Keep Not Silent

“I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night: ye that make mention of the LORD, keep not silence,” (Isa 62:6 AV)

The temptation to keep silent grows greater the more people do not listen.  The more the message is rejected, the less motivated the messengers are to declare it.  The more it is ignored, the less purpose is seen in preaching it.  Yet, the LORD is very specific here.  Keep not silence. 

An analogy came to mind.  Imagine Noah has he is building the boat.  No doubt the beginning and the end was the time of greatest preaching.  The beginning, while the frame was assembled, the congregation was in full sight of Noah and his sons.  Preaching to the crowd would have been easy.  They were right out there in the open is the building of the Ark with all the activity could not be hid.  However, once framed in, the vast majority of the work would have been on the inside.  Noah and his sons would have to deliberately cease their inside work to preach to the congregation passing by.  It would have been difficult to stay motivated to preach without and audience passing by.  But then came the end of the project.  When they had to assemble the animals two by two.  This required them to be out and among the people again.  Preaching picked up.  The closer the floods of judgment came, the more involved in their world Noah and his sons became.  This is what the church must find herself doing!

There is this sense among the body of Christ the LORD is returning shortly, and as a result, the world is less responsive to the gospel message.  This may indeed be true.  But what we are doing is comparing the past with the present and defining a decline as a foregone failure.  As a result, we are declining to be aggressive in our witness around us.  This is just the opposite of what we are instructed to do.  We have allowed circumstances to dictate our outreach.  Noah went out and got the animals.  We need to go out and bring the gospel more and more into the homes and neighborhoods of the lost!  Never ceasing!  Never keeping silent!  Always abounding in the work of the LORD!