Living Hope Fellowship Church

PATIENCE

Training Material

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

PATIENCE

Preface

(patience)

          The Bible says in Psalm 40:1, “I waited patiently for the Lord . . .”  It didn’t say he  screamed and hollered at God.  Then it says in the same verse, “. . . and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.”

          Some will turn away from God and say, Well God, your time’s up.  I’m going to try another route.  These will leave and go to another device.  That is not the way of the Lord.  The Bible declares in Isaiah 40:31, “But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

          Today, beloved, harden not your heart.  Wait upon the Lord, and He will answer.  Wait, I say, on the Lord.     

PATIENCE

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

          Psalms 40:1-3 says, “I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.  He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.  And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the LORD.”

          Beloved, do you see the results of waiting patiently for the Lord?  There is a patient waiting on the Lord that we must learn to do.  Today with everything instant, with everything push button, with everything high speed and high tech, we are not accustomed to waiting.  People do not like to wait.  They want to run, they want to grab, they want it right now, they want it yesterday, and they are not waiting.  Patience is a virtue; it is a lost art in the world today. 

          I believe mankind is running as hard as he can to the pits of hell.  He is running there as quickly as he can, because he can’t stand the wait.  Isn’t that obvious?  He cannot stand to wait and see the salvation of God, so he takes up everything else that he can possibly come up with, instead of waiting on the Lord.

          The Bible lets us know, in no uncertain terms, that as we pray and seek God’s face, there is a time we must wait upon the Lord.  Sometimes we will do it in prayer.  Sometimes we will do it as we read His Word, seeking for the answer as the Holy Ghost brings it to us.  God has taught us to fast from food, showing sincerity in our waiting.  The Word of God bears these things out.  (See Isaiah, Chapter 58.)

          The Bible decrees in Isaiah 40:31, “But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”  That means that you can be translated into the kingdom of God’s dear Son by praying and seeking God’s face.  You must believe, obey, and wait upon the Lord. 

          Jesus rebuked Martha for being cumbered about with much doing.  Yet, Mary did the greater thing; she sat at His feet.  She waited upon the Lord to hear the next utterance, the next teaching, the next exhortation, the next faith building word that would come out of His mouth.  Jesus said in Luke 10:42, “But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” 

          God wants to bless His people, but they have quit waiting on God and have gone on in their own strength.  They have gone on in their own devices and their own willful way.  They are falling, and they are running head long as hard as they can go into the ditch.  The ditch is the beginning of the pits of hell.  I pray that God will save them, set them free, and sanctify them in Jesus’ name.

          The Bible decrees in Psalms 40:1, “I waited patiently for the Lord. . . .”   It says he waited patiently.  It didn’t say he waited with screaming and hollering at God.  He waited patiently upon the Lord.  Then it says in the same verse, “. . . and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.”  That doesn’t mean that you don’t get emotional when you pray.  It does mean that you don’t – because of the time that you have to wait to get an answer – get mad at God, and start throwing up your hands, cursing God, and saying that He’s not doing what He’s supposed to be doing.  Beloved, when you do that you are already in sin, because that is unbelief.  Many times God does not move immediately.  Many times God causes us to have to wait upon Him to see what we are made of. 

          Have you ever watched somebody that was waiting on something or someone?  Did you ever watch them fidget?  Did you ever watch them do things and doodle?  Have you ever watched them read things that they really weren’t interested in?  They were just reading to pass the time until they could get an answer, or until they could do what they wanted to do.  Have you ever watched somebody do that?  You talk about nervous!  We’ve heard of a cat on a hot tin roof, and other expressions about the way people fidget, but God is watching us right now as we wait on Him to see what we are going to do.  Are we going to wait patiently on Him? 

          Are we going to continue to believe Him?  Are we going to continue to fast and pray?  Are we going to continue to read His Word and obey it, even though as of yet we’ve not seen the victory we want to see?  Some are going to turn away from God and say, Well God, your time’s up.  You said you would do a quick work, and Lord you didn’t do it. Therefore, your Word must be lying.  I’m going to try another route.  These will leave and go to another device.  That is not the way of the Lord. 

          David said he waited patiently for the LORD and He heard his cry.  Do you know what wait means?  Wait means “to linger about; to abide”.  If you are waiting somewhere, you are abiding there.  You are being there; you are there. 

          Do you remember what Jesus said in John 15:7?  He said, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”  This is for those that wait in Christ.  If you are waiting on the Lord, by faith you are abiding in Christ.  Even though you haven’t seen the manifestation of God’s glory as of yet, you are still, by faith, having that substance and evidence that is needed to keep going, and you shall see God move.  Glory to God!  I don’t want to be an old chicken stuck to the ground.  I want to be an eagle, soaring in the highest of heights. 

          You have got to patiently wait upon the Lord.  Some people get impatient sooner than others.  Have you seen some people quit waiting sooner than others?  Some people wait on God one whole day!  My, my!  What a favor they are doing Him!  Other people wait on God a whole week and they say, “That’s enough!”  Other people wait a month, some wait six months, a year, ten years.  Some wait forty years!  Moses was on the back side of the desert for forty long years, and then God used him. 

          Some people throw up their hands and quit.  I am convinced that those who quit waiting on God are the ones that lose the ministry, and they lose the blessings.  The promises of God are of none effect to them that will not patiently wait upon the Lord.  Patience is a crucifier.  Waiting on God will crucify your flesh every time. 

          When you want to do something and you are waiting on the Lord, you may find God doesn’t want that thing for you.  Sometimes the longer you go without, the meaner you can become, but at the same time, the closer to God you can become.  Pretty soon you may say, You know, I don’t really need that anyway.  I don’t really want that anyway.  I want all of what God wants.  By your patient waiting before the Lord, you are cleansed, sanctified of all the pulls that would keep you from receiving from God, and then God moves. 

          I don’t believe it’s according to the time that we wait, but rather how much we yield over to God as we wait.  They that wait upon the Lord will see His salvation.  To be patient means to be steadfast; to endure.  God has given you a promise that if you are fasting, praying, and seeking God that He will move.  As you are believing Him, reading His Word continually, and obeying it, you are being sanctified.  You may not have seen a miracle yet, nor beheld the glory of God yet, but you are believing God for it. 

          This is what we are going through concerning the remnant revival that’s in the earth today.  We have prayed, and we believe God, but we are also waiting upon the Lord.  We are praying that He will sanctify us, cleanse us, and get us ready for the victory that is ours in Christ Jesus.  We are waiting as God deals with the hearts of those we are praying for.  God is doing a work, and we are patiently waiting for Him to finish what He wants done both in them and us, and then a full blessing will come.  Then we will see the salvation and the glory of God. 

          We must wait patiently for the LORD if we want Him to hear our cry.  Somebody that shakes their fist at God or somebody that demands an immediate move of God is not going to have His ear inclined unto them.  Sure, we have seen God move immediately at times.  However, right now God is preparing a way for His remnant, and He is making the rough places smooth.  He is making the mountain lower; He’s dropping everything that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.  He’s casting down imaginations, and He’s pulling down your flesh as it stands in boldness against Him.  He is commanding His people to seek His face and wait on Him again.

          Waiting on God is a lost art.  I am amused many times by people who say that they can’t stand to wait on God.  They can’t pray that long, they can’t read that long, or believe God that long.  Just about any time you want to, you can go to any doctor’s office and see people waiting.  Even if it’s impatiently, they are still waiting on the doctor. 

          If they would get real, press in, and wait upon the Lord for an hour, or two, or three, or how ever long it takes them to see the doctor they wouldn’t have to wait on that doctor.  If they would wait on Dr. Jesus and God the Father as long as they spend in a waiting room waiting on anything else, they wouldn’t have to be in that doctor’s office or hospital ward.  They wouldn’t have to be any place but in the presence of the most high God.

          We have learned to wait on the wrong things.  We anxiously wait to hear contest winners.  We anxiously wait to hear the announcement for the latest automobile to come out.  Sinners wait to hear lottery numbers or other things that don’t profit a man, but rather would damn the soul due to not listening to God.  We wait upon things that don’t matter, things that mean nothing.  We wait upon things that will not bless or keep us, but on things that will steal, kill, and destroy us if we yield over to them.

          We should be waiting on the Lord.  Patience is something that we need to have.  The Bible says in James 1:4, “But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”  You can’t have a perfect work unless you have patiently waited upon the Lord some time or another.  That’s why some preachers preach dead sermons.  They haven’t waited on the Lord during the week.  They haven’t fasted, prayed, sought God, and studied His Word.  They may have ciphered out all the different messages that they could speak, rather than preach the message that God has given them to preach. 

          You can preach a word out of the Bible, but is it the one that God wants you to preach that day, that hour, that moment?  Have you waited upon the Lord to see if that’s really the one?  Maybe He wants you to preach a certain message.  Maybe He wants you to witness to someone or testify to a lay member.  Maybe He wants you to do something, but is the timing right?

           If you are waiting upon the Lord, and He deals with you, putting an unction in your heart, stirring your soul to do this thing - not that it would glorify you, but that it would glorify Him - He will be inclined unto your cry.  You will have the word for the hour, the day, or the moment, and souls can and will come to God.  This is the manifestation of the glory of God.  It takes waiting on the Lord and seeking Him.  The Bible says in Hebrews 11:6, “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” 

          Painstakingly and patiently seek God.  Wait upon God, diligently seeking Him out.  Preachers are supposed to seek God, and they shouldn’t have to do anything else.  The congregations are supposed to support them in prayer, also seeking God’s face that they might be blessed greater.  In these times however, it seems that the preacher has to do a little bit of everything in order to make a living.  God frowns upon this and wants His ministers and His people to start waiting patiently on Him, and stop running around in circles. 

          God wants His people to learn to wait again.  If you wait on somebody you’ve shown them that you have faith in what they can do for you to meet your needs.  You do it every day with doctors and other professional people.  You should be doing it with God ten times over.  Then you won’t need anybody else but Jesus. 

          Today, beloved, harden not your heart.  Wait upon the Lord, and He will answer.  Wait, I say, on the Lord.     

CONTACT INFORMATION:

PASTOR KEVIN BADGLEY

LIVING HOPE FELLOWSHIP, P. O. BOX 111, GRAND CHAIN, IL  62941

CHURCH / FAX (618) 634-2541

E-mail 

 livinghopefellowship@lazernetwireless.net

These condensed Bible studies have been published to help new Christians in their new walk with the Lord.  Kevin Badgley, the author, is the pastor of Living Hope Fellowship Church.

This is a Living Hope Fellowship publication.