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     1. Resting in Jesus   (24:32)
     2. Near to the Heart of God   (3:51)

John 14:1.  Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.

“Why should I wander an alien from Thee, or cry in the desert for bread?”  Some time ago, I was in Cairo in a Pentecostal mission among the Bedouins.  And they’re and interesting lot.  They dress differently than we do.  They wear what I would call long nightgowns—white nightgowns down to the bottom.  That’s about all they wear, and then they have a red fez on their heads, and they keep them on in church.  And in their missions, the mission looks like a pen at a zoo—there’s a big wall in the middle.  Men and women are separated; they’re not allowed to look at one another.  Only the preacher is allowed to see them both.  The pulpit is in the midst, over the wall.

And so, one great revelation was their singing—something that I suppose they call singing, we wouldn’t call—we’d call it howling.  You’ve heard of the howling dervishes.  Well, it seems to come from down here somewhere, and they open their mouth just as wide as they can, and something comes out that sounds like the rushing waters of Niagara.  And you don’t know where they come from or where they’re going to.  You couldn’t distinguish music, although Brother Bart tried to accompany them with the piano.  But he leaned over to me and he said, “They’re singing O Thou in Whose Presence My Soul Takes Delight.”  And then they sang So nimm den meine Hände und führe mich.  They really had need of a führer.

But they sang that song, and every time I sing that verse, “O, why—why should I wander an alien from Thee?” I see myself transported into a little room with bare walls in the Benton Harbor where I had one of my first evangelistic campaigns.  And I didn’t want to preach; I didn’t want to hold meetings; I wanted to find Jesus.  I had been told what Miss Schudy said a while ago: “If you had any idea what is in store for those that receive a larger vision of Jesus Christ, you’d cry day and night.”  And that’s what I did; I cried day and night “to know Jesus and the power of His resurrection.”

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But it’s a different thing when you seek for Jesus—when you seek for the Beloved of your soul, when you’ve caught a vision of the glory of the Son of God, and when you’ve heard His voice like the voice of the Bridegroom, and your heart has begun to burn within you, and you’d rather die than be without Him, and you seek Him.  You’ll find out that there’s Someone to be found—Someone that has been seeking you from before the foundation of the world, Someone that has come down the corridors of eternity looking for men and women like you and me, and “Behold your calling, brethren: not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called.  But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and base things of the world hath God chosen to confound the things that are mighty, and things that are despised hath God chosen, and things that are not…”

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And why does God say, “Delight thyself also in the Lord”?  Oh, what idolaters we are!  How we attach our hearts and our affection to things, to blessings, to gifts, to powers, to anything under the sun that will somehow reflect credit on ourselves.

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The greatest thing that God can do for any human being is to make him cry out for Him alone—just Jesus Christ Himself.

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And I found out that I had to find Him in my heart.  I had to let go and believe in Him.  How simple are these words: “Let not your heart be troubled.”  Don’t.  As long as your heart is troubled about anything at all, you’ll get no place.  “Believe also in Me.”  Oh, when I look into the Bible and find Him there, and find “the blood of the everlasting covenant” provides me with this Savior that displaces me—takes me out of the way, crucifies me with all my affections and lusts, gets rid of me, annihilates self.  “Deny yourself.  Hate your self also.”  And here He is, as beautiful as the sun at noontime, as marvelous as He ever was.  And here He is, stretching forth beseeching hands, and saying, “Believe also in Me.  Don’t let your heart be troubled.”

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Do you know that sometimes He has to allow you to get acquainted with your utter inability, and to show you what a great fizzle you’ve been, even in the work for God?  What a fizzle!  Oh, when you discover what an utter fizzle you’ve been, then you’ll be glad to let Him take over, and let Him do all your work.  And when you find out that all your life has been defiled, and spoiled, and wrecked before God...!”

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I found out something that I didn’t know, and that most people and so many people never find out: that the life of Jesus is utterly simple—the simplicity of a child.

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And when you really believe in Him, you’re bound to become silent in His presence.  You’re bound to open your heart.  Everything within you cries to Him, in great, deep silence.  A homesickness grips your soul because within you there springs forth a fountain of life, and you realize it’s Himself.  And everything that pertains to the world and to self has to be silent.  Now the voice of God begins to speak to your soul.

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An ensnared fruit bat an illustration of seeking after blessings.    (from 9:37)

O Thou, in Whose Presence, a hymn by Joseph Swain.

O, why should I wander an alien from Thee,
And cry in the desert for bread?
Thy foes will rejoice when my sorrows they see,
And smile at the tears I have shed.

So nimm den meine Hände, a hymn by Julie K. von Hausmann (1862).

Within the Veil
by Gerhard Tersteegen (translated by Frances Bevan)
(Psalm 100:4)

God is present with us—let us fall and worship,
Holy is the place;
God is in the midst, our souls are silent,
Bowed before His Face.
Lord, we kneel before Thee,
Awed by love Divine,
We of Thee unworthy—
Own that we are Thine.

Gladly cast before Thee all delights and pleasures,
All our hoarded store—
Lord, behold our hearts, our souls, and bodies,
Thine, and ours no more.
We, O God, Thine only,
Nevermore our own—
Thine the praise and honour,
Thine, and Thine alone.

Thou Who fillest all things, in Thee, living, moving,
Evermore are we;
Shoreless sea unsounded, mystery and wonder,
Sinks my soul in Thee—
I in Thee—no longer
Bound in self’s dark prison,
And the life that moves me,
Fills me, Christ arisen.

Thou the Light that fillest all the endless heavens,
Shinest on my face,
As the tender flowers joyfully unfolding
In their silent grace,
Whilst the Sun beholds them—
Thus my soul is still,
Thine the glorious power,
Thine the mighty will.

Mine but to be simple; in the fields of heaven
All my sweet employ,
Loving and delighting, as a child that singeth
With unbidden joy—
As an eagle soaring
Up the radiant skies,
Even now to find Thee
In Thy Paradise.

Himself, a hymn by A. B. Simpson, 1904.

Once ’twas painful trying,
Now ’tis perfect trust;
Once a half salvation,
Now the uttermost;
Once ’twas ceaseless holding,
Now He holds me fast;
Once ’twas constant drifting,
Now my anchor’s cast.

Song of the Mystic
by Abram J. Ryan

I walk down the Valley of Silence—
Down the dim, voiceless valley—alone!
And I hear not the fall of a footstep
Around me, save God’s and my own;
And the hush of my heart is as holy
As hovers where angels have flown!

Long ago was I weary of voices
Whose music my heart could not win;
Long ago I was weary of noises
That fretted my soul with their din;
Long ago I was weary of places
Where I met but the human—and sin.

I walked in the world with the worldly;
I craved what the world never gave;
And I said: “In the world each Ideal,
That shines like a star on life’s wave,
Is wrecked on the shores of the Real,
And sleeps like a dream in a grave.”

And still did I pine for the Perfect,
And still found the False with the True;
I sought ’mid the Human for Heaven,
But caught a mere glimpse of its Blue;
And I wept when the clouds of the Mortal
Veiled even that glimpse from my view.

And I toiled on, heart-tired, of the Human,
And I moaned ’mid the mazes of men,
Till I knelt, long ago, at an altar
And I heard a voice call me. Since then
I walk down the Valley of Silence
That lies far beyond mortal ken.

Do you ask what I found in the Valley?
’Tis my Trysting Place with the Divine.
And I fell at the feet of the Holy,
And above me a voice said: “Be mine.”
And there arose from the depths of my spirit
An echo—“My heart shall be Thine.”

Do you ask how I live in the Valley?
I weep—and I dream—and I pray.
But my tears are as sweet as the dewdrops
That fall on the roses in May;
And my prayer, like a perfume from censers,
Ascendeth to God night and day.

In the hush of the Valley of Silence
I dream all the songs that I sing;
And the music floats down the dim Valley,
Till each finds a word for a wing,
That to hearts, like the Dove of the Deluge,
A message of peace they may bring.

But far on the deep there are billows
That shall never break on the beach;
and I have heard songs in the Silence
That never shall float into speech;
And I have had dreams in the Valley
Too lofty for language to reach.

And I have seen Thoughts in the Valley—
Ah! me, how my spirit was stirred!
And they wear holy veils on their faces,
Their footsteps can scarcely be heard;
They pass through the Valley like virgins,
Too pure for the touch of a word!

Do you ask me the place of the Valley,
Ye hearts that are harrowed by Care?
It lieth afar between mountains,
And God and His angels are there;
And one is the dark mount of Sorrow,
And one the bright mountain of Prayer.

The Power of Stillness, a tract by A. B. Simpson.

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