Faith Is the Victory, Part Eight Impatience

Heavenly Father, we pray that you help us to trust in you, even as your Son, the holy servant, the suffering servant, Jesus, trusted in you. We are prone to doubt and question your sovereign actions in behalf of us, and to become impatient, short-tempered, and restless. We are a people who are tempted to lean onto our own understanding, a people who may even dare to counsel you as to how you should conduct your affairs.

Teach us, O Lord, to trust you and to be patient in all our trials, that we may learn how good you are to us, that we may learn to be patient. For we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Impatience Defined

Impatience is a danger to true faith. I think every one of us will confess that we are prone to be impatient. We are in a hurry! When things are not going the way we want them to go, we get angry, frustrated, impatient, restless, and we turn to our own way.

Impatience is the opposite of patience, and is corrosive to true faith. An impatient man says, “My will be done, no matter what.” But a patient man says, “Not my will but thine be done.” A patient man says, “I am God’s servant,” but an impatient man says, “God is my servant.” A patient man is clothed with humility; an impatient man is arrogant. A patient man is a disciple who denies himself daily and takes up his cross to follow Jesus. An impatient man is restless and short of temper. A patient man bears pains and trials calmly and without complaint. He is steadfast, despite opposition, difficulty, and adversity.

Impatience is a work of the flesh, while patience is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. God is able to sanctify an impatient man. How? By causing him to experience tribulations which, we are told, produce patience (Romans 5:3). An impatient man is in a hurry and expects everything to go his way. But God is never in a hurry, and he expects his disciples to follow him. We are to be still before the Lord without fretting. We are to wait patiently for his instruction and direction.

Paul tells us we are to be patient in affliction and faithful in prayer. In Galatians 6:9 he writes, “Let us not become weary in well-doing, for at the proper time,” which is at God’s appointed time, not your time, “we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Impatience gives up. The impatient man becomes weary. And in 1 Corinthians 15:58 Paul says, “Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” The writer to the Hebrews tells us, “You need to persevere” – that is, to be patient and endure affliction – “so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised” (Hebrews 10:36).

Jesus said, “But [the seed] on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience” (Luke 8:15, KJV). No patience means no good crop. Such a person is fruitless and worthless.

Impatience Illustrated

1. Abraham

Let us then speak about impatience, illustrating it through the lives of seven people. First, of course, is Abraham, who is called the father of all believers. When he was seventy-five and Sarai sixty-five, God called him out of Mesopotamia. In obedience they left their country, kindred, and father’s house, and arrived in Canaan.

Genesis 11:30 tells us that Sarai was barren, yet in Genesis 12:7 God promised to give the land of Canaan to Abram’s offspring. In Genesis 13 he confirmed that he would give the land to Abram’s offspring, and in Genesis 15 the Lord promised that Abram would have a son coming from his own body, and that he would have a multitude of children, like the stars that cannot be counted. And we are told Abram believed God.

Then we come to Genesis 16, where we see Abram and Sarai becoming impatient and acting in unbelief. They did not wait for God’s time. They had been married now for over sixty years, yet they had no children. And Sarai was determined to build for herself a family through her maidservant Hagar. She had yet to learn that “unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain” (Psalm 127:1).

For God’s time, they would have to wait another fifteen more years. Their bodies had to become as good as dead. God had planned to perform a miracle in the lives of both to give them the son of promise. Our God is one who gives life to the dead, and he glories in doing so.

Sarai was impatient. She thought that if God refused to build a family through her, she would take matters into her own hands and build for herself a family through Hagar. Such a plan was culturally correct. It was customary, it was legal, and it was reasonable-but it was not the will of the God.

Sarai was angry and frustrated. Time was going! She was impatient. She must act now or never. She, like Eve, was a forerunner of feminism. So Sarah took leadership and began to function as the head, telling the tail, Abram, what to do.

Remember, this Abram had earlier defeated four kings. But now he lost his leadership and courage, and became a man of unbelief. Becoming submissive and obedient to his wife, he sinned against God’s perfect will of monogamy. He who defeated four kings was defeated by his own wife. The Bible says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways” – not some of your ways – “in all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight,” he will solve your problems.

Both Sarai and Abram leaned onto and trusted in their own understanding. They became impatient. They would not trust God’s promise. They would not wait for God’s time and God’s miracle. They would trust in the flesh of self-effort and not in pure grace.

My question is, why did not the God of glory intervene and stop them from doing this evil? He had intervened in their lives before, stopping Pharaoh from engaging in a sexual relationship with Sarai. He had stopped Abimelech from engaging in a sexual relationship with Sarai. God could have stopped them, but he did not. This is a terrible truth: God will permit us to do our own things, and he permits us to reap a harvest of griefs. So they got Ishmael. They also got pains and unhappiness, at least for more than sixteen years. When we are impatient, when we refuse to believe in God’s promise, when we will not patiently wait for God, when we lean onto our understanding, we sow wind and reap a whirlwind of misery and confusion.

Abram could have inquired of the Lord when his wife told him to take this fleshly action. There was a way to approach the holy God at that time. But the tragedy is, he did not, just like Adam did not consult with God when his wife gave him the forbidden fruit to eat. There are times we do not want to pray, because we have already made up our minds to do what we want.

But God does not change his plan and go along with ours. In due time, when Abram was one hundred and Sarah ninety, Isaac was born, as God promised, and Ishmael was driven out of the house. Years of pain, years of waste, years of misery, and years of agony can result when we become impatient and do whatever we want to do.

It was God’s eternal plan that barren Sarah conceive at age ninety and give birth to Isaac, the son of promise. It was God’s plan that Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, be his descendant, and in him all the families of the earth be blessed. Sarah was trying to provide God with a way of fulfilling his promise. She probably thought that God had run out of ways, and her mind began to work. But God does not need our counsel. He is the wonderful Counselor, and we are to hear and do his counsel for our present and eternal consolation.

2. Jacob

Before Esau and Jacob were born, the Lord revealed to Rebekah that the older, Esau, would serve the younger, Jacob. This was God’s promise to Jacob. He was the son of promise, not Esau. He was told of it by his mother, and I am sure that Isaac was also aware of this great plan of God.

Yet, notice, Jacob refused to act in faith. He refused to wait for God to bring about the fulfillment of this promise. Jacob was a crook. He shrewdly bought the birthright of his brother for a cup of soup; when Esau was totally famished, Jacob closed the deal. He also joined with his mother in deceiving his father to obtain his blessing. He would get God’s blessing by hook or by crook. He would not rely on God’s ability to fulfill his gracious promise. He would not wait. He would lean onto his own understanding.

Yet the terrible truth is, God did not interfere with Jacob. He let this deception happen. God permits us to do our own thing. But such deeds of the flesh will surely lead to great pain and anguish. “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows” (Galatians 6:7). Jacob reaped many griefs and sorrows. He was deceived many times over by his uncle Laban. He experienced severe family troubles. The angel of the Lord confronted him and made him lame. His beloved wife Rachel died in childbirth. He lived in grief for many years with the certain knowledge that his son Joseph had been killed by a wild animal.

The way of impatience is the way of pain, not the way of faith. The way of patience is the way of faith. And let me tell you, the only way that we can become patient is through the affliction which our sovereign Lord brings about in our lives without consulting us.

3. Moses

Now, we may think that Moses was demonstrating impatience when he came down from the presence of God, took the stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments, and threw them and broke them. But God did not blame him for that. That was not an act of impatience. That was a dramatic act to depict the sin of the people who had broken God’s commandments.

We are told in the Scripture concerning the character of Moses, “Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth” (Numbers 12:3). It is true that when anyone sees God in some degree of glory, that person will be very humble, and this was truly the experience of Moses.

Yet even this most humble Moses became impatient and reckless. This should serve as a warning to every one of us. As Moses and the Israelites traveled in the desert, the people again, as usual, murmured because of lack of water (Numbers 20). Then the Lord told Moses, “Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to the rock before their eyes, and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock for the community so that they and their livestock can drink.” At a previous time, when there was lack of water, the Lord directed Moses to strike the rock with a staff, the rock upon which the Lord was standing. Moses did so, and water gushed out (Exodus 17).

But this time Moses was to take the staff and speak to the rock. Instead, he lost his temper. He lost his God-consciousness. He struck the rock twice, we are told, saying, “Listen, you rebels! Must we bring water out of the rock?” And yet water gushed out and the community drank.

Had Moses spoken in faith to the rock, God would have received glory. But by striking the rock twice, Moses and Aaron received the glory for themselves. The Lord told them, “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.” So Aaron died at Mount Hor and Moses died at Mount Nebo.

But look at God’s statement in Deuteronomy 32, beginning with verse 50, to see what impatience can do: “There on the mountain that you have climbed, you will die and be gathered to your people, just as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people.” And now God gives the reason in verse 51: “This is because both of you broke faith with me in the presence of the Israelites at the waters of Meribah Kadesh in the desert of Zin, and because you did not uphold my holiness among the Israelites.” They were prevented from entering the Promised Land. What severe pain and punishment for their impatience and acts of unbelief.

We said impatience is the opposite of faith. Impatience robs us of great spiritual blessings. It is the mother of many griefs.

4. Joshua

In Joshua 9 we see even Joshua becoming impatient and unbelieving. The Scripture directed him clearly what he should do to the native people of Canaan. There was clear direction. In Deuteronomy 7 we read, “When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations-the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you-and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy” (vv. 1-3). And we read the same thing in Deuteronomy 20:16-18. At least two times we are told very clearly what should be the plan of action with the nations in Canaan.

Yet Joshua failed to trust this directional word. He was deceived by the Gibeonites, also called Hivites, who were natives of Canaan. They were people to be put to death and shown no mercy, by divine direction, because the iniquity of these people was full. They were to be totally destroyed.

But Joshua and the elders were fooled by the Gibeonites’ old sacks, mended wineskins, patched sandals, threadbare clothing, dried crumbly bread, and their continuous plea for a treaty, as with people of a distant land. They tasted their bread, which is a covenant sign. (PGM) They entered into a treaty with them over against divine direction. They were impatient. They did not examine the Scriptures. And above all, they did not inquire of the Lord through the priests. There was a way to find out the mind of the Lord, and they refused.

We become mad and crazy in our heads, bent on doing what is displeasing to God in our impatience. If only we would stop and ask the Lord. If only we would come and talk to the pastor, to the elders, or others, asking, “Is this the right thing to do?”

The Gibeonites became thorns in the sides of the Israelites. The impatient man ignores the word of God. The impatient man walks by sight and taste, and not by faith. But the impatient man surely suffers grievous pain. So, church, beware of impatience. The man of God shall not make haste.

5. Saul

In 1 Samuel 10:8 the prophet Samuel had instructed Saul to go down to Gilgal and wait there seven days until Samuel came to him to do two things: to offer sacrifices and to give him instructions governing the battle against the Philistines. This was God’s direction. The Philistines were gathering, the Israelites were scattering, and Saul was panicking. The pressures of circumstances! So Saul, in violation of Samuel’s instructions, refused to wait and incurred divine wrath. As a result of his impatience, he lost his kingdom and his sanity.

What a tragedy when we make decisions based on circumstances, not on Christ’s word! What tragedy when we do not wait on God, but incur the curse of God. God leaves us. We are left alone to our own devices.

6. Naaman

In 2 Kings 5 we read about this man. Here comes Naaman, a great Syrian general, and yet a leper. Here comes the general to Israel to be healed by the prophet Elisha, and the prophet Elisha preached the gospel to him. Of course, Naaman came to buy salvation with seven hundred and fifty pounds of silver, and one hundred and fifty pounds of gold, and ten rolls of the latest clothing. He had yet to learn that salvation is by grace through faith. It cannot be bought. The only requirement is we must confess our sins and believe in the gospel to be saved.

So the gospel came to Naaman from the lips of Elisha: “Go down to the dirty river called the Jordan” – not the rivers of Syria, the Abana and Pharphar. “Wash yourself seven times and you will be healed completely.” That is the gospel.

But Naaman refused to believe the gospel. He turned and went off in a rage, we are told. Saint Paul tells us the gospel is foolishness to the Greeks, and I would say as well to the Syrians, and everybody else, because it is simple. It is not in keeping with all the wisdoms of the world. It is simple! It only demands faith-total faith. It demands total and implicit obedience.

In Naaman’s impatience, he almost lost his healing and eternal salvation. Yet he was persuaded to believe the gospel by his humble servants through rational arguments. And he went down to the Jordan, washed himself seven times, and was completely healed and saved. He became a believer in the God of Elisha, the God of Israel.

What must I do to be saved? The simple answer: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved, and your household. Impatience damns, but faith, and faith alone, in the gospel saves us.

7. Jonah

The prophet Jonah refused to believe God’s plan of salvation for the sinful Ninevites. He would rather die than see the Ninevites receive forgiveness of sins and be spared from destruction. We know the story; at his own request, Jonah was thrown overboard. But he was saved by a large fish and eventually came to Nineveh, where he prophesied about its destruction in forty days. Then he began waiting to see the complete destruction of Nineveh, to his great enjoyment.

But contrary to Jonah’s expectation, the Ninevites repented, and God saved and spared them. This made Jonah angry and impatient. He would still rather die than see the Ninevites saved. And he told this to the Lord to his face, saying, “I am angry enough to die.” God asked, “Do you have a right to be angry?” Jonah replied, “I have a right to be angry!”

When our plan conflicts with God’s plan, we become angry and impatient. God and man are incompatible, and God does not change. So man must change. May God help us to change. May he help us to surrender our plan to God’s plan. May God help us in humility to believe God and be saved.

Jesus: Example of Perfect Patience

Now look at Jesus, the only patient one on the face of the earth. Isaiah calls him the suffering servant. Peter calls him “your holy servant Jesus” (Acts 4:27). And see how he dealt with temptation. After forty days of fasting, he was hungry. Tempted to make bread out of stone, he replied to Satan, “It is written: ‘Man does not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God'” (Matthew 4:4).

In John 8:29 Jesus declared, “I always do what pleases him.” Jesus always pleased the Father-not sometimes, but always. In John 11 the sisters of Lazarus sent messengers to Jesus: “Your friend Lazarus is sick. Come immediately! He needs you. Heal him!” But we are told that Jesus stayed there two more days. Let me tell you why: His Father did not want him to go right away. His Father’s will was that he arrive there on the fourth day, after Lazarus had already been buried, to raise him from the dead.

On Gethsemane Jesus cried out, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). By his patient suffering in our behalf we are saved by grace. In Philippians 2 we read that he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place.

In Isaiah 40 a secret of Christian life is revealed, beginning with verse 28: “Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope”-those who wait, those who trust-“in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (vv. 28-31).

In Numbers 9 we find a very important passage. It is full of repetition because of the significance of guidance shown there. The solution to impatience is being led by God, and being obedient to God’s leading. So we read beginning with verse 15: “On the day the tabernacle, the Tent of the Testimony, was set up, the cloud covered it. From evening till morning the cloud above the tabernacle looked like fire. That is how it continued to be; the cloud covered it, and at night it looked like fire. Whenever the cloud lifted from above the Tent, the Israelites set out; whenever the cloud settled, the Israelites encamped.” And read on; there is so much repetition about this business-the cloud lifted and they set out; the cloud settled and they encamped, even if it was for only two days, or one day, or many years. The idea is that Christian people are directed and led by God. Romans 8:14 says, “As many as are being led by the Spirit of God, they and they alone are the sons of God” (author’s translation).

There is a practical illustration of this guidance in Acts 16. Beginning with verse 6 we read, “Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit”-that means having been prevented by the Holy Spirit-“from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia” to preach the gospel “but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to.” This is the same idea of guidance. “So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.'” So there is guidance. “After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them” (vv. 6-10).

The steps of a good man are ordered of the Lord (Psalm 37:23, KJV). Wait for him. It is his business to guide us in those steps. Don’t panic. Don’t take matters into your own hands. Don’t try to counsel God. He is aware of all situations.

May God help us to believe him. May he help us to be patient. May God help us to not make decisions based on circumstantial pressures. May God help us to be led by the Holy Spirit, the holy Scripture, and the holy church.

Let me close with this poem by Norman L. Trott:

No time for God?
What fools we are, to clutter up
Our lives with common things
And leave without heart’s gate
The Lord of life and Life itself-
Our God!

No time for God?
As soon to say no time
To eat or sleep or love or die.
Take time for God,
Or you shall dwarf your soul,
And when the angel death
Comes knocking at your door,
A poor, misshapen thing you will be
To step into eternity!

No time for God?
That day when sickness comes,
Or trouble finds you out,
And you cry out for God;
Will He have time for you?

No time for God?
Some day you’ll lay aside
This mortal self, and make your way
To worlds unknown,
And when you meet Him face to face
Will He-should He,
Have time for you?

(quoted in Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations: Signs of the Times by Paul Lee Tan [Rockville, MD: Assurance Publishers, 1979], 1568).

Heavenly Father, we pray and we confess that we have been impatient. There were times we did not pray, we did not wait on you, we did not consult with you. Even when we were told which way to go, we refused to follow direction. This morning, O God, have mercy upon us and forgive us all our sins. Help us not to help you out, as Sarai tried to do. O God, help us to be patient, to be humble, to be obedient, to wait on you. And when direction comes, help us, O Lord, to walk in the direction of the Lord. The path of a righteous man is like the first gleam of dawn. It becomes brighter and brighter and brighter until the path is filled with the brightness of the midday sun.

O God, help us, then, to take up our cross daily and follow you, that we may seek only your glory, have joy in the Holy Spirit, and become recipients of your blessings here and hereafter. Amen.