Hold Your Peace!
There are times, when you’ve done all you can do. The people you are most concerned with, are not going to change their minds.
They’ve cemented their thoughts and ideas and if you should do mighty feats through the Spirit, they would not budge. So many tears have been shed, a heart aching more than it should. There are those, who will keep poking at others, until the Lord returns; yet carrying their sins, they thought were forgiven.
There are certainly times to be bold; the scripture tells of that. The problem with some, is that they did not realize, that this kind of boldness, must be through the Spirit. Otherwise, we find ourselves operating in the flesh; often being overbearing and too harsh.
It’s been said, there is only one way to speak the truth. And that is in love. This lack of love, and the way we have gone about it, has hurt many and caused us to fail in our goal to reach out to others.
Perhaps it would do us well, to go back and re-visit the story of God’s people fleeing from the Egyptians. Reading just now, I am completely amazed to see what kind of army was coming after them. The Israelites were encamped by the sea, nothing in front of them but water. You can be sure, like us, they wanted to run; but, there was no place to run to. They surely lost it, when Moses told them to be still. In the same manner, truth is saying, be still. Only God can handle this situation; we can’t go any further now.
There is a time to keep silent. It becomes quite clear, that it will take something much greater than self, to reach safety. I think, we may lose sight of the promise, that God will fight for us. This never meant that we were to be so passive, everyone could run over us at will. This idea of hanging on to the end of the rope, makes a lot of sense. It’s there, that we find who is really in charge, and we can get no credit whatsoever for the outcome. It does not settle well with many, that God allows us to hang in certain places.
“The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.” It is very hard sometimes; many of us can testify of that. We feel we are going under; there’s no way out and we have no more strength. There is a saving grace that can keep us. The Angel of the Lord, encampeth round about those that fear Him. And will deliver us. How many times were we saved, and did not even know it; in the midst of the worse possibilities; even unaware.
There is a time to speak, but this may not be one of them. This message is to those who are weary with fighting against people who should be showing love and encouragement.
It may be very difficult in some situations, but the scriptures also say that there is a time to leave those people alone. Let God deal with them. Just keep reaching forth, listening to His voice. Those who truly desire to follow the Spirit, will be rescued.
Only He, knows the way out of some things. Hold your peace, and watch God work in your behalf.
~ Robert Blackburn
Thank you for this reminder and also great encouragement. Right on time. You are right: A “greater power” will lead us out. GOD HIMSELF – He always did.
So interesting – yesterday evening I met 2 young men. One had the name JABIN and the other one: MOSES… !
Jabin is a modern “rastaman” and he was very surprised that I knew that his name is written in the Holy Bible.
I was surrounded by maybe at least 7 young and some older people, some where mocking Jesus, some were just listening. It was like preaching on/ at the lake. So for 2 hours or more I could forget the suffering of persecution.
I just had to speak the truth of the Holy One. So many people have no knowledge and no basic Bible education.
We must be missionaries just around the corner.