I would like to consider something that we all are doing. Something we are actually doing at this very moment. Something we pesky humans are not very good at doing. We are waiting. Some are waiting for it to rain. Some are waiting to take a trip. But most of all we are waiting on the return of the Lord Jesus. I will take a look at some examples of those who waited on the Lord, and also one who fell away during what should have been his wait for the Lord.
The Exodus
When God led the children of Israel out of Egypt, it was with mighty works and wonders. Exodus tells us how God remembered his covenant, and now he had come to deliver the children of Israel from the hand of Pharaoh. First of all, God did not just remember his covenant. It was not like we might say, “Oh, I forgot milk and bread: now I need to go back to the store.” God never forgets. God was waiting. Waiting for what? God was waiting for the right leaders to come along that would do his bidding. He was waiting on Moses, Aaron, Miriam, Joshua, Caleb and all the others who would faithfully follow his commandments and directions. With each passing plague that touched Egypt, the faith of the children of Israel in God must have increased. It is in that show of faith that they placed the blood of the lamb on the door post of their homes that the destroying angel might pass over them. At this point the children of Israel were ready to faithfully follow God wherever he might lead them.
I really believe that they actually felt that way. At this time they were ready, willing and wanted to be faithful to do the will of God. But when they were lead to the Red sea with no visible way of escape, that faith began to slip away, and with the tests they faced in the wilderness that strong faith had all but disappeared. So it was in unbelief that they would not enter the land that God had promised to give them.
We might ask ourselves, “How could they have lost faith in God with all the miracles they witnessed”? We might also ask ourselves, “Would we have really done any better”? Maybe we would have, but maybe not. The Psalmist speaking of the exodus from Egypt, sums it up perfectly; “Then believed they his words: they sang his praise. They soon forgot his words: they waited not for his counsel”(Psa 106:12-13).
God could have led them out of Egypt a different way. God could have led them in a way that would have avoided all the distress they experienced in the wilderness. God was well aware of the problems and the hardships they would face along the way, and yet he led them into these difficult times. The Apostle Paul tells us in his letter to Timothy that these Scriptures are written and saved for our learning. So, what lesson has God recorded for us to learn? I think the Psalmist understood clearly what was being recorded for our learning. I think that is clearly indicated in the 13th verse we just read. “They soon forgot his words: they waited not for his counsel.” It is left recorded for us, that when we are led into difficult time, we can hold fast to the faith that God has built in each of us. That we never forget his great deeds in the past and towards us, and as the Psalmist says, wait upon his counsel.
There are lots of examples of those who waited on the Lord. Far more than the few I will discuss here. As we do our daily reading of the Scripture, I challenge you to recognize those times when God reveals to us those who chose to wait on the Lord and not lose faith.
Waiting sometimes implies non-action; sometimes that is true, but it can also mean a time to reflect and prepare for whatever is the required action. The poet John Milton wrote a sonnet in 1655 the last line of which is often used to describe people in the military (although it was written of our service to our Maker). The line goes, “They also serve who only stand and wait.” No one would ever accuse the military of being a non-action group. The point of the line is that waiting is a time to ready oneself for the required duty, to be prepared and wait for directions on how to proceed. We are all soldiers of Christ and right now we are preparing ourselves spiritually for a life with Jesus as we await his return.
Joseph
We have the example of Joseph. In dreams God had promised him great things to come. I have little doubt that when Joseph left Jacob’s house that fateful morning to go and see how his brothers were getting along, that he did so with a light and happy heart. Genesis 37 tells us that Joseph was a young man of about seventeen years, just out on an errand for his father. There was no difference here than if we were to send one of our children on some sort of errand for us. But as we all know this was not to be just an errand. In the space of a few short days, this light- hearted young man was cast into chains and sold into slavery by his own brothers for twenty pieces of silver. I think it is a fairly easy picture to bring to mind, of this young man walking in the desert chained to other slaves. I am sure he would have had tears of fear and uncertainty on his cheeks. I am sure when he lay down at night that he would pray that God would deliver him. I don’t think it is too big a stretch to imagine the sense of desolation that Joseph must have felt. Yet, there is no record that a direct answer was ever given to Joseph.
When Joseph arrived in Egypt he was auctioned off and sold to Potiphar. He now lived in a strange land with a foreign language. How often, do you think, Joseph must have prayed in sorrow for his freedom? But still there was no answer from God. All that Joseph had to help him was the natural circumstances of each day. There are no outward miracles displayed in the life of Joseph, for all intent and purpose everything followed a very natural and normal pattern. But Joseph kept his faith alive. In all his sorrow and distress he knew that God was with him. He was positive and faithful that the God of his fathers had not forgotten him. He continued to believe those promises that God had made to him. He waited for God to act.
Most of us are familiar with how Joseph’s troubles became worse with the pressures that Potiphar’s wife placed on him. I have no doubt this was a great trial and temptation to him, as Joseph had no wife of his own. But Scripture make it clear he was able to withstand this temptation of the flesh. Genesis 39, tells us that Joseph stated; “How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” He had not forgotten what was expected of him by his God. To anyone unfamiliar with the story of Joseph’s life, you might think that with all this faith, surely God would now deliver Joseph from his trials. But as we know, this was not the case. The time was not right for God to intervene on Joseph’s behalf. Joseph was now thrown into prison.
Again, we can look to the Psalms for comments concerning Joseph which read, “He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant; Whose feet they hurt with fetters: he was laid in iron: Until the time that his word came: the word of the Lord tried him” (Psa 105:17-19). In the first part of verse 19 it said, “Until the time that his word came:” Whose word? God’s word. Until the time when God said the time was right for Joseph. Joseph waited for God and God delivered him. We know that Joseph went on to become second in Egypt, second only to Pharaoh. Life can be like this for us brothers and sisters. We can have trials and difficulties springing up very naturally in our lives, or at least they appear very naturally. We may pray and seem to get no answer to our prayers. We may even begin to think that we are praying wrong or that we are praying for the wrong thing. But what we are really doing is learning to wait. Learning to do that thing that is so difficult at times for me.
Learning to be patient. Learning to wait and lean on God, who will in his time provide us with an answer. Maybe the answer will not come today or even tomorrow, but if we keep waiting for God faithfully, he will provide the answer or best course of action for us.
While Joseph was in Egypt, a grieving father was heartbroken in the land of Canaan. He was mourning the son he loved. God had told Jacob, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” What a trial for Jacob, all those years of mourning for Joseph.
It would have been easy for God to send an angel to tell Jacob that everything was in control, and in control by God. He could have told him that Joseph was alive and safe. Jacob must have prayed often about his son. In his time God did give Jacob an answer, but until there came a famine in Canaan, Jacob had to wait.
This is the way life will be for us. This is the type of experiences needed to develop the new person in each of us to be like Christ Jesus. Faith must be tried and developed to become the true gold that it is. We all have our problems. We may sometimes feel cut off or desolate. We might even feel a little like we are not getting through to God. The times of our trials may require that this pressure, whatever it may be, must remain with us for a short time or a long time, but in the end God will reward our faithfulness and extend to us his graciousness.
As Jacob’s life was now unfolding in Egypt, he told Pharaoh, “Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been” (Gen 47:9). Years later when he had had time to consider his life and God’s dealing with him, Jacob saw things differently. In his last days he called for Joseph’s sons to bless them. We read:
“And he blessed Joseph, and said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my lifelong unto this day, The angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads: and let my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth” (Gen 48:15-16).
We can’t really expect things to be much different for us, can we? We must always remember we cannot expect answers to our problems overnight. They might be answered overnight, but we cannot expect it. What we must remember is that we must wait on the LORD and His time to answer us. God has recorded these experiences for us. Why? So, we can see how life was and is and how God wants us to face it.
David
Let us consider another of God’s servants who had to wait. This time to wait for punishment and not for comfort. David who was a man of strong faith even very early in his life. Who else could have faced the challenge of Goliath as David did? Not to mention the bear and lion. To David God promised great things. He was promised the throne and glory over Israel. God’s promise was closer at hand when David went into the king’s service. But this was not the appointed time because within a very short time, David was an outlaw. On the run, hunted by the king, his father-in-law. David could have thought, where now is God’s promise, where now is His care for me? But as we know David did not feel that way. For seven long years he fled from the hand of Saul. But the time came when God lifted the pressure from David and kept His promise. The kingdom was in David’s hands and it grew in strength. And then the pressure was on again. There was a battle, one of many in David’s life. But to this battle David didn’t go, and we know too the sad and bitter outcome of that battle.
It could have been avoided. God could have caused David not to go up on his housetop or he could have arranged Bathsheba’s circumstances, so that she was not bathing at just that time. But he allowed the events to take there course. The sometimes sad results of the free will God has given us. God tells David of his punishment.
“Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give then unto thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun. For thou didst it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun” (2Sam 12:11-12).
For many years David waited under the knowledge of this punishment, that he knew God would carry out, but not knowing when. Then came the punishment, the events seemed almost natural, through Amnon and Tamar. Then the murder of Amnon by Absalom was followed by Absalom’s attempt to take control of the kingdom and to kill his father. David’s love for his son Absalom can be seen in the last verse of 2 Samuel 18, when David had been told of the death of his rebellious son.
“And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he wept, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would to God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!” (2Sam18:33).
David I am sure felt the guilt of his transgressions long ago.
Some of us may have experienced the torment of heart, the nights of sorrow and sadness, anguish and desolation such as these that David experienced. We know that this is how life really is. We can feel crushed under the pressures of circumstance until we can barely stand it, just as David felt. But there is a reason for it. As hard as it may appear or feel, it can be and often is part of our development. It can be God’s way of helping us, forming us like David, to be brethren after God’s own heart as long as we keep faith and wait upon our God. David expresses the attitude that the experiences he encountered was designed to produce.
“And the king said unto Zadok, ‘Carry back the ark of God into the city: if I shall find favour in the eyes of the Lord, he will bring me again and show me both it and his habitation: But if he thus say, I have no delight in thee; behold here am I, let him do to me as seemeth good unto him’ ” (2Sam 15:25-26).
Here God found the real David, the real man. David came to realize that he just did not count, unless it was God who did the counting. That is a lesson, sometimes hard, that we all must learn and remember.
Judas
There is one last example, of someone who did not wait for God to do the counting. Judas acted for whatever reason: greed, or else a desire to force Jesus to bring about the establishment of the Kingdom of God. Judas was not prepared or willing to wait for what God wanted. So, like so many, he took matters into his own hands. We all know the results. Our Savior died once, but now lives forever. Judas lost his life also, but he also lost any hope of a future life with Christ. This might be our lot also, if we are unable to wait in faith upon the Lord.
Ourselves
Sometimes we think the pressures of this life are more than we can bear. But never let us forget, God has promised he would never put more on us than we can stand. And if we ever do begin to feel that we have more of a trial or pressure on us than we can stand, just remember what Job withstood: The loss of his children, the loss of his livestock, his property, his money and even his health. But never, never did he lose his faith in God. And he waited for God’s answer. Who here will ever be tried as Job was, hopefully none of us, but if God does, he will stand by us and see us through those times and trials. All he asks of us is to keep faith in him and wait for his counsel.
For some of us pressure is a constant everyday thing, while for others it is an on-again, off-again experience. No two trials are ever the same. Each trial we encounter requires us to come closer to our God, and to continually wait on his guidance and counseling. But one thing is certain: at different times in our lives we all come under the pressure of trials. This is true whether it be a trial that affects all of us as a family, or each of individually. The special symbols of the Lord Jesus Christ are the bread and the wine. We pass them from hand to hand in remembrance of his sacrifice. When we are here or when we are away, let us always be mindful that we are awaiting his return. We must remember that he has given us certain task and responsibilities, one of which is to be waiting and watching for his return. We are being prepared now for an existence in eternity, for everlasting fellowship with Christ, with the Creator of Heaven and Earth, and with His holy angels. We are being prepared for a life which this world has no conception, nor does it have words to describe it. Finally, let me leave you with two thoughts: To wait patiently in all your trials. And always remember, “If God be for us who can be against us.” Let us always look for and wait for God’s counsel.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One