Why was God so evident in the Bible and seems so hidden today?

"Yes, thousands are bewildered … They are bewildered because they know that God is good, and also almighty; and they cannot understand why He does not intervene in power and punish the instigators and perpetrators of such crimson deeds, and establish a reign of righteousness on the earth."

"God does not intervene in the affairs of the world, because if He did the whole unregenerate world would be involved in judgment, and this He does not desire. Judgment is His strange work."

"The Lord is not slack concerning His promise as some men count slackness; but is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9).

"He did not intervene in public affairs; had He done so He must have assumed the place of the Judge of all — this was indicated on that one solemn occasion when He made a whip of small cords and drove the defilers of the temple from its precincts — but He came not to condemn the world but to save it."

"God was in Him reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them (2 Cor. 5:19). And the world murdered Him. But His coming was the proclamation of a great amnesty on God's part, and that amnesty is still in force; it is still the 'time, the day of salvation,' and God's ambassadors are still here proclaiming the fact."

"We have a picture of the secret providence which never fails to watch over them while they are scattered among the Gentiles. And this it is that accounts for no introduction of Jehovah or even Elohim in the book … Now to faith the absence of God's name is here in unexpected but exquisite harmony with the book."

"It stands alone from beginning to end the deeply interesting witness of One unseen and unnamed Who none the less surely works in the anomalous state of the Captivity, carrying out by seemingly nothing beyond human means the vindication of those who … secretly feared Him, and the catastrophe of their adversary, though in possession of assured and boundless means to compass their destruction."

"How this was, by secret providence, without a miracle, not only averted but turned to the destruction of their enemies, is the story of this book."

"When Christ was present in the world He could say, 'As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world' (John 9:5). In those wonderful days, He proved that He alone could dispel the darkness by declaring the love of the Father. He proved, too, that He had the power and the grace to remove all the evil that the darkness had brought in. He relieved man of every pressure, met every need, and delivered from the power of the Prince of darkness. Hunger and want, pain and sickness, sorrow and death, all fled in His presence."

"Alas! men loved darkness rather than light. They loved the sins which, in the presence of the light, troubled their consciences. Being unable to pursue their sins, and gratify their lusts in the presence of the light, they put out the light of the world. Christ is gone, and His absence leaves the world in darkness. As they could not put up with the light of His presence, they have to put up with the wars, the want, the sorrow, and the distress which results from sin, during the night of His absence."

"But the day is at hand — the day when He will return in glory to reign over the earth; when all evil will be put under His feet and Satan's power subdued."

"Faith is the substance, or the substantiation of things hoped for; that which makes the 'things hoped for' a reality in the present. It is the evidence, or, as it should be, the conviction, — that which is borne into the soul in the power of divine truth as a reality, of things not seen."

"We have nothing visible, or tangible, yet. The 'good things' are still to come, save as faith has made them a living reality now. 'What a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?' It is just as real as when we shall behold it in glory, but that which makes it actual to the soul is not something visible that we can hold up for the world to see. It is faith only which can see the blessings which are ours now. One day all the world will see it."

"Did you ever think what you would do with the glories described in Revelation if you had to make use of them here in the body as you are now, and with the flesh still in you? Would there be any real enjoyment of them in a divine way? We may rest assured it is in perfect love and wisdom that God postpones the glories of the new creation to the time when we ourselves, even as to our bodies, shall be in it and fitted for it."

"While God does not intervene publicly and make wars to cease in the earth, He still acts providentially, and brings good out of evil for the blessing of men and for His own glory. He sees every wicked atrocity and says, 'Vengeance is Mine, I will repay.' He beholds all the sorrow in the earth, and calls the distressed and broken-hearted to find in Him everlasting consolation, and a peace and hope that the world cannot afford."

"What He was to Mary 'yesterday,' He is 'today' to all who will bring their sorrow to His feet. And in Him is God revealed, turning that which seems only evil into everlasting good."

"From the moment that Adam fell, it was night, it was dark. It was still deeper night, as God went on dealing with man till Christ was rejected. And now the judgment comes. But it is just there the dawn begins … the very rejection of Christ, which proved fully and completely the entire darkness in which man was lying, set a new man, another man, according to God's counsels and heart, in glory at the right hand of God, displays this blessed One before our faith, and says, Look there, and you will find life."

"'I am the root and offspring of David, the bright and morning star.' … It is what no one sees the moment the sun is up. Those who are on earth in the day of the Lord will not see that star. It is what is seen by those who during the night are watching."