Thank you, Rich. Turn to Psalm
27 this morning. While you're turning, I have
to say, you have no idea what a blessing it's been to me and
to my family to be a part of this congregation. It's a great
joy and a blessing. Let's read Psalm 27. This is
the favored passage of Scripture of many. We'll begin in verse 1 of Psalm
27. The Lord is my light and my salvation,
whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my
life, of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked, even mine enemies
and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled
and fell. But when hosts should encamp
against me, my heart shall not fear. The war should rise against
me, and this will I be confident. One thing have I desired of the
Lord. That will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house
of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of
the Lord, and to inquire in his temple. For in the time of trouble
he shall hide me in his pavilion, in the secret of his tabernacle
shall he hide me. He shall set me up upon a rock,
and now shall mine head be lifted up above mine enemies round about
me. Therefore will I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of
joy. I will sing, yea, I will sing
praises unto the Lord. Hear, O Lord, when I cry with
my voice. Have mercy also upon me, and
answer me. When thou saidst, Seek ye my
face, my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek.
Hide not thy face far from me. Put not thy servant away in anger.
Thou hast been my help. Leave me not, neither forsake
me, O God, of my salvation. When my father and my mother
shall forsake me, then the Lord will take me up. Teach me thy
way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path because of mine enemies. Deliver me not over unto the
will of mine enemies, for false witnesses are risen up against
me, and such as breathe out cruelty. I have fainted. unless I had
believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the
living. Wait on the Lord. Be of good courage, and he shall
strengthen thy heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord." Let me introduce this message
this way. I suspect that most of us here have been to the doctor's
office, probably in the last year, and I suspect I know about
how it went. You got there on time, or you
tried to. And on first appointment, you got there 30 minutes early
so you could fill out all that stuff. And then you sat down
and you waited. And you waited. And you waited. And then somebody came out and
got you and took you and they weighed you and took your blood
pressure and put you in another room and you waited. And you waited. And you waited. How's this going for you so far?
You don't even know anything yet and already I know how you
feel. And ladies, how does your husband
act when he's all ready to leave? You know, it takes us about three
minutes, right? And he's all ready to go and he has to wait
on you. Now, I'm really proud of the fact that after all these
years, I have finally arrived at the place where I'm good for
about 10 or 12 minutes before I give the dreaded, I'm leaving
without you, death ray look. You ladies seen that one before?
You kids know what I'm talking about. How is it when your mom
says, or you come running in, it's hot out there, I want a
popsicle. And she says, well, you know, I'll get you one in
a little while. Does that work for you? No. You want it now. Waiting. What is it about us that makes
waiting so contrary to us? Why is it we dislike waiting
so much? It's a universal problem. Why
else would the Word of God not just say in verse 14, wait on
the Lord? We realize that's not what all
it says there. What it says there is, wait on the Lord, wait, I
say, wait on the Lord. Do we get the sense of it a little
better now? We don't listen very well to wait. But you know, by nature, all
men, women and children hate waiting. We despise waiting.
If we have anything to say in the matter, we will not wait.
on anyone or anything. And that's the problem. But you
know what really makes it a problem? Don't be confused or sidetracked
about this. It's not the time or the delay that we despise. You know what our problem is?
It's who's in control of the waiting. In verse 14, it's not
just wait that bothers us. What really bothers us is it
says, wait on the Lord. Folks don't mind baby Jesus in
a crib in a cow stall somewhere. That's okay. But the Lord Jesus
Christ, this King of Kings here, that's a problem. When men hear
that, I'm not waiting on him. Him is the problem, not the waiting.
Isaiah had that problem until in chapter 6, all of a sudden,
Isaiah said, I saw the Lord. And he was high, and he was lifted
up. His train filled the temple.
What that means is that his robes were so glorious, they gave off
light as if they were made of nothing but diamonds. And the
heavenly beings, you know what they do? They wait. They hover. They have wings. And they just
hover. And you know what they're doing?
They're just waiting, hoping that He'll give them something
they might do that they can do His bidding. They wait. Oh, they patiently wait. And
the whole time they're waiting. You know what they're doing?
They're singing, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God! Holy! That's waiting, because
they know who He is. They don't mind to wait. And they wait, and it says, when
He finally speaks, it says that the walls and the doorposts of
the whole building, they quiver at His voice. I'll tell you what,
when you ever see the Lord and you hear His voice, you'll quiver
inside. You'll break our stiff necks
and bend our tough knees. We'll bow before Him if we ever
see Him. It says the whole temple, Isaiah said, it was filled with
the sweet odor of His glory and His wonder and His majesty. If
we ever see that Lord, we won't mind to wait any more. Now, don't be surprised when folks
chafe at the gospel and argue over or ignore the
Word of God. They simply have not met this
Lord. When we meet the Lord, we'll
begin to heed his counsel and wait on him. Now, there's just
a few simple points I want to make here, the first of which
is why we despise waiting so much. The second point is why
we better wait on the Lord. Well, the simplest explanation
for why we better wait is that we're told to. Any doubt in anybody's
mind after reading verse 14? Wait on the Lord. Wait, I say,
wait on him. No, we're told to. And when we're in a quandary
or not sure what to do or how to do something, God's command
is clearly, wait on the Lord. Wait! And I understand how difficult
that is for us, because we're impulsive by nature. We want
to do something, even if it's the wrong thing. And if we do,
that's what it will be, the wrong thing. But why had we better
wait on the Lord? Well, we of ourselves can't fix
anything. But you know what we can do?
We can make it a whole lot worse. And the best example of that
is that God promised Sarah and Abraham a son, didn't He? He
said, I'm going to give you a son. Well, they got tired of waiting,
didn't they? And Abraham went in to Hagar, and Ishmael was
their can't-wait-fix-it-up solution, wasn't it? That's what they did.
Do you know the world still suffers from their not waiting? Do we
all realize who the Muslim extremists are? Do we know who they are? They're the children of Ishmael.
It's who they are. We're still suffering from the
fact that Abraham and Sarah wouldn't wait, just wouldn't wait. Does
this give us some idea of how important it is to wait? And we should wait because Christ
and Christ alone has the ability to fix our problem. Whether we're
talking about earthly problems or our eternal problem. And we
do know that we have an eternal problem, don't we? When Adam
disobeyed God, God said, the garden's yours, Adam. You enjoy
it and it'll be well with you. And there's only one thing don't
do. Don't eat of that one tree of the knowledge of good and
evil. Don't eat that. Because in the day, if you eat
that root, you'll surely die. Well, Adam ate it. Now he's got
a problem, doesn't he? He ate it and he died spiritually
right then. He didn't die physically. We
know that. But he died spiritually. He became a sinner. And that's
our problem. We've all got it by nature. We're
born sinners. We can't fix that. That's what
the life and death of the Lord Jesus Christ was about. He came
and lived a perfect life. and die to death for all his
people. So that when we go before God, believers go before God,
God doesn't see us for what we are and what we did. He sees
us for who Christ is and what He did. Our sin was put away
at Calvary. We can't fix our problems, whether
they're eternal or whether they're earthly. Only the Lord can help.
All our so-called intelligence and hard work can't fix anything. We should work and we should
try to do the best we can. Nobody argues that. But all our
goods and all our hard work and all this stuff can't solve the
problems we have. They can't. The only difference
between the so-called rich and famous and all of us little people
is the grace of God. Their riches and fame won't fix
their eternal problem, will it? It will only make it harder to
see Christ through the glitter of those things. All we need
is Christ. He alone can fix all our problems,
now and eternally. But he'll do it according to
his will, on his timetable, and we need to be still and wait
upon the Lord. And that's why we should wait.
Now, what if we won't wait? What if we just won't wait? Ever
been there? Done that? I suspect you have. Let me deal with this on a couple
levels. Both believers and unbelievers have this problem of waiting.
But believers, you see, that old man doesn't want to wait,
despite the new man's understanding of and willingness to wait. We
know we have two natures. We've got the one we were born
with in Adam, and that nature despises waiting. And the new
man understands we should wait and we want to wait, and there's
a conflict. So we all do rush out and do
foolish things when we should have waited, and the consequences
are often painful and long-lasting. Ishmael grieved Abraham all his
days, and there are always consequences to the believer if he refuses
to wait, but they are never eternal. God will not forsake his children.
Don't misunderstand that, OK? But turn over to Exodus 32. And this is an important principle
in the Scriptures. You see, unbelievers are not
born again. They have no new man or new heart
which desires to obey the Word of God. And unbelievers always
refuse to wait. And refusing to wait always leads
unbelievers to idolatry. That's the worship of a false
god. You see, Moses led Israel out of Egypt. God called Moses
up to Mount Sinai to receive the law, and Israel was told
to do something. Do you remember what it was?
All they had to do was wait for Moses to come back. All they
had to do was just wait on him to come back. Well, have you
got Exodus 32 there? Look at verse 1. And the Lord
said unto Moses, Depart, and go up...I'm sorry, I've got the
wrong chapter 32, verse 1, and when the people saw that Moses
delayed to come down out of the mountain, you know what that
says? They got tired of waiting. And they would not wait, and
when they didn't, it says, the people gathered themselves together
unto Aaron and said unto him, Up, make us gods. How plainly
can it be said? These gods shall go before us,
for as for Moses, The man that brought us up out of the land
of Egypt, he's gone. We're not waiting on him anymore.
And Aaron said to them, break off the golden earrings that
are in the ears of your wives and your sons and your daughters
and bring them unto me. And all the people broke them
off and brought them. And Aaron received them in their hand and
fashioned it into a graving tool after he had made it a molten
calf. And they said, these be our gods. O Israel, which brought
thee up out of the land of Egypt. And when Aaron saw it, he built
an altar before it. And Aaron made proclamation,
and said, Tomorrow is the feast day of the Lord. And they rose
up early in the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought
peace offerings. And the people did eat and drink, and rose up
to play." Do you see what happened? Because they wouldn't wait on
the Lord. And it will always turn this
way, I promise you. Well, before we look that up,
had they waited, there would have been no false idol and no
false god made. Moses, do you know what he did
to that golden calf when he came back down? God said, burn it
up, grind it down to powder, mix it in water and have them
drink it. I bet that was one bitter drink, folks. One bitter
drink. All because they would not wait
on the Lord. You know, bitter to Israel, but
there was a greater consequence than that. You know what happened
then? God told Moses, he said, tell the sons of Levi to go kill
all 3,000 of those that led this rebellion. And that's a picture
of what happens of those who will not wait on the Lord. They
go off into adultery, and God won't have that now. He won't
have it. And in our day, there is a similar
false God. These modern-day idolaters, they
call his name Jesus, and they say he's done all he can do.
Isn't that what they say? God's done all he can do now.
Now it's up to you. And they describe him as standing
in heaven, waiting, wringing his hands, walking back and forth
and looking over the banister, and he's just waiting on you
to decide for him. Have you heard that, watching
these people on television say that? That's idolatry. Now turn over to Hebrews 10. It's called idolatry, and folks who won't wait will
fall prey to this eventually. I defy anyone to find any place
in God's that Jesus Christ is waiting on anyone for anything.
Do you hear that? I defy anyone here to look through
these scriptures and find any single place where Jesus Christ
is waiting on anyone for anything. He is always the cause, never
the effect. He never waits for things to
happen as a result of what men do. He is the first cause of
all things. He is sovereign. He is in control.
He rules and he reigns. You know, I travel a lot. And
this last week I was coming across, it was either southern Mississippi
or southern Alabama, driving on the interstate. And have you
all seen these big black billboards? And they've got white letters
on them. And they'll say things like, they're real religious.
I don't know who puts them up there. But, you know, there was
one that said, we need to talk. Signed, God. And it just makes
me cringe. But I'm so used to it, I'm kind
of immune to it now. Last week, though, I was driving
along there and I looked up and here was this huge billboard.
And what it said, Give God a chance. Give God a
chance. You see, that's modern religion
and it's idolatry. It has God waiting on you to
do something, to give him a chance. Well, I've got news for the folks
who put that up there. We all had our chance. We had
our chance. Adam had his chance, and he blew
it. And we've had our chance, and we've blown it. God's not
in the chance business. If we had a million chances,
you know what we'd do? The same thing over and over
and over again. We'd sin. That's because of what
we are. We're sinners. God doesn't leave
his children up to chance. Unlike so many in this day who
have children and walk away from them or ignore them, God chooses
children and then He keeps them forever. He chose them in Christ. He saves them in Christ. He keeps
them in Christ. And there is no chance they will
ever be lost. God's not in the chance business.
He deals only in sure things. Certainties are His expertise.
Contracts and covenants weren't made on chance. They were made
certain and sure by God's surety, who is Jesus Christ, who signed
his contract with his own blood. God's way is not chance, but
a sealed guarantee. Salvation, the salvation of God's
people, it's over. It's accomplished by Jesus Christ
and his life and death, God's children. All they need to do
is one thing. You know what that is? Wait on
the Lord. Wait, I say, on the Lord. Wait,
and faith will give way to sight. Wait, and hope will give way
to reality. Just you wait until we see Him face to face. Just
you wait. The nearest thing I can find
in God's Word that even remotely implies that Jesus Christ is
waiting is not really waiting. It's an expectation. And his
expectation is a sure thing waiting to come to pass. Do you hear
that? And here's the only thing I can find in the whole Word
of God that even implies he's waiting on anything. And that's
in Hebrews 10. Have you got verse 12? But this
man, that's Jesus Christ, after he had offered one sacrifice
for sins forever, he sat down on the right hand of God. from
henceforth expecting, and that has the implication of waiting,
from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified." I always thought hell must be
a really big place because a lot of people went there. Do you
know what this says? We've got a footstool in our
house, the biggest footstool I've ever seen in front of the
couch. It's so long and so wide, but it's a little bitty thing.
And you know what this just says? Everybody who's going to that
awful place is compacted into something no bigger than a piece
of furniture. That's an amazing thing, isn't it? It's no wonder
they won't bother us anymore. That's the only thing he's waiting
for. His people wait upon him. to
come again, to take them where he is, that we might worship
him evermore. All others don't realize it,
but they're waiting on him to be made into his footstool. You see, modern religion has
got it all upside down. Jesus Christ is not waiting on
anybody. It's us who ought to be waiting
on him. I ask the question, what if we
won't wait on him? You see the result of that. But
what if we do, by God's grace, wait on the Lord? You see back
in Psalm 27, what it says in verse 13, it says, I have fainted
unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the
land of the living. Turn over to Matthew 26. Matthew chapter 26. Believers believe because they're
given the gift of faith. We don't believe because of something
we do, and we certainly don't earn it. It's the gift of God.
But without God's grace, we can't wait and we won't wait. We'll
faint away. That's what that psalm said.
We'll faint. And here's the proof of it. In Matthew 26, look at
verse 36. Then cometh Jesus with his disciples
into a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples,
Sit ye here while I go and pray. And this is on the eve of which
he is going to be taken captive and led before the tribunal and
tried, and the next day taken up the hill and crucified. And
the Lord took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee,
and began to be sorrowful and very heavy. Then saith he unto
them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. Tarry ye here,
wait ye here, you wait, and watch with me." Now, how good were
these fellows at this waiting business? And he went a little
further and fell on his face and prayed, saying, O my Father,
if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless, not
as I will, but as thou wilt. And then he cometh unto his disciples,
and how did he find them? They had fainted. They had fallen
asleep. They couldn't wait just a few
minutes while he prayed. You see the length of that prayer?
They couldn't stay awake that long. And he saith unto Peter,
who woke him up and said, What? Could you not watch with me for
just an hour, just a little while? Watch and pray that ye enter
not into temptation. And he says, The spirit indeed
is willing to wait, but the flesh is weak. And the Lord knows that.
So the Lord went away again the second time and prayed, saying,
O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me except
I drink, thy will be done. And he came and found them fainted
again. They had fallen asleep again,
for their eyes were heavy. Well, he left them, went away
again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words. And then
cometh he to his disciples and saith unto them, Sleep on now,
and take your rest. Behold, the hour is at hand,
and the Son of Man is betrayed. into the hands of sinners. Rise,
let us be going. Behold, he is at hand that doth
betray me." You see, without God's grace, we can't wait. We'll just faint away. We'll
sleep our way through this thing. And in Psalm 27, what it says
is, except for the grace of God, we would faint. We would not
wait. But by His grace, we believe
and see something. Did you notice what it says,
we see? What do we see? The goodness of the Lord in the
land of the living. Unbelievers don't see His goodness.
How could they? They're spiritually blind. But
turn over to Romans 8 and let me show you what we see. It says
we see the goodness of God in the land of the living.
Believers have life, spiritual life. We see things unbelievers
can't see. We see the goodness of the Lord.
We see the land of the living. That is where we're journeying
to. And we know something. Look what we know. Look what
we know. You know, the real problem we
have in waiting is that we can't see the future. Can we? And I'm afraid because
we're so faint of heart that we don't believe as we ought
to believe in the goodness of the Lord. He's promised us something,
hadn't he, as believers? He said, I won't forsake you.
That was what David's problem was in this psalm he was writing.
He said, my enemies are everywhere. They're all over me. What am
I going to do? I just want to go be with the
Lord. And yet David knew that the Lord
wouldn't abandon him. And we know that, too, don't
we? We need the grace of God to enable us to just wait, to
be patient, believing His Word. But it's so hard. I'm not getting
after you. I'm the worst. I'm the most impatient
non-waiter in the world. But it says here, we don't know
much and we don't know everything, but we know this. Look what it
says we know in verse 8 of Romans. or verse 28 of Romans 8. It says,
And we know that all things work together for good to them that
love God, to them who are called according to his purpose. You say, nothing bad ever happens
to you, Bob. It's not what it says. It doesn't
say that all things are good. It doesn't say that, does it?
No, it's not what it says. It says that all things work
together for good. And get the context of this.
You see, in verse 18, it says, For I reckon that the sufferings
of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the
glory which shall be revealed in us. I'm not trying to tell
you this morning that everything that's ever going to happen to
you is a good thing. I mean, you know better than that, don't
you, already? I mean, you know, you fell off
the step and broke your ankle. Boy, that felt good. That's not
the attitude of a believer. No, I'm not trying to tell you
that when your parents or your children or those you love, your
brothers and sisters, hate Christ, I'm not trying to tell you that's
a good thing. You know better than that. I'm not trying to
say when you're under trial and difficulty and hardship, well,
just wait. We'll all be happy together.
That's not what this is saying at all. Look at look at the life
of Joseph. Joseph had a bunch of brothers
and a special coat his dad had made for him. His brothers took
the coat and threw him in a pit. You know what he did next? He
waited. So his brothers got him out of
the pit, and then they sold him to a bunch of slave merchants
on their way to Egypt. And I don't know how long it
takes to ride a camel or walk to Egypt from where they were,
but I can tell you this, while he was going, he waited. And
he waited. And he got down there, and then,
you know, these guys sold him to a fellow named Potiphar as
a slave. And you know what he did as a
slave? His job was to wait on Potiphar's wife. That's a good
job, isn't it? And he waited on her and waited
on her until she accused him of something he didn't really
do, and Potiphar had him thrown in prison. And you know what
he did there? He waited. And he waited. And
he waited. And then a couple of fellows
from Pharaoh's palace got sitting down there and had dreams, and
he told them what they meant. And he said, now, just one thing.
He said, when you get out of here and go back there, you tell Pharaoh
I did this. Help me out of here. And you
know what he did after they left? He waited. Do you realize he
waited years between these two events? One of those fellows
was killed, as the dream revealed. And then the other, when Pharaoh
had a dream, told him about Joseph. And he brought Joseph to him.
Joseph interpreted the dream. And then you know what happened?
Joseph became the most powerful man in the world. And you know
what that's a picture of? That's a picture of us. You know
what we're doing? The world is not one happy time
that we just skip our way through. No, this is one hurricane and
tornado after one other disaster. And we just wait between them,
OK, until one day when the waiting's over, the Lord comes back and
takes us where we are, where he is. And then that'll be sweet. I'm not trying to tell you that
life is just a piece of cake and that we just happily wait. And I tell you what, we do wait.
We do wait. You see here in verse 23, the
whole creation, in fact, groans over sin and the same problems
we do. But it says in verse 23, "...not
only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of
the Spirit, even we ourselves grown within ourselves, waiting
for the adoption to wit the redemption of our body. For we are saved
by hope, but hope that is seen is not hope, for what a man seeth,
why doth he not yet hope? But if we hope, for that we see
not, then do we with patience wait for it." If we could see
the end the way the Lord does, he sees the end from the beginning,
the waiting would be easier. But then my last question is
this. What do we do while we wait? Well, waiting implies the
passing of time and sort of implies not doing anything. Well, that's
true, but here we're instructed in the psalm. It says in verse
14, wait on the Lord. It says, Be of good courage.
and he shall strengthen thine heart." I like this term, be
of good courage. Do you know what that means?
That means be fastened upon the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the
way to wait, is being fastened on him. And the result is that
he'll strengthen our heart. He'll give us grace and mercy,
all that wait on him. He's worked everything out for
the good of his people. We just need to wait. And while we're
waiting, we can worship, we can study the word, we can pray,
we can give thanks and we can ask for patience and wisdom and
guidance. These are not in conflict with waiting. Let me show you
one other thing in 1 Thessalonians 5. 1 Thessalonians 5. There is plenty to do while we
wait. This is a great list of things
we can do. Verse 16 says, Rejoice evermore. That's a good thing to do, isn't
it? It says pray without ceasing. That's a good thing to do. It
says in everything give thanks. Even when things aren't going
the way we think they ought to go or we'd like them to go, in
everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ
Jesus concerning you. It says, quench not the Spirit. Now, don't misunderstand me.
That does not mean that quenching is like throwing water on a fire.
It doesn't mean we quench the Spirit of God. That's not possible
that we could do that. What this is saying is, don't
quench the Spirit that dwells in us. It is so easy, is it not,
when things are going tough, when things are happening to
us we don't understand, when we don't see the way out or through
something. It is so easy to get down, to
get to where we think, you know, I'm having a hard time and nobody
understands. Don't quench that. Don't quench
the spirit. And you come and be with your
brethren and rejoice in the good things that the Lord has given
us and done for us. Don't quench the spirit. And
then in verse 20 it says, despise not prophesying. That means love
to come hear the word of God preached. Rejoice in the preaching
of the gospel. It says in verse 21, prove all
things, hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance
of evil. You see, these things can all
be done while we wait. But now, if you haven't heard
anything I've said today, I ask you to listen carefully to this
next thing I'm going to say. There's one matter about which
men and women and children ought not to wait. If you're here today
and you don't know this Jesus Christ of whom we speak, this
one Isaiah saw, if you don't know him, he's Jesus Christ, the God-man.
He's the Christ of God's Word. He's omnipotent. He's omniscient.
If you don't know him, don't wait another minute. Call on
his name. Ask him for mercy. Now. Right now. Ask him. What are you waiting on? Are
you waiting until he makes you a footstool? He is plenteous in mercy. Now, he's not waiting on your
call. But if you're one of his, you know what? He's expecting
your call. And therefore, he will answer your call. He answereth
all who call upon his name. And then you'll find peace and
rest in Christ. If you can join us, his people, is that call on his name. And
then a marvelous thing will happen. You'll wait on the Lord. You'll
wait, I say. You see, hope will give way to
reality. Faith will give way to sight. And then you, too, can wait upon
the Lord. That's what we need. It's just
a wait on Him. That's what we need, isn't it? May the Lord
bless His Word this morning.