⁹Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.

“Silence is not Golden !”

Jeremiah had been serving God proclaiming God’s message and he was being soundly ridiculed, mocked and made fun of. Jeremiah made a determination to cease from God’s work because the mocking was too much to bear, the ridicule to heavy to carry and he just could not go on any longer. Jeremiah made a decision to zip his lips from the Word of God, to abandon if you will the very essence of God’s desire, to make himself known by the works of his people who are called by his name. Jeremiah, the weeping prophet became a whimpering poser, a man who could be deterred by the populace, a man swayed by popular opinion, wanting to be accepted by the crowd. Jeremiah at this point was totally like many of us so-called Christians today. Truth be told we are mere posers ourselves. We have a term for politicians that call themselves Republican and vote and act differently, we call them Rino’s (Republican in name only) and yet we Christians are no different, we call ourselves Christian and yet sit inactive in both word and deed, sitting in silence and it is not golden. See Jeremiah had a falling away of his desire to speak of God and to proclaim God’s worthiness of our worship, our adulation and our service, but he could not stay in that state very long. Jeremiah had a love of God that ran way too deep for him to just shut-up, Jeremiah could not quench the spirit for very long until he had to forbear and stay his intention. It makes me wonder about us so called Christians who seem to be able to go day after day saying nothing, day after day doing nothing and being content with such. I wonder how real the Holy Spirit really is in our lives, how real our so-called love for God truly is and how strong our desire to serve. We seem to have jumped ship, pushed God off the plank and thrown anchor to the world.

Not many months ago and spanning several attempts I too like Jeremiah wanted to chuck the whole speak of Jesus thing. Called to preach and teach the Word of God, and wanting more of it, I instead seemed to find less of it. I became disillusioned at God and since I could not have it my way I wanted nothing more to do with it. I distanced myself from opportunity, stopped looking for opportunity and shut down my reading of the Word. See every time I would read the Word I would find a sermon, find an outline and then go through the motions to develop the sermon only to never get a chance to preach it, never get a chance to teach it, so I figured if I would just stop reading the Bible I would stop finding sermons to Preach. But, glory to God he would not let it lie, he would not give it rest, the harder I tried to put it away the stronger the desire he sent my way, just as Jeremiah God’s word was in mine heart as a burning fire and I to could not forbear, I too could not stay. So now I press on, if God wants to give me a chance to preach it, then GREAT and if not, then at least I will have spent my time wisely and constructively – AMEN!! There are way too many of us Christians who are being benchwarmers, we have become cold and callous with the Word of God, cold and callous in the work of God and we need to rise up, roll up our sleeves and get busy once again. The day grows short to do a work for God, The day grows short to give testimony for God and the day grows short to tell a lost and dying world that they do not have to choose hell as a final resting place. In order to keep from being Silent, to keep from becoming complacent we need to be active in three areas; our:

1) Supplicating – it seems when the going gets tough or when the going is smooth we set aside our prayer life. The trials of life are designed to draw us closer to God yet for the most part we allow them to draw us away from God. Before a Christian goes totally worldly, before he gets hit and miss at church you can usually find that personal prayer and personal Bible reading seem to wane. If we go without eating we become lethargic and weak, our minds have a harder time focusing, our stamina lags and we become sickly. So too when we neglect our spiritual food (prayer and Bible reading), we become lethargic, weakly and our minds unable to stave off the worlds influence. The bible teaches us to pray always (Luke 21:36; 2 Thessalonians 1:11; Ephesians 6:18), we should have an open line direct to God, a perpetual state of prayer. When we neglect talking to God we become estranged, not on his part but on ours and we drift from God and the things of God. So to keep from becoming SILENT we need to keep our line of communication with God open, and prayer does that. We need to be active in Supplicating and active in:

2) Studying – 2 Timothy 2:15 tells us to study to show ourselves approved. If we fill our minds with the Word of God we will be filled to overflowing with the things of God and speaking of God would then be natural. Conversely if we neglect God’s Word we will have very little to say and we will have very little to combat the influence of the world within our own minds. Silence in this area is not Golden. Our minds are like a computer, put trash in you will get trash out, likewise if you put God in then you will get God out, good in then you get good out. We become Silent because we have no knowledge of what to say, if we study God’s Word we will gain knowledge and have plenty to say. Intimidation comes from a lack of knowledge, we become afraid to say something because we have very little understanding, very little knowledge of the things of God. Study and Study alone can resolve that short fall, give us confidence and give us resolve to not be Silent, spread the good news that Jesus saves, Jesus saves –Heymen!! So to keep from being Silent we need more Supplicating and more Studying but we also need more: