The Christian's Patience
“I waited patiently for the Lord.” — Psalm xli.
Patience, as it is not apathy, is not sluggishness, or indolence. There are circumstances which justify haste. For example, we do not walk, but rush out of a house on fire, or falling, a sudden ruin. If any one has been poisoned, or, having burst a blood-vessel, is bleeding to death, we do not go, we run for a physician; and, hardly taking time to tell our story, hurry him off to the scene of danger. Such impatience, if so it can be called, is even more required in the interests of the soul than of the body. Its case is far more urgent; its danger is very much greater: hours here may involve the loss of eternity — nay one moment too late, may be for ever too late.
Who waits most patiently on the Lord may be placed in circumstances where the more he believes he will be the busier; and the more he hopes, the more will he hurry. Woke at dead of night by a loud knocking at the door, and by Lot, with terror in his face, and quick speech on his tongue, crying, “Up; get ye out of this place; for the Lord will destroy thia city,” his sons-in-law lay still, and laughed the old man to scorn; thinking him mad — wrong in the head. At
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any rate, they would wait a little; it would be time enough to seek safety when they saw danger; and thus, like many, they perished through unbelief. So almost did Lot; like many also, better at giving advice than taking it; administering wise counsel than practising it. And he had perished, but that the angels hurried the lingerer out of the city, crying, as God does to all sinners in the way of destruction, and to all saints in the way of temptation, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee.
What a contrast to Lot with his defective faith and lingering steps, David, that day when he went to meet Goliath? Never were two antagonists more unequally matched — the one a giant, the other a mere youth; the one accustomed to war, and crowned with its bloody laurels, the other familiar only with the quiet scenes of pastoral life; the one sheathed from head to heel in polished mail, the other apparelled in a shepherd’s dress; the one shaking a spear shafted like a weaver’s beam to send it whistling through the air, and stake its victim to the ground, the other with no weapon more formidable than a few smooth stones and a sling. Yet, and just because he had faith in God, David was in a sense impatient. Eager for battle, burning to redeem God’s honour and wipe out this disgrace from the hosts of Israel, when the giant, incensed at what he took to be the stripling’s insolence, stalked forth, David, we are told, ran to meet him.
Patient waiting for the Lord is quite consistent with boldness in design, and energy and promptitude in action; and only inconsistent with those unbelieving, impetuous, ungovernable, headlong, headstrong pas sions which breed impatience, and lead people to run before providence instead of waiting on it. Of this let me give you two examples.
I. By contrast illustrate what it is to wait on the Lord.
1. Look at the conduct of Abraham.
On his leaving Ur of the Chaldeans to wander a pilgrim in the land of Canaan, God had promised that he should become the father of a great nation. “Lift up thine eyes,” he said to him one day, “and look northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward.” And when Abraham had done it, swept the wide horizon from the hills of Moab beyond Jordan to the sea that lies gleaming in the bay of Carmel, and from the snows of Lebanon to the sands of the burning desert, “All the land,” said the Lord, “thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed after thee; and I will make thy seel as the dust of the earth, so that if a maa can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered: Arise and walk through the land, I will give it unto thee.” Well, years elapse after that. Time rolls on, and effaces Sarah’s beauty; writing wrinkles on both their brows. Old age has stolen on them, and their bed is childless. Where now the hope of seed like the dust of the earth? It is the privilege of faith to hope against hope. Abraham should have believed that he who formed a child in the Virgin’s womb, and who, as Jesus said, could of the stones of the street raise up children to Abraham, would cause fruit to grow on the withered tree; and sooner change the ordinary course of nature than fail of his word. But, at Sarah’s suggestion, he formed an unhallowed alliance with an Egyq’)tian; thereby sowing dissension in his house, and setting an example to his descendants which the best of them were too prone to follow. Though the father of the faithful, in this he ran before providence, not waiting patiently on the Lord.
2. Look at the conduct of Rebekah.
“Two nations,” said God to her, “are in thy womb; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.” She gave birth to twins; and the boys grew up. Esau, the elder of the two, became his father’s, and Jacob his mother’s, favourite. She had God’s promise that her favourite should inherit the blessing, and by the priority it gave, become the head of his father’s house. But Rebekah could not see how this was to be. For Esau was his father’s best-loved son. It was for him the blind man groped; it was the manly voice and bounding step of the hunter lad, he listened for, and liked best to hear. The blinder and weaker the old man grows, he clings the more to Esau; and the longer the current of his deep love runs, it cuts a deeper channel in his heart. How is Jacob to get the blessing? Forgetting that, though we cannot bend old trees like saplings, God can, and that he turns the hearts of men as he turneth the rivers of water, Rebekah becomes impatient; and taking steps to anticipate God’s time, lays her hand on the wheel of providence. Rash woman, she will hurry on the event. Dressing up her favourite like Esau, putting a lie into his mouth, teach’ ing him how to play the hypocrite, she sends Jacob in to wait on his poor old father; and that tent, where the blind man sat, became the scene of a crime which blasted for ever their domestic peace; dogged the heels of Jacob to his grave; left a deep stain on the good man’s memory; planted sharp thorns in his pillow; and though forgiven of God, was terribly avenged that day when his own sons played him as foul a trick, and with the rent, bloody robe of Joseph before his eyes, he cried, “I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning.” Rebekah and he ran before providence; they did not wait patiently on the Lord.
II. Look at David’s own example of waiting on the Lord.
It was impatience, springing from unbelief, which lost Saul his kingdom. A merchant in times of bad trade, or other trying circumstances, instead of trusting in God to bring him through his difficulties, or sustain him under them, has recourse to fraud; or a poor man, instead of trusting providence with the supply of his wants, and committing his children to the care of him who hears the young ravens cry, hard-pinched and pressed, puts out his hand to steal. And so, hard pressed by the Philistines, and wearied waiting for Samuel’s return, that he might offer sacrifice, and take counsel of God, Saul did a forbidden thing. He assumed to himself the priestly office which, king as he was, he had no right or authority to do — in his impatience thus sinning against the Lord. The smoke of tLe- profane sacrifice offered by this rash, impetuous man, is still floating in a dun cloud up to heaven when the Prophet appears — and appears to say, as he points to the ashes and the altar, “Thou hast done foolishly: now thy kingdom shall not continue” Unhappy and unfortunate man! Saul, like many others who do not wait patiently on the Lord, in seeking to save his fortune, took the way to lose it.
Was he tempted to yield to impatience; how much more, and oftener, was his illustrious successor? On that day David was sent for and called from the flock to meet Samuel in his father’s house, and wondering what they wanted with a lad like him, came in, shepnerd’s crook and pipe in hand, most unlike a future King, to receive on bended knee the royal and -sacred oil from the prophet’s hand, he knew that he was to be king. And though, when a fugitive for life, a beggar for bread, an exile from country, hunted like a wild beast from morass to mountain, from the crags to the caves in their bowels, his hope of ever reaching the throne seemed as faint as that of a vessel of ever reaching land that lies dismasted and waterlogged, a floating hulk with a starving crew, on the waves of a shoreless sea, yet David hoped in the Lord; and patiently waited God’s wny to put him in possession of the kingdom. Twice at least was Saul within his reach. Twice, when one blow of his hand would have settled the controversy, precipitated the event, and put him in immediate possession of the crown, he restrained himself — possessing his soul in patience. In taat dark cave, where Saul little knew who stood beside him, and could touch him, and could have killed him at a stroke; and in that field also where the king slept, little dreaming who stood over him, and had only to give the sign, and the spear of Abishai, already raised, pinned him to the ground, David could say in truth, “I waited patiently for the Lord.” Amply rewarded for years of enduring faith and hope, when the long looked-for day came that the nation called him to the throne, in him patience had her perfect work.
III. Consider how we are patiently to wait on God.
1. We are to wait patiently on providence in the common affairs of life.
To the neglect of this may be attributed not a few of the failures that happen in business. People are impatient to get on in life; to acquire a competency; to be rich. The slow but sure methods by which all great things are accomplished in the ordinary course of providence are too slow for them; so they engage in rash and reckless schemes — building up a business with “untempered mortar,” and without a solid foundation of capital. The result is, that when some shock, like an earthquake, shakes the commercial world, their fortunes topple over to bury the architect in their ruins.
I do not say that we are to neglect opportunities of rising in the world, and improving our circumstances. No. “The hand of the diligent maketh rich;” and riches are good if they come in an honest and honourable way, giving us power to do good, to glorify God, to serve Jesus, and to bless humanity. Not that I respect a man merely because he U rich — not unless he make a noble and pious use of riches. But, so far from encouraging indolence, religion fits and strengthens us for the ordinary business of life; and teaches us that God is honoured as well by one in the humblest employment, whose work is well done, as by others who may fill the most exalted stations; just as he is glorified by a glow-worm’s lamp, as by a blazing sun, by the golden crocus or silver snow-drop, as by the tallest, gaudiest, proudest flowers of the garden.
We are to take, and do our part in life’s common affairs. But the gospel which calls us to that, though it does not allow us to cast our work on God, encourages us to cast its cares on him. Cast thy burden on the Lord, for he will sustain it; and in ordinary circumstances it is not the work that is the burden. On the contrary, work is a blessing. The “burden,’^ in other words the curse, of Sodom was “fumess of bread and abundance of idleness” — and actint on the elements of our depraved nature, like fire on gunpowder, that were enough to make a Sodom, or a Hell of any country under the sun. Be it what it mlj, God says, “Cast thy burden on the Lord and he will sustain it” — “Commit thy ways unto the Lord; trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass.” Waiting on him thus, we shall be armed with patience; and find faith in his providence to be a sevenfold shield against the cares that are the bane of other men’s lives, and against temptations that lead many into sin.
For, between a worldling torn with, anxieties, and tossed with fears, and a child of God who waits on providence, believing that God reigneth over all, there is such difference as there is between a brawling, foaming, roaring torrent that, rushing along its rugged channel, leaps with mad haste from crag to crag, and the placid river that, with heaven in its bosom, and beauty flowering on its banks, pursues a noiseless, peaceful, useful course onward to its parent sea. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man; it is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes; for they that trust in the Lord shall be as mount Sion which cannot be moved. Wait thou on the Lord, and be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord.
2. We are to wait patiently on God under the trials of life.
“Is not this David, the king of the land? Did they not sing one to another of him in dances, saying, Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands.” Fame, like the sunshine which brings clouds of stinging insects from every foul ditch and rotting swamp, breeds envy, and sometimes also brings danger with it. So David found when these words of the men of Gath fell on his startled ear. There, under Achish its king, he had sought protection from Saul, and was much like the man in prophecy who fled from a bear, and a lion met him; leaned on a wall, and a serpent Btung him. He had gone down into the den of the very lioness that he had robbed of her cub; for Goliath, who had fallen before his sling, had been the pride of Gath; her greatest and most famous son. Was this an act of raslmess or of faith? If the latter, bravely as David had put out to sea, when the storm comes, and the waves rise, and run mountains high, and he loses sight of God at the helm, how he trembles! He who went forth so magnanimously against Goliath, turns pale with fear before those who neither had the giant 6 stature, nor the giant’s strength. Where is now the man, whose faith rising with the trial, once said, He that delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine! Where is the man who said. Though an host should encamp against me, yet will I not fear! There he is, letting his spittle fall on his beard, scrabbling on the doors of the gate, playing the madman; passing himself off for a fool! Was this a way for a man of God to seek safety in danger? He took his own way of getting out of the trial rather than wait patiently for God to deliver him; and what a contrast to his former self, or to the calm and lofty bearing of Daniel when he went down, like a hero, into the den of lions. He trusted in the Lord — in the time of trial he waited on his God; and was alive next day to send up this grand answer to the anxious king, My God hath sent his angel, and shut the lions’ mouths that they have not hurt me.
And who waits on God piously, prayerfully, patiently in their trials, shall have the same tale to tell; the same experience — he will shut the lions’ mouths, that they shall not hurt them. In the trials he sends or permits, God afflicts not willingly; and has no more pleasme in seeing his people suffer than a father in the tears of the boy he corrects; than a kind surgeon with bloody knife in his hand but tenderness in his heart, in his patient’s groans. Believe that! And though to be brought to poverty, to suffer days of languor and wakeful nights, to sit weeping amid the ruins of your fondest domestic hopes, or shed tears of less bitter sorrow on the graves of your dead is not joyous but grievous — very grievous, yet believe that; Oh see God’s hand in every thing, and believe that all things shall work together for your good, and you will learn to thank him for the bitter as well as for the sweet; for your crosses as well as for your comforts; for medicine as for meat; for the withering, biting, winter frosts that kill the weeds as for the dewy nights and sunny days that ripen the fields of corn. The young lions may lack and suffer hunger, but they that wait on the Lord shall want no good thing. Who is among you that feareth the Lord, and obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God.
3. We are to wait patiently on God to complete our sanctification. We cannot be too earnest, too diligent to be sanctified; we cannot be too importunate, but we may be too impatient. Yielding to impatience, we may be cast down, and ready to abandon that hope which, inspiring courage into the soldier, contributes so much to win the fight; which sustains the workman under his toiL the sailor on his watch, the mother by the sick bed, the most wretched in their misery, and in spiritual matters is both a prelude and a means of success. Consider that all great works are of slow progress; all God’s works, with exceptional cases, both in nature and grace, certainly are so. So when we lapse into sin, fall back, make little perceptible progress, we should be grieved and sorry; but not cast down — as if God had abandoned either us, or his work of grace in our hearts. To the devil standing with his foot on US, we are not to yield ourselves captive, but say. Rejoice not over me, 0 mine enemy, for when I fall I shall rise again; and to our souls, we are to say with David, Why art thou cast down my soul, why is my spirit disquieted within me? hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God. Why should the work of the Holy Spirit differ from God’s other works? Minutes elapse between the dawn, and the day; days elapse between the opening bud, and the full blown flower; months elapse between spring’s green blade, and autumn’s golden corn; years elapse between feeble infancy, and stalwart manhood; centuries elapsed between the hope begotten in the heart of Eve, and the child born of Mary’s womb; and long ages elapsed between the period when God laid the foundations of this world, and that when, passing up through many stages, it was completed, and, man standing on the apex of the mighty pyramid, God looked on all the works of his hands, and pronounced them to be very good. Progress in sanctification may, in fact, be going on when you do not see it; perhaps when it seems going back. Take comfort! “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation.” The river may appear flowing away from the sea, when, but turning round the base of some opposing hill, it is pursuing an onward course. The ship may appear to be standing away from the harbour, when, beating up in the face of adverse winds, she is only stretching off on the other tack, and at every tack making progress shoreward, though to others than seamen she seems to lose it. God works in strange, mysterious, silent, unnoticed ways. Silently and slowly the water rises that shall one day on a sudden burst the dyke, and sweep away the obstacles that bar its onward path. Unseen, and unnoticed the rains wash away the ground below the stone that shall one day, on a sudden leap from its seat, and roll to the bottom of the hill. Quietly, and slowly the root grows in the fissure that shall one day on a sudden split the rock, and reveal its long-continued, silent, secret, but mighty power. In a deep, growing sense of the evil of sin, produced perhaps by our very fall; in deeper humility, in a low view of ourselves, in greater self-abasement; in a more entire dependence on Christ for righteousness, and on the Holy Spirit for the work of grace; in feelings that fill us with pain and regret, and godly sorrow, making us eat our passover with bitter herbs, the work of sanctification may be going on. Like a patient who, through the power of returning life, begins to feel and complain of his pains, when we think we are growing worse we may actually be growing better, and making no little progress when we seem to be making none. Be not cast down! Progression is the ordinary law of God’s government. It is star by star that the hosts of night march out
; it is minute by minute that morn’s grey dawn brightens up into perfect day; it is ring by ring that the oak grows into the monarch of the forest; it is inch by inch, and foot by foot that the tide, which bears navies on its bosom, comes creeping in on the shore. And, not like justification an act, our sanctification being a work of God’s free grace, is under the same law of progress. More or less rapid, it is a thing of steps and stages. Therefore, while praying earnestly, and working diligently, live hopefully and wait patiently. He will perfect that which concerneth us; and one day bring forth the headstone with “shoutings of grace, grace unto it,” ill &kxhUm’» §tU,