There’s a whole lot of noise in our lives right now, isn’t there? Does anyone wish they could just run away and sit at the beach until 2020 is over? I know I’ve had that thought a time or two. Life is loud. I need less noise in my life for sure. What kind of noise are you personally dealing with and how can you learn to control the volume in your life? Better yet, how can you turn it off completely? I’ve identified some sources of noise that we need to learn to silence in order to hear God’s voice and to know God’s heart. They are the sounds that come from Satan and the world. Let’s talk first about why we need to silence the enemy.
Silencing the Enemy
James 4:7 says you can resist the devil and he will flee from you. How do we go about doing that? Revelation 12:10-11 tell us that we overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the Word of our Testimony.
The blood of the Lamb refers to the blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God whose blood was shed for us on the cross of Calvary. The cross represented death to those who saw Jesus’ sacrifice, but to us who have received Christ as Savior, it has become a symbol of life and victory. Satan cannot stand to be reminded of the blood because he cannot deal with the reality that on the cross, through the shed blood of Jesus, he was defeated and his eternal fate was sealed.
When Satan tries to accuse you of something you have already surrendered to Christ tell him you have been acquitted by the blood. The blood of Jesus doesn’t have an expiration date! Hallelujah! The blood will never lose its power!
The second way we silence Satan is through our testimonies. We overcome him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. We tell him about the transformation in our lives. We remind him of how Jesus has saved us, and of the ways God is at work in our lives to remind us that we are children of God. Have you ever thought about how Jesus, Himself, testified to God’s work in His life? When He rose from the dead, He didn’t appear in a body that was devoid of the nail marks and the scars that represented a spear that pierced His side. No. When He was resurrected from the dead, when He was given new life through the Father, He still had scars to tell the story of all He had been through.
I’m glad He kept the scars because those scars told the Gospel story. He WAS pierced for our transgressions. Listen, when we come to Jesus our past becomes evidence of the grace of God on our lives! Let your scars tell the story of God’s grace in your life! Let them point the the victory God has won for you. That’s a story Satan can’t stand to hear.
Silencing the World
We have allowed a lot of noise pollution into our lives through the world around us, both the physical and virtual worlds. Have you noticed how noisy life in general is? When commercials come on television and the volume suddenly increases, that is on purpose, isn’t it? Someone wants your attention. That someone’s attempt to get your attention is done through increased volume that often causes aggravation.
Have you noticed how loud many restaurants have become? It can be quite a challenge to hear the conversation at your table due to the bumping bass on the stereo. Have you ever said to yourself, “Why can’t I just eat in peace?”
I have never been a fan of airports because of the looping recordings that remind you not to leave you bags unattended or that constantly inform you of what level the threat of terrorism is at that moment. Currently, I can’t even shop in a grocery store without hearing that all shoppers must wear a face-covering and maintain social distance and it plays on repeat. I hear it in the bread aisle, the canned goods aisle, the breakfast aisle, the snack aisle, and so on. It has become my incentive to do the grocery shopping as fast as possible just so I can get out of the store and not have to listen to that recording on loop.
It’s almost as if our lives are now lived with a background tape of noise. You can’t even pump gas most places without hearing noise that begins with, “Did you know that…” and is followed by an ask for you to purchase something. The noise doesn’t just seem to be informative, but at times it feels compelling and controlling. Noise is underscoring almost every part of our lives.
Our watches and cars talk to us, there are constant rings, dings, whistles and reminders that we have somewhere to be or that we have a deadline to meet. The world is processing life in a noisy way. There is anger and frustration that is being revealed through insults, arguing in rioting. Noise, noise, noise. The clamor is almost deafening at times. It seems that people have adopted the axiom, “He who has the loudest voice, wins.” The world is constantly shouting at us, telling us how to process our feelings, how to educate our kids, how to vote, what to wear, watch to watch, what to eat, what to buy, and how to spend our time.
We are told in Romans 12 not to allow ourselves to be squeezed into a mold or a certain way of thinking or behaving by the world. How do we know when and if we are being negatively impacted by the world’s noise? I suppose if we are angry after scrolling Facebook, if we keep returning to people’s page with whom we are angry to see if anyone has set them straight yet or to see if we can add any fuel to the fire, we might be being squeezed by the world’s noise. If our anxiety increases after we check our Instagram or Twitter, if we can’t get someone’s post out of our mind and are losing sleep night after night because of the chaos in the world, we might be putting ourselves unnecessarily in a situation where we are being man-handled and manipulated by the noise of the world. We might need to get off of social media or unfollow some people or at the minimum, take a break. If the rhetoric of the pundits is disrupting our peace and overruling our minds and what we have always known to be true, we need to consider shutting off the TV, deleting the app, and stepping away from the constant strain of news. If we can’t even be satisfied with just one screen at a time but have to have multiple devices going, multiple sources of noise bombarding our hearts and minds all at once, could it be that we have become addicted to the noise? We might pride ourselves on our ability to multi-task when in reality we are just slaves to the taskmaster called noise.
Noise, whether from Satan or the world, will steal your joy and peace, but stillness, in the presence of the Lord, will keep you from feelings of insecurity and instability when life is chaotic around you and when it might look that evil somehow has the upper hand on God.
Psalm 37:7 says, “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.”
Stillness will give you the spiritual fortitude to wait for God’s will and timing to be revealed in every situation.
Why is it critical that we get a handle on the noise in our life? It’s important to control unwanted noise so that we can hear God’s voice and so that we aren’t shaped by and don’t follow the way that the unwanted noise would suggest.
In John 10:27, Jesus said, “My sheep listen to my voice. I know them, and they follow Me,” but how can we listen to His voice if we cannot even hear Him?
Have you invited unnecessary noise into your life and also neglected the silence to which God is calling you? There are some things we don’t have any control over, but there is a lot of noise we could shut off and shut out if we wanted to.
If strength comes to those who wait on the Lord, Isaiah 40:31, if perfect peace comes to him whose mind is stayed on Jesus, Isaiah 26:3, shouldn’t we be availing ourselves to the strength and peace that quiet submission to the Lord will produce in our lives? Listen, if we can make time to be busy, can’t we also make time to be still? If we can entertain the noise, can we not also choose to entertain the stillness?
Ecclesiastes 3:7 says there is a time to be silent. We schedule everything else. Can we schedule some time to listen for the whisper of God? There were times Jesus had to withdraw from the noise. He even had to withdraw from the needs of the people around Him sometimes in order to spend quiet time seeking help, guidance, and strength from His Heavenly Father. If quietness is the way Jesus was renewed, we would do well to consider our need for the same.
I believe our ability to be faithful to God is contingent on our ability to hear Him speak. I say that because we cannot obey God when we cannot hear Him speak.
Which noise might it be for you? What do you need to silence this morning? Do you need to silence Satan or do you need to silence the world or both? Can you schedule time to silence the sounds in order to hear the voice of God? Church, what you live for will be determined by what you listen to. I believe God is calling us to silence the noise in our lives so that we can clearly listen to and live for Him.
