PATIENCE IN WAITING FOR ANSWERS
J. A. McLaren
1 Chronicles 4: 10; Luke 1: 11–13 to “heard”; Acts 7: 17–25; Psalm 105: 16–These scriptures speak in the first two cases of prayers, in the third of a promise to Abraham, and the fourth of a prophecy uttered by Joseph. But I believe they all have one thing in common and that is that the persons concerned had to wait some time for the fulfilment of the answer to their prayers, or the fulfilment of their promises. We find it testing to wait for answers. I heard of a young sister many years ago who was in company with some grown-ups and in speaking of prayer she said, ‘I always get an answer to my prayers’. When the grown-ups showed surprise she explained, ‘Oh, but of course sometimes the answer is No!’ We do not always get that answer. The prayers I have read of are not the kind God would say ‘No’ to. But God in His wisdom sometimes has to say ‘No’ because He knows that it would not be good for us to be granted the request that we are making. Normally we would credit saints with praying with a
desire for what is good and right, as John says, “If we ask him anything according to his will he hears us”, 1 John 5: 14.
Now Jabez was a typical Israelite. We have to remember that he lived in a day when blessing of an earthly kind was a sign of God’s favour, so that it was quite in order that he should ask God to bless him richly and enlarge his border, and it says that God brought about what was requested. Now that infers that it was not a case of Jabez getting something presented to him so that he was a rich man overnight. It was not a case of some very wealthy person leaving him a colossal legacy so that he was set up for life and did not need to trouble himself about anything after that. We might think of spiritual blessing and enlargement in our day, of course, but then it was natural, earthly. Nevertheless, God brought it to pass; that is, Jabez would have to wait His time and, who knows? it may well be that Jabez would not have it all plain sailing during that period. I mean, he would be the subject of God’s watchful eye and God might have to work out something in him during that period of waiting, be it long or short. Mr. Taylor said something about this scripture in 1940 during the last war when things were very difficult. He said this might have taken months or years to accomplish. He added that he himself had prayed for something for forty years and he was only getting the answer then!
He said of the next scripture that his impression was that Zacharias might have forgotten about his prayers. That is understandable from the context. It does not say in Scripture that he had forgotten, but it is conceivable. But then God does not forget them, and when the answer came—an answer of power and a word from the angel—you can understand, humanly speaking. Zacharias being taken
aback. Of course, he is rebuked for his unbelief, but nevertheless the word of God was, “Thy supplication has been heard”. How thankful we would be to hear an answer like that to any prayer! I do not speak of the detail of his prayer because it is not the point. I am taking it up as an example of any prayer that is in faith. God might say to us, ‘Thy prayer is heard’. But then we have to remember that it may take some time before God comes in, in answer to it.
Apart from Zacharias’s specific prayer, we know, dear brethren, how much burden and sorrow there is in the world, the sorrow and grief that are part of our lot as being of a fallen race.
Matthew 8: 17 records that the Lord Jesus fulfilled what was spoken through Esaias the prophet, saying, “Himself took our infirmities and bore our diseases”. It is very affecting to think of that. We think often of the lifetimes of prayer that parents have perhaps had for their children, it may be seeing no work of God in them, or no clear evidence of it. They go on praying and in some cases they do not live to see the results. Then, after they are taken to be with the Lord, the brethren are thankful to see God’s hand of power put out, securing the persons concerned in conversion for His glory. It shows that we need to be persevering in prayer and faith regarding these things.
Now when we come to Abraham it is a promise, really, arising out of a conversation which God had with His friend Abraham. Abraham was conversing with God and he had liberty with Him, a remarkable thing, and a thing we must wonder at, that God should speak of him as His friend, and converse with him and tell him of His secrets. And God told him something about what would happen to his descendants which culminated four hundred years after that (Genesis 15: 13). Just think of that—four hundred years. You say, Abraham will never live to see that. Of course he did not, but then, he died in faith. He would have the clear consciousness that God had said it, and would bring it to pass. And so, after Abraham’s descendants came into Egypt, Moses was born. Had they been intelligent they might have said, ‘Oh, this is our deliverer now’. But there is no word of a prophetic utterance at that time.
They had to wait through forty years of suffering and bondage after that. Moses thought his brethren would understand, but, no, they did not even then understand that he was going to be the deliverer and they had to wait another forty years.
Eighty years; a long time, and even then, while we are thankful to see how in the type God intervened and dealt in power with the Egyptians and acted typically in redemption and took them over the Red Sea, even then the full result was not seen for another forty years until the end of Moses’ life—Moses seeing the land but not going into it. And at that time what was said by Moses in prophecy was fulfilled, “Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance”, Exodus 15: 17. We are thankful for the way in which simple things about our needs may be answered quickly by God, but it may well be that God has to work out something in us in a waiting period.
Now when we come to Joseph it is not exactly a prayer, it is something which was the result of a dream. He uttered it to his brethren and it says “until the time when what he said came about”; that is, Scripture treats it as a prophecy. He said something and it came to pass. Now Joseph did not have to wait as long as Abraham, but who knows the full extent of what he suffered in his spirit and soul, in this waiting period? The prophecy was spoken about the time he was seventeen.
Then in the next thirteen years he was ill-treated by his brethren, sold, falsely accused, and cast into prison. It says here, “They afflicted his feet with fetters; his soul came into irons”.
Who knows the full extent of what he went through then in suffering and burden and discipline? yet all was wisely over-ruled of God for his instruction and for his progress spiritually. I am now speaking of Joseph personally, not as a type of Christ. But then a time came when he was exalted, when he was thirty. What a relief that would be! What an answer to his prophecy, including, of course, the time when his brethren came to it later on. What he said came about and the thing was sure and certain and it was fulfilled by God in His wisdom and power.
But then, Joseph was a type of the Lord Jesus. And the Lord Jesus is waiting yet for a full answer. Joseph had what was a fulfilment in type of the fruit that is born to Christ from the Gentiles as a result of His death. He says of his firstborn, who was born in Egypt, “God has made me forget all my toil, and all my father’s house”. So the Lord Jesus has results for His suffering—from the Gentiles now. We are very glad to have part in that. But there is something else, dear brethren. The final result is still to come in the case of the Lord Jesus, as the hymn puts it;
‘Israel’s race shall then behold Him,
Full of grace and majesty;
Though they set at nought and sold Him,
Pierced and nailed Him to the tree,
They in glory shall their great Messiah see’.
What a time that will be for the Lord Jesus! We say, What a time it will be at the rapture! We are looking forward to that. But then what a time it will be for the Lord (and for Israel too) when they see their Messiah! And that is the fulfilment of Joseph’s prophecy here.
May we be encouraged by these things, dear brethren. We need to persevere in prayer and faith, and in our case we can say with confidence and with assurance that God will grant our request if we are saying with the Spirit, ‘Lord Jesus, come’.
Word in meeting for ministry, Dundee
6 February 1990