HH, Sir Godfrey Gregg D.Div

“And the Lord appeared unto him the same night, and said, I am the God of Abraham thy father: fear not, for I am with thee, and will bless thee, and multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham’s sake.” (Genesis 26:24).

We had read this story more than once and have had many different conclusions. The revelation continues to flow every time this passage is read. The challenge is for you to read it in the stillness of the night and see what the Lord will reveal to you. I said in the stillness of the night. God cannot speak to us with the fretting and complaining, He has to get us to a place away from that life where He can meet us for sweet fellowship and communion. Just like in the Garden of Eden when He met Adam and Eve in the cool of the evening. When you are at peace with yourself and in that place of quietness then wait for the appearance of your Father.

“Appeared the same night,” the night on which he went to Beer-sheba.

• Do you think this revelation was an accident?
• Do you think the time of it was an accident?
• Do you think it could have happened on any other night as well as this?

If so, you are grievously mistaken. Why did it come to Isaac in the night on which he reached Beer-sheba? Because that was the night on which he reached rest. In his old locality, he had been tormented. There had been a whole series of petty quarrels about the possession of paltry wells. There are no worries like little worries, particularly if there is an accumulation of them. Isaac felt this. Even after the strife was passed, the place retained a disagreeable association. He determined to leave. He sought a change of scene. He pitched his tent away from the place of former strife. That very night the revelation came. God spoke when there was no inward storm. He could not speak when the mind was fretted; His voice demands the silence of the soul. Only in the hush of the spirit could Isaac hear the garments of his God sweep by. His still night was his starry night.

My soul, hast thou pondered these words, “Be still, and know”? (Psalm 46:10) In the hour of perturbation, thou canst not hear the answer to thy prayers. How often has the answer seemed to come long after I have prayed? The heart got no response in the moment of its crying–in its thunder, its earthquake, and its fire. But when the crying ceased, when the stillness fell, when thy hand desisted from knocking on the iron gate, when the interest of other lives broke the tragedy of thine own, then appeared the long-delayed reply. Thou must rest, O soul, if thou wouldst have thy heart’s desire. Still the beating of thy pulse of personal care. Hide thy tempest of individual trouble behind the altar of a common tribulation and, that same night, the Lord shall appear to thee. The rainbow shall span the place of the subsiding flood, and in thy stillness thou shalt hear the everlasting music.

Hallelujah, my beloved brethren, when we are called to COME UP HIGHER, there is great reasoning behind that command. God has heard your cries and complaints and He wants you to fellowship with Him in the stillness so He can speak to you and give you the answers to your cries.