PATIENCE
Terry W Lock
Hebrews 11: 8-10
Job: 1:1, 8; 42: 1-6, 10-11
James 5: 11 from “Ye have heard ...”
Joshua 6: 1-5
2 Samuel 5: 17-25
Revelation 3: 7-11
I am sure the brethren will understand the context of these scriptures after we get into our subject, and the subject I would like to speak about this afternoon, which I feel has been laid upon me, is the subject of patience. It is one of the things that is most foreign to men, that they should be patient in everything. Men may indeed be patient in some things such as work, or relationships, or learning, but they will not be patient in everything. We all know that by experience: things that exasperate us, things that get under our skin and cause us to say and speak and act in a manner that is beneath the dignity of what we are; that is what impatience does. Now it is quite a thing going through in the day in which we are that one of the greatest marks of power, one of the great marks of power with a Christian, is that he has the patience to wait on God. Well, dear brethren, that is a very testing thing, to have the patience to wait and trust in God in relation to what is going on, be it in your life or in the testimony. To have the patience to wait and move when God says, and to act as you ought is a very, very testing thing. I do not think anyone would put up their hand and say that it was easy or that they did it well.
The persons I read about were individuals that had power with God. The first one had power with God; the second got power with God, both of them noted for their patience. The first one was Abraham. You think how long Abraham had waited. It says of him in Hebrews 6 in relation to the blessings that God had sworn to give him, and “having had long patience, he got the promise”, v 15. How long was the patience? How long did he wait for Isaac? How long did he wait for that? How long did he wait to get into the land? How long did that take him? In all those things he was learning God, and yet God could speak earlier to Abraham, saying, “walk before my face, and be perfect”, Gen 17: 1. He had trust in Abraham. He had trust in His own work in Abraham, but He brought about in Abraham by patience what was according to Himself. So you see here in Hebrews 11, “By faith Abraham, being called, obeyed to go out into the place which he was to receive for an inheritance, and went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he sojourned as a stranger in the land of promise as a foreign country, having dwelt in tents with Isaac and Jacob”. Well, he waited at least three generations; that is evident here. He waited at least that long, but the most remarkable thing is what Abraham began with, he was waiting for an heir. What patience had brought about, so that he began to wait for what was precious to God. He had acquired instinct Godward, and power because of it, for it goes on to say, “the heirs with him of the same promise; for he waited for the city which has foundations, of which God is the artificer and constructor”. Was that going to happen in his generation? No. Did he know that? Yes. Did he wait for it? Yes. Did he conduct his life according to what had been given to him in his patience? Yes. What a remarkable thing that is; he could look on to the day; he could look on to the end of our dispensation. He had the patience to wait for it. Because of that, God enlightened him in his heart. He had power with God and God gave him enlightenment, He gave him a revelation as to what would come, what God was going to do, what God was going to make, what God was going to have for Himself; that is what Abraham waited for. He was no longer only waiting for an heir; his view had been expanded. It had been expanded because he had waited on God. Oh, dear brethren, that is a wonderful thing! Wait on God.
The God you know is moving all things according to His own will. Everything that is happening, everything in the testimony, everything in the world, everything in individuals is happening according to God. To be agitated does not do anything for you. We may be agitated or be impatient, wishing things would go quicker than they do; when Abraham thought that as to Hagar fulfilling God’s promise, he took things into his own hand. Was that how he got this revelation in relation to this city which God was building, of which God was the artificer? No, it was not. He could have missed this view of glory. It went forward several thousand years from the time when Abraham was alive. What a thing that was. So that was a man who had power with God. He had the power to wait. That was the proof of the power because he waited; he had the patience to do that.
We come to Job. We had reference to Job in the burial meeting in this place on Wednesday. Job is very interesting. At the beginning of Job in relation to his history it says he was an upright man. That is how God saw him, as an upright man. He “was perfect and upright, and one that feared God and abstained from evil”. You would say, 'Well, that is good; everything is complete there'. No, it was not; it was not complete there. If it had been complete there God would not have said to Satan, “Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth … ?”. That is what God said of Job. But God had things to work out in Job. When you go through that whole history in relation to Job you get to the point that was made reference to, “I know that my Redeemer liveth”, chap 19: 25. That was a rock; that was a place in Job's history. As he was going through all the trials that God had put upon him, and the trials included his health, it included his business, it included his family, it included all his relations even down to the point where his wife said, “curse God and die”, chap 2: 9. Job had every attachment, every strut, every anchor that he had, other than God, taken away, everything. You may ask, 'Why did God do that?'. Because God knew what was in Job and He also knew what Job needed.
You go through Job's three friends and all the things that were said; you go through all the things where he would try to justify himself. It is a very interesting book, to go through that whole history. You go through at the end to where Elihu begins to speak (chap 32), and then God begins to speak (chap 38); then you come to the end of it all, “And Job answered Jehovah and said, I know that thou canst do everything, and that thou canst be hindered in no thought of thine. Who is he that obscureth counsel without knowledge? Therefore have I uttered what I did not understand”. What had God arrived at in Job? He had arrived at a moral basis in Job in relation to the revelation of Himself that Job would not have received without going through all the trials that he went through. Job says, “therefore have I uttered what I did not understand; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not. Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak; I will demand of thee, and inform me. I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee: Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” Was Job standing on his own righteousness any more? Or was he standing as he was as a business man? Or was he standing on what he was as a family man? Was he standing on anything at all that would have been the pillars of what was there in chapter 1? No!
That is why we read in James. James says in relation to Job, “Ye have heard of the endurance of Job, and seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is full of tender compassion and pitiful”. It is an interesting thing here, Job was seen as what he was as an upright man at the beginning. It is a very interesting thing that his brethren came round and gave him rings, a seal of approval of fellowship between brethren. That happened because God had worked, and Job had the patience to wait. The Lord was merciful and compassionate and pitiful in relation to all of that, so that Job should arrive at this, that he should get rings from his brethren and that he should be able to speak to God intelligently, understanding the great God with whom he had to do. That came about because Job had patience. That was the work of God, beloved brethren, that comes to us line upon line, precept upon precept. It does not come en masse. It will take you a lifetime to arrive at what God has in mind that you arrive at. It will take a lifetime, be your lifetime long or short; it will be as long as God needs it to be to arrive at His own ends, if you have the patience to wait for it. That is the point.
But then I would like to go on to patience in relation to the testimony. The first thing in the passage about Jericho is that the people had gone over, as we had in the reading. The people had gone over the Jordan at this point. They had been circumcised at Gilgal.; they were moving forward in relation to the land; they were going to take it over. The first thing that was in the road was Jericho, the city of the curse, and at this point in time it was standing. It was still to come down and become the city of the curse, but at this point in time it was right in the way of the entrance to the land. You would think in relation to the armies of Israel, why did they not just go up and take over Jericho? Why did they not just go and have warfare? Why did they not just go and knock down the walls of the city? Why did they not do that? Because that is not what God said. One thing they had learned about coming across the Jordan was that they had to do things God's way. The first thing they had learned going through the wilderness, seeing all the carcasses of their families, the carcasses of their fathers and their mothers, their brothers and their sisters strewn in the wilderness, is that they had to do things God's way. Sometimes, beloved brethren, God has to wait until we learn to wait on Him. It is a very interesting thing in Isaiah where it speaks of God waiting, “For thus saith the Lord Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel: In returning and rest shall ye be saved, in quietness and confidence shall be your strength; but ye would not. And ye said, No, but we will flee upon horses, - therefore shall ye flee; and, We will ride upon the swift, - therefore shall they that pursue you be swift. One thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one; at the rebuke of five shall ye flee; till ye be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, and as a banner on a hill. And therefore will Jehovah wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he lift himself up, that he may have mercy upon you; for Jehovah is a God of judgment; blessed are all they that wait for him.” Isa 30: 15-18. God had to wait; God had to wait until the people had exhausted their own means of salvation, their own means of moving. What the people of Israel learned in going through the wilderness was that God was for them, and if they waited on Him, He would bring them through. So then they come to Jericho, and it comes to the time what God said in relation to it, for seven days they were to go round the city. For six days they were just to go round, they were not to say anything, they were not to do anything, they were not to speak to the inhabitants, they were not to do anything except what God had instructed. You think of the king of Jericho at that time and the people that were there; he would have said to himself, 'What is this? We are safe here'. He had not reckoned on the power of God in relation to the purposes of His heart, and when God sets Himself to do a thing, it is as Job said, “thou canst be hindered in no thought of thine”. So the people went around six days. On the seventh day they went around. They were carrying the ark before them the whole time; so they had the power of God with them, the testimony to what was in the ark. The proof that they were in accord with the power that was seen in the ark was that they had the patience to do exactly as they had been instructed, and they waited. So they went around for seven days and on the seventh day they went around seven times. What happened? The wall fell flat. If they had gone head on into the city, there would have been men killed. I do not think it says anywhere that there was one Israelite killed in the overthrow of Jericho, because it was God's way. They had the patience to do it God's way to the preservation of life. That was the testimony. God overthrew Jericho: God did it.
So then you come to 2 Samuel. This passage gives us David and how he is against the Philistine and the Philistines were big men. The Philistines set themselves as the best of men, the best and the biggest of men; that is what the Philistine represents. He represents those who in their bigness set themselves against the things of God and the people of God. How are you going to overcome them? Testimonially, how are you going to overcome the world and the people in the world? How are you going to overcome the power that is there? How are you going to overcome the persons who have set themselves against you? How is this going to happen? “And the Philistines heard that they had anointed David king over Israel”. It is very interesting that until that anointing happened they did not do anything, but as soon as David was anointed king, as soon as there was that attraction, as soon as there was that gathering point for the people of Israel from which they were going to be able to gain direction and strength in relation to God alone, who had the promises of God, the Philistines rose up and set themselves against the people of God. The first time David rose and he attacked them, but it is interesting that he asks first. So what happens is that he goes and the Philistines were given into his hands. And then the Philistine arises again and you say, 'Well, just do the same thing again'. No. If David and his men had done the same thing again, they would have lost the battle. Instead, they waited upon God; they waited on the instruction; they waited opposite the mulberry-trees. They were to wait opposite the mulberry-trees until they heard the sound. Now it does not say how long; I do not think it says exactly how long they are there. That is not the point; how long is not the point. The point is that you wait until you hear what God says, and you do not go before that. If you move before that there will be loss of life. If you move ahead of God there will be loss of life; if you go ahead of the Lord, if you do not have the patience to wait for His instruction and you do not have the patience to follow Him, people will die. It is what happens in the testimony. Beloved brethren, let us wait. Let us be patient and do it God's way in God's time; then nobody gets lost, nobody loses their life, nobody loses their way, and God gets the victory. It is a very interesting thing because in all of it what God is after is the preservation of His inheritance. We should be too. Have patience to wait on God, because you value His inheritance. Have patience to wait; do not be impulsive.
It is a very interesting thing to read as we have in Revelation 3, because the proof of both the things that I have been speaking about, one being patience the other being power is seen in Philadelphia. And it speaks in relation to Philadelphia of the things that they had suffered. Beloved brethren, it has always been thus. There has never been a time amongst the people of God ever - Old Testament or New - when the enemy has not sought to attack them. The testimony is not worked out in congenial circumstances; it never has been. The testimony is not worked out thus, but is worked out by persons who overcome according to the power given of them by God with the patience to wait on God. That is how the testimony goes forward, and it has always been thus.
This is not God’s praise-service; the service of God in that sense goes forward in settled conditions. The testimony of God goes forward in adverse conditions. So there will always be enemies; there will always be persons that set themselves against the people of God; or the rights of God. There will always be until the Lord comes. But in spite of all of that, in spite of things such as it mentions here - “I make them of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews, and are not, but lie; behold, I will cause that they shall come and shall do homage before thy feet, and shall know that I have loved thee” - that is what was going on at the time when the Lord could say of Philadelphia, “I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an opened door, which no one can shut, because thou hast a little power”, not because 'I have given you a little power', but “because thou hast a little power”. What gave them the power? What gave them the power is what it says later on, “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience”. What a glorious thing that is, to keep the word of Christ's patience. He does not refer to keeping His commandments, though they would have been keeping them too. It says, “thou hast kept the word of my patience”. They were intelligent as to the movements of Christ, they were intelligent in relation to how God was working in Christ, they were intelligent as to the ways in which God was going to arrive at His own ends with men, and they were patiently waiting for that to happen.
Beloved brethren, God is working; God is arriving at things; God is building things; God is forming things for Himself. Do you have the patience to wait for God to be finished? Do you have the patience to be faithful in a scene that is contrary to all that God is? Do you have the patience to be faithful and hold the word of the Lord and keep His name until God is finished? Well, Philadelphia did, and if you look at what it says at the end, the Lord says, “He that overcomes, him will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more at all out; and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven, from my God, and my new name.” That was the blessing that they got; and the way that it is written here in relation to the overcomers I think you would say would cover most of that assembly because they had the patience to wait.
Beloved brethren, let us have patience. James says earlier on in that chapter where we read, “Have patience, therefore, brethren, till the coming of the Lord. Behold, the labourer awaits the precious fruit of the earth, having patience for it until it receive the early and the latter rain. Ye also have patience: stablish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is drawn nigh”, v 7, 8. The most important part of all that is “stablish your hearts”. Philadelphia did what it did because of the love of the Christ. “Stablish your hearts”; hang on to the Man who loves you and died for you, and wait for Him, wait for Him to arrive at His own ends, wait for Him to work out the difficulties, wait for Him to open up to you what He is doing and how He is doing it. Beloved brethren, wait, have patience for the Christ. It is interesting it says in Thessalonians, “the love of God, and … the patience of the Christ”, 2 Thess 3: 5.
Beloved brethren, that is all I have to say. It is a wonderful day and we look forward to the Lord coming, but in the testimony, and in the working of God, we need to have patience. God is acting; have patience to wait for Him. Have patience that you renew your strength. That is what it says in Isaiah 40, “but they that wait upon Jehovah shall renew their strength: they shall mount up with wings as eagles”, v 31. It is a wonderful thing that: “they that wait upon Jehovah”.
May it be so for His Name's sake.
Grangemouth
12th May 2018