God Keeping and Breaking Silence
Dean Goulburn. Psalm 50:21 These things have you done, and I kept silence; you thought that I was altogether such an one as yourself: but I will reprove you… I. GOD'S KEEPING SILENCE. Now, our God is Jesus Christ. And, therefore, if we judge of what He will do by what He has done, this silence was to be expected from. Him. It is all of a piece with His conduct while upon earth. After the Divine intelligence which our Lord showed when He was twelve years of age, we read nothing more about Him until He was thirty. Many things must have gone on around Him which pained Him, and stirred within Him His zeal for His Father's honour; but the time was not yet come for Him to take notice of them. Now, what does such keeping silence mean? 1. That He seems to take no notice of the wickedness of men. It does often seem so. How many persons daily bring themselves by drunkenness and other shameful vices to a level lower than that of the beasts that perish! How are the poor ground down by their employers, as if those employers had a property in their flesh and sinews; nay, in their very life! How are God's Sabbaths broken continually, the Sunday being spent by many thousands among us, at best in perfect idleness, and at worst in a state of sottishness and stupidity! "Shall not I visit for these things? saith the Lord." And yet He holds His hand for the present, and merely stands by, looking on. 2. Another meaning of God's keeping silence is, that He does not now-a-days interfere with the order of nature. He lets things take their course, in heaven and earth. This was not so in the olden time, of which the Bible tells us. We read of miracles, that is, of changes of the order of nature, both in the New Testament and in the Old. But miracles are only for a season; and it is not in reason that they should be otherwise. When God had some new tidings to tell to the world, which they could not have found out by their own sense and wit, He gave to the men whom He sent with the message the power of working miracles. The miracles were a sort of bell which they rung in the ears of their generation, that people might listen to what they had to say, and believe that it came from heaven. 3. But since we know God to be grievously displeased with sin, there is something awful in His keeping silence while it is committed under His eye. If a child comes home conscious of having offended a parent, and the parent says nothing all that night, but merely looks very grave, the child is more frightened than he would be by a sharp rebuke or severe punishment; for if such rebuke or punishment were inflicted, he would, at least, know the worst; but when the parent is silent he knows not what may be hanging over him. In countries where earthquakes happen, a dead silence always goes before the earthquake. Nature seems hushed into an awful stillness, as if she were holding her breath at the thought of the coming disaster. So it is with God's silencer It will be followed, when it seems deepest, by the earthquake of His judgments. And so the holy apostle writes to the Thessalonians: "When they shall say Peace and safety" (from the fact of God's being so still and so dumb), "then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape." II. GOD'S BREAKING SILENCE. "Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence." We have seen that there was a great blaze of miracles when the Jewish dispensation was first set up, when Israel was called out of Egypt, and settled in the Holy Land. After they were fairly settled, God, for a long time, kept silence. And the silence waxed deeper and deeper, when the people were restored to their own lands after the Babylonish captivity, until at length His judgment came in the overthrow of Jerusalem, and the break-up of Israel's national life. Josephus has some wonderful statements about that awful time. Now, so will it be with the Christian Church. At the first there was a blaze of miracles, as with Israel, but ever since God has been keeping silence: God never interferes, so men think and say. Now, one day, when these men are crying, "Peace and safety," God will confound them by breaking silence. When our Lord comes the second time to earth, a far brighter blaze of miracles will shine around Him than that which ushered in His first appearance. The whole frame of nature will be rent in twain, as the veil of the temple formerly was, and we shall get a glimpse through the great cleft into the world of spirits; we shall see those things which here we have been called upon to believe without seeing — an innumerable company of angels, and a great white throne prepared for judgment, and Him who sitteth thereon. Examine your hearts as to whether you are among those who, when the Lord is thus manifested, will love His appearing? Is there no cherished sin, no darling lust, which you would dread above all things to have dragged into the light of His countenance, and laid naked and open under his eye? (Dean Goulburn.) Parallel Verses KJV: These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes. WEB: You have done these things, and I kept silent. You thought that I was just like you. I will rebuke you, and accuse you in front of your eyes.