Unbelief and dumbness are as fountain and stream, cause and effect. It is written, observes Paul in his second letter to the Church at Corinth, "I believed, therefore have I spoken;" we also believe, and therefore speak. Faith opens the lips, unbelief closes them. There is a noisy unbelief as well as a dumb unbelief. But the loud unbelief is a general faithlessness in all Divine testimony; while the dumb unbelief is lack of faith in some particular word of God. We are speaking, not of the unbelief of the unbeliever, but of the unbelief of the believer.
I. Not believing God's word about prayer, we cease from it or restrain it. In the first instance, prayer was instinctive. If we believe God's words we can pray. If we believe them cordially, we can pray earnestly. If we believe them but feebly, we pray faintly. If we do not believe them at all, we cease from prayer; and it is most instructive and interesting to observe how, as faith declines, dumbness in prayer creeps over us. "Thou shalt be dumb, because thou believest not my words."
II. Not believing God's words, we are dumb as to praise. We require words of God to expound to us the acts and works of God. Perplexity relaxes, loosens, and entangles the strings of our harp. Faith sets them free, tightens them, tunes them; and faith brings forth triumphant music. We may think the silence of our harp, and the dumbness of our voice in praise, of but small moment, but God saith, "Whoso offereth praise glorifieth Me."
III. Not believing God's words, we are dumb as to our testimony to the truth. Truth is communicated and propagated by tradition; by men saying to each other, "Know the Lord," or, "Lo, here is Christ." When a man speaks of that which he believes, an influence goes forth from himself which does not proceed from him when he gives a tract or book, even though it be the Holy Book. "We believe and speak." We lose our faith and are silent.
IV. Not believing God's words we become dumb as to Christian intercourse and fellowship. "Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another." We speak to the unbeliever to bear witness. Believers speak to one another for mutual edification and consolation, and in the degree of their faith they will speak wisely and well.
S. Martin, Comfort in Trouble,p. 78.
References: Luke 1:20. Spurgeon, Three Hundred Outlines on the New Testament,p. 42.Luke 1:21. Christian World Pulpit,vol. vi., p. 127.