Silence of the lamb, muzzles, and straitjackets

By Steve Qualls - Christpoint Church

If you want to silence something, you have to either kill it or make it disappear. Now, when we do silence something and it doesn’t remain silenced, then we will enforce harsher penalties. If dogs keep barking, owners have been known to muzzle them or buy a bark collar. If a voice speaks against the political flow, the powers that be tend to destroy their image and defame their name in order to silence their message. But what about the times when God was silent? What could man possibly do that would cause a silencing of God in our lives?

In the Old Testament, Israel spent 430 years in Egyptian slavery. It seemed that God had placed them there and forgot about them. He didn’t act, and he especially didn’t speak as one generation flowed into many. God became silent for that duration, not to punish them but to grow them. They went into Egypt as a family but came out a nation. Sometimes the lamb is silent so that we may grow. No one knows what would have happened to Israel if they had not sought refuge in Egypt those many years earlier. No one knows if they may have all perished in the famine or scattered throughout the land. But, in Egypt, they multiplied greatly. They weren’t committing sins or worshipping idols under the watchful eye of their father, Jacob. God didn’t punish them with his silence during their time in Egypt. He saved them and kept them immobile long enough in one place to become that great nation he spoke to Abraham about. God broke that silence with a deliverer named Moses whom he used to break the hold the Pharaoh had on his people and to set them free.

Another such silence is also noticed as we move out of the Old Testament and into the New. The last warning or word from God to Israel in the Old Testament was approximately 430 years before Jesus. But, this time, the silence was more man-made than God-ordained. Israel had slipped into sinful relationships, disrespected the Godly relationship in tithing, and, in short, had dishonored God. A word from the Lord was spoken through the prophet Malachi, and then the silence began. We don’t hear anything else from God nor was there anything recorded until he broke his silence in the New Testament book of Matthew.

Once again the people had been a long season in a famine of the word of God. He broke the first silence with a deliverer. He broke the second with a savior. When he delivered Israel, he sent Moses with plagues and diseases upon the land. When Jesus was born and the second silence was broken, he brought new life through grace and new power through salvation. Moses touched the land; Jesus touches the heart.

We’ve just celebrated Easter differently than ever before. Our land has been touched, and it seems the lamb is silent. We find ourselves in this country crying out for another Moses instead of Jesus. We want to be delivered from disease and freed from captivity in order to break the silence and go about our normal lives. But, what we seem to forget is that the same God that darkened Egypt is the same God that darkened the skies over three crosses on Golgotha. The same God that turned a family into the greatest nation on earth is the same God that conquered death, hell, and the grave on Easter morning. The same God that breaks through the silence is the same God that wants to break through our tough skin. Remember this, Israel thought Egypt was too powerful, that Rome was too mighty, and that Saul of Tarsus was too evil, but he somehow seemed to conquer all three for the freedom of his people.

Jesus wants to free your soul and deliver your mind. If he is silent, maybe it’s because we have muzzled him, put him in a straitjacket, and placed him in quarantine. Maybe we will come out of quarantine from our homes when Jesus is freed in our hearts. Stop silencing the lamb in your life.

We’re Christpoint strong. We’re currently meeting live in the parking lot at our Smithville campus, drive-in style, at 9 a.m. and 11 a.m., on Sunday mornings. We’re live on Facebook, and you can view our services on Ben Lomand DTC and our YouTube channel.

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