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400 Years of Silence Psalm 37:4 NIV Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Have you ever been given the silent treatment? It’s a painful time when my wife is ignoring me and won’t tell me why. She just remains silent. The silent treatment can be a short period of time until the silence is broken with explanation or it can drag on for days which seems like an eternity. I will often ask her to please tell me why she’s not speaking to me. “What can I do to fix it?” Have you ever wondered what happened in the time between the Old Testament and the New Testament? Between Malachi and Matthew, that is referred to as the 400 years of silence. Was God giving the Jewish people the silent treatment? Was there something they did to cause Him to be silent? At the end of Malachi, he prophesied that a messenger similar to Elijah was coming to prepare the way for the Lord. Malachi 4:5-6 ESV “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. 6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.” Many believe that messenger to be John the Baptist. John denied that it was him in a very humble way. There’s also speculation of Elijah’s return in Revelation 11. It’s at that time a messenger prepares the way for the Lord Jesus to bring about the Lord’s judgement on the earth as Malachi referenced in his final message to the Israelites. When the Book of Malachi wraps up it is with an abrupt ending leaving us hanging on the edge of our seats, like an action thriller will leave us wanting more. Historians have been able to fill in what happened in those 400 years. The missing pieces. For instance, the Temple was functioning more in the opening of the New Testament than it was at the close of the Old Testament. There are groups like the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Sanhedrin that have been formed since the closing of the Old Testament. There were a lot of wars that took place during that period. As the Old Testament closes Cyrus the Great and Persia are the superpowers. When the New Testament opens the Romans have come onto the scene and are ruling. Greek has become the new language, with Hebrew now in the distance. During this period, Israel lost its independence, regained it and lost it again. Just as the song Way Maker lyrics remind us, Even when I don’t see it, You’re working
Even when I don’t feel it, You’re working
You never stop, You never stop working God was still at work just as He has for the last 2000 years. It’s more of a prophetic silence than the silence of God. The priesthood had been restored and the Jews stopped worshipping idols. But Malachi still gave the warning about the coming judgement of the Lord because they were mistreating their wives, marrying pagans, not tithing, and the priests had rejected the temple. They were no longer teaching the people the ways of God and were not honoring Him. It’s as if they had forgotten God. In the Family Circus Comic Strip, little Billy is sitting on the side ofthe bed saying his prayers with his mom watching. With folded hands he says, “Bless mommy twice and bless daddy twice.” In the next frame he looks up as his mom, who’s looking a bit confused and says to her, “I forgot my prayers last night.” In the chaos of the world, we too, at times can forget about saying our prayers. It’s even possible to forget about God even being present. There is so much going on that can divert our attention away from God. It’s possible this is where the Israelites ended up for those 400 years. They had forgotten about God and His purpose for them. In our opening verse from Psalm 37:4 the psalmist reminds us the taking delight in the Lord is pursuing what God desires us to pursue, which is the things of God. To “delight in the Lord” is to enjoy all the blessings found in Him. They are from Him and can only be enjoyed when we understand that we are to delight in the Giver more than the gifts. How many times have you received a gift and didn’t write a “Thank You” note? You enjoyed and might even still enjoy the gift but may have even forgotten who gave you the gift. In that case you are no longer delighted in the Giver. God the Giver gave freedom to the Israelites time and time again and they have still forgotten Him and His gift of freedom He gave them. They may have been back in their land during those 400 years but it wasn’t without challenges, uprisings, take-overs, and other kingdoms ruling over them. During the 400 years several prophecies were fulfilled including Daniel 8:14 (ESV) And he said to me, “For 2,300 evenings and mornings. Then the sanctuary shall be restored to its rightful state.” Though they were in the homeland they were under the rule of the Romans and under a lot of pressure. The people did not put to good use this time to study scripture, to seek God, or to prepare for the coming Messiah. They no longer delighted in the Lord. Their hearts were distracted from their true worship of God. They needed someone to come and rescue them from the captivity they felt under the weight of the Romans. They needed for God to speak to them. They needed a messenger to give them hope of being rescued. They needed the promised Messiah. When Jesus, the Messiah, entered the picture He didn’t fit their expectations of what the Messiah would be. “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” Jesus was more than good, He was the Messenger, the Rescuer, the Giver of hope for the future kingdom from which He came. John 3:16 ESV “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” God wasn’t silent, He was ignored. God is just as present today as He was during those 400 years. Don’t ignore Him, but give Him you’re undivided attention. Amen?
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