Faith-Rest Promises; 3 Jo 3
Isaiah 40:31 NASB
“Yet those who wait for the LORD will gain new strength; They
will mount up {with} wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They
will walk and not become weary.”
There are other passages
where the Bible talks about waiting. Psalm 39:7 NASB “And now, Lord,
for what do I wait? My hope is in You.” Here we see
that waiting is parallel to hope, and the idea of confidence being placed in
God allows us to relax and wait patiently in a situation for God to work. Psalm
130:5 NASB “I wait for the LORD, my soul does wait, And in
His word do I hope.” Note the parallel there. In the first line waiting has as
its object the covenant God of Israel who is faithful to His promises to
Psalm 25:3 NASB
“Indeed, none of those who wait for You will be
ashamed; Those who deal treacherously without cause will be ashamed.” The
believer relaxes who does what is right, who follows the procedures of
Scripture and waits upon God to bring about the consequences. [5] “Lead me in Your truth and teach me, For You are the God of my
salvation; For You I wait all the day.” That is an expression of confidence in
God based on His revelation in terms of truth. So we take that back to our
basic idea of 3rd John 3, 4 that we walk by means of truth, and that
necessitates waiting and resting in the Lord.
There are two elements to the
faith-rest drill, an active sense and a passive sense. The active sense is that
we do whatever the promise says to do, e.g. “Pray without ceasing” or, “In
everything by prayer and supplication let your requests be made known unto God,
and the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension shall defend your hearts
and minds.” You pray with thanksgiving. Then there is a passive sense. I focus
on the promise, do what the promise says to do, and then in the passive I am
waiting for God to bring about the consequences or the results that are
promised.
Psalm 25:21 NASB
“Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, For I wait
for You.” The waiting is based upon an understanding of the character of God.
One of the major rationales that undergirds
the faith-rest drill is the essence of God rationale. We work our way through
the attributes of God and then apply that to the situation.
Psalm 27:14 NASB
“Wait for the LORD; Be strong and let your
heart take courage; Yes, wait for the LORD.” God is going to work out the situation, whatever it
may be. It may be a health crisis, one that goes on for weeks, for months, for
years. What we do in that situation is relax and trust the Lord. He is in
control and that may be the precise area in which we need to be tested for our
spiritual growth. God has specifically tailor made each area of adversity in
our life because the end result is to produce in us the character of Jesus
Christ. The concept of “heart” in this verse relates to our thinking in the
core area of our soul. This is not talking about emotion; emotion doesn’t
produce courage. This is talking about thinking. The only way we will have
courage in the midst of a crisis is to think on the basis of objective
absolutes. Once we get involved in emotion—panic attack, anger, bitterness,
resentment, etc.—we can’t have courage. We start making mistakes and will fail
the test. Taking courage also brings in the idea of endurance, long-term
obedience. Wait for the Lord.
Psalm 37:34 NASB
“Wait for the LORD and keep His way, And He will exalt you to inherit
the land; When the wicked are cut off, you will see
it.” Waiting for the Lord is the passive idea where we relax and rest in God’s
control of the circumstances. Keeping His way is the active sense. We don’t
just relax and say that God is going to take care of it in some sort of
mindless turning over to some impersonal force but it involves at the same time
walking according to the mandates and the procedures of Scripture. The
exaltation to inherit the land is a long-range future destiny and if we don’t
reach the point in our spiritual maturation where we are living today in light
of eternity, where we have a personal sense of our eternal destiny, it is
difficult to learn how to wait for the Lord.
Psalm 52:9 NASB “I
will give You thanks forever, because You have done
{it,} And I will wait on Your name, for {it is} good, in the presence of Your
godly ones.” The concept of “Your name” relates to His essence. It is hoping or
being confident in the character of God, understanding who and what God is as
the sovereign creator-God of the universe who is working our
a plan. He has a plan for our life and will eventually work all things
together for good, Romans 8:28. It is because we understand that God is going
to work things out according to His integrity that we can relax, even though we
may not see it in this lifetime.
The context of Isaiah chapter forty
Isaiah
40:28 NASB “Do you not know? Have you not heard?...” There are two
rhetorical questions here related to knowledge given in a poetic format. They
are a form of synonymous parallelism that is designed to call the reader’s
attention to the fact that he should know something, and in fact that he does,
but he is not applying it. This is often what happens when we are in some kind
if crisis. We know it, we have been taught it, but we are not applying it at
the moment and instead we are pushing the panic button or giving up or we are
blaming God. “…The Everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth Does not become weary or tired. His understanding is
inscrutable.” Stage one of the faith-rest drill is to claim the promise. You
look at the promise, understand what it means, that (v. 31) “those who wait for
the LORD will gain new strength” – exchange of human strength for divine
strength. The result is that there is endurance in the midst of the test.
The second stage of the
faith-rest drill is to find out what the rationale is behind the promise. To do that we have to go to the context. We see the
rationale developed in v. 28. It develops from an understanding of the essence
of God, so this is the essence of God rationale. Therefore before this we need
to understand the attributes of God. We need to be able to think our way
through those attributes, and this is exactly what is going on in a passage
like Isaiah 40, e.g. v. 28. The first thing he goes to is “the everlasting
God.” This brings in the attribute of His eternality. He is beyond time, there never was a time when God did not exist. How
does that relate to our particular problem? If God is everlasting that means in
conjunction with His knowledge (the last phrase of this verse) then there never
was a time when God did not know about every single problem that we face in
life. He is eternal, He has all knowledge and therefore whatever happens in our
life is not a surprise to God. Therefore He has provided a solution for it from
eternity past. Then He is called “the Lord,” in the Hebrew Yahweh, the covenant name of God. This is the God of Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob who has entered into a covenant with
Then we move to the doctrine
of the creator-creature distinction. We can’t divorce creation from the
character of God and problem-solving. He is “the Creator of the ends of the
earth,” and that phrase, “ends of the earth,” is a metaphor which means
including everything. Everything we can think of was created and came into
existence by God. The act of creation implies planning and forethought, and the
power to bring about that which is planned. It implies ability and control over
all of the details in order to bring that to task. So we have come to the
doctrine of omnipotence: He is able to do that which he intends to do. This
leads to the next thought, “Does not become weary or tired.” God doesn’t get
tired. He has unlimited power, infinite power, and He can do whatever He
intends to do and whatever He plans to do.
We need to look at the
historical context here. Why is it that Isaiah brings this point to bear? What
is going on in
So the first thing to do
whenever there is a situation of suffering is to ask what the cause of the
suffering is. We have seen the two broad categories for suffering: deserved
suffering and undeserved suffering. Under deserved suffering what is being
emphasised is that at some level the suffering is the direct result of human
volition. In undeserved suffering we cannot trace it to a specific decision
that someone has made.
We go through the rationales
and we see that
The first eleven verses of
chapter 40 focus on the key to deliverance of
Isaiah 40:3 NASB
“A voice is calling, ‘Clear the way for the LORD in the wilderness; Make smooth in the desert a
highway for our God.’” In context this is talking about a highway back to
Isaiah 40:10 NASB “Behold,
the Lord GOD will come with might, With His arm ruling for Him.
Behold, His reward is with Him And His recompense
before Him.” What elements do we see in that verse? We see His arm, the symbol
for His omnipotence. We also see reward. Reward comes in the future, so we see
this orientation to future resolution. [11] “Like a shepherd He will tend His
flock, In His arm He will gather the lambs And carry
{them} in His bosom; He will gently lead the nursing {ewes.}” The point is that
even though we are going through suffering, through torture, through the most
horrendous adversity, God has not lost control. He is working out His purposes
and he will bring about ultimate resolution and He will care for us even in the
midst of that crisis.
And that leaves the writer to
focus on the character of God. Starting in verse 12 the focus shifts to God and
His attributes—His power, His majesty and His control of history. There are
five rhetorical questions that are asked. Isaiah 40:12 NASB “Who has
measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, And marked off the heavens by
the span, And calculated the dust of the earth by the measure, And weighed the
mountains in a balance And the hills in a pair of scales?” All of that verse is
the first question and it has to do with measurement or calculation or
quantification. In this verse we see the use of anthropomorphisms to communicate
the immensity of God. Further, we see here the idea of God’s immensity. Immensity
is related to God’s transcendence, that He is bigger than creation, bigger than
any of our problems. We can define immensity as that perfection of the divine being
by which he transcends all special limitations and yet is present at every
point of space with His whole being. He is exalted above all space and time,
and that reduces our problem to just a small little speck.
Isaiah 40:13 NASB “Who
has directed the Spirit of the LORD, Or as His counselor has
informed Him?” In verses 13 & 14 these questions emphasise God’s
omniscience, His divine knowledge. This verse should be corrected to “Who has
directed the thinking of the LORD?” The word translated “Spirit” here is the Hebrew word
ruach which
is normally translated “spirit” but in both ruach in the Old Testament and pneuma [pneuma] in the
New Testament “spirit” has the idea of wind or breath, but it can also means
thinking or attitude, and it doesn’t always mean the Holy Spirit or the human
spirit. Here it has the idea of thinking. No one has directed the thinking of God, He doesn’t need to be taught. [14] “With whom did He
consult and {who} gave Him understanding?...” There is
no one to whom God goes for information. The fifth rhetorical question in this
section is, “… And {who} taught Him in the path of justice and taught Him
knowledge And informed Him of the way of
understanding?” What idea just came in here? Justice.
Always when there is adversity there is always a challenge to the fairness and
the justice of God.
Then vv. 15-17 compares the
immensity of God to what is going on historically. Isaiah 40:15 NASB
“Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, And
are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales; Behold, He lifts up the islands
like fine dust.” The point of the image is that all of man’s plans, all of man’s
power, all of the connivings and schemings of nations is
nothing in the sight of God.
Isaiah
40:28 NASB “Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God [His eternal life], the LORD [His
covenant faithfulness], the Creator of the ends of the earth [the planner in
control of everything] Does not become weary or tired [omnipotence]. His
understanding is inscrutable [omniscience].” Why does Isaiah say this? because the question is raised in verse 27 NASB “Why
do you say, O Jacob, and assert, O Israel, ‘My way is hidden from the LORD, And the
justice due me escapes the notice of my God’?” In the context of the discipline
there were these whiners. God has forgotten about me! Why is God not taking
care of the problem? Why isn’t God providing the solution? And so Isaiah reminds
them of who God is and His attributes, that He is the one even in the midst of
overpowering adversity who gives power to the weak (v. 29). It is not our
power, it is God’s power. “He gives strength to the weary, And to {him who}
lacks might He increases power.” This is the context of the promise. So we work
through the rationale, it helps us to understand that what undergirds
the promise is the character of God. Because of this He is greater than all of
our problems, he knew about all of our problems in eternity past, therefore God
has provided a solution for all of those problems. Because God is who he is we
can then relax in the midst of a situation and can wait on Him. When we do that
there is an exchange of strength; it is not our strength, it is God’s strength.
This is when we come to that third point in the faith-rest drill of claiming a
doctrinal conclusion. We reach a point where there is a firm conviction in our
soul that this is true. That is when you reach that conclusion. It is not just
an abstract conclusion but a conclusion that is true in our soul, and at that
point we completely relax and rest in the Lord. As a result of that exchange of
strength is the ability to endure with strength whatever testing, or struggle or
difficulty comes in life.