Patience
JAMES 5:7-11
7 Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.
8 Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.
9 Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door.
10 Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience.
11 Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.
HEBREWS 12:1
1 ¶ Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
We have a great race set before us in this end time age.
If we really believe in the promise of a body change and a rapture in this hour, then that must become the “end game” of our whole purpose for living life because all else will fail just like everything but the Ark failed in Noah’s time. Noah’s end game was to be taken off the earth and deposited safely into the new earth, so we see that what Noah had to have was a lot of patience along the journey to the promise.
Patience
ROMANS 8:25
25 But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.
(Show slides quotes)
Even the world know the importance of having patience – even a dog will learn that patience will eventually pay off.
When you think about Noah’s day; it was really quite a fantastic thing that Noah was hoping for. He had to first build a gigantic boat on dry land in the hope that there would one day come enough rain to float it (even though it had never rained before in the history of the entire world) and then he had to take his family and all the animals with him over into a brand new world and begin a new civilisation. That required a lot of faith, hope, and patience.
Look at our father in the faith, Abraham – he had to have faith and hoped for a child, but he also had to wait 25 years until he was 99 years old before the promise came to pass. God’s ways always seem impossible to man, but once you really get to know the Lord, you come to know that he is more than able to keep his word even though it appears totally impossible to man.
Biblical meaning of Patience =
-- enduring (1)
-- patient continuance (1)
-- patient waiting (1) [32]
1) steadfastness, constancy, endurance: in the NT the characteristic of a man who is not swerved from his deliberate purpose and his loyalty to faith and piety by even the greatest trials and sufferings: patiently, and steadfastly
2) a patient, steadfast waiting for
3) a patient enduring, sustaining, perseverance
Another biblical meaning of Patience
-- bear long (1)
-- suffer long (1)
-- be long suffering (1)
-- patiently endure (1) [10]
1) to be of a long spirit, not to lose heart
1a) to persevere patiently and bravely in enduring misfortunes and troubles
1b) to be patient in bearing the offenses and injuries of others; to be mild and slow to punish
JAMES 1:2-5
2 ¶ My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;
3 Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. (perfect” = full grown, adult, of full age, mature)
5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
All the wisdom and the answers in life for your earthly journey are found in the bible if only we would be more willing to use the bible for our road map for life.
PROVERBS 14:12
12 ¶ There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
**It is always a great temptation for man to follow his own pathway in life by his own reasoning, and that is because people (even believers of the revealed word of the hour) unconsciously esteem their own reasoning above the word and leadership of the word. That was Eve’s problem in the beginning, and that is also everyone else problem since then.
Francis Albert Sinatra was an American singer, actor, and producer who was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 150 million records worldwide.
Frank Sinatra sang a song back in 1969 that was written for him by Paul Anka called “My Way”
“I planned each charted course
Each careful step along the byway
And more, much more than this
I did it my way”
One thing is for certain, they may have done it their way, but they lived horrible lives. If you want to have a horrible life that comes to nought at the end, then follow these men and do it your own way.
Opening scripture:
JAMES 5:7
7 Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord (for the early church, that has almost been 2000 years that they have had to wait). Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.
In the old time cultures of the Agricultural year – everyone had to work hard all year for the purpose of the harvest time – so because of this they had to have patience and endurance and put up with hardships along the way.
*But now we get our pay cheque once a week, we have drive through food outlets; we have instant coffee and tea bags, super markets with automatic check outs to speed things up. Everything has become so much faster and more instant that we have become a culture of impatient.
We are living in an age of instant gratification, people want things to happen NOW, and the problem is that it is against the way that God designed human beings to live their lives.
In the old days they use to have to wait for the next episode of whatever it was to come out on the radio or television, and half the fun was the waiting and the anticipation of what was coming next, but now that has in many cases been removed because everything is accessible right now.
JAMES 5:7-11 continued…
7 Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.
8 Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.
9 Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door.
10 Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience.
11 Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.
Many times we plant the word in our hearts but we do not have patience with the word to give the word a chance to work.
Job had to have patience to come out of his financial and sickness and loss trial, but God brought him out.
Abraham had to give the word a chance to work, that took 25 years.
Noah had to give the word a chance to work, that took 120 years.
Joseph had to wait for many years to see the word come to pass
I SAMUEL 22:29-33
29 For thou art my lamp, O LORD: and the LORD will lighten my darkness.
30 For by thee I have run through a troop: by my God have I leaped over a wall.
31 As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the LORD is tried: he is a buckler to all them that trust in him. (The buckler is a small shield, used mainly to deflect, trap and strike)
32 For who is God, save the LORD? and who is a rock, save our God?
33 God is my strength and power: and he maketh my way perfect.
ROMANS 5:1-5
1 ¶ Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
3 And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;
4 And patience, experience; and experience, hope:
5 And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.
Faithfulness and Patience and Trust all go hand in hand together.
224-1 THYATIREAN.CHURCH.AGE - CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.6
"I know your faith." Now he does not say here as He did to the church in Pergamos, "you hold MY faith". He is not talking about His faith now, but He is commending them for their faithfulness. And as He does He also mentions their 'patience.' Now faithfulness and patience go together.
In fact patience is the outcome of faithfulness, for it says in James 1:3,
"The trying of your faith worketh patience."
There is absolutely no other way in which to gain patience. It has to come by the trial of our faith. (A test of trust in the Lord – do we really trust him to bring us out of our trials, like Israel, every time they backslide and then turned back to the Lord he always brought them out and into victory like during the time of the Judges)
Romans 5:3,
"Tribulation worketh patience."
How highly God regards this outworking of our patience is seen in James 1:4,
"But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire lacking nothing."
God's will for us is Perfection. And that perfection is patience--waiting on God and waiting for God. This is the process of character development. How highly God has commended these saints of the Dark Ages. Patient as lambs led to the slaughter, lovingly, faithfully they served God. That is all they wanted out of life, just service to their Lord. How great was to be their reward.
HEBREWS 10:35-36
35 Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward.
36 For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done (it my way??) the will of God, ye might receive the promise.
SIR.WE.WOULD.SEE.JESUS_ PORT.ALBERNI.BC TUESDAY_ 62-0724
E-54 Now, the Word is a Seed. Now, most of you brethren are--are here, I suppose, farm. And you put a seed in the ground, and the--the next morning you go out and dig it up, and say, "My corn ain't growing yet," put it back, and cover it up. The next morning, "See if it's growing again." It never will grow like that. No, no. Every time you dig it up, you delay it. Isn't that right?
What do you do? You know the earth was made to grow the corn (Is that right?), or the--or the--the seed. And you plant the seed, commit it to the earth, and forget about it. God does the rest of it. Well, that's the way you do with the Word of God. You just plant It. Don't dig It up. Just keep on believing It. Commit it to God. He makes It grow. That's right. See?
Any promise that God makes, you just--you just plant it in your heart and say, "It's mine. God gave it to me." See? Now, you may not see any results right now. You never see a corn crop as soon as you plant your corn, but potentially it's there. As long as you'll leave it alone, and keep watering it, it--it'll grow. Don't worry about that. It'll take... If it's a germitized seed... And every Word of God is germitized by God Himself. God is in the Word, so it will grow. You know it will.
There you are. We have to take His Word, accept It, believe It, commit It, and It grows. That's right. Don't keep digging It up now. You'll ruin It. You'll ruin your crop every time you do that. So just commit it to God and believe it.
We must steady the course, we must solder on, we must put ALL of our trust and hope and faith in the Lord and not in anything else in this world, not in finances or health or government securities or our education or our own ability or anything else because the Lord is a jealous God - how dare we put our trust in anything but in Him and in His promises to us.
But then once we have received the promise and planted it in our hearts by faith, then we must have patience to know that He in His good time will not fail us but will bring all of His word to pass.