The Sound of Silence

Zephaniah 1:7
By Harold Dinsmore, M.Div.
© 2007 Harold Dinsmore

             In the book of Zephaniah we read this in chapter 1 and verse 7, “Be silent before the Lord God! For the Day of the Lord is at hand.  The Lord has prepared a sacrifice and consecrated his guests.”  I don’t know about you, but when I think I am before the Lord in prayer, I talk.  Prayer in my natural mind is talking to God.  Stop all that you are doing, God and listen to me.  Do you hear me?  That is usually our attitude when it comes to seeking God’s face.

            I really think God has an earful of us at times and he simply wants us to be quiet and listen to what he has to say.  We live in a world full of noise.  Sound is everywhere.  I have to sleep with a fan on most of the time.  Complete silence just doesn’t let me sleep.  Our noisy life begins each day with our alarm clock.  It continues with the sound of the morning news.  It continues on with the sound of traffic.  Most of elevators have music in them.  Our boss unloads a 20 minute speech on us when we get to work, the phone starts ringing, factories fire up their machines.  The sound and noise continues throughout the day, it follows us home, the TV is on, the radio blares, the neighbor’s dog keeps barking as we try to fall asleep.  Our world is chock full of noise and sound.

            Here in our passage Zephaniah cries out to be silent before the Lord.  Why so?  His reasoning is that the Day of the Lord is at hand.  The Day of the Lord is a reference to the coming of God in the flesh.  The Day of Judgment is coming when Christ returns to catch away the church.  This snatching away of believers is the beginning of judgment here upon the earth.