The Evangelist and Silence

Author: Michael Gott

T. S. Eliot asked two questions in one of his writings:  “Where shall the word be found, where will the word resound?  Not here, there is not enough silence.”  Do we active evangelists have enough prolonged solitude and silence to hear the fresh Word resounding?

Jesus loved solitude, and He sought out the silent places, for there He heard His Father speak most clearly.  Should not we all seek the solitude?  Have we forgotten that He initiated His public ministry by spending 40 days alone in the desert?  (Matthew 4:1-11)  Think how radical that seems in our world today.

All evangelists live in a world of hundreds of people, which usually means crowds and noise.  Ours is the world of bumper-to-bumper traffic during the noisy rush hour traffic.  Many of us are often required to keep up a constant stream of words.  When are we to listen and learn?  Let us “stand before the Lord in awe” (Psalm 4:4) and “walk beside still waters” (Psalm 23:2).

All these words apply as much to me as to any other evangelist.  The constant travel, our encounters with different people constantly, the temptation of being in the spotlight, the issues related to irresponsibility concerning finances—these and many more things cause an evangelist to realize the danger of rushing on and on without being willing to “Be still and know . . .”

Jesus often chose to leave the crowd and find “a lonely place apart” (Matthew 14:13).  After feeding thousands, Jesus “left them and went up into the hills by himself” (Matthew 14:23).
 
But to me, at least, it is very important that immediately after Jesus sent the apostles off on their very first preaching ministry, He said to them when they returned, “Come away by yourselves to a lonely place” (Mark 6:31).  Robert Murray M’Cheyne once commented, “I always feel it a blessed thing when the Savior takes me aside from the crowd.”  Why does Jesus desire that?  Was it not that in that place they could learn to see and hear from the vantage point of eternity?  The Puritan preacher George Swinnock once said, “Solitude is a release to the soul that was imprisoned in company.”

All evangelists need to think over Francois Fenelon’s words, “How rare it is to find a soul quiet enough to hear God speak!”  Tozer said it is possible to know God in the tumult and in the middle of the noise, “but He is known best in the silence.”

Is that not the reason Jesus desired His evangelists to spend time in the solitude?  Also, why should we not also join them there?  The answer comes best, I think, from C. S. Lewis.  He said, “It is what we do with our solitude that makes us fit for company.”

When we sit alone with God in solitude, we rediscover who we are and what in reality we have a need of spiritually.  It can be a time of reorienting the life goals we once embraced.  Are we still on target?  When we get out of the crowd, we begin to make friends with ourselves again.  The wise preacher of Ecclesiastes plainly tells that there is “a time to keep silent and a time to speak” (Ecclesiastes 3:7).  When was our last time “to keep silent”?
 
There were many times when the great evangelistic preacher on Pentecost was continually rash with his mouth.  Over and over we find Peter speaking when everyone else was silent.  Only Peter spoke, and he spoke without discernment or wisdom.  Frankly, that would seem to be a tendency of many who are called upon to speak before people so often and sometimes too often!  We have often prayed that God would loose our tongues; do we need to pray that God would help us hold our tongues?

How grateful the apostles should have been to Jesus that He lovingly drew them away from every distraction so that they could be with Him exclusively.

What is the result of being under the control of God’s Spirit?  Is it not that our tongues are under God’s total authority?  That spiritual authority may say to us, “Speak now,” but it may be, “Remain silent.”  When God’s Spirit is in control, “Much that is unnecessary remains unsaid, but the essential and the helpful thing can be said in a few words,” so said the Christian martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  Those words of Bonhoeffer are prophetic.

Therefore, I make to all evangelists a simple but difficult challenge—a spiritual experiment I was given from Richard Foster:  Try to live one entire day without a word being spoken and speak from your heart without words to God.  Yes, one entire day.  What would happen in our lives if every three months we spend a half-day in dedicated total silence and sincerely said to God, “Speak to me, thy servant is listening!”  What new things does God have for us?—When did we give Him long hours of silence to tell us?  God delights in showing us when we enter into listening silence.  Does not Jesus want us to retreat with no agenda but listening and putting our minds in a mode to clearly hear Him?

But to do that kind of thing takes a courage and demands a discipline some of us are not sure we fully possess.  It may appear to be too difficult for us to attempt such a spiritual adventure.  Jim Elliot said, “I think the devil has made it his business to monopolize on three elements:  noise, hurry, crowds . . . Satan is quite aware of the power of silence.”
 
I would challenge everyone involved in evangelism with this question:  Who traveled more and spoke more often over more years than the venerable Vance Havner?  Yet that same evangelist and itinerant preacher often spoke of “coming apart before we come apart!”  No one wrote more often about spending time alone with God and the need of withdrawing to be alone with Him from time to time.  Vance Havner wrote books like Hearts Afire, It Is Time, and Moments of Decision, all prophetic sermons one after another.  But Havner also wrote Rest Awhile and Rest for the Weary.  When he spoke of strategic retreats for the purpose of hearing God afresh, he often extolled the power of solitude.

Havner was often outspoken about our need of abiding as opposed to activism.  This, I believe, is the sane Biblical balance that also characterized the Lord Himself and that He desires for us.

This is the purpose of these words.  Strategic withdrawals make us fully aware of our obligation, as servants of the Lord, to lead lives of holiness and moral purity.  The Biblical standard must be maintained.  The place to deal with secret sins is in solitude and in secret, alone, with Him.  At such times we become clean before God.  Getting alone in solitude with God puts us at a distance with the devil and all he would use to destroy our testimony.  All of us need this in our lives, and we are foolish to deny it or fail to do it.

There is a story of an American Indian in the late 1800’s that was invited to New York.  As he walked down a noisy street with his host, he said, “Did you hear that?”  His host said, “Hear what?”  The Indian said, “That cricket.”  The man laughed, but the Indian took him by the arm and led him beneath a tree and found the tiny black cricket.  When did we hear God with the same sensitive ear with which that Native American Indian heard a cricket?  What a great question.

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