Topical Studies
What the Bible says about
Waiting for GOD
(From Forerunner Commentary)
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Psalm 37:7-9
These admonitions can be broadly grouped into two categories. On one hand, we are instructed to let go of the anger, and on the other, we are told to wait on God. Both elements are vital—to be effective, they must be exercised together. In this psalm, David counsels us not to worry about people who rile us, advising, "Do not allow them to get your ire up." "Cease from anger, and forsake wrath," he writes. If a command like this is given, it is a sure sign that it can be accomplished—especially if we have been given God's Spirit. However, for the command to be carried out, it must be accompanied by the rest of the psalmist's advice, which centers on God's sovereignty and submitting to His control over us rather than continuing a power struggle that may have begun early in our lives. If we think we are—or should be—the one in control, we will likely be upset about what everyone else is doing and whether justice is being served as we think it should be. Nevertheless, David urges, put your mind at ease. God is on His throne. The evildoers will be taken care of, and the righteous will be rewarded—though it might take considerable patient endurance before it is all resolved. Yet, the fact that God is overseeing His physical and spiritual creation gives us the freedom to let go of the indignation, resentment, impatience, and antagonism that blossoms into anger, wrath, malice, and hatred. Verse 9 says that those who wait on the Lord will inherit the earth, indicating that they are also meek (see Matthew 5:5). This contemplation of eternity—an everlasting inheritance—is the flipside of those practicing the works of the flesh (including ungodly anger in its various forms), who "will not inherit the Kingdom of God" (Galatians 5:21). Unrighteous anger, no matter how well it is hidden away, will always destroy relationships. We should never forget that the essence of eternal life is our relationship with the Father and the Son (John 17:3). That relationship, though, does not exist in a vacuum; our relationships with others reflect the quality of our relationship with God (see I John 2:9; 3:15; 4:20). Those who meekly wait on God, rather than stoking the coals of anger within, will be given eternal life.
David C. Grabbe
Hidden Anger (Part Three)
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Matthew 5:10-12
How does Jesus Christ expect us to face persecution? What attitudes should we have when it comes and as it continues? By considering a few scriptures, we can receive a taste of how Jesus, the apostles, and the prophets approached the persecutions they endured. Beyond faith, which is a given for any child of God at all times, the first and perhaps foundational attitude we need to employ is patience. We must remember that God is at work but not on our timetable. Most of all, for us, He is working on transforming our character into a reflection of His own, and that takes time. James writes, ". . . the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing" (James 1:3-4). The apostle Peter chimes in on this too: For this is commendable, if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully. For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer for it, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. (I Peter 2:19-20) Peter uses the Greek word hupomone, which implies "endurance," "perseverance," or "unswerving constancy." We are to wait on God for deliverance, bearing up courageously through our suffering and not giving in. As David writes in Psalm 40:1-2: "I waited patiently for the LORD; and He inclined to me, and heard my cry. He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my steps." No matter how difficult the situation, He will save us from our persecutors; we just have to trust Him to effect that deliverance when it is best. In the middle of trouble, perhaps the last thing on a person's mind is to be positive. Most people just want to cry, to feel self-pity, to complain, to become depressed, and to feel abandoned. However, the great examples of faith found that the opposite reaction is far better. Our attitude needs to reflect a desire to glorify God. As Peter advises in I Peter 4:16, "Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter." This means that, as we suffer, we should give Him praise and thanksgiving. Paul and Silas, unjustly thrown into prison in Philippi, did not let their situation get them down. Acts 16:25 informs us that "at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns"! We are told that the other apostles, on trial before the Sanhedrin, were "rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name" (Acts 5:41). We also glorify Him in how we endure the suffering—not just in the words we speak but also in our behavior. Paul saw persecution as a means to give glory to God: But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that the message might be preached fully through me, and that all the Gentiles might hear. And I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. And the Lord will deliver me from every evil work and preserve me for His heavenly kingdom. To Him be glory forever and ever. Amen! (II Timothy 4:17-18)
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Facing Persecution
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1 Corinthians 13:13
For nearly all of us, waiting is uncomfortable. Because of life's frantic pace, we get frustrated if it takes thirty seconds for a traffic light to turn green. Handwritten letters are slow, and in the last decade or so, they have been largely replaced by email. Now, however, sometimes even email is too slow, so we text so we can communicate without having to wait. Any device or technique that eliminates waiting will always grab our attention and often our pocketbook. Most of our lives are spent in such high gear that our frustration often comes boiling forth whenever we have to wait. Living only three-score-and-ten years or perhaps fourscore, we all have a degree of time-sickness—an obsessive belief that time is slipping away, that there is not enough of it, and if everything is not sorted out right now, it may just be the end of the world. The fact is, we hate waiting—yet Scripture says so much about it, especially waiting on God. Consider the three great virtues of faith, hope, and love. Waiting on God stands at the core of biblical hope (Romans 8:23-25). The Bible uses the word "hope" not as a vague wish but as a confident trust in a future event. We do not just wish for our future redemption and adoption; we know and trust that it will happen at our resurrection. But until that hope is realized and fulfilled, we wait. In like manner, faith and waiting are also closely linked. Our faith in God is often manifested by waiting on Him. If we trust Him—if we have faith in Him—we wait for Him to work things out that we cannot (or should not) do on our own. The "love chapter" of I Corinthians 13 demonstrates the waiting aspect of love when it describes agape love as suffering long (verse 4). Love requires waiting while it "bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things" (verse 7). Though it may sound incongruous at first, waiting is actually a work. One's actions—or lack thereof—demonstrate what is in one's heart. Waiting on God is a work that demonstrates faith in Him, just as much as any example of law-keeping or other Christian deed. In fact, it is often one of the most difficult of all works. The Bible contains many stories of great "waiters"—not those who wait on us in restaurants but the men and women who wait on God. They demonstrated their trust in God by waiting years—even decades—for a promise to be fulfilled or to see what God was doing in their lives. It seems that all of God's servants go through a time of waiting. Consider that Noah preached and built the ark for over a century. While he certainly was not idle then, think about how much of his life was taken up by waiting for God to act and finally make the world right—even after being personally given divine instruction. Hebrews 11 highlights Joseph's faith in terms of the instructions he gave on his deathbed, but before that, he had plenty of waiting to do as a slave and then as a prisoner. It took over two decades for his visions of his family bowing to him to come to pass. After he was raised to second-in-command of Egypt, he could have sent either an army or an ambassador to his family—either to settle the score or to make amends. Because of those dreams, he knew he would see his family again, yet he did not attempt to make it happen, even though he had nearly supreme authority in the local world. Instead, Joseph waited on God, who not only fulfilled his visions, but did it so that repentance and reconciliation also occurred. No amount of human will or authority can cause that. Joseph understood the power and wisdom in waiting on God. Then there is Moses. It is probable that early on, Moses had some idea about the part he would play in delivering Israel, but he first had to experience forty years of preparation in Pharaoh's palace. Maybe after forty years, he thought the time was right for him to step into his destiny, yet in taking matters into his own hands by killing an Egyptian, he acted too soon by half. He had to endure another forty years in the desert, watching over dumb sheep. God's working through him did not even begin until he was eighty years old! Even then, he had to wait yet another forty years for his job to be complete—and at the end, he was not able to see the fulfillment because he had acted rashly way back in his youthful eighties. All of these "waiters" endured long periods of time, during which it probably appeared that nothing of significance was happening. Yet they remained faithful to God during those waits and kept waiting long after most people would have given up on God. They waited after others would have concluded either that He was not there or that they needed to take matters into their own hands. But the waiters had the wisdom to keep walking with God and to remain faithful until the time was perfect for God to bring His will to pass.
David C. Grabbe
The Overlooked Work (Part One)
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Hebrews 11:17-19
Abraham concluded that God was able to resurrect Isaac. But there is no record of a resurrection up to that point. It is possible that Abraham reasoned that God would immediately resurrect Isaac. However, it is also possible that Abraham was willing to wait for the resurrection—the one that happens when Jesus Christ returns—for the promises to be fulfilled. In John 8:56, Jesus tells the Jews, "Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad." Abraham must have had a glimpse of the Kingdom of God, which includes the resurrection. So, by faith, he concluded that God could resurrect his son. But part of that conclusion would have been that he was willing to wait the remainder of his days without his son, as well as all the millennia in the sleep of death, for God to fulfill His promises. But that was not the extent of his waiting: "By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God" (Hebrews 11:9-10). Although exceedingly rich, Abraham lived in tents without foundations—without permanence—while waiting for a city with eternal foundations. God called him out of the highly developed city of Ur, and he never lived in a city again. Content to be a pilgrim, he left Haran at age 75 and lived in tents for the next century. The whole time, he was not merely existing; he was waiting. He had seen some of God's promises fulfilled, and he was waiting for the remainder. Notice that the city that he was waiting for is not physical Jerusalem, but the New Jerusalem, the city whose builder and maker is God. Even though Jerusalem will be Christ's abode when He returns, it is not until after the Millennium that the New Jerusalem comes down from heaven. For the last hundred years of his life, Abraham was waiting, not just for his own resurrection and Jesus' day, but he was looking a thousand years beyond that for the fulfillment of Revelation 21:2. This man understood waiting! The heroes of faith saw God's promises afar off and were willing to wait on God and His perfect timing. God's promises stood at the forefront of their minds, but if their minds were anything like ours today, it took tremendous work to remain focused on what God said and not grow weary, give up, or try to work out God's promises on their own. The next time we find ourselves waiting for that email that is long in coming, waiting for the phone to vibrate, or waiting for the driver who is "well-advanced in years" either to speed up or move over—or the next time you find yourself waiting for a resolution to a problem that you have taken to God because it is out of your power to bring about—remember the great "waiters" of the Bible. Waiting on God was one of their greatest works, and it is also one of the hardest works that we will ever do.
David C. Grabbe
The Overlooked Work (Part Two)
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