by Walter Beuttler
These “Songs in the Night” relate to the Lord visiting us during the night season, which He has made especially real to me. We hear little about this, but the Lord’s people need light concerning the possibility of His visiting them during the night.
The Lord delights in visiting us during the night, like a lover will delight in having a private time with his or her sweetheart. They can sit together, not necessarily talking a lot, but just being together and sharing what they would not want to share with any others. The less people walk by, the better they like it. And yet there is a time of wholesome fellowship, communication, and getting to know each other.
Have you noticed in the Gospels that the Lord crossed the Brook Kidron with His disciples? Those who have been there know that the pathway that leads up into the Mount of Olives crosses this brook.
Jesus often walked on this pathway because He had a special place on the Mount of Olives, a corner to which He resorted often with His disciples, to share with them the things that He could not share with the public, and then to spend time with His Father, alone.
The Lord desires to develop a relationship between Himself and those who are close to Him, and especially, He often seeks to do this during the night. He may do so at other times, but what I am saying is that He has a preference. During the night, all is normally still, the telephone is not likely to ring, and there is no feeling of pressure to get things done.
I visited a pastor last year. His telephone rang at all times, day and night. The people had no regard for his privacy, or his need for times of rest. Somebody from the Midwest called him at 2:30 in the morning and said, “Hey, how are you?” Half awake, he responded, “What’s on your mind?” “Oh, I could not get to sleep, so I thought I would call you and have a little chat.” At 2:30 in the morning!
Mrs. Beuttler was there and I said to her, “This congregation is going to lose their pastor. They are killing him, and he will be obliged to leave to save himself and his family.” I gave him a time for another meeting in a month and he said, “Brother Beuttler, we are getting your meeting in, just before we leave.”
But, there is a valid exception to this:
“You have proved my heart; You have visited me in the night.” Psalm 17:3
“You have visited me in the night.” The Lord may come at anytime during the night to visit you. If you are responsive to the Lord’s desire to cultivate a close relationship with you by being a frequent night visitor, you could call yourself as being privileged above many. Speaking from my own experience, these are times in which He will simply “hang around for a while,” and say very little, or nothing.
David said, “You have visited me in the night.” In Psalms 8:3-4, we have a further comment to make:
“When I consider Your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained; What is man, that You are mindful of him; and the son of man, that You visits him?” Psalm 8:3-4
I would simply say, “Oh the wonder of it all!” What wonder? The wonder that He who created the heavens, put the planets in their orbits, put multiplied millions of universes into space, beyond any ability of man to comprehend. Yet to think that God condescends to simple human beings, and visits them for fellowship and communion.
This is what God did in the Garden of Eden – they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the cool of the day. How considerate God is of the comforts of His creatures. They did not have air conditioning in the Garden of Eden, so the Lord selected the timing of His visits to the “cool of the day,” which was in the evening after the heat had subsided and the evening air would take over with its refreshing coolness. In that area, it gets cool toward evening, and through the night. The Lord is even considerate of our comforts.
“For You will light my candle; the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness.” Psalm 18:28
Very few have experienced the Lord being a night visitor. Therefore, when they have this experience, they are completely in the dark as what to do about it. As was Samuel, who laid down to sleep and the Lord called, “Samuel, Samuel,” and he ran to Eli. He needed light, revelation, and understanding.
So David said, “You will light my candle; the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness.” This is what I am saying; many need to be enlightened and come into an understanding of the experience of the Lord’s visits during the night, as they are in the dark. I know that this is so, from my personal experiences.
“Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105). So this is what we are doing this morning. Your word is a light, a lamp, a candle, and this morning we are having a candle-lighting service. We are bringing the candle of our understanding to the “candle of the Word of God.”
Suppose you all had a candle in your hand, unlit. Let’s say this microphone is the candle of the Word of God, which is lit. Now, we will bring our unlit candle and light them at the candle of the Word of God, to give us light on the Lord’s visits during the night. From this candle, we light the candle of our understanding to enlighten our darkness, our ignorance in the area of the Lord’s night visits.
First of all, suppose that we are asleep, and get awakened. Either the Lord knocks, or awakens us with His Presence, which in my experience is by far the most frequent. Or, He awakens us in some other way, and we have the awareness of the fact that somehow the Lord is so near, with a sense of His Presence. The first thing is: What are we going to do with that Presence. What are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to respond?
The very first thing to do is to get out of bed. Staying in bed will not work, as soon we will be asleep again. There is a certain indecision or duality involved, a half-heartedness, and the Lord is quick to sense that, as He does not like compromise.
One of the best things that we can do, when we have an awareness of His Presence, is to get up. Sometimes the first thing I do, is to put some cold water on the back of my neck. This will wake us up quickly. You will not wake up by putting cold water on your forehead. When that cold water hits the back of your neck, that’s where you wake up better than any other place. I do not know why, but it works.
One time, the Lord said to Ezekiel, “Stand up on your feet, and I will speak to you.” We should do this out of courtesy, recognizing that the Sovereign God is present. There is such a thing as responding to God in a respectful manner.
“When I remember You upon my bed, and meditate on You in the night watches. Because You have been my help, therefore in the shadow of Your wings will I rejoice.” Psalm 63:6-7
David spent many hours awake at night, and I also do. There are times when the Lord visits and we should get up out of bed and say, “Here I am, for your servant hears.” There are times when we just wake up and cannot go back to sleep. What better activity is there during this time, than to remember and meditate on the Lord in the night watches when we have a waking spell. What are you going to do with all that time? Well, it’s a great opportunity to meditate upon the Lord, to meditate upon His Word.
Psalm 101 is good to read in conjunction with this thought, “I will meditate upon you.” Our Western civilization is a dying civilization. Just as the Roman civilization became great, and then died and left nothing but the memories of its former glories. Have you ever gone to Rome? You can walk through the crumbled Coliseums. Or, you can go to the top of the ruins of the palaces of the Roman Emperors, the exclusive military power that no nation could successfully challenge for a long time.
Roman civilization was destroyed from “within” with luxuries, wealth, self-indulgence, pleasure seeking, and high taxation. The empire that was expected to last forever decayed from within. So also, our greatest peril is “within.” God’s people, especially in the Western world, have lost some of the great values of life.
One of the things that Christians have lost is the art of meditation and contemplation. The Bible has much to say on meditation. Americans want to be entertained, so instead of reading a good book, they turn on the TV. There was a time when children were reading, but now they watch the TV to the tremendous loss of estimable values for their future lives.
I go on long flights for overseas ministry, often for 10½ hours. I sit there and read my Bible, or work on a new set of Bible study notes. Or, I sit there and meditate on the Lord and enjoy His presence. What a golden opportunity on those flights to take time with the Lord in the meditation of His Word and the contemplation of Himself while others feed on the TV diet. In Psalm 119:55, the writer speaks about meditating on His name. Isaiah said, “Let him trust in the name of the Lord.”
“Yet the Lord will command His loving kindness in the daytime, and in the night, His song shall be with me, and my prayer to the God of my life.” Psalm 42:8
Do you ever think about the Lord’s loving kindness? How nice God is in giving us so many good things, but His kindness is also manifested in the opposite way. Whatever He does, it is done in kindness.
When I was a youngster, I came home from school along a river. One of my friends challenged me, “I dare you to walk into the river with all your clothes on.” I took the dare and walked into the river with all my clothes on. When I arrived home I had guilty feelings. So, I went to my desk and studied my French composition. Mother said, “It’s good to see you do your composition without being told.” Well, I was guilty.
My Father came home. I greeted him nicely. I was working on my composition. He looked at me and said, “Come over here, son.” He felt my trousers. The fellow who dared me, told my Father on the way home that I had gone into the river. My Father took me to another room, and gave me an old-fashioned education on a part of my anatomy that I never forgot. Nor did I ever go back into the river with my clothes on.
So, “the Lord will command His loving kindness.” But there are two sides to this loving kindness. Solomon said, “He that spares the rod, spoils the child.” True goodness and kindness toward children employs discipline judiciously when necessary. Not restraining children and not disciplining them is not loving kindness.
It was so lonely on my first Christmas in the United States. Germans make a lot of Christmas, and we were always together on Christmas Eve. I was in New York alone. My money was giving out. Early in the evening on Christmas Eve, I had 75 cents left for the long weekend to live on. I was not saved then. I have a reason for telling you this.
What is Christmas Eve without a tree for a German? I went out to look for a tree and they wanted 75 cents. That’s all I had. Well, what is a tree without some bulbs on it or some trimmings? So I thought, “I will come by later and maybe they will be cheaper.”
So I went walking with such emptiness inside. I pictured my family in Germany gathered around the tree, without me. I got so lonesome I thought, “If I could only see a family gathered around a Christmas tree.” There was a row of houses built together and I walked up the stone steps and looked into a living room.
There was a father, mother, and several children working at the tree and putting boxes under the tree. I stood there crying, just looked in, and the man saw me. When he saw me, he put his box down and I could tell from the way he came toward the door that I better clear out fast. I turned around and ran down the street.
At 10:00 o’clock, I went out to buy a tree. The tree was 50 cents. That left 25 cents to buy bulbs and some trimmings. I went home to my little skylight room. It did not have windows, just a little light in the roof. I trimmed the tree, so at least I had a tree. It was a long weekend with no money for food, so I fasted. I sat there and cried till my heart would seem to break.
As I look back, God in His goodness and loving kindness, unbeknown to me, let me go through this very hard situation till I became so lonely, desperately lonely, that I finally decided, “Maybe I need religion.” I went from church to church, until I came to one that corresponded to what I felt was my need.
In front of me was a lady. She stood up and testified. I sat there and looked at her and listened to her testimony of what the Lord had done for her. I thought within my heart, “What that woman has is the thing that I need.” And it was not long before I had it too.
It was a hard and bitter road. But it took that to enable me to respond to the Lord, when He said, “Come to me, all you that are weary and heavy laden.”
Again in Psalm 42:8, “In the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life.” So what we have here is that the “Lord will command His loving kindness in the day, and in the night, His song shall be with me.”
There is such a thing as “songs of the night.” Job 35:10 puts it this way, “Who gives songs in the night.” We can apply this in several directions. When we go through the darkness, the Lord gives songs to sustain us, and songs to guide us. David says in Psalm 32, “You encompassed me with songs of deliverance.”
The Lord often speaks through songs, and He may warn us through a song. I will give you an example.
I had an itinerary that took me to South Africa, and then to Australia. I had a seminar scheduled for the interior of the Congo. Everything was set, and I was looking forward to the Congo visit. A few weeks before I left, a song formed within me. “Not what I will to be, nor where I wish to go, for who am I that I should choose my way.” That song went over and over, until finally I caught on and said, “Beuttler, the Lord’s talking to you.” That song kept rolling around, “Not what I will to be, nor where I wish to go, for who am I that I should choose my way.”
I said, “Father, is anything wrong?” In front of me stood the words, “Congo,” and I finally realized that the trip to Congo was supposed to be cancelled. I argued, “I’m on my way to Johannesburg. It does not cost any more for the ticket, to make this stop.” You know how we argue. I yielded reluctantly.
I was Karno, a mud city in part, south of the Sahara. I was sitting at the airport, because there is where I spent the time that I would have been in the Congo. I had to cut a week out and do nothing. Then three DC 6’s came in five minutes apart with women and children only. They all had bundles, dolls, and boxes. There was not one single man. I thought that was strange.
I went downstairs to make inquiry and the lady said, “Haven’t you heard? These are the refugees from the Congo.” I said, “Refugees?” She said, “Yes, there was a revolution.”
I asked, “A revolution? Where did it break out?” “Beyond Stanleyville,” and she named the city where I was supposed to have the seminar. I would have been caught right in the midst of the revolution. As you know, many never got out. Some of the whites were thrown to the crocodiles in the Congo. The Lord warned me with songs of deliverance.
I was sitting at the airport in Rome one night, waiting for a flight from Amsterdam to take me to Colombo, Ceylon. I had been told by the authorities that my papers for Ceylon were not in order. Now that was bad in those days, because these countries were strongly anti-US.
I sat there waiting for that flight and noticed that a song was forming within me. It sang several times before I paid attention. It went, “I know the Lord will make a way for me.” Finally, I woke up and said, “Beuttler, the Lord is trying to say something. What’s He saying?” “I know the Lord will make a way for me.” You know the chorus. I thought, “Oh! The Lord is going to help me out of my predicament.”
I arrived in Ceylon early in the morning. There was a little be-speckled Indian man behind the desk looking through my papers. I prayed and asked God, “I think I will be better off if I volunteer what is wrong, than let him find it. It might make them think I want to get away with something.”
So I said, “Sir, I have a problem.” While I talked to him, I prayed and said, “God, you let me know that You would make a way. Here is Your chance.” I told the man what happened. Apparently our office of the Assemblies of God in New York had made an error. He could have kept me out of the country.
He asked, “What is the error?” I pointed it out to him while I prayed, “Oh God, it’s Your turn.” He looked up and said, “Sir, I think I could fix that for you. Would you like me to?” I said, “I will be so grateful.
“You encompass me with songs of deliverance.” Wife and I went to the doctor, year ago now, and the verdict was not good. She was crying. I felt like it, because of what it meant. We went back to the railroad station so downhearted. Then a song came, “Publish glad tidings, tidings of peace, tidings of Jesus, redemption and release.” I went to the hospital. Tomorrow morning would be the day.
That evening three preachers came and prayed for me. The next morning they wheeled me up to the operating room. The doctor said, “Before we go ahead, we want to take another look.” Then he said, “What has happened? I said, “Three preachers came and prayed for me last night.” He said, “I do not understand, cancer just does not act that way. We do not need to operate, so we will let you go.”
Watch for songs of deliverance. They may be for worship, but often they are His method of speaking. Sometimes the songs prepare us for something unexpected. It helps to condition us to hear what the Lord is about to say to us.
I had some meetings in France about 2½ hours north of Paris. After the meetings, on the way back to Paris on the train, a song began to form within me. “Lift me up above the shadows, lift me up and let me stand, on the mountain top of glory…” Over and over it sang. Finally I realized the Lord was trying to say something. I recognized that the Lord was speaking to my heart in prayer to Him “to lift me up above the shadows, to lift me up and let me stand.” I said, “Lord, I do not understand. There are no shadows, as I had good meetings.”
The Lord had broken down all hostility of the French pastors who had no use for Americans, and opened up France and all of North Africa to me for ministry. North African countries were under French rule at that time. I felt good, but the song would not stop.
I checked into the hotel in Paris where I usually stay. The clerk handed me some mail. One was from Wife and I put her letter last, because I keep the best for the last. When I read that letter it said something like, “Dear Daddy, I am writing you from the hospital. You remember that we agreed that I should have a check-up. The doctor told me that he thought there was a malignancy. So I am still here and they are taking further tests, and if they all collaborate, surgery would be necessary. I will go through with it.” Well now I knew why the Lord gave me that song, “Lift me up above the shadows.” This was a shocker!
I wondered, “Now what am I going to do?” I knew what the Lord wanted me to do and I knew what I wanted to do in the natural – go home, fast. I knew the Lord did not want me to go home, as He had given me an errand. I was an ambassador and was under orders to go into Africa, and on the way home to Iceland. I had a fight for a couple of hours or so. My decision was made. I stood up and talked to God.
I pointed my finger and said, “Father, I am going to talk to you. You knew that Wife would be in this situation before I left. You sent me anyhow, therefore I cannot go home. If I were not an ambassador with a mission, I could go home. If You kill my Wife (that is how I put it), I want you to know I am not going home even for her funeral. I will go home at the end of my work at the end of the summer. I will visit her grave then. In the meantime, no matter what happens there, I want You to know, I am carrying on Your mission.”
She did not say for me to come home, merely said that she was letting me know what is happening. What made it worse was my younger daughter kept whining, “Where is my Mummy? Where is my Daddy? Why doesn’t my Daddy come?” Those things are very difficult, but I had an assignment. I know what Jesus meant when He said, “He that forsakes not father, mother, wife, children, houses, lands for my sake for the gospel, is not worthy of Me.” This was the test.
I wrote a letter that I was not coming home, and when the letter was hardy down the slot in the mailbox, I said, “I cannot do that to my daughter, and pulled the letter back and went for a walk. I went back to mail the letter, opened the slot and pulled it back again. I said, “I cannot do it.” I argued with myself, “Beuttler, you must do it. I can’t. You must.” I went back again, had the letter halfway in and debated. Finally I gave it a shove and it went in. I turned and ran down the street as fast as I could.
As I was in Africa preaching, each day with questions as to what is happening, “Is she buried? If so, where?” But down from Rouen, the Spirit had warned me, “Lift me up above the shadows.” I recognized then that God was fully aware and helped to sustain. The Lord takes us through all kinds of nights and darkness, but in either case, He gives songs in the night.
I was there two weeks before I heard the first word. I opened the letter, “Dear Daddy, I am still in the hospital. It was not a malignancy. It was just a cist and they took care of it. I am having a fine vacation. In a few days I am going home. Everything is well.”
“He gives songs in the night.” There we can cultivate His visits, our fellowship, meditating on Him, being taught by Him, having a revelation of His Word and in a situation where He gives us different experiences, where He visits for a specific purpose.
For instance, He comes to warn us, to deliver us; to guide us. He comes to assure us when we are in deep trouble and all hope seems to be gone. “What is man that You visit him?”
David said, “You have visited me in the night season.” If you will respond, the Lord will open for you another dimension in the secrets of the knowledge of God, and the glories of His Presence.