A Time to Speak

“To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven…a time to keep silence, and a time to speak” (Ecclesiastes 3:1, 7b).

No doubt there are times when it is better to be silent than to say something.  The old idiom “speech is silver, but silence is golden,” often abbreviated as “silence is golden,” may well express that sentiment.

On the one hand, the devil would like you to speak filthy words, hurtful words, lies, sharp injuring words, etc., and in those cases we need to button our lips and examine our hearts.  “Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one” (Col 4:6).  And “Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers” (Eph 4:29).

But the devil will work it from both ends.  He schemes to get us to say what we shouldn’t and schemes to get us to not say what we should.  And thus he would like you to be silent when God says “speak”.

The religious leaders of the Jews, in the early days of the church, wanted to shut up the apostles from speaking the truth, and thus they commanded them “not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus” (Acts 4:18).  But the apostles’ response was right and worthy of emulation by us: “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge.  For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard” (v.19-20).  We need to speak the truth of the gospel to the lost of the world.  No man will be saved apart from faith, and faith cannot come except by hearing (Rom 10:17).

Timothy, an evangelist in Ephesus, was urged to “Preach the word!  Be ready in season and out of season” (2 Tim 4:2).  Why was it so urgent for him to do so?  Because there would come a time when the saints would not endure sound doctrine but would, with itching ears, get teachers who would tell them what they wanted to hear, turning away from the truth (vss. 3-4).  In other words, speak it now, while you have opportunity, whether they want it or don’t want it.

The devil would be happy for saints to not say a thing when a man teaches error.  The devil would be happy for a man to speak opinions instead of the Word, and nobody say anything about it.  The devil would be happy for Christians to be silent as a tomb while a man, even unintentionally, leads others astray.  The devil would be happy for the Christian to remain silent while a brother is caught up in sin, for he knows that if the brother is not turned back to the truth then he has gained a soul destined for death (Jas 5:19-20). All too often, the silent are proud to profess a false humility, for “who am I to help correct another?”  Yet love for God, for truth, and for brother demands those who are spiritual to speak.

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek” (Rom 1:16).  The gospel is the power of God unto salvation.  Not surprisingly then, the devil wants Christians to shut up.  With courage we need to speak the gospel, and we need to speak it boldly as well as in love (Eph 6:19; 4:15).