It is not that I did choose thee,
Lord, O Lord, that could not be. Todd's Road Grace Church would
like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Todd
Nyberg. We are located at 4137 Todd's
Road, two miles outside of Mattawar Boulevard. Sunday services are
at 1030 a.m. and 6 p.m. Bible study is at
945 a.m. Wednesday services are at 7 p.m. Nursery is provided for all services.
For more information, visit our website at toddsroadgracechurch.com.
Now here's our pastor, Todd Nybert. I want to speak to you this morning
upon the silence of God. The text is 1 Samuel chapter
3, verse 1. And the child Samuel ministered
unto the Lord before Eli, and the word of the Lord was precious
in those days. There was no open vision. There was no word from God. There was no prophetic voice. There was no warning. There was
no reproof or rebuke or declaration. Only silence. no word from God. Question, have you ever dealt
with the silence of God? He is not speaking to you. You feel as though your prayers
get no further than the ceiling and they bounce back to you All
you know is His silence. He is not speaking to you. The Word preached has nothing
for you. The Bible has nothing for you. All you hear is the silence of
God, and that silence can be deafening. God is. He is as He says He is in His
Word. What you and I think or believe
concerning Him has no bearing at all on who He is. He is who
He is. He said, I am that I am. All that He has been pleased
to reveal regarding Himself is in His Word. He is who He is. And we are totally dependent
upon Him to speak to us. We cannot know Him unless He
is pleased to speak to us. We're totally dependent upon
revelation. If He remains silent, I won't
know Him. He must make Himself known. He must reveal Himself. What takes place in Revelation
when God reveals Himself? Well, you're made to see what
you did not see. You're made to hear what you
could not hear. To see, there are two things
that must be. First, there must be light. We
can't see without light. But there also has to be a seeing
eye. The light may be there, but if I'm blind, I can't see.
There first has to be light, but there also has to be a seeing
eye. Now, in this thing of Revelation,
the light is God's Word. That's Him making Himself known
through His Word, Him speaking through His Word. But if all
we have is His Word, I won't see, I won't hear. I must also
be given a seeing eye and hearing ears. God's got to do something
for me. I'm totally dependent upon Him. And we will hear to no profit
unless He gives us ears to hear. Now, thank God He does speak. He does speak. Hebrews 1.1 says, God who at
sundry times and in diverse manners spake in times past to our fathers
by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken to us by His
Son. God does speak. Now, first of
all, God speaks by creation. Creation is God speaking. In Psalm 19, we read the heavens
declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth forth his
handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech,
and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech
nor language where their voice is not heard. Creation says God
is. There is absolutely no excuse
for being an atheist. Creation says God is. Romans 1 20 says for the invisible
things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen. being understood by the things
that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they
are without excuse." Now, God speaks by creation. Creation
tells us God is, and God is all-powerful. He brought the universe into
existence simply as an act of His own will. Now, God speaks
by creation, and what He says by creation renders us without
excuse if we're in unbelief, because if we would open our
eyes, we would see God is. God speaks by His providence,
His goodness, the warnings of providence. I mean, when the
Lord is good, He gives to all life and breath, oh, the goodness
of God, the air you just breathe is God's air and He lets you
do it. The food you just are getting ready to eat or you've
already eaten, it's God's food. The house you live in, it's God's
house. It belongs to Him. Everything
belongs to Him. And all you have is because of
His goodness. And what about the warnings of
providence? You see somebody die, it tells you, I better seek
the Lord. I'm going to stand before God
in judgment. Oh, God speaks through providence. But most especially,
God speaks by His Word. The Scripture claims divine inspiration. All Scripture is given by inspiration
of God. Now I realize a lot of people
have a hard time with that. How can you really believe that
the Bible is the inspired Word of God. After all, men wrote
it, and it's true, God did use men to write it. And if men make
copies of it, I mean, this is before computers, before there
was just copies made one after another, surely error will get
in, and one man will try to put his slant on things, and you
can't really believe that it's every bit the inspired Word of
God. Now, wait a minute. If God has the power to create
the universe, God has the power to preserve His Word so that
men do not corrupt it. The Bible is the Word of God. God makes Himself known in His
Word. He tells how a sinful man or
woman like me or you can be saved in His Word. God does speak. He speaks by creation, speaks
by providence, and He speaks by His Word. But sometimes he's
silent. Sometimes he does not speak. There was no open vision in Samuel's
day, no prophetic word from God. God did not speak. Now, God,
as a judgment, can send a famine of his word. As Amos said, Behold,
the days come, saith the Lord, that I'll send a famine in the
land not a famine of bread or thirst of water, but of hearing
the words of the Lord. Now, this famine can happen in
a nation where God does not speak. It can happen in a community.
It can happen in a church. And it can happen in an individual
where God remains silent. It could be that he lets a false
message be preached as an act of judgment. and just lets that
false gospel be preached. Or it could be that his word
is preached, but he doesn't give certain individuals hearing ears,
so they don't really hear the voice of God in the message. In either case, he is not speaking. The silence of God. Now, there are some people who
would not be troubled by this. They would actually be pleased
if there wasn't a God. And if God didn't speak, it doesn't
really mean anything to them, but there are others who can't
bear the thought of being left to themselves and God not speaking
to them. Now, I want to ask you a question.
Have you ever dealt with the silence of God? where he is not
speaking to you. You pray, you cry, and you know
he does not hear. All you hear is silence. He may be speaking to somebody
else, but he is not speaking to you. Does somebody say, why
is he silent to me? Why won't he speak? Why won't
he answer? I'm asking him to speak to me
and he's not. Why will he not speak to me? Well, here's my first answer
to that question. Why should he? Why should he? You see, if he's not speaking
to me or to you, it's not some arbitrary choice on his part
where he's just decided I'm not going to speak. Let me read a
passage of scripture from Isaiah chapter 59, beginning in verse
1. Behold, the Lord's hand is not
shortened, that it cannot save, neither his ear heavy, that it
cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated between you and
your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, so that
he will not hear. Now, when we ask the question,
why isn't the Lord speaking to me? If we have any understanding
of who we really are, we can see why He wouldn't speak to
us. You see, God is holy. Why would God speak to a sinful
person like me? Now, that ought to be our first
response. Why should God speak to somebody
like me? You know, we would be far more
wise if we were trying to find out How he could speak to somebody
like me when I'm so sinful, so undeserving? Why would God ever
speak to me? Rather than ask why he's silent,
Lord, how can you speak to me? Now, let me tell you why he can't
speak to someone who is so sinful. that they deserve nothing but
the silence of God, and they deserve to have no communication
from God. They deserve to not have Him
reveal Himself in any way. Now, are you a person like that?
Are you someone who can actually see why God wouldn't speak to
you? You want Him to speak to you,
but you can see why He wouldn't. You don't have any problem with
that. You understand why He would cut you off if He was so pleased
to do, because of your own sinfulness. Now, let me tell you, How God
can speak to you. How God can speak to me. There's one reason why He can
speak to me. It's because on the cross of
Calvary, the Lord Jesus Christ dealt with the awful silence
of God. Now, while he walked upon this
earth for 33 years, he lived in constant communion with his
father. You know, when the scripture
says he prayed all night, he really did. People talk about
how much time they spend in prayer. Well, they lose all credibility
when they talk about it, but he spent entire nights in communion
with his father. The father's ear was always open
to him. He said, this is my beloved son
in whom I am well pleased. Because of his perfect obedience,
because of his utter holiness, he lived in perfect communion
and fellowship with his father. He enjoyed the presence of his
father continually. But when he was nailed to the
cross, He felt nothing but the awful
silence of God. There was no communication. All he felt was his father's
wrath. and His Father's indignation
against sin, and His Father's justice in punishing sin. That's all He knew. God the Father turned His back
on God the Son and forsook Him. The Lord said, My God, My God,
why hast Thou forsaken Me? God the Father forsook the Lord
Jesus on the cross. Now why? Why did this take place? Because the sins of God's elect
were all made to meet upon Christ. The Scripture actually says,
He was made sin. That's the most amazing thought
that can ever occupy somebody's mind, that God the Father took
the sins of those He gave to the Son, and He placed them upon
His Son. He bore our sins in His own body
on the tree, and He became guilty of that
sin. Now, when He was on the cross,
the Father didn't look at him and say, son, I know these sins
don't belong to you. They belong to somebody else.
But I'm treating you as if they belong to you. No, those sins
became His sins, so that He became guilty of them. And the Father
didn't look at Him and say, I know you didn't do these. No, they
were His. And the Father's justice and wrath came down upon Him
because that is precisely what He deserved. When He was on the
cross, He couldn't think, well, at least these sins don't really
belong to me, they belong to somebody else, and I didn't really
commit them, and He didn't really have the consolation of knowing
that He really wasn't guilty. No, those sins so truly became
His that He bore the guilt and the shame and the darkness of
them. He didn't have his people at
that time saying, oh, we love you for doing this because we
know you're doing it for us. No, he was all alone. He by himself purged us of our
sins. He bore the awful silence of
God. But you know what he did in bearing
the awful silence of God? He did something that no one
else could do. He put away those sins he died
for. He made satisfaction for those
sins. Now, the reason hell is eternal
is because there's really no satisfaction. God can never be
satisfied. Sin is so infinitely evil that
God gets no satisfaction. I've used this as an illustration
before, but I have a daughter. If somebody murdered her, and
put her to death, and they said, well, I'm going to give you a
million dollars. Will that satisfy you? No, that
won't satisfy me. I'll give you ten million. Will
that satisfy you? No, that won't satisfy me. The only way I could
get satisfaction if my daughter was murdered is if she was brought
back from the dead. Now, our Lord Jesus Christ rendered
complete satisfaction. He satisfied God's law against
sin and such is the dignity of His person that in making satisfaction,
He was raised from the dead, offering to the Father Himself
in complete satisfaction. Now, that's what the Lord did
on the cross. Now, because of that, God can communicate with
me because His reason to not communicate with me has been
removed. It has nothing to do with me.
It has wholly to do with what the Lord did on the cross. So
listen to me. If you see why God would be silent
toward you, understand this. There is a reason why He can
speak to you. And it doesn't have anything
to do with anything you deserve. It has to do with what Christ
accomplished on Calvary's tree. Thank God He does speak. Now what I'd like to do is look
at a couple of examples from the New Testament of how someone
dealt with the silence of God. The first example I want to look
at is found in Matthew chapter 15. This is the story of the
Syro-Phoenician woman. We read in Matthew chapter 15,
beginning in verse 21, Then Jesus went thence, and departed into
the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. And, behold, a woman of Canaan
came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have
mercy on me, O LORD, thou Son of David! My daughter is grievously
vexed with the devil. Now this woman has an impressive
resume. She knows Who the Lord is? He's the Lord. He's the Son of
David, the promised Messiah. She came for the right thing.
Mercy, have mercy on me. And she came with a great need.
But look how our Lord responded to this woman. Verse 23. But he answered her, not a word. She cries for help. He doesn't
respond. She asked for mercy. He doesn't
respond. She dealt with nothing but silence. He wasn't answering her. Have
you ever been there? He answered her, not a word. Now, evidently, she kept crying. This didn't stop her. She continued
to cry, because we read that the disciples came and besought
Him, saying, Send her away, for she crieth after us. They seem
so hard-hearted here. This woman's driving us crazy.
Send her away. But He answered. He didn't answer
her. He said to His disciples. He answered and said, I'm not
sent, but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Now,
she heard what He said to His disciples. I've only come for
a particular people. I've only come for the lost sheep
of the house of Israel. I didn't come to save everybody.
Now here's what this woman hears. First, he doesn't respond to
her, and then she hears him speak to somebody else, not to her,
but to somebody else. I've only come for a specific
people. It could be that this woman is
not one of them. So what does she do after hearing
this? Verse 25, Then came she, and
worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. Now, here's the issue that must be
settled between you and God before He'll speak to you. The issue
of worship. This woman came and worshipped
him without response to what he did or did not do for her. She came and worshipped him.
Now at this time, he had not yet healed her daughter and she
didn't know whether he would. He had not spoken to her. He
had not spoken peace to her, yet she worshipped him. Now this
issue must be settled. The Lord is to be worshipped.
whether He does anything for me or you or not. He's to be
worshipped because He's the Lord. And if He doesn't do anything
for me, if He doesn't do anything for you, if He remains silent,
He's still worthy of worship because of who He is. And until
that issue is settled, we're not going to hear from Him. Is
He worthy of worship because of who He is? Well, this woman
knew that. Then came she and worshipped
him, saying, Lord, help me. If you don't help me, I will
not be helped. But he answered and said, now
he answers her. But he answered and said, it's
not neat. It's not right to take the children's
bread and to cast it to dogs. And what he's saying to this
woman is my gospel is only for my children. It's not for dogs. And the implication is you're
a dog. You're not fit for the gospel. Now, does she get mad
and turn around and leave? Look at her response, verse 27.
And she said, truth, Lord, that's the truth. Yet the dogs eat of
the crumbs which fall from their master's table. I'm not looking
for a place setting with the children, but I would be so thankful
for any crumbs of mercy that fall my way." Then Jesus answered and said
unto her, O woman, great is thy faith, be it unto thee even as
thou wilt. Now, do you see how she dealt
with the silence of God? Now, I want to look at another
passage of Scripture in closing about a man by the name of Bartimaeus.
In Mark chapter 10, beginning in verse 46. And they came to Jericho, and
as he went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great number
of people, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the
highway side, begging. And when he heard that it was
Jesus of Nazareth, evidently while he was begging, he heard
a great commotion. And he asked somebody, what's
going on here? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth passeth by. And when he heard that it was
Jesus of Nazareth, you see, he knew something about the Lord
Jesus Christ. He knew that the Lord Jesus Christ gave sight
to the blind. He'd heard that. And I'm sure
he thought if he ever comes by me, I'm going to call out for
his name. And when he heard that it was
Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, Jesus, thou
Son of David, have mercy on me. He continued to cry. He continued
to cry. Evidently, the Lord did not respond
to this cry because look what it says next in verse 48, and
then he charged him that he should hold his peace. Give up, Bartimaeus. Obviously, he's passing you by.
He's on his way and he's passing you by. He's going somewhere
else. But what did Bartimaeus do? The scripture says when they
told him to shut up, he cried the more. A great deal. Thou son of David, have mercy
on me. And Jesus stood still. Now, listen
to me. He always hears the cry for mercy. Somebody says, I've asked for
mercy. He didn't hear me. No, you didn't ask for mercy
because if you asked for mercy, he would have heard you. You
tried to strike a deal with him. You tried to bargain with him
and say, if you do this, I'll do that. He won't hear that. But
he always hears the cry for mercy. And Jesus stood still and commanded
him to be called. And they called the blind man,
saying unto him, Be of good comfort, rise, he calleth thee. And he,
casting away his garment, that filthy garment, that represents
his own righteousness. And if you ever come to Christ,
there's a garment you're going to cast away too, the garment
of your own filthy righteousness, you're going to see it for what
it is, you're going to come to Him to be clothed. He cast away
his garment and came to Jesus. And Jesus answered and said unto
him, What wilt thou that I should do unto thee? Now remember, salvation
is what He does to you, what He does for you, what He does
in you, not what you do for Him. What wilt thou that I should
do unto thee? And the blind man said unto Him,
Lord, that I might receive my sight. And Jesus said unto him,
Go thy way. Thy faith hath made thee whole,
and immediately he received his sight, and followed Jesus in
the way." If you're dealing with the silence of God, follow the
example of these two people. Worship Him for who He is, and
don't stop crying. Cry the more a great deal. Have
mercy on me, and you will hear from Him. We have this message
on cassette tape, on DVD and CD. If you call the church, write
or email, we'll send you a copy. This is Todd Kniper praying that
God will be pleased to make Himself known to you. That's our prayer.
Amen. To request a copy of the sermon
you have just heard, send your request to messages at toddsroadgracechurch.com. Or you may write or call the
church at the information provided on the screen.