Silence before the storm!

Silence before the storm!

Have you noticed how quiet things become just before a storm. I was busy at the back of our house some time ago. I noticed that everything around me became extraordinarily quiet. The chirping of the birds stopped, the wind stopped, in fact, everything seemed to anticipate that something was about to happen.

Storms normally come from the other side of our house, so I didn’t notice the approaching storm. The sudden silence caught my attention and I realized that something was about to happen. As I walked to the front of our home the first drops of rain started falling and by the time I reached the front, the gushing wind started bending tree branches and blowing dust and rain against the windows of our home.

This incident reminds me of an idiom we use: “This is just like the silence before the storm”. When we use this idiom in Afrikaans it means that everything was good and normal before things started going wrong.

I was reading Matthew 24:38 “For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, 39 and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.”

Before the second advent of Christ, people will continue with their lives as normal. Just as I was doing “my own thing” at the back of my home, people will be oblivious to the impending coming storm of God’s judgement. This judgement will come upon all who haven’t been washed from their sin in the blood of the Lamb. Just prior to the Great Flood, the masses were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage. These were normal everyday things, and it was exactly these “normal” things which kept them from heeding the warnings of Noah.

Picture all the animals entering the ark, picture Noah and his family entering, and God closing the door and sealing it. Picture a moment of silence. Nature is waiting in anticipation for something to happen. Then it happens!!! There is a huge flood and only 8 people were saved. Is it possible that the normal everyday things distracted them from heeding the warning signs?

Christ Jesus gave another example in Luke 17:28-29. He said: “Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all.”

We read that the people of Sodom ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, and they built. Business as usual! After Lot and his family left Sodom, the city was destroyed. Maybe nature also anticipated the coming judgement and became silent for a moment!

There is a “judgement storm” coming when the Lord Jesus Christ return to this earth. When He returns, He will judge the living and the dead. The regenerate will escape His judgement but the unregenerate will face the storm of Christ’s judgement.

When Jesus came the first time, He came as the Lamb of God and the Suffering Servant; but when He comes the second time He is the Lion of Judah, the King and Judge.

There are millions of people in the world who are eating, drinking, buying things, selling things, planting, and building things just like the people in the days of Lot. There are millions of people today who are eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage as in the days of Noah. They are completely unaware of the coming storm of God’s judgement.

I believe we are listening to the silence before the storm! The question is: “Will we warn those who are continuing with their lives as if nothing is about to happen”? Will we be silent before the coming storm or will we speak out? The unregenerate need to hear the call while there is still time?

Beloved, can you hear the silence?