In the book of Matthew are at least five instances where the Lord commanded those whom He had blessed to silence: “Go and tell no man.” There are three other occasions in the book of Mark, and another in the book of Luke where the Lord commanded men to be silent.
The compulsion to talk, especially before a situation has a chance to run its course, or after you have just received a blessing, can cause you to lose it. There must have been some real, deep reason that the Lord had, when after a man was healed He said, “Go and tell no man.” To the leper He said, “Go and tell no one; just show yourself to the priest—show that you are healed.”
I have seen people healed who could not wait until the next service to jump up and say, “Folks, I’m healed,” and the next day they had lost the healing. With our mouth we are supposed to voice faith, but there is a time to voice the faith—after the experience has been set, after God has established you in the victory.
There is another time in which it is dangerous to talk: a time when you can talk too much, and really lose out, is when you are under trial. It seems that we have a loose mouth the moment we are put under pressure. Almost all of our defeat comes by voicing and giving it substance through our speech. You can be going through something and it can weigh heavily in your heart; but until you speak it, it doesn’t seem to have the power over you. You can walk away from it, you can overcome it, or you can proclaim something on a positive note that is just the opposite and walk in that.
It is strange how two or three different things can be co-existing within the human heart. Someone can come along and voice one of the lesser feelings you have at the moment; but if you give it a thought and begin expressing it, the first thing you know you are swallowed up by something that was very minor in the back of your mind only a few minutes before.
The compulsion to talk is deadly. The only one who ever overcame that was the Lord. When there was nothing that the Father wanted Him to speak, He would not speak, no matter how all of human reason might say “Now is the time to talk; now is the time to speak up.”
Isaiah 53:7 says, He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so He did not open His mouth.
Remember how He came before the high priest? Finally the high priest, baiting Him, said, “I adjure you, are you the Son of God?” When He came before Pilate who said, “Why don’t you answer me?”, Jesus did not speak. The silence that was there drew men.
In this walk, you come to the place where people who are set against it are waiting for you to say something so they can contradict and reject you—that preconditioning toward defeat. You have literally undone them when you do not say anything and you just keep quiet.
The wise old man in Ecclesiastes tells us, “There’s a time to speak and a time to keep silence” (Ecclesiastes 3:7b). There is a time to keep quiet and draw people into the place where you can really help them. This is one of the great keys of ministry: just be a good listener; meaning, keep your mouth shut until the other individual has given off all of his feelings and all of his resentments and taken down all of his walls. Then there comes an answer like a flash from heaven, before you have said a word; and the answer comes out of his own lips. You just bless him and strengthen him in it. He may walk away and say you are wise, when the answer comes out of his own mouth.
Suppose you always have a compulsion to talk? At first, you have that compulsion to speak; but as you walk on with the Lord, there is a greater compulsion to silence that will begin to take over. Where before you had a compulsion to talk, now you have a compulsion to keep silent. Why? Because God has to bring an end of one level before He can project you onto another level. There has to be that which is uttered on one plane, and then you come to the plane of silence. Then you come to a higher plane where you find yourself holding back your words, waiting for another plane of utterance.
Whoever speaks, let him speak, as it were, the utterances of God; whoever serves, let him do so as by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. I Peter 4:11. Peter learned that.
For let him who means to love life and see good days refrain his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking guile. And let him turn away from evil and do good; I Peter 3:10–11a. Peter knew what it was not to talk too much. He finally learned it. He was impulsive. When he first made that confession, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,” Matthew 16:16, he was commended for it, but a few verses later Jesus said to him, “Get thee behind me, Satan. You don’t savor the things that are of God but of man” (verse 23). His mouth—because it was so quick to speak—could speak forth the words of the Lord one minute and words that were unanointed and untrue, tools of the devil, the next minute.
How do we reach this higher level of prophetic utterance? I have watched people prophesy the word of the Lord, and thirty seconds later they would be off the track and then wiggle right back on and prophesy some more the word of the Lord. How did they get in and out of the Spirit so easily? Because of the compulsion to talk; the fluency was there. I am always afraid of those who are very glib, with a gift of gab. They are the last ones to come into a reliable ministry. It sometimes takes years for that one who is so glib to just talk, talk, talk, and never at a loss for words. One brother who now speaks the word of the Lord took many years to get over his glib gift of gab and become a man of God with a word from the Lord. He was a great talker—a great preacher who could sway people—and the Lord knocked it out of him the hard way. Then came the years of silence. Now come the years of speaking the word of the Lord.
There are three levels: compulsion to speak, followed by compulsion to be silent; then comes the compulsion to speak God’s utterances. This is the course this walk takes. This is the pattern it follows. Watch the people who come into this walk: how God shuts their mouth for them; and then suddenly they start speaking and you are amazed at the depth of what they speak forth from the Lord. So, if any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; I Peter 4:11a.
What did Paul have to say on this subject? And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. It wasn’t glib speech; Paul came with the testimony of God—what God had to say. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. I Corinthians 2:1–5.
Fear and trembling? “Paul, didn’t you have a chance to take a public speaking course?” Anyone who was a member of the Sanhedran certainly must have been a very able speaker—eloquent in all of his presentation of what he had to say—trained better than any present day attorney would be, and yet why was he so fearful? Those Corinthians didn’t know anything. You could get up, open your mouth and rattle on, and you would impress them. They were strictly from nowhere. They didn’t know what was what. They had no Jewish background. Read the long list in I Corinthians 6 of all the things that Paul said that they were. “Such you were but now you are washed clean by the blood of Jesus Christ” (I Corinthians 6:11). Why be so careful the way you talk with them?
Remember, the job in this walk is not to have a flow of talk that sells people on something, but a flow of God’s words that creates something in them. As long as we have the compulsion just to be heard, it isn’t good. God shuts us up, and we do no longer care if we never speak on the old level again. But then comes that compulsion—Jeremiah had it—when that comes, you speak. You speak a little differently.
For each time I speak, I cry aloud; I proclaim violence and destruction, because for me the word of the Lord has resulted in reproach and derision all day long. But if I say, “I will not remember Him or speak any more in His name,” then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire shut up in my bones; and I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot endure it. Then comes the compulsion to speak God’s words. And what happens? Then they say, “Let us denounce him!” For I have heard the whispering of many, “Terror on every side! Denounce him; yes, let us denounce him!” All my trusted friends, watching for my fall, say: Perhaps he will be deceived, so that we may prevail against him…” Jeremiah 20:8–10.
When you speak God’s words, it is as Jesus said, “If they kept my word, they will keep your word also. If they hated me, they will hate you also” (John 15:18, 20). That is the way it will be. Why? Because you have that quality that is not just trying to win people to yourself. I have never tried to do that, or known what it was to turn on personality to win people. To this day, I would not know how to do it. People love me very much and hate me very much. But both those that hate me and those that love me are aware that I do not do anything to cultivate those emotions in them. I want to speak to them the word of the Lord. Because they love the message they love me. Because they hate the message they hate me. But I am content. Let it be unto me as it is with the Lord.
Yet, there are people who have a compulsion to be loved and to be liked—they would do anything. They fall into a sense of the fear of man. It makes a snare because they want friends. They do not want anyone to dislike them or say anything against them. Maybe you are like that. These truths are so basic for us—we need to just shovel away the dirt and get down to them.
This is what makes a prophet go bad. Suddenly, there is a word from the Lord; and he hems and haws around, and when it finally comes out it is something else than what the Lord gave him. He is afraid of the people so he talks it away. How many a man has given a word—a good word—and someone was bristled by it; so he spends the next half hour interpreting the word that he gave, working around it and watering it down so it no longer means anything to anyone?
We have to come to the place where we honestly have that compulsion to speak in all love, “exactly” what God is saying, We do not have to interpret it. We do not have to add to it, extend it, or eliminate any of it. We will not add to or take away from the words of the Lord but we will speak the word of the Lord. When they spoke the word of the Lord, great things came to pass.
I have had that compulsion to speak, I suppose, in my younger years; because people who are on the defensive or are immature have it. And there was a time that I had a very big point to prove. I do not know what it was but I was always trying to prove it. Have you ever been in that place yourself? Then the time finally came where I felt that I knew where I stood. But the trouble was, no one else knew, so I was always trying to show them. Then the time finally came where I learned to keep my mouth shut. I came into this walk like that. The Lord met my heart; and that strips away the want to prove something and put something over. I do not have to put anything over to anyone. You may say, “Well, neither do you have a big church.” That is God’s problem, not mine. The day is past that I will water this walk down, sweeten it up, and win for God a lot of people with words that He is not even saying. I know He does not want that.
What does He want? but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ. When you talk to a man he gets that word. When a man has told me his problem of hating me, I have said, “It is your problem. I have never hated you so I don’t have a problem.” That is the way it is going to be. People have said, “Don’t you feel bad?” No. They really get violent about it—that is their problem.
Sermons that we preached under the old order did not do anything to people. On the day of Pentecost, one sermon brought in thousands. Under the old order, a thousand sermons might bring in one. People never moved under the old order. They would sleep, they would listen; but preaching was a wasted thing because it was in the wisdom of man, based on a compulsion to talk.
Now the Lord is bringing a time where we will return to proclaiming the utterances of the Lord. There will be a time when we will not be able to finish our messages. Peter did not finish his sermon in the second chapter of the book of acts. There was a growing stir among the people: “What’s that—what is that? What must we do to be saved?” Stephen was preaching away, and out came the stones. He didn’t have the chance to finish that one either. Read on through the riots Paul caused and the various places where a little missionary began sermons that were never finished. The book of Acts could be called the book of action and unfinished sermons, because they preached the word from God and the people would either open their hearts and plead for it, or they’d reject it and walk away.
Let us have a growing compulsion to speak God’s words: a growing compulsion to hold our counsel until we get a word from the Lord, and then speak it in the name of the Lord.
Comment: “If someone has a wrong spirit, there’s nothing you can say. When someone is climbing up the walls with anger, it is not time to try to talk to them. If someone has an open spirit and wants to have a reason for the hope that lies within you, you have someone to talk to, and even then the words need to be weighed. If it has taken us line upon line, precept upon precept to gradually build just a basic understanding of what God is doing, how can you dump it all on someone in a little ten minute explanation?”
Don’t cast your pearls before swine, lest they turn and rend you (Matthew 7:6).
“When a living word comes, if you are quiet you are able to hear what the Spirit has to say. If you talk, you drop it down to a flesh realm. That is why the Lord did not want people running around telling about His miracles. Then they would come and look to see the man, and unless they had a revelation as to who it was sent by the Lord, they never would come up on the realm of the Spirit. It is in the flesh to worship the flesh. It wants something it can look at—like pulling a rabbit out of a hat. The greatest thing is to keep quiet and listen to what the Lord says. Weigh it and the understanding will come, not only as to who is behind it, but what has been spoken, and you will have a greater revelation of the Lord Himself.”
Some people ask for prayer and ministry, and never receive more than a sentence before interrupting, rejecting, or taking it off on some line. They are very unwise not to keep quiet long enough for the word to reach their heart. When the living word is coming, just listen—really listen.
“Christ spoke only the words that He heard the Father speak. We need to wait on the Lord for the word to speak instead of just speaking. The compulsion to speak kills it, when we don’t give the Lord a chance to speak to us before we speak
“I Peter 3:15 … but sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord: being ready always to give answer to every man that asketh …—even if a man asks, it says be ready. You still have to ask the Father.
“Speak the word that you have in the fewest words that you can, without leaving anything out. The prophecies would be better if they were shorter. After you are through giving the message, then if you carry it on, you lose a great part of it. I always had problems speaking, so I just learned not to try to preach, but to just give the message.”
There was a young cub reporter who went out to watch a flood. He sent a telegram to the editor of the paper and asked him if he should send in the story. The editor telegraphed back to him and said, “Yes, six hundred words.” The reporter shot back a telegram. “I need twelve hundred at least to tell the story.” The editor telegraphed again: “The story of creation took only six hundred.”
“Hallelujah”: That is one word you can get several things into. Here is a Scripture that talks about letting your words be few: Do not be hasty in word or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God. For God is in heaven and you are on earth; therefore let your words be few. Ecclesiastes 5:2.
Sometimes the songs are too long, as if you were trying to make epic poems out of them like Homer’s Iliad and the Odyssey, when they would gather around and sing for days. I guess they did not have anything else to do in those days, maybe, but sing about the great heroes in mythology. But we have something better to do. Sing your little song and move along. Keep moving—prophesy—cut it short at both ends. Say what God is saying and stop. “What if I don’t get it all in?” Prophesy it again some other time, but speak the word of the Lord.
Did you ever think how God did the whole thing? He said, “Let there be light.” We have spent a long time talking about what light is and working it all out. Just let it be.
There was a time when Peter was sinking in the water and he said, “Lord, save me.” That is a good prayer. Always imagine you are going under. I like short prayers but they take a long time. A long prayer does not take so long. It just seems long. Would you like to know the wisdom behind that?
A long prayer is pumped up. It really does not take that long. Time it sometime and you will see. But a short prayer can take a long time. Get alone with God, and having only a short prayer to pray, you will find your heart going over and over things; and then you will speak a sentence to the Lord. A man could feasibly take all night to pray the Lord’s prayer if he prayed it right. It is not that we just click it off with words, but it becomes something of God’s utterance within us. Think about it sometime; keep weighing it over.
That is the way we wait on the Lord. What is waiting on the Lord? It is the prayer of listening. You focus on God with your mouth shut—quietly—you are not even saying, “I won’t open my mouth, and express my rebellion.” You are refusing to even think, “I’ll not be bitter. I’ll not be contentious.”