The Silent Years
ISAIAH 53:1-5
1 ¶ Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?
2 For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. (The Amplified bible says “He has no stately form or majestic splendor That we would look at Him, Nor [handsome] appearance that we would be attracted to Him)
3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: (This portion of scripture gives us a little window of a clue into the silent years of Jesus life. The New Testament doesn’t tell us of the events of the struggles of Jesus life as a teenager and of His early adult years of the things that He would have suffered of what molded the character of His life) and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
(It is clear that most of the people that grew up around him of his community, they were not impressed with him, in fact the bible says that they despised him to the point that they would as it were to “hide” their faces from him, as if he was some kind of an embarrassment. We notice that this is the same pattern of upbringing that young Billy Branham had had to suffer also – and this is why we so often don’t understand the negative things of our childhood and teenage life, but the fact is that God has a purpose in it all. And so there had to be circumstances and dramas in Jesus life as he grew up for the purpose so that he could experience the many different struggles of humanity)
4 ¶ Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
LUKE 4:16, 21-22, 28-30
16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. (He then reads out of Isaiah CH:61 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me - to preach the acceptable year”)
LUKE 4:21
21 And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.
22 And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph's son?
(Remember, that this was the person that they had seen grow up among them of which they knew all about the ups and downs of his life’s history – and so they struggled to comprehend that he was anything else but just an average blue collar working carpenter)
LUKE 4:28-30
28 And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath,
29 And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.
30 But he passing through the midst of them went his way,
(It wasn’t his time to die then)
The Silent Years
The silent years of Jesus life, also called by some, “the lost years”, or “the missing years”, or even the “unknown” years, these are the years of his life of which there is very little known about – the silent years.
All these terms refer to the period of Jesus's life mostly from the time of when we find a record of him at the temple with the doctors at age 12, to the beginning of his ministry at around age 30, which is around 18 years.
**So these silent years (of around 18 years) was a big part of his life of which the telling of the events and experiences of his life are not even the slightest bit recorded in the New Testament or even by any other trusted historical writings, but we all know that there would have been things that no doubt would have happened during those years that would have profoundly shaped his life of what He became and for the purpose that God had design His life for.
**When Jesus appeared at the river Jorden River to be baptized by John, and the voice of God spoke from heaven in Mathew 3:17 that this was His beloved son of which He was well pleased – whatever had happened up to that point in Jesus life, we know that God was well please with the way that Jesus had endured and matured by the events of his life of what we know would have caused him to become a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief in order to have fulfilled scripture.
*Even up to the time of when he was found by Joseph and Mary at the temple at age 12 discussing questions with the Jewish Teaches, there were only very brief descriptions of his life events.
**With the exception of the events concerning Jesus’s birth, we know that when He was eight days old, He was circumcised according to Jewish law (Luke 2:21).
*Thirty-three days later, he was presented in the temple (Luke 2:22-39).
*Then there is the account of the visit of the wise men from the east who came to worship Him in Matthew 2:1-12 followed by the flight into Egypt to escape king Herod’s murderous decree (Matthew 2:13-23).
*Then there is a general reference to the return and settlement of Joseph and Mary in Nazareth (Matthew 2:23 and Luke 2:39-40).
*Then in Luke 2:41-50, there is an isolated account of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus’ visit to the city of Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover when he was twelve years old.
*But then following that event, there is a complete and total space of silence for the next eighteen years of his life. **And yet we know that His whole life was for the purpose of a great cause, and so we can know for sure that there would have been certain great trials and drama’s that He would have had to have gone through and suffered just as we saw with the life of Joseph or brother Branham or any other great person of whom God trains their life for their work and purpose.
HEBREWS 5:7-8
7 Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared;
8 Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;
JOHN 12:27
27 ¶ Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.
(He understood the purpose of His life)
JOHN 18:37
37 Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.
**God has a purpose for each of our lives for the age that we are born into, and so there is a lot of planning that He must do way before you ever come to the earth.
* God had to plan for your life many generations before you ever came to the earth in order to have you born in the right time and age and season of which the work that he has planned for you is to be done.
He even has to place different experiences in the lives of your great grandfather and your great grandmother all the way down to your grandfather and then your father and then to you because all those things is what will shape your nature, and then he has to also place experiences in your life that will shape your spirit also – and all this is so that you will be able to carry out the work that God has planned for your life in the season and in the location that you were born into.
II TIMOTHY 1:2-5
2 To Timothy, my dearly beloved son: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
3 I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day;
4 Greatly desiring to see thee, being mindful of thy tears, that I may be filled with joy;
5 When I call to remembrance the unfeigned (genuine and sincere) faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also.
Notice how there was something place by God first in Timothy’s grandmother’s life by maybe some experiences that God used to shape her in a certain way that allowed this spirit of this unfeigned sincere faith to come into her of which would then come down from her into her grandson Timothy, because this was something that God was going to need in Timothy’s life in order to build on top of that.
**God had to first place that in his grandmother because maybe He would not have had the time to develop that in Timothy, and so God had to start with his grandmother Lois, and then bring that trait through his mother Eunice, and then and place it in Timothy, and then build on top of that by experiences in Timothy’s life – and Paul understands this.
THE.PRINCIPLES.OF.DIVINE.HEALING_ JEFF.IN SUNDAY_ 51-0923E-
…And what did Nathanael say? Now, you Bible teachers here, so what'd he say? He said, "Could any good thing come out of Nazareth?" A mean city, wicked, bad, worse than Jeffersonville. And then...?... So then he said, "Could any good thing come out of Nazareth?"
Why did Jesus have to grow up in such a mean and wicked city? God placed Him there for His training and development.
Isaiah 53 gives us a little window into these silent years.
ISAIAH 53:6-12 (continued from our opening scripture)
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.
8 He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.
9 And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
10 ¶ Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
LUKE 2:41-52
41 ¶ Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover.
42 And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast.
43 And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother knew not of it.
44 But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day's journey; and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance.
45 And when they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him.
46 And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions. (this is why that wisdom is different to knowledge – knowledge can be learnt, but true wisdom has to come from God)
47 And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers.
48 And when they saw him, they were amazed: and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.
49 And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?
50 And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them.
51 And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them: but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart.
52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.
*But we know that this favour with man did not last, because it is obvious that something changed at some point of where he would become despised and rejected of men and acquainted with grief. We know that His surrogate father Joseph had died, and that would have been a great blow to the family, and no doubt Jesus being the oldest son, the responsibility of the family would have fallen on him, and maybe there were others that had died also, just as we saw in the events of Brother Branham’s life of how he lost so many of his family members, and so we can know for sure that Jesus would have tasted grief because of similar events in his own life.
**This is why I believe that we are able to get a little picture of some of what may have been a part of the experiences of Jesus life by looking into the events of the life of Joseph in the Old Testament who we know was a perfect type of Christ.
*Jacob’s son Joseph became the Saviour of the known world at the time. He was love of his father and hated of his brother, and he was a prefigure of what Jesus’ life would be patterned off. And so we know that Joseph had had to go through some great trials of which one of those trials was to be falsely accused of a crime that he had not committed involving an event with a woman.
And this is why we can almost be certain that there would have been different events happen from the time of when Jesus was 12 years old up until the time that he was 30 that affected the attitude of the people of whom he was associated with of his own countrymen, because we find that in Luke chapter 4 (of when he was in Nazareth preaching in the synagogue), it is clear that they would have thrown him off their local cliff because of being offended in him – in other words there was a lot history that they thought they knew about him.
MARK 6:1-5
1 ¶ And he went out from thence, and came into his own country; and his disciples follow him. (The city of Nazareth in the time of Jesus is suggest to have had a population of around 15,000 - 20,000 inhabitants in contrast to around 80,000 today)
2 And when the sabbath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue: and many hearing him were astonished, saying, From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands?
3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him. (in other words, we know this man’s history and the associated gossip connected to his life, and it is an offence to us that he is teaching us with such apparent wisdom as well as then trying to make out that he is someone of what has been prophesied for this time)
4 But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.
5 And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them.
Maybe they were thinking of something that had happened in the past that was suspiciously connected to Jesus life along the line of what had taken place in the life of Joseph of the Old Testament of where maybe Jesus was accused of something similar to that of what Joseph was accused of but of which He was totally innocent – that certainly would have cause Him to be despised and rejected to the point where people would not have even wanted to look at him.
**Maybe a young woman had been found “murdered” in a field of which Jesus was known to have frequented, and so at the time it had been Jesus of whom had been the prime suspect.
If Joseph’s life in the Old Testament was a direct reflection and prophecy of the life of Christ, then the possibility of something like this type of scenario happening in Jesus’ life cannot be ruled out.
**We don’t know for sure, but there could have been a thousand things that had been mounted up against him of what rumors and fake news could have become a fact in the minds and hearts of the locals.
EXPRESSIONS_ JEFF.IN TUESDAY_ 62-0313
E-13 Some years ago I had the privilege to look through this big 'scope, and where they claim you could see a hundred and twenty million years of light space, light meters. And beyond that is still moons and stars and worlds that He controls. And then He was so mindful enough to make an expression to us, knowing that He is so great, yet He came down in the form of a human being to express what He was.
He became a man of sorrow, acquainted with grief. He lived a human life.
PHILIPPIANS 2:3-8
3 Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.
4 Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.
5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: (He was God (the Great Creator, the Great Redeemer) in a human body walking around on the earth among sinful man - imagine how he could have showed himself off and won their favor by being the great hero among them, yet he never promoted himself, but instead he made himself of no reputation)
8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
The Silent Years