At
some point in time—perhaps many years ago—did you receive a specific Promise
from God that has not yet been fulfilled? Has the prolonged delay to the fulfillment of
that Promise caused you to experience moments of anxiety, despair, discouragement
and hopelessness? If you answered YES
to both questions, then this message will encourage you!
Perhaps
you or a loved one have been waiting for:
A deliverance;
A healing;
A return harvest on financial
seeds that you have sown;
An earned and much-needed promotion
and merit raise;
An open door for ministry;
The birth of a promised child or
grandchild;
The call of God to be fulfilled in
your life;
The salvation of a loved one.
Have
you ever wondered what causes delays? I certainly
have and that’s why the Lord led me to prepare this teaching to enlighten,
encourage and strengthen myself—and you!
DEFINITION
The word delay means to:
Stop, detain or hinder for a time;
Cause to be slower or to occur more slowly than normal.
For those
of you who have not yet experienced a delay in the fulfillment of a God-Promise,
you will! When you’re walking
with God, delays play an integral part in the process of maturing in Christ
toward perfection:
DELAYS AFFECT US
EMOTIONALLY, MENTALLY, PHYSICALLY & SPIRITUALLY
A
prolonged delay of a fulfilled promise can birth discouragement and
hopelessness. Delays even cause some
believers to throw in the towel and walk away from God.
Hope deferred makes the heart sick:
but when the desire comes, it is a tree of life (Proverbs 13:12).
Notice
that this Scripture says when the desire comes, not if the
desire comes. 2 Corinthians 1:20 says: For all the promises of God in Him [Christ] are
yea and Amen.
In Isaiah 55:11 God says: So shall My word be that goes forth out of My mouth: it
shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and
it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.
CAUSES OF DELAYS
Delays are caused by us. For example:
Acting apart from, or outside of, God’s Counsel,
Guidance, Timing and Will. Remember, no one, including
Satan, has the power to abort your divine destiny, but YOU CAN by the
choices and decisions that you make!
Proverbs 14:12:
There
is a way which seems right to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of
death.
Zephaniah 1:6: And them that are turned back from the LORD; and those
that have not sought the LORD, nor enquired for Him.
Psalms 37:23: The steps
of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delights in His way.
Proverbs 3:5 admonishes us to:
Trust
in the LORD with all your heart; and lean not unto your own understanding.
Romans 8:13-14: For if you live after the flesh, you shall die: but if you
through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God,
they are the sons of God.
We also cause delays through …
Prayerlessness or Praying with the Wrong Intent & Motive.
James 4:2-3: You lust,
and have not: you kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: you fight and
war, yet you have not, because you ask not.
You ask, and receive not, because you ask amiss, that you may consume it
upon your lusts.
And, we cause delays by …
Failing to Obey The Word.
James 1:22: But be doers
of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
Galatians 5:7-9:
You did run well; who did hinder you that you should not obey
the truth? This persuasion comes not
of Him that calls you. A little leaven [false
teaching and beliefs] leavens the whole lump.
Delays are caused by Satan
There are times when we pray about something maybe once,
twice, three times, or more. But, some
of us—if we don’t receive an answer in the affirmative within our
time frame of expectation, then we’re tempted to give up and assume that it must
not be God’s Will. Yet Jesus taught His
disciples that they ought always to pray
and faint not (Luke 18:1).
We
need to understand that when we pray, a battle is raging in the spiritual realm.
In the Book of Daniel, we find an
interesting story in which Daniel offered his request before God and the answer
finally came. An angel appeared to Daniel
and said:
Fear not,
Daniel: for from the first day that you set your heart to understand, and to
chasten yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I am come for your
words. But the prince of the kingdom of
Persia withstood me 120 days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came
to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia (Daniel 10:12-13).
The
prince of Persia is a type of
Satan. The chief prince is a type of God’s warring Archangel Michael.
Other Scriptures that prove Satan’s involvement in delays
are:
1 Thessalonians 2:18:
Wherefore
we would have come unto you, even I Paul, once and again; but Satan hindered us.
Zechariah 3:1:
And
he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and
Satan standing at his right hand to resist him.
1 Chronicles 21:1:
And
Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.” As a result, God judged David and David’s sin
brought God’s Judgment upon the nation of Israel.
Delays are Acts of God’s Sovereign Will
In Isaiah
55:8-9, God says: For My
thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,
saith the LORD. For as the
heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My
thoughts than your thoughts.
1 Corinthians 1:27-28:
But
God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God has
chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
And base things of the world, and things which are despised, has God chosen, yea,
and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are.
In short,
sometimes God has to intervene to protect us from foolish, selfish prayers that
we pray—prayers that don’t line up with The Word of God—prayers that are prayed
when we’re impatient or suffering from emotional distress—prayers that we pray
in fear and unbelief—prayers that lack God’s knowledge, understanding and
wisdom. I don’t know about you, but I thank
God for all the times that He didn’t grant the desires of my heart when I
prayed foolish or selfish prayers!
One of the
great difficulties of the Christian life concerns the fact that God will sometimes
delay answering our prayers. And no
amount of weeping, pleading, pity parties, or temper tantrums on our part will move
Him. There are times when nothing but
sheer belief in God’s goodness saves us from despair; when nothing but simple
reliance on God’s Love without any evidence of it, can save us from
hopelessness; when nothing but almost reckless faith in His omnipotent wisdom,
will prevent us from sinking into positive moral apathy and spiritual
lethargy.
Whether we are willing to
admit it or not, God’s apparent indifference to our suffering creates a
conflict on the inside of us. Spiritual
babies react by weeping, throwing tantrums and complaining bitterly in their
souls. Seasoned warriors deal with this
conflict courageously and silently in secret.
Outside our own hearts, no one suspects that such a conflict is going
on. Only God knows and He meets the need
of both. When He sees a young Christian
sinking in a pit of depression and despair, He will rescue him to teach him
that He can be trusted to be a very present help in times of trouble (Psalms 46:1). When God sees a seasoned soldier that has
learned to trust Him through many tests and trials, standing firm in faith on God’s
Promises, staying tears that otherwise would run unchecked, and thanking and
praising God for the privilege of sharing in Christ’s sufferings, God looks
down, smiling, immensely pleased and proud!
So, what do the delays of God mean? From personal experience and studying The
Word of God, I suggest the following three things about God’s Delays:
It is only by enforced waiting upon God that we
come to know Him as He really is. I use the
word enforced waiting upon God because it is only by being forced to wait that
some of us ever wait on Him. As human
beings, we are naturally impatient and impulsive and anything that even
suggests slowness rubs us the wrong way like sandpaper. So, by withholding the answer for which we
have longed, God keeps us out of harm’s way and at His feet so that we may come
to know Him. Because He is God, He is
infinitely more concerned about the making and remaking of our lives than in
the gratification of our minds and souls.
He is infinitely more concerned about molding us in the image of His
Son, Jesus, Who learned obedience through the things which He suffered (Hebrews 5:8). God is in the process of transforming us, so
let us not be impatient under the hand of the Master Potter. He is eliminating the flaws and remaking the
marred vessels. God will keep us in a
holding pattern so that in His Presence, as we behold His Glory, we may be
changed into the same image from glory to glory. And, if we are ever to be transformed into
Christ’s Image and since we as His disciples are not above our Master, is it
not our portion to suffer also? 2 Timothy 3:12 says: Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall
suffer persecution.
Never think that God’s delays are God’s
denials. Nor do God’s delays represent
an impulsive whim on His Part, but rather His concern and compassion for
us. I believe that His delays are
directed toward saving us from ourselves—from our weaknesses, impatience and impulsiveness
that will surely bring calamity and disaster—saving us from hurrying away from
His Presence before the lessons of His Grace have been more mentally received
and processed. By keeping us waiting
upon Him, God is preparing us until we are worthy to receive, interpret and use
the greater blessings and gifts that He has yet to impart in answer to prayer
and in fulfillment of His Word.
From God’s perspective, our prayers must be passed
through the refining medium or filter of God’s Love and Wisdom and edited by
God before they are answered. I believe
God often has to say to His children, “You know not what you ask” (Matthew 20:22). I am persuaded that if some of our prayers
were immediately answered, the consequence would be almost certain moral and
spiritual disaster! I believe that every
prayer that ascends to the throne room is filtered and analyzed by God Who sees
and knows the intent and motive of every heart.
James 4:3 says, “You have
not because you ask amiss.” For
example, there are men and women who pray for power, while their real objective
is spiritual superiority. What they
really mean by power is that which will make them prominent in His
service. When our motives are unworthy
of the words we express, we have to be kept waiting until God turns upon us the
searchlight of His love and wisdom.
Well-intentioned prayer is not always well-informed prayer.
Faith can only be trained by being tested.
Just as a man’s muscles are hardened through exercise, so his faith
becomes strong and ultimately invincible by being subjected to the discipline
of strain. Because, until a man or
woman’s faith accepts and surrenders to the Will of God rather than to selfish
impulse and compulsion, faith is lacking in essential quality. The Bible is a record book that testifies of
the fiery tests and trials that great men and women had to pass through before they
were ready vessels to be used for God’s Glory.
Are we then greater than Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Daniel, the three
Hebrew men, Jesus and the Apostles? No,
we are not! And, since we desire to do
greater works than Jesus, are we prepared and willing to be refined and
purified like gold in the fiery furnace of affliction? (John
14:12; Isaiah 48:10). Just as
it is true in the natural, God will not place fire in the hands of a toddler.
As far as
a delayed promise is concerned, let’s examine the life of our spiritual
patriarch, Abraham (Genesis 11:27 to 21:5):
The
standard text of the Hebrew Bible places Abraham’s birth at approximately 1,948
years after the Creation. Now we all
know Abraham’s story but to save time, I’ll summarize the highlights.
Many years
after God mixed up the languages of the people at the Tower of Babel, a baby
was born in the land of Ur of the Chaldees.
This baby was named Abram, who would one day be the father of many
nations. According to Joshua 24:2, the people who lived in Ur served
other gods.
One day,
God appeared to Abram when he was in Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Haran (Acts 7:2).
God said to Abram: Get thee
out of your country and from your kindred and from your father’s house, unto a
land that I will show you. Not
knowing where he was going, Abram obeyed the Lord by faith (Hebrews 11:8). Abram, his wife Sarai, his father Terah and his
nephew Lot traveled to Haran and dwelt there.
It was there that Terah died at the age of 205. After his death, Abram, Sarai and Lot
continued their journey.
Now, God
had promised Abram: I will make of you
a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be
a blessing. God also promised to
give Abram’s children the land of Canaan.
Abram believed God and built an altar and called upon the name of the
Lord.
When a
great famine came on the land of Canaan, Abram went to Egypt. After a time, Abram left Egypt and returned
to the place where he had once built an altar.
There Abram worshiped the Lord.
Soon after
this, God encouraged Abram, telling him to look to the north, south, east and
west. All of this land, God told Abram,
would be his and his children’s forever.
God also said that Abram’s descendants would be as many as the stars in
the sky. And, Abram believed in the
Lord.
By this
time, Abram was 85 and Sarai was 75. They
had been unable to have children and now they were considered to be too
old. I can only imagine how many times
they were tormented by the thought: “Considering our advanced ages, how can
God’s promise be fulfilled?”
Motivated by desperation and deciding to take matters into her own hands, Sarai told Abram to take her Egyptian
handmaid, Hagar, as his second wife.
Although this was not God’s plan, Abram harkened to Sarai.
How many of you have learned the
hard way—as I have—that taking a matter out of God’s Hands and jumping ahead of
Him will create a bigger problem than the original problem?!
The result of their decision not only created a hostile relationship
between Hagar and her mistress, the bad blood between the Palestinians and
Israelites continues in the Middle East to this day (Genesis 16:1-6).
The story
continues. Soon, Hagar was expecting a
baby and her mistress was despised in her eyes.
Sarai treated Hagar sternly and severely and Hagar ran away.
An angel
of the Lord found Hagar by a fountain of water in the wilderness. This tells me that Hagar had favor with God
because she was carrying the seed of Abraham, with whom He had covenanted. The angel spoke with Hagar and told her to
return and submit to her mistress. The
angel also instructed her to name her son Ishmael, because the Lord had heard
her affliction. Hagar obeyed the angel
and returned home. When Abram was 86
years old, Ishmael was born, but he was not the son promised of God.
When Abram
was 99, the Lord appeared to him again.
This time, God changed Abram’s name to Abraham which means “father of
many.” Sarai’s name was changed to Sarah
which means “princess.” God promised
that she would become the mother of nations.
Abraham laughed and said in his heart, “Shall a child be born unto him
that is 100 years old and shall Sarah, that is 90 years old, bear a son?” God told Abraham that He would establish His covenant for the
people of God with the promised son. His
name would be called Isaac which means “laughter.”
When
Abraham and Sara were living in the plains of Mamre, the Lord came to visit Abraham
in the form of three men.
I want to pause
here briefly. While I was studying Genesis Chapter 18, I asked myself why God would
visit Abraham in the form of three men. Have
you thought about this? In other words,
why would God send three men to say what one man could say? So, I did some research. First of all, according to Strong’s
Concordance #3068, the word “Lord” in Genesis
Chapter 18, verse 1 means Yahweh or Jehovah. I also researched the custom of that
time. When a visitor is an ordinary
person, the host merely rises, but if the visitor is of superior rank, the
custom is to advance a little towards the stranger, and after presenting a very
low bow, the host will turn and lead him to the tent, putting an arm around his
waist, or tapping him on the shoulder as they walk, to assure the visitor that
he is welcome. The fact that Abraham ran
to meet the men and bowed himself to the ground suggests superior rank and a
high level of personal intimacy. Now, we
know from previous Scriptures such as Genesis
12:1; 15:1 and 17:1 that
Abraham had seen the “Lord” appearing to him as Jehovah. As I meditated on all of this, I couldn’t
help but wonder if perhaps the three men represented the members of the Godhead
or the Trinity. Perhaps God’s covenant
with Abraham was so important to God that He chose to visit Abraham in a
representation of the fullness
of His Presence … God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Matthew 18:16
says that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be
established.
And, 1 John 5:7-9:
For there are three that bear record
in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and
the blood: and these three agree in one. If we receive the witness of men, the witness
of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of
His Son.
All of
this is certainly food for thought.
But, now
back to the story. Abraham invited the three men to rest and share
a meal with him. After eating, the men
asked where Sarah was. Abraham said that
she was in the tent. Abraham was told,
again, that Sarah would surely have a son.
When Sarah heard it, she laughed within herself, thinking it was not
possible for her to bear children. The
Lord asked Abraham, Is anything too hard for the Lord? (Genesis 18:14)
Over and
over, God told Abraham that the promised child would come and that Abraham
would be the father of many nations. It
looked impossible, but with God all things are possible! (Matthew 19:26).
Did God’s
Word come to pass? Yes! Sarah conceived and gave birth to a son, whom
they named Isaac! Abraham was 100 and
Sarah was 90, which means that they waited 25 long years for the Promise of God
to be fulfilled.
Have you
been waiting 25 years or longer for a Promise of God to be fulfilled? If you have, then be encouraged because God’s
delays don’t mean God’s denials!
This story perfectly illustrates a delay that was caused by God’s Sovereign
Will. As I further studied this, I asked
myself the following questions:
Did Abram believe God’s initial promise that he would become the father of many
nations? Absolutely! The seed of God’s Word was so well-grounded in
the fertile soil of Abram’s heart that rehearsing it over and over again encouraged,
sustained and strengthened Abram during the famine years before the Promise was
actually fulfilled. Perhaps you received
a Rhema Word from God many years ago regarding your own God Promise and that
Word continues to encourage, sustain and strengthen you while you wait for the
Promise to be fulfilled. This is
certainly true of me.
As the years passed and Sarai remained barren, did Abram’s faith in God’s
promise waiver? According to the Word of
God, it did not. Romans 4:3 clearly says: Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for
righteousness.
Yes, it is true that Abram agreed to Sarai’s solution, but perhaps he believed
that God was speaking through Sarai. The
important thing is that from the time God covenanted with Abram until the
Promise was fulfilled, Abram’s heart never departed
from God. We, as believers, must be
inspired, encouraged and strengthened by Abraham’s example.
During the years preceding the birth of Isaac, did Abraham and Sarah
experience moments of discouragement? During
their lowest moments, did they cry out, “When God?! When will Your Promise to us be fulfilled?!”
Considering the weakness of their humanity, I believe that they did. I have compassion for Sarai,
particularly. According to the custom of
that time, she was under tremendous pressure to fulfill the main duty of being a
wife—that of bearing children. But
because of her barrenness, she was scorned and laughed at by her peers. Here was a woman who deeply loved her husband
and desperately wanted to give him a man child.
Placing myself in her shoes, I can see how she might have experienced
moments of deep depression, despair and hopelessness. And, in a moment of weakness, she devised a
plan that took matters out of God’s Hands into her own. And, yet, God turned everything around and
worked it to their good. The most
important lesson that we can learn from this story is that Abraham’s heart
never departed from God. He continued to
believe and trust God for the promised son.
Can we, as believers, do any less than Abraham when we’re faced with situations
that delay the fulfillment of God’s Promises?
If we are to fulfill our divine destinies, we must stand strong in our
faith, persevere through tests and trials and continue to wait upon God, Who will
never fail us!
Lamentations 3:24-26:
The
LORD is my portion, says my soul; therefore will I hope in Him. The LORD is good to them that wait for
Him, to the soul that seeks Him. It
is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the
salvation of the LORD.
Galatians 6:9:
And
let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint
not.
The Bible tells us that the Promises of God:
Are confirmed in Christ (Romans 15:8);
Are carried out and fulfilled by Jesus (2 Corinthians 1:20);
Are inherited through faith and patience (Hebrews 6:12,15; 10:36; 11:33);
Are fulfilled in due season (Jeremiah 33:14;
Acts 7:17; Galatians 4:4);
God remembers them (Psalms 105:42; Luke 1:54-55);
God is faithful to bring them to pass (Titus 1:2; Hebrews 10:23);
Not one shall fail (Joshua 23:14; 1 Kings 8:56);
Should be waited upon (Acts 1:4).
Isaiah 40:31: But they
that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up
with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall
walk, and not faint.
When you
are living a holy, obedient life, walking by faith and being led by the Spirit,
you can be confident that God is fighting battles for you and that He is
working everything out to your good. So,
when the enemy attacks you with discouragement and you’re tempted to doubt that
God’s Promises will ever come to pass, remember Abraham’s walk of faith. Remember also God’s words spoken through His
servant, Moses: Fear not,
stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD (Exodus 14:13).
As you patiently and reverently wait
upon God in obedience, give Him your dreams, hopes and expectations and TRUST HIM! He will
vindicate all of the delays you have experienced in His Perfect Timing and Way!
Blessings!
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