Text: Is 30: 15-19
Date: March 5,2020
Place: SGBC, NJ
Subject: Impatient Sinners, Waiting
God
When trial comes, wait
on God. When our hearts break and we are afraid wait on God. When opposed by great enemies and obstacles
wait on the Lord. When we see no way this
can turn out good wait on the Lord.
When we say wait on God it means hearken to God’s word
rather than sinful flesh. Wait on the
Lord by bearing the suffering rather than running from it. Wait on God by looking to Wisdom himself
rather than ourselves
Proverbs 3: 5: Trust
in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and
he shall direct thy paths.
The children of Judah ran rather than wait on God. In our text we see how God dealt with his
elect among them.
Isaiah 30: 15: For thus saith the Lord GOD, the Holy One
of Israel; In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in
confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not. 16: But ye said, No; for
we will flee upon horses; therefore shall ye flee: and, We will ride upon the
swift; therefore shall they that pursue you be swift. 17: One thousand shall
flee at the rebuke of one; at the rebuke of five shall ye flee: till ye be
left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, [as a tree with its branches broken off] and as an ensign
on an hill. 18: And therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto
you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the
LORD is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him.
This passage is dear to
me because years ago God sent a trial and I ran. Therefore God waited. God used this passage
to show me what he had done for me. I
will tell you more about that in a moment
Division: 1) God’s word 2)
Our word 3) God’s waiting
GOD’S WORD
Isaiah 30: 15: For thus saith the Lord GOD, the Holy One
of Israel; In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in
confidence shall be your strength:
This is the word of the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel. This is the word we should heed, the word we
can trust. God says, “In returning
and rest shall ye be saved.’ Return
from Egypt and rest in Christ. Return
from the works of our own hands and rest in Christ. Return from our wisdom and rest in Christ our
Wisdom, “and ye shall be saved.”
Things might look bleak, you may see no way it can work
out for good but God says, “In quietness and in confidence shall be your
strength.” Submit to God with
confidence in God. Quietly obey
God’s word confident that God is ruling everything that is happening. Quietly submit with the confidence that God
who spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all, shall with him
freely give us all things.
This is the Lord God’s word. This is the word of the covenant keeping God we
can trust. He is the Holy One of Israel.
Return to Christ and rest in him and ye shall be saved. Quietly, confidently wait on the Lord by obeying
God’s word and Christ shall be your
strength.
OUR WORD
Isaiah 30: 15:…and ye would not. 16: But ye said, No; for
we will flee upon horses; therefore shall ye flee: and, We will ride upon the
swift; 17: One thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one; at the rebuke
of five shall ye flee: till ye be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain,
and as an ensign on an hill.
Before we cry down the children of Judah, let’s
get the picture. Put yourself in
Jerusalem. You see the Assyrian army
approaching stretched from horizon to horizon.
Your generals and advisers and wisest counselors tell you to flee on
horses to Egypt where you should make a covenant with Pharaoh. But you know God’s word forbids it. Then along comes a man, a nobody from nowhere
named Isaiah. He is just a man, just a
sinner like you, except he claims to bring God’s message. He says, “thus saith the Lord GOD, the Holy
One of Israel; In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in
confidence shall be your strength:” So what do you do? Do you take counsel from your generals or do
you take counsel from God?
We have all been in similar situations. You are in a troublesome trial. You see an easy way out. But it requires disobeying God’s word. There is another difficult, painful way, which
God’s word tells you is God’s way. But it
requires you believe God and quietly, confidently wait on him. Do we disobey God for fleshly ease? Or do we obey God by waiting on the Lord?
Most every trial we come into comes down to this. Do we go the way of our sinful flesh for the
ease of our flesh as we do exactly what we know God’s word forbids? Or do we suffer as we obey God’s word and
wait on the Lord?
The children of Judah said, “No; for we will
flee upon horses;…and, We will ride upon the swift.” This is our way—the sinner’s way, the way
of our sinful flesh. If left to our
flesh we always disobey God’s word for our understanding, our works, our will. But this is not God’s way. God says,
Hosea 1:7 But I will have mercy upon the house of
Judah, and will save them by the LORD their God, and will not save them by bow,
nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.
God’s way is for us
to wait on the Lord. Waiting on God exalts
God. It gives God all the glory. But to go our way not only disobeys God, it
is the same as saying “the work of our hands, Ye are our gods.” Though for a season, God may permit his
child to run after our flesh, eventually God will come in irresistible power
and bring his child to say,
Hosea 14: 3: Asshur
shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses: neither will we say any more
to the work of our hands, Ye are our gods: for in thee the fatherless
findeth mercy.
If we are a child of God then going our way—the way of
sinful flesh, the way of disobedience to God—shall result in much pain and
sorrow. God will let us run for a time,
“ye said, No; for we will flee upon horses; therefore shall ye flee.” Remember how Jonah chose to rebel against
God? God let him go for a while. But then we will find the way of the
transgressor is hard. We cannot outrun God
and his trial. We say, “We will ride
upon the swift.” God says, “therefore
shall they that pursue you be swift.”
The faster we run the faster the
trial will run after us. Soon God’s
child will find that without Christ we can do nothing just as Christ said. We will find our Strength gone and our spirit
wilting. Our enemies become mighty while
our strength becomes weak. When we find our
courage depleted, “One thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one; at
the rebuke of five shall ye flee.” But
all of this will be to bring us down “till ye be left as a beacon
upon the top of a mountain, and as an ensign on an hill.” As the margin says, “A tree bereft of its branches”—a
tree with all its branches broken off. Exposed
like a “mast” without a sail.
Believer, in the end we will find that going our own way
was much more painful and troublesome than had we simply trusted God and waited
on him.
GOD’S WAITING
Isaiah 30: 18: And
therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore
will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the LORD is a
God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him.
When the LORD’s child refuses to wait “therefore will
the LORD wait.” But the LORD’s
waiting is not some helpless wringing of the hands worrying about his child. The LORD’s waiting is the LORD being
longsuffering with his child which Peter tells us to account salvation. God’s waiting—God’s longsuffering—always end
in the salvation of God’s child as it did in the days of Noah.
1 Peter 3:20: The
longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing,
wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.
The LORD waiting involves
the LORD working all things together for the good of his elect according to his
purpose. As God waits, he makes “they
that pursue you [to] be swift.” The LORD’s waiting includes the LORD removing
our strength so that “One thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one; at the
rebuke of five shall ye flee.” God’s
waiting brings us to the end of ourselves “till ye be left as a beacon upon
the top of a mountain, and as an ensign on an hill. [a tree with all its
branches broken off].”
I mentioned a trial I
went through. It is embarrassing to tell
but it is instructive. This had never
happened before then and it has never happened since. But years ago I was offended by some brethren. They were wrong in what they did; they would
tell you so. But I handled it wrong. My sin was far worse. I became bitter towards them in pride and
self-righteousness, determined not to show mercy and forgive them.
Faithful friends told
me I was wrong. They kept pointing me to
Christ reminding me these were brethren for whom Christ laid down his life. Faithful friends kept admonishing me to receive
my brethren in mercy as Christ received me for God’s glory, for the church’s good,
for the gospel’s sake (Rom 15:7) As
wrong as the offending brethren were, I was not justified. But I was convinced
I was. I even foolishly thought my
bitter envy and strife was for the glory of God.
Therefore, the LORD
waited. For almost a year God sent trial
after trial. I rode upon the swift but those that pursued me were swift. Soon the LORD brought me down so that I was like
a tree with all its branches broken off. Then God used this passage and broke my heart. There I was refusing mercy to brethren who
had sinned against me far less than I sinned against God until God brought me
to sob begging God for mercy. Since I
would not wait “therefore the LORD [waited], that he may be gracious unto [me],
and therefore [was] he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon [me].”
When we suffer only a
light cross, without God’s strength we will not wait. In our flesh we will disobey and seek vain
refuge. “Therefore the LORD waited”
as he suffered incomparable travail on the shameful cross until justice was fully
satisfied toward all his elect and our sins were completely put away. Why?
“That he may be gracious to you, that he might be exalted, that he might
have mercy on you.”
All our days of
rebellion we rode upon the swift, without Christ, without God in the
world. “And therefore the LORD waited”—instead
of giving us the hell we earned by our sins, the LORD waited till he crossed
our path with the gospel and regenerated us. Why? “That he may be gracious unto you, and
therefore will he be exalted, that he might have mercy on you.” Christ Jesus had to be exalted on the
cross that he might be exalted through the preaching of the cross that he might
be exalted in the hearts of his people
John 3: 14: And as
Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be
lifted up: 15: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have
eternal life.
John 12: 32: And I,
if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.
Right now the only
reason God has not destroyed this world is because he has an elect remnant for
whom Christ died—"Therefore will
the LORD wait, that he may be gracious to you that he might be exalted,
that he might have mercy on you” (2 Peter 3: 3-9). Why? Here
is why. Do you see it believer? The LORD waits, suffering long with his elect,
“For the LORD is a God of judgment.”
As we see this great display
of God’s judgment in waiting on his Son to come into the world, waiting on the
cross until mercy and truth met together, waiting to call us by his grace, brethren,
we can be sure the Lord will do what is best in our lives in the midst of any
trial—"for the LORD is a God of judgment.”
When we disobey God’s
word by impatiently running from the trial, we have no peace. Oh, God lets some sinners flee and find
refuge and happiness in the world. But
not his chosen, blood-bought people. God
will not allow us to find happiness in disobeying his word, in justifying
ourselves before God and men. God will
see to it that we have nothing but strife and confusion and division. Where is
happiness?—"blessed are all they that wait for him.”
Brethren, in
returning and rest we shall be saved, in quietness and confidence is our
strength.
Proverbs 20: 22: Say
not thou, I will recompense evil; but wait on the LORD, and he shall save thee.
Proverbs 27: 18:
Whoso keepeth the fig tree shall eat the fruit thereof: so he that waiteth on
his master shall be honoured.
Luke 12:37: Blessed
are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching [waiting]:
verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to
meat, and will come forth and serve them.
Amen!