that tremble at his word: your brethren that hated you, that cast you out for my name’s sake, said, Let the LORD be glorified: but he shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed.” (Isa. 66:5). Is there a trembling on the part of Christians to hear His word? Does it matter more to us that we have the good opinion of men who might cast us out, or are we literally ready to listen so that we may glorify the Lord while there is yet time, and experience one day his appearing, to our joy, when we will not be ashamed?
There is a double thing in the call of God. First he calls, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” He calls with redeeming power, and his hand is not today shortened. Second, he calls his children to live according to his word, to do his will, to speak the words he has given us to speak, rather than speaking in human cleverness or in our own strength. Because his children often do not respond to his call, the lost ones of the world to whom his call for redemption comes are further confused. They are without the “relay” of that call. People who are meant to be sounding trumpets so that the lost may hear are themselves ignoring God’s call. “When I called, none did answer; when I spake, they did not hear.”
The silent response of the lost and the silent response of many of God’s own people is a contrast to the promises of God himself to hear and to act upon the call of those who honestly cry out to him. “The LORD is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of them that fear him: he also will hear their cry, and will save them” (Ps. 145:18, 19). There is a condition here: The Lord will come close and be with those who call upon him in truth. It cannot be a nebulous scream out into an empty universe using the name “god” to express a need of an unknown something.
To call upon God in truth, one must believe that he is, that he is there, that he is the triune God of the Bible who created heaven and earth, that he is who he has said he is. One must call upon God, not “a god.” The mouthing of words must have a reality behind it. The call cannot be a piece of acting, turned on and off with only a surface involvement. The attitude “I tried but it didn’t work, so now I’ll try this other thing” is in itself a cancellation of any reality. To call upon God in truth is to realize that there is no other place to go, no substitute, no other solution. It is a cry to which we must echo, “Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.”
A Malay boy found himself in the midst of a truly demonic attack in the early weeks of his new walk with Christ. Allah had been put behind him, the occult things that had been woven together with Muslim faith had been renounced, but his walk was as wobbly as a tiny child’s first steps. A fall is an easy thing in the first walk across a room, even in the presence of a loving family. This boy went through what he had experienced before in his life, demon activity, and his call went forth to God, “O God, help me.” However, there was no immediate visible, feel able change, and he fell into Satan’s trap. “It isn’t working, it isn’t working” was the next cry of his heart, and his old pattern of reaction came forth. “I’ll try this—and this.… And so he called, “Allah be praised” and used some other “magic” Arabic words of a formula handed down for generations. This young Christian had called but not in truth, not feeling that “there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.” The attitude of the call in truth must be Job’s attitude, “Though he slay me, yet I will trust in him.”
Now we are ready to consider the promises of God’s answer to our calls. Now we can meditate upon the wonder of his response to people’s calls, so different from the response of people to his call.
“And it shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear” (Isa. 65:24). “Thus saith the LORD the maker thereof, the LORD that formed it, to establish it; the LORD is his name; call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not” (Jer. 33:2, 3). “Hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not. I have called upon thee, for thou wilt hear me, O God: incline thine ear unto me, and hear my speech” (Ps. 17:5, 6). “I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from my enemies.… In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears” (Ps. 18:3, 6).
We live in a moment of extreme need. Our time may be very short before the Lord’s return, or before freedoms are removed from us in areas of speech and action. God is asking us a question: “When I called, was there none to answer?”
