Silence
Yoo-Hoo! • Sermon • Submitted
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Introduction
Introduction
(Thanks and turn to Malachi and Matthew.) Trying to understand our own times, we’re looking in the Bible at times when God said, “Yoo-hoo!” and got man’s attention. Today is a little different, though, because it wasn’t audible.
Can silence speak?
If you have you ever gotten “the silent treatement” from someone, you know that silence can communicate. Some people use silence as a passive aggressive way to let others know they are upset.
Silence can also be used in positive ways to help get attention.
Musicians use silence written into their scores with rest notes to contrast the played notes—both are a part of the music.
Have you ever heard of an “awkward pause”? It is an oratory and literary skill.
Teachers use the awkward pause to get their class’ or a student’s attention.
Writers use pauses to create emphasis to help readers think.
It is a special opportunity we have to hear the Word of God.
Do you know that sometimes God uses silence to speak?
34 Bible verses use the word “silence.”
Wisdom teaches us “…there is…a time to keep silence, and a time to speak...” (Ecclesiastes 3:7).
Pauses make us respond. Sometimes they make us feel awkward. God is not stuttering or trying to catch His thought—He is intentional about when He pauses.
God had a 400-year pause in His speech between the Old and New Testaments.
Let’s stand and read God’s words that bookend this time: Malachi 4:2-6; Matthew 1:1; 1:21-2:3; 3:1-2.
ILL: We all know about parental lectures. Young people, here is a hint, when your parents are talking, they are looking for visual and audible cues that you are understanding and willing to apply about what they are talking. Sometimes, parents don’t see or hear those cues, so they may send their child to their room to process the conversation. “Go to your room and think about what I have said.”
About 140 years before Malachi wrote, the presence of God had left the first temple (Ezekiel 10:18; 11:23)…God’s people had returned from Babylon and rebuilt a new temple. Things went well for a while, but although the Israelites were broken from most of their idolatry by the Babylonian captivity, they still did not return to following God’s Word with their whole heart.
After Malachi wrote, God was silent for about 400 years. We call it the “400 Silent Years,” or the Intertestamental Period.
We could describe this time as a period various ways.
It was a time of religious splintering. In Israel, the character of the people rose and fell with the character of the priests. Soon, three factions of the Jewish people emerged. There were the Essenes, who stressed ritual piety and separated from others. The Sadduccees emerged and led the priests, and their theology did not believe that there is a resurrection. The Pharisees did believe in a coming resurrection, but they established strict interpretation of the Old Testament Law as a means of salvation.
It was a time of Political positioning. The region of Judea faced constant turnover of governors and kings. For a period, the Maccabean revolt established a Priest/King on the throne, but he was not of the lineage of David. Before Jesus was born, a Moabite named Herod the Great was king—Satan was attempting to keep the rightful King from taking the throne.
It was a time of rising and falling world powers. Daniel the prophet said it would happen. Babylon would fall to Persia…to Greece…to Rome.
It was a time when secular ideology was pushed on the known world.
And it was a time when there was a relentless pursuit of freedom.
It sounds much like our own day!
It was a time that was not new. It was the stage that prepared for the coming of the Messiah the first time, and it will be the stage when He comes again.
It was also a time God did not speak through new prophecy or Scripture. Life still went on. Historical records were written, and apocryphal or books from this time are included in Catholic Bibles that are not inspired like the other 66.
But God was still speaking through His inspired Word. And, today, like then...
Proposition: We must turn to God’s Word to speak through the silence. Even in the silence, God desires history and life to petition us by His love, His plan, and His invitation.
Maybe you’re like me. Sometimes as a Christian, I am not as devoted to God’s Word as I ought to be. Sometimes, it is easier to study the Bible to help others than it is to open up my own heart for God to work on me. Sometimes, it is easy to let the Bible be more of just a book for good advice than it is to know that it is alive and powerful in Itself. Sometimes, we lay down the Sword of Scripture, and we yield the battle.
1. Be listening to the Word.
1. Be listening to the Word.
To clarify, we use the word “Word” for a couple of things. First, we use “Word” to describe God’s Word, which is a written record called the Bible or Scriptures.
Because God spoke It, the Word is called “inspired,” but it was a miraculous blend of God blending His Word with the work of men as they wrote the Bible without their own personalities being overwritten.
For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
ILL: Someone said the Bible is Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.
The “Word” speaks also of Christ, the Living Word.
As God gave to Malachi His last words for 400 years, what did He say?
First, remember God’s plan.
ILL: How many of you are forgetful? You get somewhere, and you’re, like, “Why am I here?” Knowing you do this, have you asked someone to text you, so you don’t forget something? (Grocery item, item at Home Depot, your name!)
The world, even God’s people have a bad habit of forgetting. The Book of Malachi is full of statements God makes that are replied to with questions asking God to prove His point.
Malachi 1:1-5. God’s plan is a loving one that cannot be overthrown. It is fitting that Malachi contrasted His love for those who are His spiritual heritage in Jacob compared to Esau. Esau’s descendents are the Edomites. When we turn the page from Malachi to the New Testament, an Edomite named Herod is on the throne and named as the King of the Jews. It must’ve been very discouraging to be Jewish and see an Edomite on a Jewish throne. (King Herod married a Jewish princess named Mariamne, a descendent of the Maccabees, to try to get the Jewish people to like him, but it didn’t work. King Herod was also so insecure about ruling on the Jewish throne that he regularly killed anyone who threatened it—including his own sons and his queen. [He regretted killing her, so he kept her body in a vat of liquid, so he could see her.] After Jesus was born, Herod the Great’s throne was challenged, hence the massacre of the children in Bethlehem!
And we know that later, Herod died, and Jesus is the true King of the Jews and of the world! (See Malachi 1:5.)
The rest of Malachi, God makes statements about things the Jewish people were not doing. But it’s stuff that should not be a surprise because it’s all in the Word of God and available to them!
The people of Israel are God’s people. As such, they are intended to be a sign to the rest of the world of God’s plan and available salvation through her promised Messiah. Here’s what God intended:
For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same My name shall be great among the Gentiles; And in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering: For my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts.
Their laws, observances, sacrifices, dress, and diets set them apart from the world. However, Malachi is saying they are not just living like the world, they dishonored God (Malachi 1:6), despised God’s name by offering blemished sacrifices (Malachi 1:7-8), making worship a duty (Malachi 1:13), corrupting the priests’ examples (2:1-9), marrying others who worship false gods, and divorcing from marriage (2:16). The Jewish people tested His patience by showing their hearts by saying God is happy with those who do evil, and by showing their lack of faith in God’s plan as they looked at the world and said, “Where is the God of judgment?” (2:17).
Later, God’s last words for 400 years told them:
Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. But ye said, Wherein shall we return?
I find God’s reply interesting. The first way God said they needed to return to Him was in their giving.
Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.
Because they had a love affair with their things, they limited God’s blessings, work, and the display of His plan. Israel loved the stuff God gave them, and they developed a system of doing spiritual things like the heathen people did.
They wanted the handouts from God more than the heart of God.
Giving is a representation of our love—and money, the love of which rooted Israel in evil.
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, That there may be meat in mine house, And prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, If I will not open you the windows of heaven, And pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
New Testament giving is different. It is not so calculated. You can give a tithe, if that is what God lays upon your heart, but when we love we desire to give out of the abundance of our heart!
Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.
(Note: Tests like the times we are in remind us in the good times and bad we are to be consistent in our worship to God—including in our giving. I wrote an article about whether Christians should give from the stimulus checks we receive…)
Second, remember the Promises. (Prophecies)
During the 400 silent years, the people could listen to God’s Word to know God was working in the silence.
Daniel prophesied kingdoms would rise and fall. First Babylon…Persia…Greece…Rome…until a large Stone would come and crush Rome, symbolizing Christ’s final return and when His throne would be established.
God was readying the world for His first coming.
Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: And the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, Even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: Behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts.
God has a plan, and He is coming. Malachi 3:1-6.
A messenger like Elijah (Malachi 4:4-6) would come to prepare the way! Jesus recognized the messenger as John the Baptist (Matthew 17:13-19).
Then the “Messenger of the Covenant” (3:1) would come—and He is Jesus!
The difference today: We have both the completed Word of God, with the Old and New Testaments. We also have readily-available copies of the Bible! (Some people do not, and it is heart-wrenching to see their tears when they get a Bible! We also have the presence of the Holy Spirit Who guides us into all truth. (John 16:13)
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
2. Be lauding the Word.
2. Be lauding the Word.
God uses messengers.
For 400 years, the people had the Old Testament Scriptures to read. Sadly, only a few faithful followers could be found.
Malachi was a prophet in his own time, but his time was not long into the 400 years. John the Baptist would preach 400 years later to tell the people the Messiah had come, but that was in his own time.
How shall those in our own time hear the Word of God?
Thankfully, technology has opened doors to share the Gospel like no other time in history. But there are many who have not heard, and there are many who do not tell the Story of Christ!
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?
We, like the 400 silent years, have no open revelation. God hides His Word in our hearts, and if It is hid, it is hid to those who are lost.
God’s voice ought not to be silent. One day, we will be gone, and a new generation will come. In the future, God will save and raise up new witnesses. In the Tribulation, God will call up 144,000 witnesses. He will resuscitate two prophets to preach. God will use His angels—all to proclaim His holy Word!
I am sometimes guilty of not sharing God’s truth like I need to with others. The hardest thing is often to start the conversation.
The only hope for any person is God’s Word!
3. Be looking for the Word.
3. Be looking for the Word.
In the 400 silent years, many asked, “How long?” God’s reply was to wait. God said, “My grace is coming; the rescue is about to happen!”
Listen for God to break the silence!
Do you remember all the promises and prophecies?
ILL: Many of the priests were watching the prophecies of Daniel unfold. A story is told of the High Priest who took the scroll of Daniel and laid it out as he prostrated himself of the ground before Alexander the Great. The priest showed Alexander how Daniel prophesied of Alexander, and Alexander spared the life of the High Priest.
Daniel told of the time Christ would come, and His life would be cut off (Daniel 9:25-26).
For What should the world have been waiting?
A Heavenly King and a Heavenly Kingdom!
When the fulness of time was come, God broke the silence (Galatians 4:4)—not with a proud king (Herod), or a pontifical religious ruler, not with an orator to sway crowds, not a scientist to observe the creation, not an inventor to make things better, not a musician to write a ballad.
The silence crescendoed, and the silence was broken by a Word…the living Word of God.
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
In a stall, perhaps at the very birthing place for sacrificial lambs, God the Son spelled out God’s love for you and me.
And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.
Jesus spells out the plan of salvation. Before Him, life seemed meaningless. He makes life make sense. It is the promised message of the ages—sometimes forgotten, dismissed, and rejected.
God sent His Son to speak the Word and to die as one of us. Silence once said to wait on His coming, and then He came!
Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;
What did Jesus do?
ILL: Jesus Paid It All. I hear the Savior say, Thy strength indeed is small. Child of weakness, watch and pray, find in Me thine all in all. Jesus paid it all. All to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain; He washed it white as snow.
No other fount I know can save!
God has used silence many times in the past to get His message across.
After He came the first time, we are again reminded that He is coming again! Keep looking for Him!
Conclusion:
This is so important for us today! We do not hear God speaking audible messages and meeting with people like He did at times in the past!
What is it that we have to help us? The Bible!
We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
