Pastor's Blog

I’ll tell you something. In the sitting in the presence of God, God will impart, will cultivate within us, a spiritual discernment that we can even discern the mood of the Spirit. I’m not saying, “The Spirit gets moody.” I don’t mean that. But where we can discern the mood of the Spirit. We can sense when He’s grieved; we can sense when He’s agitated; we can sense when He wants to teach us; we can sense when there’s an utterance in a meeting or when we should give an utterance. Through this waiting in the awareness of His presence, our spirits become sensitized to the Holy Spirit, God imparting to us an increasing discernment in the things of the Spirit of God, and they can be ever, ever so sharp.

We had a revival in our school. I was put in charge of leading it by the faculty. For that revival, the Lord had given me a discernment so sharp; I could detect the slightest things in a meeting. Now I do not have that today; that was specially given for that occasion because the revival demanded it.

The president of the school who was with me was sitting on the platform, but the meeting got to the place where I had to discern the human spirit from the satanic spirit, the ways of the Spirit, and even the purposes of Satan. On one occasion I could discern a coming attack of Satan. I could discern it. I stood behind that pulpit on tiptoes. I expected momentarily an interference by Satan. I can’t tell you how; all I can say is that I could sense that Satan was coming to do something to disturb this meeting. I was on the alert as sharp as could be.

Sure enough, one of the boys jumped to his feet and gave a false utterance. I was ready for him. I slapped that boy down with a stinging rebuke. I was ready for him. It was no mistake, and the move of the Spirit went on. That was unusual.

Well the president sat on the platform, and because of this high sensitivity, I could sense (how shall I put that), the activity of his human spirit. I caught it and he was sitting about as far away as your pastor - 10 feet. I said to the president, “Brother, would you be so good as to get off the platform and sit with the students?”

He said, “Why?”

I said, “Because the proximity of your spirit sends me signals that interfere with my discerning things that are going on in the assembly and it makes a problem for me.” And he was the president!

He said to me, “Brother Beuttler, I can understand that. It’s perfectly all right.” Then he sat with the students.

I had such sharp discernment, and that took waiting before the Lord every night from 2:30 sharp till chapel time at 8:00 a.m. I do not know whether I had breakfast or not, but I had to get dressed and shaved. Except for the absolutely necessary things to get ready, all the time was spent in waiting, simply sitting in the conscious awareness of His presence.

The revival lasted ten days, and every morning at 2:30 on the dot, the Lord would awaken me. I knew it was time to get up and stay up. Time passed, 3:30, 4:30, 5:30, 6:30, let’s say 7:00. Then I had to go about, get dressed and get ready for school. It happened every night for ten days. During those times, the Lord would let me know what He was going to do in every single meeting, a meeting at a time. It’s true.

I would go to chapel and say, “Students, this morning is going to be washday.” The Lord was collecting our laundry. You don’t understand that, do you? He was dealing with things in the heart that needed cleansing.

Or I would say in a meeting, “Today is going to be victory day” or “Today is going to be this day.” I had a name for every service. The Lord would give me what to speak on. He would give me who should sing a solo, and what they should sing. I had to get the song for them, or request what to sing. They were not allowed to choose their own (Normally they were.). I would get it from the Lord and I would give it to them. The Lord even let me know what stanza not to sing, what stanza to skip.