Dear Father, Truest Friend
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This song is yet one further testament to God’s unseen reality. The Christian drawn into covenant relationship with Christ perceives an altogether different perspective on the world he inhabits than the infidel. His eyes have been opened and his heart has been set free from the tyranny of sin. He must yet learn to appreciate that in fact nothing makes any sense apart from God. Christianity and Scripture are ‘the necessary precondition for the intelligibility of the universe’ (Van Til). This thought sits most comfortably with Calvin’s belief in the ‘Sensus Divinatus’ (sense of the divine presence). The unbeliever sins against God each moment of every day by seeking to live out his life without reference to God. God will hold no such man guiltless. (Rom 1:18-22)
Tune: Sound of Silence (Simon & Garfunkel – listen to the original version here)
Dear Father, truest Friend
Time’s beginning and its end
You counter all that Satan is scheming
While realising more than I’m dreaming
The words of the Prophets spoken long ago
Will surely show
You circumscribe the silence
Each providence that You consign
Fulfils Your purpose in its time;
Nothing is settled by the roll of dice
The sale of sparrows may seem small in price
Yet none is forgotten while in flight
But kept in sight
Of Him who rules the silence
In busy market towns I’ve seen
Poor beggars yearning fields of green
Why do we overlook our Creator
Within the confines of His theatre
With the signs of His artistry all around
For He is found
Beneath the sound of silence
Why must the multitudes pretend
And with God’s holy truth contend?
Bewitching thoughts intoxicate their mind
In all their seeing they refuse to find
What is written large as a message in the sand
And so they stand
Bewildered by the silence
Behold their folly; come and see
What lies behind this mystery –
By Satan they have surely been confused
In wilful ignorance they have refused
To believe what is etched all across their brain
So they remain
Condemned within the silence!
Steve Layfield
