Isaac's life exemplifies the patience of faith, contrasting with the impatience of Abraham and Jacob. His journey, spanning Genesis 21-35, highlights his readiness to wait for God's timing, evident in his parents' twenty-year wait for his birth, his own patient submission to being sacrificed, and his twenty-four-year wait for a bride. Isaac also demonstrated patience in raising his vastly different sons, Esau and Jacob, and in enduring rejection and opposition from the Philistines, choosing to re-dig wells rather than retaliate. Ultimately, Isaac's life teaches the importance of trusting God's timing and remaining steadfast through trials and relationships.
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Hebrews chapter eleven verses nine and ten. We really ought to read verse eight as well. By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive or an inheritance obeyed, and he went out not knowing where he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange land in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise, for he looked for a city which have foundations whose builder and maker is God. And then further down it mentions, if you just let your eye drop to verse thirteen, these all died in faith, and that is a summary really of the group of names that were mentioned, including Isaac and Jacob.
I think probably that's the prime reference Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, because they speak of them, Isaac, well, Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with them of the same promise. Now, verse thirteen, these all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confess that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. So they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country and so on. Now last week we were thinking particularly of Abraham. And we took Abraham as an example of the obedience of faith.
Very simply because of those words, by faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place that he should after receive from inheritance, obey. And after all, that is basic to the whole idea of faith, isn't it? Because you see, the plan of God is presented to us. really demands a response, an obedient response. If I have faith in what God is saying, I will never question. I will never quibble. You see, when an officer gives a command or anyone else who is authorized to give commands, gives a command, it requires obedience whether we have a great deal of faith in it or not.
Because we are in a situation Or we can't say no. That is the reply. And if you're in the army is, you're in the army now. Obey. No matter whether you know anything about it or not. Or no matter whether you have great confidence or not in the person saying it. But on the other hand, if someone calls to you to jump out of a window and you've got no confidence that that person is going to be able to catch you or support you, you may not obey. Your fear, which indicates a lack of confidence, may hinder you. But you see, when God speaks, if I have complete trust in God, then there will always be a beat. Now, I think it's very important that we should get that firmly in our minds.
If I say, Oh, yes, Lord, I believe that you are all wise. I believe that your will is good and perfect and acceptable. The Bible says so. I believe that your plan is the ultimate. That it's not only the best, it's the only thing there is. I believe. And then I turn and say, but I'm not going to do it. Of course, we wouldn't say that to God. We just act it out, right? And so I tell God, it's wonderful. It's beautiful. This is the word today, you see. Isn't it beautiful? And then I turn my back on it and calmly proceed to do something totally different.
You see, faith, if I have complete confidence, in the absolute supremacy of the will of God. If I have absolute reliance on every word that he speaks, then no matter what he says, I will never disobey. And if and when I disobey, I simply am saying, I really don't trust you. Because if I accepted your word and did what you're saying, again, we would never think of saying this, but this is the way we rationalize, and this is what our actions seem to indicate sometimes. If I did what you're asking me, Lord, it would just absolutely ruin my life. I have to give you a little hand. It can't be quite that way, Lord.
Let it be this way. In other words, I know better. I really don't trust you. Now, Abraham had the kind of faith that said, Yes, Lord. And Noah had it. And Enoch had it. And Isaac had it. And Jacob had it. Everyone in this chapter. This is one thing. They had the word of God, and they had absolute confidence in that word, no matter what the society around the body was. So we looked at Abraham's life. We mustn't go back into that, but this, of course, carries over into the lives of these other men, because they were all the same. But we looked at Abraham as an example of the obedience of faith, and we looked at that life, as it seemed to us anyway, to express this obedience, in a series of eight great interviews with God, in each one of which God gave him a further revelation of himself, and that revelation implied a command or a request that Abraham move up in it, and Abraham, since he had complete reliance on what God was revealing to him, never missed a beat.
Now, he made mistakes. He did the wrong thing on a few occasions, but he didn't miss a beat so far as the main purpose of God for his life is concerned. He stumbled, he picked himself up, because like Peter, to whom shall we go? That's the words of eternal life. He knew that that was the beginning and the end of all wisdom what God had. And looking at him in those eight great interviews with God, every one of them a revelation. We saw him as he accepted each, almost like passing an exam and getting from grade one into grade two and from two to three and three to four, five, six, up through high school, up into college, spiritual college that is, and we saw that every one of them was a test, every one of them was a challenge, and according to his response was a response of faith, every one of them led him onto higher ground, more difficult ground marks.
for higher grounds is always more difficult. And if you are looking for an easy life, then switch off right now. I'm not even talking to you. Except, of course, that if you are professing to be a Christian and want to go on with God, but you want it easy, you have got two desires there that are in conflict. Because as we walk on and on and on with God, it doesn't become easier. It becomes steeper. You thought when you were in grade one that that was terrific. Very, very difficult. You knew when you got into grade two that grade one was nothing. You knew when you got into grade three that grade two was nothing.
And each grade seemed to get steeper and harder. And that's the way it is in spiritual life. Of course, you are developing spiritual intelligence, we hope. And you are developing spiritual muscle all the time. Spiritual character. You're learning. you're getting your feet in these things and you're learning to go on with them. Now, Isaac is a slightly different character. And we've taken Isaac up as an example of the patience of faith. We've written down in the notes, and by the way, Isaac's life is covered from Genesis twenty-one to thirty-five. Now, in all these patriarchs, they overlap with other people.
Therefore, there are parentheses there are parts in these chapters that do not refer directly to them as you very well remember when we come to Jacob for example Isaac fades but then later on he comes into the picture we come to Jacob and to Joseph and the same thing happens we follow Joseph's life and sufferings and for the moment Jacob fades out but he comes in at the end so you've got lots of reading material these days almost all the mistakes We say in the notes, almost all the mistakes recorded in the life stories of Abraham and Jacob were made through lack of patience, through their natural desire to hurry the accomplishment of God's purpose.
I think that's rather a startling thing. Abraham was not a rash man, but the few mistakes that he did make, going down to Egypt, the business of Hagar, and one or two like this, They were almost all linked with impatience. Not bad-tempered impatience, but just God was moving a little too slowly. He felt that he had to give things a push. And where he perhaps didn't feel it initially, Sarah helped him a little bit in that way. She seems to have been impatient to get that whole business wrapped up and stacked away somewhere. And instead of that, she just sat the whole program back quite a little bit.
The same is true of Jacob, but Jacob was particularly an impatient man. Jacob is very definitely the man of the flesh when we first meet him. We don't want to anticipate, but you remember very well, he couldn't wait for the blessing. God said it was his. It was a wonderful thing that he wanted it. Some people don't even want God's spiritual blessings nearly as much or as strongly as Jacob wanted them. He wanted them, but he couldn't wait. So he tricked his brother. The birthright. The blessing of the firstborn. He couldn't wait for either of them. One he traded him for a plate of stew.
And another one. He tricked his father into living it. Now for both those things he paid very dearly. Then he couldn't wait for the fulfillment of God's purposes in Haran with Laban. So he gave things a little bit of a push there too. And on his way back, he was forever pushing. You remember he was coming back to have a confrontation with his brother Esau. And instead of saying, I'm, Lord, you said I had to come back and I'm coming back. I'm going to meet Esau. I'm going to open up my heart to him. I'm going to confess what I did. You're going to put this whole thing right. You remember on the opposite side of the book, Peniel, he started dividing up the cattle and sending a gift ahead.
Not all at once. That would just have been one gift. But he divided the gift up into three. So he'd get more and more surprised. The generality of Esau would become more and more surprised at the generosity of his brother. That was scheming flesh. That was just trying to arrange things. We get our fingers in it. We just can't wait. And of course he went striding along. As you very well remember, until God broke him. And through his hip joints. his hip joint right out of its socket. And from there on, he really traveled at a good deal less speed than he had traveled before. God had to slow him down. Sometimes he does that.
And as he does, we have to learn just to go at God's speed. Now, the rushing, pushing, impatient Jacob, he had to learn the lesson that by his impatience, he often marred what God was doing. In between these two men, we have one who gives us an example of patience all the way down the line. Isaac is an outstanding example of the readiness of a man of faith to wait for God. That sounds simple, doesn't it? There's a verse which says, My soul waits thou only upon God.
somehow or other in our meetings and assemblies and indeed in most evangelical circles we have taken that word wait and we have put it into our theological vocabulary as practically the equivalent of pray so much so that we say wait on God in prayer or wait in prayer on God now that's true And I'm not a tall knock in this. But the fact of the matter is that I think the verse doesn't mention prayer. Have you found it there? It just says, wait on God. Don't bang your head up against him.
Don't push and don't try to push God. Because God won't be pushed. You know how you feel when you come up against one of those big, twenty-five or thirty-ton tractor trucks with about forty tons of steel beams on it. And some, you come up behind it in a little passenger car and some wag that's painted or put a sticker on the back of it. Don't push. Don't push God. Wait. Thank God. What do you say? What about the verse in Isaiah that says about the young men, they'll faint and fall down and those that run. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.
Well. It doesn't say those that pray to the Lord. It says they that wait on the Lord. You can wear yourself out trying to arrange things for God, and he doesn't really need you to arrange them. He can arrange them himself, thank you very much. And he can arrange your life, but when you start wearing yourself out, trying to arrange your life for God and trying maybe to arrange through the other people as well, that's a big job you've got on you. You're wearing yourself out. So he says, relax. Wait on God. Now, that will involve praying, but I insist that it involves far more than praying. It involves a readiness to wait, to sit back in God's presence and say, as we so often, sing but don't do, have thine own way, Lord, have thine own way.
I'll leave you to get on with it. You know, it's wonderful the energy you could see. It's wonderful the headaches you could get yourself out of. It's wonderful how calm you could be if you would just stop pushing. and learn to wait. Now that's what I see in this sentence anyway. He is an outstanding example of the readiness of a man of faith, or a woman of faith, I mean a person of faith, to wait for God. In a natural way this may make him appear to us as less spectacular, that is, than the other two, or many of the others, and of course he was far from perfect, failing in some points where they were perhaps nearer the pattern. But patience is his special quality, and in this we can learn many lessons from him.
His birth was associated with patience, for his parents waited for him approximately twenty years. As before he came in the synagogue, I'm surprised they didn't call him patience instead of Isaiah. He patiently submitted to being sacrificed at Mount Moriah Now, you'll note in brackets there, just to get you searching and digging around, he was probably close to twenty years of age when that incident took place. Somewhere between seventeen and twenty, probably closer to twenty. We often think of him as just a little laddie that Abraham could pick up and put on the altar and tie him down.
Now, Abraham was an old man at this time. An old man. And this was our strapping youth of twenty years of age. If he had not submitted, that scene would never have taken place. But he did submit, and that was a submission of patience. Then he waited twenty years for his own family to arrive. Work it out. Search something of the chronology of these things. He waited some twenty years for the arrival of his own family, and that is something which tests faith and therefore patience.
Sorry, he waited for twenty-four years for a bride, and he accepted one from a distant land brought to him by somebody else. How was it like that? That was the submission of faith. Now, I admit that this was the custom of those people, but nonetheless, There were people who didn't submit to it, even though it happened to be the custom of the people. There were those who went and took the woman of their choice. Samson, for example, and there are many others in Scripture. And when they did, it was always a very sad business. So here we have a man who waited. I was going to say he waited twenty years to be born.
His parents waited twenty years for him. He waited, accepted, patiently, the sacrificial... situation and happening there, that whole business of Mount Moriah. He waited about twenty-four years for a bride. He accepted one from a distant land that he didn't know, brought to him by somebody else. He waited twenty years for his own family to arrive, chapter twenty-five. These two children turned out to be so completely different as to demand maximum patience. Not only different from each other, but different from everything we know of Isaac. Esau wasn't like Isaac, that's for sure. And Jacob wasn't like Isaac.
Now, of course, some of you here don't have families, so you probably don't know what I'm talking about. But cheer up, you might someday. And if you do, you're going to learn a lot. And one of the things that can really call for patience is when you find one of your own children so startlingly different that you don't know what to do about it. These are very practical things, aren't they? You may find this not only in physical children, that is, children of your own in the natural sense of relationship. You may find it, even in some people that God has given you to do something with.
Your Sunday school class, your Bible class, someone you have led to Christ, other folks that you try to help in the Christian life and in the Christian community. And maybe they're so different from you that you are trying all the time to batter them into your image and try to make them conform maybe to your personality. And that's not it. That's not it at all. Here was a man and a woman. Suddenly they discovered that they had got two children, poles apart. Absolute poles apart. Not only that, but apparently very different, both of them from both their parents. And they had to put up with it. for long years. And children don't always resemble their parents in all things, which might be a very good thing, rather merciful thing, perhaps.
Children sometimes are so different that you begin to wonder just how it ever came about. And yet there it is. And it calls for real spiritual patience and understanding to be able to lay hold of God And say, Lord, you gave me these children. You gave me these children. And help me to help them. And in helping them to learn patience. And to wait your time. Well, what about this scallywag who just doesn't seem to be good for anything? And no matter what we do to him, he or she always seems to go in the opposite direction. You leave that in God's hand.
And God can deal. I don't mean that you should throw all your responsibilities onto God's neck. That's a different thing again. But be patient and wait for God's time. And God will work as only He can work. The very fact that they were so different demanded maximum patience. They represented two distinct races. And, as the Bible says, two manner of peoples. Two totally different racial divisions of the whole human race. that a whole human family were there. And you can read in Scripture what happened to Esau and Jacob and their posterity right into the tribulation and right into the millennium, as a matter of fact, because it's a good deal said about Edom.
And Edom was the offspring, or where the offspring... Well, Edom was the offspring of the nation of Esau. And so... They represented two different races, two manner of people, that is different in basic character. The two children showed that God's way of choosing and working would be totally different from man's way, and Isaac patiently accepted this and worked with it. Oh, if I only had had the picking of my family. Well, if I had had the picking of them, then what? Some people have picked them, haven't they?
They didn't always do so much better a job than God done. But as we look at the difference, has it ever dawned on you that perhaps God, know perhaps about it, that God makes people for his own purposes? Do you remember, Jeremiah? Don't you dare to say, you're a child and you can't sleep before I formed thee, that is, prior to birth, I knew thee. And I made you the way you are. I molded you with the character you have. And every time a man or a woman confronts God and says, but look the way I am. Well, look at the way you are. So what? Are you finding false with God and his wisdom? Well, look at the way God made this person.
If I'd had the doing of it, yes, of course, you're wiser than God, are you? We just simply have to learn in a practical way that God is all-wise. And I'm sure some of the individuals who turned out in God's purposes later on in life to be very, very outstanding men and women must have been, and sometimes we know from their biographies, they were very troublesome children, extremely difficult because they were just peculiar characters, specially made by God for a special job. When they got saved and that personality was channeled properly, then of course everything was just wonderful. The parents had to rely on it that that's the way it was.
Isaac patiently accepted this and he worked with it. Even when their children disappointed them, they waited patiently for God to work. And they did disappoint them. I somehow think that Jacob disappointed his dad, Isaac. Isaac loved wild meat, deer meat. And Esau was the man to get it for him. Jacob seems oddly enough at the beginning of the days to have been a mother's boy. He stayed in the tent with his mother, it says, the kind who works around the kitchen, scrapes the bowls and likes to make cookies, this kind of thing.
And I'm sure that Esau jived at him for it, and Jacob doesn't seem later on to be that kind of person at all, but this is where their personalities diverge. Isaac said, oh, I just wish I had venison. If there's somebody around here to shoot me an animal, to kill an animal, and of course Jacob wasn't around, and Esau wasn't around at the moment, or he went away, and Jacob got in there and did it. And I'm sure that maybe there was a little bit of difference here. And also the mother just loved, I'm sure, the boy who stayed around and kept her company in the kitchens and everything. And I'm sure sometimes she worried about this other harsh, hunting man, this wild type of Esau.
There they were. This was a problem in the home, and it ended rather disastrously because of some of the trickery that went on. But it must have been a very real test to their patience. Isaac suffered twenty years of separation from Jacob on whom the promises depended for fulfillment. And there is no record of impatience or repentance. Jacob, you see, had to pack his things and get out fast and go to Haran to his uncle Laban, and Isaac missed him and lost him for twenty years. As a matter of fact, we pretty well lost him for all time down here, didn't we?
Isaac went, Jacob got back, but even then, There was not very much contact. But let's stick to what's said. Twenty long years. And yet, Isaac, rather, knew in his heart that Jacob was the one in whom the promise was rested. You remember, God showed him that. God showed him that the elder would stare at the younger. God showed him that he was not going to choose according to the flesh. That the blessings and the birthright had gone to the one that God intended should have them. And now, Lord, here you are, the boy that meant so much, and the boy through whom Messiah is going to come, the one in whom all the promises said are where is he? What are you doing about it?
Twenty years. These are practical things. And this man, so far as the record goes, never tried it. He didn't send and chase after Jacob. It maybe wouldn't have worked anyway. He just patiently left it with God. In all this and much more, Isaac is a supreme manifestation of the patience of faith in his relations with others and with himself. The following are some of the main demonstrations of this spiritual quality in different relationships. Turn to Genesis chapter twenty-six verse fourteen, please, according to your notes there. Genesis twenty-six verse fourteen.
he had possession of flocks the verses previous said that he became great he went forward that is he advanced in what he was doing he grew until he became very great all his flocks were in wonderful condition in the land that he sold prospered and he received the same year a hundredfold and the Lord blessed him now he had these possessions, and in verse fourteen he had possession of flocks and possession of herds, that is cattle and sheep, goats, and great store of servants, and the Philistines envied him.
Envied him. For all the wells which his father's servants had digged in days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had stopped them and filled them with earth. And Abimelech said unto Isaac, Go from us, thou art much mightier than we are. Now here we have two things. First of all, envy. Have you ever run up against that in your little life? Envy is something that's very hard to be patient with. When people start pestering, tripping, getting in your way simply because At least you think there is envy.
Now, sometimes we imagine it. And in that way, we're in a rather indirect and subtle way flattering ourselves. Maybe people are not envying us at all. But even if you think they are, and very often there is, these hearts of ours are very deceitful. And perhaps there can be little bits of jealousy and envy, and people see something that you can do, and they don't like it very well. because of the reflection there's something very very nagging of our envy there's something very bothersome about it we don't even read that this man responded at all they carried on like a bunch of hornets such ill-natured kind of things they did that didn't do them any good but all they wanted was to do him harm because he was getting on better than they were getting on and this envy was roiling in their hearts And so there came opposition from it, as in verse fifteen.
So we have at the second point, patience with opposition and injustice. Go from us, thou art much mightier than we will. So what? They should have been glad to have a man like this round about. Maybe they could have learned something from him. So the utter injustice of it, not only envy, but opposition springing from the envy, an opposition which degenerated into something totally wrongheaded and unjust. There's something in every one of us that really stings and sticks at injustice. Even as a youngster, there's nothing will drive a child into a tantrum.
There's nothing will drive the nearest kid into a self, into brokenheartedness, like injustice. I can look back into my boyhood days, some very one thing particularly and I've tried and tried and it doesn't bother me really but I never forgot it this is the nasty part about it just something that happened in the home my father jumped to a hasty conclusion about something he thought I had done and certainly all the evidence looked as though I had done it but it wasn't so understand if you haven't time to go into that I just leave the thought with you you know what I mean in in psychology And working now, it's enough to get you off the gallop, even if you shoot a policeman, if they say, well, you know, he had a sense of rejection from childhood.
Somewhere along the way, his parents gave him the idea that they didn't accept him. And this is what it did to him. This is so basic in our society. I sometimes wonder how Christians who talk like this work out the point. that they accepted total identification with a rejected Savior. The moment they became Christian. That they accepted a cross. And the cross is not a symbol of love, it's a symbol of rejection. Read the scripture passage of the view of the cross. The cross is a brand mark.
The cross is shame. The cross is discipleship. The cross is saying no to self is the total crucifixion of this here and all that it stands for it can be perhaps a symbol of hate the world's hate so that's why they nailed the Lord Jesus they could have stoned him as Jews they didn't want to they wanted to have him hanged on a tree by the Romans they couldn't do that so they handed him over to the Romans to have it done and also of course that the scriptures might be fulfilled acceptance how we love to be accepted. Now here's a man at the very beginning of his adult career finds himself rejected.
Get out. March. We don't want you alive. We don't really get he fought back. There's a verse seventeen. How did he depart from there? It's all right. I don't know what his thought in his heart. I was in ten or above the St. Francis then. I shall return. or not. But of course, actually, he did. He did. God brought him back. And they were very glad to have him back, if you read the rest of the story. But in any case, Isaac departed from there, pitched his tent in the Valley of Gerar and dwelt there. But anyway, there is patience and rejection. Young Christians, let me implore of you to read your Bible and to notice the fact that you are not going to be accepted by the world if you have total identification with Christ.
You could tell them that you were a follower of some guru over in India. You could tell them you were a follower of Muslimism of any cult or religion in the world, and they would accept it undisputedly. But say, Jesus Christ is Lord of my life. And do it these ways. Do it these ways. You could shave your head, put a robe on, and go to the street corners, rambling along the Harry Krishna business. And people say, well, he's sincere. Let him alone. That's what they're doing. There's no fight. But it steps and speak openly and say, Jesus Christ, to me, is Lord.
And that's a totally different thing. They will never discuss that rationally or quietly. You will be rejected. And I think you've got to face up to that mountain of all business. You've got to face up to it. That might be an area for some discussion. In verse eighteen, the patience of re-digging the wells of his father. Our fathers dug many spiritual wells. They opened up whole wells of truth in the scripture. We received that. We are second, third, and fourth generations. Christians of the type that we know. And I'm not too sure that we're very interested in re-digging the wells that the Philistines have filled with earth, are you?
Sometimes I think we would gladly help the Philistines to do a little bit of filling, supply them with some of the fill for nothing. Sometimes we don't want those wells. Sometimes we think we're a good deal smarter done three or four generations of very godly people when it comes to the knowledge of the word of God I think maybe we could do just a little bit of rethinking there too now look at verse nineteen in verse eighteen it says Isaac digged again the wells of water which they had digged in the days of Abraham he went back and repossessed got hold of something which had been dug previously but which in between had been lost and he repossessed it And then in verse, and by the way, he called them at the end of verse eighteen, their names after the names by which his father had called them.
A rejected man, but he wasn't a rejecter. I really question sometimes this whole idea that all generations from time immemorial have totally and completely rejected everything belonging to their elders. This is what we're told in a rationalization of the rebellion of our present day. So everybody's always with that. Everybody rejected their parents. Oddly enough, I can't remember doing it. Or maybe I did. Maybe I'm just too old to remember. I don't feel that way, and I can remember a good deal.
And I wonder, if Isaac and Jacob certainly didn't, pairs together with the same promises, and they learned to dwell in tents. Sojourning in the land. By the way, that's a play on verbs. To sojourn is a temporary thing. It says they sojourned in the land because there were strangers in it to do. Dwelling is a permanent word, and they permanently dwelt in impermanent tents. You would have turned the verbs around, wouldn't you? They dwelt in the land, and they sojourned in tents until they got a proper house dwell. Well, that's not it. They permanently, habitually, were tent dwellers, and they passed through the land as if they didn't own a piece of it.
In fact, they didn't own any of it, and they wouldn't own it. In nineteen and twenty, Isaac's servants dig in the valley and find there a well springing water. In verse twenty, the herdsmen of Gerard described with Isaac's herdsmen saying, The water is ours, and he called the name of the well, Ezek, because they strove with him at its striving, which is what? The word means. They digged another well and strove for that also, and called the name of it Sibna. And he removed them there and digged another well, and for that they strove not.
Oh, I've done this now, and you've mentioned it. But look, I've been digging into the spot as you plug it. Let's see who gets tired today. Sometimes it works that way with the world. You know, they'll hurt the truth and they'll kick them. They'll stop your wells if they possibly can. You just keep working the way out of it. And the possibility is, as I say, that character does not even work while working. That is not going to do it in any way. And they'll get tired before you do it. Try to shorten this way anyway. Breathing in the wells of his father. In contending for unstopped wells. He didn't shrug his shoulders and walk away. But when it became necessary, he did move and dug new wells altogether.
Then, in chapter twenty-six, verse twenty-two, he removed from there. Now, that's the second time he removed. In twenty-three, it says he went up from there to be a sheba. And in verse seventeen, we already read that he departed, moving to a new country, digging a new There's something in these parts of ours, apart of course from a little bit of wanderlust that shows up in us before we reach complete maturity. But most of us, sooner or later, we get a hankering to settle. There's something natural about this.
Even in the Lord's work, we'd like to make permanent friends. We ate for this. something innocent calls out for it. And many people save their whole lifetime in the community. They've been their friends there. They've been business friends. They've presented friends and so on. You know, sometimes God asks you to move. He has asked me to move. I've returned. And I think probably one of the greatest sacrifices and one of the greatest hardships in my life has been not to give enough of material things. So I did that. many times, but just the inability to stay long enough to make lifelong friends.
God puts his finger and says, now that finish will be a thing of all from beginning to end of his Christian life, all over the place. Now God doesn't want us all to be that kind of person. God certainly doesn't want us to be spiritual gypsies. God doesn't want us to be drifters or floaters. But God wants us always to accept patiently if He brings our present way of life to a termination and says, now I want you to get all of that up and move out into something that's, oh no, that I couldn't face it. I did it five years ago and I thought I was finished with it. Well, I thought I was finished with it quite a few times. And I think if you study through the life of this man, will find he moved and he moved for God, not restlessness, not drifting, not floating, not impatient churning around, not because he just wanted to see what BC was like or down east, but just because it was part of God's plan and fight.
And he patiently and willingly accepted it. In altar building, verse twenty-five, he built an altar there He did the same thing on many occasions. In training servants to dig, pitching tent in a new land, starting all over again, and in maintaining friendly relations with those who had wronged him. That is from verse twenty-six done. You see, Abimelech, the man who had thrown him out, back up the chapter a bit in verse sixteen, not just ten verses later, but we don't know how long it was, In time, Abimelech went to him from Gerar and Ahudda, one of his friends, and Faiqal, the chief captain of his army, and Isaac said unto them, Wherefore come you to me, seeing you hate me, and have sent me away from you?
And they said, We saw certainly that the Lord was with thee, and he said, Let there now be a nose between us. In other words, we want to make peace with you, because we can see that God has blessed you. Now, I think I know what I would have said to those men, and if they had approached me, with a sign like that that they'd come back and said well yeah we chased you and we did take you but now we see that it's to our own that's for our own good that's to our own blessing and benefit to have your back so please come back so we can get the best out of it I can think of a lot of things I said to you that we tried out in the news but if you notice this man verse thirty he made him a thief They just eat and drink.
They rose up early in the morning and swore once again, and I just sent them away. And they departed from the beach. Someone would say, fool. They might even use a less trendy word than fool, a harsh, ugly word that we sometimes use as we walk it in here. But you can think of a lot of things that the world would say about people like that. Well, I want to ask you something. Do you think Isaac lost anything? by this patient generosity of saying, sure, you rejected me, and now you want me back to help you? I'm not coming. Because if I go back, you're just making an accommodation out of me. And I'm not an accommodation. I'm not going to be with you.
He didn't do that. Do you really think he lost anything by patiently being their friend again? Turning back and trying to be a blessing? I don't think he did. I think God blessed him for it. Now this goes on and on and on. We just drop it there, practically in midair, because there's no end, almost to the references that we have throughout this whole portion. Turn over the page, however, and I'm going to stop at the half hour because I think we should keep this class a little bit shorter. Last week was a little long because of introductory material and getting settled into this study. But I do want you to think briefly of the New Testament application, suggest areas of the believer's life where the need of patience is indicated.
A, in the working out of the purpose of God in our own lives, James one, three to twelve, that is God molding our lives, bending us, breaking us perhaps, testing us. The word is used, a variety of temptations, but it's not temptation to evil, it's a variety of testing. diverse temptations revelation one nine two be in suffering and the working out of the purpose of God in our lives he's given me a couple of references there are many more be in suffering James five and eleven let me read it to you because I don't want to make any mistake in quoting James five and eleven behold we count them happy who endure And he's talking about suffering, affliction.
Verse ten, the last verse ten. Example of suffering, affliction, and of patience. Behold, we count them happy, who endure, who continue the patience. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord. Not meaning the termination of the Lord, but the object of the Lord. What God wanted to do to that man. And Job... caught his friends a little bit. Let me get into the presence of God. And the Bible says it was the patience of Job. Now that's in suffering. James five and eleven. First Peter two twenty. The same kind of thing. See, in guidance. Acts sixteen.
Just read it at home. You remember Paul. He went through one part. The Lord didn't allow him to through. She wanted to go through another part. And the Lord blocked her. He wanted to go through another part. All of the nation minors. Spirit suffered as much. It wasn't possible. It couldn't go. Everything blocked. He didn't get in a tantrum and say, all right, I'm going back to my job. He waited. He waited. And in the night, a man of Macedonia with a problem turned up before him. And that man with a problem may very well have been the Philippine jailer. I don't know that it's something I think about. Because it says a male in Macedonia. Not just a person, a man.
first two they naturally remember the women at least they met a whole lot of them the first meeting was in a woman's prayer meeting at all that's down by the river and uh lydia got saved and then the little girl a little pagan girl got saved and i wonder whether maybe paul looked at so i doesn't do a work in that same period of time a woman's prayer meeting lydia this little girl what's going on then they landed up in prison and they were flogged and while this was going on the prison Officer came in and there's the man in front of you. That's the man in front of an open office. But I wouldn't be at all surprised if it's why this man shrouded so quickly. What must I do to be saved?
I think he was a man of the problem. And God sent his servants to meet the man of the problem. And that's why all the other doors were closed. And that's why they sang praises in the middle of the night. And thanking God, though they're back to a running of blood, now I can't prove that at all. But there are so many inferences and implications throughout those verses of the mystery of why they were brought there until the point of imprisonment and seeing the Philippian jailer. Anyway, there it is. You can think about this. He's patient under the guidance of God. Are you always patient? When God closes down, you kick the wall a little bit.
So, this is one area. In prayer. Praying her, Ephesians six and eleven, praying always with all prayer and supplication for all men and so on. And for me, keep at it. Second Corinthians twelve, eight, he prayed, God, three times that it might be removed, the sickness that wasn't. He patiently sat with them, done. In danger, second Timothy four, ten. In the Christian race, Hebrews twelve, one. That is run with patience, patient endurance. It's all the same word. The race that is set before us. in service. Luke eight fifteen, Romans fifteen, five, first Thessalonians one, please.
Look up these. The benefit of this class will come to you not just from sitting listening to a talk, but going back and digging over these chapters and trying to find out just what you can learn from them. Then two, the first area is in the believer's own personal life. That is A to G are areas in the believer's own personal life. where patience is required. And then in the second section, from H to K, in the believer's relations with the world and with other Christians in dealing with sinners. Salvation is of the Lord. Don't push. Don't be impatient. Don't try to shove that little sinner in your class into a profession of accepting Christ.
Let God, the Holy Spirit, do a divine work in the center of the house. Be patient. Don't get them to sign on the line before they're really convicted, before they're repentants for sin, before they're ready to be saved. Just trust God that he knows. He is sovereign. We must allow him to do his work. Then in the lives of other believers, just wait in relations with the unconverted. Hebrews chapter twelve, verse three, in civic relations, politics. You need a lot of patience. The Lord direct your heart into the patience of Christ.
To wait as he waits the night and to accept the will of God. The Lord God the Father said to his son, Sit thou on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. He's been sitting there for nineteen centuries. That's the patience of Christ. That's why Paul prayed, the Lord directs your hearts, not into the patient waiting for Christ, but into the patience of Christ, that your patience may be his patient, waiting until God's Son comes. May the Lord grant us your purpose.