Boreham on the Unwasting God

God with all His omnipotence at his disposal never wastes anything. He never sends a flood if a shower will do; never sends a fortune if a shilling will do; never sends an army if a unit will do. And he never thunders if a whisper will do.

He never works by miracles if He can achieve the same end by the instrumentality of natural laws. Your child lies sick. You ask God to heal him. If God can do so by whispering to your heart, or to the heart, it may be, of your physician, the secret balm for that particular malady, He will not work a special miracle for all your prayers. And if you are fool enough to say, "I don't want God's whispers; it must be thunder or nothing!" God will say: It shall be nothing.

Frank William Boreham, ‘The Whisper of God’, The Whisper of God and Other Sermons (London: Arthur H Stockwell, 1902), 22-23.

Image: “And he never thunders if a whisper will do.…”

Boreham on The Silence of God

There came a woman to Jesus who prostrated herself before Him, and asked Him in agony and tears to help her. "And He answered her never a word" That is the mystery. It has baffled many. The awful silence of God…

For silence does not mean inactivity any more than noise means power. Hume tells us that, immediately before the Battle of Hastings, the English camps were filled with shouting and revelry whilst an awful silence brooded over the Normans. The silence that reigned along the British battle-line before Trafalgar has been the repeated subject of comment. And the most distinguished hero that European Protestantism ever claimed was known by the significant title of "William the Silent."

The quietest room in a Lancashire cotton-mill is the engine-room. It is called the "power room." A river steamer on the Thames is brought to her moorings amid the wildest shoutings and the vilest imprecations between the captain and the handful of men that form his crew. A ten thousand ton liner is berthed at Liverpool docks without the slightest shouting or confusion.

Men make more noise in one hour's work in the harvest field than God's rain and sunshine and heat and cold have made in producing the crops that they harvest.

A man makes more noise in clearing the snow off his front path than the sun makes in melting a million tons of it. God is so wonderfully silent because God is so wonderfully active.

For all practical purposes a whisper is enough. The truth of a whisper is as great as the truth of a shout. A whisper from God is enough to tell me that God is; it is enough to tell me that God cares for me, for God whispers to me.

Frank William Boreham, ‘The Whisper of God’, The Whisper of God and Other Sermons (London: Arthur H Stockwell, 1902), 16-18 selected portions.

Image: “A (wo)man makes more noise in clearing the snow…”

Boreham on the Work of God

The best of man's work is to be seen on the surface. He, to use an expressive colloquialism, puts all his best goods in the window. The more deeply you probe and search into his manufactures, the more you see of their imperfections, and the less you see of their beauty.

Take a microscope to them, and the loveliest work of art is a daub; the finest production of the sculptor is but a rough-hewn block; the greatest masterpiece is full of flaws.

Not so is it with the work of God. The superficial observer admires the stars that bespangle the heavens at night—the "forget-me-nots of the angels," as Longfellow called them; but the superficial observer cannot admire them with one half the rapture with which the astronomer almost worships them.

A little child can admire a lily; but only the botanist can fully appreciate it. A landscape painter may be delighted with a piece of mountain scenery; but the geologist sees in it a greater grandeur still.

With the work of man familiarity breeds contempt, and distance lends enchantment to the view. With the work of God the very opposite is the case. He who gazes upon the external loveliness of Nature may say: "How beautiful!" but it may always be added: "These are but the outskirts of His ways."

And when geology, and botany, and astronomy have laid bare a million million other beauties that you and I have never yet suspected, it may still be written in large letters on the title pages of all their works: "Lo, these are but the outskirts of His ways; how small a whisper do we hear of Him; but the thunder of His power, who can understand?” (Job 26:14)

Frank W Boreham, ‘The Whisper of God’ The Whisper of God and Other Sermons (London: Arthur H Stockwell, 1902), 11-12.

Image: “A little child can admire a lily…”

Re-Reading F W Boreham

I am re-reading all the F W Boreham books again, as part of my preparation for writing a new book on him.

In the weeks ahead I will post on this blog site some chapters or excerpts from my reading.

Do keep a close eye on Mike Dalton’s blog site: F W Boreham Publishing News. Michael has been working hard on finalizing some new Boreham publications.

Geoff Pound

Image: Part of the F W Boreham Library