The word “Eureka” comes from the ancient Greek heuriskō, meaning “I have found it!” According to the well-known account, Archimedes shouted it in a fit of jubilation and ran naked through the streets of Syracuse. He had stepped into a bath, noticed the water level rise, and realised how to measure the volume of an irregular object. Today, the world knows the principles that grew out of his discovery.
Archimedes could not contain his joy when he found the answer to his quest. If we have truly found something that brings awareness to a long-awaited issue, we cannot keep silent. Sooner or later, the whole world will come to know of it in detail and enjoy its benefit. So if we have found peace in receiving the forgiveness of sin from God Himself, why are we keeping silent while the world still does not know what God has done for it?
Why does God say He will not keep silent?
For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not remain quiet, till her vindication shines out like the dawn, her salvation like a blazing torch.
Isaiah 62:1 (NIV)
God says He will not rest until the people of the whole world are changed, until they become His children, and until His righteousness shines like light and His salvation burns like a torch. God sometimes stays silent when He sees our deeds, our sins and our lies, but that does not mean He will remain silent forever, leaving us never to become His children. He says, “I will not be silent now. Until you become fully My children, there is no rest in My heart.” God says, “I give you rest,” yet His own rest comes only when we begin to experience, completely, the rest He has given us. Why are we not able to adopt the teachings of Jesus fully? Because we belong to the world and its principles.
You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.
Matthew 5:38-39 (NIV)
Even today, people repay evil with evil. How do worldly people define “evil”? It is whatever they do not understand. Those who do not live by their rules are the “evil” ones, and so they kill them. Graham Staines, the Australian missionary who showed the compassion of Jesus to the people of Odisha (India) was killed in just this way in 1999. He had done nothing evil, but he did not live according to their wishes. When no one was able to obey God’s commands, Jesus Christ came as a man, like us, and obeyed His Father in every respect. Yet they put Him on the cross, because they found His teachings a threat, and to them His teaching about the truth had become evil.
But in His sovereignty God did not repay evil with evil; He conquered evil with good. Unable to reconcile evil with good, the people of this world dealt with them separately and even created separate gods. God, who created everything in this world, does not view evil as unstoppable. Instead, He placed the evil upon His Son’s own body, overcame it through His goodness, and made us righteous through His Son’s righteousness.
Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.
Hebrews 5:8-9 (NIV)
If we still trust our own intentions and our own works, and think of ourselves as righteous, we are mistaken. Every intention and thought we have will tend to lead us to fight evil with evil. God is teaching us to overcome evil with good, and until we learn it, He says, “I will not remain silent.”
While Grace Increases…
Where our sin increases, God’s grace increases (Romans 5:20). What does that mean? God lowers Himself to us. He says, “I will stay with you as your servant.” This is God’s grace. If God remained only as God, we could not live this corrupt life. So we must not take God’s grace lightly. We say so easily that grace increases, but what it means is that, whatever we do, God stays with us. John the Baptist said, “He must become greater; I must become less (John 3:30).” We are doing the opposite. We treat grace as a licence to grow bigger while God grows smaller.
Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.
John 13:14-15 (NIV)
Today, many people call themselves “servants of God” to gain fame, recognition and wealth, yet they serve neither God nor His people. Instead, they stand on high pedestals and lay down rules and regulations for believers that they have never kept themselves. Seeing and admiring such people as true servants of God, many fail to understand God’s grace in its true sense. They wrongly assume that His grace rests on a few great servants and is not with ordinary people.
Those who called themselves servants of God think they have Jesus at their command. They perform signs and wonders, and in doing so deceive even believers. Let us not forget that if we avail ourselves of His grace in this way, we keep Him as the One who washes our feet, and we never walk in the cleansing He has given us. God the Father, seeing His Son’s obedience even to death on the cross, gave Him a name above every name (Philippians 2:8-9). Our lives, therefore, should glorify the matchless name of Jesus.
Why Do We Stay Silent?
We are silent because we are preoccupied with our own concerns. Today’s preaching often says, “Come, receive a blessing; come, receive healing.” Many of us receive healing for the body, but we give no thought to the healing of the soul, that is, being set free from sin. Sin is like cancer. When someone has cancer, the whole church prays together, “Save our sister, save our brother.” Yet there is a disease worse than cancer, and that is sin. It spreads faster than cancer, and no one is concerned about it.
How can we stay silent when God has done away with the wages of our sin, yet this good news has not reached the ends of the earth? Still, we claim to love God. Scripture says that for those who love God all things work together for good (Romans 8:28), and so we love Him in the hope that He will turn every complication and struggle of our lives into good. Too often, we do not love Him for what He has done for us; we love Him expecting Him to do what we desire. God has forgiven everyone’s sin, something no one else could have achieved, yet we are not telling others about His great work, and so the good news has not reached their ears. They do not know they are in darkness, and they do not know their sin has been forgiven. We have no concern for this. We hold big conventions, get everyone blessed, and dance and jump about, yet we stay silent about what God has done for everyone.
When we know for certain that we will meet someone who went out of his way to do us a favour, we think carefully about how to meet him and what we might give him in return. Yet we give no such thought to meeting God, who saved us from eternal death. Even so, we feel neither fear nor concern about meeting Him. This reveals that we do not truly believe we will one day meet Him. If we realised that we will, we would not sit silent today.
Although we carry a burden to spread the message of forgiveness of sin, some of us fail to bear it. Instead, we place it on one person and give him the name “Missionary”. We send him off on our behalf to a faraway village where no one has heard of the forgiveness of sin or of Jesus Christ. Then we say, “We have sent a missionary there to spread the Gospel,” and we sit silent, thereby responding to the question of God, “who will go on my behalf. ” When God intended to assign a task to us, we cannot appoint someone else to do it. Renowned servants of God ask for money to extend God’s kingdom. We readily give them a sum and, satisfied that we have financed God’s ultimate project, we stay silent.
Our Burdens and His Burden
“I am deeply troubled. A heavy burden weighs on me. I am very ill. I am haunted. I have a serious problem. I am afraid of what tomorrow will bring. How will I run the house?” Such dreadful experiences still prevail, because we care only about ourselves and stay silent, and so our troubles consume us. We are tormented by our troubles, and we wonder whether we truly love God when these problems do not seem to be working together for good. God has done something unique in each one of our lives, yet we give little importance to what He has really done, and for this reason the message of the Gospel has not reached all people. Consider our worry about a promotion. If we hear that a lay-off is coming, that worry dissolves, and we begin to fear instead for our present job or, if it is lost, for how we shall find a new one. Likewise, if we carry a burden to spread the love of God and the message of forgiveness of sin to everyone, the burdens of our present life will seem as nothing to us.
Moreover, the devil will recognise a child who is burdened with the love of God and its spread, and he knows that he cannot trouble such a person. So we should ask why our troubles are tormenting us. It is because we do not think about the forgiveness of sin that has been given to every person, or about how the world’s eyes have been blinded. How can we open that blindness? How can we let people see the light? How can they see the Gospel? When this concern enters our lives, our worries will go away.
As has just been said: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion.
Hebrews 3:15 (NIV)
Today God’s voice echoes in our hearts: “Do not be silent.” Until now we have been a crown in the devil’s hands, and he has effectively silenced us so that we do not spread the message of the Gospel to all. But God is calling us to become a crown in His hand, that He may appoint us as ambassadors of His love and send us to proclaim that the sin of all people has been forgiven. Since God has already forgiven their sin, should we not break our silence and proclaim the Gospel to everyone?
You will be a crown of splendor in the LORD’s hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
Isaiah 62:3 (NIV)
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