Alternatives to Waiting on God

Psalm 37. And we'll be reading two passages from this psalm. We'll read the first 11 verses.!

For like the grass, they will soon wither. Like green plants, they will soon die away. Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.

Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord. Trust in him, and he will do this.

He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him.

Do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes. Refrain from anger and turn from wrath. Do not fret.

It leads only to evil. For evil men will be cut off. But those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land. A little while, and the wicked will be no more.

Though you look for them, they will not be found. But the meek will inherit the land and enjoy great peace. Then verse 34.

Wait for the Lord and keep his way. He will exalt you to inherit the land. When the wicked are cut off, you will see it.

I have seen a wicked and ruthless man flourishing like a green tree in its native soil. But he soon passed away and was no more. Though I looked for him, he could not be found.

Consider the blameless. Observe the upright. There is a future for the man of peace. But all sinners will be destroyed. The future of the wicked will be cut off.

The salvation of the righteous comes from the Lord. He is their stronghold in times of trouble. The Lord helps them and delivers them. He delivers them from the wicked and saves them.

Because they take refuge in him. Be still before the Lord and wait for him.

Wait patiently for him. Spurgeon says this little word wait is easy to say but hard to carry out. Let's try it.

Let's say wait. Shall we? One, two, three. Wait. That was easy enough, wasn't it? Are you finding it any easier to wait on the Lord?

Are you being helped in waiting on the Lord? Are you getting, are you wasting your weight or sucking out of it all the good that God has intended for you?

We're in a short series called Waiting on God. And we've learned that in making us wait, God intends to do us good by the weight itself. He wants to come and bless us.

In many different ways. To build our patience, our perseverance, our character, our hope. To exercise and strengthen our faith. But most of all, just to draw us nearer to himself.

To make us in the weight, seek him. And to find fellowship with him. To get to know him and enjoy him. To trust and obey him. God blesses his people in the weight.

Wait. We saw last week that waiting on God is not a passive thing. Where we just sit around doing nothing and kill time. No, rather to wait on God is to give ourselves to intensified spiritual activity.

So last week we looked at those activities. The activities of waiting on God. This morning we will look at alternatives to waiting on God.

Because there are alternatives to waiting on God. Things you can do instead of waiting on God. But I want to tell you four things real quick about these alternatives.

Number one, they're all sinful responses to waiting and very dishonoring to God. Number two, they're all marked by impatience and unbelief. Number three, they're all in cahoots.

Which means that one often leads to another. And number four, they all miss out on God's blessing. So, as you're waiting, be on the lookout for these alternatives to waiting.

Reject them, point blank. And may God help you to be spared from them. So that's our study this morning, alternatives to waiting.

I'm going to give you four alternatives to waiting. The first is waiting without the Lord in view. To wait without the Lord in view. That's not waiting on the Lord.

So here's a woman being made to wait under unpleasant circumstances in her life. And those unpleasant circumstances are not going away.

So she just toughens up, hunkers down, and waits it out. Telling herself, better days are sure to come. But all of this is possible without the least bit of faith in God.

Don't even need to have one thought Godward to do that. And a godless waiting is a species of godless living.

Godless waiting is a species of godless living. To be content just to live without God. Without looking to Him. Without relating to Him.

Even the agnostic has his own brand of waiting. In which God is nowhere in all of His thoughts.

And He deals only with second and third and fourth causes. But not with the first cause. This agnostic waiting is easier to fall into by us believers than what we might first reckon with.

So something comes up and it causes us to wait. And all we can see and think about are the visible parts of the problem.

The things that contribute to the problem. The rain. The traffic jam. The doctors of office schedule. The disease. The dead end job.

The human factors behind an unmarried status. The scientific factors behind childlessness. And in whatever the difficult factors you're having to wait in.

The one thing missing is thoughts about God. The God who's behind it all. We can wait forgetful of Him.

And if so, whatever we are doing, we are not waiting on the Lord. We're waiting. But not for God. No, this is a godless alternative to waiting on Him.

And so the key here is to not let God out of our sights. To keep Him in view. To realize He's the one that we have to do with. He's the one in whose hands are all His creatures and all their actions and all the time.

And so we're waiting on Him. To act on behalf of those who wait for Him. And we can patiently wait on Him. Whose wisdom knows what's best for us.

And whose power is able to bring out what is best for us. And whose love wants what's best for us. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him.

Not this waiting without Him. The second alternative to waiting on God. And I'm hurrying because I want to come to the last in which I'll spend most of our time this morning.

The second alternative to waiting is worrying. And it's often the result of the first alternative. It's not hard to draw the lines between forgetting God as we wait.

And worrying while we wait. It's basically unbelief in our Father's care. It's not counting on Him to be for me in His wisdom, power, goodness, and love.

And if I'm not waiting on God and I'm forgetful of His care of me. Then all that's left is for me to care for me. And that's cause for worry.

My good is better off in His hands than it is in mine. And so instead of being still before the Lord and waiting patient for Him, I'm a basket case of nerves and worry. Because it's all up to me to care for me.

And there are some things in life that are beyond my control. Indeed, if we're honest, most things in life are beyond our control. And so if I'm not waiting for God to act, it's left up to me, then there is reasons why we're worrying.

Turn to Psalm 37 if you don't have your Bible open there. It's a waiting psalm. It's a psalm written about waiting. And it's written by David, a man who knew a lot about waiting.

He wrote it when he was an old man. And he's able to look back over a lifetime of experiences of waiting on God. And out of that fullness of experience, he shares with us things about waiting.

And he's addressing those who are being made to wait in the painful circumstances of being a righteous person and yet being afflicted.

Things aren't going well. Trying hard to be a good Christian, and yet you're afflicted with troubles in your life. And when you look over at the wicked, you see that they're succeeding.

They're prospering. That's the picture that David is painting of waiting. Me, the righteous afflicted, the wicked man succeeding.

But even worse than that is that my affliction is caused by his wickedness. His own evil actions are what's causing my pain. Verse 12, Verse 32, So the afflictions of the righteous are not only in the face of wicked men prospering, but they're the result of wicked men's actions.

And I've got to wait under this circumstance. David had to. Remember, he was a righteous man, righteous young man, and wicked King Saul was jealous of him and chased him around like a partridge in the mountain, hunting him down with his army.

David spends his best years running for his life from King Saul and his henchmen. And in verse 7, he tells us, Here's what you do, fellas.

Here's what you do, ladies. You wait for God. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.

Do not fret when men succeed in their ways when they carry out their wicked schemes. There's a lot to do while we're patiently waiting.

We saw that last week, and this psalm is full of it. We're to be still. We're to trust in the Lord. We're to do good. We're to keep his way. We're to delight in the Lord. We're to commit our way to him.

We're to do many things to do while we wait, and there's some things we're not to do while we wait. And the first one is do not fret. But here in verse 7, we see these two brought side by side.

Wait for the Lord. Do not fret. Because there's your alternative to waiting on the Lord. It's fretting. It's fretting. And that's the very first thing he says in this chapter, doesn't he?

Do not fret because of evil men. And he says it again in verse 8. Refrain from anger and turn from wrath. Do not fret. It leads only to evil. And here in verse 7, wait for him that is the Lord.

Do not fret. So three times in eight verses, do not fret. Do not fret. Now that's not a word we use a lot. I think there's a fret on a guitar we may talk about, but what does this mean?

Spurgeon, in his commentary, says this word means that to fret is to worry. We use that word. We know what that means. To fret is to worry, to have the heart burn, to fume, to become vexed.

So don't fret. So wait or worry. Wait on the Lord or worry.

There's the alternative. And it carries its own punishment often, doesn't it? Worry is a self-inflicted wound. God is my refuge and my strength, so I will wait for him.

He's my heavenly father who knows what's best for me and wants what's best for me so I can well afford to trust him and to delight in him and commit my way to him to be still before him and to wait patiently on him.

The third alternative to waiting. Waiting without, God in view, worrying. Now the third is murmuring. Murmuring. Murmuring.

Again, our word is complaining. More familiarly, a more familiar word is complaining. And this was Israel's alternative of choice during the 40-year wait in the desert.

Rather than waiting patiently on God, they murmured against him, didn't they? They complained about all kinds of things.

Their leaders, their hardships, their lack of water, the idea of being dependent upon God, their diet, the lack of variety in their diet.

They didn't have the fish and cucumbers and melons and leeks and onions and garlic that they had in Egypt. Now all we have is this manna. For breakfast, it's manna.

For lunch, it's manna. For supper, it's manna. And they complained about their route. And all of this is impatience with God, the God who had brought them out of slavery in Egypt.

They grew weary of him and of his ways, his discipline, his tests, and they could wait no longer on him. They murmured.

Because when you stop waiting on the Lord, you start murmuring against him. A grumbling tongue is an indicator on the dashboard that you're low on patience with God.

You're not waiting patiently for him. And Israel did this repeatedly throughout their 40 years in the desert. And then as they were getting closer to the promised land, they needed to go through Edom, but the people of Eden says no passage.

You can't come through here. So God led them the long way around. Don't you hate detours? You just need to get from here to here, but you can't get that way.

You've got to go all the way around to get there. And that's where Israel is in Numbers 21. But the people grew impatient on the way.

They spoke against God and against Moses and said, why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There's no bread, there's no water, and we detest this miserable food. That's their gratitude for the heavenly manna every day from God.

Detested, miserable food. Well, that's a serious thing to God and he sent poisonous snakes to bite them and they died. Many, many died.

Wallowing in self-pity and murmuring is contrary to waiting on the Lord. So David says to us here in Psalm 37, 7, be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.

The word here, be still, could more literally be translated, be silent. Still your unbelieving and ungrateful thoughts before him.

Hush your riled up spirit. Silence your murmuring tongues. Be still, be silent before him. As Jesus said to the winds and the waves, be still.

You need to say to yourself, be still self before the Lord and wait patiently for him. Jeremiah calls for the same kind of waiting on the Lord. He says in Lamentations 3, 26, it's good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

Quietly, without the noise of complaining complaining and murmuring, without the turbulence of chafing against God and his purposes and providence in your life, to still your heart like a weaned child before him.

Paul says, do everything without complaining. So that's the alternative to waiting. and to wait patiently on the Lord without complaining is needed not only in the big trials of life but also in the little daily events of life.

Just like Israel in their diet, their detours, their weather, their traffic. I'm talking now, I should say, our weather and our traffic and our people irritations.

You know, we live most of our lives in the little things, don't we? And that's where we need to wait on God in the little things and not murmur. And yet, this is where we most often lose patience with God.

It's in the little things. And we grumble and we gripe and we say, I haven't got time for that. And we murmur and we complain. But the God of providence says we do have time for that.

Or it wouldn't be happening to you. So be silent before me. Still yourself before me. Wait patiently for me. What are the alternatives to waiting for the Lord?

Waiting without him? Worrying and murmuring. And lastly, taking your own way out. Taking your own way out.

So if God's not ending the wait, I will. By hook or by crook, I'm done waiting. It's time for me to act and to fix the problem my way. So you're sitting in the traffic jam and it's going nowhere and you don't have time for that.

You have people to meet and places to go. And so rather than wait, you're going to fix it yourself. So you honk your horn. And maybe you even drive out on the grass and pass everybody and then up front depend on somebody to show mercy and let you in.

And what you've done is just transferred your waiting on to a bunch of other people. people. That's the fix it yourself guy. And there's a little bit of that in every one of us.

Sometimes a lot of it in us. Going to fix this waiting problem my way. And the longer you wait, the stronger the temptation is to fix it yourself.

To not trust the Lord enough to wait for him, but to lean on your own understanding and to come up with your own fix and your own way out of waiting. The Lord knows this and so he addresses us in verse 3 of Psalm 37 and he says, trust in the Lord and do good.

Trust in the Lord and do good. As you wait, be sure to be doing good. Why is it important to tell us to be doing good while we wait? Because while we're waiting, we're going to be tempted to do evil to get out of the wait.

So while waiting, he says in verse 8, do not fret because why? It only leads to evil. You see how these are all in cahoots? You're not waiting for the Lord, you're fretting therefore because it's up to you and that only leads to further evil.

And so he says in verse 34, wait for the Lord and keep his way. Keep his way while you wait. Waiting times are tempting times to do evil, to step out of his way since his way is going nowhere and to find our own way outside of his.

What kind of shopper are you? You're checking out and you're in the lane and it's going nowhere. You're the guy that steps out of the line and goes and finds a faster lane.

You don't need to look guilty if that's the kind of shopper you are. I don't think there's anything sinful about you. There's no virtue in being in the slowest line.

It is a virtue to save time. But in our lives there is a danger when we are being made to wait to not just look and find alternative godly ways, but to step out of god's ways and into our own way.

And so david says to us in verse 34 to wait for the lord and keep his way. Keep his way.

Don't step out of god's way. Don't respond to waiting and try to get out of it in a way that violates god's will. David felt this temptation immensely to take matters into his own hands and end the wait.

And so we're told to wait and keep his way. David felt this when he was being falsely accused and chased around the wilderness by King Saul and his army.

And he's waiting and he's having to wait and his best years are passing. He's a young man and he's having to wait in such hardships living life on the run. And then it happened.

Two times he had the perfect opportunity to end the wait. You remember them. Once when Saul came into the very cave where David and his men were hiding.

And there he is all alone. King Saul with David and his men. And David was close enough to actually take his knife and cut a piece of his robe off of him.

another time Saul and his army are encamped in a valley and God has them in a deep sleep. And David and one of his soldiers go down into the camp and they take his water jug and his spear.

They could have just as easily put the spear through his heart and ended David's troublesome wait. And on both occasions David's men were encouraging him to do just that.

See, God has turned your enemy over into your hand. God has done this. He's given you this opportunity to kill him. And to end the wait.

Both times David refused to lay a hand on him. And when the guy said, well then I'll do it, he said, don't touch him, don't lay a hand on my Lord's anointed. And instead he chose to wait on God to remove King Saul himself in his own good time.

And yes, it happened to be a long time. But he waited. And he tells us, wait on the Lord and keep his way. This is the David speaking to us in oppressive circumstances.

When the only way out of waiting is to sin, you've got to keep waiting on the Lord. It's interesting that it's David's son, Solomon, who says in Proverbs 20, 22, don't say I'll pay you back for this wrong, wait for the Lord and he will deliver you.

Whenever you feel like paying someone back, what's happening? You're in a difficult situation, you're having to wait for justice to vindicate you. There is a temptation to step out of waiting and to take matters into your own hands and to wreak some kind of sweet revenge yourself.

Solomon says, don't do it. David says, don't do it. And God says, don't do it. Wait for the Lord and he will deliver you. In his time, he will deliver you.

that's my job, God says. Vengeance is mine, I will repay. Your job is to wait on me and to wait patiently and keep his way.

So God promised Abraham a child. Indeed, many descendants like the stars of the heavens in number and month after disappointing month passes and year after year goes by with continued barrenness for Sarah.

And the longer the wait, the harder the wait. The harder it is to go on trusting God and doing good and to keep his way. They were in a hurry but God wasn't.

And waiting on God wasn't working. So after ten years of waiting, have you waited ten years for some things? Abraham and Sarah did. But after ten years of waiting, they decided to take matters into their own hands and to help the Lord out a little bit.

And Sarah said to Abraham, the Lord has kept me from having children, so go sleep with my handmaid Hagar. Perhaps I can build a family through her. Maybe that's how God's promise will be fulfilled of many descendants.

So Abraham took Hagar and had a son by her. Now this was an acceptable option in the culture of the day but was clearly not God's way.

Abraham and Sarah did not wait for the Lord and keep his way. They stepped out of God's way and they went the way that seemed right to them.

To fix the problem, to end the wait, they took the shortcut but it meant leaving God's way. And that's never, ever, ever a wise move to leave God's way.

And it bore much bitter fruit in the family and is still bearing bitter fruit to this very day. You know there is such a thing as jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. And when waiting on God in the frying pan gets long, just remember it's hotter in the fire.

It's harder waiting in the fire than in the frying pan. So wait on the Lord and keep his way, stay there, keep trusting, keep looking, keep drawing near, keep rehearsing the promise, keep pouring out your heart to God.

Our quick fixes are often short-lived and lead to long consequences that are more painful than what we were waiting in. But finally after waiting 25 years, Isaac, the son of the promise, was born to a hundred-year-old man who was as good as dead and his old wife Sarah, whose womb was also dead, proving again that no one waits for God in vain.

He's worth the wait. You can afford waiting on God. No one waits for him in vain. So let's learn from these examples that there will always be attractive alternatives to waiting on God just presenting themselves to us.

Maybe from your wife, maybe from your husband, maybe from your friend, maybe from your own thoughts, maybe from the devil whispering them into your head.

But there will always be these alternatives to waiting on God. And if we lean on our own understandings and quit trusting God, we'll take them. We'll step out of the way.

We're all too willing to be God's little helpers in the wrong way. God doesn't want our help. He wants our trust.

trust in me. Wait on me, he says. And as you wait, will you trust that God really is perfectly wise and knows what's best and has the best timing?

That he is almighty and able to do all that is best for you and that he's faithful and will not fail to do all he's promised you and that he's unfailing in his love and his delight to do you good.

Nothing else will keep you from growing impatient in the wait. And impatience will tempt you to take one of these alternatives to ending the wait on your own.

There are times when even the children of light must walk in the dark. When we can't make out God's ways and we don't understand why this and why that and where is God and why is this happening and it's a child of light walking in darkness.

Isaiah 50 and in that time there is a tremendous temptation to create your own light, to light your own torch, to lean on your own understanding.

So Isaiah says, who among you fears the Lord and obeys the word of his servant? Let him who walks in the dark. That's the God fear who walks in the dark, who has no light. Trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God.

But now all of you who light fires and provide yourselves with flaming torches, you go walk in the light of your fires and of the torches you have set ablaze. This is what you shall receive from my hand.

You will lie down in torment. No, no, we dare not step out of God's way into our own sinful ways. It's one of the ways we reject him.

Rather wait for the Lord and keep his way. reject outright all pressures to compromise what you've been waiting so long for.

Let me seek to apply this very practically in a few ways and we're done. So you're in the weight of singleness. You know the Bible says that believers should only marry other believers.

You're free to make your selection. It's a broad selection but only from those who are in the Lord and there's good reasons for doing so. You know that. But then again you've been waiting for many years.

You haven't found him or her. You're growing tired of single life. Tired of waiting. Watch out. The temptation will be there to step out and find your own way out of the weight.

And so here he comes. He's showing interest in you. And he's so charming and you feel so good around him and the birds sing brighter with him around.

No he didn't go to church before he started dating me but he's going now. And no he doesn't pray with me and he doesn't talk about God unless I bring him up but he still says he's a Christian.

No he doesn't encourage me on to God but I'm not getting any younger. The alternatives to waiting are ever presenting themselves.

Satan will see to that. And the temptation is to step outside and to justify getting married to someone outside of Christ.

Or even to settle for someone who whose godly profession is very skimpy and questionable at that and yet wait on the Lord and keep his way young people.

Better to wait on the Lord in singleness who loves you and wants what's best and knows what's best and is able to bring out what's best than to step out on your own.

Or you're waiting for a new job and the offer is made. No I don't know any good churches there but this is a good job offer. And I know I've got to work on Sunday and unnecessary work but it's just the job I've been looking for and I know I might have to work 80 hours a week and I've got a family and all but this is what I've been waiting for.

I've been waiting long. No no. Wait for the Lord and keep his way. Maybe you're waiting in a difficult relationship. Maybe in an unhappy marriage.

church. Maybe in a family with troubles in the relationships. Maybe in the church family and there's difficulties. In the whole relationships we can get tired of waiting for God to work in their lives.

I just wish he'd work real quick and straighten her out. Straighten him out. Teach him. Teach her. And God's not doing it on our time schedule. And we're waiting.

And we're waiting. And you know what the temptation is? It's for us to act. Well I'll just help God out a little bit and fix it. I'll fix her. I'll fix him. I'll fix it.

And we can do that and become very manipulative and nagging and authoritarian. Even elders of churches can try to fix things with authoritarianism. Can be very oppressive.

We're trying to accomplish ourselves what God isn't doing on our timetable. being God's little helpers. We whip them into shape. We tongue lash them into shape.

We yell them into shape. We embarrass them into shape by the things that we say to them or about them. No. Don't give up on the Lord. Don't lose patience with the Lord.

Wait for the Lord and keep his way. Trust in the Lord and do good. Do what's right and go on waiting for him to act. You know in many cases divorce is the easy way out of waiting in an unhappy marriage.

It's another one of man's way out. Man's alternatives to waiting on the Lord. And then there's the waiting at the end of life. Many elderly sick and people suffering greatly.

And they're waiting. They would like to be gone. They'd like it all to end. And they call it dying with dignity and doing it my way in my time.

I did it my way. But it's self-murder. No. Wait for the Lord and keep his way.

In sweet submission and patient trust he's worth the wait. And remember in all your waiting you're waiting for the Lord whose way is perfect.

And nothing nothing nothing is more important than pleasing him. You know our Lord Jesus is the perfect God man who perfectly waited on his heavenly father.

No one was ever tempted like him to take the alternative route to get out of waiting on God. 30 years of waiting to begin his public ministry.

Waiting in seclusion in an out away place in a place of nowhere. Nazareth and anything good come from there. There he waits and he waits and he waits. So much to do and yet not yet not yet.

30 now and only then is it God's time. You waiting Jesus waited and now it's time to start his ministry.

He's baptized and the Holy Spirit leads him immediately where? Into the desert to be tempted by the devil and he's he's 40 days without eating and drinking and he's hungry and he's waiting on the Lord to provide food for him.

And the devil says you can't trust your father in heaven for that. if you're going to eat you've got to just use your own miraculous powers and turn this bread or this stone into bread and Jesus says oh I can wait for him.

Man doesn't live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God he just speaks and I eat and I'm going to wait for him. He waited.

He waited. I don't know about you I get testy when I'm a little hungry. Never been 40 days hungry but he was and he waited and when the temptation came to take a way out he waited.

He put his hope on the Lord. He stayed in his way. It is written he said I'm staying here. Oh and then he's on a cross outside of Jerusalem and here's the ultimate test of waiting on God.

at noon the sky turns dark as night for three hours here's the light of the world walking in darkness. The howling demons of hell did their worst attempt him to sin.

They put their words into the mouths of others around the cross. If you are the son of God then come down from the cross and we'll believe you. Save yourself you who saved others. What an attractive alternative to waiting on God to save himself.

to come down from the cross to end this nightmare to have the cup pass out of his hands. The cup of God's wrath for sin.

Those three dark hours on the cross must have seemed like an eternity to our Savior. Indeed eternity was compressed into those three dark hours as he was bearing the sins of his people and receiving the punishment they would have endured for all eternity compressed into those three dark hours.

Each minute must have seemed like a millennia and still he waits and he doesn't cop out and he doesn't opt out and he doesn't call it quits and he doesn't take what seems right and looks right and what's being offered to him to end the wait.

He could have called ten thousand angels to destroy this world and set him free but instead he waits and he waits under God's wrath for sin suffering the damnation rather than to disobey his father and lose the salvation of those the father gave him and as he waits he cries my God my God why have you abandoned me I don't see you anywhere I don't feel you I don't feel your care I don't see your care for me I feel utterly abandoned it's darkness outer darkness but he doesn't say I can't take it anymore he doesn't say I don't have time for this he doesn't say I'm going to end it right now I'm out of here no he just waits yet some more he's waiting upon his God my God my God you're still my God and I'm waiting on you though I can't see or feel you trusting his father's unseen and unfelt promised care I will wait on the

Lord who is hiding his face I will put my trust in him so he drinks the cup right down to the drags the cup of God's wrath all the way down he waits to the very end to God's chosen time when in triumph he could say with a loud voice it is finished it's finished the wait is over God is satisfied sin is atoned for eternal redemption is accomplished and only then does he say father into your hands I commit my spirit and he breathed his last and died brothers and sisters this is our risen Lord Jesus who is with you in your wait he knows something about waiting and he has demonstrated his great commitment and love for you by waiting for you there on the cross till the very last drop of your wrath was swallowed up in victory and he has shown great patience toward you while you sought blessing everywhere else in the world but in him and how patient he was with you that even when you sought him as your last alternative he welcomed you what a savior who waited for unworthy us then let's honor him by waiting for him now who waited so long for us reject all other alternatives be still be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him believers do you know every second that he waited on us to come to Christ we were a breath away from eternal hell and there are some that are among us that are still one breath from hell and I want to address you just in closing we're to wait on the Lord and the way to wait on him for salvation is to run into his arms to receive him now not later that's the one thing you're not to wait longer for you're to go to him today it is your immediate command and duty and privilege to come to Christ right now and to receive him and he will be yours and you'll learn what it is to wait on the Lord for your best things that are still coming let's pray

Lord for the things that you've said to us in your word we give you thanks that you should have anything good to say to us sinners is pure grace and you've said so much to us to give us a solid hope in the face of of dark waiting thank you Lord Jesus for waiting through the darkness of those three long hours on the cross that we poor sinners might put our trust in you and come into your kingdom of light and be safe from eternal darkness send us on our way rejoicing in him and draw those who are still in darkness into your kingdom of light and love we ask in Jesus mighty name amen