Tonight’s the first night of the Gloria! Christmas Tour, which will be broadcast live right here tonight, and in better quality at mogulus.com/sgtv.  Curtain goes up at 7PM CST.

Brian brought me on this tour to speak about Compassion and to do three very short “teachings” during the show.  He gave me three themes – waiting, incarnation, worship – and a time limit of two minutes to talk about each.

I’ve learned a lot while preparing, a lot more than I can possibly fit in two minutes.  For instance, I learned that the last words of the Old Testament were written by Malachi in 397 BC.  In his letter, Malachi warned of hard times ahead for the Jews and then asks them to do two things: remember the Law God gave you through Moses, and believe, no matter how bad things get, God will send help again.

Remember God has done great things and He’s not through doing.

And then the prophet Malachi put down his pen.  And for the next 400 years the Jews changed hands, ruled by empire after empire. Syrians, Persians, Greeks, Egyptians and Romans.  Those 400 years are sometimes called the “dark period” in Jewish history, the darkest.  Why?  The Jews had been oppressed before, they’d been slaves, they’d been captured and brutalized.  They were no strangers to foreign rule and injustice. Why were these 400 years the darkest?

Because God was silent.

After Malachi spoke, God was silent.  For four hundred years there were no signs.  No miracles.  No prophets.  Nothing.

The Psalmist David had predicted this dark period when he wrote: We are given no miraculous signs; no prophets are left, and none of us knows how long this will be (Psalm 74:9)

Before healing there was sickness.  Before songs of joy there were cries of sorrow.  Before peace on earth, wars were waged.  Before justice there was oppression.  Before the Light of the World dawned there was darkness.  Before God with us there was silence.  Before the One there was waiting.

And remembering: God has done great things and He’s not through doing.  Remember.