Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / February 10, 2019 | Can I Help? - Impatience

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February 10, 2019 | Can I Help? - Impatience · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: You felt like I'm in a golf course.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: Mulvaine Building, College Avenue Building, great to have you here.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: We're in a series.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: If you're visiting this morning, we're in a series, and that series is called Isaiah.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: It's the Isaiah Challenge.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: We're reading Isaiah about five chapters a week, and this next week we'll be in 26 through 30.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: I'm curious how many of you are actually up with us through 25.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness, that's great.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: And thank you for your comments.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm writing these daily devotionals on those five chapters, and a number of you are using them, and I really like your responses and how you dialogue with me about those.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: So hope you'll join us, and this is week number six, and I am up to chapter 30, preaching a message each week on Isaiah.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: And today I want to talk to you about uh impatience.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: And uh this is pretty alive this morning.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna talk about uh I am, it'll be on here in a minute.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: I am I M P A T I E N C E.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: So we are uh very familiar with this word, right?
1:12
SPEAKER_00: All of us.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm so impatient about sharing this message with you on impatience.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: I can just hardly wait to get.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: So uh let me share with you.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I'm gonna do.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: Uh before I get into the text, which is Isaiah 30, great text about impatience and its opposite, and how to solve this, you know, war against impatience.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna share with you some of my thoughts, some introductory, I think, nine thoughts about impatience.
1:38
SPEAKER_00: Then we'll get into the text and then I'll tell you how we can work on it, okay?
1:42
SPEAKER_00: So the first thing I want to say about it is that impatience is clearly natural for us.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: Waiting is not.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: Impatience is natural, starts when you're a baby, you cry, you're impatient.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: When you're two years old, you get up at, say you wake up at 5 a.m., you walk into the bedroom, your dad and mom, you wake them up, you're impatient.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they need to get up.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: You're up after all, they should be up.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: When you're four years old, you're uh you uh uh you're you want an ice cream and you call for it, and your parents are nice, they're willing to give it to you, but your mom says, and what do you say, hoping you'll say please, but your answer is now.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: You know, you're when impatient people when you're six years old.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: It's uh when are we gonna get there?
2:22
SPEAKER_00: When you're 10, 12, 14, you're you're impatient for a relationship, or you're impatient to get your first cell phone, or you're impatient for other things.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: Yaakov Smirnov is a Russian comedian who used to always end his dialogues with talking about America, going, what a country.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: And uh he he talks about how Americans are impatient.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: Said uh his first time in a supermarket, he says he's walking down the aisle and he saw a box and it said uh instant milk.
2:49
SPEAKER_00: Just add water.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: And you have instant milk, powdered milk.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: He was so impressed.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: Walked down, then there was uh soup powder and said, just add water, instant soup.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: And he said, I walked along a little farther, and there was instant breakfast.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: He said, He said, just add water, you have instant breakfast.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: Man, he said, this is great.
3:07
SPEAKER_00: He said he walked down a little farther than there was baby powder, and he said, Wow, what a country, he said, you know.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: It was a joke, obviously.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: But uh but we are we are we are impatient.
3:20
SPEAKER_00: We're impatient about little things, we're impatient about big things.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: We uh, you know, I if if if and by the way, I'm very typical in this.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: Studies show that if I Google something, I'm doing a search engine, and it takes more than five seconds for it to show up, I will just quit it and move on.
3:37
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think the average in America, like six seconds, people don't stay on.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: They're so impatient now uh that they'll just go, oh, that's it's too slow.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: I'll just move on.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: But there's waiting in lines, there's waiting in traffic, there's the there's the car going 45 in the left-hand lane, or the person in front of you at the store who's got 19 items in their cart, you counted them.
3:55
SPEAKER_00: They're only supposed to have 12.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's just it drives you crazy.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: And we are in a daily skirmish with ourselves, a wrestling match, to be less impatient.
4:06
SPEAKER_00: And then we do those things like taking deep breaths or counting to 10, right?
4:11
SPEAKER_00: Or or denial, you know.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: Uh but then there are the bigger things, and the breathing, uh, taking taking deep breaths, accounting does not work with the bigger things.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: And what I'm talking about is the things that we're deeply impatient about, and we really have trouble with.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: And I'm talking now about disease or handicap or that marriage or a relationship, maybe even with a child, or something at work.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: And the breathing doesn't work with those things, and we find that we are stressed about those things, and that's natural to man because impatience is natural for us.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: We were born with it.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: Adam and Eve left the garden because of it.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: Waiting is not natural for us.
4:55
SPEAKER_00: The second point I want to make, uh, just as I think about this, is that waiting is the hardest thing we do.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: I mean, not only is it not natural for us, but in many ways, it's the very hardest thing that we do is waiting for the things that we want to have happen, which sometimes seem like they're absolutely never going to happen.
5:13
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes they don't.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: Third thing, almost everything good in life, however, requires waiting.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: Every relationship that's good now once wasn't.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: Am I right?
5:22
SPEAKER_00: Every marriage that's good now, every child who grew up who's good now, you know, who you're proud of, once wasn't.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: You know, the fruit that you ate this morning for breakfast.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: If you'd taken it off the tree too early, it once wasn't.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: That egg.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: Once wasn't edible.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: Grew up on a farm like I did, with fruit trees, with eggs.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: You know, your little brother goes into the incubator downstairs where we have a hundred eggs waiting to, you know, still, we're hatching them, takes them all out, opens them up to see if the baby chick is in there.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: I I didn't hang around for that spanking.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh so almost everything good in life requires waiting.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: And in a sense, you can say waiting's the single most important thing that we ever do.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: Waiting, the opposite of patience is the most important thing we do.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: Waiting.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: Idling our motor when we feel like stripping our gears is the most important thing we do.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: I got three definitions of waiting for you.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: These are mine.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this first one is sort of a revision of something J.I.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: Packer said 50 years ago, but I mean, uh, I got three definitions because I couldn't figure out one and they sort of overlap.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: Here's the first one: waiting.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: It's believing.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: Notice it's a faith word, believing that God orders everything.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: Notice this is a sovereignty statement.
6:45
SPEAKER_00: God is all sovereign, God has orders everything for our spiritual good.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: Sort of flows out of Romans 8.28, doesn't it?
6:52
SPEAKER_00: We know that God works all things together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: So waiting, as versus impatience, is believing something, believing that God orders everything for our spiritual good.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: And therefore, another definition is trusting the wisdom of God's timing.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: He knows best.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, even though it doesn't feel like it's the right timing, even though I felt like I should have been married three, four years ago, you know, it's trusting the wisdom of God's timing.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: And the third definition, waiting, is being willing, this is my response to apparent delays, you know, being willing to go at God's pace, though it may seem slow, or staying in God's space, that space that God has me when I feel like moving.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe if I am moving, God's going slower than I would like Him to go.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: So that's what we're talking about today.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: Every single person in this room struggles with impatience.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: In small ways, some of you are struggling with it in really large ways right now.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: But what I've said with these definitions, let's just bring it all home.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: Impatience is the face of unbelief.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: Eve, Adam couldn't wait.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: We've got to become sophisticated, we've got to have the knowledge, we don't want to wait around here.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: Serpent comes and says, Hey, I got a shortcut for you.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: Don't have to wait.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: Go to this tree, knowledge of getting evil, get that knowledge, you'd be at God's level, you know.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: Impatience is the face of unbelief.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: It's why we're no longer in the Garden of Eden.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: Last one here is that in impatience, it seems to me, tempts us in two ways.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: The second way is the one that tempted Israel in Isaiah 30.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: The two ways, number one, it tempts us to give up, quit to Baal, right?
8:38
SPEAKER_00: If this marriage is gonna be that hard, if raising these children is gonna be that difficult, if this job's gonna be that challenging, if if if if if reducing debt is going to require that kind of, I'm just gonna give up.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna quit.
8:51
SPEAKER_00: I want it to happen now, it's not happening now.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: I'll just quit.
8:55
SPEAKER_00: I'll never forget the phone call from a woman I love, admire, crying, saying, you know, our kids, teenagers, driving us so crazy.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: My dad has told me he's no longer gonna parent them, he's just leaving it up to me.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: He just goes in the other room, it's all up to me.
9:15
SPEAKER_00: I can't handle this, I don't know what to do.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: But that's what happens.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you're just so upset, you're so impatient that you just give up, you quit, you bail on the relationship, you you you you leave the marriage, you know, you quit the job.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: I mean, whatever, right?
9:29
SPEAKER_00: So that's one thing.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: If it's gonna be that hard, if there's gonna be that, that much rejection, that much opposition, I'm out of here.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: Number two is the opposite, sort of to act rashly, to move impulsively, impetuously, make a decision, right?
9:44
SPEAKER_00: Do something, you know.
9:45
SPEAKER_00: I hate being in financial straights, therefore, oh, what a great deal on that house.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's only 200,000 instead of 300,000, therefore I'm gonna buy it right now, even though I have no money down.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: You know, stuff like that.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: Just made that up on the fly.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: That was pretty good.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: Embarrassing, but good.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: So, or you know, I'm gonna marry, marry this person because I should have been married by now.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: God hasn't given me, and so I know this person's, you know, they you know, you know, not a Christian, but hey, whatever.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: So you act impulsively.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: So impatience tempts us to do these things.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: It's number two that we're gonna look at closely today as we turn to the book of Isaiah, chapter 30.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: The situation here, it's uh, I believe it's 701 BC, uh, at the time of Isaiah chapter 30, is that we have uh great country in the world, the Nazi Germany of its day, Assyria, which is going to be the first really great world power.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: And it has loads and loads of troops, armies.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: It is uh, you know, really into warfare, brutal, cruel, just slaughters its enemies and so forth, and it's sweeping through the Middle East and it's taking control of the world.
10:53
SPEAKER_00: And when you go to the British Museum, any museum, you will see relics of Nineveh, of Assyria, this great force.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: And so Judah is quaking in its boots.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: Okay, Judah's really scared.
11:05
SPEAKER_00: So Judah's going, uh, what do we do?
11:08
SPEAKER_00: What do we do?
11:09
SPEAKER_00: What do we do?
11:09
SPEAKER_00: You know, Assyria has taken the north, northern kingdom, northern ten tribes, gonna come and get us.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: We gotta we gotta have help.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: So Isaiah comes and he says to King Ahaz in chapter 7 of Isaiah, he says, Trust God.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: God says he'll deliver you, but you've got to trust him, you've got to hang on, you've got to wait, wait, wait.
11:25
SPEAKER_00: Ahaz says, too late.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't know what he's doing, God's not coming.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've waited, waited, so I'm gonna, we're gonna go for help elsewhere.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: So in the last 10 chapters before this, we've been doing a flyover of the Mideast, and God's been naming each of the nations.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: He says, You guys checked out Edom, you've checked out Babylon, you've checked out Syria, you've checked out Philistia, you keep checking out these nations to help you against Assyria, which is stupid, because number one, all of those nations are going to fall to Assyria within a few years.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: And secondly, by the way, you're leaving me to go to them.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: Most of these nations in the final day are gonna come and worship me.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: So you're giving up your faith in me for nations which are A, gonna be defeated, and number two, in the final day in the millennium, are gonna be traipsing up to Jerusalem with gifts for me.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: So why wouldn't you stay true to me?
12:15
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
12:16
SPEAKER_00: Now, what Judah's decided is there is this other nation down south, Egypt, which it's always been in love with.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's just so they had such a terrible time with Egypt.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: Remember 400 years they're down in Egypt and they're persecuted, and God redeems them out of Egypt.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: Everybody who knows the story, Red Sea, Moses, all that stuff, who's seen the movie or anything, go, yeah.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you've heard the story.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: So you'd think after all of that persecution for 403 years, they'd hate Egypt.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: No, it's like one of these, whatever the deal is, the captives, and they fall in love with their captors.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: Judah's got this fixation on Egypt.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: It loves Egypt.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: God keep God said in Exodus, Deuteronomy, would you forget about Egypt?
12:55
SPEAKER_00: Would you forget about your old life?
12:57
SPEAKER_00: Same thing he says to Christians.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: Would you quit hanging on to your old life and move on?
13:01
SPEAKER_00: But Judah's just fixated on Egypt and says, okay, we're gonna get help against Assyria from Egypt.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: So Isaiah 30, so this is impatience, making a rash move.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna go down to Egypt.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: Woe to my rebellious children, God says.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: This is the Lord's declaration.
13:19
SPEAKER_00: They carry out a plan, that plan to go get help from Egypt.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: It's not mine.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: Not my plan.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: They make an alliance, literally, they weave a web.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: So weak.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: How stupid.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: They're making an alliance with Egypt, but against my will.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: Piling sin on top of sin.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: Sin number one, leaving me, not talking to me anymore.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: Sin number two, going to Egypt, which I've told you repeatedly, that's the one place I don't want you to go back to.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: Oh, by the way, a couple years ago I loved taking archaeological tours.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: And the last tour I took, we went over and we were digging in Israel and so forth, and one of the kids on the tour, one of the girls, she was a KU student in archaeology, she found an Egyptian scarab, a little scarab beetle, you know, that worshipped those and so forth, in Israel, in a town that was supposed to be a town of Jewish believers, you know, in God.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: And the thing is, and and it was announced by Israel that year, that was the number one archaeological discovery in Israel.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: It was the beautiful little Egyptian scarab with the face, with the name of uh Pharaoh on it, so forth.
14:18
SPEAKER_00: So, on the one hand, was it cool?
14:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, are we going thumbs up?
14:21
SPEAKER_00: But you know, I couldn't help thinking God hates that.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: God is God is so upset with all of these stupid Egyptian relics that we find in Israeli towns.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, it was exactly this date, 700 B.C.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: They found out why is it they they just are so obsessed with this nation that used to persecute them?
14:41
SPEAKER_00: And God would say, Well, how come you're still so obsessed with your old life that you keep on going back to your old life?
14:47
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, so so Israel's going down to Egypt, all right, without asking my advice.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: They set out to go down to Egypt in order to seek shelter.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: They pictured Egypt as this huge palm tree.
14:59
SPEAKER_00: They could get shelter from the from you know from Assyria.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: Under Pharaoh's protection, blah, blah, blah.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: Pharaoh is now a nobody.
15:09
SPEAKER_00: So, and take, it wasn't like the old Pharaohs, really cool.
15:13
SPEAKER_00: And take refuge in Egypt's shadow.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: By the way, notice you can see the word refuge here a couple of times.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: Basic point is you guys are so impatient.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: You know the book of Psalms, how it's obviously always calling God my refuge and strength.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: This word refuge is a word of love to God.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: You guys come to me, I'm your refuge in my everlasting arms, and you're gonna go find refuge in a pagan nation and pagan pleasures?
15:40
SPEAKER_00: Why are you so impatient you can't wait around for me, but you'll do the very opposite thing that I want you to do.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: And he continues on and says, uh, yeah, so anyway, they're going, they they're they're sending, now they're sending envoys down to Egypt, and they're going to recruit or bribe Egypt to come up and uh and protect them against Assyria.
16:01
SPEAKER_00: That's that's their hope.
16:02
SPEAKER_00: All right?
16:04
SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, but Pharaoh's protection, God predicts, will become your shame, and here it is again, refuge in Egypt's shadow will be your humiliation.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: He's predicting Egypt won't be able to help them.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
16:22
SPEAKER_00: They weren't.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: I mean, for one thing, this is the Pharaoh they were going down in 700 BC.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: This pharaoh isn't even Egyptian.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: You can tell it by his face, but also look at history books.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: The Egyptian pharaohs and the Egyptian country was at its weakest at that point.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: These were Nubians, they were called.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: This was some other group that had just come in and shoved the pharaohs out.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: They didn't have any power.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: And so when Assyria marched down the highway in a few years, and Egypt goes, okay, we'll get them, and Assyria's going, come on, Egypt, come on, Egypt, come on.
16:51
SPEAKER_00: Egypt came out with all of their troops, almost like they did in 1967 against Israel.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: They came right out of the land, a hundred miles.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: Assyria's 600 miles away.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: You know, and Assyria in one battle absolutely crushed Egypt.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: And Israel was ashamed and humiliated, and now they're in trouble because Assyria goes, huh?
17:11
SPEAKER_00: You sent them a bunch of money, you tried to recruit them to help help you against us.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: So, so that's what God's saying.
17:19
SPEAKER_00: How stupid can you be?
17:20
SPEAKER_00: And then God kind of makes fun of them because God's still trying to talk them out of this.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: He goes, a pronouncement concerning the animals of the Negev.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's like God says, Oh, welcome to my museum.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm going to take you on a tour of the animals of the Negev is the southern part of Israel.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: It looks like this.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: It's just hot and dry with rocks and lizards and all that stuff.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: And God says, Let me give you a tour.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: The animals of the Negev.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: This is so funny.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: This is so cute.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: Okay, it's God's sense of humor.
17:47
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of dry.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: Through a land of trouble and distress, of lioness and lion, a viper, a Palestinian viper, by the way, is the national animal of Israel.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: Not the one I would have picked.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: A viper and flying serpent, they carry, meaning Israel, they carry their wealth on the backs of donkeys and their treasures on the humps of camels to a people who will not help them.
18:15
SPEAKER_00: The backstory here is they're they're they're looting their own treasuries.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: They're emptying the treasury of the temple, which is their main bank in Israel and Jerusalem, and they're loading all of their money on the backs of their donkeys and camels to go down and bribe Egypt.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: But the funny thing is they can't do it on the highway.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: You'd like to walk down that seacoast highway.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: The problem is that Assyria owns that highway now.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: They've come down and you can't go on that highway.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: So they're having to hike through the desert amidst vipers and lions and lionesses, taking all of their wealth down to Egypt to bribe this wimpy country to protect them against Assyria.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: And God says to a people who won't help them, how stupid can you be, dear Christian, when you leave me in impatience and look for pleasure or help to our enemies, to pagans who have no idea what's going on.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: And God concludes by making fun of Egypt.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: He says, Egypt's help is completely worthless.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I call her Rahab who just sits.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: This is not the Rahab, the woman in Jericho.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: This is a famous word in Old Testament scholarship.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: Rahab or Rahav was the sea monster in all ancient Middle Eastern mythology.
19:36
SPEAKER_00: She was a great dragon of the sea, who in Genesis chapter 1, in the myth, tried to hold back God from creating.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: She was a chaos monster, and Egypt took her name.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: Egypt said, That's our, you know, that's our favorite animal.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: We are the sea monster of the world.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: Rahab, we're the great dragon of the sea.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: And God says, You know what I call you?
19:58
SPEAKER_00: I call you Rahab, who's toothless, who just sits on her hiny.
20:02
SPEAKER_00: So that's God's point.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: That in other words, you are Egypt is so weak.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: Now, all of this is simply to say something to you and me, which is that it's really dumb for us to be impatient, so impatient that we do something rash rather than wait on the Lord.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: And then God says in verses 8 through 10, he says, Let me tell you the psychology behind this.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: When you do this, when you leave me and go to Egypt, I'm gonna write this written on a tablet so you can read it and be reminded of it forever.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: Come now, write it on a tablet, Isaiah, in their presence, inscribe it on a scroll so it'll be there for the future forever and ever.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: There are rebellious people, a deceptive children, children who don't even want to listen to the Lord's instruction.
20:47
SPEAKER_00: The real problem here is a heart that has decided it doesn't want to listen to God.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't want to wait on him.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: When Isaiah comes, it says, just shut up.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: We don't want to, they got my mind made up, I don't even care.
21:01
SPEAKER_00: And therefore the Holy One of Israel says in verse 12, because you've rejected this message and have trusted, trusted in oppression and deceit, and have depended on them, Egypt, and not me, he says, This iniquity of yours will be like a crumbling gap, a bulge and a high wall, whose collapse will come in an instant suddenly.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: Your whole society, your whole life will be like a rain-damaged, you know, house or a wall, and you know how that happens, and it bulges out, and all of a sudden the drywall just crumbles.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: His picture here is you know, you've built a wall that over time is starting to collapse, and finally it's just gonna fall apart, and that's what your life's gonna be like.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: Why?
21:50
SPEAKER_00: Because you trusted in someone other than me.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: Picture number two there's two metaphors here.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: In fact, your collapse will be like the shattering of a pottery.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Jar crushed to pieces so that not even a fragment of pottery will be found among its shattered remains.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: If your life feels shattered right now, you might want to start by asking yourself if perhaps this is divine discipline, because for the last two or three years, perhaps you've walked away from him.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: You have trusted in anything and everything else other than God.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: In your impatience, you have waited anywhere else but on him.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: So then all of a sudden, God is saying to himself, as he always does in the prophets, okay, I've had enough judgment.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: Let me God's heart is so soft that he has to say something positive.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: And so we have the most famous verse in chapter 30, a line of which, this fourth line, was known and quoted by every one of our founders, from Benjamin Franklin to George Washington.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: The famous line, in sorry if I just spat on you, in quietness and confidence shall be your strength.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: How many of you have heard of that?
23:03
SPEAKER_00: In quietness and confidence is your strength.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: Oh, three of you.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: Good.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so this is what the sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says In returning and rest is your salvation.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: In quietness, the old translation said confidence.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: The new ones are more accurate.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: It's the trust.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: This is a theme word of Isaiah 1 through 39.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: And in quietness and trust is your strength.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: But you would not.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: You wouldn't wait, you wouldn't rest, you wouldn't return, you wouldn't trust.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: Notice, by the way, these four words returning rest, quietness and trust.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: The first and the last go together, and the two middle ones go together.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: Returning means doing a 180.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: Instead of going to Egypt, return to me and basically trust in me.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: Don't trust in anything and everything else, okay?
23:58
SPEAKER_00: And the middle two are, of course, the same thing: quietness and rest.
24:02
SPEAKER_00: And many of you, like I, have felt in the noise and in the activity of the world that we live in.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: You two have realized lately that you need to have these times where you turn off the cell phone, turn off the television, just sit in the chair, you talk to God, and you need times of quietness, right?
24:20
SPEAKER_00: And rest.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: Because that gives you strength.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, that's the promise here.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: God says, you feel like you don't have strength, you feel like you're too ADD to hang on and wait for me.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: So therefore, you've got to make rash decisions.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: I've got a promise for you.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: If you'll just rest in quietness, and then come to me, return to me and trust, and I promise you, I'll give you the strength to be patient.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: Even though you feel like it's impossible.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: And then we get to verse 18.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, the Lord is waiting to show you mercy.
24:57
SPEAKER_00: And if you've been reading carefully at all of these times where they're commanded to wait and they're being criticized for not waiting, you're not waiting.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: You're supposed to wait.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: And you come across this line, therefore, the Lord is waiting to show you mercy, you go, well, what?
25:17
SPEAKER_00: I was blown away by this.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: This, this, this, this announces to us a remarkable principle, folks.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: If we will not wait on God, then He is so compassionate and gracious.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: He will wait on us.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: He'll wait on us to come to the end of self and turn to him.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: He may bring Assyria along.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: He may allow our wall to crumble.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: He may allow that beautiful piece of pottery which we think of as our life to slip from our fingers and crash and be in a thousand pieces.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: He may do that as he sits there and he waits on us, this God who could force us to come to him, but won't do that.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: And if we won't wait on him, he's gonna wait on us.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: Is that remarkable?
26:06
SPEAKER_00: We have a God who's omnipotent, he's omnipresent, he's omniscient, he's just this incredibly sovereign deity who could command or compel whatever he wants, and yet after saying all that and talking about judgment, he wants to let us know that his heart is such that he pleads with us.
26:27
SPEAKER_00: Paul said, you know, I plead with you on behalf of God, be reconciled to God.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: I'm just like, God, this God of ours, the creator, the sovereign, the redeemer, the whatever, who kills dragons, this God is gonna wait around.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: And if you're not gonna wait on me, well, I'll wait on you.
26:47
SPEAKER_00: That's how much I want you to come to me.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: I just think it's incredible.
26:52
SPEAKER_00: So if we won't wait on God, He'll wait on us.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: And the verse continues, therefore, the Lord is waiting to show you mercy.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: And it's rising up to show you compassion, for the Lord is a just God.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: Blessed are all those who wait for him.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: He wants us to wait for him.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: All right?
27:09
SPEAKER_00: Notice, by the way, this really great promise here that blessed, he will bless all those who wait for him.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: He'll bless us with strength to be patient.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: He will bless us.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: And I know one or two modern versions say happy.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: I just I'm not sure happy captures the whole picture here because the word blessed in the Bible goes beyond that.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: It's it's like an internal prosperity.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's happiness as part of it, but it's a it's a human flourishing that that he's talking about in every possible way.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: Please wait on me.
27:44
SPEAKER_00: He said, please curb your impatience and come to me, turn to me and wait on me.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: So uh I want to draw some final uh ideas about uh waiting out for you, and then tell you how to do it if you're struggling with it.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
28:01
SPEAKER_00: By the way, here's uh the promise that he just gave about blessedness is sort of, I think, explained in just 10 chapters in Isaiah 40, 31.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: A passage that you've heard so many times, I'm gonna ask you to read it out loud with me right now.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: This is one of the promises God gives to those who wait.
28:18
SPEAKER_00: Say it with me, but those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not be weary, they will walk and not faint.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: God will bless you in remarkable ways if you will wait on him.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: Let me, a couple of observations before I close.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: We Christians are, just because of who we are, we're a waiting people.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: We're a waiting people.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: We're waiting for God to come and help.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: In fact, you, if you're a Christian, you trusted Christ because, in a sense, you waited on him rather than trusting in yourself.
28:57
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 130, that was you.
28:59
SPEAKER_00: I wait for the Lord.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: I wait and I put my hope in his word, and that's what you did.
29:03
SPEAKER_00: You you looked at him and looked at yourself.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: You said, I can't earn my own way to heaven, I can't work for it, I've got to quit trusting myself, I've got to wait on him.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: We Christians are by nature awaiting people.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: Even in a culture where it's so hard to wait, even fighting our own impatience, we are awaiting people.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: In fact, we wait, don't we, for the blessed hope of the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.
29:29
SPEAKER_00: We're waiting for that coming day when we when we see Christ.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's what we do.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: We are a waiting people.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: Uh, that was uh 1 Corinthians, this is 1 Thessalonians.
29:41
SPEAKER_00: We wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead.
29:45
SPEAKER_00: That is Jesus who rescues us from the wrath to come.
29:49
SPEAKER_00: And of course, we're waiting for a new heavens and a new earth in which dwell righteousness.
29:56
SPEAKER_00: So let me ask you a question.
29:58
SPEAKER_00: How do I learn to wait?
30:00
SPEAKER_00: How do I learn to wait?
30:01
SPEAKER_00: How do I become this kind of a person that God blesses in this way?
30:06
SPEAKER_00: I've got five ideas that I picked out of the Bible, but they're really very personal.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: This is uh what I think of and what helps me.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: First one may not help you, but it helps me.
30:16
SPEAKER_00: I picture God waiting.
30:18
SPEAKER_00: I I know that God, of all people, God is waiting.
30:21
SPEAKER_00: Remember, our Lord's patience gives people time to be saved, 2 Peter 3.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: That God's been waiting on me my whole life, and he's been waiting on you.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: And he's been waiting on a lot of lost people to come to him.
30:35
SPEAKER_00: There's an old chorus that goes, the Savior is waiting to enter your heart.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: Why won't you let him come in?
30:44
SPEAKER_00: If you're in a place where you're you haven't yet, you know, responded to the claims of Christ, know that he is there.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: He would love, he's waiting on you.
30:54
SPEAKER_00: He's waiting on you.
30:56
SPEAKER_00: And he will not trample over you or compel or force you to do anything, but but he would love for you to respond to him this morning and to come to him.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: Um he's a waiting God.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: The most famous uh atheist back in the 19th century was this guy here named Robert Ingersoll.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: And uh he would he would, in a day when it wasn't popular to be an atheist, it's popular today, but he would go around and he would speak in uh massive auditoriums, and people would come out because it was just so weird.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: And he would usually end his talk by pulling out his pocket watch and he'd say, uh, I've just said some blasphemous things about God who said he doesn't even exist.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna challenge God right now.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: If God exists, I should challenge him to strike me dead in the next five minutes, and if he doesn't, then you can agree with me.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: He's he doesn't really exist.
31:43
SPEAKER_00: And he held his watch up and he had a five-minute silence.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: And you can imagine, if you've been to a magic show, just the tension and how it builds.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: And in Chicago, when he did this, a woman screamed and fainted after four minutes and and so forth.
31:54
SPEAKER_00: And the five minutes would come.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: It always would come, and he'd close the watch and he'd say, Proved.
31:59
SPEAKER_00: Proved.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't exist.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: When he did this famously in Chicago, uh, a well-known preacher named Joseph Parker out on the East Coast in New York City responded in his morning message by saying, Did the gentleman think that he could exhaust the patience of the eternal God in five minutes?
32:21
SPEAKER_00: It helps me to remember that God is a waiting God.
32:26
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, uh, replace I know best and this ain't it, God.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: Right?
32:32
SPEAKER_00: Job's line, basically.
32:33
SPEAKER_00: Your line, my line, Lord, being single, I know best and this ain't it.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: Being in debt, I know best and this ain't it.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: Being diagnosed with cancer, I know best and this ain't it.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: Replace I know best and this ain't it with God knows best and I'll submit.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sorry about this.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: When when I came up with this, I didn't realize until I wrote it that it rhymed.
32:56
SPEAKER_00: Which means it's inspired of God.
32:59
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so this is like from Gabriel straight through my mouth to you.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: But so anyway, I know best with God knows best, and I'll submit.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: Job, remember, was finally confronted by God after spending 40 chapters saying, God, I know best, and this ain't it.
33:14
SPEAKER_00: He saw God and then he said, Uh, God, I spoke about things I didn't understand.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: I take back everything I said.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: Third, third thing that helps, that helps me and may help you, is never give up.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: Keep going.
33:34
SPEAKER_00: Remember, one of the two ways that impatience uh shows itself is by causing us to want to bail, to want to give up, to want to quit.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: The other way is, of course, to move rashly and recklessly.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: But Hebrews 12 says it clearly, run with perseverance, the race marked out for you, fixing your eyes on Jesus.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: The temptation to give up, don't take that temptation, don't quit, don't.
33:58
SPEAKER_00: It's so heartbreaking when someone, and it's happened, you know, to someone I called a friend, when they when a person so is tired of life, they commit suicide.
34:09
SPEAKER_00: You know, that's the ultimate in giving up.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: Don't, don't quit, don't give up.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: Wait on God a little longer.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: And fourth, uh, move your trust back onto God.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: Move your trust back to God.
34:24
SPEAKER_00: And the reason I put it this way is I have this picture, you know, of when you trust in yourself.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: It's like um my son has this dog.
34:36
SPEAKER_00: My son Craig lives in town.
34:37
SPEAKER_00: I go out to his house, I have to go to his house because he's got a one-year-old little girl who's just so cute.
34:42
SPEAKER_00: But he go in the house and they have these two dogs who are like mastips, they're like small, one of them is like a small horse, and it sheds.
34:49
SPEAKER_00: You know, you get within 20 feet of it, and you're covered with hairs.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: But it's a Rhodesian ridge back.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: Said something, but anyway, it's huge.
34:57
SPEAKER_00: And so I'll sit on the couch and I'll just be waiting there for my one-year-old little girl to be placed my arms.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: But this dog comes and leaps on me, and he's like, he's all over me.
35:07
SPEAKER_00: He's just huge because he knows I'm a sucker and I'll scratch behind his ears, and I love dogs and all that.
35:12
SPEAKER_00: But I'm getting coated with hairs, and you know, and I go and I can't even see to talk and anything, and so I will bodily move Petra, I'll bodily move that dog elsewhere, and I'll have 15 seconds of blessed freedom before it leaps back on me.
35:28
SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, the picture I have is when you trust in yourself, that's a burden.
35:33
SPEAKER_00: That's like having yourself.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: You're carrying yourself around all day and you're shedding on yourself and you're uh the picture.
35:40
SPEAKER_00: So you bodily every day move your trust back onto God because that big thing you've got that's driving you crazy, whether it's a money thing or a disease sickness thing or a relationship thing, that'll kill you.
35:53
SPEAKER_00: You cannot walk through the day with that.
35:55
SPEAKER_00: So bodily move that trust back to God.
35:57
SPEAKER_00: Be still in the presence of the Lord, Psalm 37, and wait patiently for Him to act.
36:02
SPEAKER_00: Call out to God, say, I'll wait on you, Lord, I'll wait on shifting my trust today back onto you.
36:09
SPEAKER_00: Finally, talk to God about it.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: And I put a picture here deliberately of a hospital because of Romans 12, 12, where Paul's talking about affliction, disease, and sickness, and he ties that into prayer.
36:21
SPEAKER_00: He says, Be patient, that is, wait in affliction, be persistent in prayer.
36:26
SPEAKER_00: And so I know a number of you are struggling with the whole waiting and impatience thing.
36:31
SPEAKER_00: In this very area, you have a loved one who's in the hospital or who's sick, or maybe you're the one who got the diagnosis.
36:37
SPEAKER_00: And it is so hard to wait.
36:39
SPEAKER_00: It's so hard to just trust God for what's gonna happen.
36:42
SPEAKER_00: And I would just say that Paul gives us a hint that one way, this is my fifth and last point, one way that really helps is go to God in prayer every single time.
36:53
SPEAKER_00: You feel your esophagus, you know, narrowing and you feel your heart pitter-pattering at double the rate, and you just feel you feel like I can't trust you, God.
37:01
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I know best, and this ain't it.
37:04
SPEAKER_00: Well, just wait and go to God in prayer.
37:07
SPEAKER_00: I know you went to God in prayer 17 seconds ago.
37:10
SPEAKER_00: Do it again, okay?
37:12
SPEAKER_00: So that's I don't have a big close or anything.
37:14
SPEAKER_00: I would just say that I think every person that I'm talking to and the sound of my voice goes through the impatience thing, and I would just say, uh the sense of humor.
37:22
SPEAKER_00: I thought about preaching about all these characters in the Bible who had to wait.
37:26
SPEAKER_00: Noah had to wait a hundred years for the flood to happen, hundred years of embarrassment with the ark.
37:32
SPEAKER_00: Abraham and Sarah waited 25 years to finally have Isaac come, that baby that had been promised.
37:37
SPEAKER_00: Joseph waited 13 years.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: Moses waited 40 years.
37:40
SPEAKER_00: Here it is, here it comes.
37:41
SPEAKER_00: If God is making you wait, you're in good company.
37:45
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray, shall we?
37:46
SPEAKER_00: I've got Jeremiah's coming out to sing a perfect song for this.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: Father, we come to you and we ask that you'd give us uh help with our impatience.
37:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we can use it even in small ways.
37:58
SPEAKER_00: We get too upset over traffic and lines and stuff like that, but it's the big stuff really, Lord, that makes us, turns us sort of into practical unbelievers.
38:08
SPEAKER_00: We stop trusting in you.
38:11
SPEAKER_00: You start looking to Egypt, you start looking anywhere else.
38:15
SPEAKER_00: Give us the ability, Lord, while you wait on us to come around and wait on you in Jesus' name.
38:21
SPEAKER_00: Amen.