THE CHILDREN'S PATIENCE
This sounds like a tiresome lesson of childhood but you will find that it is in fact one that lasts a whole lifetime! What is called 'the patience of Job' is proverbial. It is a phrase from the older translation of the Bible but the correct word is "endurance". Through it Job kept is uprightness, but I do not think that in looking back over his very acute troubles he would feel that he had been patient. The distinction between the two moral qualities may not be very great but patience, in Scripture especially, has a known end in view. Job had no thought that the compassion of the Lord in the trials that came upon him was training him to be acceptable in His sight. Abraham having had long patience obtained the promises made to him; we must have patience in view of the coming of the Lord. What a very affecting expression is the patience of the Christ"! Even He is awaiting the full fruits of His mighty work.
One of the parables that Jesus gave about the kingdom of the heavens concerned a king one of whose servants owed him a myriad, that is ten thousand talents. The servant asked his lord and master to be patient with him until he should pay all. It is not often realised that the money involved would now be as much as three million pounds. It would perhaps represent the revenue of a whole province of the kingdom. However the king, out of compassion, forgave the whole debt, and this shows how pardoning grace is in the heart of our heavenly Father - and righteously towards us who are unable to pay. The warning in the parable then is that we should forgive from our hearts everyone who, we may think, is indebted to us. This cannot in any case be much in comparison, like the hundred 'pence' of the parable!
Greenland is a vast, barren country visited by very few people, although some will have a recollection of seeing its icy wastes from the air. Its connection with patience and the work of the Lord is in an interesting story related by Mr Darby. Well over a hundred years ago a company of Christians went out to Greenland to spread the good news of the gospel. For thirteen years they laboured there without winning a soul for the Lord. In fact they were arranging to come away but thought they would try one year more. Then as they were reading aloud the account of the sufferings of Christ, someone came in and listened and said 'Read those words again'. This resulted in his conversion, the truth burst out and numbers were brought in.
"Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see... my sorrow".
J.C.Evershed