When Silence is Betrayal

AdairsvilleJanuary 29, 2022  The present is a time of overwhelming interest to all living. Rulers and statesmen, men who occupy positions of trust and authority, thinking men and women of all classes, have their attention fixed upon the events taking place about us. They are watching the relations that exist among the nations. They observe the intensity that is taking possession of every earthly element, and they recognize that something great and decisive is about to take place—that the world is on the verge of a stupendous crisis.Education ————-Here on the top of Mt. Tabor, we can see the valley below. Israel is watching. They too recognize something great and decisive is about to take place. The morning had started out with a typical bright desert sunrise…but storm clouds seemed to be brewing… Judges 4 - 1-7 ——————————————-In a land where metal weapons were exceedingly rare, King Jabin and the Commander of the Armed Forces - Sisera commanded nine hundred chariots of iron that made the plain of Esdraelon tremble as they rolled along in procession.  These weren’t just any chariots - they were the new 900 Series with iron wheels, iron trim, and 4 foot diamond sharpened glittering blades jutting out of the center of each of the chariot wheels. As they spun at a few thousands RPMs, they would mow down an army like mowing through your grass. And the frightened Hebrews would often peer down from the hills and thought that Jabin must be a mighty king, that Jabin and Sisera must be obeyed, all because of those chariots of iron - the flaunting symbol of that civilization’s military industrial complex.  God was ready to deliver his people. All they had to do was ask and finally they were asking. It had been 20 long years under the reign of Jabin and Sisera. Judges 4:8-9 Every day Deborah listened to their tales of grief and their stories of pain and their record of oppression, the conviction grew in her mind that her people were tired of being afraid:  her people must be led to overcome their fear of those chariots of Jabin and Sisera.  And so Deborah went about breaking the dark spell of discouragement and despair that hung over the Israelites.  She taught them how to believe again in a God who can do mighty miracles, and she taught them how to pray again.  And men and women, teenagers….began to change. Deborah found herself at the heart of a genuine religious revolution, and she understood that the time had come for action.  And so she sent a message to the strongest man she could find, a tribal chief with the interesting name of Barak who lived one hundred miles to the north. —the man whose very name meant “lightning”—he refused to go into battle unless Deborah went with him. And Deborah didn’t hesitate. She could have. She was a mother in Israel, she was the voice of the nation. She was the voice of God to the people.There was no concern that she was a woman in a culture run by men… She knew that God’s biddings were and are His enablings. And down on the broad plain of Esdraelon, Sisera must have smiled to himself.  ‘Bring it on,’ he thought, perhaps like Goliath just a few years later, shouting “come down to us…with your sticks and stones.” Remember metal weapons weren’t common in Israel.  And when a man has nine hundred chariots of iron, he longs for something to do with them. Just like when the land of the free spends nearly 700 Billion dollars a year funding ‘defense’, some long for something to do with all these weapons…. But Sisera had made all of his calculations as though there was no God in the heavens watching out for His chosen people.  Sisera foolishly thought just like all of God’s enemies do that he was only dealing with a weak and pathetically helpless people, The Battle —-Judges 4:10 Fast Forward over 1100 years, Paul is writing Hebrews and reminds us never to forget… the hero of this story….well let’s read it - Hebrews 11:32 You can imagine how perhaps that scene unfolded. As do many stories in the old testament…God often uses his creation to confound the wise. Perhaps a storm of sleet and hail burst over the plain from the east in the face of Sisera and his men Slingers and archers were limited. Others were stung by the cold Deborah and all Israel had the storm to their back. Flooding begins swelling the Kishon River Chariots begin sinking in mud. Whatever happened, God showed up! “The Song of Deborah” recorded in Judges 5 is treated by believer and skeptic alike as one of the greatest pieces of poetry of the ancient world.  But in the midst of all this celebration and thanksgiving, there’s a note of great anger and bitterness.  In the 23rd verse of Judges 5, we read these lines that seem so strangely out of place: “Curse Meroz, says the angel of the Lord,Curse bitterly its inhabitants,Because they came not to the help of the Lord,To the help of the Lord against the mighty.” As Deborah is on the top of the mountain about to go to war with Israel and asking Barak where the tribe of Meroz is…Barak says they just didn’t want to come, they made excuses. Jesus parable in Luke 14 tells us about many making excuses in the last moments of time….I bought some land, I got married, my portfolio needs attention… But Deborah doesn’t accept any excuses.  With righteous fire in her eyes, she denounces those who chose the safety of hearth and home while the legions of Naphtali and Zebulon were risking their lives on the plain of Esdraelon.An entire tribe and people has passed into the abyss of history, leaving only its name as a byword for shame and dishonor. For Meroz has come to stand for uselessness, Meroz has come to stand for neutrality when no good person can dare be neutral:  Meroz has come to stand for apathy when honest people can’t stand idly by. If God abhors one sin above another, of which his people are guilty, it is of doing nothing in a case of emergency. Indifference or neutrality in a religious crisis is regarded of God as a grievous crime; and equal to the very worst type of hostility against God. RH September 30, 1873, But Meroz didn’t do anything so actively evil as playing traitor or spy.  No, Meroz simply did--nothing.  In the face of a monumental crisis confronting the people of God, Meroz carried on as though nothing unusual was happening.  In a time of desperate conflict, an inactive friend is counted as an enemy.  In a time of desperate conflict, an inactive friend is counted as an enemy.  Martin Luther King Jr.“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."  "There comes a time when silence is betrayal."   if we’re lost in the end, I don’t think it will be primarily because of all the bad things we’ve done, even though there are a lot of those--but because we failed to do the good we could have done. Jesus calls it nothing less than treason. 
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