The Wisdom and Weapon of Silence

This is from the blog Daily Meditation:

Job 13:5: Oh that you would keep silent, and it would be your wisdom!

Silence was used as a weapon of warfare when the children of Israel wanted to take over Jericho (Judges 6). For days they marched on God’s instruction around that impregnable wall, not saying a word.

They allowed their feet to speak of their intention to conquer Jericho and not their mouth. That is why it was said that action speaks louder than words.

When you act on the word of God, you do not need to shout for you to have result. Jesus told some servants to fetch water into certain containers to resupply wine to a wedding party. They did not need to say anything, except obey that instruction (John 2:1-11). They did not argue, wondering what their efforts have to do with the result they expect. They expected wine, but Jesus was asking them to walk and work, carrying burdens. And to carry burdens is the biblical symbolism for intercession.

The children of Israel wanted to conquer Jericho but they were asked to walk about it with the soldiers with their weapon, with the priest with the ark and some people ready to blow trumpets.

All of which means confrontation, but not of the verbal but spiritual kind. The soldiers with their weapon, reflects what happens in the realm of the spirit with the angelic warriors against the enemy.

The ark stands for the presence of God which is for the nation of Israel and against their enemy. And the trumpet is the divine word released for a change of season for the children of Israel. The three shows what is happening in the realm of the unseen. They are weapons of warfare, which the children of Israel were executing while their mouths were shut. It was spiritual. They acted on the word of God and those were the forces released through their silence. It creates the atmosphere for God to work. Silence says you trust God to act. It is a statement of faith in God. And the bible says that this is the victory which overcomes the world, even our faith.

The servants were to fetch water in six pots, and the children of Israel were made to go round Jericho for six days. The number six is the number of creation, standing for the six days the earth was made with man in it. Therefore in silence the creative force is unleashed.

What happened with the water turning into wine was nothing less than creation. And what the children of Israel got at the end of the journey around Jericho was negative creation, they needed something that had been formed, created/setup by the enemy to become non-existent. The needed the wall to fall before them.

It takes the force of creation to destroy what is. The enemy wants to keep the children of Israel out of what God had ordained for them. But they got in through the gate of silence.

Silence was wisdom, because it was what God commanded. They acted on God’s word and that made it effective. The silence was in obedience to God and they moved mountain because of that.

The wrong use of the mouth is sometimes worse than no use. That is what the story of Zechariah taught. Angel Gabriel came to Zechariah to announce the birth of his children, but instead of receiving the good news with excitement, he was sceptical (Luke 1).

He said how can these things be? Though he had prayed, he had stopped waiting, and when the gift of the child wanted was brought by the angel, he almost worked in disagreement. But to prevent that from happening, he was made dump.

God used the silence to move him from using his mouth wrongly to not using it well. And the next time he opened it to speak, he spoke the name of the child, which was followed by prophecies about the child. He was fully aligned with the mind of God. Silence (though enforced) changed him.

When Job was sick, and he complained against God, at the end of it all, when God had his own say, Job said that he had said things he did not understand, and thought he needed to repent. That would not be necessary if he had shut up earlier on (Job 42:1-6).

David prayed that the words of his mouth and the meditation of his mouth should be acceptable to God (Psalm 19:14). Sometimes what is acceptable is silence.

When Jesus was arrested and was being prosecuted for doing nothing wrong, he refused to put up a defence of himself, he did not attempt to try to get out of the situation. He was silent as a lamb before his slaughterer as it was prophesied he would (Isaiah 53:7).

His silence was a weapon of warfare which led to the end of the devil as an authority on the earth, at least in the ultimate sense. Through death he destroyed him who has the power of death, the devil.

If Jesus had defended himself the whole plan of salvation would have been aborted. Remember he is the creator, the word through whom the world was created (Hebrews 11:3, John 1:1-5, Colossians 1:16).

When the soldier came to pick him up at the garden of gethsemane, and Peter in defence of him took a sword and cut off one ear of someone there, Jesus put back the ear and said he could pray to his father to release more than twelve legions of angels there and it would be done (John 18:36, Matthew 26:47-56).

Later he said, this is the hour and power of darkness (Luke 22:47-53). He allowed himself to be walked on in order to fulfil his calling to be the Lamb of God, and make us walk in the high places (Ephesians 1:3).

So his silence is a symbol of sacrifice. So also you are called to make sacrifice to be all God wants you to be. If Jesus had his way maybe he would not have gone all the way to the cross, but he was commitment to the will of God and that demanded sacrifice.

There are direction you will not go, things you will not do, because of your commitment to the will of God.

Paul said everything is lawful to him but not everything is necessary, not everything edifies, not everything is beneficial, helpful, and not everything moves you in the direction of the plan and purposes of God. You cannot be everything, you cannot do everything. You therefore have to be “silent” to many things (1Corinthians 6:12; 10:23).

The bible recommended that wives use the weapon of silence to win over their unbelieving husbands (1Peter 3:1-6). They are to use the ornament of a quiet spirit, not being quarrelsome but submissive as a force of attraction. So in the battle to win the soul of the husband the “weapon of silence” is recommended. It is wisdom.

When you are quiet not agitated it means you are trusting in God. Those who trust in God are like mount Zion that cannot be removed (Psalm 125:1). That means there is no defence like silence. The bible rebuked those who trust in man as against trusting in God, saying that there place will be in the parched places of the earth, they cut themselves from the help of God (Jeremiah 17:5-8).

Paul wrote that the God of peace will soon crush the devil under our feet (Romans 16:20). When we walk in peace we have our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace and that is part of the armour of God that we wear in our conflict with the principalities and powers (Ephesians 6:10-12). Peace is a weapon of warfare. Silence is holding your peace (Exodus 14:14), which gives the platform for God to fight for you.

Why Silence?
The Art of War