Welcome to Enjoying the Journey with Evangelist Scott Pauli.

Today we are on a journey through Scripture.

We hope you'll join us as we make 66 stops through each book of the Word of God.

Hello, my friend, I hope you're enjoying the journey today. We have been on quite a trip

together, haven't we? Working our way through the Word of God. And we've made 39 definite stops

in the 39 books of the Old Testament. You know, anytime you take a journey along the way, sometimes you need

to stop for a moment, catch your breath, refresh yourself, a rest area, we might call it along the way.

And so that's exactly what we're going to do today. Today we're going to take a stop in what is called the silent years.

As a matter of fact, I have my Bible open here on my desk in front of me, and between the

book of Malachi and the book of Matthew, there is a blank page. Perhaps there's a blank page

in your Bible where nothing is written. You might think nothing was done. But I want to suggest to

you that the blank page between Malachi and Matthew

actually represents the fact that God is at work even behind the scenes.

You see, between Malachi and Matthew, there's a period of 400 years.

And not only have they been called the silent years

because there was no open revelation from God being given.

There was no prophet ministering, at least recorded prophets at that time.

It has also been known as the dark period of Israel's history.

And people call it the dark period because at this particular time,

it seemed that the world was plunged into deeper and deeper spiritual darkness.

Let me remind you of something. Our God, who is a God of light, is able to bring light out

of the darkness. I would remind you that the last word of the Old Testament is the word curse.

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