Be Patient and Stand Firm

transcribed from the tape of a talk by Robert Clipsham, High Leigh 1977

There is the story of a minister who was walking up and down in his study, very agitated, and when he was asked the reason for his agitation he replied that his trouble was that he was in a hurry but God did not appear to be in a hurry. It seems to me that James in chapter 5 was spelling out some of the world's injustices and exhorts his brethren not to lose patience if the day when things would be put right seemed to be delayed, saying, 'Be patient brethren, stablish your hearts till the Lord comes'. He was probably writing to some who were of similar mind to our brother minister. They were in a hurry but the Lord it seemed to them was not in a hurry.

The words are just as relevant to us today, for we also long for the coming of the Lord and we tend to become impatient and cry out 'How long, O Lord, how long?' especially after some sadness either of a cosmic nature or of a personal nature strikes us. Who is there who has not had this thought? 'How long, O Lord, how long?' But while this eternal cry rises involuntarily to our lips, the faith of the Christian is that time is an essential factor in God's government as well as faith. When the minister said God was not in a hurry, he unwittingly gave witness to the fundamental truth of God's universal administration, that God is never in a hurry. He knows the end from the beginning, and He works all things according to his own purpose and will. He never needs to be in a hurry.

The whole course of man's history is in God's mind, but this is not kept just secret there. He declares and He tells it. It is not merely God's thought, but His intimate concern. All His dealings with man are under the control of His divine counsel, his intentions and his purposes. This is the sure and only foundation, on which every Christian hope is built, that God knows what He is doing. As James says, He is the Father of lights in whom there is no variableness neither shadow of turning. The lights of sun, moon and stars, they change and vary. He who created them never changes.

So James can with full confidence appeal to all to be patient, fully assured that what has been promised will be fulfilled by Him who declares 'I am God, there is none else, declaring from ancient times the things that are not yet seen. My counsel shall stand, I will do all my pleasure.'

Furthermore, let us try to grasp something of the vast and the mighty scale on which our God works. For our sake, and all creation's sake, He will never allow himself to be hurried by our fretfulness, our impatience. I think of John Henry Newman's lovely little prayer, 'Lord who Thy thousand years dost wait to work a thousandth part of Thy vast plan, for us create, with zeal, a patient heart.' That is what we want, what we need. Not just a passive, resigned patience, but a patience burning with zeal and gratitude and expectation as we pray 'Come, Lord Jesus, come... thy kingdom come.' It is because God is so good as to count a thousand years as one day and one day as a thousand years, that we are able to have with zeal a patient heart. If he was anything less, brethren, with the years patience would weary. But because we know nothing is haphazard in the Divine purpose but all mapped out from beginning to end 'according to the dispensation of the fulness of times' we wait with eager patience for his good end and his time.

When I was young, we had an illuminated text, it showed a small branch of a horse chestnut tree with a very prickly green unopened chestnut, whilst further along there was one that was opened, showing a lovely brown chestnut, when we were boys we called them conkers. Scattered about the picture there were hazel nuts, some opened, some still in their prickly covering. Then, beautifully inscribed were these words, 'Be patient brethren, in due time' These three words have remained with me over the years. They are the three vital words which have governed the outworking of everything of God's purpose in the past and they still remain as the expression of what is still to be accomplished and brought to completion in the dispensation of the fulness of times - one translator translates that lovely phrase, that wondrous phrase, this way: 'the divine programme of history', and he emphasised that the Greek word used of times there speaks, not of any old time, but decisive times in the fulfilment of God's purposes.

In due time, Christ died, says Paul. To him this was not just one episode among others taking place simply because chance would have it so. It was an event in time, but it was at God's time. It was at the most decisive time of all events in history. Christ died for us. At the first advent it was in the fulness of time that God sent forth his Son. A Greek scholar points out that it would have been quite inadequate to say that time had fully come, for the word 'the' is strongly emphasised in the Greek, and it was only when the fulness of time had come that the long anticipated coming of the Son of God was revealed and he was then sent forth. It was God's own moment, long awaited in patience. It was the vindication of God's own word and promise that the seed of the woman would bruise the serpent's head.

Even in the life of our Lord the principle is the same. His words were so often, 'My time has not yet come', but when it had come he said 'The hour has come'. All is in accordance with the divine timetable, and though at times to us God's time seems slow, let us ever remember that He is preparing and working not for a few weeks and not for a few months. He is working for eternity.

One old saint said, 'Though He tarry past our time, he will not tarry past the due time'. Behind all the events of history, the eternal purpose of God is being worked out day by day and that purpose is to restore the whole creation to find its one head in Christ (as Weymouth puts it), while the NEB says 'His purpose is that the universe, all in heaven and on earth, might be brought into a unity in Christ'. I was thrilled to read what a Christian writer says about this very verse. 'God is at work throughout the entire universe, drawing together not only his church but drawing together the entire human family, and not only the entire human family but every throbbing element of all creation has been drawn together by God in his eternal purpose.' This is God who has planned, staggering to our finite minds.

James exhorts us to be patient for the fulfilment of the next stage of God's purpose. That is the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, urging us to be patient, 'Stablish your heart for the coming of the Lord draws nigh.' While James cites the patience of the farmer arising from his past experience, so the Christian's past experience of the sureness of the Lord's promise gives him patience that his promise that he will come again will be fulfilled. When General Booth lay dying he whispered to his son Bramwell, 'Bramwell, the promises...' Then with great effort he raised himself and said, 'The promises, the promises of God are sure. They're sure, Bramwell, if you will only believe.' They are sure. Whether we believe or whether we don't believe, God's promises will never fail. The Psalmist says they are like silver purified seven times in the furnace, flawless, unmarred by inability or unwillingness to fulfil, as so many of our promises are. His promises are the sure promise of the future, of our promises it is only certain ones which can be delivered in the light of its fulfilment. Men's promises. How many promises we get from our governments. I don't blame them, they promise and can't fulfil. God promises and He will fulfil. And his word will not fail. There is the moment which He alone knows, when he will again send Jesus Christ to complete the work of deliverance and salvation commenced at Calvary. This is the moment all creation is waiting for on tiptoe of eager anticipation, for the universe, not just this earth, but for the universe, all things in heaven and in earth to be freed from the shackles of change and decay. Such a vision brings the involuntary cry as we look around us and we experience the pain and sorrow which Paul speaks of as a groaning creation. How long, O Lord, how long? But God waits patiently for the moment which his unerring wisdom of love has fixed from the beginning. Running right through life and time and space, history and experience, is the one incomparable power of God's will, and nothing can stop it. Our portion, as it was with the Lord at the crisis of his life, to worship and in his words say, 'Thy will be done'.

A beautiful hymn expresses the thought which suggests patience, 'God holds the key to all unknown, and I am glad; if other hands would hold the key, or if he trusted it to me, I might be sad'. We would indeed be sad, for our ways are ways of expediency and of change and they lead to disastrous results. I think of the naturalist who told of his impatience. He came upon a wonderful emperor moth, stuggling wildly to force its way through the narrow neck of the cocoon. It was a wonderful and lovely specimen, and thinking it a pity it should be subjected to such an ordeal, he took his lancet and slit the cocoon. The moth came out but its glorious colour never developed, its wings never expanded, the hues and tints that should have adorned them never appeared. It crept about, and died. The struggle was nature's way of developing wings and colours until every particle would have blushed with beauty. The naturalist never forgot the lesson. He had saved the little creature from the struggle but he had ruined it and slain it in the process. Man's impatience always ends in disaster. God's way is perfect, and however long it may seem, the power of his patience will ensure the glorious climax of his purpose and his will. Sorrow may and does come in the night brethren, but joy will come in the morning. It will be the morning of the coming of Christ.

No impatience is allowed to mar God's work but all will come about according to the times and the dates which the Father has set within his own control and his own power. He is patiently waiting for each age to progress towards the climax of his vast divine purpose and plan. James speaks of Job as an example of patience but to the Christian it is God the Father who is the supreme example and indeed the very essence of patience.

Both Paul and Peter speak of God's patience, both with us, and in his working out of his purposes in the world. They use words of gratitude and praise as the God of all patience and consolation, who is very patient towards us and allows us all the time we need to be prepared for when the day of the Lord comes. In our own personal experience dear brethren we know that he has been very gracious and very great in his patience toward us. He has not dealt with us after our failures, he has not dealt with us after our sins, our weaknesses, our faithlessnesses, but according to his longsuffering kindness and patience. With Martin Luther we cannot do ought but marvel at the patience of God in the face of our fickleness. I remember brethren, at the end of the Second World War even Winston Churchill had something of this in mind when he said in one of his perorations, he asked that God would grant mankind his continued patience for them to mend their ways. The patience is granted by God, but not through man's intervention but according to his ultimate gracious eternal will.

I was reading the other day of a very lovely expression by Augustine. It was in Latin, and I had to ask one of our friends who knew Latin to explain it to me. He said - he didn't know what I was wanting it for - 'This means that God is patient because he is eternal'. Or, he thought it might be, 'God is eternally patient'. Those are wonderful thoughts. If our Father in heaven, the great God of the universe is patient, who are we to be impatient? But let us take hold of this great privilege we have in all humility and gratitude and be patient with the patience of God himself. With Jeremiah we can say that it is good to both hope and to quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.

James tells us to be like the farmer, but we are different to the farmer, in that whilst he can more or less determine the date of harvest, the Christian cannot determine the time of his Lord's coming again. But whilst Jesus told us no man knows the day nor the hour he did give us signs indicating conditions which point towards the climax of the ages. It is precisely ignorance of the set times which lends power to the repeated words, 'to be ready'. Mr Moody used to say, 'If Christ had said I will not come back for two thousand years, none would have begun to watch till then'. But the Christian is to be looking for his Lord always, and so we are not told when Christ is to come, but we are told to watch. James urges us to establish our hearts, for it is while we watch the passage of time that the test comes. The thought is of 'stablish your hearts', 'strengthen', or as one translator puts it, 'put iron into your hearts'. Phillips has a lovely paraphrase of this, which appeals to me much. He says, 'Be patient. Rest your heart on the ultimate certainty of the Lord's coming.'

If in any matter of concern to us we know beyond doubt of the successful issue, however long it may be, the burden of anxiety will be shed. Similarly because the coming of the Lord is beyond doubt, the Christian heart is strengthened and at rest because we know, whether we are taken before He comes - and who knows when - or whether we are taken when He comes, the ultimate issue will be one of full salvation and deliverance into his presence. This is fulness of deliverance, fulness of salvation from present conditions into the fulness of life. Whichever way it is, his coming and our salvation is nearer than when we first believed, and day by day and moment by moment the time becomes shorter. Shorter for us to show our zeal and our love, shorter for the work of purifying our hearts our minds to be accomplished.

I hear now and again a message from the Pacific Mission in Chicago. This has been open for over a hundred years day and night, and the number of people who have been brought to Christ runs into thousands. Someone said to the man who was in charge of it many many years ago, 'Why don't you go away and take some rest. You're killing yourself by sticking so close to that mission. Take a vacation.' 'I would never do that' he said. 'Every time I go down to the mission I think it may be the last time and the Lord will come. I would not miss being at my post for anything in the world. When Jesus comes I want to be right there where he expects me to be.' Brethren, when the moment of death comes to us, whether the Lord has come or whether he has not come, is not the same principle involved, being where he would expect us to be? Because for all of us our time is short, our attitude should be a similar one. As the Russian Christian wrote, 'O Lord, with our hearts and ears open, awaiting thy shout would we be, the summons that calls us to heaven, for ever to be Lord with Thee. The word of thy patience we're keeping, Thy radiancy draws us apart, a beacon us heavenward beckoning, to meet Thee the hope of our heart.' Brethren, this is the glorious and glowing apostolic hope and coming for which the church has patiently waited and longed for well nigh two thousand years. All have known and loved and lived under the power and influence of the expectation of the Lord's coming.

The truth has been and continues to be that 'the Lord draweth nigh'. Time is short, says Paul. Today this is intensified, brethren by the significance of the increasing signs which he gave which would precede his coming. But let us ever remember the three essential elements of the Christian's faith. He has already come once. He is already beside us and we have his glorious companionship day by day. And He is coming again in glory. All are equally precious and wonderful, and these are the decisive factors which alone can establish our hearts so that they can never be moved away from the hope of the gospel. Because Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and for ever, and He will never fail us, never disappoint those who love him and love his appearing.

When we are waiting at any time it makes all the difference who we're waiting for, and what it is we wait for, whether it is with patience, with anxiety, or in anticipation. The crowds recently waited patiently long hours day and night to catch a glimpse of our queen. It was for a few brief moments, and then she was gone. The Christian looks for the Lord from heaven, King of kings and Lord of lords; the one who loved us even to the extent of dying for us. Dying for us on the cruel cross. We cannot remind ourselves too often of whom it is we wait for at his coming. It is this same Jesus — the men in white said — who will come again 'as ye have seen him go'. The same Jesus who brought to us the knowledge and the love and the light of God and his purpose. Whose words continue to us today to be life and spirit, meat and drink. Who though deserted by his friends loved them to the end. Who healed and befriended those in need, and to whom none came without response. Who blessed and had time for little children. Who rode humbly into Jerusalem on a donkey. Who washed his disciples' feet. And who bore at Calvary in sorrow and in pain our sins and the sins of all mankind. And yet He loved so greatly, so wholely, so fully that he found an excuse, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' It is this same Lord Jesus for whom we wait, brethren, and though he now comes in victory, he will still be the same gracious Lord, full of grace and truth. Still our shepherd, saviour, friend, our prophet, priest and king. He who has so patiently put up with us in all our ups and our downs, our faithlessness and our wanderings. He is the one to whom we have so often gone and he has never failed us or turned us away. He patiently endured the cross for us, and now he patiently endures with us. The same yesterday, today and for ever.

The father of a little boy had been promoted to a very high post. He looked at his father and said, 'Do you think he will still let me call him Daddy?' The Lord Jesus is the same Jesus who will come, but he will come in glory. The writer to the Hebrews says, 'Let us consider him lest we be wearied and faint' - or as Beck puts it, 'Think of what he did. It will keep you, it will help you not to get tired and give up'. Think of what he did. Think of who he was. 'It will help you not to get tired and give up.' We wait for this same Jesus and it is precisely brethren because he is the same Jesus whom not having seen we love, that we ask not whether he is worth patiently waiting for, but whether we are worthy to know and to wait for his coming. The crucial and final question for every one of us is not our assessment of our Lord Jesus Christ, but his assessment of us.

I think of the old negro lady who was dying and how she reacted to the suggestion of her friends who gathered round her bed and said 'The angels will soon come for you'. 'Oh no', she said, 'Not the angels'. The Lord himself shall descend from heaven and the dead in Christ shall rise first. The Lord Jesus Christ himself.

And there was a Scottish covenanter who, three hundred years ago, was condemned to the scaffold and was given four days to live. As he was led back to prison he cried out to the crowds who were weeping, 'Trust God, Trust God'. Then, catching sight of a friend, he called out, 'Good news, Good news', with a shining face and eyes. 'I am within four days journey of enjoying the sight of Jesus Christ.' For most of us, brethren, it is not the scaffold, but our experience is as it was for the Thessalonians. It is to turn from the idols of self and the world and to serve the living God and to wait for the coming of his Son from heaven. The young covenanter had four days to live, but his uppermost thought in his mind was to enjoy the sight of Jesus Christ. This was his hope, and in this hope he strengthened his conviction and his patience. As oxygen is to the lungs so is hope to patience. When we have hope we walk not to darkness but to light, not to the night but to the dawn. It is what Paul speaks of as 'the patience of hope' in our Lord Jesus Christ. Because our hope is in him it becomes not only hope but certainty.

In the early days of persecution of the church, a Christian was taken before the judges He told them that nothing could shake him because he believed that if he was true to God, God would be true to him. 'Do you think' asked the judge 'that the likes of you will go to God in his glory?' 'I do not think' replied the humble Christian man, 'I know'. It is the certainty of this hope which becomes the power in the life of every one of us who have seen, and know, the face of Jesus Christ here. It is the power to patiently wait so that when the Lord comes we may be made like him and see him as he is, and enjoy the sight of Jesus Christ our Lord.

At the present brethren we see through a glass darkly, but then we shall see him face to face. Here there is always the veil of sense and of time but when he comes 'the rending veil shall thee reveal, all glorious as thou art'. 'I have seen the face of Jesus', writes the hymn writer, 'Tell me nothing more beside. I have heard the voice of Jesus, all my soul is satisfied. In the radiance of thy glory first I saw his blessed face, and forever shall that glory be my home, my dwelling place.' That shining face our brother thought in four days to enjoy - the sight of Jesus Christ. How many days are left to us? Brethren, we know not. But whether it is today or many many days, we know it will be the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. As Paul says in that wonderful letter to Timothy, 'God's own right time will show who is the blessed and only ruler - potentate - the King of kings and Lord of lords'

It will be at his own right time. Because this is so, Paul urges us to be patient, stablish our hearts, rest our hearts on the ultimate certainty of the coming of the Lord, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Be not weary in well doing, for in his due time we shall reap if we faint not. Is this harvest of our patience and hope worth waiting for, brethren? Is it? To enjoy seeing the sight of Jesus Christ. 'To whom shall we go?' asked Peter. And our reply is that there is none other lamb, none other name, none other hope in heaven, in earth or on the sea, but Jesus Christ the hope of our lives. May we all be patient until the coming of the Lord. Amen.