Running To Win 15 Minute Version

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.

Dave McAllister: For many, silence is uncomfortable. We want sensory input to fill all our waking hours. But the Bible teaches us to sometimes set it all aside, to live life from the center, from within, hearing in silence the voice of God.

From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Today, Erwin Lutzer continues a series on Disciplines of the Soul: Four Ways to Stay Close to God. Today we're learning about the discipline of silence and why Psalm 62 has a lot to say about it.

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: This Psalm is sometimes referred to as the "only" Psalm because the word "only" occurs five or six times. In fact, we could say that it has three paragraphs of four verses each. Each paragraph has within it, in the opening line, the word "only." For example, you'll notice as we now go to verse five, "My soul, wait in silence for God only." Verse nine, "Men of low degree are only vanity and men of rank are a lie." So the word "only" occurs there as well as you begin the last stanza of the Psalm.

My first question today is why do we wait in silence before the Lord anyway? What difference does it make? Well, first of all, because of who God is. You'll notice we read it, he says verse two, "He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold." What do you think of with that word stronghold?

Those of you who have been to Israel and you've gone to Masada, that's what we're speaking of when we speak of a stronghold. A huge mountain, and on the top of that mountain there was a fortress. Huge slopes, only one small trail leads to the top of the mountain. It is there that the Jews were able to hide out and the Romans couldn't get them for three years, even though they tried to starve them out. That's a stronghold. A stronghold is, first of all, a place of refuge.

A place that you can run to and you know that your enemy can't get to you unless he gets to the stronghold first. He has to be able to get up the slopes, he has to be able to tear down the doors because you are hidden, you are kept, you are protected. David says that's what God is when my son rebels against me and when his armies are trying to find me. It's a place of refuge.

It's also a place of stability because the stronghold was there before you showed up and it'll be there long after you are gone. Does not God unite the generations because of his stability and because of his connectedness? It's also a place of rest. God is our refuge and our strength, and it is in God that we rest because you can have all of these things taking place outside of you and around you, but you can be at peace.

Now, of course, we're not thinking of a stronghold literally as a mountain. We are speaking of a stronghold, namely God. In God, we find the resources that we need to cope. That's why David says, "My soul waits only before God in silence." First of all, because of who God is.

There's a second reason that we wait in silence before the Lord, and that is because of our need. David was very vulnerable. You'll notice it says in verse three, "How long will you assail a man that you may murder him, all of you, like a leaning wall, like a tottering fence? They have counseled only to thrust him down from his high position. They delight in falsehood. They bless with their mouth, but inwardly they curse." David is talking about the armies that are trying to get him and he's likening himself, if I interpret this correctly, as the tottering wall, as a fence that is about to collapse.

So what you have is these armies are coming against David and David knows how vulnerable he is. Without God, he's not going to be able to make it. Without God, he's not going to be able to return back to Jerusalem because it is true that Absalom's armies are stronger at this point than David's armies. So what David is saying is, "I need God like I have never needed him before. My soul, wait in silence before God."

Also during this period of time, I think David was tempted. I think we have a hint in the Psalm how he was tempted. First of all, he was tempted to depend upon people, his own armies. While they were able to give him some comfort ultimately, human beings disappoint us. He says in verse nine, "Men of low degree are only vanity and men of rank are a lie. In the balances they go up, they are together lighter than breath."

There are some situations in life where we can't even depend upon people. We've all had the experience of being so disappointed in what people have done and people that we have depended upon and we haven't understood that it is God once again cutting out from under us those props that we might wait in silence before him alone. David was tempted to look at other people.

He was also maybe tempted to think, "If I had lots of money, I could run and I could do something." Because you'll notice what he says in verse 10, "Do not trust in oppression and do not vainly hope in robbery. If riches increase, do not set your heart on them." They won't help you either. I'm always reminded of a couple that in the lottery won 20 million dollars. Imagine winning 20 million dollars in a lottery. And yet the woman died of cancer six months later. When wealth increases, don't set your heart on it. You'd better flee to God because all of these things are temporary.

David says that within this context now, "I'm going to wait on God and I'm going to do it in silence." Why? Because he has to renew his inner life with God. Remember that what a man is in the presence of God is all that he is and nothing more. Who we are is who we are before God. David says, "I'm shutting out the world as I'm in this cave," as perhaps this is where the Psalm was written. "I'm shutting out dependence upon people, upon even my wealth. My soul waits silently before God alone."

Well, you say, "How is this done?" We'll get to that in a moment. But before that, what are we waiting for when we wait in silence before God? First of all, we are waiting to listen to God's voice. We're waiting for God's voice. The Bible says in Isaiah chapter 28, verse 23, "Give ear and hear my voice, listen to hear my words." At this point, we all become very, very nervous.

Because there are some people who are listening who are going to say, "Are you telling me that if we're really silent before God, he's going to give us a new revelation? He's going to come and speak to us?" As you know, I'm opposed to those folks who think that revelation continues, who think that we can have a word from the Lord and we can say, "Oh, guess what the Lord just told me. You know what he said to me?" And then people roll off things like that, and that is distressing.

One day, a man wrote a letter to me and said, "I can't believe that you believe thus and so," and he quoted me. He said that he heard it in a message over the radio. I knew I had not said that because it was something with which I disagreed. So I even listened to the message just to make sure and I discovered that he took something about what I said and connected it with another idea and came up with a quote with which I did not agree.

But here's my point, folks. If I as a fallible human being do not like it when people put words in my mouth, think of how serious it must be to put words into the mouth of Almighty God. Be careful. We're not listening for some new revelation, but let me tell you what we are listening for. We're listening for God to reveal in the stillness our sins and our anxieties that are sometimes even hidden from us.

That's been my experience. Silence in the presence of the Lord, I begin to think about this matter that is not under God's sovereignty and control and this sin that needs to be confessed and this anxiety that has never really been given over to the Lord and all these things are revealed in the silence. I cannot hear them in the den of the noise.

I can't hear the voice of God with a television set on or even the radio on or while reading the newspaper, and sometimes not even by reading my Bible unless I am silent and say, "Lord, come and search me and show me what you find." That's what we do in the silence. Our secret sins.

Sometimes also, God may give us direction. There are ideas that come to mind if we're seeking leading. It could well be that ideas are put into our minds by God to help us, give us some direction. But even then, we have to be careful. It is much better to say, "I believe that the Lord is leading me this way," or "I think," because sometimes it is difficult to distinguish our own thoughts and desires from the thoughts and the desires of God. But there in the silence, God can meet us and do a work in our hearts that he could never possibly do just because we're in church, however important that is. First of all, we wait to listen.

Secondly, we wait to rest. It says in Psalm 37, verse seven, "Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him. Fret not yourself because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who carries out wicked schemes." It is in silence that we rest. Because we rest in God, we don't have to become a part of the pushes and the pulls and the dynamics of life with all of its distractions. We can live differently.

It's almost as if God wanted to give me a sermon illustration yesterday about this. I met with my prayer partners and after I met with them, I went up to the study and I spent 15 minutes in silence before God. I've been doing this for years, but not every day. I do it a couple of times a week. Just 15 minutes, I just get down and verses of scripture come to me, maybe a hymn comes to me, but I just simply say, "God, this time is for you. This is God's time." And of course, my friend, in a day of cell phones, it's hard often times to have 15 minutes alone with God.

I'm holding in my hands a letter from someone who listens to Running to Win in East Africa. This person goes on to say that they are a new listener and your teachings help me so much every day. Goes on to say that their spiritual life is being nourished. Very quickly, the reason they listen in East Africa is because we are in seven different languages in 50 different countries. Would you consider becoming an endurance partner? Very quickly, here's what you can do. Go to offerrtw.com. That's offerrtw.com, click on the endurance partner button. Once again, offerrtw.com or you can call us at 1-800-215-5001.

Dave McAllister: Pastor Erwin Lutzer has brought more of The Discipline of Silence, the last of four messages on Disciplines of the Soul: Four Ways to Stay Close to God. Next time, some final thoughts about waiting on God.

Disciplines of the Soul is more than a series, it's a set of CDs with all four messages by Pastor Lutzer. We'd like to send it as our thank you when you give a gift of any amount to support Running to Win. Just call us at 1-800-215-5001. That's 1-800-215-5001. Online, go to offerrtw.com. That's offerrtw.com. Or write to Running to Win, Moody Church, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614. This is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is a ministry of the Moody Church.