The Mountain was Quiet

By David Hobbs

In Israel’s spiritual life, there were times of great activity and drama, and other times of quietness and peace. There were times when “the mountain burned with fire unto the midst of heaven, with darkness, clouds, and thick darkness.” [Deut. 4:11], times with …

“… the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. (For they could not endure what was commanded: ‘And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow. ‘And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, ‘I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.’) [Heb. 12:19-21].

And there are times when "the waters of Shiloah that go softly” [Isa. 8:6], when “the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever” [Isa. 32:17]. There are times when "the mountain is on a smoke,"and  times when the mountain lies quiet.

I experienced that last week. I was preaching two weeks in a row at two different churches, which always puts me under stress. Maybe regular pastors get used to it, but it still puts me under a lot of pressure--to hear the Lord’s voice and know what He wants to say through me, to get all the scriptures down, and most importantly: to discern the right weave through the pages of scriptures in order to flow in the stream of the Holy Spirit.

My first week I had woken up at 2:30 Sunday morning to pray and wait on the Lord, only to find that my computer was disconnected from the Internet and the printer. I had worked till breakfast on it and finally got the printer going so I could print out my notes. I still couldn’t reconnect to the Internet.

Now a week later I was back connected to the Internet and the printer, but other things kept going wrong. My frustra­tion level was rising, my patience had evaporated, and the demons were taking full advantage of the door I had opened to them in the spirit realm.  When I finally sat down to breakfast and tried to say grace, it became apparent how much bondage my giving vent to frustration had brought me.  I cried out in anguish, glad I was alone in the house. The spiritual oppression was like a cement wall sitting on me. “God,” I cried, “I’m sorry! Forgive me!” Then I became even more aware of the demonic oppression weighing down on me. “My God get them off me!” I cried out. In the moments of silence that followed, I felt like angels were indeed peeling them off one by one. 

After I finished my cereal I felt much better. I launched into song and began praising the Lord with a loud voice. For a long time I continued a barrage of singing and praising, casting down principalities and powers and proclaiming the victory of Jesus Christ on the cross. It covered me with a wave of triumph that infused my whole being!

The preaching had gone well, though it was a tough crowd.

After all that drama, when Monday rolled around I rested from spiritual things and turned to natural things, going through the mail and paying the bills for the past two weeks. In the afternoon I went and visited some people at the hospital.

That evening I was done with all that and wanted to pray and seek the Lord for a while, and that’s when I came to the realization that “the mountain was quiet.” I was at peace in the softly flowing waters of Shiloah, but so was the mountain. The Lord, at least regarding any manifestation or felt presence, seemed far away on His mountain. It was not the feeling of abandonment I get when I blow it and He leaves me to my own devices until I repent. There was peace between us, but also space.

I went in and lay on my bed. It was a different sensation: the mountain being quiet. As the room grew dark in the gathering dusk, I took stock. There was nothing else I wanted to do, nothing to hurry off to. The house was empty; I wasn’t hungry; I didn’t want to read or recreate or listen to music or sleep or anything else. So I lay there and pondered the moun­tain. “Lord I don’t have the energy to scale the mountain: to seek you vigorously for a breakthrough. But there’s nothing else I want other than you. Won’t you come to me in this room so we can spend some time together? Maybe I won’t have to climb the top of the mountain; maybe You can come to me.”

And He did. Gradually He made Himself known to me and I invited Him to sit in the chair by the bed. We had a time of the Holy Spirit quickening things to me and me praying them out. I asked to hear His voice and I imagined what it would be like if He suddenly spoke to me in an audible voice (but He didn’t). I thought of heaven and how I longed to be there and be part of the worship. I enthused how wonderful to be there pouring out everything within me in worship to the King.

Then it hit me. “Lord,” I said, “why would you leave the glories of heaven and come down to sit in this dark room with me?” It was unfathomable.

I still didn’t hear His voice, but a fleeting thought went through my mind: “Because you are here.”

“What!? You love me so much that You would leave the glories of heaven and come down and sit with me in this dark­ness?”

“Wasn’t that what Jesus did?”

I was crying now. That was what Jesus did.

The mountain was quiet, but God was there.

Encounter with the Heavenly Light

By David Hobbs

Heb. 6:12--... those who through faith and patience inherit the promises

Mike Harris was a young man in his early 20s searching for his way in life. His mother died when he was six but she made his father promise that after she was gone he would take Mike to church.

But it didn’t go well at the little church they went to. It seemed every year or two they would get a new pastor after the previous one ran off with the money or the secretary. By the time Mike was through high school he was through with church as well, “If this is Christianity, I don’t want anything to do with it,” he said to himself.

So in college he entered into the world with its drinking, drugs, and partying. But that left him feeling empty and dissatisfied as well. What was the answer and how would he find it? Somehow he got the notion into his head that if he would only read the Bible all the way through, he would find the answers he was looking for, and maybe what Christianity was all about as well.

He had taken a job with the Forest Service cruising timber in the winter months. Every day after he returned to the barracks, he would break out the Bible. He started at the beginning in Genesis and began reading straight through. But it was hard going, especially through all the laws of sacrifice in Leviticus and the chronologies in 1^st and 2^nd Chronicles. “My goodness,” he thought, “this Christianity stuff is really boring!”

The Forest Service had a basketball league for the winter employees that Mike played on for entertainment. After a game they would go out and get “all liquored up,” but no matter what shape he was in when he finally stumbled back to the barracks, he would doggedly take out his Bible and read some more. Whether it made sense or not, somehow he had to find the answers to the questions that were plaguing him.

Six months later, around March 1^st, Mike was down in Medford, Oregon at a basketball tournament. He thought he might as well look up an old girlfriend. When he did, he found that she had just had a glorious encounter with Jesus Christ. She was glowing with a huge smile.   “That’s great,” he said, “but it hasn’t worked for me.”

That night he was staying in her brother’s room at the family home. He had finally gotten to the Book of Psalms and was reading Psalm 16. I’ll let him tell what happened next:

As I was read­ing the 16th Psalm, I came upon the verse that says, "In his presence, there is fullness of joy; at his right hand there are pleasures for­evermore." Something really caught me on that verse, and I read it again and again, maybe ten times in a row. Each time, it became more per­sonal and more real.

  Now this is going to sound far out, but to the best of my abilities I'll try to explain what happened. There came an incredible sense of a light in the room, and it was very pure--not a light that was brightness. It was a light that was pure—something other than what would come out of a light bulb. Suddenly I had an intense feeling of unworthiness. Then it felt like someone had taken hold of my insides and was wringing them out like an old washcloth--wringing out everything. I had an unbelievable sense of emp­tiness. There was nothing inside me anymore. I was completely empty. I started crying, half out of fright and half out of this amazing feeling of emptiness. And then in the midst of my crying, the pure light that was in the room seemed to flow into me and fill me. At that exact moment, I knew without a shadow of doubt who Christ was. I knew that He was real, and I knew that I would live the rest of my life for Him.

That was March of 1974. In June, Mike showed up at the fire crew I was working on. Two months later, after seeing the joy and peace that Jesus had given him, and especially after seeing 3 stunning miracles through prayer on a fire in Idaho, I met this same Jesus who became my savior after years of atheism.

[You can read the whole story in my book: Out of the Fire, A Life Radically Changed]

More on Holiness

By David Hobbs, New Year's Day, 2015

Heb. 12:14--Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord [NKJV].

It’s amazing how blasé the church is about holiness, considering the importance the Bible puts upon it. I hear very few sermons preached on it, and very little emphasis seems to be placed on it. Jesus said almost the same thing in the Sermon on the Mt.:

Mt. 5:8--Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God  [KJV].

People just zero in on “by grace I’m saved through faith,” and that becomes all that matters—their ticket to heaven! Then why does the Bible bother giving us scriptures like this one in Hebrews, even telling us we need to pursue peace and holiness—strive after them—because they are a necessary part of our seeing God? Sadly, the church seems happy to stress the parts of God’s Word it likes, and ignore the rest!

I had an experience with the Lord once that showed me more about these verses. I was at my old church in its previous sanctuary praying in the middle of the night. The room has a vaulted ceiling, which goes up about 20 feet. As I was walking around praying, it was as if the room became a pool of clear water that I was walking through along the bottom.  He made me to understand that this was like a human life: it had a top, a bottom, and depths that might not be readily visible from above. This concept finds support in Proverbs in the Bible. Prov. 18:4 says “the words of a man’s mouth are deep waters [NIV],” and Prov. 20:5 says “Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water; but a man of understanding will draw it out [NKJV].”

Holiness and purity are like clear water all the way to the bottom. But most people have murkiness somewhere down inside: doubts, fears, insecurities, unresolved issues, guilt, selfish desires, etc. All these cloud the water of their lives. Though on the surface the water is clear and they seem just fine, if you ever penetrate their depths by getting to know them in a deeper way, at some point you will encounter this dark murkiness. "Hm, Sister Suzie has issues," we tell ourselves.

Some people’s lives are more than murky; they can be turbulent with strong underlying currents that swirl around and bring up all kinds of mud and debris from the depths. Like the prophet says in Isa. 57:20-21 [KJV]:

But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.

Another thing I saw: The murkiness in the depths hides doors to the demonic underworld. These are the access points the enemy can use to come through and sabotage our lives and use us for his purposes. An unresolved hurt from the past, for instance, can provide a door to demonic anger to come forth against those we otherwise love. 

Our lives can look clear and peaceful, but the pressure from a trial can muddy our waters with impatience, frustration and anxiety and we lose our peace.

A little self-indulgence and laziness in King David’s life stirred up a hidden, muddy, lust problem that opened the door to the enemy and before it was over, David had committed adultery, treachery, lying, deceit and murder. No wonder he cries out in Psalm 139:23-24 [NIV]:

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

And in Psalm 19:12-13 he says:

But who can discern their own errors?  Forgive my hidden faults.

Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me.

Then I will be blameless, innocent of great transgression.

“Search the waters of my life; bring to light any hidden places of murkiness and sin where the enemy can lurk and wait for the right moment of temptation. May I be clear through and through.”

Clear water is a perfect transmitter of light. And it’s the light of the Lord that He wants shining through us to the world. Any muddiness of sin blocks the flow of light. John Worldyman can’t see Jesus in us when we’re screaming at our kids or cutting him off in traffic because we’re late to our prayer meeting!

But what a glorious thing it was that night to contemplate a life clear all the way to the bottom with no hidden depths, no alligators hiding in the mud ready to rise up and grab the unsuspecting swimmer.  There was a great peace about it: a serenity and security.

The Bible says of Jesus in Heb. 7:26 that He was “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens.” Part of Jesus’ holiness was that He was harmless, and that’s the way we should be too. No hidden shoals or whirlpools the unsuspecting can get sucked into—just clear, placid water from top to bottom. Then not only can we see God, but others can too, through us!