When Silence Is A Sin

“Do you indeed speak righteousness, O congregation (lit: silent ones)? Are you judging uprightly, all you children of men?” (Psalm 58:1).

There are times when silence speaks volumes. Failure to speak up and condemn what is evil is either cowardice or complicity. Our nations have watched the horror happening to Israel and every leader that has maintained a smug silence will not go unpunished by God.

Not only is silence in the face of evil condemned by God, but silence in the face of Good. Jesus was good, righteous, and holy. He gave life, healing, hope, and help everywhere He walked. When Jesus was being betrayed to death by the corrupt leaders, the people who loved Him, children included, sang His praises. The leaders said, “Tell them to be silent!” Jesus said, “If these should hold their peace, the rocks would cry out.”

Let’s flip the script. In this day when anyone with a beating heart and functioning brain should be able to call what we’re seeing “evil,” and they don’t, the Bible says, “Our God shall come and will not keep silent.” He declares by His own mouth… “I will execute vengeance in anger and fury upon the nations, such as they have never heard” (Micah 5:15).

As Christians we must not be silent. We carry a message of love, pardon, hope, and everlasting life through Christ. But we also carry a warning of coming wrath. Because of the Cross, “God commands all people everywhere to repent, for He has appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom He has pointed out - of which He furnished proof to all mankind by raising Him from the dead” (Acts 17:31).

A Day of reckoning is very near.

(Devotional by Lisa Cataford)