About  Jesus    Steve Sweetman

Home Page

Silence Is Golden

It was May 1967.  The hit record entitled "Silence Is Golden", performed and sung by the Tremeloes, hit number 1 on Billboard magazine's top 100 songs of the week.  I pick up the phone and I call my friend.     

"Hi Rusty.  Want to hear my top 30 songs for this week"?

"Sure", Rusty replies.

Starting at number 30 I count down to number 1.  Rusty is a bit surprised that "Silence Is Golden" is my number 1 song for the second week in a row.  It's number 5 on his chart.  "I haven't really listened to the lyrics close enough to know what the song is about", says Rusty. 

"I haven't either.  I just like the song", I reply in typical nonchalant teenage fashion.  "I'd rather fill the airwaves with good music than silence any day".

"Me too", Rusty adds.   

Ten years later I sit in the living room of my first apartment.  I tell my wife that we shouldn't waste the airwaves with silence, so I place Bruce Cockburn's "In The Falling Dark" album onto my turntable and listen to "Lord of the Star Fields".   

Thirty plus years pass.  I sit beside my stereo.  Nothing emanates from the stereo speakers.  Not one musical note floats across the airwaves.  At the age of 60, I admit that I've come to appreciate the "sound of silence".  O yes, "The Sound Of Silence" - Simon and Garfunkel's number 1 song in 1966.  I still enjoy music, but sometimes I just want to sit in silence - no music, no TV, and especially no man made noise like cars, lawnmowers, and electric hedge trimmers.  If the motor to our refrigerator would stop humming and still keep things cold, that would be fine with me.    

As my wife sees me sitting in silence, she asks, "aren't you wasting the airwaves Steve"? 

"I guess so", I reply.  "Maybe I'm not stuck in the 60's as some think after-all".       

My thoughts turn to a weekend photo shoot my wife and I took at Mizzy Lake , a tiny lake in northern Ontario .  You drive as far as you can on a dirt road, and then you begin the 45 minute hike on foot.  Man made noise fades with each step you take through what seems to be some forgotten forest.  You're in the middle of nowhere.  You finally approach a clearing, and there it is, picturesque and pristine.  It's Mizzy Lake ; one solitary spot of splendor that quiets the busiest soul.  You take a deep breath, settle in by the water's edge, and allow yourself to be mesmerized by the wonders of the Lord.  The peaceful stillness penetrates every fiber of your being.  At times the birds cease to sing, the frogs forget to croak, and the breeze stops rustling through the leaves.  It's completely still.  It's pure unadulterated silence.  It's a mystical moment; a strange sort of silence that few ever hear or experience.            

"You're getting old Steve", my wife says as she wakes me from being lost in my thoughts.

"I guess so", I reply in somewhat of a daze.

I slip back into another mental scene of silence.  It's a future moment described in Revelation 8:1.  "When He opened the seventh seal there was silence in heaven for about a half hour". 

There I am, in the midst of a silent stillness never experienced by humanity.  Every cell in my body stands at attention before Elohim, the Almighty Creator.  All creation, both material and spiritual, is motionless.  Planets and stars stop dead in their tracks.  Electrons, protons, neutrons, and all subatomic particles stand still in suspended animation.  Creation is numb with expectation, waiting eagerly for the Almighty to make His next move.

Those who believed "poppa God" was their buddy stand in embarrassing shame.  This isn't "poppa God", a Christian pop culture fad propagated by the book entitled "The Shack".  Those who viewed God as some kind of all-purpose generic god stand in a stupefied numbness.  They realize that there is one specific Creator.  Atheists and Darwinians are astounded.  How could they have been so wrong.  New Agers who claimed to be divine shrink in humiliation.  They feel less than human.  Those awaiting the Twelve Imam and other personal messiahs sadly regret their misplaced trust.  Demons kneel in fearful dread, knowing their fate is at hand.  This is ultimate silence. 

If you ever get to Mizzy Lake , you'll surely enjoy the golden sound of silence, but that fails to resemble the unimaginable sound of silence to come.  That silence reflects who the Almighty really is.  He is the ultimate and final authority over all things.  There is no one close to being like Him.  He is one of a kind; the only one of His kind.  He is majestic.  He is Awesome.  He is unimaginable to the human imagination.  He is the "I AM"; always was and ever will be; living in the eternal present.  He has no rivals, no competition.  Only He is worthy of our worship, our adoration, our submission, our reverent fear, and our lives.  Really, Bruce Cockburn was right when he sang "Lord Of The Star Fields".

It's sad to say that in many respects modern Christianity has replaced Biblical fear of God with an unhealthy and sloppy familiarity.  Those who claim such familiarity with their "poppa God" are simply caught up in the imaginations of their minds.   

Elohim, the Almighty Creator of all things spiritual and material, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, will bring all things to a sudden and silent stand-still.  "Silence Is Golden" will be an understatement on the day the Almighty rises from His throne.    

Home Page