HERE is a wonderful prophecy and fulfillment. Isaiah 42:1, 2, 3 and 4 is the prophecy and Matthew 12:14-21, the fulfillment, Now from this let us look at the distinctive quietness of Jesus, distinctive in that He was different from men of the world — quiet, unostentatious, undemonstrative, never thrusting himself forth, but rather retiring from. Let us consider:

I. The fact. The quietness and modesty of Jesus Christ when He was here in the flesh.
We may see this from five distinct things.

1. The fact. The quietness and modesty of Jesus to his public ministry. He lived so quiet a life in Nazareth that when He returned in the power of the Spirit people were surprised because there had been nothing of this seen in him before. He had lived there from the age of twelve until he was thirty. He probably knew he was only to live thirty-three years and he sees his time slipping away, but He was so subject to His Father that He will not step forth until the Father sends Him. The world around was perishing just as much as today, but God has His times and seasons, and it was predicted by Daniel just when He would commence His ministry, and He could not before that.

2. When Jesus entered upon His ministry and called His disciples about Him how unostentatiously He lived! He did not manifest a superiority now, and say, 'T am your leader and you must obey My power and respect Me, you may be My servant;" but He called them as learners or, as we would say now, students. With this training school He walked up and down the length and breadth of the land, never riding, so far as we know, and never keeping a servant as old Elisha, the prophet did. Sometimes He took the servant's place.

3. Still further we see this from the outcome of His ministry, He goes forth to preach and He has His spiritual power that draws people to Him; but He never attempted by natural means to draw a crowd to Himself. Now, could you imagine the Lord Jesus taking any of the means that many modern Christian workers take to draw the people to them. Ofttimes when the crowds did come to Him He got away from them as soon as He could, that is, the general crowd. "And seeing the multitudes. He went up into the mountains: and His disciples came unto Him, and He opened His mouth and taught them." He knew perfectly well that the crowds were not going to believe in Him. While they would gather about Him yet He never sought to retain them. The only occasion that looks anything like a demonstration on the part of Jesus was His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, but that was nothing that He planned. It was a spontaneous uprising on the occasion because He must show Himself as the promised King of Israel riding upon an ass as Zechariah had prophesied.

4. In another way we see this in reference to Jesus in His retiring from those who criticised Him or from those who were to antagonize Him or destroy Him. He simply retired. When He went to a village that did not wish to retain Him, He simply left them. The only case when Jesus used supernatural power was when He was wrestling in the Garden and He spake that word of power that caused those Roman officials to drop to the ground, and yet He allowed them to get up, and meekly submitted Himself. He never stood up for His rights.

5. There is another thing that shows His gentleness, meekness and quietness more than all. It is brought out here in the promise and fulfillment: "The bruised reed He shall not break and the smoking flax He shall not quench but He shall send forth the judgment unto victory." The bruised reed is the symbol of the weak thing, and the smoking flax is the symbol of inefficient life, and I suppose the meaning of this in this connection is that Jesus was so patient and tender with His disciples. I think you will acknowledge that Peter was a bruised reed, yet the Master did not discharge Him. And all the disciples contending which should be the greatest had not gotten into the secret of the Holy Ghost as their Master had, and yet He did not discharge them. He kept them, The bruised reed He shall not break.

Jesus was so quiet, so unostentatious, so tender that when you put it all together the picture that you form of Jesus Christ is a very quiet, tender and undemonstrative man. Of course He was charged with divine efficiency, and He could heal the sick and calm the waves; but along the line of the natural or human He was not at all demonstrative.

II. The Propriety of It,

We see it was right from the Father's Word concerning it. Centuries before He came He said, "Behold my servant?" But isn't He going to fail unless He takes some assertive ground? I am going to uphold Him. But won't He fail and give out? No, "He shall not fail nor be discouraged until He hath set judgment in the earth."

Then the Father says, "In whom my soul delighteth — in whom I am well pleased." I not only tolerate His quietness, but it is just what pleases me and enables me to make out of Him what I want to make. I want you to take notice of that, If the Lord ever puts you in quietness, and retires you and puts you in the background, remember, if you take it quietly the Lord looks down upon you with infinite delight as a soul in whom He is well pleased. We must become passive before God can efficiently use us. One way in which we are to receive the Holy Spirit is to keep very quiet along the lines of our natural activity, and keep very humble. What was Jesus doing? He was going down into the muddy waters of Jordan to be baptized like one of the generation of vipers. John was saying, "Oh, generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come. Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance," and Jesus comes right forward because he had taken the part of the generation of vipers. John said, "You are sanctified. I cannot baptize you." But He said, "Thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness." Then when He humbled Himself the Spirit came upon Him. Don't miss this thought as you want the Spirit in grander measure, here is one of the preparations.

Next, the Father decreed that He should have the victory because He apparently did not try to seize the victory. He is going to keep right on until the grand crisis comes, and "In His name shall the nations trust."

So we see it is right for Jesus to be as quiet and undemonstrative as He was. Yes, He had come as a suffering Savior, and His hope was the cross, and He had come to be submissive and not assertive and you know in the trial He stood as a meek lamb and let them hurl epithets and sneers against Him; but He said not a word. Like a sheep before his shearers is dumb and like a lamb brought to the slaughter he opened not His mouth.

III. Is His Example In This Respect an Example for Us?

Here is the great point of difference. Many say the passivity ended with the crucifixion and that He arose from the dead, ascended on high, that He is a reigning Savior now, and that we are reigning with Him and therefore we are to dispense with the attitude of passivity, that because He suffered we are to reign. That is the underlying thought of Romanism and Post-millenialism. The thought is that the suffering side ended with the day of Pentecost, and that from the day of Pentecost there was a new dispensation wherein we. His followers, are to take a different attitude. This may seem strange to you, but if you think back over history and many suggestions that arise in your own mind perhaps you will find the same thought is working in you. You say, I see this great salvation and I am going to take all means under heaven to make men see it.

I am free to say that the example of Jesus Christ is an example for us, and we are in the same dispensation of passivity and suffering. "Forasmuch as Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same mind." And did not He say, "As the Father hath sent me into the world, so send I you." Receive the Holy Ghost. You are to work by the power of the Holy Ghost. You are not to call in earthly methods or earthly efficiency but you are to work just in the same way that Christ worked. And did He not say when he washed the disciples' feet, "I have given you an example that as I have done, so should you." We are not to employ human methods. In so doing we will miss the great problem that God has for us and that problem is the unity of divinity and humanity in our own hearts. If you are working simply by the human will you will miss the indwelling of the Holy Ghost and not only so but the unity of the Holy Ghost to the human spirit. If you are following human methods you miss the suggestions of the Spirit.

Of late I have been so much pleased to meet with friends who told me how God had led them into the stillness, quietness, and how it results in a consciousness that God is in them, and God is working through them. It is not God helping them to do something nor they helping God to do something, but God and man have become united. This is the problem of going deeper — deeper — deeper into the experience of the God-man as He retired from everything earthly and went through the depth of suffering. The secret of Christian living is along these lines in these days.