Alright, we're going to start again on our series on the spiritual disciplines. Now, today we're going to talk about a very unique discipline. It's called the discipline of silence, or the discipline of Okay, that was a bad joke. Sorry. You know, really this is a very strange concept. You know, we think about silence as very, we think almost like very monastic in nature. We think of monks and chants and stuff like that. It hardly seems something that would be not only practical for today, but even profitable. And what we're going to talk about that is in fact both of these things. It's very profitable, it's very practical. But some questions do arise. I say, all the spiritual disciplines that we're going to be discussing are going to lead to the edification of the body. So the question is, how does silence edify the body of Christ? But we're going to talk about all these things. So, let's consider, before I define what silence is, let's consider just the way our culture perceives it. You know, really, our culture does not like silence. I mean, think of it, we have like MP3 players that weigh like less than, enough to where you can put on the lapel of your shirt. I mean, like, we gotta have our music with us. We gotta have sound. We have car stereos. We have bathroom stereos. We got a portable stereo for when you're working in the garage. all these surround sound speakers, we have multiple televisions, all these things producing sound. And don't get me wrong, when I watch Star Wars or something like that, I want to hear that lightsaber, I want to feel it. There's nothing wrong with liking those things. The problem is when we look at silence as a bad thing, which our culture does. I remember the first time that Dr. Fernandez ever heard me speak, it was at King's West. And I was talking to him later, and he said to me, you know, you do something that a lot of young preachers never do, and that is leave room for silence. He says, most preachers, they feel like any time they're talking, they have to, every second, they have to be filling it up, filling it up, and they won't just stop for this dramatic effect. You know, he says, you use that. You use that silence. And it's very good. You know, you think about it. I remember this. I used to play jazz band. I used to play jazz band. I used to play trumpet. And I remember there was this drum solo. And this guy was just going to town on this drum, just doing it, doing it. And then boom. And then just stopped right in the middle of it. And everyone was just like, because here he is just beating the crud out of these things. And then all of a sudden, it's like, And it's just like this silence for a few seconds. And then it goes... You know, it's weird. We're not used to that silence. We're not used to that space. And when it does occur, it's almost awkward. You know, there's that phrase, the silence was deafening. You know, it's always... You know, you talk to someone for the first time about something, and then what do you say to them? What's the first thing you say? Well, say something! Respond to me! Tell me what you're thinking. I'm not going to talk about this at all today, but that's why it's so difficult sometimes when there's times when we feel that God is silent towards us. It's so frustrating. We have the one being that said he would never leave us nor forsake us, and when we can't discern his voice, oh my gosh, it makes you so distraught. Dr. Falwell, the former chancellor of Liberty University, he used to talk about stuff like that, when God stops speaking. It's a very interesting subject, but we're not going to get into it today. But the point is, silence can be very scary. That Simon and Garfunkel song, The Sound of Silence. There's some very interesting lyrics in that. Go home tonight and Google it. And it's just really interesting, the stuff he says. He says, hello darkness, my old friend. He refers to silence as darkness. And it says some other very strange and interesting things. But it just shows us that we have this naturally bent view on silence, where we think it is a bad thing. And really, silence is scary. Because we feel that it means that when silence is going on, it means that nothing is going on. And that if nothing is going on, then we are missing out on something. You know, it's like you're here, and you know in the background, maybe like far away, you hear like this... And you're like, oh, there's a party going on way over there, you know, something like that. If we have like this pure silence, it's like, here we are. It's just me. It's nobody else. There's nothing else, but it's just me. And you know what? That is scary. But the thing is, this conception that because there's silence, there's nothing going on, you guys, that's totally false. That is completely false. Let me define for you what I mean by silence as a spiritual discipline, and you'll see why that statement is false. Okay, the spiritual discipline of silence is the intentional withholding of speech so that one can be taught by God. The spiritual discipline of silence is the intentional withholding of speech so that one can be taught by God. Now, I think it's very important, this idea of withholding speech. I'll get into this a little bit later, why that's important. But, real quick, I was going to talk about silence and solitude today. It's almost like the proverbial chicken and the egg, you know, what comes first, the chicken or the egg? Well, what comes first, silence or solitude? Well, obviously, you're only going to have silence around you, and you'll be silent if you're in solitude, and if you are, and the only way, right, yeah. You can't have silence, no silence without solitude. If there is silence, and one is silent, then one must also be in solitude. So they're irrevocably connected. You really have one, you have the other. That being said, I believe that they are separate. They are definitely separate entities. Some of the resources that I looked at only mention solitude. Some never mention silence at all. Some consider silence and solitude the same thing. But I consider them similar, but not the same thing. And as next week we're going to go over Solitude, we'll see the different applications even for each of these things. Silence and solitude are similar, but they are different. Now, there are two key types of silence. The first one is going to be inward silence, and this is the classical discipline, as we consider it from, you know, monks or whatever, as I'll be defining it today. And then the second one is outward silence. Now, this is the effects of the discipline that it has on us as the user, and the ways that silence is profitable when we interact with other people. So inward silence is this idea where we are presenting ourselves before God without speaking, with just listening, and being taught by Him That's the inward silence. And outward silence is this idea that when I learn these certain aspects from inward silence, then I can apply those aspects with the relationships with anyone that I come across. That's how I'm defining inward and outward silence. So what we're going to do now is I'm going to go through and talk about different parts of inward silence, and then we're going to talk about parts of outward silence, and then we'll conclude it from there. Inward silence is not, repeat, is not setting aside time to be alone in silence. It's much more than this. Not talking equals the spiritual discipline of silence, as much as not eating equals the spiritual discipline of fasting. What I mean is like, you know, if you wake up and then you're going about your day, and it's like noon, and you're like, oh wow, I haven't eaten yet today. Alright, I'm fasting today. No, it's like, no, fasting's not like that. Same thing, it's like, if you go and sit down and you're like, whoa, you know what, I've been sitting here for a good 45 minutes, I haven't said a word. I'm in silence. No, it doesn't work like that. That's why I said the spiritual discipline, the discipline of silence is the intentional withholding of speech so that you can be taught by God. That's where you, with this mindset, you come before God and you present yourself there. And you say, okay God, here I am. Teach me. And I'm not going to respond. And like I said, it's very important that we consider this an intentional thing. Now, silence is about fellowship with God, in which He uses us as a captivated audience to talk to us, to reveal things to us, and to change us. It is not, repeat, it is not a time to respond. What is it called when we respond to God? Prayer. Prayer, yeah. And that in itself is a separate spiritual discipline we'll be talking about in a couple weeks. This is a time where you come before God, you have fellowship with Him, but He uses this time as you as a captivating audience. I mean, it's kind of a stupid analogy, but when I was a kid, we used to have this lake property, and we used to do all sorts of stuff there. We used to go out and catch all sorts of animals and stuff like that. I mean, we caught snakes, fish, turtles, ducks, all with just our hands. We caught, and frogs. And frogs was like the classical, that was, you know what, that was like, oh yeah, we're going frogging tonight. And what we did was, we would go, we'd take like this high-powered, you know, like one of those 14-pound like flashlights, and then we'd see a frog and we'd shine it right in his eyes. And they would just sit there and just stare at this light. And then the other person would sneak up behind him, and then we'd grab him. And then we'd be like, yeah, we got our frog, yeah, yeah. And we'd pass him around, and then we'd let him go. But I'm surprised. At Costco, they have these huge flashlights. I think they would burn out the inside of the frog's eyes. But that might be an interesting experiment, though. But, you know, it's almost like that with silence. It's like, here we are, we should be like this captivated audience, like the frog was staring at that light, unable to move, unable to waver. That's what this discipline is about. It's like, here we are Lord, we are coming in your light, we are presenting ourselves for fellowship with you, to be taught by you, and here we are. Here I am. I'm not going anywhere, I'm just going to continue to stare at this light. That, in essence, is what silence is about. Now, like I said, this is not a time to respond. Response is prayer. Now, this sounds easy, but it's actually, it's really not. I mean, try it. and in silence, and ask God to reveal himself to you. If you can do this without defending yourself, Good job, but it's very difficult. Even in preparing for today, I went and I spent some time in silence, and I did exactly everything I said. I was like, okay, Lord, here I am. I was exposing myself to you. I'm lifting up all these concerns now. Teach me. Change me. And I start sitting there, and these thoughts or ideas start coming to my head. I was like, well, wait, God, you gotta consider the... I was like, oh, crap. I'm doing exactly what I'm going to tell them not to do. I'm trying to defend myself. You guys, when God reveals these things to us, it's not in a sense that he reveals these things to us for maliciousness or anything like that. He's doing them to bring us into closer, intimate fellowship with him. Like I said, silence is about fellowship with God. It's not our time to respond. It's not our time to defend ourselves. It is our time to sit at his feet and to learn from him and not respond. And like I said, I know all these things. And yet, as I was practicing it, in order to prepare, I was like, I found myself, it was difficult for me to do it. So if you can do this, Very good. If not, keep trying, because it really is a very, very beautiful, very intimate discipline. Okay. Inward silence, going through talking about some of the aspects of it. Inward silence is about submission. By coming to God in silence, you are proclaiming His sovereignty over you in your life. I mean, think about that. You're coming to Him and you're saying, okay Lord, Lord, here I am. Now, we wouldn't do that to somebody unless we had considered that person to be master or Lord of our lives. And I even put in here that we should come to God and accept His instructions Just like a servant would be getting instructions from his master. You know, you have like a bond servant coming to his master, like, okay, what do you need done today? He's like, you know, I need you to, you know, go pick up this, do that, do that. You know, like, oh, it's like grocery list type stuff. That is the idea that we should have when coming before God. That we come here and we're like, okay, I'm a servant, and I am ready to accept your instructions. for what you would have me do. Likewise, inward silence is an act of rest. Inward silence first is about submission Secondly, it is an act of rest. You know how a kid gets bullied or something like that, and goes home and talks to his mom, and she gives him a hug, and he's like, and then there's one guy, and he said I was a jerk, and I started crying, and she's like, shh. Basically, she knows that at that certain point, it's going to do no good for him to talk about it, because he's all anxious and all this stuff, and he's hurt. So the mom says, listen, you just need to be quiet. You just need to calm down. I'm here. Come to me for rest. That's exactly the same thing that silence is. Don't get me wrong, prayer is an integral part of our lives. If you can go a day without prayer, I would really, I'd be very surprised at your relationship with the Lord. But, like I said, there are times where, yeah, we need to come to the Lord in prayer. We need to enter the throne room of grace. And we need to make our requests known. But, you know what, I'll tell you guys, we need to come before the Lord in silence. and then rest. And not be like that mother saying to her kid, it's okay, it's okay, just be here. I talked about that song before, the song where it says, like a weaned child rests against his mother so my heart is a weaned child within me, that same idea of just rest. That's why Jesus said, come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I shall give you rest. The Lord is our sanctuary. He is our place that we go to where, you know, the reason why God doesn't want us to defend ourselves during this time, or we shouldn't, is because, well, first of all, we don't need to defend ourselves to God. He knows everything. We just need to come to Him for rest, for fellowship, for submission. We just need to spend that time with Him because it's beautiful. Now, like this discipline, like, I'm sorry, like all the other disciplines, this discipline too brings about greater intimacy. You know, we meditate on God's Word, we have greater intimacy with Him, because anytime we interact with Scripture, we're interacting with Him. Same thing with memorization. We memorize God's Scripture, we're memorizing a part of Him, and we have greater intimacy. Likewise with silence. When we sit at His feet in silence, just wanting to be taught by Him, just wanting to know Him, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." When we sit there and we lay at His feet and say, teach me, we are becoming intimate and close to Him. You see, I wonder how many times I've used that word, that intimacy. I use it a lot because that's really what the spiritual disciplines are about. putting us in a position to be transformed by God. That is intimacy with God. Closeness with God. That's why Jesus says, like, you are to be holy as my Father in Heaven is holy. You are to be set apart. These things make us set apart through intimacy. Now, really, I really do need to stop and give you a word of warning. You know, one of my favorite quotations from my book is, I say that, it's a section where it's like a prayer to the Lord. I say, Lord, we bind ourselves with trivialities, not because we're trivial, but because we're jaded. And I think about, and the reason why I bring that up now is you think about the things that we obsess over. And, oh man, I have to wait an extra five minutes to buy my $300 worth of groceries. Or, oh, the second television is broken. Oh my gosh, now we have to share a television? Oh, this is horrible. and all these things. We bind ourselves down with these trivialities. And we don't do it because people are trivial. It's because people are not trivial in nature. That's why C.S. Lewis said, you'll never, ever, ever meet an average person. Because every person you meet is an eternal being. So we're not trivial. We are all eternal beings that have desires at once and passions and are all made for fellowship with God. And yet we act as if these trivialities in our lives are important. Silence when done correctly is not easy. It's us saying, okay, there's these trivial areas in my life, I need to be willing to let them go so that I can put myself in a position to be transformed by God through this discipline of silence. Silence, when done correctly, is not easy. You are exposing your veins. You are forced to slow down and consider the tough aspects of your life. You expose your veins, hand out your fears, your inadequacies, your sins. And all you're left to do during this time is to hear what God and your conscious, conscious has to say about them. You know, if you've ever like studied depression, it's a very, really very fascinating subject. And you see that depression is always very closely related with anxiety. and really how that comes about is you become anxious over a certain area in your life and you continue to be anxious over it until you think about it and you obsess about it and then you continue to obsess about obsessing about it and you begin this snowball effect so basically in a sense you worry yourself into a depression and then that really has like physical effects on you Our minds, if not controlled, can have physiological effects on our bodies, like with depression. Now, through silence, though it's not easy, by releasing our thoughts to God, we can provide a means of venting, of preventing that type of anxiety that comes about through or that type of depression that comes about through anxiety, through having these problems, these issues. If we do silence properly, it is a profitable venue, or a profitable means of venting these problems. You know, I now ask you a question for those here and those listening. I mean, how many people here, or how many people you know, fear those few moments before they go to bed at night where they're sitting there laying not being able to go to sleep and then you're just left to confront with all the things that are going on in your life and you have no control over them you know it's not a coincidence that a lot of people need a drink to go to sleep at night because it's the only way they can quiet the thoughts in their head. And don't get me wrong, there's been times in my life where I was like, you know what, the only way I think I can get any sort of rest tonight is if I have a drink that can calm my mind and then I can get some rest. And those are tough times, you know, I'm not saying that's what we need to do every night or anything like that, but sometimes, you know, our minds are so racing, we need to calm them down. But you know, there's people out there that every night, they fear those few minutes when all they have left to do is wait to fall asleep. Because those can be the scariest moments of your day. Again, if you participate in this spiritual discipline of silence, though it can be scary at first, you can learn to use silence as an outlet for those fears, so that so that they don't get to that point where you're living in fear. And I'll tell you, if you can fall asleep at night and be content, God bless you. That is such a privilege. The times when I'm serving the Lord well, I love it when my head hits that pillow and I'm just smiling and I'm saying, Thank you so much for all the things you're blessing me with. What I'll tell you is some nights when I know I haven't been faithful, and I know that I'm doing things I shouldn't be doing, and my head is that pillow, and the first things I think of are regret. We need to make sure that we are acting on these disciplines that God has given us as outlets, so that we can properly serve Him. Now, I'll tell you this, if you can sit at God's feet in silence and be satisfied without fear or anxiety, then you are a faithful servant. You are a true and faithful servant. That's the position that we need to be in. In this position where we just sit at the Lord and we have no fear, no anxiety. But it's tough. And I would be willing to bet probably everybody here, including myself, When we sit to Lord in silence, we have fears, we have anxieties, and it's because simply we're not doing what we're supposed to be doing. I mean, how easy is it to us to push off that voice that we know to be God's? And say, no Lord, I can't do that right now. With silence, it's much more difficult to do that because it's not your turn to talk. It's God's turn to talk. It's not your turn to say, no Lord, not me, or I couldn't do that because of this, or I couldn't do that because of that. It's your turn to just sit there and accept instruction from the Lord God. Now, you can't participate in this discipline properly if you are in sin. It's impossible. If you have unconfessed sin, that's the first thing that your silence will bring you to. Now that would be the only acceptable discussion for you to have during silence would be to ask for forgiveness to any sin that comes up. But besides that, you need to sit there and accept instruction from the Lord. It's kind of funny because this discipline both requires a clean slate, like I said, you can't have unconfessed sin, but at the same time, most likelihood, it's going to result in a dirty slate. because the Lord is going to reveal to you areas that He needs you to change in, and that you need to act on them. Okay, that's all I'm going to talk about for inward silence. Now I want to talk about outward silence. Now, outward silence, again, is the application of this spiritual discipline of silence when used around other people. How is this used? How is the spiritual discipline of outward silence used? Number one, remaining silent until sufficient evidence is present or fully understood. This is very crucial. Philosophers are great at this. If you're friends with any philosophers, you know they can be very annoying at times, because they'll ask you all sorts of clarifying questions, or they'll be like, well, what do you mean by that, or define that, or all sorts of stuff, because they don't like to respond until they know what they're responding to. So they will either listen or just simply ask questions. I do this all the time. I ask questions like, you can ask people from my Bible study, they'll ask me some questions and I'll be like, well, in what context? Or I'll say, well, what do you mean by this? Or I'll say, well, what is your evidence for that? Not because I'm trying to be mean. It's kind of funny, because how many beliefs we have that really aren't justified, and then if you just ask the question, like, well, what's your evidence for that? Then all of a sudden, like, people will get mad at you because they think you're calling them out or something. Really, I'm just like, no, I just really want to respond to you. You know, like, this one time, this guy asked me, I wasn't trying to be a jerk. I didn't even think about it until later. But he asked me if my necklace was was real. I had like a puka shell necklace. And I was like, well, what do you mean by real? I mean, like, obviously it's real because I'm wearing it. He's like, well, is it authentic? I'm like, authentically what? He's like, is it genuine? I'm like, genuinely what? And then he just got mad. But I was like, serious. I'm like, well, what do you mean? What do you mean by that? Is it real? Yes. Is it genuine? Well, what do you mean by genuine? Is it authentic? Well, it's authentically what? Philosophers are great at this because they don't want to give you a wrong answer to the question that you're asking. And this idea of outward silence is very important when defending the faith. Because it makes people give you a plausible account. For example, if someone said to me, If someone asked me some type of question or whatever, I would say, well, what do you mean by that? Or what do you think? I'll tell you, one of my professors, he told our class about this time he was meeting... flying on an airplane. And he said anytime he doesn't want to talk to somebody, he will just tell them what he's got his Ph.D. in, because that's usually enough, that no one wants to talk to someone who has their Ph.D. in epistemology. It's the same thing. If I really don't want to talk to somebody on a plane, I usually just take out my Bible and just put it right there, and usually that's enough for people to be like, Alright, I'm not going to talk with this guy. But he was telling a story about this guy who, when he found out, well usually what he says is someone says, well what do you do? And he says, well I am a philosophy professor. And usually he says that's enough. And then they said, well what kind of philosophy? And he's like, oh no, this guy's going to want to talk. And he was like, well, I teach philosophy, I have a PhD in epistemology. And the guy was even more intrigued. Anyways, but he was saying, and he was like, I need your help. I need to... I need your help to refute the idea that God exists." He's like, I've only got for sure one religion that I know is utterly false in my prophecy. I'm like, well, what's that? He's like, well, it's Christianity. And he's like, okay, well, he's like, well, why do you think that is? And anyways, and this guy, started saying, and he's like, well, what do you think about this? And the guy's like, wait, yeah, this... Anyways, by the end of the flight, the guy was, like, left to be in, like... I forget all the stuff that the guy ended up conceding on, but it was a lot of stuff, and it was mostly because my prof just asked this guy a question. Now, we need to use this idea of outward silence to make sure that people, first of all, know what they're saying. and that we can accurately respond to. For example, in our Bible study on Saturday, Mitch brought to me a question where this girl, who's an atheist, she said, the reason why God can't exist is because hell is an unjust punishment for those who disbelieve. And he was like, how would you respond to that? And I would say, whoa, calm down now. Hell is a doctrine that is written about in the holy scriptures of a very specific group of theists. You can't use that as evidence for atheism. You know, it's like Doc in one of his debates. A guy mentioned a certain scripture, and Doc said, whoa, wait a second, we're not debating Christianity, we're not debating scriptures. We are debating the existence of God. So, if someone asked me that question, well, how could it just God do this, and I would be like, I would say, that's not even the right question to ask. I would say, that's a question for, if once you decide God exists, And once you decide these other things, and the scripture is a reliable source, then that is a good question to ask. A lot of times, when someone asks a question like that, well, how could God allow this? We want to just jump in and say, well, listen, God's just, God's holy, all these things like that. It's true, but we have to slow down, we need to participate in that silence, and say, okay, is it best for me to respond to this question or another question instead? And so I would say, listen, this is a good question, but it's not the right question to ask. Now, if somebody is a Christian, and they say, I don't understand this idea about hell, and how could God be just, and this and that, I'm like, okay, cool, we have these things established, let's talk about it. You know, the same thing like when When I used to have witness to Mormons, the first discussion I ever had with them, I talked to them for four hours. I was at the temple in Salt Lake City, Utah, and I was just asking all these questions and pointing out this stuff, and it was really fun! We talked about a lot of stuff, but we didn't go anywhere. I was more interested to talk about their problems with baptizing dead people than talking about the crucial issues. And on a side note, you guys, I'll tell you, this is really, really crucial stuff. Dr. Fernandez and I, we're doing our weekly worldview studies, and we just did a two-part series on refuting Mormonism. In the second part of that series, we go over this idea of refuting the book of Abraham. And, you guys, this is the most powerful refutation of Mormonism I've ever come across. If you have not heard of this You need to check it out. My website, www.mjcoombe.com, M-J-C-O-O-M-B-E dot com. It's under there in the audio section. Or you can just go right to sermonaudio.com and look up Refuting Mormonism by Dr. Fernandez. But you guys, this is brilliant. The reason why I bring this up now is I was over at my parents' house on Wednesday, and my dog was freaking out, and my mom was like, oh no, somebody's here. So I go up there, and there's two very nicely dressed young men, and they were Mormon missionaries. My mom got the dog and just kind of rolled her eyes and looked at me like, have fun. So I went out there and I started talking to them and I really, really was very interested in what they had to say about the book of Abraham. Because these guys know every area of Mormon doctrine. They'll pretend like they don't know about eternal progression, or this idea where Mormon males can become gods. They'll pretend that they don't know that, or they don't teach that, because they're trained to say, well, you're not ready to hear that. But they know everything. And so, I started talking to them, and I always play a little bit quiet. And I quoted Orson Pratt, one of their prophets, and they're kind of like, you know who that is? And I was like, oh yeah, oh yeah. And then I went off on the whole Book of Abraham refutation, and they had never even heard of it. Now, the thing is, is the Church of Latter-day Saints, they know about this doctrine. They know about it. Frank was telling me, they're buying up all the copies of the book that talk about refuting this book of Abraham and burned them. So they know about this doctrine and the fact that they're not teaching it to their Mormon missionaries that know every aspect of Mormon doctrine shows how damning this evidence is. So it's definitely worth a look. So going back to, well, it's fun to sit around and say, your view of baptizing dead people is off and go to this and this and this, you know, you just, we just need to stop and focus on these important issues and ask the right questions. You know, like one thing Doc says, he's like, you know, I don't talk to Mormons about all these various doctrines and whatnot. I say, he says, I focus on three things. Who is God? Who is Jesus? What must I do to be saved? Just like that. So, the outward silence teaches us to be very thoughtful about the questions we ask people and the things that we say. And by the way, the Mormons only talked to me for about 10 minutes. And the shortest time I've ever talked to them before is an hour and a half. So that's how powerful this reputation is. They were like, well, we were just stopping by and I gave them my card and I was like, feel free to call me anytime. They haven't called me, have they? Okay, so the first thing is outward silence. It helps us be silent and wait for sufficient evidence or until we fully understand what's at issue. And then in that, we can respond. You know, just like I was saying, with like with the question about hell, with the Mormons, we just need to be like, not just jumping on these ideas and talking about them because we think we can say something, it's about being gracious and being silent, hearing these people's other point of view, and responding justly, in just time and in just measure. Secondly, outward silence leads to being a good listener. Now, does anybody know a good listener that they really don't like? I've never come across somebody who I said, wow, this guy listens really well. I don't like him at all. Everybody likes a good listener. When we start practicing this idea of outward silence, it helps us become a better listener. Everyone needs a good friend. A good friend is someone who listens. Now, I used to not understand this. If I was in a group or something like that, I used to not be comfortable unless I was talking, unless I was the center of attention. And I always had to be talking. And in participating in these disciplines and being transformed by God, God has actually made it completely opposite. It's like now I really don't feel comfortable in a group unless I'm just listening. It was not natural to me, but But God transformed me to the point where I was like, listen, you need to listen to people. You need to be there for them. You'll get your turn to talk. And don't get me wrong, I can talk when I have to. I mean, obviously, I can keep going. I joke around with my girlfriend because, well, when we were friends a couple months ago, I had never really going off on like some tangent or anything and I talked about stuff and it's just always really like coy just kind of listening to her and her friends and stuff they talked about and then something happened and I just really needed to talk to somebody and so I started talking to her and one of her friends I was like you guys I just need your opinion on this and I just kind of went blah and I spoke for about 30 minutes straight without stopping and they were just kind of like glancing at each other and then I was and then later I was like what and they're like You didn't know you could talk like that. So now I jokingly say, hey listen, I'm paid to talk, is what I do at the institute. That's what I do, but I do it at the right time. I jokingly, you know, I would not recommend this movie to anyone just because of some of the language in it. But it's this movie, it's called Thanks for Smoking. And in it, the guy is a tobacco lobbyist. And he goes around basically saying that smoke doesn't kill anybody, or secondhand smoke doesn't hurt people. But the tagline in it is so funny and brilliant, I kind of made it my own a little bit. He's the main character and it says, Charles Manson kills people, Michael Jordan played basketball, I talk. So I put that on my tagline on my Facebook one day and then people were like, oh that's funny. So jokingly, that's what I do, I talk. I make it my first priority to listen and to know when I should talk and when I should listen, but I'm always looking to listen first. You know, if somebody has a question to me about Christianity and they say, here's my question, my first thing I do is I don't say, well, here's why you're wrong. You know, I had this guy once who was wanting to know certain things about Christianity and he said something that was borderline heresy, but there was a little good aspect to it. And I was like, you know what, that sounds like something that the Apostle Paul said. And I quoted the verse and stuff like that. You know, I could have slammed this guy for heresy, but instead I was being gracious and I was listening to him and I responded in a way that showed that I was listening to him. That's the way that we need to respond. Yeah, we need to talk. There's times when God says, listen, I need you to stand up and proclaim my word from the rooftops. But you guys, we need to listen first. We need to listen to God, we need to listen to other people. And final note on outward silence. Outward silence is biblical. James says, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath. For the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Likewise, in other words, don't cast pearls before swine. You know, sometimes people come and give me advice for preaching the gospel to someone, and they tell me certain things that this person says, and I'm like, what do I say to him? I say, there's nothing you can say to him. Pray for him, because he's not in a position where you can talk to him. You're casting pearls before swine. Likewise, Jesus used silence, outward silence. I mean, there's times where he used very little speech or just asked questions. You know? Who do they say that I am? Or he's like, he's meeting before judges and kings, and, are you the Christ? Doesn't say anything. Are you the Messiah? Doesn't say anything. Jesus constantly asks questions, and we see examples of him doing silence. So, practical solution. How do we practically apply this? We set aside time daily. We set aside time, a daily allotment for silence. We'd be intentional in listening, in withholding judgment, and learn to speak when necessary." Now, it might be difficult for us to be silent today, as we've already talked about. we don't have a society that's very conducive for silence. I mean, even if I go in my room and I turn off my lights and sit down, I have at least eight machines that are going to make a humming noise. So, even if I'm sitting there, you know, and it's like, maybe I'll get like an instant message on my computer. Bing! So, it's like, even if we try to eliminate as much sound as possible, it really is pretty difficult. So, how do we do this? How do we get a spot where we can be silenced? Now, you can see now, in me asking these questions, you can see why silence and solitude fit so much together. Because if you go out in the middle of Egypt, or out in the middle of nowhere, and you're not around anybody, obviously you're going to be in silence. So, um, I'll tell you the things that I do is I'll turn off, you know, like, all my electronics so nothing can contact me, bug me, and I'll go and I'll sit in the closet and I'll put a blanket over my head. I get distracted easily. I, like, start staring at the wallpaper or something like that, so I'll put a blanket over my head. When I was at school, I used to, there was like, in our, we had a little lobby, and there was like this, this, this, um, big, cable box for Ethernet cable. And I used to squeeze in between there and I would take a mattress that we had in the lobby and I would just push myself in this little ball. So I was like sitting on the floor in this little ball. That's where I would sit and I would pray and stuff like that. You can find these spots in your everyday life. Everyone knows of a place that they can go where they're going to find relative silence. And if not, it doesn't take that far to go, I mean, the Clear Creek Trail. I mean, that's, you know, there might be some people around there. For the most part, you go down there, it's going to be quiet. You can go on a boat, even like a ferry. If you go on a ferry and stand outside, it's not going to be a lot, it'll be like windy and noisy, you know, but you're not going to hear a lot of noise. It is still possible for us to find times of silence. Now when we talk about solitude next week, we'll see how really you can really get to some great silence, some times of silence, when you are also participating in solitude. But there are still ways to do it today. I'll give you an example too. Before Christ saved me, I had a really sweet, sweet stereo system in my car. And I used to just rock out to all secular music and whatnot. Then after Christ saved me, I started rocking out to Christian music. And then after that, I started listening to talk radio and preaching and stuff like that. And now, when I'm in my car, I hardly ever even turn on my radio. because I look at his time as, here I am, I'm driving, I'm just going to turn off everything, and I'm going to pay attention to what I'm driving, but you know, I'm going to just use this time to be in silence with the Lord. So that's the example there. I mean, very rarely will you cover my car, and when it's turned on, you hear the radio on, or anything on. It's because when I'm driving, I use that time to be in silence with the Lord. So there are many, many practical applications of how you can get this done. Just be creative. But the most important part is just setting aside some daily time to be in silence. The external is, be intentional in listening, in withholding judgment, and learn to speak only when necessary. Now, the question is, how does this edify the body of Christ? Again, lots of ways. I would probably say the main way in this is When somebody is silent and hears that prompting of the Lord, and then takes that prompt and uses it for service, it's highly unlikely that that service is only going to benefit that person. When you're spending that time in silence, the Lord will teach you things, tell you to do things, and you act on them, and those actions will edify the body of Christ. Okay, so, any questions? Yeah. How do you know that God sees you or your thoughts? Well, that's a good point. You know, one thing that the scripture says is like, Jesus says, the sheep know the voice of the shepherd. That's one thing you've got to consider is, you know, the Scriptures promise that we will know His voice. Likewise, if the Scriptures tell you to do anything else, or if whatever you're hearing, if you're sitting in silence, if it tells you to do anything contrary to Scripture, you know it's not from God. And like I said, this is not easy. It's a discipline. It's going to take time and practice until you really realize, okay, this is what God is saying. This isn't what I'm worried about. This isn't some type of attack from a malevolent spirit. This is the Lord. But like I said, it's not easy. It's not easy on a lot of levels. But the answer to that question will come through time. The things you need to realize is that you're a child of God. He is your shepherd. you will know his voice. You will know it when you hear it. And in coming to that point where you can get there, you have to be like, okay, if I hear anything that's contrary to scripture, I know it's not from God. But it'll take time. Go on. Yeah, I think it's what I was thinking through earlier. So many of the spiritual disciplines kind of presupposes a certain level of Christian maturity. Like a lot of the classical writings on this subject were when America was a Christian culture. And everybody's neighbor was a spiritual giant. So that's one thing that I think that we have to, it's real easy to pervert. every one of the spiritual disciplines if we're not grounded in the word. And so all this kind of presupposes that you're his sheep, you recognize his voice, you're grounded in the word, you spent time in the word, so that we would not be deceived. That's one of the problems with our culture now. As things get worse economically, and we have to cling to Jesus more and more, I think we're going to come to learn to really appreciate the spiritual disciplines. But if they don't recognize his voice in the scriptures, I don't see how we can recognize his voice anywhere else. So that I presuppose is a certain level of spiritual maturity. Well, I was just thinking I'd make a point about asking the right questions. And especially, like, in my own sense of it, in class, we're going to drop it. And a lot of times we get certain students that like to ask these kind of off-the-wall questions, like, well, how did Death by Desert work in the first version that people thrown in were killed? I'm just missing the point of getting insulted like that. Asking the right questions, or even when we talk to someone else, we really identify as being apologetic, really. Or I say, OK, this person has a big question. I need to do a little bit of excavating before I put a foundation down. really find out what their precepts and traditions are. Yeah, good point. I just thought that was a great point, because a lot of times, just looking at the scriptures, it's good to know they spoke the context, and that's all great, but also being able to compare and contrast how God worked in and enforced the situations that were going on. A lot of times, you just see these students going to these hermeneutics classes, and they're probably really good. And also, you know, like Mitch will tell you, if he asks me a question I don't know, I just say, I don't know. I'll do some research. Oh, I totally forgot I was going to quote this, but I'll do it now. You know, Augustine, in his opening prayer and confessions, He says this beautiful line about people, he says, though loquacious with verbosity, they have nothing to say. So basically he's going back and saying these people, they talk so much that it's evident that their talk is completely empty. And he goes, we need to stay away from that talk. Nobody wants to hear you talk forever about nothing. It's funny how your talk, Father Lourdes, has transformed you from seeing you when I talk and share and stuff to more kind of listening. I think that's definitely a part of maturity because I know Lourdes has been dealing with you with that. Especially when someone's saying something that's wrong. I mean, if they're not a Christian, to jump right on that, And so what you're wrong about is like, sometimes it's just to let them go. Because what I'm finding out is they're presuppositions. I'm gaining some evidence so that later on, Lord, okay, let me know more about them. We don't know when the right time is to bring up truth. Right now, you know, they're not even Christians, they're pagans. I mean, even to open up a conversation, unless it's a requirement, would be foolish. So Lord, help me be silent and just listen. and maybe get to learn who they are and have some compassion. So when I come and get to a chance where I'm willing to be able to share, I've been able to see a little bit into them. And like you said, if they can think back, you know, I've talked a few times about God or whatever, and you kept silent, they're going to make you remember that and say, you know, you didn't just blast me, okay, you must be listening and caring. I was never like that. It's still a struggle, especially if that's not your personality, if that's not what you're saying. really say I want a heart for the lost, and have that gracious response. It helps you be quiet. And it's the stupid, stupid quotation that goes, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. As stupid as it is, it's accurate. Anything else? Sometimes people are ready for the answer, sometimes they're not. If our goal is to move them closer to Christ, then we've really got to be dependent on the Holy Spirit. Valley Thomas asked Jesus show us the way. He just said I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes through the Father but through me. That same night Pilate asked what is true and what is false. He knew one guy was ready for the answer and the other guy wasn't. With me I always want to, you know like Lawrence says, I want to correct everything. I want to get the answers and sometimes you're not even looking for answers. Sometimes you're just You know, you can't really get an open door with somebody if you show you care to hear what they're thinking. No matter how awful lunch it is. I'm grateful that people don't correct me every time I say something dumb. And maybe I should have that kind of grace with other folks. It's like I said, you guys, this is definitely a discipline. I mean, these are, like I said at the beginning, these are intentional actions. You're not just all of a sudden going to accidentally be like, well, I've been participating in the spiritual discipline of silence for the last 45 minutes. Like, no, if you're in silence, you're going to know it. It's a discipline, and you must be disciplined in order to partake in it. You know, you mentioned too that when you're in silence, before the Lord. We don't like silence as a culture. A lot of us have to go to sleep with the television on, with the radio on. We're just afraid of that silence. I can remember when Kathy was in New Mexico and it was just me alone in the house. In order to get everything done that I needed to get done, I couldn't turn on ESPN, I couldn't turn on the news, I couldn't turn on the television. So I just went without the television on. But it's amazing. There's a big difference between being alone and knowing my wife's the next door. So I don't feel like I'm all alone. But if I'm all alone, whether I'm trying to do my study or whatever, to me it becomes real clear. The scariest thing is that when you're all alone, nobody else is around and there's no distractions. The scariest thing for me is that I'm not alone. The scariest thing is that I figure out that I'm not alone. Of course, when I realize I'm not being observed, the Almighty God is there in His presence. And then it gets scary because then you're alone with God, and quote-unquote, your thoughts. Often, it's going to reveal a lot of ugly things about yourself that you've ignored. It's kind of like Jesus did some miracle and Peter said, get away from me, but I'm a sinful man. He was in God's presence and he didn't feel comfortable in there. So it's just, more times than not, it's not comfortable there. And that's exactly what we're going to be talking about next week. Alright, God bless you guys.