Ye have heard of the patience of Job (James 5:11). Patience is a star which shines in a dark night. There is a twofold patience:
1. Patience in waiting.
If a godly man does not obtain his desire immediately, he will wait till the mercy is ripe: “My soul waiteth for the Lord” (Psa. 130:6). There is good reason why God should have the timing of our mercies: “I the Lord will hasten it in his time”(Isa. 60:22). Deliverance may delay beyond our time, but it will not delay beyond God’s time.
Why should we not wait patiently for God? We are servants; it becomes servants to be in a waiting posture. We wait for everything else; we wait for the fire till it burns; we wait for the seed till it grows (Jas. 5:7).
Why cannot we wait for God? God has waited for us (Isa. 30:18). Did he not wait for our repentance? How often did he come year after year before he found fruit? Did God wait for us, and cannot we wait for him? A godly man is content to await God’s leisure; though the vision is delayed, he will wait for it (Hab. 2:3).
2. Patience in bearing trials.
This patience is twofold: (a) Either in regard to man, when we bear injuries without revenging, or (b) in regard to God, when we bear his hand without repining. A good man will not only do God’s will, but bear his will: “I will bear the indignation of the Lord” (Mic. 7:9). This patient bearing of God’s will is not:
(a) A stoical apathy; patience is not insensitivity under God’s hand; we ought to be sensitive.
(b) Enforced patience, to bear a thing because we cannot help it, which (as Erasmus said) is rather necessity than patience. But patience is a cheerful submission of our will to God: “The will of the Lord be done” (Acts 21:14). A godly man acquiesces in what God does, as being not only good but best for himself. The great quarrel between God and us is, Whose will shall stand? Now the regenerate’s will falls in with the will of God. We must be patient when God afflicts any evil on us. “Patient in tribulation” (Romans 12:12).
There are four things opposite to this patient frame of soul:
1. God sometimes lays heavy affliction on his people.
The Hebrew word for “afflicted” signifies “to be melted.” God seems to melt his people in a furnace.
2. God sometimes lays various afflictions on the saints.
As we have various ways of sinning, so the Lord has various ways of afflicting. Some he deprives of their estates; others he chains to a sick bed; others he confines to a prison. God has various arrows in his quiver which he shoots.
3. Sometimes God lets the affliction lie for a long time.
“There is no more any prophet; neither is there among us any that knoweth how long” (Psa. 74:9). As it is with diseases — some are chronic and linger and hang about the body several years on end — so it is with afflictions. The Lord is pleased to exercise many of his precious ones with chronic afflictions, which they suffer for a long time. Now in all these cases, it becomes the saints to rest patiently in the will of God. The Greek word for “patient” is a metaphor and alludes to one who stands invincibly under a burden. This is the right notion of patience, when we bear affliction invincibly without fainting or fretting.
The test of a [ship’s] pilot is seen in a storm; so the test of a Christian is seen in affliction. That man has the right art of navigation who, when the boisterous winds blow from heaven, steers the ship of his soul wisely, and does not dash upon the rock of impatience. A Christian should always maintain decorum, not behaving himself in an unseemly manner or disguising himself with intemperate passion when the hand of God lies upon him. Patience adorns suffering.
Affliction in Scripture is compared to a net: “Thou broughtest us into the net” (Psa. 66:11). Some have escaped the devil’s net, yet the Lord aflows them to be taken in the net of affliction. But they must not be “as a wild bull in a net” (Isa. 51:20), kicking and flinging against their Maker, but lie patiently till God breaks the net and makes a way for their escape. I shall propound four cogent argu ments to encourage patience under those evils which God inflicts on us:
4. Afflictions are for our profit, for our benefit.
“He for our profit” (Heb. 12:10). We pray that God would take such a course with us as may do our souls good. When God is afflicting us, he is hearing our prayers; he does it “for our profit.” Not that afflictions in themselves profit us, but as God’s Spirit works with them. For as the waters of Bethesda could not give health of themselves unless the angel descended and stirred them (John 5:4), so the waters of affliction are not in themselves healing till God’s Spirit co-operates and sanctifies them to us. Afflictions are profitable in many ways:
(i) They make men sober and wise. Physicians have mental patients bound in chains and put on a frugal diet to bring them to the use of reason. Many run stark mad in prosperity; they know neither God nor themselves. The Lord therefore binds them with cords of affliction, so that he may bring them to their right minds. “If they be held in cords of affliction, then he sheweth them their transgressions. He openeth also their ear to discipline” Job 36:8-10).
(iii) They augment grace. The people of God are beholden to their troubles; they would never have had so much grace, if they had not met with such severe trials. Now the waters run and the spices flow forth. The saints thrive by affliction as the Lacedemonians grew rich by war. God makes grace flourish most in the fall of the leaf.
(iii) Afflictions quicken our pace on the way to heaven. It is with us as with children sent on an errand. If they meet with apples or flowers by the way, they linger and are in no great hurry to get home, but if anything frightens them, then they run with all the speed they can to their father’s house. So in prosperity, we gather the apples and flowers and do not give much thought to heaven, but if troubles begin to arise and the times grow frightful, then we make more haste to heaven and with David “run the way of God’s commandments” (Psa. 119:32).
(iv) God intermixes mercy with affliction. He steeps his sword of justice in the oil of mercy. There was no night so dark but Israel had a pillar of fire in it. There is no condition so dismal but we may see a pillar of fire to give us light. If the body is in pain and conscience is at peace, there is mercy. Affliction is for the prevention of sin; there is mercy. In the ark there was “a rod and a pot of manna,” the emblem of a Christian’s condition: “mercy interlined with judgment” (Psa. 101:1). Here is the rod and manna.
(v) Patience proves that there is much of God in the heart. Patience is one of God’s titles: “the God of patience” (Rom.15:5). If you have your heart cast in this blessed mold, it is a sign that God has imparted much of his own nature to you; you shine with some of his beams.
Impatience proves that there is much unsoundness of heart. If the body is of such a type that every little scratch of a pin makes the flesh fester, you say, “Surely this man’s flesh is very unsound.” So impatience with every petty annoyance and quarreling with providence is the sign of a disturbed Christian. If there is any grace in such a heart, they who can see it must have good eyes. But he who is of a patient spirit is a graduate in religion and participates in much of the divine nature.
(vi) The end of affliction is glorious. The Jews were captive in Babylon but what was the end? They departed from Babylon with vessels of silver, gold and precious things (Ezra 1:6). So, what is the end of affliction? It ends in endless glory (Acts 14:22; 2 Cor. 4:17). How this may rock our impatient hearts quiet! Who would not willingly travel along a little dirty path and ploughed lands, at the end of which is a fair meadow and in that meadow a goldmine?
Question: How shall I get my heart tuned to a patient mood?
Answer: Get faith; all our impatience proceeds from unbelief. Faith is the breeder of patience. When a storm of passion begins to arise, faith says to the heart, as Christ did to the sea, “Peace, be still,” and there is at once a calm.
Question: How does faith work patience?
Answer: Faith argues the soul into patience. Faith is like that town clerk in Ephesus who allayed the contention of the multitude and argued them soberly into peace (Acts 19:35,36). So when impatience begins to clamor and make a hubbub in the soul, faith appeases the tumult and argues the soul into holy patience.
Faith says, “Why art thou disquieted, Oh my soul?” (Psa. 42:5). Are you affficted? Is it not your Father who has done it? He is carving and polishing you and making you fit for glory. He smites that he may save. What is your trial? Is it sickness? God shakes the tree of your body so that some fruit may fall, even “the peaceable fruit of righteousness” (Heb. 12:11). Are you driven from your home? God has prepared a city for you (Heb. 11:16). Do you suffer reproach for Christ’s sake? “The spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you” (1 Pet. 4:14). Thus faith argues and disputes the soul into patience.
Pray to God for patience. Patience is a flower of God’s planting. Pray that it may grow in your heart, and send forth its sweet perfume.
From The Godly Man’s Picture: Drawn with a Scripture Pencil
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