Be Still
Pastor Jim May
Psalms 46:10 says, "Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth."
Be still! How many times have you said that to someone? In this life we are faced with activity all around us. We often refer to life itself as a “rat race”. In all of the activity and action that surround us, there is often found much confusion. Noises fill our ears, talking heads are everywhere and it seems that everyone has something that they want to get you to believe. The salesman wants to get your attention so you will buy his products. The politician wants to get your attention to convince you to vote for his agenda. There is just a never ending flood of information, noise and confusion that invade your life every day.
In the midst of all of this God says, “Be still, and know that I am God!”
We sing that chorus that says, “I want to know you more. In the quiet hour I wait only for you. In the stillness you are there.” But do we really know how to be still, to wait upon the Lord? We must learn to be still, to wait and to listen for the voice of the Lord and wait for the leading of the Holy Spirit. You’ll never know the voice of the Lord, and you will never walk in victory until you first learn to be still before God.
Elijah that great prophet of God was on the lamb. He was fleeing for his life because of wicked Queen Jezebel’s decree that he would die for his actions on Mt. Carmel. He destroyed her priests and defied her idol god and nothing in the world will make someone more angry than meddling in their religious beliefs and showing them that they aren’t right with God. It’s a love or hate thing. Either they will love you for showing them the error of their ways so they can get right with God, or they will rise up in anger because you disturbed their world.
Elijah was hiding in a cave, waiting for God to make the next move. He went from the great victory against the prophets of Baal, where God performed a great miracle and sent fire down out of Heaven, to sitting under a juniper tree having a pity party and contemplating suicide, or at least asking God to die. He had sank into a place of weakness, despair and defeat. That often happens after a great spiritual victory.
Let that be a lesson to us all. We should never do anything rash, or make any life changing decisions when we are in a state of depression. That’s your weakest moment and the best time that the devil can use your own state of mind to destroy your testimony.
Get alone with God; be still; listen for his voice and know that He is still God!
1 Kings 19:11-13, "And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD. And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah?"
Just because there’s a lot of noise – doesn’t mean that God is in it! You can shout, swing from the rafters and make all kinds of noise in the flesh, but unless God is in it, it doesn’t mean a thing.
The Lord passed by and an “F5 tornado” ripped rocks right off of the mountain, but it wasn’t God that sent the wind. It was sent by Satan in an attempt to get the prophet to listen to the wrong voice again. In his weakened state, Elijah could have thought he heard God and stepped out only to be destroyed by the powers of hell.
Then the earth trembled and shook as Satan once again tried to convince the man of God that God was speaking. Let me give you a word of warning here concerning something that I hear all the time.
I hear people saying, “Well, if God wants me to go to a certain place or do a certain thing, then he will open the doors that need to open and close the doors that I shouldn’t walk through.” While there is some truth to that, let me tell you that you can’t always trust the “open doors” to be the right way because the devil knows how to open and close doors too.
Our problem is that we don’t know the voice of the Lord because we never are still long enough to hear him.
Most of us act like Gideon did when he set his fleece before the Lord. Do we not know that asking God to give us a sign of what we should do is not walking by faith! If I have to have a sign to make a move, then I’m not trusting God to lead my steps the way that I should. If you can hear his voice, you don’t need a sign. If you trust in the Lord, and have faith to believe that no matter what happens or where you go, that God is leading the way and that all things are working for your good, then why do you need a sign? Signs and fleeces are for those of weak faith; those who haven’t learned to be still before God and hear his voice.
Don’t ever forget that this world is Satan’s domain, at least for now. Jesus hasn’t kicked him out of it yet. Therefore Satan can move mountains, make the ground tremble and perform all sorts of false miracles to fool you. Mother Earth is no mother at all. It is a death trap, and a place where Satan reigns. Don’t look for signs in the earth, listen for the voice of the Lord instead.
Then came the fire, but God wasn’t in it. I am reminded here of the many times in my youth when I would sit in a church and say, “Now Lord, if you have something to say to me, let that preacher call me out of the audience. I’ll know it’s you then.” Sometimes you can be in a place where the fire is falling, but you don’t get a thing out of it. God is saying to you, “Don’t look for me so much in the fire, but be still and listen for my voice. Be still and know that I am God.”
I don’t know if any of you have been keeping up with what’s happening with the latest false teaching that is coming from Oprah Winfrey, but I was checking it out a little this week because I want to be informed and aware of the false gospel and the anti-Christian rhetoric that has been at the foundation and creation of one of the most powerful religious movements in our country and around the world. Her “New Age” church is literally exploding in growth because it caters to the mindset that there is no God to answer to other than yourself, and that you are the master of your own destiny, and that the cross means nothing, that Jesus isn’t real and that your salvation is found within your own righteousness. She is supporting the message that everything around you is nothing but an illusion.
Let me tell you that none of this is new at all. I’ve been hearing this kind of rhetoric since the 60’s when free love, drugs and flower power became the theme of the day. There’s nothing new under the sun. This is just another outright attempt to destroy the faith of multitudes of people who don’t know what they believe and are willing to accept anything that sounds good to their ears.
In the last lesson that is now posted to the Internet, she and her “New Age” teacher can be seen just “sitting still” so that they can get in touch with their own body. I don’t know about you, but I am always in touch with this body, and I’d rather think about the time that is coming when I’ll leave this old body behind and go sailing through the air.
In effect, they teach you to “be still”, to learn “stillness” so that you can know the essence of who you are and what you are all about. You are supposed to believe that you are some sort of ethereal, or spiritual being, that floats through life as some sort of breeze until you become still and enter your body, and only then does your body become really you. If you listen to too much of this teaching you will get a headache trying to figure it out. The problem is that you can’t figure it out, because it’s all a lie from the pits of hell.
Yes, you are an eternal soul, but you are locked into this body of flesh until God decides to separate the body from the eternal soul. And I have news for you. When you’re out of this body, you aren’t floating in the air like a free spirit, you’re either going to be with the Lord in Heaven or in hell with the rest of those who refuse to believe the truth of God’s Word.
The latest class tries to get you to believe that unless you be still and use your thoughts to become aware of your body, that your body doesn’t really exist. What kind of foolishness is that? I guess if you stop thinking about your body, it just disappears into nothingness. If that’s true then I’m afraid most of us would be fading in and out of reality every few seconds because we are thinking of who we are all the time.
Then there is a statement made that I really find disturbing. First of all, you aren’t an emotional being, you are a spirit that creates emotions, and then, when you get in touch with those emotions, you become the “I Am”.
I am reminded of what God told Moses on the top of Mt. Sinai. When Moses was instructed to go tell Pharoah to let Israel go free, Moses asked, “Whom shall I say that sent me.” God answered in Exodus 3:14, "… I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you." It seems to me that Oprah and her new age teacher are trying to tell us that we are the I AM, in effect saying that we are God. That’s blasphemous!
We don’t need to be still and get in touch with our inner selves. We need to be still and get in touch with Almighty God. We need to let God come alive in us, rule and reign in us, and we need to know his voice and hear his voice.
One day, the Children of Israel stood beside the Red Sea as the chariots of Pharoah’s army advanced toward them. On one side was the sea and on the other was death. There was no way out.
That’s when Moses spoke and told the people in “Exodus 14:13, "… Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will shew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever."
There are 7 times in the Word of God when those words, “stand still” are used and in every instance, standing still does not get us in touch with our inner self, or our own essence. We stand still to get in touch with God and to hear his voice.
On March 17th, this new church held a worldwide trance where over 2 million people were supposed to “be still” and “get in touch with their stillness”. They were to go into a trance and get in touch with themselves. In effect, they’ve opened themselves up to the probability of becoming demon possessed. If you get in touch with the supernatural and it isn’t done God’s way, then you won’t be taking to God at all. Satan is looking for men and women who will give him the chance to enter them and use them, and this “new age teaching” is providing him with an unending supply of unbelievers who are willing to accept it all.
But don’t forget what God says in His Word. "Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth."
Oprah’s teacher quotes the first part of this verse and applies to himself. He says that we are all god if we will just believe it. This new age movement is just another fad that will pass in time. But how many people’s lives and faith will be destroyed in the process; and how many souls will end up in end, finally realizing that it’s not an illusion? Mankind would rather believe a lie than confess the truth. He would rather believe that he is perfect all the way to flames of hell than to confess that he needs a Savior and enter Heaven. If their heaven is right here and now, what kind of real hope do they have?
I’m going to be still alright, but I want to stand still and watch God move. I want to be still and hear his voice. I want to know God in a greater way than ever before and I want to put down this old body of flesh rather than get in touch with what it wants.
The new age church of Oprah will soon pass into eternity, facing the judgment of God for the souls that are lost through it’s teachings, but those who have placed their trust in the Old Rugged Cross and who have been washed in the Blood of the Lamb, made holy and righteous through Jesus Christ, will be saved.
We are getting ready for the Rapture of the Church. Through these kinds of teachings we are watching prophecy unfold as the world prepares itself for a One World Religion, headed up by that Man of Sin known as the Antichrist. He will be able to speak words of wonder, perform miracles and deceive many. Mankind will flock to his teachings of peace and safety. He will seem to have all the answers and sooth the conscious. But it will all be a lie, just like this latest effort by Oprah Winfrey and her new religion.
She is pushing her false doctrine and her new age leaders. People like Elhart Tolle, Marianne Williamson and Barack Obama are but a few of those who are part of her system. She fully endorsed Obama to be our next president in spite of the fact that he refuses to quote the Pledge of Allegiance and has sat under and accepted the teachings of his former pastor that degrades and curses everything that America stands for. Their only allegiance is to themselves, not to a country, to the God of Heaven or anything else. Their god is themselves and in their stillness they are listening to the lies of the devil.
God is not in the noise of their classes. He is not in the wind of their doctrine. God is not in the fire of their passion for their new age church. God is nowhere in their midst.
Let’s be still – be still and listen for the voice of the Lord. Be still and know that God is God. Be still and hold on to your faith.
