“Tidings or Tumult?
Thou hast no tidings ready?…I saw a great tumult.
II Samuel 18:22,29
Ahimaaz wanted to run when he had nothing to report. Consequently, he could only say, “I saw a great tumult.” The messenger who runs too soon in the ministry has only a tempest in the head and in his heart.
Smitten as we are today with the delusion that we are doing most business when we are busiest, we need to learn John Wesley’s maxim, “I do not have time to be in a hurry.” God is saying to some of us, “Stand thou still awhile that I may shew thee the Word of God.” We are not to wear out or to rust out, but to live out, and God has as much to say about being still as about being busy. In this age of aspirin and angina a preacher may have to offend somebody in order to eliminate enough nonessentials to make time to get his tidings ready.
Otherwise, he will have seen only a tumult, and this poor world needs no more tumults.