Address—R. Pilkington
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I'd like to speak this afternoon about something I feel.
That if we can learn it when we're young.
Will be a tremendous help to us.
And yet I know.
That this characteristic.
It's very needful.
In older life also.
Can we turn to First Samuel, chapter 10?
This is where they choose the king.
And Saul is.
Chosen to be the king.
And see if I can put my finger on the verse. Just a bit of background.
Here it is chapter 10 and verse.
We can maybe start with six and read to 8.
Mr. Samuel speaking to SO.
For six, in the spirit of the Lord will come upon thee, and thou shalt prophecy with them.
And shall be turned into another man.
And let it be, when these signs are come upon thee, that thou shalt do his occasion serve thee, for God is with thee.
And thou shall go down before me to Gilgal.
And before and behold, I will come down unto thee to offer burnt offerings, and to sacrifice sacrifices of peace offerings. Seven days shalt thou tarry, till I come to thee, and show thee what thou shalt do.
Background only to say that Sammy was told that he'll be another man.
And he's given specific instructions notice.
In verse eight, he said, Wait seven days, wait seven days until I come and I'll tell you what you ought to do.
Very specific instructions specific.
Command to him. Verse #8 it says.
Verse #7 It says, and let it be, when these signs are come upon thee, that thou do as occasion serve thee. Perhaps he had a bit of.
He could. It says there's a occasion arises, then you do what needs to be done. But in verse eight it is not. It is a specific instruction. Wait seven days until I come to offer the burnt offering and I'll tell you what you ought to do. Now let's skip over and see what Saul did.
Chapter 13.
Background to what happens is verse number 567. Verse number 567 and the Philistines gathered themselves together to fight with Israel 30,000 Chariots and 6000 horsemen and people as the sand which is on the seesaw in multitude, and it came up and pitched in mishmash eastward from Beth Haven.
And when the men of Israel saw that they were in a Strait, for the people were distressed.
Then the people did hide themselves in caves, and in thickets, and in rocks, and in high places, and in pits. And some of the Hebrews went over Jordan to the land of Gad. And Gilead, as foresaw he was. Yet in Gilgal all the people followed him trembling.
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Now Saul is in trouble. He's in the right place, Gilgal. That's where he was told to go.
But there's real pressure on him now because the enemies have come up against him to fight.
Let's continue reading for safe.
And he tarried seven days according to the set time that saw Samuel had appointed. But Samuel came not to Gilgal, and the people were scattered from him.
Situation is getting worse.
The people start to get scattered from him. The pressure is becoming greater and greater.
Verse nine and Saul said bring hit her a burnt offering to me and peace offerings and he offered the burnt offering.
Came to pass, that as soon as he had made an end of offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came and saw a window to meet him, that he might salute him.
The burden of my heart this afternoon.
Is one word weight?
Wait, so did not feel that he could wait. The pressure was on him, real pressure, real responsibility for the people of God. Even they get scattered from him. He didn't feel that he could wait for Samuel, according to.
To the word of Samuel, he said, Wait seven days until I come.
And so he offered up.
The burnt offering.
And we see in verse 11 his response to Samuel.
Samuel said.
What hast thou done? Samuel said, What hast thou done? And Saul said, Because I saw the people were scattered from me, and that thou camest not within the days appointed, and that the Philistines gathered themselves together at mishmash. Therefore said I, the Philistines will come down upon me to Gilgal, and I have not made supplication unto the Lord, I forced myself.
And offered a burnt offering.
And Samuel said to Saul, Thou hast done foolishly.
Dear young people, older ones, I suppose, all of us.
Wait for the Lord. I feel it to be so necessary in these last days of weakness.
When everything seems to be going wrong.
Look at Samuel. Think about it. He had every reason not to wait, he tells Samuel in verse 9, verse 10. He gives all his reasons, valid reasons. They sounded sensible.
But they were in direct disobedience to what he was told to do by Samuel the prophet of the Lord.
And Samuel says, Saul says, And I feel for Saul, he says, I forced myself. I forced myself. But.
Samuel is very blunt.
He said you have done foolishly. You have done foolishly because.
You have not kept the commandment of thy God, which he commanded thee.
I feel that this is a day.
Have tremendous pressure. I know it is in Hong Kong.
Just last week, a young person.
Said the very same thing to me. Life is so pressure, I just don't have the time.
And we need to take time.
To be quiet before the Lord, to seek his mind.
A brother who some of you know, Larry from Hong Kong, he told us, he said.
Don't be mistaken, God is not a lawyer. Some people treat God as a lawyer where they rush in when they have trouble, and if they don't have trouble, they just simply don't go and see Him. And you can't treat God that way. You have to take time to be quiet.
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Have you ever had the experience?
Like I have.
In the morning of sitting down, opening your Bible.
You read the words, but there's nothing there. It doesn't seem to have any message for you. Ever had the experience where you are under pressure to act?
You feel that you must act. You see the situation around you disintegrating and you say if I don't act now, it's going to be worse.
But have you waited for the Lord?
Can you act? When you act? Can you say I have a direct command of the Lord? Do you do it in quiet waiting upon the Lord? Do you do make your decision? As you make your decision, do you pray over it?
Samuel said to some You've done foolishly. You didn't wait. You didn't wait. The burden of my heart this afternoon is that wait. I know we can be lazy and we're going to come to it in just a second, Brother Bill pointed out to us. Saul sitting under pomegranate tree.
But so often, it's so easy.
To rush about and not really be aware of what the will of the Lord is to a young person. I plead with you, make sure beforehand. There are times, on the other hand, I don't want to distort the view. There are sometimes in my own personal experience.
When I have to act.
And I would be afraid to say God told me to do this.
This is the will of the Lord, I'm sure of it.
And the way I treat it is, it's very simple. If I knew exactly what the will of the Lord was 24 hours a day.
I'd be the most proud person on the face of the earth. And so sometimes I'm not quite so sure. But in those situations, before I can act, I quietly say to the Lord, the time has come to act. I'm not trying to force your hand. I think this is what you want me to do.
Now, Lord Jesus, I'm going to take a step. Please feel quite free to step in to my life and hinder me if it's really not your will. And then.
If I find a roadblock in the road, I really have to think hard of whether it's Satan trying to hinder me or whether it's really the Lord putting a roadblock to stop me from doing something that's not his will. And so I begin with this little story of Saul.
He couldn't wait. He couldn't wait. Oh, I feel so much in my own heart. I get so busy and I so wound up just like a brother. Appreciate his humor. He said. We get or like little toys that, you know, you wind them up and away they go. I can't stop them. They run up against the chair and like the wheels keep spinning. So easy to get like that today because there is real pressure in life. There is real pressure in life and our lives are very busy.
Not only in business wise, but socially wise.
Socially wise, do you take time out?
To be quiet with the Lord.
You say I can't, I'm too busy. Every night of the week seems as if there's something. Why don't you, why don't you make an appointment with the Lord for one evening? Someone says come on over to our house and do something, say sorry, I'm busy that evening.
We're quiet with the Lord.
Get along with him.
To quietly pray and read. I found so helpful in my own life that when I'm really under pressure in Hong Kong, I like to get out to the mountains, to the reservoir roads way back in, where nobody else can get in.
And I like to walk along those quiet tracks, sometimes kneel on the track and pray, sometimes walk along quietly, praying to the Lord and say I'm under pressure. I don't understand the situation. It seems to be getting worse. Lord, could you talk to me please and help me? I don't demand that the Lord answer me within 5 minutes.
He is not to be commanded around, but when I have asked him I try to make sure I'm listening.
When a brother or sister talks to me, when I'm sitting in meeting, if suddenly a verse occurs to my mind, I make pretty sure I remember what that verse is. And not only that, I go back to the word of God and look it up and I see what comes before that verse, what comes after that verse. And sometimes I find that that passage of Scripture 100%.
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Fits my situation and then I can say with assurance.
I feel that this is the voice of the Lord to me.
Take time to be quiet with the Lord, to wait for Him in your situations.
Samuel here couldn't wait, and the Lord said you're foolish, you, Samuel said to Saul. He said you have done foolish, you are really foolish, and you have disobeyed the commandment of the Lord. What was the result? He said.
Verse 13 And for now would the Lord have established thy Kingdom upon Israel forever, but now thy Kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought him a man after his own heart, and the Lord hath commanded him to be captain over his people, because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee.
Sometimes it's not so much.
That we did the wrong thing.
But we did it too fast. We didn't wait for the Lord's time.
And so I encourage each one of us, young people especially, learn.
While you're young.
To have time to be quiet before the Lord. You can find your own spot. For me, it's a mountainside.
For you, it might be your house, quiet, your apartment might be your room, somewhere where your heart.
Can feel at ease and quiet.
You see I couldn't probably use my room because it's piled high with Bible light stuff that's waiting to be done. I probably sit down and I say OK, I had my 5 minutes now I'm going to get get on with the work, get it all finished up to get away from all its pressuring you and to be able to spend time. And the judgment came quite quickly on saw because he couldn't wait.
But dear young person, I want to on a sounding note.
Let's just skip.
Down a little bit.
Chapter 14.
In fact, our time is going away and I would like to look at four people who either knew how to wait or didn't know how to wait. Therefore, I'm not going to read it because Brother Bill went over this story. You know the story. If you haven't go over it yourself. Chapter 14. What I wanted to point out was two things. First of all, that Saul was sitting under a pomegranate tree.
While Jonathan was getting the, the was was getting the the victory.
And especially probably down in verse #17.
Verse 18.
Verse 18 and 19 And Saul said unto Hey, I bring forth, bring, hit her the mark of God. For the ark of God was at that time with the children of Israel. And it came to pass, when Saul talked under the priest, that the noise that was in the host of the Philistines went on and increased. And Saul said, under the priest, Withdraw thy hand.
And so on all the people that were with him assembled themselves, and they came to the battle, and behold, every man's sword was against his fellow, and there was a great, very great dyscompture.
To young people. You can see his attitude here. He calls for the ark of the Lord, but he doesn't wait for an answer. He can't wait. He can't wait. You know why?
Because I don't believe.
That's all.
Belong to the Lord.
How should I put it? Was the saved man whatever term you want to use? I suppose that's not correct to use that term in the Old Testament, but you know what I mean. Unsaved.
So if you.
Are sitting here this afternoon and you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior.
It's an outstanding characteristic that a person cannot wait for the Lord or for His guidance in your life. It doesn't even become a factor in your life if you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. Saul couldn't wait. He couldn't wait. It's a characteristic.
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Of the old nature restlessness.
Restlessness never can wait, never can wait. Either too fast or too slow, but never on time.
Because.
An unsafe person does not have the Holy Spirit within them.
And they cannot understand the things of God.
So I urge you, if you do not know the Lord Jesus, of course that's the first thing. Don't be like Saul. He tried to put on a good front but didn't work.
He didn't work. His restless old nature came to the fore all the time.
He couldn't wait for the priest to get the message out. He said hold on now, I'm off to the battle later on.
He wanted to kill Jonathan, the one who had saved the people of God. Always doing the wrong thing to young people. Take a look for your profits at the history of Saul. It's a painful one, really painful. He did the wrong thing at the wrong moment. You'll find a division if you go through the book of Samuel up to a certain point. He seems that the Bible seems to present his good points first.
But then when you get him, the Lord says you go and fight against the Amaleks from that point on. It seems to me when I read it as if he did everything wrong after that. And it wasn't that Saul was a bad man, it was just showing that the unsafe person has no power to live for God or to do his will.
Let's just follow him to the end. Chapter 28 for Samuel. Chapter 28.
Same situation.
Same situation, enemies pressure.
And Saul saw the host of the Philistines, chapter 28 and verse five. Saul saw the host of the Philistines, and he was afraid, and his heart greatly trembled. And when saw inquired of the Lord, the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by the prophets.
Now he's in real trouble.
Like I said before, many people treat God as their lawyer. When you're in trouble, get in contact with Him. When you're not, stay away from Him.
But the Lord will not be treated in that fashion.
And it says here.
The Lord wouldn't answer him, either by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets. No answer for Saul. No answer for Saul. There's no answer.
Before you know the Lord Jesus Christ is your Savior, you must be a saved person to.
To enjoy communion, to enjoy the connection with the Lord.
If you get no answers, no wonder you don't get any of them. If you're not saved, you don't belong to Him. He loves you, yes.
But you have nothing to do with the will of God. You must come to him as a poor Sinner and say, Lord Jesus, I submit to you as my Savior and my Lord.
What does Saul do?
Samuel said you've done foolishly. You didn't wait. You're done foolishly. What does he do? He's really foolish this time he goes to see a woman that has an evil spirit. Let's just jump down to where Samuel comes up.
Verse 15, chapter 28 and verse 15. And Samuel said, So why hast thou disquieted me to bring me up? And Saul said, I was sore distressed, For the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me, and answereth me no more, neither by prophets nor by dreams. Therefore I have called thee, that thou mayest make known unto me what I shall do.
And Samuel said, Wherefore then dost thou ask of me, seeing the Lord is departed from thee, and has become thine enemy?
The Lord hath done to him as he spake by me. For the Lord hath rent the Kingdom out of the thy hand, and had given it to thy neighbor, even to David, because thou obeyest not the voice of the Lord, nor executeth his fierce wrath upon Amalek. Therefore has the Lord done this thing unto thee this day.
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And moreover, the Lord will also deliver Israel with thee into the hand of the Philistines. And tomorrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me, and the Lord shall also deliver the host of the Israel into the hand of the Philistines.
Then this all fell straightway all along on the earth, and was so afraid because of the words of Samuel, and there was no strength in him, for he'd eaten no bread all day, nor all night, and so on.
That's the end. That's the end.
No hope for him? Why he didn't belong to the Lord.
But it all began in that little point that I want to stress this afternoon Weights.
For instruction from the Lord, so necessary in our details in our life. Wait for the Lord. Wait for the Lord. If you're going to wait for the Lord, we're going to see. It takes real energy to wait quietly.
And so this is soft. I'll leave it with you. He couldn't wait for the Lord, he said I forced myself. There's always excuses. God doesn't take excuses. You may feel that you are forced to act.
But try always to get quietly with the Lord so that you can.
Understand.
What he wants you to understand and so that you can act at his time and in his way. Let's just take one look at the second person.
Second Kings chapter 6.
Now this is the story of.
Ahab.
And there's a great famine. Second Kings chapter 6.
There's a tremendous famine.
Because the king of Syria in verse 24 has come up and besieged Samaria. King of Syria has come up and besieged Samaria, and there's a great famine, verse 25.
And behold they were besieged, until Anassis had sold for four score pieces of silver, and the 4th part of the cab of a dung doves dung for five pieces of silver. And as the king was passing by upon the wall, there cried a woman unto him, saying, Help my Lord, O king.
Notice his answer.
And he said, If the Lord do not help thee, whence shall I help thee?
Ironically, he says out of the barn floor or out of the wine dress.
He said if the Lord doesn't help you, who will?
I can.
Another unsaved person.
No new birth.
So he learns about the woman.
With the two women, with the two sons.
And he is appalled.
By the condition that the people of God have come to.
And verse 31 is this reaction.
Then he said, God do so, and more also to me, if the head of Elijah, the son of Shifa, shall stand on him this day.
So he's going to cut off the head of Elisha.
Solve the problem.
Now I want to show you what he says in verse #33.
1St #33 Chapter 6. And while he yet talked with him, behold, the messenger came down unto him, and he said, Behold, this evil is of the Lord.
What should I wait for the Lord anymore? Our new transition says. Why should I wait for the Lord anymore? This evil is of the Lord, why should I wait for him any more?
Terrible thing to say is now this evil is of the Lord. This situation in my life is of the Lord. What, what, what? Why should I wait for him any longer? He's not solving my problem. He's not helping me at all.
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Of course, you and I that know the Lord and love the Lord, we wouldn't dare say such words.
But this is the answer of someone who doesn't know the Lord which had a wait any longer. I better take care of myself.
The Lord takes care of those that take care of themselves or some silly saying like that they have.
And so here he says, the Lord, the evil is from the Lord. He recognized the fact, and he said, what? What do I wait any longer for?
But the actually the it's very ironical that he should say that because even if he wanted to do something about it, he couldn't do anything about it. The troops were around the city. He had no means of changing the situation. So he says, behold, this evil is of the Lord, why should I wait any longer?
I want to encourage you. He's one of us, that we would wait for the Lord, wait on the Lord. In some situations it is necessary to calm ourselves and to be quiet and to wait for the Lord to work. Let's pass on to two people who had to wait.
In Genesis one in Genesis 2IN Genesis I guess first one Abraham in chapter 12.
Genesis chapter 12.
And chapter 12, the Lord calls Abraham when he's 75 years old.
How did the land of.
Aaron.
And they go out to the land of Canaan, and the Lord promises that he will give to Abraham a son by Sarah.
But the time becomes long and let's skip down to chapter #16.
Chapter #16.
Now Sarah, Abraham's wife bare him. No children.
And she had a handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. And Sarah I said unto Abram, Behold now the Lord hath restrained me from bearing, I pray thee, go in unto my maid. It may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearken to the voice of Sarah.
Sarah also recognized the hand of the Lord in the circumstances. I don't believe there's a person sitting here this afternoon.
That would not admit to that fact that our lives are in the hands of the Lord.
But we forget that fact sometimes.
We should remind ourselves and perhaps we wouldn't fall into Sarai's mistake, she said. The Lord has kept me from bearing, so she had a solution to the problem.
It was a painful solution. It brought pain and suffering to that family. Why?
Because she couldn't wait.
Because she couldn't wait. Abraham was also responsible.
Sarah was also responsible. She couldn't wait. Sometime when you have the time, look up and see the trouble that came out of this. Abraham taking the Egyptian mate.
Verse FOUR. And he went unto Hager. And she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes. Results come quick.
You don't wait for the Lord. Results come quick and they're quite painful.
I want this thing to say to you this afternoon. Wait for the Lord, Wait for the Lord. And if you must, act.
He's a pretty well dangerous sign if you act out of a sense of desperation.
You should act.
Especially if you do not know clearly the mind of the Lord either, don't act.
Or act with a broken spirit and great humbleness that you don't know the mind of the Lord because He wants you to know it. He's willing to communicate it to you. And sometimes it takes time. Sometimes it takes time for the Lord to clear some obstacles out of the way before He's willing to communicate His mind to us.
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Because.
Is it not a great mercy?
Of the Lord, when he sees in my heart and he knows me through and through and better than I know myself. And he says, if I tell you to do something, I know right well that you're going to rebel against it. Your first reaction is going to be absolutely rebellion against what I tell you to do, and you're going to disobey and you're going to get into trouble. And so sometimes he keeps from us a sense of his will. He doesn't tell us what his will is.
Because He knows we have to be prepared. First of all, he has to break down that wheel so that when he does say, please do this for me or this is the way I want the situation handled it, then we'll be willing instruments in His hands. And so that, dear young people, that is the key I feel in understanding the will of the Lord. We have to say, Lord, I have to know what to do.
But any other things you like to tell me about, I'd be quite happy to hear about them.
If I'm warning you, they're painful sometimes because you've talked to you about yourself and the stubborn wheel.
And he has his own methods in his own way of breaking that stubborn will. He is. His own methods are making our years willing to hear what he has to say. And so here Sarai acted. She couldn't wait, the Lord had promised. But she couldn't wait. And she brought a lot of pain and suffering into that family.
Chapter 17.
Respond.
When Abraham was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said, I am the Almighty God, walk before me and be perfect.
Verse six. I will make the exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee.
99 years old, How long have you waited for your prayer?
Abraham left at 7599. How many years? 20.
Four years. How long have you waited for the Lord in your life? 24 hours.
Might seem an awful long time, sometimes 24 months. Two years seems an awful long time to be waiting for the Lord. Abraham waited a long time.
But he got the blessing in the end. Through the grace of God. He was kept and preserved so that he might wait until the end. Sure there was, Hagar.
A trouble and a pain.
By the grace of God, may each one of us have the patience to be quietly waiting on the Lord, knowing that his choice is best and He'll do it in His way and in his time, and it'll be perfect then.
I love to think, I like to put these things into practical thing. Just last month there was a brother in the assembly was having problems in his marriage.
I never spoken to him, but I wanted to because I love him.
And I spoke at his marriage. I love him.
So another brother was just moving at that time and we were helping him to move, do some stuff and we worked late and left around 10:33 of us two brothers and myself.
And we got we dropped off one brother.
And I was left with this one brother that I wanted to speak to.
In my heart I know how rash I am, how quick to talk.
And I prayed quietly in my heart and said, Lord, I could talk. Now there's only the two of us, but I want you to open the opportunity. So we drove for 10 minutes.
He talked about everything under the sun, but what I wanted to talk about, we are only about 3 or 4 minutes from his home.
He brought the subject up. He said, Did you know about us and our problems in our marriage?
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And I thought to myself, I'm glad I didn't talk before.
Because after that he told me some factors and things that were very useful.
Do you wait like that on the Lord for your opportunities?
And then you can speak with a calm heart, a quiet heart not unprepared, but a quiet heart not rushing in.
And so.
Abraham waited a long time for that little sun. Let's jump down to verse.
1718.
Then Abraham fell upon his face and laughed, and said, In his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is 100 years old? Shall Sara, that is 90 years old there? And Abraham said unto God, All that Ishmael might live before thee.
The old problem because he wasn't willing to wait. Dear young people, you can ruin your whole life.
You can spoil the leading of the Lord if you rush. Try to do it quietly. Try to spend time with him alone, in quiet prayer, discovering what the will of the Lord is. Wait for the Lord. Don't run before him.
And here Abraham.
He is amazed.
That the Lord would be able to help him. Sometimes in our lives we just say there's no solution to my problem. There's just simply no solution. You don't know what the Lord can do, how He can heal, how He can guide and direct for blessing. Wait for him.
Chapter 20.
The end of the story.
No, this is just the last step before the story. I'm not going to read it. You have to have time to look at it yourself.
They are the last onslaught of Satan to try and spoil it to get Sarah to spoil Sarah but God's grace. Chapter 20. Keith, Sarah clean the grace of God chapter 21.
Verse 6. Verse five and six. Abraham was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born unto him. And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh, so that all that here will laugh with me.
And she said, Who would have said unto Abraham that Sarah should have given children stuff, for I borne him a son in his old age.
The end of the story. The end of the story by the grace of God, the end of the story. It can be the end of your story also in your problems or in your life.
Seek the Lord while He may be found.
Wait for him.
Cupboard A sense in your heart.
To know what the Lord's mind is for you in your life and in your situation, Sarah says. Who would have thought, who would have ever said to Sarah that she would have a child?
There are many sitting here or older.
Who can say? By the grace of God, that's my story. I would have never dreamed of the grace of God in my family and the blessing of God in my life. I would have never guessed it. I want to encourage you. God is good. God is good. He wants your blessing. He wants to make your life full. He wants to make you a blessing to your friends about you.
Wait for him in every situation.
Now the last person, please. Perhaps the most beautiful of all, Joseph.
He had a lot of waiting to do, too.
Psalm 105. Psalms 105.
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Psalms 105 and verse 17/18/19.
For 17 he sent a man before them, Eve and Joseph, who was sold for a servant whose feet they hurt with feathers. He was laid in iron.
Until the time that his word came, the word of the Lord tried him.
The king sent and loosed him, and even the ruler of the people let him go free.
I simply want to go over the story of Joseph. We all know it so well. We have no time.
Joseph has a dream that his brothers, mother and father even will bow down to him. He will be supreme ruler, rebuked for it, despised for it, hated for.
So he goes in love to look for his brothers, you know the story well. And they grab him, throw him into a pit.
What had he done wrong? Nothing.
Psalms 105 Give the secret. God sent him. God sent him. Dear young person, quite often in our situation we would say, I would rather not be here. I would rather not be here. I wouldn't like to be in a small meeting. I'd like to be in a big meeting where there's lots of fellowship. God sent you. He's put you into that situation.
Maybe it's a job.
Whatever it is, he's put you in that situation. Wait for him, wait for him.
He has plans, a blessing for you and for others. Wait for Him.
So he's sold.
I can't go over this one. I have to read it to you just so that we don't get a sense of falseness.
Genesis chapter 40.
Two.
Chapter 40.
Alright, I'm looking for this person 42 Sorry chapter 42 and verse 21.
Chapter 42 and verse 21 And they said to one another, These are the brothers talking. They said to one another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us, and we would not hear. Therefore is this distress come upon us.
We saw the anguish of his soul.
The facts are related simply in the story. You can't see that. But the brothers say we saw the anguish of his soul, The young person. Sometimes you get into anguish too.
When you feel as if you're trapped in circumstances.
Joseph is not someone who didn't feel the circumstances. Let me show you another example. When he's in prison, let me leap down to where he's in prison. And then he tells the dream.
To the that we'd have to go backwards, wouldn't we? For that, he's in the prison and the dream is being explained. Here it is.
It is chapter 40 and verse.
14.
But think on me when it shall be well with thee, he says to thee.
Chief Butler, he says, Think on me when it shall be well with thee, and show kindness. I pray thee unto me, and make mention of me unto Pharaoh, and bring me out of this house. Now look what verse 15 says. You see a little heart, little look into his heart. For indeed I was stolen away out of the land of Egypt. And here also have I done nothing, that they should put me into the dungeon.
Can you see into his heart? He.
Felt.
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That he was in a prison, wrongly so.
But wait for the Lord and what is the end of the story because our time is up. Flip down to where He reveals Himself to His presence.
And verse chapter 45.
And verse 5 now therefore be not grieved nor angry with yourselves that you sold me, hit her, for God did send me before you to preserve life.
What Joseph?
You mean to say that God sent you?
To be sold by your brothers, Betrayed. Did God send you into those dark dungeons? Yes, says Joseph. God sent me.
The young person, I comfort your heart, many situations that now you don't understand. When you get older and you turn around and look back, you will understand, You will see the purpose of God in your life. Wait for him, trust in him. I want to give you that little verse, Proverbs chapter 4, right? It says trust in the Lord with all your heart, with all your heart. Don't lean, don't lean.
Don't make it a tendency to lean to your own discernment.
But in all your ways, it is something you can do. In all your ways, in the little details, acknowledge him, put him first, and the promise he will direct your path. And the last little thought I wanted to give to you, dear young people, Romans chapter 5.
These are the results of waiting.
Romans, chapter 5.
Verse #3 Not only so we glory in tribulation trouble, we glory, we're happy for it. What are you happy for trouble for?
Because we know what tribulation works, Patience or endurance. Lovely to see a young person, an older person that can go on quietly, under under fire, not breakdown, just going on quietly, walking with the Lord, producing good to those around him, happy, content to be where the Lord has put that person.
Because we know that tribulation or trouble works. Endurance.
And endurance. Out of endurance comes experience. What's the good of experience? It says out of experience comes hope. You look back, you say the Lord provided for me in that trouble. I waited for Him. He delivered me. He straightened out the situation.
Out of endurance comes experience, and out of experience comes hope, and hope does not make a shame.
Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, we're sure of one thing. We might not be sure of the will of the Lord, but we are sure of one thing, and that is that He loves us.
Let's wait for him. Let's pray.