Pathway to Victory

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Hey podcast listeners. Thanks for streaming today's podcast from Pathway to Victory and Dr. Robert Jeffress.

We're dedicated to bringing you bold biblical teaching that transforms your life and strengthens your walk with God.

And you can study God's word alongside Dr. Jeffress in person on the 2026 Pathway to Victory cruise to Alaska.

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Soar over snow capped mountain?

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I want you to experience these unforgettable moments with me on the Pathway to Victory Cruise to Alaska, June 13th through 20th, 2026.

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Join Dr. Jeffress and the Pathway to Victory family for a spectacular seven-day adventure aboard Holland America's luxurious Koningsdam.

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There's something powerful about connecting with God and fellow believers in the majesty of his untamed wilderness. I truly believe this journey will refresh you spiritually, physically and emotionally.

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Cabins are filling quickly, so reserve yours today. To book your spot on the 2026 Pathway to Victory cruise to Alaska, call 888-280-6747 or go to ptv.org now here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

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Hi, this is Robert Jeffress and I'm glad to study God's Word with you every day on this Bible teaching program.

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On today's edition of Pathway to Victory.

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You desperately desire God to intervene in some crisis that you're facing right now. Or maybe you're desperately seeking God's guidance in your life about a decision. You want to know his will.

And yet God meets your request for help, your request for guidance with that eerie silence. God, why don't you answer my requests?

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Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress.

Is there anything more frustrating than being on the phone and hearing, "please hold"? It's real easy to lose patience waiting for someone to answer.

Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress discusses how to respond when it feels like God has placed us on hold.

But first, let's take a minute to hear some important ministry updates.

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Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. My friend, do you ever get tired of the endless cycle of showing up at work? Well, there's incredible relief that comes when you finally carve out vacation time and escape the pressures of work. And along those lines, I want you to join me on the Pathway to Victory Cruise to Alaska 06-13-20. For seven days, you'll exchange those daily stresses for the glorious, soul-satisfying adventure of witnessing God's majestic creation. Imagine the peace of sailing through Alaska's pristine waters, surrounded by like-minded Christians who share your faith. All the details are found at ptv.org.

Okay, I'm going to admit something that may surprise you. As a pastor, a Bible teacher, and someone who's taught seminary classes, I'm sometimes frustrated by God's silence. There have been times in life when I wanted God to just say it out loud and tell me what to do, but all my eloquent prayers to Him delivered nothing but crickets. Well, today we're going to talk about those inevitable times in life when God seems distant. It's one of 10 topics I address in my book called How to Make Wise Decisions.

If you or someone you love are asking important questions about your career, your marriage, or your finances, this book will offer you the encouragement and confidence you need to hear God's voice. A copy is yours when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. More about my book and other resources later in the program. Right now, it's time to get started with our study in God's Word. I titled today's message God's Thundering Silence.

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Have you ever wondered why it is that if there really is a God in heaven who desires that the whole world know Him? Why is it that God doesn't reveal Himself through an audible voice? Or why doesn't He reveal Himself through supernatural signs so that everybody in the world would know He exists?

Have you ever wondered why it is that if God is really there, why doesn't He answer our prayer requests with a definite yes or a definite no instead of an ambiguous silence, many times subject to misinterpretation?

Have you ever wondered if there really is a God in heaven? Why doesn't He answer your request for guidance in a decision you're confronting? Why doesn't He tell you what to do when you really want to know what He wants you to do instead of allowing you to flounder around in a fog?

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Uncertainty?

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By the way, if you've ever wrestled with those questions before, you're not alone. Throughout the centuries, men and women of faith have wrestled with what theologians call the hiddenness of God, what I like to call God's thundering silence. Think, for example, of Noah. God told Noah and his family to enter into an ark. He was going to destroy the world with the flood. But think about it. From the time that God told Noah to enter into the ark until the time Noah left the ark, more than a year elapsed. During which time there is no record that God ever spoke to Noah.

Think what it must have been like for Noah and his family. For 382 days they bobbed upon the water listening to the terrifying screams of men, women, and children on the outside, drowning to death, begging for help. And those terror-filled screams were followed by an eerie silence. I imagine Noah and his family were frightened. I imagine they called out to God, "God, where are you? Are you still there? Have you forgotten about us?" But God answered with a stony silence.

Or think about Abraham. When Abraham was 75, God said, "Abraham, I'm going to make you the father of a great nation." And yet more than a decade passed, and there was no word from God. Finally, Abraham and Sarah decided to take matters into their own hands. Perhaps they had heard one of those sermons: "God has no hands but our hands and no feet but our feet." So they declared, "We need to help God fulfill his promise." And so they concocted this plan to make Abraham a father. They provided a night for Abraham with Hagar, the handmaiden—a night of forbidden pleasure that would have made Eliot Spitzer blush.

After that night of passion, Hagar conceived a child. The Bible says in Genesis chapter 16, "Now, Abraham was 86 years old when Hagar gave birth to Ishmael." Genesis 16:16. Now, between Genesis 16:16 and the next verse, which is Genesis 17:1, there's just some white space in your Bible. But in that white space, 13 years elapsed. Because Genesis 17:1 says, "Now when Abram was 99 years old, the Lord again appeared to him." Think about it. Thirteen years during which God said nothing to Abraham. I'm sure Abram had all these questions: "God, why did you uproot me from my homeland to be the father of a great nation and yet no promise? God, why don't you do something to help me and to mend this fractured marriage?" Yet nothing from God.

Think about David. David's an interesting character. David had a lot of ups and downs, an erratic personality, if you will. There were times that he was on the spiritual mountaintop, and some of the Psalms that he penned reflect that. In Psalm 34, he was feeling especially good about his relationship with God. Listen to his words in Psalm 34: "I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall be continually in my mouth. My soul shall make its boast in the Lord; the humble shall hear it and rejoice. O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together. For I sought the Lord, and He answered me, and He delivered me from all of my fears."

During that period in David's time, all he would have to do is ask God to do something, and God would answer dramatically and immediately. That was one time in David's life. But David also suffered great lows, great times of melancholy in his relationship with God. In Psalm 22, David said, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning. O my God, I cry by day, but thou doest not answer; and by night I have no rest when I need you the most." David said, "You refuse to answer me. Why have you forsaken me?"

By the way, if those words sound familiar to you, those are the very words that Jesus Christ himself would utter from the cross, 900 years after David wrote these words. Good Friday. Well, it was good for us in that it resulted in our salvation, but it was anything but good for Jesus Christ, at least from an earthly perspective. Think about it. Jesus Christ had obeyed God perfectly. He had never sinned once. He had totally submitted himself to God's will for his life. And yet on that Good Friday, Jesus cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

We have heard those words so frequently that they've lost their impact on us. Think about it. Jesus, the perfect Son of God, spent the last hour of his earthly life expressing great discouragement, great dismay, great disappointment with God. Maybe, if you're honest, that's your experience too. You're disappointed with God for the way he has refused to act in your life. You desperately desire God to intervene in some crisis that you're facing right now, perhaps with your health or with a relationship or with one of your children. You cry out to God for God's help. Or maybe you're desperately seeking God's guidance in your life about a decision. You want to know his will, and yet God meets your request for help, your request for guidance, with that eerie silence.

"God, why don't you answer my requests? Why is it that we experience God's thundering silence in our life?" As I look through the Scriptures, I discover that there are at least four reasons the Bible gives us for his silence in our life. First of all, the Bible says one reason for God's silence may be unconfessed sin in our life. Unconfessed sin. Now hear me. This isn't the only reason, but it is a major reason sometimes for God's silence—our unconfessed sin.

Some of you have commented that you've heard some of the commercials we've been running on the radio recently on different stations here in town. I do a little minute devotional from the Bible, and one of those I did a few weeks ago was based on Romans, chapter 8: "If God be for us, who can be against us?" I said, having God on your side is like having the biggest kid on the playground to be your best friend. If that's your situation, you never have to worry. No bully can intimidate you if the biggest kid on the playground is for you. And I said, that's what it's like having God for us. If God is for us, no one or nothing can do anything against us.

But the opposite is also true. If God is against us, nothing else really matters in life. And so the real question is, is God for us or is God against us? That was the gist of the spot. Well, I got a letter a couple of weeks ago from a lady here in Dallas who had heard that commercial, and she was mad. I mean, she gave me a piece of her mind she couldn't afford to lose. But she said, "I am so offended by this commercial you're running. The idea that God would ever be against any of his children. God is not against any of his children."

And so I wrote back in a very pastoral way, and I said, "Lady, you need to read your Bible." I didn't say it just like that, but that was kind of the gist of it. And I pointed her to some verses in the Scripture. Listen to Isaiah 59:2: "Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that God does not hear." Your sin is a barrier between you and God. By the way, we use that verse in evangelism, that there's a separation between God and us and that Christ bridges that separation. That's fine to do. But will you note that that verse...

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Was not written to unbelievers?

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It was written to God's own people, the Israelites. God said to the Israelites, even though you belong to me, your sin is a separation. Your disobedience has formed this chasm between you and me so that I cannot hear your prayers. Or Psalm 66:18. David said, if I regard. If I allow wickedness in my heart, the Lord will not hear. If I allow any area of sin in my life, God will not hear my prayer. I gave the woman this verse from 1 Peter 3:12. For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears attend to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. The Scripture is very clear. Sin in our life is a barrier between us and God. It keeps God from hearing or answering our prayers.

Now, people always say when I make that point, "Well, wait a minute, Robert. I thought the moment I trust in Christ to be my Savior, that that barrier is torn down between God and us. I thought, when I become a Christian, God forgives my sin as far as the east is from the west; so far he removes our transgressions from us. If God's already forgiven me of all of my sins, how do my sins become a barrier between God and me?" That's a great question. But it's a question that fails to note the difference between God's judicial forgiveness of my sins and God's parental forgiveness of my sins. You might want to write those phrases down: judicial forgiveness and parental forgiveness; they're altogether different.

God's judicial forgiveness is what happens the moment I trust in Christ as my Savior. The moment I come to the point that I realize I can't save myself, I can't do enough to earn God's forgiveness. The moment I believe that Christ died for my sins, in the great courtroom of heaven, God slams down the gavel and says, "Not guilty. Not guilty." That moment we are forgiven of all of our sins, past, present, and future. That is God's judicial forgiveness. And by the way, the moment you trust in Christ, your status with God changes. You are no longer an enemy of God, but you become a child of God. That's God's judicial forgiveness.

But the fact that you have become a child of God doesn't prevent you from experiencing God's parental disapproval for your mistakes. How many of you have children? Raise your hand. Children. Grandchildren. Have your children ever disobeyed you? I know mine haven't. Sitting here on the front row. No. Probably. Occasionally that's happened. Now, when your child disobeys you, do you kick them out of the house? Do you disown them? Do you change their last name? No. But nevertheless, if they continue in serious disobedience and rebellion, there is going to be a break in your relationship with your child. It doesn't mean you've disowned them. But it means that while there's that break in your relationship, you probably aren't real interested in answering their request for help. You're probably not real interested in giving them what they ask you for. Only when they are willing to acknowledge their mistakes and ask for forgiveness and start doing better are you going to be more open to meeting their request. Even though they are still part of the family, there has been a separation in your relationship.

It's that same way in our relationship with God. Even after we become a Christian, we still sin. We no longer need God's judicial forgiveness. Our place in his family, our place in heaven is still secure. But we do need God's parental forgiveness in order to bridge that broken relationship. One reason sometimes God says no to our request, or some reason God is silent, is to get our attention and remind us that we need his parental forgiveness.

The late Norman Vincent Peale told the story about the time he was small and he decided, while his father was away, that he would engage in some forbidden behavior: he would smoke a cigar. His dad had always forbidden him to ever smoke a cigar. So Peale said he went out behind the house and lit up a cigar and was smoking it away when, to his horror, he saw his father approaching him. Not knowing what to do, Peale said he just took the cigar and placed it behind his back. And when his dad got closer, he said, "Dad, look at that billboard over there. See that billboard talking about the circus coming to town? Do you think you could take me to the circus?" Peale's father looked down at him and said, "Son, I learned a long time ago never petition your father while holding smoldering disobedience in your hands." There's a good spiritual principle to that. Don't be asking your heavenly father for something while you're holding on to disobedience.

Maybe right now there's some area of your life in which you're being disobedient to God. Perhaps for some of you, it's an immoral relationship. It may be a premarital affair. You're involved in an extramarital affair, something you know is wrong. Perhaps there is some secret sin in your life that is destroying your life. Perhaps it's bitterness you have in your heart toward another Christian, perhaps even somebody in this fellowship of belief, maybe somebody in your family. Perhaps you have allowed unbridled greed and ambition to replace God's rightful place in your life. It's that sin, that sin that is responsible for God's silence in your life. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Bible says the Lord will not hear me.

A second reason for God's silence can be what I call uncontrolled emotions. Uncontrolled emotions. If, like me, you have a house filled with girls, you probably know that the care and tending to of hair is a full-time occupation. Washing it, blow drying it, teasing it, doing all kinds of things. It takes a lot of time to take care of hair. I remember when our girls were very small, my job on Saturday night after their bath would be to blow dry their hair for them as we'd sit on the sofa and watch some television program. So I'd be blow drying the hair, but invariably the whirring blow dryer would drown out the sound coming from the television set. So I'd always reach for my trusty remote control, which was never far from me, and I'd crank up the volume to overcome the blow dryer.

Now why would I do that? Is it because no sound was emanating from the television set? No, no. There were voices coming from that television set. It wasn't that there were no voices coming; it was that the proximity of the hairdryer, that other sound, was drowning out the voice coming from the set. And it's the same way with God's voice in our life. Many times God is speaking to us, but we can't hear him because there is another sound drowning out his voice. And perhaps of all of the emotions close to us that overshadow God's voice in our life, none is more potent than the emotion of fear. Fear has a way of being deafening, silencing the voice of God in our life.

Perhaps you have felt like God has been speaking to you about a particular matter. Maybe God's leading you to a new vocation, or you feel like he may be uprooting you and moving you to a new city. Maybe God's leading you to marry a particular person. Maybe you even feel the call into the ministry. God has spoken to you, but all of a sudden your mind has been seized and paralyzed by those two words: "What if?" What if? What if I obey God and enter this new line of work and my business goes bankrupt? What if I uproot my family and my family makes this move and they're unhappy? What if I marry this person I believe God's leading me to, but the marriage ends in divorce? What if I obey God's call to the ministry but no church will ever call me? What if?

Ladies and gentlemen, whenever you are overcome by the emotion of fear, Paul said we need to hold up the shield of faith by which we will be able to extinguish the arrows of the Evil one. What is the shield of faith God gives us? It is God Himself. Our faith in God. The assurance that God is not going to allow anyone or anything to come into our life that is not a part of his perfect plan for us—a plan designed for our good and for his glory.

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We're not finished with this topic because it's so important. Even when God is silent, we mustn't assume he's unaware. Well, I've written more on this topic in my book, and this is one of the last days we'll mention this special offer to receive my book, *How to Make Wise Decisions*. In my book, I'll help you understand how to distinguish between God's voice and your own personal desires. I'll explain what to do when God is silent, and we'll also cover those awkward moments when we make the wrong decision and learn how God proves faithful even in our weakness.

I'd like to send you a copy today. It's yours when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory; just ask for the book called *How to Make Wise Decisions*. This is also an excellent book to put in the hands of your child or grandchild who may be wondering what school to attend, what vocation to pursue, or whom to marry.

And then please bear in mind that Pathway to Victory is looking to add 50 new Pathway Partners to our family of supporters. A Pathway Partner is someone who elects to give a monthly contribution in the amount that suits your desire and capacity. In effect, our Pathway Partners are like ambassadors who represent the Gospel of Jesus Christ in faraway places. Our Pathway Partners are like missionaries who lovingly share the good news with others they might never otherwise meet. Our Pathway Partners are like seed sowers who cast the seed of the Gospel into fertile soil.

Would you be willing to become one of our valued Pathway Partners? Here's David with all the details.

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To join our team of Pathway partners, simply give us a call. That's 866-999-2964 or, even easier, you can sign up online at ptv.org. When you give your first gift as a new Pathway partner or when you make a one-time generous gift, we'll say thanks by sending you a copy of the book by Dr. Jeffress titled *How to Make Wise Decisions*.

Additionally, when your generous gift is $75 or more, we'll also send you this month's complete unedited teaching series on CD and DVD. The phone number again is 866-999-2964 or you can visit the website ptv.org. If you'd prefer to make your request by mail, write to P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas 75222. That's P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, TX 75222.

I'm David J. Mullins, inviting you to join us again next time for Part Two of the message *God's Thundering Silence* here on Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. Experience the breathtaking majesty of America's last frontier on the 2026 Pathway to Victory cruise to Alaska.

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This seven day journey combines spiritual growth with unforgettable adventures aboard a five star luxury cruise ship. It's a vacation you won't soon forget.

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Space is limited, so reserve your cabin today. Call 888-280-6747 or go to ptv.org.

You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible. One of the most impactful ways you can give is by becoming a Pathway Partner. Your monthly gift will empower Pathway to Victory to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ and help others become rooted more firmly in His Word.

To become a Pathway Partner, go to ptv.org/donate or follow the link in our show notes. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.