Study to be Quiet [Leaflets]

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One of the hardest lessons in the school of God is to “sit still.” The flesh craves activity. We live in a restless age and are affected by it. Our restless, untiring foe will see to it that we are kept in a state of feverish activity until our lives become like the heaving ocean—never still. And we may be sure that God is not in all this, any more than He was in the wind, the earthquake, and the fire when the fury of the oppressor threatened the life of Elijah (1 Kings 19). But when these were spent, “Elijah heard “a still small voice” and it was God’s voice. God was not indifferent to the oppression and threats leveled against His servant, but He was leading him in paths of quietness and confidence that he might realize that God was still for him, and that He was still his strength. The wind, the earthquake, and the fire were the demonstrations of God, but Elijah learned that the still small voice of God is greater than all outward manifestations.

The great enemy of our souls is engaged in occupying us with affairs that seem to be of great importance but which, after all, are childish and trivial. He adopts all sorts of forms to “pain and perplex, puzzle and provoke us. He will torture, taunt and trouble us to the breaking point. He will defame and depress, distract and distress us. He will bind and bruise, blacken and blight us. He will worry and weaken and waste us, and wear us out, if he can!” Beloved, let us not be ignorant of his devices. Those with whom we have had happy fellowship in bygone days may be the instruments in his hand for our severest torture. “They will be made, by his satanic power to misunderstand us, to twist our words and to misrepresent us. They will construe our motives and condemn our sincerest actions as false. They will criticize us and say unkind, cutting and untrue things about us. They will frustrate our efforts to forward the work of Christ and oppose us in all that is to us most clearly the will of God. They will scatter reports concerning us that are calumnious and cruel. Yes, these are they whose love we long for most, and whose hearts it would pain us with the most intense agony to harm. But in the hands of the oppressor, they become our deadliest foes.”

Under such circumstances, what is the believer to do?

“Study to be quiet.”

His safety is to be found in that blessed word, “In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.” Isaiah 30:15.

The spiritual man will thus be thrown so entirely upon God, and shut up to Him, that the sense of liberty, restfulness and power will be an experience hitherto unknown. Blessed be God!

The safest course—the only course—is to simply commit the case “to Him Who judgeth righteously” and say nothing. “To speak, to retaliate, to remonstrate, even to inform or explain, while such a spirit of opposition prevails will only add fuel to the fire” and the believer will play into the hands of the enemy.

What an unspeakable comfort to the soul, while passing through such times of conflict and oppression, to know that “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth.” Isaiah 53:7. “When He was reviled, He reviled not again; when He suffered He threatened not, but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously.” 1 Peter 2:23.

“It is hard on the flesh to go this way of silence when there is every ground for vindication and upholding of our rights; but this must be the way. It is God’s way; it is the only way to victory. Our safety, satisfaction and success lies in following His steps in the path of silent committal of ourselves and our concerns “to Him Who judgeth righteously.”

“Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you; but rejoice inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when His glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.” 1 Peter 4:12-13.

“God is our only Refuge. As we are thrown back on Him, and know the power that can keep us calm, and quiet, and safe, and sweet, and satisfied in the midst of all the fury, we are fitted to glorify Him by our testimony, and to help others who are in the bondage of the Devil to experience for themselves God’s liberating and overcoming power.

“This further must be said, and it is elementary but essential: There can be no experience of victory over the fury of the oppressor unless we have a heart that is uncondemned before God. 1 John 3:21-22. It is foolishness to think that we can overcome the pressure of the enemy that is laid upon us if we are conscious that we are not right with God in the details of our life.

“Let us not shirk the conflict, or fly from the fury, but face it and go through.”

The Lord Himself grant that writer and readers alike may “Study to be quiet” (1 Thessalonians 4:11), to “Be still and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10. F. B. Tomkinson

Frank Tomkinson has quoted extensively from “The Fury of the Oppressor”—a significantly longer article, no longer in print, by B. McCall Barbour.