WHEN WE HEAR THINGS IN SILENCE
Psa. 46:10
Morning Meditation 1/16/2014
Verse 10 says, ”Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.”
This Psalm was penned possibly by Hezekiah. Sennacherib had sent Rabshakeh the leader of the mighty Assyrian army to take Jerusalem (2 Kings 18:7). Israel had already submitted to unreasonable tribute to this world power. But Sennacherib was not satisfied without conquering. So Rabshakeh led the mighty Assyrian army against Jerusalem. He taunted and made fun of Hezekiah’s resistance and made fun of Israel’s God. Hezekiah called for Isaiah the prophet and God spoke to Isaiah and the end result was that God sent an angel, and one angel in one night destroyed the whole Assyrian army of 185,000 men. This also ended Sennacherib reign of terror for he was killed while worshipping in the temple of “Nisroch his god.”
This Psalm came as a result of this awesome victory that God gave good king Hezekiah. Hezekiah sought the Lord and heard from Him. He wants us to know that. Let’s look at this particular verse.
GOD IS THE SPEAKER
Though the psalmist wrote the words, he is just the recorder of what God is saying. God says, “Be still, and know that I am God.” We are living in a busy age. Activity is the word that describes this age. Goal setting is one of the chief subjects among christian motivators. The idea is to build a big church. We have all kinds of seminars that will help you accomplish this. One of the things they emphasize is goal setting. If time spent in prayer conflicts with goals, then prayer must go.
A friend of mine worked on the staff of a large church. Each morning they had an accountability meeting with the pastor. He went over the former day’s accomplishments and the goals for the day. This young man was a producer. He was definitely meeting the goals that this pastor was setting for him. He told me that a young preacher on the staff asked the pastor, “When do we have time to pray?” The pastor answered, “At the stop sign on your way to the door you are supposed to knock on next.” Everyone laughed and the young preacher learned not to ask such question again. We are living in an age of managed time that does not leave room for a quiet time.. This is a tragedy and the Church of the Living God is paying for it in POWER LOSS.
God says, for He is the speaker of these words, “Be still.” These words translate “raphah” and means, “to relax, sink down, let drop, be disheartened, to relax, withdraw.” This verb is in the Hebrew hiphil stem and describes causative action. This means that we are responsible to cause ourselves “to sink down, to relax, and to withdraw.” It means we are to make this happen when we are faced with road blocks that stand in our way. When the enemy stands and threatens action against us, it is time to “Be still.” Remember this psalm was written when Hezekiah was in an impossible situation against a world power and God sent an angel and destroyed the whole Assyrian army without the loss of one person on the side of Hezekiah.
“Be still” does not seem the right thing to do when you are in Hezekiah’s shoes. But God does not always do the reasonable thing. When we are surrounded by the enemy (Satan and his forces of evil) and we are depressed and there does to seem to be a way out, listen to what God says. He may speak to you in the words of this psalm, “Be still.” There are times that God says, “Fight.” It was certainly God’s will for Sampson to fight in the case recorded by him in Judges 15:16: “And Samson said, With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men.” No Bible believer would say that this was Sampson’s victory. The circumstances were different in this case. No one man can kill a thousand men with the jaw bone of a donkey. But God can take a man as an instrument of judgment in His hands and move him against an enemy and do it. In Hezekiah’s case, he got silent before God, and he met God in the stillness. God said, “Be still, and know that I am God.”
Our verse tells us that something happens in the stillness. We will learn. The word “know” translates “yada” and means, “to know by experience, to know, be acquainted with.” This definition implies that we will know God by experience in the stillness. It implies that we will become better acquainted with Him in the silence. Every great man I have ever read after that really had the manifest presence of God in his life put a high priority on a time when one gets alone with God in a time of prayer where God spoke to him and he spoke to God. Usually the time was early in the morning to begin the day. That is not always the time. But all of them had a time when they had this intimate fellowship with God and came to KNOW HIM.
God is the speaker of this statement: “Be still, and know that I am God.” For someone to come along and imply that this is an unnecessary exercise is to put oneself in opposition to the God of the Bible. A lot of people who want to maneuver you into an activity trap don’t like to be challenged, and therefore, make fun of anything that challenges their ideas. If you are considering this verse, you are in God’s audience right now. He is the speaker.
KNOWING GOD IS THE GOAL
What is it to know God? The word “yada” and the root from which it comes is found 944 times in the Old Testament. It has a multitude of shades of meaning. Its closes synonyms are words that means “to discern,” and “to recognize.” It is used of God’s knowledge of man and his ways. I believe it means that in the stillness of the quiet time, people who spend time with God, come to know Him more intimately. It is not just knowing about Him but knowing Him. This knowledge is not always something that you can put on paper or communicate with words. But it is a knowledge that is life changing.
AN EXPERIENCE BASED ON GRACE
Another thing. God is really favoring the person who knows Him.. It is based on grace. When we come into the presence of the Lord, we come to listen. We do not come as manipulators. We come as sinners cleansed by the blood of Jesus. We are not there to instruct. We are there to receive instructions and discern His will and make requests. It is a glorious experience to KNOW God better. This is what Paul is talking about in Phil. 2:10: “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.”
God speaks in the silence of the “holiest” (Heb. 10:19) and what He says makes us KNOW HIM.
THE WARFARE OF MAINTAINING STILLNESS
It is not easy to be perfectly still in God’s presence. Have you ever tried this exercise? Have you noticed how many things happen when you make an effort to have an undisturbed quiet time? The phone will ring. The children will disturb and even get into fights with one another during this time. It will be something that will stir your emotions to respond in a flash of anger that will bring a feeling of guilt that will ruin any possibility of a quiet time today! Then in exasperation you just give up for today. I believe one of the reasons many have gotten up early before anyone else is awake is to avoid this type of disturbance. It is not the children or the one calling on the phone who is against your quiet time. Paul says in Eph. 6:12, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” If it is Satan causing these problems, your wrong response to those humans that disturb, will only make him laugh and make your situation more difficult. A part of knowing God is to know His ways. And one of His ways is to be kind and unselfish and available to those in need.
A STRATEGY OF VICTORY
You say, “preacher, how do we have a quiet time when things are like this?” That is a very good question. First, you may learn from another and follow his example and it may work for you. You may rise early. But for you, that may not be practical at all. But if you will pray and ask God to give you wisdom to find a time for undisturbed fellowship with Him, I believe you will find it. It may not be easy because Satan does not want this in your life. The closer you get to the Lord, the more ground he loses. But the warfare that brings you into His presence in the stillness of a quiet time is well worth the fight.
God is a winner. And the one who waits upon Him enters into His victory. Imagine the thrill and utter joy of Hezekiah when he awoke to see 185,000 Assyrian soldiers strewn dead on the mountains of Jerusalem. The enemy was no more threat. Not only had God given victory over the army, but He had removed the heavy tax that had been levied on them by this foreign power. They were victors because they entered into a victory already won.
In conclusion, we see God is the speaker. He invites us to “Be still.” God is the One who writes the prescription for victory, i.e., “Be still and know that I am God.” So “knowing” God is the goal of the quiet time. It is not a time where the goal is to GET things, but to KNOW GOD. A good question: How well do we know God? Do we want to know Him better? Then we must take the prescription that He writes.
May God bless these words to our hearts.
In Christ
Bro. White
