The Consequences of Impatience | Timeless Truths – Dr. Charles Stanley

[Music] [Music] timeless truths a collection of classic sermons from dr charles stanley today's selection recorded in 2004 the consequences of impatience [Music] when you observe someone being very very impatient how does it make you feel well how do you suppose other people feel when you and i become very very impatient with them well probably all of us become impatient about some things in life and probably most of them are rather insignificant for example you're in a hurry and you can't find your car keys anywhere you know exactly where you laid them down but somehow they're not there or you're having lunch and 25 minutes has gone by and they still haven't shown up or you've said to your children in the bed by nine o'clock i mean it and what happens is you walk in there three times they're still in the bed frolicking and having a good time totally ignored you then you take some other action probably so the issue is what happens when we become impatient and how do we feel and how do we feel when other people become impatient with us well we could talk about insignificant things but in this message i want us to talk about those very significant times those forks in the road when you and i come to that place in life and we want to move we don't have god's yes about it and we move anyway so this is a part of a series the power of patience and oftentimes we sort of joke about patients well you know i'm not impatient or i am patient the truth is not a joke in matter because it affects every single area of our life now i want you to turn if you will to the 13th chapter of first samuel because i want us to look at the consequences of impatience in the lives of two men two different total situations that one of these two is going to grab every single one of us and make us stop to think well lord this could happen to me or it has happened to me because of my impatience first samuel chapter 13. so let me give you a little idea what's happening before we come to the verse the nation of israel has been uh under great distress because the philistines and so uh jonathan saul's king saul's son has just wiped out a garrison of philistines they've heard about it and now they're arming for war and they're far outnumbering the nation of israel well what happened back over in the 10th chapter and the eighth verse the prophet samuel remember now the prophet is the ultimate spiritual leader of the whole nation of israel he's the one who hears from god and passes on the word to the king and to the people of israel he said to king saul he said unto saul here before he's king he says and you shall go down before me to gilgal and behold i will come down to you to offer burn offerings and sacrifice peace offerings you shall wait seven days until i come to you and show you what you should do so that was his word to him now so with that in mind here's what i want you to see what happens beginning chapter 13 at first samuel now look if you will in verse 8 samuel the prophet just gave him the word from god wait now verse eight now he waited seven days according to the appointed time set by samuel but samuel did not come to gilgal and the people were scattering from him so saul said bring to me the burnt offerings and the peace offerings and he offered the burnt offerings as soon as he finished as soon as he finished offering the burnt offerings behold samuel came in saul went out to meet him and degreed him but samuel said what have you done and saul said because i saw that the people were scattering from me because they were afraid of what was happening and that you did not come within the appointed days and that the philistines were assembling at big masses he had a reason therefore i said now the philistines will come down against me at gilgal and i have not asked the favor of the lord so i forced myself and offered to run offerings just couldn't help it i forced myself to do it samuel said to saul you've acted foolishly you have not kept the commandment of the lord your god which he commanded you for now the lord would have established your kingdom of israel forever but now your kingdom shall not endure the lord has sought out for himself a man after his own heart and the lord has appointed him as a ruler over his people because you have not kept what the lord commanded you here's what i want you to see notice it didn't say that that samuel showed up later it says that as soon as he had completed that offering samuel showed up now let me show you what's important about this offering there was no law that said a king for example could not offer burnt offerings any kind but there was a law that a king no one could offer this particular offering burnt offering sacrifices to god before war except the prophet himself be present at that sacrificial offering he had to be present that was the issue so he said wait seven days well when in these seven days more than likely samuel must have shown up probably till the end of that seventh day because as soon as saul offered the offering disobeyed god samuel shows up it was a command of god you must not do that only the prophet can do it he knew that he knew what the rule was he knew what the law was but he said if you'll notice well the the enemy was coming and people began to scatter so i forced myself to do it which means he knew he should not have he knew the law of god he knew the command of god he remembered what the prophet who was the ultimate final leader spiritual leader in israel he knew what he said and he said i forced myself to do it he said you violated the law of god and here's what i want you to see now watch this there were consequences to this act of disobedience it was a very very specific command because god's idea was that the prophet who represented god was to be there to offer that offering when they went to battle because god intended for his people to win the battles because his this the nation of israel was god's chosen people through whom the messiah would have got was to come and he intended to send a message throughout all of history these are my people and the messiah is coming through them it was their responsibility to teach the world of their day monotheism that there is one god and his name is jehovah this is very important the eyes of god may not have been been important as of some very important the eyes of god that that sacrifice not be offered except in the presence of the prophet here samuel did it anyway here's what i want you to see there were consequences in his life there are always consequences in our life when we violate the law of god when we choose to step ahead of god whatever our reasoning may be well you know what if i hadn't i would have lost that you know what if i if if if if and what do we do we force ourselves we say oh what we do is we rationalize the scripture we explain it all away and we just go right ahead and do it anyway ahead of god's timing there are always consequences i want you to watch here what happens this listen this set in motion once he violated that principle and he said to him you know what you've lost the kingdom it would not have been a davidic kingdom but a soul kingdom you've lost it so what happens here's what he's doing he disobeys god he loses the kingdom now he wants to kill his son now he's disobeyed samuel again about the amalekites and then what happens he's trying to kill david he tries to kill david who's jonathan's best friend now he's trying to kill him he does everything remember he threw a spear did his best to pin him to the wall and he missed he tried to kill david and then when things don't work out right listen the bible says that he he tried to pray and ask god for guidance and god wasn't speaking to him so listen this instead of repenting and waiting upon god what does he do he goes and finds a spirit medium and he dresses up like someone else and he goes to this medium to find some direction and when the woman found out it was king saul she just like to die right there on the spot now he listen now here's the man who was chosen by god and now he's secretly sneaking around to a fortune teller trying to find out what to do next and eventually he and his son both are killed in battle listen carefully tell me i will say it again and again and again please do not miss this all of us stand at those forks in the road and sometimes we think they're important and sometimes we don't realize how important they are in the eyes of the living god and because we want it now we move ahead listen carefully sometimes that some of those forks when you move down that pathway listen carefully you won't ever get back to where you are very significant that we obey him that we are patient with god listen god's patient was patient with god about his schedule his timing and his plan for our life we don't have to be afraid of listen you don't have to be afraid of losing anything god has planned for you a thing well there's a second person in the scripture i want you to turn all the way to luke chapter 15. luke chapter 15 is the family of passage that most of us know because it's the story of the prodigal son and this would probably be more down where you and i are living than back in saul's day and being king and so forth you know the story of the prodigal son i just read a few verses then i want to show you again what are the consequences of getting ahead of god being impatient verse 11 and he said jesus speaking a man had two sons the young of them said to his father father give me the share of the estate that falls to me so he divided his wealth between them and not many days later he the youngest son gathered everything together went on a journey into a distant country and there he squandered his estate with loose living now when he had spent everything a severe famine occurred in the country and he began to be impoverished so he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country and he sent him into his fields to feed swine and he would have gladly filled his stomach with the pods that the swine were eating and no one was giving anything to him but when he came to his senses he said how many of my fathers hired men have more than enough to eat enough bread but i'm dying here with hunger i'll get up and go to my father and i will say to him father i have sinned against heaven and in your sight i'm no longer worthy to be called your son make me one of your hired servants and of course we know the story that he got up and he went and you know the story about his father meeting in it here's what i want you to see somebody says well he was his father's son and he had an estate coming to him watch this carefully the issue here is not that he said give me my part of this state the issue here is this he said give it to me now now listen carefully there are times in our life when god has something for us but there are times in life when what he has for us we're not ready for it we're not mature enough to handle it it is not the right timing god is in the process of preparing us getting us ready maturing us how many times has god said or tried to say to you and to me yes that's my will but not now yes that's in my plan but not now yes that is my purpose but not now and we decide we have to have it now instantaneous that's what we want in this life everything instant gratification now now now now god does not work on our schedule he has his own listen carefully when you and i choose to get what we want according to our schedule instead of his schedule we are going to make a big horrible mess of our life the most important thing in your life is obedience to the living god you say i don't i don't believe all that bible stuff you know what do you think god's going to change his mind change his principle because you don't believe him no he's not i'm simply saying that to you to say look stop and think what you have and who the world thinks you are that's not the issues in life none of that's going to make you happy none of that's going to give you peace and none of that listen is going to do when you're dying when you come to the end of life your money is not going to count your fame and fortune and prominence and prestige and all that stuff it's not going to make one bit of difference whatsoever because you're getting ready to meet the living god whom you've neglected ignored rejected and against whom you have rebelled all of your life to have it your way in your timing and you know what's going to happen you're getting ready for an eternal disappointment that lasts for all eternity what are the consequences in this young man's life as a result of saying i want it now jot him down listen to him and i want to say listen if you're a father or maybe a single mom and you don't have a dad that'll do this you should write down these points and at some point you need to sit down with your son or your daughter i don't care they're teenagers they think they've already learned everything or college kid or whatever it is say look god put principles in the word of god for us to learn and to apply to our heart i want you to see what happened to this young man because he couldn't wait for the father's timing and here's what happens when we can't wait for the father's timing look at the consequences of his disobedience number one he brought sorrow on the part of his family they knew his father knew he was not ready for that but he demanded it and he gave it to him the second thing is this he was separated from his family walked away from him goodbye i'm going he heard about the far country he was excited about the far country that's what he thought he wanted and what i want you to see is every listen to this everything he had everything he already had he lost and everything he thought he was going to gain he already had it that's one of satan's deceptive lies now watch this separated from his family brought them sorrow and third thing is this poverty he squanders and he squandered his he squandered his inheritance he wasted his inheritance he was a wealthy young man at home when he did it his way he lost it all another thing is immorality listen immorality he sinned against his own body wasted it with riotous loose living and that is the implication of that wasted loose living and what happens to him then the scripture says next thing he knows there's a famine in the land he's lost it all now he's hungry in fact the scripture says he was dying with hunger dying with hunger trying to try to just eke out a living and then what happens he gets sent by the man who hired him into the most listen the most dishonorable occupation possible a jewish a hebrew man a hebrew young man doing what feeding swine which god forbid them to eat or have anything to do with them and now he's that they're feeding them and not only that he's not only feeding them but listen he says looking for something and no one that's the scripture says no one would help him now his life's full of loneliness when he had his family back there everything he had he lost he's lonely he's impoverished now and then what happens he's full of guilt what does he say i've wasted it all living with guilt impoverished having wasted it all having lost everything why because he said he had to have it now and then the remorse that was in his life full of anguish caused by his guilt writhing in inner pain because look what had happened and then of course the feelings of unworthiness he had he said i'm unworthy to go back but but i'm going and say just make me a sir make me a slave in your household and then of course he wasted the years of his life wasted years of his life and here's what i want you to listen very carefully listen and say amen when that young man went back home he went back home in in dire poverty with nothing he left the only friends he had with hogs in the hog pen and he had to sort of wrestle with them to get some food that they were eating now he's on his way home dirty smelly rotten at the core was his life he had he experienced not enjoyed he experienced all those things that he dreamed would bring him joy and happiness and completeness in life what's his father's response his father's response is when he saw him coming this is the most beautiful example picture of the love of god and where to be found the bible besides the cross his father went running to him threw his arms around him hugged him and while this young man's trying to confess his sin his dad is just rejoicing and praising god his lost sons and come home calling for a big party going to have a robe and shoes and sandals and a ring and everything and what's he doing he is in dire straits because he knows what kind of life he's lived so does he get forgiven yes restored to the family yes but here's what i want you to never forget because he was impatient refused to wait for his father's timing which would have been the right timing because his father was a mature man because he was unwilling to wait he lost it all listen and even though the father forgave him and restored him as a son it did not erase the consequences of his impatience that's what we don't want to remember well you know god will forgive and everything will be right god will forgive you but you know what that doesn't erase all that wasted living wasted years immoral living and you see the father didn't go to his second son say well look i'm going to have to divide this thing again no he didn't do that the son lived with him the rest of his life caused conflict between him and his brother because his brother said you know i've been with you all the time i've been with you the whole time and you've accepted him back he accepted him back but he didn't erase the consequences listen carefully before you step ahead of god ask yourself the question am i being impatient am i demanding something that's my plan my goals and my timing am i wanting something that i'm not ready for or the other person's not ready for if someone else is involved and ask yourself the question what will be the consequence if if i step ahead of god to have it my way and my timing if you will stop and think carefully what the consequences are and if you will listen to god now satan will say to you no consequences the devil's lie god's answer is the consequences you will not like the consequences of pain disappointment loss heartache heartbreak broken relationships wasted life and none of us want to pay that kind of price for disobedience i want to encourage you to remember that patience is not something to joke about patience is a vital part of every one of our lives and especially in our relationship to the heavenly father and i trust that if you have never trusted jesus christ as your personal savior i want to encourage you to trust him to ask him to forgive you of your sins and just acknowledge god i've been wanting in my way all of my life i'm asking you to forgive me cleanse me save me i'm going to accept jesus christ as my savior the lord master of my life god i want you to have the rest of my life would you pick up the pieces the broken pieces of my life and put it back together and the answer is yes and only god knows how far down the line you are and how many consequences are involved but one thing i can tell you it doesn't make any difference how far down you are it's always better to come back acknowledge it repent of it turn from it place your life in the hands of a loving father and watch what he does in your life and i want to encourage you today if you've never been saved to make that decision maybe you just turn this program on for the first time don't miss the next time or the next time or the next time or the next time why because every single time you learn a principle that will help protect you from messing up your life destroying your life setting you on a course that will only lead to disappointment when you learn the principles and you begin to walk in them god's very best is awaiting you [Music]

Channel: In Touch Ministries

Views: 81,864

Keywords: The Consequences of Impatience, Charles F. Stanley, InTouch, In Touch, Ministries, God, Prayer, Sermon, Bible, Preaching, Dr Stanley, Pastor, Church, Sunday, Christian, Faith, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Charles Stanley

Id: mxlRLJKng4Y

Length: 24min 26sec (1466 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 16 2021