I speak here of people like the prophets, or men of God down through the ages.
Let's look at Abraham. He knew that he was going to have a child. God promised him that. But how long would he have to wait for the fulfilment of the promise?
When Abraham was 75 years old God told him that his descendants would have the land.
Gen 12:4 So Abram departed as the LORD had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.
Gen 12:7 Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, "To your descendants I will give this land." And there he built an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him.
When Abraham had no child from Sarah, she said to Abraham to take Hagar and perhaps he would have a child through her.
Gen 16:2 So Sarai said to Abram, "See now, the LORD has restrained me from bearing children. Please, go in to my maid; perhaps I shall obtain children by her." And Abram heeded the voice of Sarai.
Gen 16:16 Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.
Abraham and Sarah had waited 10 years since God had told Abraham his
descendants would have the land. These must have been
very long and hard
years, as Abraham and Sarah were getting older, and still no
sign of Sarah
becoming pregnant.
When Abraham was 99 the Lord appeared to him and Sarah and
told them they would
have a son, this seemed impossible to Abraham and Sarah, and
Abraham laughed,
and so did Sarah.
Gen
17:17 Then
Abraham fell on his face and
laughed, and said in his heart, "Shall a child be born to a man who is one hundred years old? And shall
Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a
child?"
Gen
18:12 Therefore
Sarah laughed within
herself, saying, "After I have grown old, shall I have
pleasure, my lord
being old also?"
God said is anything too hard for the Lord.
Gen
18:14 Is
anything too hard for the LORD?
At the appointed time I will return to you, according to the
time of life, and
Sarah shall have a son."
Notice in the above scripture, the words at the appointed
time, this is
very interesting and we need to note, that God has a time
appointed when He
will do certain things, in this case it was when He decided to
act on behalf of
Sarah and allow her to become pregnant.
He could have acted 25 years earlier, but He wanted to see how
Sarah and
Abraham acted and if they would wait patiently on the Lord.
Isaac was born to Abraham and Sarah when Abraham was 100 years
old and
Sarah was 90 years old.
Gen
21:5 Now
Abraham was one hundred years
old when his son Isaac was born to him.
It had been 25 years since God had first spoken to Abraham,
about having
a child.
This may seem as nothing to us, but put yourself in their
shoes, both were way
beyond the years of child bearing, Abraham was 75 years old
and Sarah 65 years
old, at the time God first spoke to him. If you know anyone of
this age, how
hopeless it would seem for them to have a child. This is
what both
Abraham and Sarah had to endure, we need to try to put
ourselves in their
position and see how hard it must have been for them.
God was testing
them. He wanted to see if they would wait on God.
Sometimes this is
an extremely hard test. In this case it was very very
difficult.
God wants us to exercise faith in Him, and not to use our own
human reasoning,
we must just accept that God will do as He has promised and
wait, no matter how
long that takes.
Now let's
look at David.
God told Samuel that one of the sons of Jesse will be king.
1Sa 16:1
Now the LORD said to Samuel, "How long
will you mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from
reigning over Israel?
Fill your horn with oil, and go; I am sending you to Jesse
the Bethlehemite.
For I have provided Myself a king among his sons."
Samuel invited Jesse and his sons to the sacrifice.
1Sa
16:5 And he
said, "Peaceably; I
have come to sacrifice to the LORD. Sanctify yourselves, and
come with me to
the sacrifice." Then he consecrated Jesse and his sons, and
invited them
to the sacrifice.
However, Samuel was looking at the lad's outward appearance
and not on
their hearts.
1Sa
16:7 But the
LORD said to Samuel,
"Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature,
because I have
refused him. For the
LORD does
not see as
man sees; for man
looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the
heart."
David was not even invited to the sacrifice, he had to tend
the sheep.
1Sa
16:11 And
Samuel said to Jesse,
"Are all the young men here?" Then he said, "There remains
yet
the youngest, and there he is, keeping the sheep." And
Samuel said to
Jesse, "Send and bring him. For we will not sit down till he
comes
here."
When David was anointed king he must have been a very young
man, possibly
about 17 years old.
1Sa
16:12 So he
sent and brought him in. Now
he was
ruddy, with bright eyes,
and good-looking. And the LORD said, "Arise, anoint him; for
this is the
one!"
This scripture is after David was anointed king, and he was a
youth.
1Sa
17:33 And Saul
said to David, "You
are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with
him; for you are
a youth, and he a man of war from
his youth."
Notice the attitude that David had, he knew he was going to be
king one
day, and yet he remained humble, even when he was going to
marry the King's
daughter.
1Sa
18:18 So David
said to Saul, "Who am
I, and what is
my life or my father's family in Israel, that I should be son-in-law
to the king?"
Saul had a very bad attitude towards David as the following
scripture
shows, and it must have been very difficult for David to live
with his
attitude.
1Sa
18:29 and Saul
was still more afraid of
David. So Saul became David's enemy continually.
David spent a great deal of time on the run from Saul.
1Sa
21:10 Then
David arose and fled that day
from before Saul, and went to Achish the king of Gath.
David
had no desire to harm Saul, even though Saul wanted to kill
David, he respected
the office.
1Sa
26:9 But David
said to Abishai, "Do
not destroy him; for who
can stretch out his
hand against the LORD's
anointed, and be guiltless?"
2Sa
1:14 So David
said to him, "How was
it you were not afraid to put forth your hand to destroy the
LORD's anointed?"
David patiently waited for his time to come when he would be
king, he
knew this would happen one day, he had faith, and trusted God
to bring it about
when God decided it was the appointed time for him to become
king.
David had to wait more than 10 years after he was anointed
king before he began
to reign.
David did not try to take these things into his own hands and
make them happen
when he wanted them to.
2Sa 5:4 David was
thirty years old when he began to reign, and
he reigned forty years.
No wonder God loved David, and said this wonderful legacy
about him.
Act
13:22 And when
He had removed him, He
raised up for them David as king, to whom also He gave
testimony and said, 'I
HAVE FOUND DAVID THE SON OF JESSE, A MAN AFTER MY OWN HEART,
WHO WILL DO ALL MY
WILL.'
MOSES
This next account about Moses covers a time which is little
known by
most, and may be new knowledge to most readers of the bible.
At this time Moses was living in Egypt. He was 40 years old at
the
time.
Act
7:23 "Now when
he was forty years
old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the
children of Israel.
Act
7:24 And seeing
one of them
suffer wrong, he defended and
avenged him who was oppressed, and struck down the Egyptian.
Now notice the following verse, this is very interesting, why
would Moses
have thought that the Israelites should have understood that
God was going to
use him, to deliver them from Egypt?
The reason for this is that God had already spoken to Moses
about this, and
told him, that He was going to bring the Israelites out of
captivity.
Act
7:25 For he
supposed that his brethren
would have understood that God would deliver them by his
hand, but they did not
understand.
The next verse shows that God had indeed spoken to Moses
beforehand.
Moses said that he was not good at speaking, neither now nor
since God had
first spoken to him.
Exo
4:10 Then Moses
said to the LORD,
"O my Lord, I am
not
eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your
servant; but I am
slow of speech and slow of
tongue."
So now we come to the question how long was it from the time
God
initially spoke to Moses about the deliverance of the children
of Israel and the
time that God actually delivered them? How long was it
that Moses had to
live humbly with this knowledge that God was going to use him
to deliver the
nation of Israel?
Moses had to learn patience, remain humble, develop faith that
God would keep
His word to him regarding the Israelites, he had to make sure
he did not use
human reasoning and try to make it all happen when he wanted
to instead of
waiting for God to act, at the appointed time.
The following scripture shows that Moses had to wait 40 years
from the
time that God first spoke to him about the Israelites.
Act
7:30 "And when
forty years had
passed, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of
fire in a bush, in
the wilderness of Mount Sinai.
It would appear that Moses did wait patiently on the Lord.
JESUS
Now let's look at Jesus. He was very smart and learned
in God's
word at the tender age of 12.
Luk
2:42 And when
He was twelve years old,
they went up to Jerusalem
according to the custom of the feast.
Luk
2:47 And all
who heard Him were
astonished at His understanding and answers.
However, we do not read much about the life of Jesus until it
was time
for Him to start His ministry.
Notice the following scripture which shows that He had an
appointed time to
start His work.
Joh
2:4 Jesus said
to her, "Woman, what does your concern have to
do with Me? My
hour has not yet come."
So we see that Christ Himself had to wait until the time
appointed for
His ministry to start.
Another example of Christ waiting for the appointed time.
Joh
7:8 You go up to this feast. I am
not yet going up to this feast, for My time has not yet
fully come."
We need to be patient and wait for God, He is in charge.
He will
decide when things will happen…..not us.
What
happens if we don’t wait on the Lord?
Saul took matters into his own hands and did what he thought
was right
instead of waiting on God.
Saul had been told to kill everything and he said that he had
done this.
1Sa
15:13 Then
Samuel went to Saul, and Saul
said to him, "Blessed are
you of the LORD! I have performed the commandment of the
LORD."
Samuel heard the animals and asked what about these?
1Sa
15:14 But
Samuel said, "What then is
this bleating of the sheep in my
ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?"
Saul said that
the animals were for an offering.
1Sa
15:15 And Saul
said, "They have
brought them from the Amalekites; for the people spared the
best of the sheep
and the oxen, to sacrifice to the LORD your God; and the
rest we have utterly
destroyed."
When Saul was
humble he was anointed King, then that attitude changed.
1Sa 15:16
Then Samuel said to Saul, "Be quiet! And
I will tell you what the LORD said to me last night." And he
said to him,
"Speak on."
1Sa
15:17 So Samuel
said, "When you were
little in your own eyes, were
you not head of the tribes of Israel?
And did not the LORD anoint you king over Israel?
Saul's
instructions were clear, why did he disobey and seize the
spoil?
1Sa
15:18 Now the
LORD sent you on a
mission, and said, 'Go, and utterly destroy the sinners, the
Amalekites, and
fight against them until they are consumed.'
1Sa
15:19 Why then
did you not obey the
voice of the LORD? Why did you swoop down on the spoil, and
do evil in the
sight of the LORD?"
Saul replied that
he brought back Agag and the people took the spoil.
1Sa
15:20 And Saul
said to Samuel, "But
I have obeyed the voice of the LORD, and gone on the mission
on which the LORD
sent me, and brought back Agag king of Amalek; I have
utterly destroyed the
Amalekites.
1Sa
15:21 But the
people took of the
plunder, sheep and oxen, the best of the things which should
have been utterly
destroyed, to sacrifice to the LORD your God in Gilgal."
Samuel showed
Saul that to obey and listen, were to be desired over
sacrifice.
1Sa
15:22 So Samuel
said: "Has the LORD
as great
delight in burnt
offerings and sacrifices, As in obeying the voice of the
LORD? Behold, to obey
is better than sacrifice, And
to heed than the fat of rams.
Saul paid a huge
penalty, he was rejected as being king. Look
what God said about his rebellion.
1Sa
15:23 For
rebellion is as
the sin of witchcraft, And
stubbornness is as
iniquity and
idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He
also has rejected
you from being
king."
To wait on the
Lord is very important, we must not take matters into our own
hands, we must be
patient and obey and listen to all the instructions of the
Lord, our hearts and
motives must be pure in this regard. The penalties are
severe as shown
above.
We see that all
of God's chosen servants have had to wait and be patient, they
have been tested
to see if they will wait for God to act, or just take things
into their own
hands. We must wait on God, He knows best.
It
is a good test for us to wait, to develop
faith and patience and to trust in God, He will act at the
appointed time.
