STOP! ... LOOK! ... LISTEN!
By David Berg.
Most Christians today seem to
be more concerned in having God hear what they have to
say than they are in hearing what God has to say. They're
trying to put their programme across on God and get Him
to sign His Name to their programme. I heard someone say
one time, Are you willing, not to present your programme
to God for His signature, not even to be presented with
God's programme for your signature, but to sign a blank
sheet of paper and let God fill it in without your even
knowing what His programme is going to be?"
A little girl once said about her kitten when she heard
it purring in its sleep, Oh Mama, the kitty's gone to
sleep and left its engine running!" You may run
around but still be asleep spiritually, and you may not
be getting anywhere--as one that beateth the air!"
(1Corinthians 9:26).
Because
unless you get quiet and try to seek the Lord, how are
you ever going to get anything from the Lord!
I'm fully
convinced I've gotten more from the Lord when alone and
quiet than ever any other way. He can talk to you when
you're alone and you can give Him your full attention and
the reverence due Him--and you're listening.
The Lord
speaks in a still, small, but very definite, very firm,
very loving voice, but if you're too noisy you're not
going to hear it! (See 1Kings 19:12; Isaiah 30:21.)
The only time you can hear is when you sit down and get
quiet! God doesn't usually scream!
By the time
God starts screaming at you, it's too late. When it gets
to the point He has to yell over your racket to be heard
by you, He's probably so mad, it's too late. If you don't
pay any attention to the yelling, then you get swatted
down and knocked for a loop, so you'll have to listen!
That's why God has to knock so many people flat in an
accident or illness or bereavement--to make them stop
long enough to listen. (See Psalm 119:67.) A funeral is
about the only time a lot of worldly people ever stop
running long enough to listen to the Lord!
Lord help us to get quiet before Him and listen! If you
don't have some quiet time with the Lord, I don't know
how you can operate. But if you really want to hear Him,
He'll talk to you.
You're going to have to get quiet by yourself, somewhere,
somehow, sometime, if you're going to hear from the Lord!
In Psalm 46 verse 10, He says, Be still, and know that I
am God." How much have you learned about being quiet
before the Lord, about reverencing the Lord?
How many
quiet times do you have, studying to be quiet? In
quietness and confidence shall your strength be"
(Isaiah 30:15). Do you know what confidence"
means?--It's faith!
The very fact
that you keep quiet shows you have faith! It shows you're
expecting God to do something and not trying to do it
yourself!
If you don't know what to do, stop everything!
Get quiet and
wait for God to do something! The worst thing in the
World you can do is to keep on going when you don't know
what to do!
That was King
Saul's mistake. It absolutely lost him the kingdom!
Because he kept right on moving even after he didn't know
what to do. He figured he had to just keep busy and keep
going no matter what! (See 1Samuel 13:7-14.)
Getting quiet before the Lord shows you have faith that
God is going to handle the situation, that He's going to
take care of things. It shows you trust the Lord. Thou
wilt keep Him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on
Thee, because he trusteth in Thee" (Isaiah 26:3). If
you're not trusting, you're going to be in confusion all
the time. Like the little poem: When we're trusting,
we're not heard to fret. When we're fretting, we're not
trusting yet!"
If you're in a big stew, confused and worrying and
fretting and fuming, you're not trusting! You don't have
the faith you ought to have! Trusting is a picture of
complete rest, peace and quiet of mind, heart and spirit.
The body may have to continue working, but your attitude
and spirit is calm.
That's why you can have peace in the midst of storm and
calm in the eye of the hurricane. It reminds me of a
contest one time where the artists had to illustrate
peace.
Most of the
artists handed in these quiet, calm country
scenes--absolute total quiet. That's a form of peace. But
the hardest kind of peace to have was illustrated in the
picture that won the award: That was a picture of these
horrible, roaring, raging rapids--a river in all its
foaming and fury! But on a little branch right above,
overhanging the raging current, there was a beautiful
little nest with a tiny bird sitting there, peacefully
singing away in spite of the storm!
That's when
your faith gets tested--in the midst of the storm.
Quietness is a sign of faith!
Moses had from two to six million people sitting out in
the middle of the desert waiting for him, tearing their
hair out, wondering, What are we going to eat, what are
we going to drink, where are we going, what are we going
to do?" And what does Moses do? He takes off for the
top of the mountain and sits up there with the Lord for
40 days straight!
What if he had been fretting all the time, What if
something happens? I have to get back. What if Aaron
makes a golden calf?"--Which he did! And the time
Moses did get upset and broke the tablets, he had to go
back and stay another 40 days to get quiet again! What
good did it do for him to get upset? He just had to get
quiet again to hear from the Lord. He might as well have
come down and taken it quietly and calmly. It would have
saved him another 40 days up there! (Read Exodus 24:12-18
and chapters 32 and 34 for the full story.)
Jesus, on the eve of His ministry, went out and spent 40
days and nights on the mountain Himself, and it seemed
like He spent much of the time with the Devil. He had to
defeat the Devil first! (See Matthew 4:1-11.) If you
don't get alone with the Lord and lick the Devil first,
you might as well forget it!
I wonder how much of that 120 years Noah spent praying
while building the Ark! He must have spent some time, or
he couldn't have gotten all those directions on how to
build that boat! Remember, they'd never even seen a boat
before! God probably gave him the exact specifications
for every inch of that boat. It had never even rained
before!
But he just
went calmly about his business building the Ark. He could
have gotten feverish thinking rain was coming any minute
and just slapped it together. But he just went calmly
along for 120 years working on that boat! Good
night!--You'd think you were spending a lot of time
preparing if you just spent 120 days at it! It sure
showed Noah had faith! (See Genesis 6:3,9-22 and chapter
7.)
The farmer is a perfect example of faith and patience. He
just has to trust that the Lord will make the plants grow
and not worry about it! God does the biggest part of the
job, He sends the rain, He makes it grow! All the farmer
is there for is to supervise things. If there's any
picture of a quiet type of personality, it's the farmer!
The city folks make fun of the farmers. But if the
farmers didn't take it slow, they'd go crazy, like the
city people! The farmer's motto is Go slow!"
That's why so few people want to live on the farm: it
takes too much dependence on God! There's not too much
they can do, they have to leave it all up to God! People
are moving off the farms in droves. God's too much in
control. It's too quiet out there. They call it too dead.
No action", they say! But, boy, if they just would
get up there on the top of one of those hills, they'd
hear and see a lot going on! Watch the storm, look at the
trees, watch the animals, listen to the thunder! But
usually the action is very quiet and there's not a lot of
commotion.
But some people have to be in motion all the time;
they've got to be doing something! And I think one reason
is, they don't want to think! That's why they have so
many amusements. Do you know what that word means?--Away
from thinking!" People are absolutely scared stupid
of the quiet and the stillness, because they know the
voice of God might come through! So the Devil keeps their
mind and their eyes and their ears filled with noise and
violent sights and sounds!
That's why cities are such a curse! They're totally
man-made environments! City dwellers get entirely away
from God, where there is often hardly a tree or a blade
of grass, and where you can't see the stars or the sun or
moon or the sky. They live underground!--With screeching,
screaming subways and horrible noise of traffic! There's
much more deafness amongst city children than country
children, because they live in an atmosphere of constant
noise. Whereas children raised in the country usually
have very keen hearing.
If you live in an atmosphere of spiritual and physical
confusion, you'll develop a hardness against the voice of
God, because you have to develop a deafness against all
the noises around you! Then you can't even hear the Lord!
But if you live in quiet and peace and calm and
stillness, you'll find your ears becoming very keen and
sharp. I've always had an extremely keen sense of smell
and of hearing. Maybe that's because I spent so much time
in the woods and in the country.
Country people are usually slow, plodders, patient! They
live next to God's creation and they are dependent on the
Lord! We should take a lesson from the farmer! City
people become dull of hearing and hardened of heart! Loud
music is deafening young people today, it's that constant
beating on your ear drums that hardens it. It's like a
callous that develops in order to preserve your ears.
Think of the years Abraham spent out in the fields
watching flocks! No wonder he heard from the Lord: he had
time to listen! Lord forgive us! We get so busy! If
you're too busy to pray, you're too busy! If you're too
busy to get alone with God and pray, you're too busy!
What if the servant said to the king, I'm sorry, I can't
come and listen to your orders today, I'm too busy
serving you!"
You need to learn to listen to the Lord most of all. It's
not up to the King to try to go chasing His subjects
around screaming and hollering at them to try to get them
to do what He wants! You come to Him with quietness and
respect and you sincerely and in trembling present your
petition, and you wait silently to get the answer. You
have to fear, respect and reverence the Lord, and treat
Him like the King He is! Sometimes Spirit-filled people
can get so familiar with the Spirit and the Lord, I think
sometimes this familiarity breeds contempt! The Lord is
so sweet and so close to you, you don't respect Him like
you ought to.
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