Guidance by the Word of God
(Before the message begins, he visits with the people)
It’s nice to be with you again. I certainly must confess that you’ve been giving me a warm reception. It sure has been warm this weekend, hasn’t it? It’s all right. After awhile it’ll cut off again. I appreciate the splendid contribution of the choir and the other singing that we’ve had tonight. I enjoyed it very, very much.
Yes, I do give a lot of my time to preachers. I had never thought of it before, that I have such a great aversion to, yet that’s precisely what I’m doing. I had never noticed that contrast. Isn’t that strange?
Last January I was in Tokyo at a minister’s institute for two weeks speaking on the Holy Spirit. God gave us a very, very gracious visitation of the moving of the Spirit of God, the operation of the gifts and generally a very blessed time with the Japanese pastors there. So, we’ll just have to go on doing the work of the Lord.
(Now the message begins)
Naturally, I want to return to this subject of guidance. I am exceedingly conscious of the fragmentary character of my presentation. Those of you that have the notes will recognize, if you ever do look at them, that there will be much more left unsaid than has been said, so I’m very conscious of various areas of truth that we haven’t even alluded to, let alone expounded.
This evening, I want to touch again on these “three lights” or “three clocks” speaking now in the sense in which I used those figures this morning. I finished up with “the peace of God.”
I’m not finished with it, but I’m dropping it for the moment and going to guidance by the Word.
Then I expect to come back to guidance by the Spirit and say some more things about the peace of God.
Finally, I hope to touch a little bit on guidance by divine providence, and if possible, touch on several practical points that we ought to be informed about.
Those of you that have the notes, you will find on Page seven there are eleven different points of a practical interest to us, as well as some points on the recognition of the voice of the Lord. I don’t know if I can get that far this evening. If not, I’m calling your attention to them because I think you can help yourself to a considerable extent by reading my notes.
Now turning to guidance by the Word. I have told you that among the various and almost numerous means of divine guidance, three are the most conspicuous, and in my judgment, the most important, namely: the Word of God, the Spirit of God and the providence of God. Turning to the Word of God as a means of guidance, we’re turning to Psalms 119:105, a scripture that I imagine every one of you know by heart.
“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” Psalms 119:105
David was a great lover of the Word of God. I suppose like all men he had his failings, one after one kind, another after another kind. Notwithstanding the shortcomings of David, he had an abiding reverence and love for the Word of God. I know of no Bible writer who so esteemed the Word of God and was so conscious of the precepts of Almighty God as David.
And so he writes, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” Psalms 119:105
I do not follow here the exegesis of some Bible expositors, who protest to see two lines of truth in this verse. In Hebrew poetry they very often stated something in one form and then they repeated the same thing in another form. I think that is what we have here. In any event, David regarded the Word of God to be a light - in other words, to be guided by the precepts of the Word of God.
In this connection I’d like to take you for just a moment to Proverbs 11:3, something we hear little about. In fact, I never heard anything about it, and was astonished some years ago when the Lord seemed to draw my attention to it. It’s a form of guidance which is related to the Word of God, and I want to point it out.
“The integrity of the upright shall guide them.” Proverbs 11:3
This is to some extent parenthetical, but I’m weaving it in because it is so directly related to guidance by the Word.
“The integrity of the upright shall guide them.”
Friends, what is wrong with integrity? In other words, we seem to put so little emphasis today on personal integrity. There is such a thing as being guided by integrity, being guided by standards of right that we receive from the written Word of God.
One year I was over in the Far East. I try not to mention the country, although I might make a slip. Before I got there, a missionary wrote me and said, “Brother Beuttler, when you pass through Singapore, we would very much appreciate if you would stop in a certain place and pick up an accordion for us and bring it into the country.” That’s the country I was going to after Singapore. He continued, “The regulations do not permit a musical instrument to come into the country, but you can bring it in, and if customs asks you any questions just tell them it’s yours and you’re going to use it in your services. That way we’ll get this instrument into the country.”
Well, I couldn’t do that. Fancy me carrying an accordion and then perchance (it isn’t likely, but it’s possible) the customs man would say, “Mr., whose instrument is this?”
“Oh! That’s mine, sir.”
“What do you have it for?”
“To play in my meetings.”
“That’s interesting! How would you like to play for us right now, ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’?” Ha Ha! Would that be an embarrassment!
So I wrote back, not because I was afraid of being embarrassed, but it just wasn’t right. I told the missionary my position and said, “I just don’t travel that way. I try to respect local customs, import regulations and by-national regulations etc.”
When I got there, they discovered I didn’t have the instrument. In the meetings, certain meetings, we had no music of any kind. Reproachfully, the missionary’s wife said, “Brother Beuttler, if you had brought the instrument, we’d have music now.”
With me, it was a matter of integrity.
“The integrity of the upright shall guide them.”
Friends, while there is a guidance by the Spirit, I am fully persuaded that God would also have us be guided by principles of integrity where we do the thing that is right because it’s right even though we would be able to evade it. Some people might think that’s not spiritual. I think it’s very spiritual, where a thing is wrong and we refuse to follow the wrong simply because it’s wrong even though when doing right turns out to be to our disadvantage. And that happens.
I was down in South America one year and when a certain Pentecostal brother heard I was going back to New York, he said to me, “What airline are you taking?”
I told him.
He said, “Say, you and I are booked on the same flight. Goody!”
I wondered why it was so “goody.” I’d just as soon travel alone. That’s strange isn’t it? I don’t want company. You talk too much. I like to be occupied with the Lord. I don’t want company, that’s all there is to it. I like my own company the best. Can you blame me? Ha Ha! I’m getting bad tonight. I better be careful.
He said, “I’m overweight.” He meant his luggage of course. You know the airlines have weight restrictions. He asked me whether I had too much weight or weight to spare.
I said, “I have weight to spare.”
He said, “Good, will you put your tag on my case and check it in with yours and let the airline think it’s your luggage. When we get to New York we’ll just switch tags and cases again.”
I said, “It’s all right with me to put it on my weight allowance provided you tell the airline and ask them if it’s all right.”
“Well, it won’t be all right with the airlines, but they’ll never know the difference.”
But the Lord knows the difference and that brother was real peeved at me because I wouldn’t go along with it.
I said, “If the airline agrees, we’ll do it, otherwise, I’m sorry.”
We’ve got to follow principles in these things. The Word of God establishes standards of right and wrong, and God expects you and me to adhere to those standards without special revelation. We don’t need a revelation to find out whether we’re obligated to obey the revelation. I hope you know what I mean. You don’t need to try to find out from the Spirit whether God wants you to obey His Word.
A certain lady in the time of her enthusiasm gave a rug to a certain church. They had the rug in front of the altar. Her son had gotten the Baptism on it. There was some sentimentality attached, which to me is worth nothing, but to her it was.
The day came when she had some imagined grievances against the church and asked the rug to be returned.
The deacon said, “We can’t give the rug back to you. It’s church property now. We have no right.”
And so she prayed on that very rug, “Dear Lord, will you please show me whether I ought to take the church to court,” when all she needed to do was read First Corinthians and she’d have her answer.
The Spirit of God will never abrogate His Word. You can be sure of that. Some people think He does, but He doesn’t.
“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet.”
That’s why we ought to be readers of the Word of God and divide its abiding principles, which will be to us an abiding obligation to obey without any further revelation. The revelation is written.
I want to take you to II Peter 1:17. In speaking of this section and emphasizing again the importance of the Word of God as a means of guidance, I would like to caution you, if I may, against some habits and practices, which I personally consider to be exceedingly unsound. You might not agree with me, but of course, that is your privilege, but it’s not my fault when I’m right.
I’ll tell you what I did in Bible school that will illustrate what I’m after. Like most students, I suppose I had a few broken rules on my conscience. Being rather sensitive to God, and enjoying a nice fellowship with the Lord in Bible school, I became troubled about these broken rules. When the first year was nearing its end and re-application had to be made for the following year, I began to have wonderments whether they were going to take me back. Actually, my infractions weren’t that serious at all, but I felt them rather keenly.
I went to the Lord and said, “God, I have to have an answer from you to know whether they are going to take me back to school.” I remembered what a brother, I suppose well meaning, but quite mistakenly advised me.
He had said, “Brother, whenever you want to hear from God remember the scripture “Knock and it shall be opened,” so you take your Bible and you knock (makes knocking sounds). Then open it up and the first passage your eyes see, that’s the answer from God.”
I wanted an answer badly and sure knocked loudly enough to be heard. I hit it good. I said, “God, now comes the answer.” I opened up and read, I think in the Book of Naham, “There shall no more of thy seed be sown, for thou art violent; I will make thy grave.” Listen, I knew it wasn’t as bad as all that, so I shut my Bible and said, “Thank you God! That was you after all.” I still think it was God for this reason. God wanted to use that scripture to cure me once and for all of such an unintelligent abuse of the Word of God.
I don’t deny that in your distress you have opened the Bible and said, “Oh God! I’m in such a need, I don’t know where to read anymore,” and you open the Bible, and lo and behold, you hit the thing that helps you. I don’t deny that. It has happened to me, but listen; even though God on occasion may do something like that in His providence, I would say that as soon as you begin to make that a system, a regular method of ascertaining the will of God, I think I can say sooner or later, you’ll discover that you’re all mistaken. There is a difference between an occasional, exceptional, intervention of divine providence and then deducing from that an infallible system. Rather than do that, read the Word of God from Genesis to Revelation and divide its principles.
I’m going to touch on something else and I may touch on something a little sensitive here, but don’t get too mad at me. You can make an exception if you want to. May I say that I have no use for promise boxes. There I have done said it. I’ll tell you why.
We had them in Bible school when I was a student. I suppose I got prejudiced there. That could be. Every morning the teacher passed the box around at the breakfast table. We pulled a passage, and students would ask each other, “What did the Lord say to you? What did the Lord say to you? What did the Lord say to you?” Even then already, I mistrusted that method. That’s my opinion. If somebody wants a promise box to remind themselves of the promises of God, I have no objection. But when we say, “Oh God, I want special guidance,” while flipping through the box to find the right promise card. “Here it is, that’s what the Lord said.” No, that’s what you took. Do you know what I mean? I think there we ought to be extremely careful.
Has it ever occurred to you that the promises of God are not all sugar and honey? All these boxes contain is the nice printed promises everybody likes, but none of the other promises because people wouldn’t buy the box.
For instance: “If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy.” That’s a promise too. Why isn’t it in the promise box? Because people don’t want to buy those promises; they only want the good ones. To me, the whole thing as a means of guidance is altogether dishonest. I’ll tell you a better promise box - this one here. The Bible gives you the promise with the conditions.
I remember a lady, and she was well known for her stinginess. Before she gave a quarter, as the saying goes, she held onto it so tight that the eagle screamed in her hand. She was poor and tight. One day she got up in church and said, “This morning I opened my promise box and the Lord gave me the promise, ‘My God shall supply all your need.’ Hallulu, Hallulu.”
Wait a minute! It’s not as simple as that. I’m quite sure she never read the context. In the context you will find that that promise was made to the Philippians.
Secondly, the promise was made to those who remember others in their need. When you use that scripture in the light of the context, you will discover that promise is not made for stingy Christians at all. It is made for those who are liberal with other people.
Paul said, “My God shall supply all your need.” Whose need? God will supply the need of the Philippians, or the kind of Christians like the Philippians, who remember others in their need. The promise is made to them, not to those who hang onto the quarter until the eagle screams.
That ties in with other scripture, “Give, and it shall be given unto you; He that soweth sparingly, shall also reap sparingly.”
Other scripture confirms this interpretation. Wait a minute! If you pull that thing out of the box, if you do want to use it, how about looking up the conditions. People don’t want the conditions; they prefer to kid themselves. That may run counter to some of your favorite practices, but my friends, it’ll just have to run counter. There’s nothing I can do about it. We need the truth, and I think this is the truth. Whatever you do, don’t pull the promises out apart from the conditions. We must read the Word of God with reverence and honestly.
Now let me read from II Peter. It’s about time. We’ve quite a little ways to go yet. Here again I’m slightly corrective, but it’s something we cannot help.
“For he received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount. We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts.” II Peter 1:17-19
This is quite obviously a reference to the experience on the Mount of Transfiguration. In fact, I don’t see how there can be any doubt, and Peter said, “Now when we were on the Mount, we heard God speak.” Remember He said, “This is my beloved Son,” after Peter wanted to build a tabernacle, one for Moses, one for Elijah and one for Jesus.
Incidentally, in case some of you are interested, you have here the threefold representation of the Word of God:
1) Moses representing the written Word,
2) Elijah representing the spoken Word, and,
3) Jesus representing the living Word.
Has it ever occurred to you that the Word of God comes to us in three forms:
1) As the written Word,
2) As the spoken Word, and,
3) As the Living Word.
The Word of God personified in Christ, three modes, three expressions of the Word of God. That’s what you have there on the Mount of Transfiguration. Peter makes the reference to that.
So he said, “We heard the voice. It came from heaven.” But then he says, “We have also a more sure word of prophecy,” or the word of prophecy made more sure. To my mind anyhow, Peter seems to make the affirmation that although the voice from heaven was sure, the written Word of God is even “more sure.” I suppose because it is less subject to misunderstanding or misinterpretation. But this is what I’m after,
“Whereunto ye do well that ye take heed (he has in mind the written Word), as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the daystar arise in your hearts.”
This “dawning of the day” and “the daystar arising in our hearts” can refer to nothing else but the coming of Jesus Christ. I don’t know what else he could have had in mind. If that is the case, and I believe it to be, then Peter was saying that the Word of God remains our light as the sure Word we must take heed to until the coming of Christ.
This is what I’m after. There are folk today (maybe not in Washington, I wouldn’t know) who get special revelations from heaven, some of which either approbate or in some way modify or supersedes the Word of God. My friends, I would like to state most categorically that the Spirit of God will never, under any circumstances, give any revelation, any communication of any kind in any field at any time, which in any way takes from, adds to or modifies the written Word of God.
Therefore, like Paul said, “Even though an angel should come from heaven and say anything to the contrary, let him be accursed.”
If we ever conceded such a possibility, we would knock out the foundation of truth from under our feet; there’d be nothing left. How far would you go? I know people think they get revelations. What they call revelations could better be termed hallucinations or imaginations or fabrications, but not revelation in the Biblical sense.
Now I believe in revelation. I’ve had revelation. God has showed me things. I have preached already by such direct revelation that it seemed the Spirit of God brought the words like on an assembly line, on a belt, and all I had to do was say them. They kept coming and I said them, say this, this and this. I just went on like that and let her go.
Well, there’s a place for that. There’s a place for teaching, of course. But the Spirit of God will never violate the written Word of God.
I was ministering in one place and the pastor took me to a table with a drawer. He opened the drawer and said, “Brother Beuttler, look.”
I looked and the drawer was full of prophecies. One of them started out, “A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the south, a voice from the north… ” and then it went on.
The pastor said, “Brother, these prophecies are so good. They’re better than the Bible. When you get them, you don’t even need a Bible anymore.”
I said, “Brother, the best thing you can do with them is put them in the fire.” He looked at me as though he expected a bolt of lightning to strike me. It wouldn’t strike me for that reason anyhow. My friends, we need to revere the Word of God.
A lady came to me with a revelation, she called it. She said, “Brother Beuttler, do you know how many stories Noah’s ark had?”
I said, “What are you driving at?”
“Oh! I had a revelation. Noah’s ark had 7 stories. The 7 stories represent 7 different raptures of 7 different classes of people. The 7th story people, the top story people are the overcomers. They go up first. Then the 6th story people, then the 5th story people, last come the 1st story people.”
I said, “To which story people do you belong?”
She said, “Oh! I belong to the top story.” I’ve been sorry to this day that I didn’t ask her whether she ever had her top story examined by a psychiatrist. I didn’t say it, but I often wished I had. It would have been most appropriate.
The Lord even revealed to her that He was going to give her another husband. They had 7 different little boys—lovely fellows. Sh e broke up the home, got a new husband, had her former husband put in an insane asylum, and that man was no more insane than I am, unless I am. Ha Ha! He wasn’t insane. The Lord showed her that He would give her another husband, so she put him away.
Her father died and the Lord gave her a revelation that he’s not dead, but sleeping. Do you think they’d bury him? No sir. The Lord said he wasn’t dead. He was only asleep. The Spirit knows, God makes no mistakes so they wouldn’t bury him. They walked around the home, “He’s not dead, but sleeping. Hallelujah! Glory! He’s not dead, but sleeping. He’s not dead, but sleeping.” He would have been there to this day, but here in the States, the authorities got hold of it and they had to bury him. Then they walked
around the grave, “Come up thou! Raise up in Jesus Name” Oh! They marched around and rebuked the devil and hell and what have you, but he never wiggled. He’s still dead.
“Well,” they said, “Somebody failed God, all by a revelation.”
I believe in revelation, but my friends, I want no revelation that does violence to this Book, to which we are admonished to “give heed until the day dawns and the day star arise in our hearts,” so may I suggest that the Word of God, in my judgment (and I’m sure others feel the same way), stands preeminent as an infallible means of guidance when it’s rightly understood.
Suppose we drop that now, not because other things couldn’t or shouldn’t be said, but I like to chat a little bit about guidance by the Spirit.
I have often been asked about this guidance of the Spirit. I do have studies on the Holy Spirit and very often bring it out in that connection. There are so many, many things to be said, and of course, I cannot do that. But let me give you a point that, at least to me, has been very helpful.
Do you remember Jesus saying, at least teaching in principle, “My sheep know my voice.” That’s found in John 10. We have a song, “My Sheep Know My Voice.” That’s not an exact quotation, but the sentiment is there. People have often said, “But how do I know it’s the voice of the Spirit? How do I know it isn’t myself?” That’s really a big subject, but using John 10 on Jesus’ teaching that His sheep know His voice, we learn something.
Perhaps I’m guilty here of over simplification, but I think I can emphasize the point even though it’s over simplified. One of the best ways that I know the recognition of His voice is through this picture of the sheep. The sheep follow Him; the sheep know His voice. How do they know His voice? Where did they go to school? They didn’t go to school, but the sheep were simply brought up with the shepherd and learned the recognition of His voice through continued association with Him.
Now that’s very simple and perhaps overly simplified, but may I suggest, if you are interested in the recognition of His voice, see to it that you live and walk in association with Him. I know of no better way to recognize His voice, His leading, than by keeping in fellowship with Him. I think if you get hold of that you have something that can be of very great help.
How does a little baby learn its mother’s voice as distinct from the voice of strangers? Take a little thing like that - the mother has it in her arms and the baby is content.
Along come the in-laws and the out-laws, as the case may be, and they say, “Oh! The little darling angel face, just let me hold her, won’t you?”
“There she is.” And the baby cries, “Waa, waa, waa.”
“Oh dear! Take her, take her.” The mother takes her back to sounds of contentment.
What has happened? I don’t know what has happened, but that little rascal through continual association has learned to distinguish between the mother and, what to the little thing, are strangers. I think that fellowship with the Lord, communion with Him, living in His proximity is one of the best helps to the recognition of His voice.
I want to come back to the peace of God. I want to describe this peace of God to you a little bit, which I think is necessary. An analysis of the peace of God, so far as I can see or have experienced, falls into five categories of truth.
The peace of God has a negative aspect and a positive aspect, so the peace of God needs to be described,
1) Negatively,
2) Positively,
3) Experimentally,
4) Positionally and,
5) Judicially.
By the way, that’s listed in the printed notes.
Negatively the peace of God is not a mere absence of disturbance. Will you get that? You don’t need the peace of God for that necessarily. The peace of God is not a mere absence of disturbance. The peace of God is an absence of disturbance, but it is not merely that. That is the negative side.
On the positive side, the peace of God is a conscious rest, a rest inside somewhere, a felt rest, a discernable calm, the thing that makes you say in the midst of trouble, “Praise God:” The praise that comes from way down inside. It is a conscious rest, which is independent of circumstances, favorable or unfavorable.
Speaking of circumstances, may I suggest to you that unfavorable circumstances do not necessarily constitute evidence of being out of the will of God. Will you remember that? Unfavorable circumstances do not in themselves necessarily constitute evidence of being out of the will of God.
The scripture for this is Mark 4:35-38; there Jesus said to His disciples, “Let us pass over unto the other side.” So they went on and when they got into the middle of the lake, the storm came up, the waves beat into the ship, they were in jeopardy of their lives,
the storm was howling, their hearts were filled with fear, the winds were positively contrary, yet they were in the center of the will of God.
Will you remember that when the devil tries to persuade you that your troubling circumstances are evidence of your being out of the will of God? They might be evidence, but not necessarily so. You need more proof than just the deduction from difficulties you’re going to face. Folks, that’s important because if we think that troubling circumstances constitute evidence of being out of His will, then that’s going to throw us out of His will when we are in His will.
These disciples were in the center of the Lord’s will. They obeyed Him and as a result they got into trouble. Hey! Sometimes we get into trouble, not because we disobeyed, but because we obeyed. We mustn’t make false deductions from those things.
In fact, on one of those occasions, Jesus had a real purpose - well He had a purpose anyhow. Do you remember how the disciples were in trouble in the Lord’s will? Then they saw Jesus walking on the sea. Peter, who was of the forward kind - quick, he first acted and then thought. He said, “Lord, if that’s you, tell me to come on the water.”
And Jesus said, “Come.”
Peter stepped out of that boat and walked on the water, Whew! Peter wasn’t primarily walking on water. Before Peter walked on water, he walked on the word that Jesus had spoken. Jesus had said, “Come.” Peter could walk on the water because he walked on that word.
Sometimes the Lord lets you and me go through troubled waters to teach us to walk on His word, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” Peter walked on the word “Come.” But of course, when he looked around and saw the wind and began to look at his environment and circumstances, his faith left him. He was then sinking in water because he got away from the word.
Oh, my friends! The Lord has such a beautiful education for us, such wonderful classrooms, but we miss it because we conclude, “Well, I got into trouble. Something’s wrong with me. I asked the Lord to chase the devil out of my life.” Maybe it’s God in your life. Don’t chase Him out. Oh no, my friends! Don’t deduct you’re out of the will of God simply because you are walking through trouble.
Now it can be reversed (Positively). Take the case of Jonah. In Jonah you have the situation that just because everything works out circumstantially is no proof that we are in the will of God. Jonah ran away from the presence of the Lord. Hey! How can you run away from the presence of the Lord when God’s presence is everywhere? We better not get into that or we’ll never get out - not tonight anyhow. That’s a good one though! I throw it in to get you to think. Jonah fled from the presence of the Lord. How can you flee from God’s presence when God is omnipresent? Obviously you can’t in one sense, but I’ll leave that for you to chew on.
So Jonah ran away and went down to the harbor. Lo and behold, just as he got there, Hallelujah, the Lord saw to it that a ship was ready to sail. Besides that he had the fare. “That must have been the Lord.” Everything worked out beautifully until he got into trouble and found himself in the stomach of a whale.
Here you have favorable circumstances - at first. From these favorable circumstances, Jonah could have deduced that he was in the will of God, but of course, he knew better. The boat was ready to sail and the Lord provided his ticket. That would have been a wrong deduction, so then unfavorable circumstances do not necessarily constitute evidence of being out of the will of God, neither do favorable circumstances necessarily evidence that we are in the will of God. You cannot go by circumstances altogether. They are all right to use, especially in collaboration with other things, but circumstantial guidance by itself, independent of any witness of God within, is very risky indeed.
This is a little bit light, a little bit humorous, unimportant, but I think you’ll get the point. A couple of years ago or so, one of our girls in the school came to my office. She said, “Brother Beuttler, do you know a boy is interested in me?” She wanted a boy and had been looking for awhile, and now she had hope.
I said, “That’s fine. How did you find that out?”
She said, “You know I said, ‘Lord, if he’s the boy for me and I go down to the dining room, let him smile at me.’ Brother Beuttler, he smiled at me.”
I thought, “Poor kid. All because the fellow smiled at her, she thinks that’s it.” How does she know he smiled at her in pity? You see what a flimsy circumstance to base upon a great hope?
I value circumstantial guidance very much, but I make use of it very cautiously. As a rule, I do not let it determine my course of action, not by itself. I find it too risky. At least I want with it the witness of the peace of God that I know this circumstance is God. That’s where the peace of God comes in.
Experimentally the peace of God is a supernatural rest in the midst of unrest (reading now from my notes), and therefore passes all understanding. I think I can relate something here about this peace of God.
Some years ago I went on a journey for the Lord in Iceland, in Europe, portions of Africa and France. We had a very wonderful week of meetings in France in the city of Rouen. On the train on the way down to Paris, the Spirit of God gave me a chorus very vividly. The chorus was, “Lift me up above the shadows, lift me up and let me stand.” You know that chorus I suppose. That song kept singing in my heart all the way down on that two- hour ride or so. I recognized that the Lord was talking to me.
I said, “I don’t understand it because I have no shadows. Everything is going fine. We had a good start, had a move of the Spirit. I don’t get it.”
When I got to my hotel, they said, “Mr. Beuttler, you have some mail from the States.”
“Goody!” There was a letter from Wife. That was nice, but I wanted to enjoy the letter, so first I got my room in order, unpacked my cases. I hadn’t stayed there for a while. When I was all washed up and leisurely sitting down, I opened the letter to have a feast. Did I have a surprise!
“Dear Daddy, You’ll be surprised to hear that I’m writing to you from the hospital. Something wasn’t right and we thought I should have it looked at. I did and the doctor thinks I might have cancer.” Whew! Did that hit me! She said, “I’m not asking you to come home. I just want you to know what’s happening.” Oh brother! Did that hit me! Wouldn’t it hit you? And the summer had only begun.
I walked up and down that hotel room for a long time wondering what to do. In fact, I knew what I should do. I had to make my decision and write back that I’m not coming home. My! That was hard. I had such clear leading for my travels that I said, “Lord, if I were a tourist, it would be my duty to walk over to Air France, hop on a plane tonight, be back in Idlewild tomorrow morning, but I’m not a tourist, I’m an ambassador. You sent me on an assignment. God, no matter what happens, I’m going to go on with my work.”
I knew the Lord put me to the test. As some of you heard me already mention, for two weeks, I ministered every day wondering on the inside, “What’s been happening in the States?”
The children made it worse. The girls went to other homes and one of them was homesick, didn’t eat, crying night and day, “I want my Mummy. I want my Daddy. Why doesn’t my Daddy come home?”
Whew! Those things hurt, and I had to turn to God. God gave me such a rest, although I was sorrowful, yet at the same time, God gave me a rest, a buoyancy in God sufficient to hold me high enough to go on ministering every day without those congregations ever suspecting that anything was seriously wrong. It’s the peace of God, which passes all understanding.
Say! I’ve already gone an hour. Can you take 15 more minutes? Would that be all right? I don’t like to let this thing hang. Since the peace of God is so important, I do want to mention some conditions.
As I said this morning, the peace of God is an inner supernatural rest, a conscious rest, not the mere absence of disturbance. No, no, no. It’s the presence of a calm, a peace, that something that produces a “Hallelujah, praise the Lord.” Something goes wrong and while you feel it, you can take it. It doesn’t throw you.
There are conditions so that when you come to a course, to a crossroads and you must choose, the peace of God can give you an unrest, a disturbance, an uneasiness, or an uncertainty.
For instance, if I should go to a country that God doesn’t want me to go to for some special reason, like the Congo a year or two ago. When I feel an unrest, an uneasiness, I would say, “Beuttler, you better wait and take a second look at this thing.”
On the other hand, if there is a rest, a witness, an assurance, a calm, I’d go ahead. This is so hard to explain. It’s better felt than telt.
A few years ago I was at Idlewild going down to South America somewhere. I guess it was Buenos Aires. Suddenly and strongly there came a strong presence of God. Oh what a presence! I stood there in that great hall of the International Building and said, “God, what is it?”
What a peace flooded my soul. I remember saying, “If I ever traveled in the will of God, this is it.” I knew, but I wondered why God made that peace, that assurance so strong. It seemed to be unnecessary, but outstanding. In a few hours I knew.
In a few hours we made a stop in Havana, Cuba, and the rebels took our plane, lined us up in a row, and examined us. Those fellows with their beards had their submachine guns under their arms, and also their rifles. To tell you the truth I had the shakes. They were so careless with their guns. They looked so trigger-happy; they seemed to delight that they scared the wits out of every one of us.
One of them stood in front of me and as he looked me over, presumably to see whether I was one of those they were interested in, my eyes could look right down the gun barrel of his submachine gun with his finger on the trigger. What a view! And I remembered Idlewild.
I said, “God, now I know why you gave me that strong witness to let me know in this moment that I’m certainly in your will.” You know that was a big help. I could give you the whole story. There was a reason for their taking the plane. They were after some fellows that were on the plane, and so of course, they looked us over to see who was what.
Finally we marched again through two lines of fellows with their guns on both sides. They were some dilapidated, uncivilized, untrained, trigger-happy fellows. Just looking at them you knew you couldn’t trust a one of them. They had fun, we didn’t. We walked through and went back in the plane. Then they climbed up on the wings and looked in again. I was by the window. They were still searching. Finally we were allowed to go.
We were about 5 minutes or so in the air when we got the announcement that we were ordered back to the airport. We wondered, “Oh God, now what’s up?”
We didn’t know what they’d do. Would they take the plane, put us in jail or what? But I had the peace of God, that strong presence, not as in Idlewild, but still that residue, that something within that I said, “No matter what happens, my God is with me and I know I am in His will.” It’s the peace of God that “passes all understanding.”
Do you know what I have noticed? You can do with this what you like. In my experience I have noticed through repeated experience that the Lord seems to speak with a strength that is in direct proportion to the need.
For instance, I go on a trip and somewhere during the trip, I run into trouble (and I’ve been in bad spots already, very bad), then I remember back home before I left the Lord spoke, witnessed with such unusual strength so as to be strong enough to keep me when I’m in difficulty. I hope you can follow me.
In other words, I have found that the strength of the witness of the Spirit to me appears to be in ratio to the need later on.
When I was down in Jakarta, Indonesia one evening, somehow I had forgotten that in the tropics the sun sets quickly. I know it of course, but just didn’t think of it. I was new in the city. It was my first visit at the time. I walked way down town because I love to walk; I like to keep my health up if I can. I figured I had sufficient time to walk back to the hotel. Although everything was new, I was quite sure I’d find my way back. I have a seventh sense of some kind. I don’t get lost very easily. If I do, I smell in the air and somehow manage to find my way. I don’t know what it is. When I got down there, lo and behold, the sun went down, darkness came rapidly, and I realized I’d never get back to the hotel in daylight, and it was too dangerous to be found walking on the street - that is for a foreigner anyhow.
So I took a rickshaw and told the fellow the name of the hotel, and he peddled me along. He was behind me. It was sort of a bicycle rickshaw affair. He was behind me and I knew he wasn’t going the way I came, but I thought, “He probably knows of a better road or a shortcut.”
I was uneasy. He didn’t speak a word of English. I thought, “According to my directions, we were not going to that hotel - anywhere near it.” I protested, but it made no difference. He just smiled a little bit and went right on into the dark. To my consternation, he wheeled me out of the city. That is bad.
There I was outside the city in somewhat of a park affair, all by myself, along a canal with this fellow peddling behind me. Did I ever do some praying! I said, “Oh God! I am in a real fix.”
(The tape ends abruptly here. Obviously He came out all right, because he returned to tell the story.)
This message is one of the sixty-six surviving transcripts of Walter Beuttler's teaching. To hear his voice, visit the Messages page. To read the story of his life — from the Brooklyn Bridge to the school of the Spirit — see Who Was Walter Beuttler? The True Story of the Man Who Knew God.
The Man Who Knew God
Walter Beuttler was never famous, yet he carried God's presence to more than a hundred countries. His students said that when he walked into a room, the air changed. This is the first full account of a friendship with God that was specific, sustained, and costly. Read the story of his life →