In Touch Ministries

Dr. Charles Stanley: God is a great mystery in some areas. You'll never be able to figure out why He does certain things. Let me ask you this: You want God's perspective? You want purity? You want power? Then let me ask you a question. Are you willing to stop doing something you've been doing or rearrange your time, reschedule your activities to give God some time?

Guest (Male): Have you ever blamed your busy schedule for keeping you from spending time with the Lord? The unfortunate reality is that it's all too easy to find an excuse to neglect prayer. Today's edition of In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley, can help us prioritize our relationship with God with seven necessities for sitting before the Lord, from 2 Samuel chapter 7. Let's listen in to Dr. Stanley's message.

Dr. Charles Stanley: If you'll turn to 2 Samuel chapter 7. verse 18: "Then went King David in and sat before the Lord."

Now, that phrase is also found in 1 Chronicles, which also relates this same event here in his life. Let me tell you what's happening at this particular time. The scripture says in verse 1 of chapter 7, "It came to pass when the king sat in his house and the Lord had given him rest roundabout from all of his enemies." So, what's happened up to this time? Of course, he's defeated the Philistines. He's brought the territory under control. It says that the king said to Nathan the prophet, "See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God, that is, the ark of the covenant dwells within curtains," that is, within the tabernacle, which is made primarily of cloth and so forth.

And Nathan said to the king, "Go, do all that's in your heart, and the Lord is with you." And it came to pass that night that the word of the Lord came to Nathan saying, "Go and tell my servant David, 'Thus says the Lord: "Shall you build me a house for me to dwell in?"'" And then he gives him a message that he's to tell David.

And if you'll move on down to verse 17, it says, "According to all these words and according to all this vision, so did Nathan speak to David." So, what's happening here, what's motivating David now to leave his house and go into the tabernacle and just sit before the Lord? Two things. First of all, the prophet Nathan has said to him, "God has given me a message for you and this is it." And the second thing that motivated him was that David wanted to know what was meant by all that God had said to him through the prophet Nathan. Let me just say this to you.

When you and I practice what he says right here, the Bible says that he sat before the Lord. You and I ought to be able and willing and ready at times to do just that, and that is to sit before the Lord. And what ought to motivate us ought to be the same thing that motivated him. That is, that he'd gotten a message that he needed a very, very clear interpretation of, or, if you're now in the process of making a decision in our life and we really don't know what to do next.

Or if we are in a circumstance in our life and we don't really know what God is trying to say to us, and we need to listen to him. When he says that he sat before the Lord, it's the only time in the Bible that any saint of God is ever represented as sitting before God in prayer. Usually, they're standing or they're kneeling or they're lying prostrate before the Lord. And the real truth of it is here, that it's not the posture here that's important in the first place. When he says that he went in and sat before the Lord, the important thing isn't that he sat. The important thing was that he took time to be with the Lord. But how many of you have said, "Oh, I've got to just do so and so in my life?" Let me tell you something, you're not waiting on him. He is waiting on you.

Now, let me ask you a question. Because I'm going to give you seven things that demand something of you, but I want to ask you this: What are you willing to give to get God's perspective? So, what are you willing to do to get that?

And secondly, what are you willing to do for God to purify and to keep your heart pure before Him? And thirdly, what are you willing to do in order that God would empower you with the Spirit of God in your work, in your witness, in your walk, in your conduct, in your behavior, in your relationship to other people, in your finances, in your service before God? What are you willing to do to have God's omnipotence, God's anointing in your life? What are you willing? Let me ask you something, are you willing to float through your Christian life and saying, "Well, as long as I get by and don't commit this sin, don't get in trouble, don't get in jail, don't run around somebody else's wife, and have enough finances and go to church and serve the Lord?" I'm willing, I want to tell you, God wants us to be everything He planned us to be.

Let me ask you a question, what are you willing to give for God's perspective, God's purity, and God's power in your life? What are you willing to give?

Well, sitting there right now with that knowing, you probably say, "I'm willing to give anything God says." Well, you haven't heard it yet. And you see, it is so simple, so simple. I want you to write them down. The seven of them, they all begin with an S, so you will not forget them. Now listen.

What is required of us when you and I sit before the Lord? Well, there are seven things I want you to remember. First of all, write this word down: "season," dash, "time." It takes time to sit before the Lord. Now, that first one is a humongous hang-up.

Look in Psalm 27 verse 14, he says, David says, "Wait on the Lord. Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord." Now listen to me.

Every one of us has 24 hours of a day. And what you Let me tell you something, now watch this. You have to go back and ask yourself the question, "Now, what's hanging in the balance?" God's perspective, God's purity, and God's power. That's my goal.

Now if you lose sight of the goal, you're going to miss what I'm saying. What is it? Three things. What are they? God's what? God's perspective, God's purity, and God's power. All right, first of all.

You want those in your life? Sitting before the Lord requires time. All of us have enough time to sit before the Lord. Wait upon the Lord, be of good courage, he will strengthen your heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. Now listen.

Sometimes sitting before the Lord just means sitting there for a season of time and just waiting. You won't hear anything, you won't do anything. You'll just sit there. And your first reaction is, "I am wasting my time." And that came straight out of where? Hell.

Whenever you're sitting before the Lord and you're just being quiet before Him, and you may be in a dark room, or you may be prostrate before Him in prayer, or kneeling, or just sitting. When you start feeling like, "I'm wasting my time," that is the devil doing the talking. There's no question about that.

Because you see, just sitting there. I'll give you an example. Yesterday, I sat for two solid hours trying to hear God say something to me and I couldn't hear it. I just couldn't hear it. But I just kept sitting there and kept sitting there, and just one thing I couldn't get in my heart. And last night, I thought, "Now, Lord, the only thing I can do is just wait."

Sometime we wait, and you won't do anything and nothing will happen. God wants to bring to your attention something he wants to deal with in your life. And I want to tell you something, you're never kneeling, prostrate before God, or sitting before the Lord and wasting time. It is an absolute divine impossibility. Something is happening while you are waiting. And sometime it's happening and you don't have any idea what's going on.

You can't figure it out, you can't figure it out. God is a great mystery in some areas. You'll never be able to figure out why He does certain things. But let me ask you this. You want God's perspective? You want purity? You want power? Then let me ask you a question. Are you willing to stop doing something you've been doing or rearrange your time, reschedule your activities to give God some time?

Now, here's our problem. We are so activity oriented with so many plans, we plan God right out of there. I'm here to tell you, I have to confess, I have to check up on myself every day. And when I come home at night and I look to see what I've done, I think, "How in the world could I have spent all of my day doing that?"

All of them so very, very important. But every once in a while, He's not priority. And I'm here to tell you, I can feel it just like that. I'm talking about just taking time to be with Him. It takes time. The second thing is "stillness."

You'd be amazed how fidgety you and I are if we really got down to the hard cold facts, stillness. Now listen, we are activity oriented. And so we want to get something going, we want to keep something going all the time.

But to sit before the Lord still, or to lie before him, or to kneel before him in stillness before God. Now let me tell you what will happen. While you're sitting before the Lord, the devil will say, "Supper? You've got to have supper in an hour and a half." The devil will say, "You want to be home for breakfast on time, or your wife's going to get upset." The devil will tell you a thousand things. Now listen, that's why you need to set your time where you are safe.

And don't crowd God up between three things. Listen, give him the first time and the best time. Because what you want to do is you want to get still. And listen, you can't get still checking your clock. There's no way to do it.

You're going to get fidgety. You can't even concentrate if you're trying to be still before God right quick. You can't do that. You see, if you go back through the scriptures and read about Paul and Elijah and David, all of these men of God, what did they do? They spent time with God. Stillness before God. The third thing, we need to move on here. The third thing is "seclusion," and that's being alone. Jesus went away in the mountain by himself.

Paul went away into Arabia. Elijah was out under the tree by himself. You go all the way through the scriptures and you find Daniel, Joseph, all through the scriptures, the prophets, they were men who knew how to enjoy seclusion. Alone with God. Now, I want to tell you the confession of my own heart.

The other day I was just down praying and listening to the Lord and talking to him about all these things that's going on, and being quiet. I thought, "Lord, I've been a lot of places in the world, most places that I've wanted to go with a few exceptions."

I've done a lot of things that I've enjoyed, most of the things in life that I've wanted to do. There's not anything in this world tonight materially that I want. God has blessed me. And as I looked about all the things that God's done in my life, I could honestly say that no experience, no place I've ever been and nothing I've ever had is even in the running with the sense of absolute and total contentment and fulfillment and completeness that's found in being alone with God.

And your conscience is clear and your heart is right before him. That is the pinnacle of existence. Doesn't mean that you don't want something else later on, because God gives us desires. But I'm saying there ought to be seasons, times in our life when you and I experience absolute and total complete fulfillment, just being alone with God.

And if you can't, then there is something in your life that is keeping you from being what God wants you to be and is stealing your contentment. Because you see, you look at people who are lost, and backslidden Christians living in carnality, and I tell you, it grieves me when I see them struggling. No contentment, no peace, and no joy, and fighting against themselves.

Seclusion. The fourth word is "silence." Just being quiet before God. He says in Isaiah chapter 30, I believe, verse 15: "In quietness and in confidence is thy strength."

Just being quiet. You say, "Well, wait a minute. I thought you said we sit before the Lord to pray." No, I didn't say that. Talking is part of it, but it's not even the most important part. Sitting before the Lord and being quiet. Now here's what happens. Listen.

Let me tell you what's going to happen so you'll know. If you said tonight, "Well, I think that's what I'm going to do when I get home. I'm going to do something different. I'm not going to turn on the television." Let me tell you something, the first thing that will happen is Satan will push the button, crank up the engines and just your mind starts, just like this. You begin to think about all the things that have happened today, what you're going to do tomorrow, and you say, "I'm not going to think about all that." By the time you've got it quieted down, it just starts up again, cranky, crank, all kinds of noises going on in your mind. You begin to think about all these things. You have to keep pushing it out.

But if you say, "Well, it's not working, forget it." Then Satan has defeated you. But if you'll sit there for a while, here's what'll happen. After a while, the noises will begin to diminish. The sounds will become silent. And it'll just be you and God being quiet.

You say, "Well, but suppose there's lots of noise outside?" It is amazing how God can deafen your ears to physical noises once you are quiet on the inside, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. But quietness, you see, most people pray and they start off, "Now, Heavenly Father," and you see, God, sometimes he just wants to say, "Cool it. Be quiet. Let me do the talking. Just don't say anything."

God wants to speak. Let me ask you this, how many of you in here do not want to hear from God? Then before you'll ever hear from him, you've got to be quiet enough, silent enough, so you can hear him when he speaks. Sometimes he'll just bring a passage, and it's just like it says, "Dear Charles." Sometimes it'll just be a thought he brings through your mind, and when that thought comes through, everything in you just melts, and it's just like God says, "Now this is it." Absolute perfect peace overwhelms you, overcomes you, and the very thought that that's what God may want you to do is a peacefulness that just like, little by little it just totally covers you. God speaks to different people in different ways.

Next word is "self-control." Because you see, you will have to learn to concentrate on God. Some people's temperaments are different than others, and for some people, it would be a little easier to be still and quiet than for others. But self-control, because listen, you may get hungry, you may get tired, you may get sleepy. You say, "I can't concentrate." All these things. But remember what the goal is.

Your perspective on things, your purity before God, and your power with God. Listen, those three objectives right there ought to be worth whatever it takes to teach us to be able to sit before the Lord quietly, and don't say anything. You see, sitting before Jehovah, Yahweh, Elohim, Adonai, Jesus Christ, concentrating upon Him, and not giving in to these emotions to get up and go do something.

Self-control. And then, "sensitive." When you and I are sitting before the Lord, we must be very keenly aware to listen to what God's saying. Sensitivity means that I am keenly aware of what's going on around me, in my relationship to Him, and what's happening. What am I really feeling? What am I thinking? What is God saying?

Is God trying to say something to me? And listen, one of his rewards is purification. If I'm not sensitive, God won't get to me in some area that he wants to get to me about. And more than likely, you won't go before the Lord many times without Him saying, "I want you to check up on thus and so."

It isn't just to have a bunch of sins read out to you, but we do have to be sensitive because you see, what he may say, he says, "What about your relationship to so and so? What about this in your life?" And what we have to ask is what's our goal? If our goal is power, then, my friend, purification always precedes power.

And then the last thing is a "submissive spirit." I've got to be willing to be submissive to Him, whatever He requires of me. That means I've got to be available to Him.

Submission before God. If I'm before the Lord and my spirit is just rebellious against God, I'm not going to get it. But let me ask you a question, listen. You have to ask yourself this question: Do I really want God's perspective about my life? Do I want purity in my life? Do I want God's power in my life? Then I must be willing to set aside seasons of time. I must be willing to be still, willing to be secluded, willing to be silent, willing to practice self-control, willing to be sensitive, and willing to be submissive to Him, whatever He requires of me.

It matters not what your circumstance is tonight. If you will do what I just shared in these seven things, what you're looking for, you'll find. What you need will be met. What you desire within the will of God, He will answer. Your petition will come very clear. But here's a beautiful phrase: And David went in and sat before the Lord. And I want you to notice something, because the next chapter, he went out and defeated everybody that crossed his path. I mean, it was just one big, tremendous series of gigantic victories for God's people. For him, that was part of the reward of sitting before the Lord.

Guest (Male): Dr. Stanley's message explained the essential nature of spending time with Jesus. When you meditate on the Lord, your entire life is impacted. You gain God's perspective and experience His peace, and most importantly, it leads to becoming like Him. To listen again, click the link to Today on Radio at intouch.org, and that's where you can learn more about Jesus and how to enrich your time alone with Him. Open our online bookstore page if you'd like to order a copy of today's complete message called "Sitting Before the Lord." It's also included in our teaching set that we've entitled "Pursuing God's Heart." Our web address again is intouch.org, or call or text us. The number is simply 1-800-INTOUCH.

Guest (Male): You can also write to us at In Touch, Post Office Box 7900, Atlanta, Georgia, 30357. Or call or text 1-800-INTOUCH.

Guest (Male): If you sometimes have trouble understanding scripture, try the approach Dr. Stanley used. Today's Moment with Charles Stanley is coming up. Does your prayer life need a jump start? With the In Touch Praying with Purpose cards, the time you spend talking with God will take on a whole new level of energy and intimacy. Beautifully designed and easy to use, or to share with a friend. There are prayers to lift up each day of the month along with corresponding Bible verses and more. For your set of Praying with Purpose cards, call 1-800-INTOUCH or go to intouch.org/store.

Dr. Charles Stanley: Let your time and your schedule and everything about you revolve around this, that you and I are to develop and continue to develop this ongoing, intimate, wonderful, exciting, satisfying, indescribable, wonderful, incomparable relationship with a personal God.

Guest (Male): Dr. Stanley devoted his entire life to helping us get closer to Jesus, as we all want to do. You can learn how at charlesstanleyinstitute.org.

Guest (Male): "From the Pastor's Heart" is an in-depth teaching letter designed to draw readers closer to God. This monthly resource, inspired by the teachings of Dr. Charles Stanley, is free to you by print or email subscription. These encouraging messages will help you grow stronger in your walk with Christ. To receive In Touch's "From the Pastor's Heart" letter, call 1-800-INTOUCH or visit intouch.org/pastorsheart.

Dr. Charles Stanley: Understanding scripture begins with the honest desire to learn what God is communicating. With insight for believers, here's a moment with Charles Stanley. One of the things that God taught me, and he taught me, I discovered it by accident, it wasn't an accident to me personally, I'm sure it was of the Lord, but I learned a long time ago when I was studying the Word of God and I really couldn't get what God was trying to say. I want all you fellows who are going to seminary to remember this very carefully. You listening?

Save you a lot of time. I'd study a passage of scripture and sometimes I'd study for three or four, five days in the same passage, or a week, or two weeks, I'd keep coming back to it. And it just would not unlock. It's just like somehow it had a lock on it, padlock, and nothing I'd do would make a difference. Now, I'd struggle and I'd think, "Well, what in the world's wrong? Why God, if it's from you, why don't you just give it to me?"

And when God's got it locked up, he's not going to give it until you're ready. But I learned something, that often times, when I had done everything I knew to do and nothing worked, if I just get by myself and get on my face before God, meditated a passage of scripture and prostrated myself before God and tell Him that I want whatever He had to say, and I wouldn't leave that until I got it.

To my knowledge, there may be an exception. To my knowledge, I've never gotten off my face before God that what I was seeking didn't come either instantaneously so fast. And usually, I carry me a legal-sized pad when I do that, because I know most of the time, not all the time, most of the time before I get off my face, I'm going to have to start writing because that's how fast it's coming.

You get a whole different picture. You just see things. It's like God opens your eyes and you're able to see what you could not see. And the reason most people would say, "Well, I read the Bible, I don't get anything." Well, I can tell you one thing, that is a confession that you're not reading it in the right way.

If you read the Word of God, I can tell you how you're going to get something every single time sooner or later it's coming if you'll get on your face before God and you'll stay there, brother, these words, this black print is suddenly going to come alive in your heart.

Guest (Male): If you'd like some help with studying the Bible, visit us at intouch.org. Next week on In Touch, David is described as a man after God's heart, but he also made significant mistakes. Learn how to avoid yielding to temptation when we continue our study of 2 Samuel next week on In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. This program is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia, and remains on this station through the grace of God and your faithful prayers and gifts.