The Silence of God
This lesson deals with what we call The Silence of God, one of the
great truths concerning God's revelation of Himself. The silence of
God is one of the great problems in life, and one of the great
problems discussed in the word of God. There is no problem being
discussed in this present time by the entire federal or world
government--be it the CIA, the United Nations, or any other agency of
the world--that is of any importance at all alongside this particular
problem. After all, the basic problem of mankind is, Why do the
righteous suffer? The basic question, if one gets down to it, is if
there is any God there, and if he is a loving Father, why is he
silent? Why does God allow this or that to happen? Why doesn't God
prevent sin from coming into the world if He could have prevented it
in the first place? Now, I am sure that you are familiar with this
kind of questioning. It has created more agnostics, atheists, and
skeptics per square foot than any other thing in man's depraved
nature: the question of why God is silent, and why He doesn't speak
up. Let me say that, if you are an unsaved man, you cannot figure it
out. No need wasting your time. These groups like the National
Education Association ("NEA") and the American Association for the
Advancement of Science spend their time discussing things that are
extremely simplified. After all, neurophysiology, psychosomatics,
genetic manipulation, space shuttles, transcendental meditation,
psychotherapy, and extrasensory perception are very small pickings
alongside why God allows certain things to happen when He could have
prevented them. This problem in the Bible is dealt with in the great
book of Job, the oldest book ever written (as well as being the oldest
book that is any kind of a real book), outclassing the Book of the
Dead as far as Mt. Everest outclasses a golf green as a mountain.
The book of Job deals with the classic problem--Why do the righteous
suffer? Why doesn't God prevent disastrous explosions, deadly
diseases, car accidents, typhoons, the torture of prisoners, floods,
and wars? The great sufferer of the book of Job spoke truthfully in
Job 23:3-4, when he said, "Oh that I knew where I might flnd him!
that I might come even to his seat! I would order my cause before
him, and fill my mouth with arguments." The problem, then, is, why do
the righteous suffer? Why is God silent? If God can do something,
why doesn't He do it? That is the basic, classic problem, and, of
course, the Harvard Five-Foot Shelf of Classics has no answer for it
at all. An unsaved scientist sitting down at the bedside of a dying
man can be of no more comfort to him than a thirty-year-old mustard
plaster. All that a scientist can tell a dying sinner is that after
his body rots in the ground he will become fertilizer, some animals
will eat him, and, after a few hundred million years, the solar systcm
will wear out, cool off, explode, contract, and go into something
else--great words of comfort only typical to be spokcn from the lips
of an unsaved man. After all, modern science is somewhat of a clown:
science, per se, has never solved one basic problem mankind ever has
had, and it never will. Science's batting average for victory over
death is less than a hundred billionth of a half of one percent. For
every one person born, one person dies. Science has done nothing to
change that average and never will. You say, "Well, science can
furnish jobs for people." Well, sure. You can get a job digging
ditches, too. You say, "Science has alleviated suffering of people."
What you mean is, if you have the money to buy the pills. Half of the
world's population goes to bed hungry, and about one-twentieth of them
starve to death at night. Science has invented a few things for rich
folks who can afford the luxuries, and the rest of the folks have to
wait. Science, per se. has done nothing but provide jobs, but never
forget that you can get a job working for the movies, too. So. what
does it all amount to? Money? Yes. You say, "It makes life more
comfortable." If you have the money, yes. You say. "Well, it has
invented marvelous drugs." If you have the money to buy them. yes.
The problem is, if there is a loving God. why is He silent? Why does
he allow a man to come back trom overseas with his arms and legs
amputated, a "basket case," for the rest of his life? It happens, you
know. Why does God allow babies with Downs' Syndrome to be born? If
God is up there, why didn't He just make everything perfect, and then
there wouldn't be any problems? See what I mean? It is very hard for
a man like Richard Wurmbrandt (who was in solitary confinement for
three years, and under torture for eight) to think that God is always
right, and it would be just as difficult for you if you were put under
the same circumstances. Job, the desperate man who lost all he had,
sat down on the ground for seven days and seven nights, and didn't
open his mouth. But let me tell you, when he finally got going, he
accused God of everything short of murder. You say, "Was this
justifiable?" Well, I wouldn't pass judgment on Job: I've never been
in his position.
So, this is how these modern international socialists handle these
kinds of things. They look around them, and say, "What about all this
poverty, disease, death, and starvation? Let's all pitch in together,
and make the world a better place to live in, get rid of man's
inhumanity to man, and make the world safe for democracy, with all men
in the free world blah, blah, blah," on the presumption that what is
here can be fixed by education and science, without having to consult
God for anything. So, having kicked God out, the devilment goes right
on, and man says, "Why?" Answer: He can't tell you why.
You say, "What about all these innocent people that suffer, who never
did anything wrong?" That's the problem. Why do the righteous suffer?
That is the problem dealt with in the book of Job. That is the basic
root problem. Why doesn't God prevent disastrous explosions, tidal
waves, car accidents, typhoons, plane crashes, floods, earthquakes,
and wars? An infidel, having no faith in the existence of God, argues
from the silence of God. Like old Job, he said, "Oh that I knew where
I might find him! that I might come even to his seat!" Job is a
perfect example of a man trying to get an answer from God for
punishment, and gets no answer. For all apparent reasons, he is
suffering unjustly. As a matter of fact, Job suffers the most
excruciating torment any man could possibly suffer: he loses all of
his children, and all of his property; he loses his health, his wife
turns against him, and then, to add vitriolic acid to vinegar, his
friends turn against him. So, if I am talking to someone who is going
through these circumstances, or has observed these circumstances, you
may well ask about the silence of God.
Before I continue, let me give you a little choice nugget from the
words of truth which, although it is not a scripture verse, is very
scriptural: War is God's judgment on sin here, and hell is God `s
judgment on sin hereafter. Hence, if you don't believe in God or
hell, you have no answer. If you don't believe in a God who punishes
sin in this world and in the next world, you have no contribution to
make to this world or the next. Don't give us this stuff about
"making the world a better place to live in" in order to get more
votes. Politicians have been using that gimmick on suckers for 2000
years. You cannot explain the problem of human suffering, apart from
the problem of sin, although sinners have devised several probable
answers to the age-old problem.
The deists say that God is a good God, but He has no time to look
after the details of life. God is only a spectator of the affairs of
this life. He is a sort of energetic force field in the back end of
the universe that, having kicked things off, lets them run. These
people are sometimes called theistic evolutionists.
The materialists say that the world is governed by the law of chance
without a personal God. This means that the materialist teaches that
we are all at the mercy of blind chance. This is the situation ethics
of the the existentialist Joe Fletcher: the "now-happening-cuckoo,"
who goes around and thinks that since you cannot predict accurately;
since past, present, and future mean nothing; since time is relative;
motion is relative; and distance is relative, that, therefore, TRUTH
is relative. This would mean that the entire universe, my friend. is
governed by Darwin's law: blind chance and accidental evolution.
You've got to be bananas to swallow that. So, most college graduates
do exactly that: swallow it. I mean, you have got to be somewhere
out in cloudland to believe in a universe governed by accidental
chance. You talk about blind fanaticism. Talk about radical
extremism! What kind of a kook would believe that and set his watch
on a universe that was governed by chance? Once these kooks reject
the Bible, they plunge into great darkness. Once you put out the
light of the Bible, you snuff out the last light to the nations, and
you are in pitch-black darkness with no place to go, nowhere to come
from, and nothing sure about where you are even standing. That makes
you a great prospect for the drug and dope traffic. I wouldn't be a
bit surprised if they don't make some money off you before long.
Why, then, is God silent? There are several negative answers.
1. God is indifferent. When Christ suffered on the cross, He cried,
"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46). That
sounds pretty "indifferent," wouldn't you say? But the truth is, God
cared so much for souls, and Christ cared so much for souls, that He
continued to pour out His wrath on Jesus Christ, and the Bible says of
that, "...wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our
iniquities" (Isa. 53:5), and "it pleased the Lord to bruise him"
(Isa. 53:10). He was delivered by the determined foreknowledge of
God. Things are not always as they appear.
2. God is unobservant. People say that God is silent because He does
not see. That won't work at all. The Bible says in Proverbs 15:3,
"The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the
good." If there is any God up there at all, He is omniscient. He is
all-knowing, all-seeing, and all-understanding.
3. God is unloving. People say that this is why God doesn't speak.
But, that won't work, either. The good parent who truly loves his
child will punish the child once in a while. Hebrews 12:5-6 says,
"And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto
children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor
faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he
chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." Therefore, to
say that God is silent because He does not love you will not work. A
man said one time, "I believe in the sun, even when it is not shining.
I believe in God even when He is silent, and I believe in love even
when I am alone."
4. God is unwilling. God sees the end from the beginning, and plans
our lives. God is perfectly willing. We read in the Bible that the
Lord is "....not willing that any should perish, but that all should
come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). The Lord said to Ezekiel, "I have
no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from
his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will
ye die, O house of Israel?" (Ezekiel 33:11). Do you think that it
pleases God that people end up in hell? That's not Bible doctrine.
Do you think that God gets some gross satisfaction, some sadistic
pleasure, in seeing people burn in a lake of fire? That is not Bible
doctrine. That is the perversion some fellow made of the Bible who is
on his way to hell, and wanted to make you think there is no hell.
Do you think that hell was created for man? The Bible says that hell
was created for the devil and his angels (Matt. 25:41). If you go
there, you will be an alien. You will be a displaced person. You
will be in the wrong environment. God never created man with the
intention of damning him to a lake of fire. That is YOUR idea. It is
YOUR idea to pit your righteousness against God's righteousness. It
is YOUR idea to compete with the Almighty, pretending either that He
is not there, or that you are as good as He is. You say, "Oh, I
wouldn't say something like that." Then why haven't you trusted His
righteousness, instead of your own? It is YOUR idea that you can pay
for your sins in a matter of twenty, thirty. or one hundred years.
That's not God's idea. In the Bible, the Lord does not take pleasure
in the death of the wicked. He commands men to repent. He wants them
to repent, is willing for them to get right, waits for them to get
right, and deals with them so that they might get right.
Having discussed these theories in regard to the Silence of God, let's
look at some Biblical answers to the problem. Notice that we approach
this problem with an open mind, and much more honestly and openly than
the typical atheist. (All atheists have closed minds, and most
skeptics do, too.)
We will list now for the reader EIGHT answers for the silence of God.
First, there is common sense. A lot of difficulty is the result of
deliberate sin, due entirely to your carelessness, neglect, and folly,
which you may call "accidents." Galatians 6:7 says, "...whatsoever a
man soweth, that shall he also reap." Like a famous preacher said one
time, "A lot of folks sow a crop, and then spend the rest of their
life praying for a crop failure." If God doesn't do something about a
crop that you have sowed, what does that prove? If you sow it, you
are entitled to reap it, aren't you?
Also, there is the Bible view. Is it right that my puny mind should
question the workings of Almighty God? I have a finite mind; God has
an infinite mind. What would I know about it? Isaiah 55:8-9 says
(the Lord speaking), "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither
are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts
than your thoughts."
Doubtless, God's master plan for my life will have to include sorrow,
suffering, trials, testing, and pain. Why should I be exempt? Is
ANYONE exempt? If you don't have cerebral palsy, don't some of you
have leukemia? If you don't have leukemia, aren't some of you in a
wheel chair? If some of you are walking around on two good legs,
don't you have ulcers? If you don't have ulcers, don't some of you
have regular sinus headaches? If you don't have sinus headaches and
ulcers, don't some of you have bills that you cannot pay? If you have
your bills paid, aren't some of you coming out of busted homes through
divorce courts? If your marriage has stayed together, aren't some of
your children suffering from cerebral palsy or Downs' syndrome? If
all your children are in good health and don't have broken legs or
arms, didn't some of them get messed up in the dope traffic? God sent
one man into this world without sin, but He was a "...man of sorrows,
and aquainted with grief" (Isa. 53:3). "Man of sorrows, what a name,
for the Son of God who came, ruined sinners to reclaim, Hallelujah,
what a Saviour!" Why should I be exempt from trouble? Is anyone?
A lady one time came to a famous philosopher in ancient days, and told
him of a terrible problem which she had, and asked how she could get
it fixed. He said, "I'll tell you what to do. You go out here, and
walk around this block. When you have finished the block, go around
the whole city. Then, when you find someone who has no trouble, you
come back, and I'll tell you how to get rid of your trouble." After
she had been through about five blocks, she came back and said, "I
don't think I have any trouble." He said to her, "Did you find someone
who had no trouble?" She said, "Every house I went into had trouble of
some kind." When that lady saw everyone else's troubles, her troubles
did not look so big anymore.
Additionally, there is the philosophic view. Human free will involves
the consequences of actions. Human freedom means more responsibility.
Adultery leads to disease many times. Rates of syphilis and other
social diseases in America have gone up 800% in twenty years. You
say, "Well, what should God do about it?" Then let me ask you this:
what makes you think that He should do anything about it? You take
the attitude that adultery and fornication is what you call "the new
morality," or "adult consent," when God has already told you what they
are. What do you think God is going to do about it? Help you out? I
mean, you have to look at it philosophically, brother.
Freedom means moral responsibility. If you want people to support you
with their tax money so you may do whatever you want to do, then,
bless God, you are going to be responsible for what you do, son. And,
if you don't want the responsibility, then you better hadn't ask for
the handout. You had better take what you've got, and thank the Lord
for it. Human freedom means moral responsibilty. If you are not
willing to be morally responsible for your freedom, then get ready to
reap what you have sowed, because you will reap whether you take the
responsibility or not.
The Lord said in Exodus 20:5, "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God."
God will seek to divorce the believer from everything, and cause him
to cling closer to Him. The Lord wants the attention of His people.
The Lord wants the love of His people. If "God so loved the world,
that he gave his only begotten Son" (John 3:16), and "Herein is love,
not that we loved God, but that he loved us" (I John 4:10), don't you
suppose that He wants some love in return from the believer? Don't
you know that it disturbs the Lord to see the believer loving all this
godless slop out in the world, when the believer ought to love Him?
Don't you know that the first commandment is "Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
mind. This is the first and great commandment" (Matt. 22:37-38)?
But if you love the movies more than the Lord, stereo equipment more
than the Lord, "rock 'n' roll" more than the Lord, baseball and
football more than the Lord, your wife and children more than the
Lord, your house, family, and car more than the Lord, your business,
ministry, and Sunday School attendance more than the Lord, what are
you but a twentieth century idolator? Why not call yourself by the
right name, fellow? Why not "tell it like it is"?
Do you know what God will do? God will let suffering and affliction
come to His people and cut them off until they will have to lean on
Him. That is not all. You are living now in the day of man, the day
of sin, and in the day of grace; in this age, God is inviting people
to come home. The silence of God will some day be broken with audible
condemnation. God will yet reckon His accounts with men in their
relationship to God. That is, the reckonings in God's books are not
all in yet. When we talk about the silence of God, we are talking
from a temporary standpoint. You say, "Why doesn't God do something
about this?" He is going to. "Why doesn't God do something about
that?" He is going to. You say, "When?" You will find out quicker
than you want to find out. The Bible says, "Woe unto you that desire
the day of the Lord!" (Amos 5:18) . The Bible says in Ecclesiates
8:11, "Because 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." A farmer wrote a preacher one time, and said, "I plant on
Sunday, harvest on Sunday, plow on Sunday, and here it is October, and
I've got the biggest bank account of any farmer in this state. How do
you account for that?" The preacher wrote back, and said, "God doesn't
settle accounts in October." He will settle with the unsaved at the
White Throne Judgment. Then you will see how it is going to come out.
If you have suffered all your life, and supposed that it was needless
and without purpose, when you get home to the Judgment Seat of Christ,
Christian, you will find out there. In John 13:7 the Bible says,
"Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now; but
thou shalt know hereafter." Our trouble is impatience, and how
impatient we are! First Peter 1:7 says, "That the trial of your
faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it
be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at
the appearing of Jesus Christ." There are sufferings and trials that
you will go through on this earth that you will know nothing about, as
far as why you were sent them, until you get home to glory. The most
terrible tragedy that could happen to any man or woman on the face of
this earth, bar none, would be to live a life of poverty, disease,
suffering, torture, and dying, and then to die without Christ, and go
out into a lake of fire. There is hell here, and there is hell
hereafter. That is the most horrible thing that could happen to a
person on the face of this earth. Now listen. If you are undergoing
suffering, affliction, trial, testing, tribulation, and sorrow right
now as a child of God. then think like that song says, "Bye and bye,
we will understand it better, bye and bye. Cheer up, my brother, walk
in the sunlight, we'll understand it all bye and bye." "I do not know
why oft round me my hopes all shattered seem to be. God's perfect
plan I cannot see, But someday He'll make it plain. I cannot tell
what depths of love that moves my Fathers heart above, my faith to
test, my love to prove. But someday He'll make it plain. Someday
He'll make it plain to me, Someday when His face I shall see." Did you
ever hear that old song? "Someday from tears I shall be free, and
someday I'll understand."
An old song says, "Trust and obey, for there's no other way, to be
happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey." A great preacher said one
time. "Heaven is the place for understanding, and earth is the place
for trust." Those are some of the greatest words ever spoken by mortal
man. That's the truth. John said in John 9:3 about a certain man who
was born blind, "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but
that the works of God should be made manifest in him." That is only
one story of a man who was born blind. He suffered, and you may
suffer. You may suffer, not for your sins, but to make you a blessing
to somebody else. You may suffer, not for your sins, but that you may
comfort those that are also in sorrow and trouble. You may suffer,
not for your sins, but to make heaven more real to you, and so that
you might set your affections on things above, and not on things on
this earth. You may suffer as a righteous person, as a good person,
and go through all kinds of testings, trials, and tribulations, not
because of your sins, but to teach you that when God says something,
He means it--that God's promises are true, and that God's grace is
sufficient for you, and that you through suffering may be a partaker
of His holiness.