Dr. Charles Stanley: Well,
whether you're making a purchase or whether you are
facing an emergency, the one thing you don't
want to hear is: wait. None of us like to wait. We'd like to have it now. And we're living in a time
when "now" is becoming more and more relevant. Because most
anything you want today, you can have pretty quickly. There was a time when you had
to think in terms of wait a month for something. Then it got down to two weeks. Then it's a week. And now it's almost a day,
and sometimes you can get it the same day. Look what a mess we're in
morally in this country because people, sexually,
are not willing to wait till they get married. Everybody wants everything
now, and you would think that we've finally come to the
conclusion that it's okay to have everything you
want when you want it. God didn't make it that way. He knew that waiting
was very, very important. If He didn't, He wouldn't
have had so many times in the Scripture to
bring it to our mind. And so, the twenty-seventh
Psalm, for example, if you'll look at this twenty-seventh
Psalm and the fourteenth verse, says, "Wait for
the Lord; Be strong and let your heart take courage;
Yes, wait for the Lord." Now, why would He
say it that way? Because He knows
sometimes it's not easy to wait. It's not easy to
wait, for example, if you have expected
something for a very long time. "Wait for the Lord;
Be strong and let your heart take courage." Be strong. Sometimes it takes
strength to just wait. And He says, "Take courage;
Yes, wait for the Lord." In what area of your life
is it the most difficult for you to have to wait? What area is it? Is it in a relationship to
somebody else, or is it money? Or in what relationship of
your life do you have the most problem just having to wait? When I think about how many
times God talks about waiting, waiting is very important
as far as God is concerned. It's important in
our physical life. It's important in
our spiritual life. In fact, one of the key
lessons in the Scripture is learning to wait upon God. How many times He
admonishes us to wait. And yet, we don't like to wait. We prefer to have
things right now. But all of us are wise enough,
I think, to know that some things it's better not to have
just when you want it. There's sometimes that having
something right now is not wise. Maybe we're not ready for it. For example, there're some
things that are dangerous. There're some things that
are dangerous not only physically
but emotionally. So we have to be careful and we
have to be conscious of the fact that waiting is more
than just an idea. It is a principle
of the Word of God. How many times He
admonishes us to wait. And so when we think about it,
and He makes it so simple when He says, "Wait for the Lord." And then notice the next phrase. "Be strong and let your heart
take courage," which is His way of saying sometime it's not
going to be easy to wait. Listen to that,
"Wait for the Lord; Be strong and let
your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the Lord." Why would God tell us
to wait for anything? Because He knows that
waiting has great advantages. It's good not to have everything
you want when you want it. It's good to have to
wait for some things. In fact, some things it becomes
richer and richer when you have to wait and wait for it. And we live in a time
when we want it now, you can have it now. That's about the way it is. For most things
you can have it now, but there are consequences. And paying those consequences is
usually not worth what you get. Waiting upon the Lord is a key
principle of the Word of God. And so, when I think
about that and I think about some of the Scriptures. For example, turn, if you
will, to Isaiah chapter forty for a moment. And I want you to notice
something in this passage. Isaiah chapter forty. Listen to this,
"Do you not know? And have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the Lord,
the Creator of the ends of the earth does not
become weary or tired. His understanding
is inscrutable. He gives strength to the
weary, and to him who lacks might He increases power. Though youths grow
weary and tired, and vigorous young
men stumble badly; Yet those who wait for
the Lord," what happens? "Will gain new strength, they
will mount up with wings like eagles, they will
run and not get tired, they will walk and
not become weary." When a follower of Jesus learns
the principle of waiting upon the Lord, you learn one
of the most important principles in the Word of God. You can just go from
Genesis to Revelation. Waiting upon the Lord
is not a popular idea, it's not an easy principle, but
it is absolutely an essential principle if you're going to be
the person God wants you to be, if you're going to do the
things He wants you to do, learning to wait upon
Him is absolutely a key. When you got
married, for example, did you wait for God to
show you the right one? Or did you just decide that
he or she was handsome or beautiful, and why wait
when you can have it now? Listen carefully. You can have it now, but don't
forget this: there is a price to pay when you have everything
you want when you can get it because you have enough
money or enough fame, enough clout, whatever
it might be to get it, you can have it, but
you'll pay a price. Waiting upon the Lord is
a principle of Scripture, and I want us to think
about it for a few moments. And He says, for example,
in the twenty-fifth Psalm, "None of those who wait for
the Lord will be ashamed." In other words, God will so work
in your life as a follower of Jesus by waiting upon the Lord,
He says you'll not be ashamed. When you're wise enough to wait
until God gives you permission to do something or
to have something, you won't be
ashamed, you'll be what? You will find yourself
with a sense of security. This is here because
God has provided it. And when people think
about getting married, oftentimes they want to
get married right now. Not asking, "Lord is this
Your will or not Your will?" Or make big
purchases, oftentimes not asking God about His will. There's something about that
simple principle and you say, "W-A-I-T, that four letter
word, why's that so important?" Ask God.
You can start in Genesis. Ask God. If you violate His caution
to you to wait, you always pay a price. Want to say it again. When you violate that principle
and stepping ahead of God, not waiting for Him,
you always pay a price. That's why so many times,
"None of those who wait for the Lord will be ashamed." In Psalm thirty-seven,
"Those who wait for the Lord will inherit the land." That is, God will give you what
your heart needs and desires if you wait for His timing. He's a good God, and
sometimes we act like, well, if I don't have it
now, it's like God will forget. Let me ask you: What is the
only thing God forgets? What is it? Forgiven sin.
He forgets it. "Those who wait for the Lord
will inherit the land." "Those who wait for the
Lord will not be ashamed." And so, how can
we be ashamed when we're waiting
upon the Lord? We don't have to be ashamed. And people will
ask you sometimes, "Well, why don't you
do--why have you waited so long? Why didn't you do this?
Why don't you buy? Why do you wait for
this and wait for that and wait for the other?" Because if you're wise, you
wait till you hear from God. Now, think about this. I think about people who pray
and, no doubt, let's just say that everybody prays at
night before they go to bed. Do you pray about the things
that you want that God has given you a caution: not now? When you pray and ask God about
making a purchase and you say, "Well, God hadn't stopped
me, so it must be alright." Mmm-mm-mm-mm,
sounds like a teenager. That's not what that's about. If you ask God for
something, watch this carefully, if you ask God about something,
then you are obligated to wait until God gives you
permission to do it. How many times does
He say wait, wait, wait, wait, wait upon the Lord. How wise it is to
wait upon the Lord. And think about this. How do most people wait? Do you wait impatiently? That means you
complain about it. You tell other people about it. You tell God about it, and
you fuss at God because He hadn't already done it. You wait nervously. Oh, God, am I going
to get it or am I not? Will you do something, Lord?
Help me, help me, help me? Or do you wait complaining? Think about this. Think about God looking down
on you while you're praying and asking Him about something. And just asking Him and
complaining all the time because He hadn't given it to you yet. And then people, they
wait questioning God. Well, Lord, why
don't You do it now? Think about something that
you've asked God about in your life that He
didn't do immediately. How--what was your response? Didn't you question--think about
this, didn't you question His judgment, "Well, why not now?" Knowing in your heart--if you
think how unreasonable this is. You make a request before God
of something that's legitimate, and He doesn't give
it to you right then. And then you come
back and say, "Well now, Lord, what are You waiting for?" And you can't come up with any
good reason why God hadn't given it to you now, and
so what happens? You begin to complain. In your heart you
know that God says, "Ask, and it shall
be given to you, seek, and you shall find, knock,
and it shall be opened to you." That is, God is a
good, wonderful, awesome God,
very, very generous, giving all of us
more than we deserve. And yet, when we don't
get it when we want it, we come complaining. Stop and think. Would God withhold something
from you that is good for you? No. Would He withhold it if
now is the right time? No. If you stop and think--anytime
God withholds something from you, it's God withholding
something out of wisdom, love, and for our benefit, that
He knows that later is better, later we'll be ready for it,
later we'll be equipped for it. We're not always equipped
for everything we ask for. And you would say that to your
teenager or your grandchildren. You'd say to them, there's some
things you're not ready for. And at the same time, you ask
God and He doesn't give it to you when you want it,
and you question God. So, listen to this. Think about all these
attitudes: impatiently, nervously,
complaining, questioning, frustrated, irritated,
and miserably we wait. What have you been asking God
for that He has not given you? I cannot tell you how important
waiting upon Almighty God is because it is a key to
the way God operates. I don't--I can't think of
much I've ever asked God for that I got immediately. And watch this,
sometimes we're not ready. Sometimes what we're
asking for is the right thing, but God knows when you're
ready for it or when you're not. And so we complain about God
because He's not giving us what we want when it's not that
He's not giving us what we--He's waiting till we get ready. And sometimes He's waiting till
we realize that He's the source of what we're looking for in
life and not somebody else. And sometimes He wants to teach
us the fact we don't need that. We think we need that. He knows we don't need that. He knows that would be a
stumbling block in our life. He knows that He has
something better than that. Some thing--watch this,
some things do not fit us when we think they do. They just don't. And so we have to wait. And a good example of
whether we trust God or not is if I'm willing to wait. We tell our children
to wait on marriage. Wait when it comes to money. And our unwillingness to
wait will get us in trouble, get us in debt, get us
embarrassed, you name it. And so, what does God say? He says, "Wait upon the Lord:
be strong and of good courage, wait, I say, on the Lord." And so, we think
about how we should wait. So, I hope you'll
jot these down. How should we wait? We should wait patiently. We should wait patiently, and
when I think about how many times we're
admonished in the Word of God, "I waited
patiently for the Lord, and He inclined to
me and heard my cry. He brought me out of the pit
of destruction, out of miry clay, set my feet upon a rock
making my footsteps firm." Listen to this, "He put
a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God,
many will see and fear and will trust in the Lord." That is, you going to be blessed
if you wait for whatever you're looking for and searching for
and what you need in life if you wait for God's timing. None of us would question
the fact that God's wiser than we are. We know that He's
wiser than we are; so therefore, whatever
I'm asking Him about, surely I know that He
knows the right time, the best time, watch this, and
He knows that if I get it ahead of time, I won't enjoy it. He knows if I get it
at the right time, enjoy it the rest of my life. There are not many principles in
the Word of God more important than, "Wait upon the Lord:
wait, I say, upon the Lord." So, secondly, how
should we wait? We should wait quietly. Listen to this. Psalm sixty-two, "My soul waits
in silence for God only." Here's what that
means: I stop complaining. I wait quietly and
stop complaining. Thank you, Lord, I know that in
Your given time, in Your good time, you will provide exactly
what I'm asking for. And then, of course,
we wait trusting Him. In other words, waiting
just doesn't mean we don't say anything, we don't do
anything, but waiting, watch, waiting is
actively trusting God. I'm trusting You, Lord. It's saying it,
I'm trusting You, Lord. That is, I'm not
fretting about it. If I'm fretting,
I'm not trusting. If I'm asking, believing,
and patiently waiting, I'm not saying to Him, "Well, Lord, I've
waited three weeks. I've waited three months.
I've waited six months." And, it's amazing what people
get upset about when God doesn't give them what they
ask for immediately. And yet, the same parent
would look back and see how they taught their
children to be patient. Patience is very key
from God's perspective. God doesn't mind us coming
to Him over and over and over again about something. But He wants us to
wait trusting Him. "Trusting in the Lord
with all of our heart, leaning not to our
own understanding, in all of our ways
acknowledging Him. He'll bring it to pass." Would you say that
you're a trusting person? Think about your
prayer life for a moment. First of all, do
you pray every day? If you don't, you're
gonna get in trouble. All of us need to
talk to Him every day. Do you pray patiently? And how many times
have I heard this? "Well, I asked God about it and
I prayed several times about it, and I don't think God
was listening to me." So, I would ask the question:
What does God have to do, think about this, what does
God have to do in your life to assure you that He's
listening without saying anything audibly to you? What does He have to do? Can you trust Him
to keep His word? Shouldn't that be enough? "Ask and it shall be given
you, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall
be opened to you." Not necessarily today or
next week or next month. But am I willing to believe Him
because I know that it's--that what I'm asking for is
scriptural, it's right, it's good, it's the kindness of God,
I feel free about that. But the timing, why
do I have to wait? So, remember this, God in His
wisdom and love always has a very specific reason for causing
us to wait for some particular thing that we're asking about. Because, watch this, all we
see is what's in front of us. God sees not only
what's in front of us, but He sees what's beyond that
and beyond that and beyond that and He sees the effect
it'll have in our life, whether we wait or
whether we don't wait. And so, waiting is a very
important principle in the Word of God. I'm to wait expectantly. Listen to this, "I would have
despaired unless I had believed. I would see the
goodness of the Lord." There are times when there are
situations and circumstances, we think it's absolutely
essential that I have this or that now, when
that's really not true. This is a principle Scripture:
you wait till you get God's permission to make
serious decisions, and I mean many
decisions are not big decisions. They're small decisions,
but they're serious because of the consequences. If I'm only looking
from here to there, I'm not going to see it. The Spirit of God came into
your life the moment you trusted Him as your Savior. One of His primary reasons to
come into your life was to seal you as a child of God,
but also to give you direction and guidance. That's one of His primary
purposes, to give guidance and direction in a sinful,
wicked, vile world. We have--what we have is we have
God living within our spirit to give us guidance and
direction to when to say no, when to say yes,
when to go this way, when to go that way. It is foolish to try to live
your life in this world without God and without listening, which
means your prayer life ought to have a priority in your life. Every day, the priority of our
life ought to be time we spend alone with Him being quiet. And a good time to do that's
when you start the day out. There are people who work in
situations and circumstances every day in the offices they
live in, they're going to walk into a den of temptation,
walk into a den of wickedness and vileness and foul
language and all the rest. But they work there, and
they have to be there at this particular point in their life. You cannot go in to work,
wherever you work, forgetting God and just doing
whatever you want to do. We have to be
sensitive to our surroundings, careful about who sees what,
what we listen to, what we don't listen to, and who is trying to
influence us in some way. Wait upon the Lord. We wait trustingly, quietly,
patiently, expectantly. "I would have despaired." We wait courageously. "Wait for the Lord, be
strong, and let your heart take courage," watch this, God knows
that there's some things it takes courage to wait for. It takes courage to wait. You just have to wait,
though you don't want to wait. Sometimes you--sometimes we
can't even come up with a reason why God wouldn't do it now. And if I've heard
one thing as a pastor, I've heard that so
many times, well, what's--what is God waiting for? Well, you know, I can give
you all kind of answers but the truth is, He's waiting, He's
waiting from a heart of love to give you what you're
asking for if it's His will. If it's not His will,
you're not gonna have it, but He's waiting
till the time is right. So, I want you to think for
just a moment, I'm gonna give you fifteen seconds to
think about something. You ready? And I want you to think about
something you've been asking God for, something maybe
for somebody else or something for yourself. And how have you--I'm gonna give
you fifteen seconds to respond to this, how have you
been responding to your requests to God? You've got fifteen
seconds to think about it. All right, have you been
waiting upon Him courageously? Patiently? Knowing that He always
wants what's best for you? In other words, are you
patiently waiting for God to answer your petition? Or are you coming to Him
over and over and over again saying, "God, why not? Why not, God? I've prayed about this
and I've thought about it. Why not?" And here's His
answer: because I love you. That's the reason. God is not gonna deprive us of
anything that's good for us, that He knows we need, that
it's okay for us to have, that we will
enjoy, not disobey Him, not make it a god in our life. Some things you'll never get
because God knows it would become a god in your life. Then, of course, we are to
wait standing on God's Word. Listen, "I wait for the
Lord, my soul does wait, and in His Word do I hope." So, how do you wait? Now, let me remind you of one
thing: one of the reasons we have to wait is
because of sin in our life. And God knows how to
get our attention. When there's something in
our life that's not right, we're asking Him for something
else and we're thinking over here, now, God,
here's what I need. And God is saying, "Well,
over here's the reason you can't have it now." When you deal with
this, I'll deal with that. As long as you
won't deal with this, I'm not going to deal with that. Sin is a barrier to blessing. And if we want God's blessing
and if we want to shorten the time, we have to look at our
heart, be sure it's clean. We're submissive to His will,
we want what He wants, whatever that is,
then more than likely, we'll receive what
we're asking for. But what I want you to see is
this: God doesn't miss a single opportunity to
teach me to trust Him. It doesn't make any difference
whether you're twenty-one or eighty-one, He's always
in the process of teaching us to trust Him. Probably every single one of us
seated here would say that there is something I'm praying
about, I'm trusting God for. I'm waiting about it. Are you waiting
patiently, as we said? Quietly? Trusting?
Expectantly? Courageously? With confidence? Are you waiting, trusting Him to
hear and answer your prayer? Or has God brought something
to your mind in the last twenty-five minutes that
He wants you to deal with? More than likely, if something
cropped up in your mind that has to do with what you've
been asking Him about, that's the thing He
has His finger on. That's the thing you need to
deal with if you want God to answer your prayer. He's a prayer-answering God. And Jesus made it so simple when
He was teaching the Sermon on the Mount, He said, "Ask
and it shall be given to you, seek, ye shall find, knock,
it shall be opened unto you." In other words, God is
so willing, "This is the confidence that we have in Him,
that, if we ask anything according to His will,
He hears us. And if we know that He hears
us, we know that we have the petition we desired of Him." So, we have the promises. So, watch this: obey
God, listen to Him, and watch Him work. He'll work.
Amen? Father, we thank You for
the simplicity of Your Word. You didn't make it
difficult for us to understand. You made it simple and plain so that we will listen
to You more carefully. We'll listen to discern
Your will from our will. You want to grow us up,
not just in a single answer, but Lord, we know that You take
great delight in granting to us the desires of our heart. Whoever seated here this morning
is praying about whatever is on their heart and struggling with
because it has not happened yet, would You grant them the
understanding even now that the answer will come
if it's Your will. It'll come in Your
timing if we are obeying You, following Your
Word, and trusting You. We love You for
loving us, Father. In Jesus's name, amen.
