STOP! ... LOOK! ... LISTEN!
GP 74
5/71
1. THE LORD IS TRYING TO TEACH YOU TO MAKE DECISIONS. ONE OF THE MAIN PRINCIPLES INVOLVED IN REACHING A DECISION IS: DON'T START TALKING--PRAY! God likes you to give Him a little honour. Prayer is not just to get down on your knees & speak your piece but to let God speak His, too!--And wait until He answers! You've got to get not only in prayer, but you've got to get in the Spirit. And if you do, He'll tell each one of you what you're supposed to do.
2. YOU NEED TO LEARN TO TALK TO THE LORD & HOW TO LISTEN MOST OF ALL. It's not up to the King to try to go chasing His subjects around screaming & hollering at them to try to get them to do what he wants. You come to Him with quietness & respect & you sincerely & in trembling present your petition, & you wait silently to get the answer. You have to fear, respect & reverence the Lord, & treat Him like the King He is.
3. UNLESS WE KNOW BY FAITH THAT WE'RE DOING THE RIGHT THING, EVEN IF WE ARE DOING THE RIGHT THING, IT IS A SIN. We get so busy with Bible Prophecy, Witnessing, Memorising, etc.--but if you don't know how to pray, you've got the letter of the Law rather than the Spirit. I don't care how many gifts you have--if you don't keep in touch with the Lord all the time, you're in trouble. But you don't have to be down on your hands & knees praying frantically to be heard. Prayer is something you're doing all the time, no matter what else you're doing. You can't wait until you're through doing this or that & then pray. It's like thinking on your feet!
4. I ASKED MY GRANDFATHER ONE TIME WHAT THE SECRET OF HIS SPEAKING SUCCESS WAS & he said, "I just get so full of my subject beforehand, & when I get in front of the audience I just speak right out of my heart." That's the secret of prayer. When did he fill his heart? He filled his mind & heart with the things he needed to know BEFORE he got up to speak. Out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaketh. Fill up your heart & you won't have any trouble knowing what to say--or what to do. It really tees me off to see you guys running around sometimes fussing & fuming & wondering what you're to do--& not asking the Lord.
5. THERE ARE TIMES YOU'RE IN ACTION & YOU CAN'T GET QUIET--YOU'VE GOT TO PRAY AS YOU GO. It's like the soldier preparing for battle--there better be a quiet time. Any soldier in his right mind is going to pray before & during the battle. But in the Lord's battle, you're going to get most of your tactics ahead of time! Like Patton--I believe he got most of his inspiration from the Lord. He ran largely by inspiration. He'd plan way AHEAD what his tactics & strategy were going to be. Then during the battle, sometimes he'd make split-second decisions & change plans--but mostly it was just like he had found out ahead of time!
6. BUT I DON'T SEE HOW YOU CAN HEAR THE LORD WHEN YOU'RE MAKING SO MUCH RACKET! Clear back in Huntington Beach I said, "You guys remind me of Samuel in reverse. When he heard the Lord in the quiet of the night, he said, 'Speak Lord, Thy servant heareth!' But the way most people pray is, 'Hear Lord, Thy servant speaketh.'" Most Christians are 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 & 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 you for YOUR signature--but are you willing to sign a blank sheet of paper & let God fill it in without your even knowing what His programme is going to be?"
7. ALL THIS RUNNING AROUND & MACHINERY--IF YOU DON'T LOOK OUT--IF YOU KEEP THIS UP YOU'LL BE JUST LIKE THE REST OF THE CHURCHES. Like the little girl said about the kitty, "Oh Mama, the kitty's gone to sleep & left its engine running!" You may run around & still be asleep spiritually & you may not be getting anywhere--as one that beateth the air! It's really pitiful--I'm really concerned about it! Because unless you get quiet & try to SEEK the Lord, how are you ever going to get anything FROM the Lord!
8. I'M FULLY CONVINCED I'VE GOTTEN MORE FROM THE LORD ALONE & QUIET THAN EVER ANY OTHER WAY. Because He can talk to you alone & you can give Him your full attention & the reverence due Him--& you're listening. If you're in a room full of people & the TV is on--if they keep raising their voices & drowning out the TV--no matter how loud the volume is, you won't get what it has to say. And the Lord, unlike TV, will just shut up if you don't listen!
9. I WAS A VERY QUIET LITTLE BOY, AFRAID OF PEOPLE--INTROVERTED--SHY! MAYBE THAT'S WHY I HEARD SO MUCH FROM THE LORD. I was always going around by myself alone & I was always hearing all kinds of things. And I know now it was the Lord teaching me Himself! Only in recent years have I learned to enjoy the fellowship of others. I love to be alone with the Lord because you can hear God so clearly when you're alone & quiet. The Lord speaks in a still small, but very definite, very firm, but very loving voice--but if you're too noisy you're not going to hear it! Maybe our kids need to learn how to pray! You know, you can be alone out in the woods & think you've got to go out to pray alone--but when you get there, you scream at the top of your voice. Well, you're alone, but defeating the purpose of being alone. You're yelling so loud yourself, you can't hear the Lord. That's not the kind of prayer I'm talking about. God's not deaf: You have to wait awhile & see if He's going to answer your prayer. Stop & be quiet & wait for the answer. You yourself can be your own distraction! If you're not going out to get quiet & listen, then there's really not much point in going!
10. BUT IF YOU REALLY WANT TO HEAR HIM, HE'LL TALK TO YOU. But the only time you can hear is when you sit down & get quiet! God doesn't usually scream! By the time God starts screaming at you, it's too late. He's probably so mad, it's too late, when God starts thundering out His judgements. Boy, you get quiet then! You shut up THEN & listen. But it's a little too late then. If you don't pay any attention to the yelling, then you get swatted down & 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.
11. LORD HELP US TO GET QUIET BEFORE HIM & LISTEN!--Not only make other people shut up, but shut up ourselves. If you don't have some quiet time with the Lord, I don't know how you can operate! I get most of my information from the Lord alone in the quiet of the night when everything is absolutely still & it's completely without distraction. If I wake up in the night & can't go back to sleep, I usually figure that's what it's for. But if you can't sleep, maybe God wants you to pray! As soon as I get prayed up I go right back to sleep!
12. MOST OF THE THINGS I GET FROM THE LORD, NOBODY KNOWS I'M PRAYING--IT'S JUST BETWEEN ME & THE LORD. "Go into thy closet & shut the door, & thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."--Mat.6:6. Now there's also a time for public prayer, when you pray together in a group--a time to unite your hearts together before the Lord. And if the whole congregation will get quiet, God will even speak THERE.
13. IN HUNTINGTON BEACH, PEOPLE COULD NOT BELIEVE IT WHEN THEY SAW 50 PEOPLE STANDING AROUND HOLDING HANDS IN A CIRCLE, NOT EVEN SPEAKING A WORD--JUST WAITING. We did this every night & every day & God answered, because we just stood there & insisted on hearing from Him. And believe you me, He talked wonderfully! We'd have a class, then we'd pray--& prayer wasn't screaming at God. We'd get around & hold hands & praise the Lord a little bit--priming the pump--please Him by praising Him--like coming before the King & salaaming, & then you stay on your knees & shut up & see what He has to say. That's the way it usually works! You praise the Lord first of all--maybe somebody leads in prayer--then the stream of praise begins to die down & you wait for the Lord to speak. And then maybe somebody gives a little application or judge ment of it. A lot of times people don't understand what the Lord has said. You say something like, "Praise the Lord! You see what the Lord said? He said so-&-so." And then you praise the Lord some more & then wait.
14. WE USED TO GET MESSAGE AFTER MESSAGE THROUGH THOSE BABES--kids right off the beach & the street were learning to pray! Why, I made Shad the manager of the Club just a few weeks after he first came. And most of the kids he had to work with, like Abner, for example, were brand new--we just put them right to work! And they did a terrific job! Why? Because they didn't know what to do, so they asked the Lord. And that way they just got along great! I'll tell you, Shad had a rip-snorter of a prayer meeting down at that Club every morning--they never started a day without prayer--really asking the Lord to help!
15. HOWEVER, IT'S A LITTLE DANGEROUS TO WAIT UNTIL THINGS START STIRRING IN THE MORNING. You can't JUST depend on these united prayer sessions--sometimes they don't have'm! You're going to have to get quiet by yourself--somewhere, somehow, sometime, if you're going to hear from the Lord! You have to play it by ear--& it better be your ear & the Lord's music! I guess to some Christians, playing it by ear means getting God's ear--trying to yell at God & shove their programme across! I know very little--I just have to ask the Lord!--And He's the One Who has to tell you what to do!
16. HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW ABOUT BEING QUIET BEFORE THE LORD--ABOUT REVERENCING THE LORD? How many quiet times do you have, studying to be quiet? "In quietness & confidence shall your strength be." 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 & not trying to do it yourself! If you don't know what to do, stop everything!--Get quiet & 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 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 & keep going no matter what!
17. THERE'S NOTHING MORE IMPORTANT THAN FINDING OUT WHAT GOD WANTS TO TELL US! You just get busy listening to the Lord & you won't have to be bothered with these other things you think you have to do. After all, if you're there at His Service & asking Him what to do, He'll sure take care of things, if you're waiting on Him!
18. GETTING QUIET BEFORE THE LORD SHOWS YOU HAVE FAITH THAT GOD IS GOING TO HANDLE THE SITUATION. IT SHOWS YOU TRUST THE LORD. "Thou shalt keep Him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee."--Isa.26:3. If you're not trusting, you're going to be in confusion all the time.
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 & worrying & fretting & fuming, you're not trusting. You don't have the faith you oughta have. Trusting is a picture of complete rest, peace & quiet of mind, heart & spirit. The body may have to continue working, but your attitude & spirit is calm.
19. THAT'S WHY YOU CAN HAVE PEACE IN THE MIDST OF STORM. I've told you about that picture that won the contest & illustrated peace. Most of the artists handed in these quiet, calm pastoral scenes--absolute total quiet. That's a form of peace! But the hardest kind of peace to have is the picture that won the award! That was a picture of this horrible, roaring, raging cataract--a river in all its foaming & 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!
20. JESUS, ON THE EVE OF HIS MINISTRY, GOES OUT &, SOME PEOPLE WOULD SAY, WASTES 40 DAYS & NIGHTS ON THE MOUNTAIN HIMSELF & it seemed like He spent much of the time with the Devil. He had to lick the Devil first! If you don't get alone with the Lord & lick the Devil first, you might as well forget it! I wonder how much of that 120 years Noah spent praying! 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've gotten feverish thinking rain was coming any minute & just slapped it together. But he just went calmly along 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!
21. THAT'S WHY THEY SAY FARMERS MAKE THE BEST MISSIONARIES, BECAUSE THEY DON'T EXPECT EVERYTHING IN ONE DAY. They have a lot of patience in the long process of waiting for the plants to grow, or the animals to produce. The farmer just has to trust that the Lord will make them grow & 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!" The farmer is a perfect example of faith & patience. That's why so few people want to live on the farm. Because it takes too much dependence on God!--There's not too much THEY can do--they have to leave it all up to God! They're 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! 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, & you know what that word means--"away from thinking".
22. PEOPLE ARE ABSOLUTELY SCARED STUPID OF THE QUIET & THE STILLNESS, BECAUSE THEY KNOW THE VOICE OF GOD MIGHT COME THROUGH! So the Devil keeps their mind & their eyes & their ears filled with noise & violent sights & sounds! That's why cities are such a curse! They're totally Man-made environments!--So they get entirely away from God--hardly a blade of grass, & where you can't see the stars or the Sun or Moon or the sky. They live underground!--Screeching, screaming sub ways, 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 country children have very keen hearing. If you live in an atmosphere of spiritual & 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 & peace & calm & stillness, you'll find your ears really becoming very keen & sharp. We should take a lesson from the farmer! City people become dull of hearing & hardened of heart!
23. 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 & pray, you're too busy! What if the servant said to the King, "I'm sorry, I can't come & listen to your orders today, I'm too busy out serving you!"
24. THE MOST IMPORTANT JOB YOU HAVE IS LISTENING TO THE KING: TO STOP, LOOK & LISTEN!--OR YOU'RE GOING TO GET RUN OVER! That's the greatest danger: All this feverish activity! This is the greatest temptation of workers for the Lord!
25. THERE ARE A LOT OF CHRISTIANS THAT START PLAYING WITH THE THINGS OF GOD & NEGLECT GOD HIMSELF! Or like that little girl who took her fellowship time with her father to make him bedroom slippers for his birthday & nearly broke his heart. God may appreciate the bedroom slippers you're making for Him, but He'd rather have YOU! And in fact, you'll probably make a helluva mess of them if you neglect Him!
26. ONE OF THE BIGGEST LESSONS YOU'RE GONNA HAVE TO LEARN IS TO WAIT FOR THE LORD TO WORK! I know times when I didn't listen to the Lord & the only way He could get me to look up was to get me flat on my back where that was the only direction I could look--straight up! My Mother used to give her testimony of getting so busy with the Lord's Work that the Lord had to slap her down with a malignant cancer so she'd have to give HIM her full attention!
27. GOD WILL NOT TAKE SECOND PLACE EVEN TO HIS SERVICE! "I will have no other gods before Me; thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord Thy God am a jealous God. ..."--Exo.20:3,5. That probably is the greatest mistake of sincere Christians: To make a god of God's Service. All this action, all this noise, beating the air, holding a service--& so little of God! We used to sing this little song:
"Let go & let God have His wonderful way,
Let go & let God have His way!
He'll fill with His Spirit & keep day by day.
Let go & let God have His way!"
It's a lot easier for you to just let God do it! And you show you're letting go by getting quiet before the Lord! You show that you have faith by stopping your own activity & waiting for God to work! "Be still & know that I am God. Study to be quiet."
28. ONE DAY WHEN MARTIN LUTHER & HIS CO-WORKER MELANCTHON HAD A PARTICULARLY STRENUOUS & BUSY DAY AHEAD, Melancthon suggested that they cut their prayer time together at the beginning of the day in half. Luther refused vehemently & insisted that instead of their regular TWO hours in prayer, they would today have to spend FOUR hours in the presence of the Lord because they have so MUCH to do!
29. WHEN MOSES WAS A REAL SMART YOUNG MAN OF 40 YEARS OF AGE & really thought he knew how to do the job, he made a helluva mess out of it, & he had to run for his life & it took God 40 years to straighten him out & show him he had to depend on HIM!
30. HURRY IS A SIGN YOU'RE AFRAID YOU'RE GOING TO BE LATE--WHICH MEANS YOU HAVE FEAR, WHICH MEANS YOU HAVEN'T GOT FAITH! If you're late, take it easy! Trust the Lord! One reason we hurry when we're late, in the first place, is because it was probably our own fault & we don't want to have to suffer the consequences! That's pride! You don't want people to know you were really late!
31. AND ANOTHER REASON YOU HURRY IS THAT YOU'RE NOT TRUSTING THE LORD! You're afraid if you don't get there you're going to miss something. You can't trust God that He's able to hold up the whole World or stop the Sun like Joshua had Him do. I'll never forget when I was rushing around trying to get the train & the Lord warned me that if I kept up this nervous & physical strain I would kill myself. So I put it in the Lord's hands to stop the train & I relaxed & took my time! And after I got on the train I sat there for 40 minutes wondering why the always punctual train did not leave the station. I finally asked the Lord & He told me, "You didn't tell Me you wanted to leave yet."
32. "THE HURRIER I GO, THE BEHINDER I GET!" Just relax, slow down; don't rush; don't be hasty; squeeze--don't jerk--& the Lord will slow everything else down for you if necessary! No use trying to kill yourself! You've got to learn to rest in the Lord!--And take it easier!
33. ALL THE SAMPLES IN THE BIBLE OF PATIENCE: JOB, MOSES & LOOK AT DAVID! He spent 24 years working under that old blunderbuss, King Saul, & the Lord really taught him from looking at Saul! Saul got all up-tight & tried to do things in his own strength & he found he wasn't strong enough! David learned that you have to let God do everything!--And wait for Him! Slow it down! Stop! ... Look! ... Listen! Wait for the Lord!--Especially if you don't know what to do & haven't heard from the Lord yet!
34. JESUS SPENT 30 YEARS OF HIS LIFE IN PREPARATION & only a little over three years in His public ministry! We're in such a hurry! If we don't give these outgoing teams any other preparation, let's at least teach them how to get their orders from the Lord!
35. YOU DON'T HEAR MUCH ABOUT JOHN THE BELOVED--a little about him being with the Lord etc. John wrote the Gospel of John--it must have taken some time with the Lord to do it! But his greatest masterpiece was written by the Lord in exile on an island.--The Book of Revelation. His biggest work was just letting God do all the directing & all the showing & the whole shebang! Let's slow it down! Stop! ... Look! ... Listen!, or you're going to get run over.
36. THE WORLD IS ALWAYS IN A HURRY! THAT'S THE DEVIL'S OWN MACHINERY: TO SPEED UP THE WORLD--anything to make everything move faster! God created the Earth 6,000 years ago & it hasn't hardly varied in its speed since then! GOD hasn't speeded up the seasons or the years any. MAN is speeding it up--Hell-bent for destruction! Slow it down: Squeeze--don't jerk! But most of all: Stop! Look! Listen! And WAIT! You see signs like this at dangerous places--crossings--intersections--places of crisis--an interruption of your routine--an interruption of your way--your road--your highway! Otherwise you might get out there & get hit by an express train!
37. BUT YOU SAY, "I DON'T HAVE TIME TO STOP & TO LOOK & TO LISTEN!" If you don't, you may never make it! Better late than never! Which is easier--to try to beat the train, to try to plough through the train, jump over the train or just to stop, watch it go by, wait another few minutes & it'll be out of your way & you can go peacefully on your way! Trying to force the situation & push your way through just won't work!
38. I'VE FOUND OUT THAT NO MATTER WHAT I DO, THE LORD'S WORK WILL GO ON! If it's God's Work, NOTHING will stop it--not even my absence! PTL? So it doesn't pay to rush around & fret & fume & try to get someplace to do something when you're supposed to be waiting on the Lord to find out for sure just where He wants you to be & what He wants you to do!
39. YOU'VE GOT TO KNOW YOU CAN'T DO IT & BE DESPERATE FOR GOD'S ANSWER, & STOP EVERYTHING ELSE & LISTEN! Getting quiet before the Lord shows you have FAITH that the Lord is going to handle the situation. Take time to hear from God & He'll take time to straighten out the problem. YOUR feverish activity is nothing, your service is NOTHING, if you don't give the KING your attention, your love, your time, your communion.
40. REMEMBER THAT HURRY IS LACK OF FAITH & IS OF THE DEVIL! If you're hurrying & rushing around, fretting & impatient, you'll never be able to focus your full attention--your eyes, your ears, your mind, your heart on the Lord for the solution to the problem, the answer to the question, the best decision for the situation! But if you Stop, Look & Listen & wait in communion with Him--when you have learned to do this & to get HIS answer, you will have learned HOW to make decisions! You will have learned to PRAY & will have become truly one of GOD'S leaders. "He gives the very best to them, who leave the choices up to Him!"