Living Hope Fellowship Church

WAIT and SEE

Training Material

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

WAIT and SEE

Preface

(wait on God, hour of prayer)

          Many Christians are weak and heavy laden, because they have not waited on the Lord. Try giving the Lord one hour of your time in prayer! I’m talking about shutting yourself away somewhere and waiting on God. In Matthew 26:40 Jesus said, “What, could ye not watch with me one hour?” 

          Wait this hour on God, and see how long thirty-six hundred seconds are! Jesus waited on God many times all night in prayer, but He also walked on water, and He cast out devils.  He healed the sick and raised the dead.

John 14:12 says, “. . . He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also. . . .” Let’s wait on God so that we can do the works Jesus did! 

WAIT and SEE

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

          We really aren’t accustomed to waiting.  However, a tremendous and very definite promise is mentioned 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.”

          Many Christians are weak and heavy laden, because they have not waited on the Lord. I want you to make a date to spend a certain amount of time with the Lord. I’m not talking about going ahead and going about your business or doing your dishes while you are praying in the Spirit. I’m not talking about going down the road or being in your garden and praying. That is all fine, but I’m talking about a specific waiting on God, shutting yourself away somewhere and just waiting on HIM. 

          Try giving the Lord one hour of your time. Matthew 26:40 says this about Jesus - “And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour?” 

          Before you come back and say it doesn’t work, understand that not always does the answer appear immediately. There is a time span, sometimes, for the answer from God. You need to get alone with the Lord some place, have your Bible in front of you, and fast that hour.  Don’t sit there and munch on snacks. Wait this hour on God, and see how long thirty-six hundred seconds are!

          You start thinking! Why am I here? Who is Brother Kevin, anyway, to tell me what to do? The next thought will probably be, Well, it wasn’t divinely prescribed by God, so I don’t have to do it. I know I’m not going to hell if I don’t do it. These thoughts may come, and there will be a whole lot more.

          If you wait upon the Lord, you will find what keeps you from the blessings of God. It will be manifest and it will reason with you, be it the devil or your own carnal mind. You will be surprised what kind of trash is in your mind and heart. These things move in with you in your prayer closet. When the devil sees you waiting on the Lord, he knows his kingdom is in trouble. 

          Some of you have plenty of time. Of course, when you set that time for waiting, all kinds of things will appear at the same time. Suddenly, your time will not be so free! Some may say, Well, that is my day off, so I can’t blow a whole hour. I want you to think about how many hours you have blown in front of a television set or jabbering on the phone.  You won’t have to ask God what is wrong with you, because it will be in your face in about five or ten minutes. You will get a deeper respect for ministers who do wait upon the Lord! 

          We have to learn to wait.  Psalm 25:5 says, “Lead me in thy truth, and teach me: for thou art the God of my salvation; on thee do I wait all the day.” 

          In 1 Samuel, Chapter 13, Saul hadn’t been King very long, and the people were kind of shaky. The Spirit of the Lord moved on him at times, and He had accomplished some victories with him, but the Philistines were gathering against them again. 

          Verse 5-6 says, “And the Philistines gathered themselves together to fight with Israel, thirty thousand chariots, and six thousand horsemen, and people as the sand which is on the sea shore in multitude: and they came up, and pitched in Michmash, eastward from Bethaven. When the men of Israel saw that they were in a strait, (for the people were distressed,) then the people did hide themselves in caves, and in thickets, and in rocks, and in high places, and in pits.”  These people were having a time!  It is kind of like the church today!

          Verse 7-8 says, “And some of the Hebrews went over Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead. As for Saul, he was yet in Gilgal, and all the people followed him trembling. And he tarried seven days, according to the set time that Samuel had appointed: but Samuel came not to Gilgal; and the people were scattered from him.”  

          Samuel had commanded Saul to wait on him before he did anything. That was so he wouldn’t go forward in self, get in trouble, get confused, or be destroyed. He had warned him ahead of time to wait upon the Lord for the answer. Since Samuel was the prophet established by God, he would give him council from the Lord how to set up his ambushes and about the workings of the army. Saul was just a sheep herder, but God would tell him what to do. 

          Things were tense, and the people were scattered. The people weren’t waiting any longer. Verse 9 says, “And Saul said, Bring hither a burnt offering to me, and peace offerings. And he offered the burnt offering.” He was NOT supposed to do that. Verse 10-14 says, “And it came to pass, that as soon as he had made an end of offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came; and Saul went out to meet him, that he might salute him. And Samuel said, What hast thou done? And Saul said, Because I saw that the people were scattered from me, and that thou camest not within the days appointed, and that the Philistines gathered themselves together at Michmash; Therefore said I, The Philistines will come down now upon me to Gilgal, and I have not made supplication unto the LORD: I forced myself therefore, and offered a burnt offering. And Samuel said to Saul, Thou hast done foolishly: thou hast not kept the commandment of the LORD thy God, which he commanded thee: for now would the LORD have established thy kingdom upon Israel for ever. But now thy kingdom shall not continue: the LORD hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the LORD hath commanded him to be captain over his people, because thou hast not kept that which the LORD commanded thee.”
          I want you to understand the price that Saul paid for not waiting on God. You aren’t getting any further in God, because you haven’t waited on Him at a special time set apart just for that. 

          Saul didn’t have the authority to offer burnt offerings to the Lord. It became a blasphemous thing, because he entered into the priesthood, so to speak; he wouldn’t wait on Samuel. In other words, he wouldn’t wait on the moving of the Spirit of God. No doubt, Samuel was in conversation with the Lord somewhere, seeking the Lord for answers. Don’t you know that God told him all about the Philistines gathering and of the people running from battle? 

          When God is talking to you, everything else needs to be put aside, and you need to listen to what God says. 

          I might spend most of the night trying to get the message, but sometimes it doesn’t come until about ten minutes before the service starts! Don’t ask me why God does that!  I believe that He proves us to see if we are going to be attentive, if we are going to cleave to Him, and if we are going to hold Him above anything else in our priorities. 

          We have to discipline ourselves to put the Lord first.  It looks like we have taken the things of God and put them on a back shelf. The church has scheduled God out, and if He doesn’t come at a set time, He can just forget about coming at all!

          If Saul had waited and had done what he was supposed to, his throne forever would have been established. As it was, he lost everything. God handed him over to a reprobate mind. Saul lost it all because he wouldn’t wait. He didn’t have to do anything but wait. 

          Sometimes the most difficult thing for us to do is nothing. We consider ourselves lazy if we aren’t doing something. In 1 Timothy 5:13 it mentions those who learn to be idle who also learn to be busybodies. Your body, your mind, and your mouth can be busy doing nothing but damage, and a fool is known by the multitude of his words. However, we find that if we wait upon the Lord, He will give us words to speak, He will give us anointing in our life, and He will tell us things to come, things to do, and things to cease from doing!

The reason people do not hear from God is that they do not wait on Him. God can’t get a word in edgewise! It is not always us doing the talking, but we are listening to so many OTHER things. It could be the radio, the television, or maybe you are reading something else besides the Word of God. These words and thoughts come at you, and it is like someone speaking to you all the time. It is filling your mind. Most of the time, God will not interrupt those thoughts. He usually is not going to talk to you in the middle of a conversation with someone or something else.

He is going to speak to you when you are quiet, and listening, and waiting for His voice. Sure, you are going to hear a lot of other voices. Sure, you are going to hear your own carnal mind that is aggravated because it has to wait on ANYthing! The carnal mind is always clamoring, always wanting something, and it wants it – yesterday!

If you don’t wait on God, then you won’t know for sure if the answer is from God, the devil, or someone else. Some things are even hard to discern by the Word, simply because you haven’t been still long enough. 

Have you ever heard of a broken conversation? I remember many years ago when the space flights were going up. The communication sounds included cracking and popping. The astronauts were talking from outer space back to Cape Canaveral, and it would be broken, so you really had to listen to understand. 

Well, folks, God is well able to speak clearly. God is well able to speak audibly, and He will speak to your heart if you are listening for Him. If you are listening to everything else, are you going to hear God’s voice?

God wants us to be still and listen for Him. Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still, and know that I am God. . . .” If we aren’t still, then we can’t know that God is talking to us. 1 Thessalonians 4:11 says, “And that ye study to be quiet. . . .” If we can’t learn to be quiet, and learn to wait upon the Lord and listen to Him, we will not know what God has for us. 

We are not going to know why we are having trouble, and we won’t know his timing for things, so we might get impatient. If we listen, He might give us little excerpts of things that are going to come, so it can calm down our nerves. However, people are so busy running and doing that sometimes God has to chase them down to get their attention so He can talk to them.

I believe a lot of times people get sick or afflicted to get them on their back, so they will shut up and listen to God (see Job, Chapter 33 to back this up). Sometimes God will afflict men with strong pain. Job 33:17 says, “That he may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man.” People go on their own way, but God is trying to get their attention and talk to them. 

Some people, when they get sick or afflicted come for prayer. Some will go home and take a pill to knock them out so they won’t have to think. People don’t know how to wait on God!  They are liable to hear something they don’t want to believe. The longer you wait on God, the more powerfully what is in you can be heard by you. 

If it is the FIRST time you have tried to pray an hour, I would say about the forty-fifth minute you are going to be angry if you stay there that long. Disgust comes before that, and you may say that you can’t take any more. That might happen in the first three minutes!

Pray for an hour, and wait on God if you want to know what is wrong with you. In prayer, or reading and meditating on the Word of God, and listening, you will find out all kinds of things, maybe some that you didn’t want to know! We have to know, so we can get closer to God.

  The best way to receive from God is to shut up and listen to Him, and then do what He says when you do hear from God! This isn’t any magic thing; this is a fact. 

We are always dealing with diversions. The dictionary says a diversion is something that takes away from the mainstream of operation. Our mainstream of operation is to live the life of Christ. Diversions will take us away from that, so we have to pray and wait upon the Lord, so God will renew our strength. He does it by getting rid of the weight.

Hebrews 12:1 says, “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 are to lay aside every weight so we can run that race. They that wait upon the Lord can renew their strength, and they are able to run and not grow weary, walk and not faint. As you wait on the Lord, you get rid of weight.  Lay your burdens down and leave them there. 

I can tell you from experience, when I work all day long, I feel like I have accomplished something.  When I have waited on the Lord all day long, I also know I have accomplished something in the Spirit. 

All Saul had to do was wait upon the Lord, but he lost the kingship and his walk with the Lord, because he didn’t wait upon the Lord. 1 Samuel 13:14 explains this. “But now thy kingdom shall not continue: the LORD hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the LORD hath commanded him to be captain over his people, because thou hast not kept that which the LORD commanded thee.”  

The Lord sought for a man after His own heart.  In other words, a man after God’s own heart is a man who will wait on Him!

I told my kids to wait while I went to do something.  I even told them that I had no idea how soon I would be back, and I told them to wait. When I came back, my kids were still waiting, and it touched my heart, because they were still waiting, they were still patient, and they weren’t angry about it. They weren’t fussing and fuming or demanding their rights. If we don’t wait on the Lord, we aren’t going to get anything.  In fact, we could lose. God is seeking for people after His own heart. 

As you wait upon God for an answer, you will find out what you are really made of. You ask yourself, Why am I doing this? Then, pretty soon it goes deeper than that. You may even ask yourself, Why do I even believe in God at all? You have to address these thoughts, and praise the Lord anyhow! Renounce the devil and your own carnal thinking. Some trash in your head isn’t the devil’s fault, because it comes out of the abundance of our own hearts. (See Jeremiah 17:9 and Matthew 12:34.) 

If we don’t get the trash out by waiting upon the Lord, it will come out in public sooner or later. As you wait upon the Lord, those things will come to the top, and you have to say, Lord, crucify these things, and get them out of me.

Let’s go to Lamentations, Chapter 3, where Jeremiah expresses sorrow and regret for his people, and for himself, and for those around about. This is a tremendous praying through book. I can see an awful lot of America, and in fact, the whole church world, in Lamentations. 

For the most part, the church is already fallen and destroyed. The outward appearance shows nothing, but it is what is on the inside. I see preachers who have a devil inside of them. The church may look good, some of them might have lots of money, and be on television, but it has still fallen.  Lamentations addresses that very well.

Lamentations 3:24-25 says, “The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.” Do you want the Lord to be good to you and bless you?  Do you want God to do answer your prayer?

Many people remind the Lord of Psalm 84:11 that says, “. . . no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly,” but they should also remember,             “. . . The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.”

Lamentations 3:26 says, “It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.” One of the greatest things that you can do according to the Word of God, in other words, is to just wait on God!  Some people say, Well, I have prayed and prayed, and I don’t know what else to pray. I have prayed in the Holy Ghost until I have no more breath, and I’m afraid I will just keel over. Then, you need to quietly wait on the Lord.

Ephesians 6:13-14 says, “Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;”

Verse 18 says, “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;” 

Waiting on the Lord brings the answer. Waiting on the Lord is not an option! It is a command of God. I asked you to wait on God in prayer for an hour. I can’t command you to do anything, but I’m telling you that if you want answers from God, then you are going to have to wait on Him. There are times when the answer will not come except that we quietly wait for the Lord to answer, and it might take more several hours or even days. 

One thing that I find in some Christians is that they are going to do great big things to get God to move. For example, they say that they will fast for two weeks. They go at it like crazy, but at the end of it some are no better off than if they had just hammered it out one day a week. 

I told the Lord that I was ready, if HE commanded it, to fast forty days and seek His face. I promised Him everything, but He came back to me and told me to just be consistent! You will get more done fasting a day a week and praying an hour a day to Him, than you would if you fasted forty days every six months. However, obey God, whatever He speaks to you.

This is living the Christian life. God doesn’t want you to be crucified all at once, because you couldn’t stand it! If some people fasted 40 days and God didn’t answer immediately, they would be discouraged, and backslide, and never come back again, because they felt like they had done everything they knew to do. If we will just be consistent, the Lord will talk to us. Then we will have clear revelation knowledge of what God wants us to do every day! 

          Some how and some way, you need to give an hour a day to the Lord. If you have to do it in the wee hours of the morning, then so be it.  If you have to do it late at night or in the middle of the day, fine. When those beautiful fall colors are outside, or the air is cool and you want to get out and dig in your garden, do you still go pray? You will encounter many things to keep you from prayer. You may want to go fishing or squirrel hunting.  You will wonder what you are doing shut up inside!

When you try to get before the Lord, everything else talks first! The first thirty minutes of that hour of prayer are going to be challenging, but the last ten minutes may be when God starts talking. You will find out what your priorities are!

God doesn’t intend for us to have any ignorance or defeat. If we doubt what God is saying to us, that is a spot and a wrinkle, and God is not pleased.  We have to KNOW what God says. God speaks definitely.

In Luke 12:36 Jesus said, “And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately.” They waited and listened for the knock so they could open the door.

Revelation 3:20 says, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” How are you going to hear his voice if you aren’t waiting on the knock? 

How long would you stand at the door and knock if somebody didn’t answer? Even if you knew they were home, how long would you stand there and knock? You would finally give up and leave, but we expect God to continue to knock day after day, for years.

Sometimes an UPS man makes deliveries to the church, but when no one is there, he can’t leave the package, because someone has to sign for it. Do you understand? Maybe you have been waiting for an answer for a long time. The answer came, but you weren’t home, or you weren’t listening. If I don’t hear the doorbell, and I don’t answer the door, it is the same as me not even being there, as far as getting results.

If I’m not waiting on the Lord, it is the same thing as me refusing the Lord. When it comes to getting something from God, if you don’t answer the door, in some cases immediately, then you don’t get what He has! 

Luke 12:37 says, “Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching: 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.”  

Have you ever ordered something, and you just can’t wait until it gets there? You know it is supposed to arrive soon. They said it would only take two or three days, and you are looking down the road for the UPS truck the first day!

Daniel waited twenty-one days. He prayed and sought God for three weeks. I’m just asking you to pray for an hour a day! 

I can tell you the details of the walls in my study! Remember that you aren’t in there to clean the room, but you are in there to wait on the Lord! That will be another diversion shot to pieces! When you get in there and start pacing, you recognize every crack in the ceiling, and you know where every crevice is in the floor! That is just part of it, so wait anyway. I’m letting you know so you won’t be discouraged or offended along the way. Isn’t God good!

Luke 12:38 says, “And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants.” What if the Lord got you up at 3:00 A. M., and you prayed for an hour? What if He came to meet with you at 4:30? The Holy Ghost will get you up, way in advance. He will urge you to get up and pray, because Jesus is going to come to meet you, or maybe He is going to send an angel. So you start praying and waiting on the Lord in the middle of the night. We start thinking of all the things we have to do tomorrow and how we need our beauty sleep, but we seek God so we can find Him, and then we are blessed. 

Luke 12:39 says, “And this know, that if the goodman of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, and not have suffered his house to be broken through.”  The Holy Ghost will wake you up in the middle of the night and tell you that the devil is coming, so you need to wake up and pray!

Luke 12:40-41 says, “Be ye therefore ready also: for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not. Then Peter said unto him, Lord, speakest thou this parable unto us, or even to all?”  The Lord is talking to Living Hope Fellowship Church and every soul.

Luke 12:42-44 says, “And the Lord said, Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Of a truth I say unto you, that he will make him ruler over all that he hath.” 

Revelation 21:7 says, “He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.” Do you want what God has for you? 

In Daniel 10:12 the angel said, “. . . Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words.” He was heard the first day, but it took twenty more days to get the answer. 

The first fifty minutes of the hour you wait and pray, might be clearing through the “mud”.  Many times I have prayed deep into the night, praying many hours. Sometimes it takes three to six hours just to clear the air, but keep on praying. 

The church is waiting on God to come and take them out of all of their troubles, but God will not come until His people learn to wait on Him for their needs and their deliverance. The people who leave in the rapture are the people who are already waiting for the trumpet to sound. They will have ears to hear and hearts to understand. As you learn to wait upon the Lord, you will be quickened by the Spirit of the Living God. 

Isaiah 25:8-9 says, “He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the LORD hath spoken it. And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the LORD; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” 

This is revival after waiting on the Lord.  Then, you will say, I knew He would do it! I knew He would come! That is God! Waiting on the Lord paid off! It really paid off!

Folks, remember that even Jesus waited on God many times all night in prayer. He walked on water, and He cast out devils.  He healed the sick and raised the dead. Let’s wait on God, so we can do the works Jesus did.  John 14:12 says, “. . . He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also. . . .” Let’s believe God for this.

I pray that God will teach every Christian to wait on God as they ought to. The strength of many is low, and they are weary, but God has promised strength to those who wait for Him!

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.