WORDS OF WISDOM HEARD IN QUIETNESS

Ecclesiastes 9:17; Luke 21:37,38; 1 Peter 3:4

I had an impression, as this verse in Ecclesiastes came before me recently, about how we might hear words of wisdom. We have been praying about the situation in the world around us. How much upheaval there is in man’s world, even in the so-called civilisation of the western nations. How many voices there are, voices supposedly of intelligent men and women. A brother said recently and helpfully that the fool in Scripture is one who leaves God out. I found that very helpful, and I wondered if that applies to what is all around us. How many voices we hear around us of educated and intelligent persons, and yet they leave God out.

However, I did not want to concentrate on that, but more on the first part of the verse, “The words of the wise are heard in quiet”. We see so much throughout Scripture that words of wisdom were often uttered by men and women of old who heard in quietness from God Himself. How many walked with Him, how many were given a word in quietness, how many listened in quietness and heard His words of wisdom. Abraham is an example. Then there was Rahab who listened to the spies in the quietness of her house. What a blessing it is to take just a moment in the day – and I feel the need of it for myself – to contemplate in quietness something of the Scriptures, which are the words of God Himself, or of ministry, reflecting on the words of those who knew and know more than me of the things of God. How often that is needed before we act. Our brother prayed as to dependence on God for everything. He is always ready to impart words of wisdom. God would gladly speak to us, but I know that I need to make room in quietness to listen. We will not hear these words in the world around us; indeed there is no such thing to be heard there.

We have been reading in Colossians about the dangers of philosophy and vain deceit (Col.2:8), which marked those who thought they were something. In contrast, we see in the verses in Luke the supreme example of wisdom, as we always do, in the Lord Himself. I was touched as thinking of this scripture: “by day he was teaching”. He had words of wisdom Himself – what wisdom there was in the Lord Jesus – and yet it also says, “by night, going out, he remained abroad on the mountain called the mount of Olives”. How often we read of Him doing that. In John 8, when all went to their own homes, it says that Jesus went to the mount of Olives (v.1), a place where He spent much time in prayer, in communion as a Man with His Father, in the perfect dependence of His walk. We read of Him prophetically saying, “he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the instructed”, Isa.50:4. He took time aside. Why did He need to? He knew everything from the beginning to the end, but we see in the Lord Jesus Himself an example of dependence in prayer, and no doubt in quiet contemplation of all that was before Him as a Man. I thought that we might contemplate His example. How many men there were in the past who contemplated. I suppose it is what sustained David as he walked through the valley of the shadow of death that he speaks of in the psalm (Ps.23:4). He was not sustained by his own power or by his own strength, but by contemplation and spending time with God. No doubt that is where David learned, and where he gained his qualifications to be king.

I read in Peter because I thought that the words of wisdom that we may gain from spending time with divine Persons, and no doubt in occasions such as this, should lead in some measure to each of us growing in relation to this “meek and quiet spirit”. As we read the Scriptures together, and as we listen to the preaching of the glad tidings, words of wisdom come into such occasions. We will not get this meek and quiet spirit by being engaged in the things of the world around us. We know we have to attend to certain things to fulfil righteousness, but we do not find a meek and quiet spirit in the world. It is a characteristic that is despised, it is not thought much of at all; in fact the world confuses meekness with weakness. It was helpfully brought out in our reading the other day as to the Lord Jesus Himself being meek in relation to things here, although not giving way in relation to the things of God – and yet there was always a quiet spirit with Him. We do not read of the Lord being flustered or anxious. He felt sorrow, we know, and he was deeply depressed in one scripture (Matt.26:37), and yet dependence was seen in perfection in Him as a Man. What a blessing it is to be more like Him in these things!

God finds this feature of a meek and quiet spirit in His saints of great value, because it is like Christ. It may be that, for the most of us, it is something that we learn over a lifetime, but nevertheless as hearing and listening day by day to divine speaking and teaching, and through the encouragement of engagement with divine things, we would grow in it. How long Moses spent in learning this. I suppose he was not a meek man when he slew the Egyptian (Exod.2:12), but then he spent forty years looking after the sheep in a quiet and hidden manner. That was what made him fit to lead the people of God, and be described as “very meek, above all men that were upon the face of the earth”, Num.12:3. Such a man would not be regarded in Egypt as fit to lead a nation like Israel, and yet God picked him out.

May we all be helped and encouraged to value what God values, and to spend more time in listening to the Lord Jesus, taking time to read the words of God Himself as indited by the Spirit, enjoying our occasions together too where by the grace of God so much comes out for our blessing. May we be encouraged together for His name’s sake.

Word in a meeting for ministry, Strood

10 December 2018

R.A. Smith