Their Strength Is to Sit Still (Don't Dissipate Power, but Wait on the lord.)

Selected Verses:

Isaiah 30:7. For the Egyptians shall help in vain, and to no purpose: therefore have I cried concerning this, Their strength is to sit still.

Psalm 91:1. He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

Opening:

Strange scripture: "Their strength is to sit still." And that's a very hard lesson to learn: sitting still. "In confidence and quietness shall be your strength." But we're finding it out, aren't we? "I've been finding out the greatness of Thy loving heart," sitting in Thy presence. And I was very much interested in reading some biographies of men and women that have known God very greatly--very richly--that they all came into the same rest, great rest. They "ceased from their own works" and thereby they won a great victory, because God won it for them.

When my brother had received the baptism in the Holy Ghost, he came home, and we were all a little bit afraid of him. We thought he had gotten into some awful delusion, so he didn't say much. He just came home and he let his light shine, and my, it was a real light! He was a young student and one of the first things that impressed me was a motto he made himself. He cut it out of paper and hung it on the wall, and it said, "Let go. Let God." That was strange to me.

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Selected Quotes:

I said to God when I read the 91st Psalm: "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High." I said, "Well, who dwells there? There must be a place like that." "He shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty." What security! What safety: "under the shadow of the Almighty"! I said, "God, there must be a place like that, and if nobody finds it, I'm going to find it! I'm going to hide in there."

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Oh, God's teaching us a marvelous lesson: to sit still. There's strength. Have you ever discovered it? Have you discovered the strength of Jehovah being ministered to you? That's what Jesus means: "When you pray and when you fast, pray, fast before your Father who is secret, and He'll reward you openly." Then when He asks some service of you, it's powerful, it's effective. But it was created on the inside when you were alone with God. "Shut in with Thee, O Lord forever..."

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Why, beloved, there's no virtue in working; it's in getting things done, praise the Lord! If you go to work for God with the idea of getting things done, you'll find out that without Him "you can do nothing." You can't even think straight without Him. You try to run God's business and you'll certainly make an awful job of it. But waiting upon the Lord--"Unto Thee, O Lord do I lift up my soul. O my God, I trust in Thee: let me not be ashamed; let not mine enemies triumph over me." He says, "Don't meditate. It'll be given you in the same hour."

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Oh, what fools we are when we don't use our brains--I mean spiritually speaking. We ought to think. We ought to let God think for us. Now, that's been the life of this work for 35 years. It's been waiting upon the Lord, because we know we can do nothing. We can't do anything right. But we know He can. We know we're in His employ. We know that God has made the plan for us and for this work, both in Germany and in Austria and here. And we've never dared make a plan of our own or take a step of our own. And if I were to tell you what's happened, how marvelously God has gone before while we rested in Him! That was our job: to "labor to enter into rest." We don't know how we dissipate and how we waste God's time by not letting go and letting God, and recognizing that, after all, we're just instruments. We're vessels "sanctified and meet for the Master's use." And if we're for His use, then He must do the planning, He must do the thinking and the scheming, and the equipment. And He must work it out.

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Illustrations:

An illustration of being converted and becoming as a little child. "Nothing to do but to eat and sleep and be carried around; you don't even have to walk. Well, that's what Jesus means when He says, 'Except ye be converted and become as little children ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.'" (from 5:49)

The quiet of the hydrologic cycle. "If man had to do that, they'd put up pumps and, my, you couldn't live for noise! ... But God does it quietly. While we're sitting here, the water is being pumped up there." (from 8:23)

The power of steam wasted on an empty show. "The steam that you can see and hear doesn't drive any train at all. Oh, God's teaching us a marvelous lesson: to sit still. There's strength." (from 10:01)

Dissipation by disorganization. "Most of us are being managed by our work. We're drowned by it... Oh, the blessing of being composed and being 'hid with Christ in God,' and letting Christ really run us--possess us as an instrument that He works through and He works by." (from 13:23)

An illustration of a cat preserving her powers. "By our fidgetiness and by our nervousness we waste our energy--we waste our powers." (from 16:21)

The old Swiss virtue of wash day. "They thought, you know, it was a great virtue to appear busy. They didn't believe in using a wash machine. Oh no, goodness! One woman said to me, 'Who do you think I am? Do you think I'm so lazy!' No, no. She wanted to have holes in her knuckles that she had rubbed through on the washboard." (from 18:04)

The story of the jeweler who worked restfully. (from 19:37)

German at 10:06:

Appenzeller Zügle -- Appenzell is a Canton in Switzerland, and "Appenzeller Zügle" is a train in Appenzell.

References:

Jesus, I Am Resting, Resting, a hymn by Jean S. Pigott, 1876:

Jesus, I am resting, resting,

In the joy of what Thou art;

I am finding out the greatness

Of Thy loving heart.

Thou hast bid me gaze upon Thee,

And Thy beauty fills my soul,

For by Thy transforming power,

Thou hast made me whole.

The Inner Chamber

by Gerhard Tersteegen (translated by Frances Bevan)

(Psalm 90:1)

My Beloved, from earth's many voices

Welcome me to Thy seclusion sweet--

Let me still, and restful, and adoring,

Sit with Mary at Thy blessed Feet--

In Thy secret place, alone with Thee,

None beside to hear, and none to see.

Led by wandering gleams o'er fen and moorland,

What are we, outwearied at our best?

For the heart amidst the world's allurings

Craveth evermore for God and rest--

God and rest--all else the weary load

Of a toiler on an endless road.

Blessed he, who from the strife has entered

God's fair Home of peace for evermore--

Sounds of the great world's confusion murmuring

As the sea upon a distant shore;

Here, ere yet his earthly day is done,

His eternal task of love begun.

In the desert still, yet by the river

Bearing heavenly fruit, a healing tree;

In the Spirit and in truth adoring

Him whom none but eyes anointed see--

Marvels of God's secret place made known

Unto him who dwells with God alone,--

There the lonely heart His sweetness learneth,

Sheltered there beneath the shadowing wings--

In the depths of hidden rest encompassed

By the tender gleams of heavenly things;

Who amidst the world's sad mirth can tell,

What it is apart in God to dwell?