When God is Silent
Why God may be silent about events in your life and around the world
I authored this article on Medium over two years ago. I believe you should read it!
The silence of God
Because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. (Ecclesiastes 8:11, NKJV)
It is common for men to assume that all is well if they do something wrong and there isn’t an immediate consequence. This then sets off a chain reaction in which people continually do evil. We see it every day and everywhere — people keep doing what is wrong and because there seemingly is no consequence, more people engage in more horrible things, and on and on it goes! Such is the result of the silence of God!
In Exodus 32:1–6, when Aaron made the golden calf, it is interesting that before, during, and shortly after its making, God said nothing! An observer would have concluded that the Israelites’ worship of the golden calf was acceptable to God! Such a conclusion would seem justifiable since God neither stopped them nor showed His displeasure even when they proclaimed:
These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. (Exodus 32:4, KJV)
Reading further, however, brings us to a different conclusion:
The Lord told Moses, “Quick! Go down the mountain! Your people whom you brought from the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. How quickly they have turned away from the way I commanded them to live! They have melted down gold and made a calf, and they have bowed down and sacrificed to it. They are saying, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.’” Then the Lord said, “I have seen how stubborn and rebellious these people are. Now leave me alone so my fierce anger can blaze against them, and I will destroy them. Then I will make you, Moses, into a great nation.” (Exodus 32:7–10, NLT)
Thus, the silence of God in the face of the provocation of men acting contrary to His Word should not be misconstrued for consent, nor should it be mistaken for His impotence or ignorance!
What does the silence of God mean?
But God says to the wicked: “Why bother reciting my decrees and pretending to obey my covenant? For you refuse my discipline and treat my words like trash. When you see thieves, you approve of them, and you spend your time with adulterers. Your mouth is filled with wickedness, and your tongue is full of lies. You sit around and slander your brother — your own mother’s son. While you did all this, I remained silent, and you thought I didn’t care. But now I will rebuke you, listing all my charges against you.” (Psalm 50:16–21, NLT)
We see turmoil and upheaval all around us, and God is silent. We witness events that numb our sensibilities in our nations and around the world, and God is silent. We observe people engaging in activities that are contrary to God’s Word and even actively participate in such activities ourselves, and God is silent. We cannot but wonder why. Below are some reasons.
1. God is waiting for the offender’s ‘cup of iniquity’ to be complete.
Then the LORD said: “Abram, you will live to an old age and die in peace. But I solemnly promise that your descendants will live as foreigners in a land that doesn’t belong to them. They will be forced into slavery and abused for four hundred years. But I will terribly punish the nation that enslaves them, and they will leave with many possessions. Four generations later, your descendants will return here and take this land, because only then will the people who live here be so sinful that they deserve to be punished.” (Genesis 15:13–16, CEV)
God told Abraham that in fulfilling His promise of giving the land of Canaan to his descendants, the occupants of the land at the time would be justifiably dispossessed of the land when their sinfulness is so much that there would be no justification to continue to leave them there. Then the land would be taken from the sinful inhabitants and given to Abraham’s descendants!
Thus, when people continually engage in sin without consequence, it is a sign that the day of reckoning approaches. The silence of God in such situations should send chills to all concerned, for when His judgment comes, it will be sudden, swift, and severe!
2. You have not done what God had asked you to do.
When God reveals His mind on a matter to you and you refuse to do what He has asked of you, He will cease speaking. After repeatedly chiding Ephraim — the Northern Kingdom of Israel — without result, God said:
Ephraim is addicted to idols. Let him go. (Hosea 4:17, MSG)
After God has revealed His mind, as contained in the Bible, some people refuse to believe and obey. These are the Christians who say, “I’ve been praying, but God is not saying anything!”
As much as God wants us to know His will or mind, He also wants us to hearken. The Psalmist wrote:
God has spoken once; twice have I heard this … (Psalm 62:11, KJV)
The New Living Translation puts the statement more succinctly:
God has spoken plainly, and I have heard it many times … (Psalm 62:11, NLT)
Hearing is good, but hearkening is the key! If we fail to hearken, then we cannot expect God to speak any further. God’s silence signals that you are yet to do what He’s asked of you!
On the other hand, if you have been praying and you have not yet heard from God, then look inwards. God is not deaf (Isaiah 59:1–2)! Try answering some questions: Is there an unconfessed or habitual sin in your life? Did you not like what God said or did it not fit into your plans, so you ignored it? Have you obeyed His last instruction?
You will need to take some time out to meditate and seek God’s face. Go over God’s Word; go over your sermon notes (if you have some); do a mental review of your previous conversations with God. Somewhere in there, you will discover what God had said that you have not done!
God will not speak any further until you either repent or obey His last instruction to you! Toward the end of King Saul’s life, he remarked that God was not speaking to him in any form (1 Samuel 28:6–15), and this was because he had disobeyed God and did not repent.
3. God is waiting for you to repent and be saved from impending judgment.
God isn’t late with his promise as some measure lateness. He is restraining himself on account of you, holding back the End because he doesn’t want anyone lost. He’s giving everyone space and time to change. (2 Peter 3:9, MSG)
Usually, the silence of God is the long-suffering of God which is meant to let people repent of their ways and return to Him.
God has been kind to you. He has been very patient, waiting for you to change. But you think nothing of his kindness. Maybe you don’t understand that God is kind to you so that you will decide to change your lives. (Romans 2:4, ERV)
If you are living contrary to God right now, you need to urgently repent and be saved! Do not silence your conscience — it is all you have when God is silent. Your conscience is God’s gift to you to warn you and bring you back to Him. Do not take the silence/long-suffering of God for granted.
4. God is testing your loyalty to Him.
When Job was going through his travails, God was silent until much later. By keeping silent, God disproved Satan’s postulation that Job was in it only for the good times. Job passed the loyalty test!
After God delivered King Hezekiah from the illness that would have taken his life, the King of Babylon sent emissaries to commiserate with him. Hezekiah gave the emissaries a tour of his palace and the temple, showing them his treasures (2 Kings 20:12–18). What is scary is that God said nothing while Hezekiah was exposing his treasury to them.
But when the rulers of Babylon sent emissaries to find out about the sign from God that had taken place earlier, God left him on his own to see what he would do; He wanted to test his heart (2 Chronicles 32:31, MSG).
God wanted to prove Hezekiah’s loyalty. Sadly, Hezekiah failed the loyalty test! After the Babylonians departed, God told Hezekiah, through Isaiah, that everything the Babylonians saw, they would one day return to take as plunder, including his descendants!
God is sometimes silent when anointed people go astray, to test whether we would follow in their steps or stick to His word (Deuteronomy 13:1–4)! Let us not forget that although Samson repeatedly acted contrary to God’s will, he still manifested the anointing — he was not immediately judged.
We must not be lured by the pleasures of sin; rather, like Moses, we should be resolved to eschew evil and unrighteousness and remain loyal to God, even when He is silent!
Moses … refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward. (Hebrews 11:24–26, KJV)
5. God may not have been silent; you may have shut your ears from hearing Him.
And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. (Matthew 13:14–15; KJV)
When we continue to live contrary to God, despite listening to sound doctrine, it shows that we have hardened our hearts toward God and His Word! And unless we repent, turn from our wicked ways, return to God, and start heeding His word, we would have no hope of salvation in eternity. In such an instance, we see that God was not silent; our hard hearts did not allow us to hearken to Him!
God’s silence can persist for an exceptionally long time
The silence of God can persist for decades and even centuries! After the prophecy of Malachi God was silent for four hundred years before He again spoke to Zechariah, Mary, Joseph, Simeon, Hannah, and the shepherds (Luke 1:5–38; 2:1ff; Matthew 1:18–25). After the fall of man and Cain’s sin, it was over a thousand years after that God spoke to Noah about the deluge that was to come (Genesis 6:13ff).
There may be things God has told you in times past that you have ignored, but because He is silent you may assume that it does not matter. Beloved, it matters! Do not take the silence of God for granted; do not think His silence means consent nor presume that He will not judge iniquity. No matter how long it may take, God will certainly do what He said He would.
If you are living contrary to God’s Word, you should immediately repent and desist from the contrary things you are doing and return to God before it is too late!
Shalom!