Series: Waiting on the Lord
When God Waits
Isaiah 30:18
We've talked a lot lately about how we wait on the Lord, but did you know that God also waits?
July 3, 2023
Isaiah 30:18
We've talked a lot lately about how we wait on the Lord, but did you know that God also waits?
July 3, 2023
“. . . His compassions fail not. They are new every morning: Great is thy faithfulness.” “. . . this God is our God forever and ever.”
Hi, this is Cynthia Dowling, and we have seen why it's important to wait on the Lord and what to do while waiting on the Lord, but did you know that God waits?
“. . . His compassions fail not. They are new every morning: Great is thy faithfulness.” “. . . this God is our God forever and ever.”
Hi, this is Cynthia Dowling, and we have seen why it's important to wait on the Lord and what to do while waiting on the Lord, but did you know that God waits? Really? Why would God wait and what would He be waiting for? He can do anything with His power, He knows everything that's going on, and He has all the wisdom to know the best thing to do at any given time. Why should God wait? Let's see what God says in Isaiah 30:18, “And therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the LORD is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him.” Wow! God waits to have mercy on us, to be gracious to us, and in the process, He is exalted. What could be better? Well, God not only holds off His judgment with mercy, but He also actually blesses us for waiting on him! Amazing! Let's look into God's Word to see some instances when God waits.
All the way back in the third chapter of the book of Genesis we find that God waited to send His Son. He promised Adam and Eve to send a Savior to the world after they had sinned. And from that time on God's people were waiting, right along with God, for His Son to come. Hebrews 11 tells us that these Old Testament believers waited by faith in God's promise, believing that God would keep His Word to send a Savior to the world. So, then God waited for just the right time as He states in Galatians 4, “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son . . ..” Do you mean that God waited at least 4,000 years to send His Son? Yes, God is very patient. And just as Old Testament believers waited by faith for His first coming, we wait by faith for His promised return, believing that He always waits for the best possible time even with His infinite power, knowledge, and wisdom. So, God always waits for just the right time; why else does God wait? We find another reason God waits in the book of James. God says that He waits to send judgment with long patience “for the precious fruit of the earth.” Let’s go back to the book of Genesis to find some “precious fruit.” In Genesis 15, God gives Abraham a vision of the future, and foretells that Abraham’s descendants would be strangers for 400 years in a different land, which we now know was Egypt; then God would bring the fourth generation of Abraham’s descendants out of Egypt and back to the land that God had promised Abraham. God then adds, “. . . for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.” Who are the Amorites? The Amorites are the people that lived in the land before Abraham came, Abraham’s friends and acquaintances, those he did business with, and these Amorites knew of Abraham’s faith. So, while God was growing Abraham’s family in the promised land and later when God was turning the patriarchs’ family of Israelites into a prepared nation in Egypt, God was having mercy on the Amorites. All that time Abraham’s friends and their descendants could choose to believe the witness of these patriarchs, and very likely some of them truly believed God's promises as Abraham did. Their witness may have even continued for a while through some of their descendants, but when the Israelites returned 400 years after Jacob left for Egypt, the iniquity of the Amorites was full. But before God’s judgment fell, He had some “precious fruit” to save.
Who could that be? Interestingly, it may be that the last family of Amorites to have faith in God’s promise to Abraham was the family of Rahab in Jericho. Listen to the first thing that Rahab said to the two Israelite spies when they sheltered in her house, “I know that the LORD hath given you the land,” What amazing faith! What else did she say? “and that your terror is fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you. For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red sea for you, when ye came out of Egypt; and what ye did unto the two kings of the Amorites, that were on the other side Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom ye utterly destroyed. And as soon as we had heard these things, our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more courage in any man, because of you: for the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.”
Wow! Not only did Rahab believe that God had given the Israelites her land, but also that He decimated Egypt with His judgments, dried up the Red Sea for safe passage, and with more judgment annihilated two giant Amorite kings on the other side of the Jordan River. What a process of faith! Rahab heard of God’s incredible acts of the past, attributed this marvelous power to the God of the Israelites alone, and by simple faith testified to the spies: Your God, the Lord God, is the one, true God. Wow! God sent the spies to Jericho to be amazed by two things: 1) the fainting terror of the people and 2) the faith of the woman, Rahab. By faith, she was willing to risk her life for her belief by hiding the spies from Jericho’s authorities; and in return, the spies promised her the life and the belongings of everyone that was in her house when Israel breached the walls. As a token of their promise and her act of faith, the spies asked Rahab to hang a scarlet cord from her window on the wall of Jericho! How she must have wanted God to see that cord and remember His promise to her, especially as the judgment fell on her city. And guess what? God kept His promise and miraculously kept her house on the wall intact when the rest of the walls of Jericho fell. But Rahab’s story isn’t finished yet. Afterward, one of the princes of Judah married Rahab, and we find out in the New Testament, that God highlights her life in His very special list of great heroes of the faith in Hebrews 11. Even more amazingly, she's listed in Matthew 1 in the genealogy of Jesus Christ, God's own Son. Can you believe it? How exciting it is to see God's hand of mercy and blessing in the life of this woman! So, God restrains judgment with mercy while He waits for the precious fruit of the earth; just as He did with Rahab, and others like Noah and even Lot.
Already we have seen that God waits for just the right time and for the precious fruit of the earth, but there’s yet another reason God waits. He waits because He loves us and wants us to see the glory of God. In John 11, one of Jesus’ good friends, named Lazarus, was sick. Lazarus lived with his sisters Mary and Martha who sent Jesus a message letting Him know that His friend Lazarus was very sick. They had probably seen Jesus heal many people from severe illness, so it was very natural for them to ask Him to come and help their brother. But what was Jesus’ response? Although He was quite a distance away, this is what He told His disciples, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby. Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. When he had heard therefore that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was.”
Yikes! Jesus loves them, but He waits two more days before going to help? Does that make any sense? Maybe not to us, but it makes sense to God. Mary and Martha were about to see the glory of God! When Jesus got there, Martha ran to meet Him weeping, saying that if He'd only been there her brother would not have died; and when Mary saw Him she said the same thing. But Jesus said, “And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him.”
So, the sisters, the disciples and many others gathered at the cave where Lazarus was buried. And what do you think Jesus said? He said, “Take away the stone.” Really? Martha, the ever practical one said, “Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days.” Four days? Yes, four days. Then Jesus replied, “Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God? Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up His eyes, and said, ‘Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.’”
And with the command, “Lazarus come forth,” their brother walked out of the tomb. Whoa! Can you imagine that? Not only did all the onlookers witness this marvelous miracle, but these women also felt God’s love and saw the glory of God in a greater way than almost anyone else ever did when at the command of Jesus their dear brother came back to life! Breathtakingly astonishing! The impact of that stupendous miracle brought many to faith in Christ that day, prepared many hearts to believe in Jesus’ own resurrection not many days later, and has encouraged saints through the millennia, including us, to trust God’s great love, power, and timing. Have you ever felt that God is making you wait too long? Mary and Martha did. Let them counsel you to take heart and continue to wait longer knowing that God loves you and He wants to show you the glory of God.
Aren't you glad God waits for just the right time, that He restrains His judgment with mercy for precious fruit, and that He loves us and wants to show us His glory? Let's thank God for the opportunities He gives us to wait in our lives, and ask God to give us the patience to wait as long as it takes to see His glory. “And therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the LORD is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him.”