Lord's Way In Adversity
Well, three months ago or so in the Bangkok Hotel, Mrs. Beuttler told the Lord that she was afraid that our ship was sinking. It looked like it might, but it didn’t.
Now then, I’m glad to be in your presence again to share with you some things from the Word of God, truths that should help us, and should help us a very great deal.
When I first visited you, I was using a text from the Book of Exodus, and I’m going to use the same text again and will branch off into an area of truth that, at that time, we had bypassed. Turning to Exodus 33:13: we are coming back to Moses’ prayer:
“Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, show me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight; and consider that this nation is thy people. And he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. And he said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.” Exodus 33:13-15
Now I used that two years ago, I guess it was, to lead you into an area of truth that had to do with the presence of God. “My presence shall go with thee.” Now I have upon my heart to lead you into another area, also in response to the response to the prayer of Moses when Moses prayed, “Show me now thy way.”
We’re going to start out by talking about the ways of the Lord. Now this area will take us into our every day life, our difficult experiences, our perplexities, our problems, our frustrations, our defeats. I do not know yet how far I will go in that area, but I could go with it all the way through if I felt in the Lord to do so.
First, I like to make a few remarks, also based on the Word. In Hebrews 3:10, God complains about His people, “They do always err in their heart; and they have not known my ways.” The obvious implication is that people err because they did not know, did not understand, the ways of the Lord.
I can take you into the ways of the Lord in adversity; ways of the Lord in the wilderness; the way of the Lord in a storm; in darkness; the way of the Lord in perplexity, what it’s
all about, what God is doing. We need to know the ways of the Lord. As I mentioned from Hebrews, God complains about His people’s lack. “They have not known my ways.”
These studies, this line of the pursuit of the knowledge of the ways of the Lord can be of tremendous help to us, to you, when we are going through serious difficulties.
When I had this attack in Bangkok and was gasping for air, it looked like a genuine heart attack that could take me. That’s what Wife was afraid of. Gasping for breath in a situation that appeared you’re going to suffocate, and then to be able to look up to God; and affirm the power of God; and acknowledge the sovereignty of God; and give credit to the glory of God without ever uttering one question or one complaint questioning God. That takes the knowledge of God.
It is surprising how things can strike us without any warning. I’m sitting before you tonight in great pain all the time. Mrs. Beuttler can testify, I haven’t uttered one complaint against God. I haven’t raised one question about God. I haven’t pointed my finger at God at all. How come? Because I know He’s all right. (Applause from audience) He’s all right.
In Virginia Beach, they said to me, “So many of us are praying for you so hard. Why doesn’t the Lord???” That’s a question I don’t ask.
“Why not?”
Because I know better to ask such a foolish question.
Remember Job? We’re told that Job did not speak foolishly with his lips. God was listening, and Satan was listening to see what was going to come out. We are told; Job never sinned with his lips.
We’re going to look into the power of divine providence. With the help of the Holy Spirit, we’re going to get better acquainted with our God. “Show me now thy way, THY way, that I may know THEE.”
A Christian life isn’t all a merry-go-round and a parade, or a circus. In the Christian experience, in our walk with God, there are deep waters, sometimes dark clouds, baffling circumstances. We want to know God when the chips are down, when things happen that appear to be the very negation of His promises, and God doesn’t say “Boo” about them. People begin to point their finger, “Uh ha.” Show me now thy way that I may know thee.
Now notice Psalms 103:7, “He made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel."
Moses was a personal friend of God. Earlier in my first visit, I took a little time with this, more than I would now. I’ll just touch on a couple of things. Moses was a personal
friend of God. We are told in Exodus 33:11 that the Lord “talked with Moses as a man speaketh unto his friend.” Think of it! Moses was a friend of God.
How does a man (or a woman for that matter) speak unto their friend? Wherein may their conversation differ from that with other people? A friend will share with a friend what he does not share with everyone else. Incidentally, just because we are a Christian, or a child of God, does not necessarily mean that we are also a friend of God.
Jesus said, “Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you.” IF. The implication is that friendship with the Lord is predicated upon our recognition of His sovereignty over our lives, and our subjection to that sovereignty in obedience to do His will. If we render such total obedience in due recognition of His sovereignty over our lives, we have the qualifications for a friendship relationship. And the Lord will share with us, make known to us, reveal to us, disclose to us, what He does not choose to do with the others who recognize their own sovereignty, but not His, over their lives. And so with Moses, Moses was a friend of God. God communed with him “as a man speaks unto his friend.”
In Deuteronomy 34:10 it says, “There arose not a prophet since in Israel whom the Lord knew face to face.” Whew! God knew Moses face to face. In other words, He knew Moses intimately. Moses was an intimate of God. That is one reason, besides his meekness, why Moses had such influence with God. Moses had influence with God as a friend might have influence with a friend.
You have people say, “You’re a friend of his. You talk to him on my behalf. Maybe he will listen to you and do thus and so.”
Remember when God said to Moses, “Get out of my way. I’m going to destroy this whole nation, and I’ll start a new nation with you?”
Moses said to God, “God, just wait a minute. Keep Your cool. Just think a little bit. Have You ever thought what the other nations are going to say about You?” And Moses told God what the other nations would say about Him. We’re told that it repented the Lord; He changed His mind; He spared a nation because of the intercession, the influence of Moses, His friend.
So in Psalm 103, “The Lord made known His ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel.” The revelation of God’s ways is a greater thing than the demonstration of His acts. Many of God’s people are satisfied with His acts.
“Oh Lord, let’s have miracles. Let’s have devils cast out. Amen! Let’s have healings. Amen! Let’s have Baptisms. Amen! Let’s have saved souls. Amen!” Fine, but you know God wants to take us, not eliminating these, but with them, take us onto a higher level where we will understand, where we will know His ways, and thereby do not so readily misinterpret God. God likes to be understood.
Do you remember the story of Naomi in the Book of Ruth? Here you can look at that book and discover the way of the Lord in adversity, or seemingly in misfortune (if you prefer). Here is this Naomi in the Land of Judah. They were overtaken by a famine. They were obliged to emigrate out of Judah, immigrate into Moab so they could live. Down there her husband died, her son died, another son died, and the woman was left alone with two daughters-in-law, who were also widows.
So here are three widows in a deplorable state in a foreign country - two of them because Ruth came from Moab. In those days, a widow had no chance of making a living. They were the poorest of the poor. They didn’t have social security. They didn’t have welfare. They just had to get along the best they knew how.
Can you imagine how Naomi felt? Yet Naomi was a godly woman, and so was her husband. Her husband’s name was Elimelech. In Hebrew, the name Elimelech means “My God is King.”
Now if you look at the first of the book, you’ll find that the romance of Ruth developed during the days when the judges ruled. You can take (if you want to follow chronology) the Book of Ruth and put it somewhere in the last part of the Book of Judges.
In the Book of Judges, Israel is in a most deplorable state. In the last five chapters, you find statements repeated five times, “In those days there was no king in Israel, and every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” We cannot take time with it, but if you like to pursue it, you can get a real truth there.
You will find that these statements used five times in the last five chapters are uttered in relation to different aspects of the nations. One statement is made in regards to the political life. In other words, in the political sphere of the nation, “every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” God had been, as it were, dethroned, taken off the throne of the political life of the nation.
Personally, I think you could say the same of the United States today. God no longer has any part in the political life of this nation, even though the politicians say a prayer, and talk about God and the church. When it comes right down to it, if God were still having a part in the government of the nation, you would have no Watergates. As then, everyone is “doing that which is right in his own eyes,” and the laws of God are utterly ignored, as is God.
In the Book of Judges, “Every man did that which was right in his own eyes” is given in the context of the moral life of the nation. You get that in the context. In other words, when it came to the moral standards, standards of right and wrong in the nation, everybody did as they pleased. God no longer had any voice, any influence in the moral government of the nation in those days, just as He doesn’t have a voice today. If He did, you would not have the new morality, which is simply the old immorality. I’m trying to put it in a respectable category, but that’s all it is.
You wouldn’t have this free sex, new sex, extra-marital relationships condoned, even more than condoned in universities, colleges and young people. In the stores of the schools, the kids can buy the pill put there by the school authorities to keep them out of trouble. If God had any voice in the moral government of the nation, you wouldn’t have such things.
Well, I’ll say, “Amen” myself. That is the truth, folkses. God’s laws have been shoved to the side and new standards followed, standards proclaimed by men with their textbooks that are utterly corrupt themselves, and spread their corruption all over. That’s right.
It’s a case of right and wrong – “there be no king in Israel” (in the United States), in the moral life of the nation everybody does as he pleases.
You have the same in the social life of the nation, and the religious life of the nation. “There was no king, and every man did that which was right in his own eyes.”
Now then, in this context (if you can see it), is a marvelous jewel of the activity of divine providence. When the nation was so corrupt morally, religiously, socially and politically, the major spheres of the nation, there was a couple in Israel, the wife’s name was Naomi, the husband’s name was Elimelech. Naomi means “pleasant;” Elimelech means “My God is King.”
Now just look at this: Don’t miss the meaning of the name of Elimelech in the light of the context. There were parents; the parents of Elimelech must have been godly parents because they named their boy, “My God is King.” In case you still don’t see it, and you’re eyes look vacant, many of them. Do you see there in these parents at a time of ungodliness in the nation, a personal defiance of the conditions? These parents, by naming their boy Elimelech, was saying to the whole nation as it were, “Even though the nation is without a king, even though the nation has deprived God His throne rights over the nation, as far as we personally are concerned, OUR GOD IS STILL KING!”
If your eyes are still hazy, and some of them are. What you have there is that there were individual people, when the nation had turned from God and deprived Him of His throne rights, who still kept God on the throne of their hearts and respected His sovereignty, personally, and in their family, in spite of what the nation did as a whole. That’s a great truth.
The lesson for you and me is that it is possible to keep God on the throne of our hearts even though the whole nation (or seemingly whole) of which we are a part has long ago dethroned God. You can see for yourself that these men in Washington who had such high positions, and such great power, notwithstanding their religious professions, had dethroned God long ago. They would not; they could not have done what they did, had they kept God on the throne of their hearts even though they all have some religious affiliation.
Naomi and her husband were godly people, yet circumstances developed obliging an emigration. I used to be an immigrant, or once was an immigrant from Germany, and I know what it is to leave a country for keeps and not know whether you’ll ever be back. I’ll never forget it.
My Mother took me to the train. I left Germany because there was not enough for my Mother to feed the children. I said, “Mother, I’ll make one less mouth for you to feed. I’ll go to America.”
I remember the days when people were eating the bark off the trees. You couldn’t find a cat or a rat anywhere. They were eaten. O yes! Our dog was eaten. We didn’t, but somebody else took him and ate him. I walked around like this (demonstrated how) for hunger.
We had our bread weighed on scales every morning. What bread there was, was so soggy with water (the bread was 50% sawdust and 50% flour), that you could squeeze the bread and squeeze water out of it in front of you on the table. That bread was weighed every morning on the scale.
If you ate it too fast, too soon, in the evening there was nothing left. Sometimes there wasn’t anything left. We’d ask for something to eat, and there was nothing. My sister and I went through garbage heaps to try and find something to eat, along with some of the dogs that were still around, to look for something. Later on, you couldn’t find a dog. At suppertime, Mother would say, “Children, just go to bed. Go in and make two fists. Push those fists hard into your stomach and try to make it believe it’s full. Try to go to sleep.” That’s the truth. And I went to America.
My Mother took me to the train. They were long trains. Many, many people were leaving Germany for the same reason. I sat in the corner and put my hand out to say “Goodbye” to my Mother. She took my hand on the outside of the platform. When the train started to move, she walked along too. She wouldn’t let go. The train slowly kept going faster. That woman would not let go of my right hand. She ran in the tracks of the next rails, and ran so fast right along until finally the train pulled us two apart. I called back and said; “I’ll see you in 5 years.” It was 25 years.
I lived in New York City without a job, without friends, without the language. My money was giving out. I lived on donuts and coffee for weeks, and coffee and donuts for a change. On Sunday afternoons I had a plate of bean soup for $.10. That was my meal for weeks.
My money started to go down. I had $.75 left, and I stood on the Brooklyn Bridge, up the middle, with a loaded gun at the side of my head, a German Mouser, a powerful little thing. There it was, I had the finger on the trigger, because I wasn’t going to beg.
I had looked at the bums at the Bowery in New York lying on the sidewalk drunk, and I’d say, “Beuttler, Beuttlers are not beggars, nor are they bums. Before you’re like one of them, you’re going to shoot yourself.” And I was up there with a gun at my head.
I looked down into the East River where I would fall down, and was so positioned when I heard a voice. There was nobody there, but I heard a voice, an audible voice, and I wasn’t saved, “What will your Mother think when she gets the news?”
I felt so sorry for my Mother that I put the gun back in my pocket, walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, and that afternoon got a job in a German machine shop. That was a close one.
Some of you have your own stories, if you come from the old country. It’s no simple thing. I don’t know how Naomi felt, but down they went with what little they had hoping to find food in a foreign country. That’s no easy thing. I haven’t told you anything yet. You lived in New York alone with two suitcases and an umbrella under your arm, no language, no friends, no job, nothing. Now get going, it’s up to you. Whew! Here were these women down there - bereaved.
Let’s look at Naomi a bit. Naomi did not have the scriptures explained to her like you do and you will. Naomi did not understand what God was doing, the poor soul. Now look here, folkses, this Naomi was a soul in crisis - old, a widow, destitute, two daughters-in- law who was as bad off as she was. Yet the mighty, though unseen hand of divine providence was with this woman all the time.
Just because you, or whoever it may be, has gone through bereavement, some misfortune: husband ran out on you; boy didn’t come back from Vietnam; (My brother didn’t come back from Moscow either. My Mother never got over it either. He got shot there in the war.); whatever has befallen us. That, in itself, is not evidence of divine displeasure, not necessarily. Look at Naomi.
I hope you understand our objective here. This thing folkses, should put a little foundation under your wobbly house (if it is wobbling). It should give us some light, some help.
This is Naomi in distress. Look at some of the statements she makes. God can tell a great deal by what we say under stress, under duress. David said in the Psalms, “Thou hast known my soul in adversity.” Now Naomi is speaking out what she feels. The woman is dead wrong, but she is a godly woman, and we can be godly and yet be wrong. Naomi did not know God. She knew of His existence. Apparently, she was a worshipper of God like the other godly Jews, but she never learned to know the character, the nature of the personality of the God she served.
Many Christians today do not know anything about the character of their Heavenly Father, except when we need something; we want Him to be Santa Claus. But God has other things to do besides being our Santa Claus. He has a big job on His hands with us.
Notice what Naomi said in Ruth 1:13, “The hand of the Lord is gone out against me.” Oh? That wasn’t true. The hand of the Lord was working on her behalf, even the death of her husband, her two sons-in-law, were a part of God’s great scheme and plan concerning Naomi to fulfill God’s purpose in her life. But she said, “The hand of the Lord is gone out against me.” Have you ever said that of yourself, or of others? Or have others said it of you?
“Well, what’s the trouble now? Last week your husband had an auto accident. This week your son had one with his motorcycle. And now you’re in the hospital. What’s wrong with your family?”
People begin to point their finger. Something’s up, somebody’s hiding in the woodpile. Somewhere there is a skeleton in the closet. Naomi herself believed that the misfortunes, which befell her, were in some way the hand of God working against her. The truth is, the hand of God was working for her, but she didn’t know it.
Did you also notice in verse 20, “The Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me.” There’s no doubt about that, no doubt about that. Folkses, did you know that God does not only bring into our lives the sweet, but also the bitter? Oh yes! We like lollipops; we like everything sugar coated. Oh folkses, the Lord brings the bitter into our lives. The death of her husband was a bitter thing; the death of her sons-in-law was a bitter thing; famine in the land was a bitter thing; emigration was a bitter thing; immigration was a bitter thing; living in a foreign country among historic enemies was a bitter thing. Yet that woman was in the center of the will of God, as far as He was concerned. Oh yes!
Why does God bring the bitter into our lives? I would not presume to give a complete answer, but I can give a partial one. Now some Christians become embittered with the bitter and call it quits, but that is due to their attitude, to their failure of confidence in the wisdom of Almighty God. His purpose is to make us better.
You’ve read in Romans, “All things work together for good to those who are the called according to his purpose,” but people stop there. If you read on, it says, “That we might be conformed unto the image of his son.” God’s ultimate objective for you and me is not for us to dance a spiritual jitterbug, or roll on the ground with the rock music, however religious it might be. God’s ultimate objective is that we might be found in the likeness of His Son. That’s what He’s after, ultimately. That is why God has to bring all sorts of bitter, among other things, into our lives.
Naomi didn’t understand. What she experienced was bitter, but what God ultimately did far outweighed the bitter, which it cost her.
Do you remember when Jesus had His disciples for a communion service? He said to them, “Drink ye all of it.” Now what did He mean? He meant, “All of you drink of it, “ but more than that: All of you participate in the experiences, the sufferings that is involved in this cup, which it symbolizes. So God comes with the bitter.
But you say, “But Brother Beuttler, I’ll tell you something. I’ve been a Christian 40 years, and it has been nothing but...On Monday, I am happy; on Tuesday, full of joy; on Wednesday I have peace within that...” Um Ba Bumm Bum Bum.
That could be. There are children, which never grow up, and there are children of the Heavenly Father that He has to coax along with all kind of goodies, but He can never bring them into maturity of real men and real woman of God.
So Naomi said in verse 21, “The Lord hath brought me home again empty.” Oh, the emptied lives. I get around. How often over the years, folk have come up and told me of their emptied lives: children moved away, care little; wife or husband gone for one reason or another; emptied lives.
And even as we go on with the Lord when we’re younger, there is an emptying. Oh, Oh! We can sing, “Lord, fill me to overflowing.”
Well, that’s an awful lot of spill. With many people there’s no problem of an overflowing fullness because there is so little vacancy. As soon as they get a blessing, it flows right over anyway. There’s no capacity there to hold it.
Oh, the Lord wants to fill us, not just to overflowing, but to have a real capacity. That just may take some excavation. Has the Lord ever come to your life and excavated? Oh yea! Excavation.
You say, “Oh Lord, I want to be a big tower for Your glory; I want to be a tall tree for You; I want to be a real tower or what have you. Lord, lift me up and let me stand.” Oh yea?
Then He comes along with a pneumatic hammer, da da da da da da da da da da (sound of hammer). Here comes the dump truck.
You say, “Lord, that’s the wrong way. I want to go up.”
He’ll take you up, da da da da da da da (sound of hammer).
They don’t put a skyscraper on the surface of the ground. I used to watch them in New York City. On some of those big buildings, you wonder how far down they’ll go. They go way down, da da da da.
We like to be up in the bell tower somewhere ringing the bell and say, “Hallelujah, this is me. I’m up here, ha, ha, ha.” God comes along with His hammer, da da da da da da da da da da da.
The higher the tower, the deeper the foundation. The more we want to go up, the more the Lord needs to take us down so we can stand. Otherwise, we’ll fall - emptied.
“Lord, fill me more with Yourself.” Whew! “Lord, fill me more with Yourself, Hallelujah, hallelu, hallelu, hallelu.” And then they look for a chill in their spine or something. “Lord, I want more of Yourself.” Isn’t that funny, I had the book on my mind, “The Origin of Species.” Ugh!
“Lord, I want more of Yourself, hallelu, hallelu.” Umh! “The Origin of Species.” Oh yea, that’s from the high school library. I graduated three years ago, and I still have the book from the library.
“Oh Lord, that must be the devil disturbing me. I rebuke you Satan, in the Name of Jesus.” Bang, bang. “The Origin of Species.”
“Lord, give me more.” Umh. I have to go to the library and return the book and pay the fine for three years. (sound of hammer, da da da da da da da da da da da).
“Lord, I want more of you, hallelu, hallelu, hallelu.”
The Lord says, “How did you make that A grade in Math?”
“A grade in Math?” you answer. “I made it, so hallelu, glory, hallelu.”
“How did you make that A grade?”
“Well, I copied it right off somebody’s, whatever it was.”
“Well, what about it?” (hammer sound, da da da da da da.) Back to high school with the grade, see the principal, and have a talk.
“Bu, bu, but, Lord, lift me up,” da da da da da da da da da da.
Or that screwdriver that came from the factory where we work, or that wrench that belongs to the boss. He had wondered for a long time what happened to it. Nobody knew anything about it, but it’s hanging down in the basement, da da da da da da da (hammer digging in our lives). We better finish this. Oh, to be emptied: that letter of apology, that restitution of money, paying of that bill.
We had a boy in school. When he was a youngster, he burned down his uncle’s barn, just burned the whole thing down. Well, he got saved, came to Bible school, sought the Lord, and he had a barn on his mind. He couldn’t get rid of that barn in his head, da da da da da da da.
“I’ll go where You want me to go, dear Lord,” da da da da da.
“What about that barn?”
“Well Lord, that’s burned down. I’m sorry, but I can’t...” but there was the barn.
He came to me. I was his teacher. He said. “Brother Beuttler, this is the story. What do you make of it?”
I said, “From all appearances, the Lord wants you to straighten out the barn situation.”
He said, “I can’t do that. My uncle isn’t saved. He’d put me in jail. He’ll have me locked up, he’ll be so mad.”
I said, “Wait a minute.” So I went to see a lawyer, and he told me, “No, he can’t be put in jail, that’s past the statute of limitations.” There’s a law where you can’t prosecute the person after so many years. I told him, “You’re safe.”
He said, “What will my uncle say?” But he went to him and told him he was the one who burned down the barn.
The uncle said, “So, you were the one.”
He apologized. There was nothing he could do now.
His uncle said, “Well now, that’s long ago. We’ll just forget it.”
There was no more da da da da da da. He straightened it out.
Naomi said, “The Lord hath testified against me.” What she meant was: people are pointing their finger at me and using these incidents of my misfortune as evidence that I have done something that displeased God. She had incurred the displeasure of God. “Ah, Naomi, something’s wrong there. Look at all the trouble they had.” She had to take that.
She said, “The Almighty has afflicted me.” This is true. Providentially, this woman was afflicted, but at the end of the book, when you see the whole thing in perspective, God had chosen the Moabitess Ruth to become a link in the chain to Christ. God wanted to bring that Ruth up into the land of Judah to marry Boaz. Later on, Jesus would be in the godly line.
So God, through all this famine, emigration, immigration, death and then a return, in His providence overruled the whole thing and used Naomi to bring Ruth and Boaz together. As you know, at the end, Naomi had this little baby in her arms, and was the happiest woman in Judah. God had ruled and overruled everything for good for His ultimate purpose.
So you and I have the advantage of having the revelation of God, so that when we go through affliction, or through misfortune, call it deep waters if you wish, we have the revelation of God.
When I had this attack in Bangkok, gasping for breath and how, I would say (among other things), “God is good. God is present. God makes no mistake. God is real.” In between gasping for breath, “God is just” affirming the righteousness, the faithfulness of the character of God when it seemed that this is it - and in a strange country.
We are under the hand of divine providence. A beloved child can breathe its last, wife pass away, whatever it might be. We hold no grudge, have done that which is right and everything in our power, can stand in the midst of misfortune and say, “Shall not the judge of all the earth do right.” “I know that my Redeemer liveth.” I don’t understand it; I cannot explain it; I do not know what it is all about. But one thing I know, Glory be to God in the Highest, for His kingdom ruleth over all. And thereby not sin with our lips, but giving glory to God in the midst of circumstances that defy explanation and solution, our faith anchored in what God is, in spite of what He does or permits.
“Show me now THY way, that I may know thee.”
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 →