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A week ago I got inspired to write my latest blog post Worth the Fight… Extending Inner Quietness, as I had read the newsletter of a German Bible TV program. Although I stopped watching TV of any kind more than eight years ago, I still get this newsletter and I saw that there are some people whom God gives pretty good thoughts. 😉 I decided to translate for you what would speak to me and to compare it with that which T. Austin Sparks had written about the same issue. At first it might seem to be a contradiction what both authors had to say. But Lord willing, this inconsistency might be dissolved. Please, feel free to share your own thoughts and concerns in a response below. I always appreciate and welcome genuine comments and sharing! So, first see Malaika Orth’s description about her own experiences with seeking silence. Malaika Orth is an editor at Bibel TV in Hamburg/Germany.


Bibel TV Newsletter #31: Journey into Silence

“Be still, and know that I am God.”
(Psalm 46:10)

Dear reader,

You can hear the sound of a gong striking. Afterwards all is quiet.

The thirty-minute silent retreat begins, accompanied by chaotic sounds from all directions which drown out the silence – your own thoughts. Fiercely, they shoot at one another. ‘By all means, I still have to…’ ‘What will happen if…’ ‘And hopefully…’ ‘I wish I had…’ ‘What I am I doing here anyway?’

I am sitting here together with ten people in a circle of chairs. People of all ages, three nuns in between, Benedictine nuns.

As a guest to join them on a silent day, eight times 30 minutes of silence are awaiting me today. Somehow strange that you make a date with others to do nothing together…

Quiet time is precious. It is not always easy to find it since it means all other distractions must stay on the sidelines. It is about not being determined by your daily routine. Instead, we bring it all to a standstill. We endure to simply be. We listen to that which keep us busy in the depth of our being, hearkening what God wants to tell us,

 “Be still, and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)

Amazing, what has happened after one day sitting only. Many a person has been moved to tears for they feel they have been blessed by God. Another has dealt with questions of life. Several people got new peace in their thought life.

Whoever does not like sitting silently, but rather walks, for such a one going on a pilgrimage might be an alternative. The outer way walked becomes, speaking metaphorically, the inner way traveled here.


I dropped her last paragraph since there you could read the details of a program announcement (Aug 8) of an 800 km long pilgrimage (not hers) to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Now, please, compare what you just read with an excerpt from one of TAS articles about the dangers of getting spiritually passive.


“What is the basis of deception? It is just that! How do you get a counterfeit Holy Ghost operating? By reason of your psychical nature. You can become mediumistic in your very psychical nature and open all the avenues of your being to supernatural guidance and come under the power, the sway, dominion, of deceiving spirits operating in a multitude of ways. You can so suspend your soul and come into a state of utter passivity that you are open to everything to play upon you. You can have your quiet hour in your soul, which is the most perilous hour of your life. That happens by suspending all spiritual activity and becoming utterly passive and opening your psychical being – a dangerous thing.

“God never asks you to become spiritually passive. Waiting upon God is not being spiritually passive. God wants us active in spirit even when waiting on Him in silence. You see what I mean. It is the very nature of man, now adapted by the enemy to his government, that has made possible all this mighty system of counterfeit in its success. Now leaving a whole mass of evidence I come to the point.

“What did the Lord Jesus do in Calvary? He took that man to death and made room for a spiritual man; and in Christ Jesus we are no longer soulical men, we are spiritual. That is the whole argument of the first Corinthian letter. Now, says the Apostle, “the soulical man (he is the ‘natural’ man) receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them.” “The Spiritual judgeth all things.” In the new birth of a man his spirit is brought back from the realm of spiritual death and banishment from God, into new creation union with God, joined to the Lord one spirit, and the right organ of Divine government is re-established to bring man’s soul and his body under Divine control, and the Holy Spirit takes up residence within the born-anew spirit of a man to govern his desires, his thoughts, his reasonings, his decisions.

[…]

“We have perhaps thought of the Cross, death-union with the Lord Jesus, in the hard light of having to let go, having to give up and having to die; being crucified, and all the pain of it, but, beloved, it is to translate us out of the kingdom of darkness into that of the Son of His love; from the power of Satan, to deliver us from deception. Now unless our soul-life is met in the power of the Cross, and subjected to God, and we know what it is to live in and walk after the Spirit, we are exposed to deception. You will find where the counterfeit Holy Spirit works, there is a tremendous amount of soul excitability, soul emotion, lack of soul control and sometimes indecency; and yet supernatural things – yes, but that is not the Holy Spirit. There has been a reaching out of soul in an intensified quest for some kind of experience, a supernatural experience. That has opened the being to the other and you can get anything. You can get guidance, you can get miracles, anything along that line; but beware! The counterfeit, beloved, has its ground of success in the very nature of us, and nature must be broken.” (1)


Nature must be broken… That sounds hard to me, almost brutal if I may say so. In fact, I do know how difficult it is to say NO to this kind of deception TAS described. When you are sick and in pains for a very long time and you were not healed by God, how alluring then the temptation to get some instant healing in another (spiritual) way! That applies specifically to these cases when physicians could not really help you, either. Today it seems to me that all comes down to whether we have real faith in Jesus – or not.

“And behold, a woman who had suffered from a discharge of blood for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, for she said to herself, “If I only touch his garment, I will be made well.” Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well.” (Mt 9:20-22 ESV)

I do not know how the lives of those people who were sitting in a circle of chairs, trying to get closer to God, will go on. But I do know that Satan always tries to deceive us. None of us is excluded here. Even, the closer we get to God, the harder his attacks will be. And if we try to fight Satan with our own natural weapons of the soul (reason, logic, strong will, and emotions), he will stay the winner. A complete surrender to God is needed, something we won’t do unless we are completely at our wits’ end.


“Please note that the number of comments moderated on my blog(s) has decreased considerably because I do not approve of comments by people who work in the wrong spiritual realm. Also, replies that do not refer to the blog post itself or simply link to other blogs and websites where the Holy Spirit has been confused with any other spirit, won’t be moderated, either.” 


(1) http://www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002158.html

“In keeping with T. Austin-Sparks’ wishes that what was freely received should be freely given and not sold for profit, and that his messages be reproduced word for word, we ask if you choose to share these messages with others, to please respect his wishes and offer them freely – free of any changes, free of any charge (except necessary distribution costs) and with this statement included.”All images by Susanne Schuberth 2016 – 2017