When our Lord Jesus died on the cross, there was a great darkness, “From the sixth hour until the ninth hourg darkness came over all the land. At the ninth hour, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Mark 15:33-34). People sometimes feel forsaken by God, and it is encouraging that The Son of God felt the same way on the cross and quoted those words of the Psalmist David. If God The Son felt forsaken, and abandoned, then we can have courage! He is God and he felt in that moment what sin does as He who had no sin took our sin, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
There are times in a saint’s life when we feel as if God has become silent, distant, and even abandoned us. While we know He never leaves us, “Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20), “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you,” (Hebrews 13:5), and He lives in us, “All who declare that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God.” (1 John 4:15). But even armed with those Scriptures we can find no succor, our spiritual Ninth Hour can be brutal as we are tested by the dark fog around us of demons, stressors, silence, and perhaps a valley period in which we feel “the shadow of death.” In this Ninth Hour of our walk with Jesus we may even cry out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?!” Well do not feel feeble if you have, or said something similar, for Jesus The Christ and God The Son felt this terrible experience, and He thus can help us in that moment. We may not feel or hear God sometimes, count that trial a blessing because The Jews had 400yrs of silence between Malachi and The Gospel of Matthew! And yet they endured, keeping faithful to The Lord and then He appeared in the flesh in Bethlehem! So after a great quiet, The Word of God became a man and spoke to people! You may say “yes, but the Jews then did not have God living in them, we do, so why then would God be silent or make me feel forsaken?” A fair question. Some would say its a sin you are practicing, and your conscious is seared (1 Timothy 4:2) and thus you have not the confidence to hear Christ due to your double mindedness, “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.” (James 1:6-8). That can be true. Another reason can be spiritual attack, Satan did an onslaught against Job and tried to break him before God spoke to Job, and Jesus told Peter that the devil sought harm him, “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” (Luke 22:31-34). I do believe spiritual warfare can cloud our receptiveness to the Lord’s voice, when the enemy points a bullhorn to your soul it can be hard to hear God. Then there is the idea it is meant to test your faith, if its genuine, will you follow Christ without the gratification of His presence, voice, and supernatural experiences? This has some merit, we should be devoted if we never feel God again. Then there is the answer from God’s point of view, He’s God and can choose to be quiet or not be felt, maybe even for good purpose like what led up to 1 A.D.
If you are going through a Ninth Hour experience or season, keep seeking the Lord, praying, and reading Scripture. Be like the Jews in the Intertestament period who kept faith during four centuries of silence and then Christ came! Part of our problem can stem from we are spoiled saints, we expect God to give us a touch of the hand spiritually and speak to us like tapping on our smartphones. We never have had to be like people in The Bible timed who had to wait a long time, Abraham had to wait a long time for Isaac, Simeon and Anna waited their whole lives for the Messiah (Luke 2:22-38), many generations perished waiting for Jesus, and we can get grumbly about a day or season of silence and feel forsaken? What I am saying, is maybe rather than get aggravated by the quiet, be excited, expectant, and thankful God lives in you and you don’t have to go far to speak to Him. Use this time also to build trust, trust The Lord even with this hard hour or season! Jesus has been more than faithful to us, we can show the devotion of a spouse waiting on a letter of their beloved; hard analogy in this day and age, we did have to even wait for messages which made people more resilient and patient, now with instant everything we assume the worst in seconds.
I suggest if you are going through a Ninth Hour period, get someone to pray with you and go to worship in a church. Don’t recluse. If you cannot do those things, then read The Scriptures, those are words of God that can speak off the page during the silence. Trust the words, “I will never leave you, or forsake you.” Make them a mantra in your ind and heart. Amen.
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