Romans 4:17-19 (NKJV) 17 (as it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations”) in the presence of Him whom he believed–God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did; 18 who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, “So shall your descendants be.” 19 And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb.
In our study of faith, we have come to realize that faith requires that we learn to wait. Waiting is not easy. When we must wait for something, we feel that we do not have control over the situation. However, that is the nature of faith. We do not have control. When we are trusting God to move, there is little we can do in the natural to help bring the will of God to pass. There are spiritual principles we apply, but that is all we can do.
Last time we looked at two basic things. First, that to wait successfully we need to accept that things will usually not work out the way we think they will. When we pray for something according to the Word of God, the Lord will answer that prayer. His answer will be exactly the right thing for our situation. It will come at the right time and in the best way possible. It will usually not be how, when and what we want. If we do not allow God to be God in every situation, we will get discouraged and fail in our waiting.
Second, we realized that God’s perspective and ours are very different. We may want a certain thing at a certain time and really believe that it is imperative that it happen the way we think it should. However, God sees your life from the beginning out to eternity. He knows every twist and turn it will take. He knows every person you will meet. He knows things that will happen, and He knows how they will affect your past, present and future. We need to trust the Lord. His ways and his timing are perfect because he sees the whole not just the moment in which we are living.
I want us to think about how Abraham had to wait. In Romans 4 we read about the promise God gave to Abraham and the process he went through to obtain it. I have often studied this chapter as a textbook for faith operations. As I have been meditating on the idea of waiting, I see that it is also a textbook on how to wait for the promise of God.
In Genesis 12 we read this promise to Abram.
Genesis 12:1-3 (NKJV) 1 Now the LORD had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you. 2 I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
It is thought that Abraham was 75 years old at this point in time. We know from Romans that he did not have any children until he was “about a hundred years old.” We also know from Romans 4:19 that Abraham’s body was “already dead” because of his age. Since Abraham was still breathing, we must assume that he was not physically deceased. What does it mean when the bible says his body was dead?
Since the whole context of the promise of God to Abraham revolved around his descendants with Sarah, we must assume he was impotent. He could no longer produce children. Sarah had always been barren, but now she is an old woman. If she could not have children in her youth, she certainly could not have them now. Abraham and Sarah had to wait so long for the promise of God that they waited until the promise was impossible.
Often, we find that this is part of the reason behind our waiting. God wants to meet our needs, but he also wants to show himself strong to the world around us. Sometimes God is waiting to bring us the answer until our victory is so great that others will take notice and believe in him. Other times we are simply not willing to trust him until we have run out of all other options. Either way, our waiting will lead to greater glory for the Lord.
In Genesis 15 God confirms his promise to Abraham by making a blood covenant with him. Abraham’s name is changed from Abram to Abraham or father of a multitude. In chapter 16 Sarah begins to feel that they are out of time. She is not going to have a child for Abraham. It is the custom of the day that the servant of a man’s wife could be given to the man for sexual intercourse so that she could bear a child for her mistress. The child would be credited to the wife. In this way, Sarah thought she could bring about the will of God without having to wait until it was impossible.
The result of Sarah’s “help” was a child named Ishmael. Sarah became jealous of the child and the maid who bore him. She could not stand to have them in her presence, and they were driven from Abraham’s camp. The resulting animosity between Ishmael, the child of impatience and Isaac the child of waiting is with us to this day. The Ishmaelites became the Arab peoples while the descendants of Isaac are the Jews.
We cannot bypass the time of waiting. Whenever we try, we will find that the results will not be a blessing to us and will often bring problems to others. Sarah was sincere in her belief that she had to do something to bring the promise of God to pass. However, once she had done it, she could not live with it. That is the way it is when we try to help God and bypass his timing.
The other thing we find about Sarah’s impatience is that it did not shorten the time of waiting at all. God had a plan and he was going to work that plan. In God’s plan, Abraham was not going to start his family until he was about 100 years old. Sarah was about ten years younger, so she was going to have to wait until she was 90. All her impatience did was cause problems that never went away.
I have known so many people that thought they could bypass waiting on God. I deal with ministers quite a lot and have known some that believed they should have ministry when God had not given it to them. They were gifted and talented, but their character and experience would not allow them to succeed God’s way. There were tests and trials they needed to go through to become the people God needed them to be. Some left and tried to “help God” by doing works of ministry before their time. They always find that they face the same tests later in life. Usually, the tests get more and more difficult the longer you bypass them.
Do not make that mistake. Those called to ministry is only one example. You may need a job. You may need God to move in your marriage. There are myriad other ways we may need to wait on God. If you are facing a time of waiting, do not be like Sarah and think you need to help God and shorten the wait. You will do neither. You will only make matters worse and possibly extend the waiting time.
Abraham chose to wait on the Lord. Next time we will see how that worked out.
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