Objection 10: I Have Sought the Lord, and Still He Delays Me

Object. 10. The last objection is this: “Sir, in this my affliction I have sought to the Lord for this and that mercy, and still God delays me, and puts me off: I have several times thought that mercy had been near, that deliverance had been at the door, but. now I see it is afar off, how then can I hold my peace? How can I be silent under such delays and disappointments?” To this objection I shall give you these answers:

1. The Lord doth not always time his answers to the swiftness of his people’s expectations; he that is the God of our mercies, is the Lord of our times; God hath delayed long his dearest saints; times belonging to him as well as issue. “0 Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear? even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save!” Hab. i. 2. “Behold, I cry out of violence, but I have no answer; I cry aloud, but there is no judgment,” Job xix. 7. “I am weary of crying, my throat is dried; mine eyes fail while I wait for my God,” Ps. lxix. 3. “Make no tarrying, O my God,” Ps. xl. 17. Though God had promised him a crown, a kingdom, yet he puts him off from day to day; and for all his haste, he must stay for it till the set time is come. Paul was delayed so long till he even despaired of life, and had the sentence of death in himself, 2 Cor. i. 8, 9. And Joseph was delayed so long till the irons entered into his soul, Ps. cv. 17 — 19. So he delayed long the giving in of comfort to Mr. Glover, though he had sought him frequently, earnestly, and denied himself to the death for Christ. Augustine being under convictions, a shower of tears came from him, and, casting himself on the ground under a fig-tree, he cries out, u O Lord! how long? how long shall I say, To-morrow, to-morrow? why not to-day, Lord, why not to-day?” God doth not always make haste to hear and save his dearest children; and therefore hold thy peace, he deals no worse with thee, than he hath done by his dearest jewels. 2. Though the Lord doth defer and delay you for a time, yet he will come, and mercy and deliverance shall certainly come; he will not always forget the cry of the poor. “For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry,” Heb. x. 37. “The vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie; though it tarry, wait for it,” Hab. ii. 3. God will come, and mercy will come; though for the present thy sun be set, and thy God seems to neglect thee, yet thy sun will rise again, and thy God will answer all thy prayers, and supply all thy necessities. u Thou which hast shewed me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth. Thou shalt increase my greatness, and comfort me on every side,” Ps. lxxi. 20, 21. 3. Though God do delay thee, yet he doth not forget thee; he remembers thee still; thou art still in his eye, Isa. xlix. 14 — 16, and always upon his heart, Jer. xxxi. 20. He can as soon forget himself, as forget his people, Ps. lxxvii. 9, 10. The bride shall sooner forget her ornaments, and the mother shall sooner forget her sucking child, Isa. liv. 7 — 10, and the wife shall sooner forget her husband, Isa. lxii. 3 — 5, than the Lord shall forget his people. God always knows and remembers his people by name, Gen. viii. 1; xix. 29; and xxxii. 28. Therefore be silent, hold thy peace; thy God hath not forgotten thee, though for the present he hath delayed thee.

4. God’s time is always the best time; God always takes the best and fittest season to do us good. “Thus “saith the Lord, In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee,” Isa. xlix, 8. I could have heard thee before, and have helped thee before, but I have taken the most acceptable time to do both. To set God his time is to limit him, Ps. lxxviii. 41. It is to exalt ourselves above him, as if we were wiser than God; though we are not wise enough to improve the times and seasons which God hath set us to serve and honor him in, yet we are apt to think that we are wise enough to set God his time, when to hear, and when to save, and when to deliver. To circumscribe God to our time, and to make ourselves lords of time, what is this but to divest God of his royalty and sovereignty of appointing times? It is but just and equal, that that God who hath made time, and who hath the sole power to appoint and dispose of time, should take his own time to do his people good. We are many times capricious, preposterous, and hasty, and now we must have mercy or we die, deliverance, or we are undone; but our impatience will never help us to a mercy one hour, one moment, before the time that God hath set. God will always take the best time to hand out mercies to his people: there is no mercy so fair, so ripe, so lovely, so beautiful, as that which God gives out in his own time, therefore hold thy peace; though God delays thee, yet be silent, for there is no possibility of taking a mercy out of God’s hand, till the mercy be ripe for us, and we ripe for the mercy, Eccl. iii. 11.

5. The Lord, in this life, will certainly recompense, and make his children amends for all the delays and put-offs that he exerciseth them with in this world; as he did Abraham, in giving him such a son as Isaac was, and Hannah, in giving her a Samuel. He delayed Joseph long, but at length he changed his iron fetters into chains of gold, his rags into royal robes, his stocks into a chariot, his prison into a palace, his bed of thorns into a bed of down, his reproach into honor, and his thirty years of suffering into eighty years of reigning in much grandeur and glory. So God delayed David long, but, when his suffering hours were out, he was anointed, the crown of Israel was set upon his head, and he was made very victorious, very famous and glorious, for forty years together. Well, christians, God will certainly pay you interest upon interest, for all the delays that you meet with, and therefore hold your peace.

Lastly, The Lord never delays the giving in of this mercy, or that deliverance, or the other favor, but upon great and weighty reasons, and therefore hold thy peace.