And an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing to the right of the altar of incense. Zacharias was troubled when he saw the angel, and fear gripped him. But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your petition has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will give him the name John. (v. 11-13)
We as Christians know God exists, but there are times when we become anxious about God’s seeming silence. It may feel like God is distant from us in moments when we desperately need His help, when our hearts cry out to God, “Why do You hide Your face?” (Job 13:24) But God is not silent under any circumstances. He is always working, accomplishing His sovereign will in His perfect timing. Based on our current passage in the first chapter Luke, we reflect on the reasons why God is not silent.
God loves His people. God will never abandon His elect, and nothing can ever separate us from His love. God did not forget Zacharias. By God’s will he was chosen by lot to perform priestly duties in the temple. (v.9) God reveals Himself to man; otherwise none would know Him, because in our sinful state we would never seek God ourselves. Do not listen to the lie that God would abandon you because of your sin. Jesus says He is the vine, and we are the branches. We are merely recipients; God is our supplier. He likens us to sheep, and He is our Good Shepherd. Unless the shepherd calls to the sheep, the sheep cannot respond. Jesus says God is our Father, and we are His sons. He is always with us to provide and care for us. (Jn 15:5; 10:3, 11) All these metaphors point to God’s everlasting love for His elect. He has demonstrated His own love for us, in that before we ever repented and followed Christ, He died for us. (Rom 5:8)
When God seems silent, the problem often lies in us. We doubt God’s love and presence. In times of prolonged suffering, we tend to trust our own rationality rather than God’s Word. (Job 7:4) Unbelief and doubt prevents us from seeing Jesus, and we register truth by the tumultuous waves of our emotions. Our disobedience hides God’s face from us, making Him seem hidden and silent. When your soul is in despair from longing for God’s presence, hope in God- leave the shell of your emotions and look to the unchanging truth in His Word. (Ps 43:5) God is here, ready to help you. Our God will not be silent to His elect.
God still speaks through His Word. God’s special revelation speaks as loudly and clearly as the voice of the angel that came to deliver God’s message to Zacharias. The Bible is God’s Word. It is living, active, sufficient and authoritative; it has the power of God that can make us wise unto salvation. (Rom 10:17) Obedience to Scripture brings blessings, and His Word nurtures and helps our conscience to live with the mind of Christ. We are able to endure all things by the Word of God, because through it, we hear the voice of God. (2Cor 4:7-10)
God loves to hear prayer. The central point in this excerpt of Luke’s account is how God heard Zacharias’ faithful and persistent prayers for his wife, Elizabeth. (v. 13) In a time when Zacharias could have simply divorced his barren wife, he instead turned to God in prayer. God heard his prayers, and He surely answered. Like Zacharias, we need to be convinced that God hears every one of our prayers. (Lk 18:1, 10) To pray is to come before the presence of God. When a believer truly believes God is not silent, he is already victorious. Pray by the Scriptures to experience God’s presence in prayer. Much of the Bible- like the Psalms- is designed to be prayed.
God wants you to have joy. Christians sometimes misunderstand God, thinking God loves to put us through misery and suffering with no purpose. It is not true. God disciplines those He loves. God wants us to be joyful. He rejoices over us, and He desires for us to rejoice in Him. Zacharias rejoiced in God’s promise of a son, despite the years of desperation he spent in prayer. In the same way, we can rejoice in God’s precious promises in Scripture. Those who know the Bible and receive it with faith can truly rejoice always, because every promise is fulfilled in Christ.
God is not silent. He loves us, speaks to us through His Word, hears our prayers, and gives us joy. We must therefore not be silent as well. By faith, through prayer and the Word, let us share with others the love of God that is found in the gospel of Jesus Christ. We can endure, for the joy of the Lord will be our strength. (Neh 8:10)
BIBLE COMMUNITY CHURCH 
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