God Shouts In Silence

When God remains silent in the face of sin, we should take notice.   #daybydaylw   Interested in learning more about becoming a devoted follower of Christ? Go to follow.lifeword.org!   ~~~   Ronan Keiting wrote a song, made popular by Keith Whitley who sang it, called, “When You Say Nothing At All.” “It's amazing how you can speak right to my heart Without saying a word, you can light up the dark Try as I may, I can never explain What I hear when you don't say a thing The smile on your face lets me know that you need me There's a truth in your eyes saying you'll never leave me The touch of your hand says you'll catch me wherever I fall” That really is a beautiful song in a lot of ways. And I think that we could all identify with that. Actions speak louder than words, right? And we could say that God’s glory and goodness and power and holiness is communicated that way. In fact, that is what God himself tells us. Psalm 19 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God…there is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their measuring line goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.” That means that all the earth hears the declaration of the stars and the moon and the galaxies. That is pretty loud, wouldn’t you say. But the truth of it is not just one-way. In other words, a person’s silence doesn’t always communicate love and tenderness and care. Sometimes silence communicates other feelings and emotions, like anger or wrath. When my wife gets silent, I know something is up. I know something needs to be addressed. Her silence is deafening. And God actually tells us this in His word as well—Romans 1:18 says, “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.” And the unrighteous have chosen to turn down the volume of God’s voice, and turn up the volume of their own truth, to which, it says in Romans 1 over and over again, “God gave them up…” In other words, He allowed them to keep their fingers in their ears, and dance to the music that was rattling around in their own head. He remained silent in one sense, allowing them to live in the consequences. But what we will learn is that in the silence, God is actually shouting. Come back in the days ahead to understand fully what I mean.