Andrew E Mutton
Ecclesiastes 3: 1, 7 “A time to keep silence, and a time to speak”
Mark 14: 53-62
1 Kings 18: 21-22, 40; 19: 1-3, 8-18
Exodus 4: 10-17
I have been arrested by this reference in Ecclesiastes, “A time to keep silence, and a time to speak”. Naturally, it is a very difficult thing to work out. Some of us speak too much, and that can be a frustration to others. Some of us do not speak nearly enough. That can also be a frustration. But to have the ability and the sensitivity to distinguish between a time to keep silence and a time to speak is, I think, something that is to be desired and discerned by a believer on the Lord Jesus. The setting of this scripture in Ecclesiastes is that there are certain things that apply to all men - all men, all women, all children. Naturally speaking, the writer says, “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heavens”. There is a time for it; there is a season. It begins with, “A time to be born, and a time to die”. Everyone here knows when they were born. You children, you all know your birthday. You may even know the specific time at which you were born. I know that I was born at a quarter to four. That is very special to me, or it was when I was at school, because that was going home time, and I never forgot that! But the one thing I do not know is when it will be my time to die. I do not know that. God knows that. I do not; you do not. But there is a time, a season to everything, and the writer speaks of it here when he says, “A time to keep silence, and a time to speak”. This is a very sensitive thing. You will notice the wording, “A time to keep silence”, not a ’time to be silent’ - “A time to keep silence”, a very deliberate thing. Sometimes, we make an awful mess of it, do we not? We speak when we should not and we do not speak out when we should. We get ourselves in an awful muddle. The scripture is very clear: there is “A time to keep silence”; a time when maybe we have to just keep our thoughts, and what we want to say, to ourselves. But then there comes a time to speak, and we will look into that in the scriptures that we have read.
With that in mind, I turn to Mark’s gospel because we see in our Lord Jesus the perfect example of a time to keep silent and a time to speak. I was torn between reading here and reading in Isaiah 53. You see the perfection of a Man here on the earth, a great Man, but a Man, and He had the ability, as you and I do, to keep silence and to speak; and He does it perfectly. We should learn from the Lord Jesus here as a Man in this respect. The conditions here in Mark’s gospel were unbelievably hostile. We think we live in a hostile world. Dear brother, dear sister, dear young person, you have never been in a circumstance such as the Lord Jesus was in here. We have all been in situations where people are accusing us of things, maybe falsely, but I would suggest that no-one in this room has been in a situation where whatever you did and whatever you said, or whatever you did not say, the end would be that you would be put to death. This is the situation in which our Lord Jesus was. Men were bearing false witness against Him. They were telling lies about this blessed Man, the One who had walked amongst men doing nothing but good; healing, helping, praying, here as a Man from whose hand was dispensed the greatest gifts and help that a man could give, with all the power of a divine Person but in manhood’s form. And here He was, surrounded by those shouting and jeering and falsely accusing Him. Would that not be enough for you to seek to justify yourself? I know I would; I would have a good try at justifying my position, and saying why I was right and they were wrong, and, ’No, I had not said that, and this is what I meant when I did say that’. They said, “We heard him saying ... The high priest said, Answerest thou nothing? … But he was silent, and answered nothing". He kept silence. How much He could have said! How much was there in that precious body, in that Man, that could have been said at that time; “But he was silent, and answered nothing”. What a lesson for us to take account of! What a precious, precious example of One so full of God’s will that there was absolutely no need, not even the desire, to justify Himself. It is one of the strongest urges - it is for me anyway. Someone says, ’Well, you said this’. You may answer, ’Yes, I know I said it but I really did not mean that’; “But he was silent, and answered nothing”. Isaiah says, “as a sheep dumb before her shearers, and he opened not his mouth”, chap 53: 7. “Who, when reviled, reviled not again”, 1 Pet 2: 23. This is a beautiful feature of the Lord Jesus Christ, to be able to keep silence in the presence of the greatest provocation. This was such a melee. These were lies and falsehoods; this was an argument that they could not even agree upon amongst themselves. Was this Man, this precious Man, to stoop to that level? No, His face was set, His path was marked out. The time had come for Him to fulfil that will of which we have spoken already earlier today - the will of Another. The Lord Jesus was not going to answer those who accused in such a spirit. I understand as to the type of the sheep that the sheep can endure the greatest suffering. It is an animal that can endure a lot of suffering, and Isaiah uses that type. What opposition, what falsehoods the Lord Jesus Himself endured, “But he was silent, and answered nothing”. May that spirit be a little more with us! We are so quick, I am so quick - I am sorry, I do not wish to accuse the brethren - to answer back, to answer with my opinion. As we were saying today in prayer, it is not my opinion that counts: it is what God wills, and the will of God at this point was that this precious Man should go onwards to the cross, to suffer and to die, to shed His precious blood. His desire for you is that you live here according to that will, and that you should be here displaying the features of Christ that were so pleasing to Him. Are you going to answer back your accusers? There is a time to speak. We will come to that, but to keep silence, this is a precious thing, and the Lord Jesus kept silence.
But then the high priest speaks to Him again. He says, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?”. I had never noticed it in such a way before. I had always thought that the Lord Jesus remained silent throughout this time. I obviously had not read the scripture carefully enough. But He is asked this question, and now He answers. There was a time to speak. You will notice it was the high priest who asked Him, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus said, I am”. He is not answering the argument and all the confusion around Him. He is speaking of the greatness of His Person and He is answering the chief priest in relation to the place that this precious Man had in regard to His people, Israel. He says to him, “and ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power”. This was a time to speak; a Man wearing garments that were so meagre, indicating a lowly position; a Man who was to be mocked and buffeted; a Man who was accused by everyone and He says, “and ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power”. Oh, the time to speak presented itself gloriously here. The nation of Israel will yet see the Son of man sitting in power “and coming with the clouds of heaven”. This was the time to speak. Our Lord Jesus was absolutely able to divide perfectly between those two things. Accusation and confusion meant He kept silence, but when it came to speaking, He was able to speak of the glory of that which was in Himself and that which would be available for His people. It is a wonderful thing, I think, to contemplate the perfection in which this was executed here upon the earth at the time of greatest trial. The time of greatest trial for me brings out the greatest lack of ability to discern what should be said and what should not. For the Lord Jesus, what it brought out was His perfection.
I turn now to 1 Kings. I would like to speak as to Elijah as to a time to keep silence and then speak as to Moses as to a time to speak. I suggest that Elijah here is an example of when we need to keep silence. I feel the edge of it as those who know me will understand the difficulty I have naturally of keeping silence, but Elijah here drew near to the people and says, ’You are wondering between two opinions. Can you not make up your minds?’. He says, “if Jehovah be God, follow him; and if Baal, follow him”. There are lots of tests at the present time, and there are many things that frustrate and tend to push us into a course of action very quickly, but keeping silence is the way to hear what God would say. It is the way to hear it. As we spoke of it earlier on, if we get into the presence of God and we fill all the time we spend there with things that we want, it does not allow time for God to speak. To keep silence allows God to speak His mind and to show us what is in His heart for us.
I have some sympathy with Elijah, as he must have felt extremely frustrated here. He acts on it where we read in verse 40. He slaughters the prophets of Baal, but then he comes to Jezebel and she says, ’Well, for doing that, you are going to die too’; and he runs away. He runs to a good place. He runs to Horeb, the mount of God. You say, ’Well, that is a good place to run’, but you find as soon as he gets there he is still very self-righteous, he is still quite full of himself. Oh, how like us that is! You run to the right place. You say, ’I am all right. I am still going to the meetings. I still do the right things. I turn up every week night. I do what the brethren expect me to do’. Jehovah comes to him, “And [Elijah] said, I have been very jealous”. He says, “for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I am left, I alone”. I wonder how often we feel like that, ’I am the only one doing right; I am the only one who sees this clearly’. What noise, what confusion was in the mind of Elijah, and Jehovah was there and Jehovah listened. He listened to him. How gracious God is. We get caught up with the turmoil and turbulence of our lives, whether it be domestically or testimonially. We can get caught up with the turmoil of it. Beloved brethren, let us take time to keep silence and to hear what it is God would have to say. I think He would delight to say it. He would always be ready to say it, but He did not have the opportunity here because Elijah was too busy telling Him how good he was and how bad His people were, and you will remember what God’s thoughts were of someone who spoke out against the people. You will remember what He said to Moses. He denied him going into the land because of the way he spoke about His people. Let us not do that. With regard to such a situation, let us learn to keep silence.
And so these other things come. I think Elijah would have been pleased with any one of these things, the wind, the earthquake, the fire. At this point he was so worked up, he would have been quite glad if Jehovah had brought one of these to bear upon the situation, but then, as he learns to keep silence, he hears a soft gentle voice, and after he heard that “he wrapped his face in his mantle”. Elijah was starting to disappear out of sight. How many times has God had to do that to me or to you? I may be very vocal about something and then, in all the noise, I am not hearing the answer. There is an earthquake, there is a fire, there is a great wind and I still do not hear the answer. Why? Because there is such turmoil and I am so confused. The situation is confusing. And then comes the soft gentle voice and “he wrapped his face in his mantle”. I love to think that the second time he repeats these words he would say them in a much quieter voice. Scripture does not tell us that, so I would be glad to be adjusted, but I think when his face was wrapped in his mantle he would not be quite so belligerent as the first time. He still would have been true, he still would have felt it, but now God is pleased to answer him and he hears. Some of the answers were quite difficult and potentially involved a lot of pain and exercise, but God speaks to him. He still says, “and I am left, I alone”, and God says, ’Well, just let me tell you something. This is what is going to happen.’ He even names the people who are going to do it. We were speaking earlier on about answers to our prayers. This is a very specific answer. God does not always catch us by surprise when He answers our prayers. Sometimes He is very specific, and there is absolutely no mistaking what it is He says, and here He says, ’This is what is going to happen and, by the way, although you think you are the only one left, I have got seven thousand. And Elijah, you have been making so much noise, you have been so worried about this thing, that you have not even identified one of them’. What a solemn thing. I may be so worked up and so self-righteous that I know what is right, that I have not seen seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal. Oh, beloved brethren, that we might see God’s view of what is precious and what is worthwhile for Him. I find this extremely difficult. My first response is to talk and to act and want to do something, but to keep silence is very precious to God. It would allow Him to show me what He is doing. It would allow Him to show us what is precious to Him. He says, “all the knees that have not bowed unto Baal”. Now bowing knees are very precious to God. Every single one at some time is going to bow to Jesus, every single one. Would that I could identify all seven thousand now who have not bowed the knee to Baal. Let us cast our nets wider than we maybe sometimes think, and recognise that God’s work is very precious, wherever it is, and He has it and He continues to work with it. Maybe I cannot always be linked on with it in practical fellowship but the work continues, and it is for God, but I need to keep silence to be able to hear it and to allow it into my heart.
I pass on now to Moses because there is also a time to speak. “And Moses said to Jehovah, Ah Lord! I am not eloquent, neither heretofore nor since thou hast spoken to thy servant”. He says, ’I have never been good at speaking and now you want me to speak to all the people and to Pharaoh. You want me to take up on your behalf speaking great words’. He says, ’I am not able; I am not able to do it’. I guess we have all felt like that at some time. It is a good way to feel, not able to do it, because what that means is that we become dependent. We spoke of that in the reading and I make no apology for returning to it. Dependence on God for everything is a key to great blessing. He says, ’I am not eloquent, I cannot do it’. My own experience is that if you try to speak for God in any supposed eloquence or ability of yourself, you will fail. God says to him, “I will be with thy mouth, and will teach thee what thou shalt say”. Now that is a precious thing, is it not? “I will be with thy mouth”. God can give you the words. Dear young brother, as you stand up to pray, God will be with your mouth. Do not worry about what it is that you have to say, as God will provide it. Moses here felt unable for the task. We all sometimes feel unable for what God gives us to do, but He is with us. I would like to speak just briefly about three different areas in which it is a time to speak, and in all of them God will be with our mouths, and will give us what to say. The brethren will understand that I do not speak as having experience in these areas, but can see that they are important.
The first is in the area of evangelism. It is very, very vital that the word of God is with us as we seek to evangelise. It is now the time to do the work of an evangelist. I have heard many say, certainly in recent times, that the brethren are not evangelical enough. As far as I can see, that is not true, because I see the evangelical work of many. It maybe does not go on in a very great outward way, but I know there is a generation younger than me who are far more evangelical than my generation ever was. They are happy to speak to one another and to others about their faith in the Lord Jesus, consistently more so than I did when I was in my teens. The work of an evangelist is vital. It is vital, and it needs to proceed now, and it needs to proceed in power, but also in the dignity of the whole scope of the gospel. It should proceed not just as relieving people from their sins and from the burden of sin, but it should sound out with the whole of the truth encapsulated in the great message from God. It relieves men, it brings them into blessing, it brings them into touch with what is so great as to Christ and His assembly, and it brings them into touch with the service of God. Evangelising at the present time is a very precious and needed service. May we all take it up in our own measure. Some of us feel limited in speaking in the open air. Do not worry about that. If you do not feel able for that, do not worry about it. You have plenty of opportunity to speak to your colleagues at school, at work, those you come into contact with. There is no limit to the opportunity to evangelise and to speak of the grace of God in providing Christ as a Saviour. Take it up! Take up the work! It is the time to speak. The fields are white unto harvest. Take up that work, but do it as God puts the words in your mouth. Do not bring it down to any lesser level than the greatness and scope of the gospel that God has provided. Do it according to Him.
Secondly there is what we might refer to as being able to speak a word in its season. Now, I find this extremely difficult. There may be a lot of need. There may be someone who needs a word to be said, a word of encouragement, of exhortation. Maybe it is primarily one to one and you may be the person called upon to say it, a word of comfort, a word of encouragement. Are you ready to speak? That is a time to speak. I would just relay an example where I failed very badly. I was working in Ireland and was in Dublin with a colleague of mine. I had worked with him for about ten years; so I knew him well. We had been working all day and we were about to have something to eat in the evening, and he said he needed to ask me something. To be honest, I was not really listening because I was quite hungry, and he said again, ’I need to ask you something’. I said, ’What is it?’ He said, ’Well, my mother has just died and I want you to tell me where she has gone’. Well, I did not know what to say. I could speak to that man about his soul. I could speak to him about a Saviour for himself. What could I say to him that would bring in any sense of relief or comfort with regard to someone who had already died? It lives with me today - my failure to speak to that man properly, to bring in the proper word in its season. It is a real gift to be able to do that. There are those who are able to do it, to speak to those who are widowed, bereaved, suffering. If it is something that God has given into your hand to be able to do, do it. Speak. Sometimes we can overdo it. I will maybe say the wrong thing when a word in season is needed. Maybe someone else has that gift to draw alongside and to speak to someone who needs a word. I do not know to this day whether that man has got an answer. I was able to speak the gospel to him very simply but on that day he did not want to hear that. He has spoken to me since and we have spoken about the gospel, but he wanted an answer then that I was unable to give. Oh that we would have the ability and the gift and the sensitivity to draw alongside souls in need! Everyone here will know someone like that who has a need, who needs an answer. Can you bring it in? Are you close enough to God to have His words in your mouth, not you thinking up an answer, not me thinking up an answer, but God’s word for a soul in need, a word in its season.
Lastly, I would just refer to probably the greatest time to be able to speak and that is in the service of God. To be able to have part in the service of God is the greatest privilege we have at the present time, to be able to open our mouths and to speak or to sing, taking part in God’s service. What a tremendous thing it is! What a privilege to be able to do so! I would just encourage all, and I would encourage my younger brethren particularly, to take up that privilege, to speak and to take part in the service of God. It is what He has set you free for, “Let my son go, that he may serve me” (v 23), that you may find your part vibrantly, livingly, rejoicingly in His service. Do you know what it is to have your part in that? We can all sing, we can all lift up our voices. Do you pour your heart into the songs of praise and the songs of worship that arise at the time of the service of God? It is a great, great privilege to have your part in it and to stand on your feet, if you are a brother, and give expression and to serve God in praise, particularly towards the end of the morning meeting, as a sense of worship fills your heart, as God in His greatness and in His majesty fills your hearts and fills your sight. We are standing there in His presence, in His sanctuary, with the Minister of the sanctuary leading the praise and with the Spirit of God empowering us to take part in it. I wonder, are we ready to speak, to use these God-given voices to give to God what is so rightly due to Him? I would encourage all, all who have the desire to do it, to make that step, increase what is rendered to God in His service. May there be an increase! There is much need. We have spoken of that and of what we may need to do by way of speaking, but there is a time to speak in the presence of God and in His service.
I might just say in closing that there is also then a time for silence. We touched on this a couple of weeks ago at home as to the woman in John 4 where the Lord said to her, “they who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth” (v 24), and it may be just at that moment in the service of God that there is that power for all to worship in silence. There is room for both. May we know more of it! For His Name’s sake.
Bristol
11th June 2011