THREEFOLD ASSURANCE which hope gives the Christian when God delays to perform his promise 4/7

 Second Assurance.  Hope assures the Christian, that though God stays long, yet, when he does come, he will abundantly recompense his longest stay.  As the wicked get nothing by God’s forbearing to execute his threatening, but the treasuring up more wrath for the day of wrath; so the saints lose nothing by not having the promise presently paid into them, but ra­ther do, by their forbearing God a while, treasure up more joy against the joyful day, when the promise shall be performed.  ‘To them who by patient con­tinuance...seek for glory and honour,...eternal life,’ Rom. 2:7.  Mark, it is not enough to do well, but to ‘continue’ therein; nor that neither, except it be ‘pa­tient continuing in well-doing’—in the midst of God’s seeming delays; and whoever he be that can do this, shall be rewarded at last for all his patience.  Plough­ing is hungry work, yet because it is in hope of reaping such an abundant increase, the husbandman faints not.  O my soul, saith hope, though thou wantest thy dinner, hold but out a while, and thou shalt have din­ner and supper served in together when night comes. The sick fits and qualms which the Christian hath in the absence of the promise are all forgot, and the trouble of them over, when once it comes and he is feasted with the joy it brings.  ‘Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life;’ Prov. 13:12—that is, when it cometh in God’s time after long waiting, then it causeth an overflowing joy.  As there is a time which God hath set for the ripening the fruits of the earth, before which, if they be gathered, it is to our loss; so there is a time set by God for the good things of the promise, which we are to wait for, and not unseasonably pluck, like green apples, off the tree—as too many do, who, having no faith or hope to quiet their spirits while [until] God’s time comes, do therefore snatch that by unwarrant­able means, which would in time drop ripe into their bosoms.

           And what get these short‑spirited men by their haste?  Alas! they find their enjoyments thin and lank, like corn reaped before it is fit for the sickle, wherewith he that bindeth the sheaves, filleth not his bosom.  Therefore we find this duty of waiting press­ed under this very metaphor.  ‘Be patient, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord,’ James 5:7.  Stay God’s time, till he comes according to his promise, and takes you off your suffering work, and be not hasty to shift yourselves out of trouble. And why so?  ‘Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.  Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.’ The husbandman who, the proverb saith, is, dives in novum annum—rich in hope of the next year’s crop —though he gladly would have his corn in the barn, yet waits for its ripening in the ordinary course of God’s providence.  When the former rain comes he is joyful, but yet desires the latter rain also, and stays for it, though long in coming.  And do not we see, that a shower sometimes falls close to the time of harvest, that plumps the ear to the great increase of the crop, which some lose, that, through distrust of providence, put in their sickle too soon?  I am sure mercies come fullest when most waited for.  Christ did not so soon supply them with wine at the marriage of Cana, as his mother desired, but they had the more for staying a while.  There is a double fullness, which the Christian may hope to find in those enjoyments that he hath with long patience waited for, above another that can­not stay God’s leisure.

THREEFOLD ASSURANCE which hope gives the Christian when God delays to perform his promise 3/7

           (1.) His name is truth and faithfulness.  Now can truth itself lie, or faithfulness deceive?  ‘In my Fa­ther’s house,’ saith Christ, ‘are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you; I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go,...I will come again and receive you,’ John 14:2, 3.  See here the candour and nakedness of our Saviour’s heart.  As if he had said, ‘This is no shift to be gone, that so I may by a fair tale leave you in hopes of that which shall never come to pass. No; did I know it otherwise than I speak, my heart is so full of love to you, that it would not have suffered me to put such a cheat upon you for a thous­and worlds.  You may trust me to go; for as surely as you see me go, shall your eyes see me come again to your everlasting joy.’  The promises are none of them yea and nay, but ‘yea and amen’ in him.

           (2.) He is wisdom as well as truth.  As he is truth, he cannot wrong or deceive us in breaking his word; and being wisdom, it is impossible he should promise that which should prejudice himself.  And therefore, he makes no blots in his purposes or promises, but what he doth in either is immutable. Repentance is indeed an act of wisdom in the crea­ture, but it presupposeth folly, which is incompatible to God.  In a word, men too oft are rash in promising; and therefore what they in haste promise they per­form at leisure.  They consider not before they vow, and therefore inquire afterward whether they had best stand to it.  But the all‑wise God needs not this after-game.  As in the creation he looked back upon the several pieces of that goodly frame, and saw them so exact that he took not up his pencil the second time to mend anything of the first draft; so in his promises, they are made with such infinite judgment and wis­dom, that what he hath writ he will stand to for ever. ‘I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judg­ment,’ Hosea 2:19. Therefore for ever, because in righ­teousness and in mercy.

3. Cause.  Impotency.  Men’s promises, alas! de­pend upon many contingencies.  The man haply is rich when he seals the bond, and poor before the day of payment comes about.  A wreck at sea, a fire by land, or some other sad accident, intervenes, either quite impoverisheth him, or necessitates him to beg further time, with him in the gospel, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all,’ Matt. 18:26.  But the great God cannot be put to such straits.  ‘The Strength of Israel will not lie,’ I Sam. 15:29.  As there is a lie of wickedness, when one promiseth what he will not perform; so there is a lie that proceeds from weakness, when a person or thing cannot perform what they promise.  Thus indeed all men, yea, all creatures, will be found liars to all that lean on them, called therefore ‘lying vanities.’  ‘Vanities,’ as empty and insufficient; ‘lying vanities,’ because they promise what they have not to give.  But God, he is propound­ed as a sure bottom for our faith to rest on in this respect.  ‘Trust ye in the Lord for ever: for in the Lord Jehovah is strength, or everlasting strength,’ Isa. 26:4.  Such strength his is that needs not another’s strength to uphold it.  One man's ability to perform his promises leans on others’ ability to pay theirs to him.  If they him, he is forced to fail them.  Thus we see, the breaking of one merchant proves the breaking of many others whose estates were in his hands.  But God’s power is independent.  Let the whole creation break, yet God is the same as he was, as able to help as ever.  ‘Though the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines.’  And, ‘yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salva­tion.  The Lord God is my strength,’ Hab. 3:17-19.  O how happy are the saints! a people that can never be undone, no, not when the whole world turns bank­rupt, because they have his promise whose power fails not when that doth.  The Christian cannot come to God when he hath not by him what he wants.  ‘How great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee,’ Ps. 31:19.  It is laid up, as a father hath his child's portion, in bags, ready to be paid him when the time comes.  The saint shall not stay a moment beyond the date of the promise.  ‘There is forgiveness with thee,’ saith the psalmist.  It stands ready for thee against thou comest to claim the promise.

THREEFOLD ASSURANCE which hope gives the Christian when God delays to perform his promise 2/7

           (1.) His name is truth and faithfulness.  Now can truth itself lie, or faithfulness deceive?  ‘In my Fa­ther’s house,’ saith Christ, ‘are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you; I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go,...I will come again and receive you,’ John 14:2, 3.  See here the candour and nakedness of our Saviour’s heart.  As if he had said, ‘This is no shift to be gone, that so I may by a fair tale leave you in hopes of that which shall never come to pass. No; did I know it otherwise than I speak, my heart is so full of love to you, that it would not have suffered me to put such a cheat upon you for a thous­and worlds.  You may trust me to go; for as surely as you see me go, shall your eyes see me come again to your everlasting joy.’  The promises are none of them yea and nay, but ‘yea and amen’ in him.

           (2.) He is wisdom as well as truth.  As he is truth, he cannot wrong or deceive us in breaking his word; and being wisdom, it is impossible he should promise that which should prejudice himself.  And therefore, he makes no blots in his purposes or promises, but what he doth in either is immutable. Repentance is indeed an act of wisdom in the crea­ture, but it presupposeth folly, which is incompatible to God.  In a word, men too oft are rash in promising; and therefore what they in haste promise they per­form at leisure.  They consider not before they vow, and therefore inquire afterward whether they had best stand to it.  But the all‑wise God needs not this after-game.  As in the creation he looked back upon the several pieces of that goodly frame, and saw them so exact that he took not up his pencil the second time to mend anything of the first draft; so in his promises, they are made with such infinite judgment and wis­dom, that what he hath writ he will stand to for ever. ‘I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judg­ment,’ Hosea 2:19. Therefore for ever, because in righ­teousness and in mercy.

3. Cause.  Impotency.  Men’s promises, alas! de­pend upon many contingencies.  The man haply is rich when he seals the bond, and poor before the day of payment comes about.  A wreck at sea, a fire by land, or some other sad accident, intervenes, either quite impoverisheth him, or necessitates him to beg further time, with him in the gospel, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all,’ Matt. 18:26.  But the great God cannot be put to such straits.  ‘The Strength of Israel will not lie,’ I Sam. 15:29.  As there is a lie of wickedness, when one promiseth what he will not perform; so there is a lie that proceeds from weakness, when a person or thing cannot perform what they promise.  Thus indeed all men, yea, all creatures, will be found liars to all that lean on them, called therefore ‘lying vanities.’  ‘Vanities,’ as empty and insufficient; ‘lying vanities,’ because they promise what they have not to give.  But God, he is propound­ed as a sure bottom for our faith to rest on in this respect.  ‘Trust ye in the Lord for ever: for in the Lord Jehovah is strength, or everlasting strength,’ Isa. 26:4.  Such strength his is that needs not another’s strength to uphold it.  One man's ability to perform his promises leans on others’ ability to pay theirs to him.  If they him, he is forced to fail them.  Thus we see, the breaking of one merchant proves the breaking of many others whose estates were in his hands.  But God’s power is independent.  Let the whole creation break, yet God is the same as he was, as able to help as ever.  ‘Though the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines.’  And, ‘yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salva­tion.  The Lord God is my strength,’ Hab. 3:17-19.  O how happy are the saints! a people that can never be undone, no, not when the whole world turns bank­rupt, because they have his promise whose power fails not when that doth.  The Christian cannot come to God when he hath not by him what he wants.  ‘How great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee,’ Ps. 31:19.  It is laid up, as a father hath his child's portion, in bags, ready to be paid him when the time comes.  The saint shall not stay a moment beyond the date of the promise.  ‘There is forgiveness with thee,’ saith the psalmist.  It stands ready for thee against thou comest to claim the promise.

THREEFOLD ASSURANCE which hope gives the Christian when God delays to perform his promise 1/7

First Assurance.  Hope assures the soul that though God stays a while before he performs the promise, yet he doth not delay.  ‘The vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will sure­ly come, it will not tarry,’ Hab. 2:3.  How is this? ‘Though it tarry it will not tarry!’  How shall we rec­oncile this tarrying and not tarrying?  Very well. Though the promise tarries till the appointed time, yet it will not tarry beyond it.  ‘When the time of the promise drew nigh,’ it is said, ‘which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt,’ Acts 7:17.  As the herbs and flowers which sleep all winter in their roots underground without any mention of them, when the time of spring ap­proacheth, presently they start forth of their beds, where they had lain so long unperceived.  Thus will the promise in its season do.  He delays who passeth the time appointed, but he only stays that waits for the appointed time, and then comes.  Every promise is dated, but with a mysterious character; and for want of skill in God's chronology, we are prone to think God forgets us, when, indeed, we forget our­selves, in being so bold to set God a time of our own, and in being angry that he comes not just then to us. As if a man should set his watch by his own hungry stomach rather than by the sun, and then say it is noon, and chide because his dinner is not ready.  We are over greedy of comfort, and expect the promise should keep time with our hasty desires, which be­cause it doth not we are discontented.  A high piece of folly! The sun will not go the faster for setting our watch forward, nor the promise come the sooner for our antedating it.  It is most true what one saith, ‘Though God seldom comes at our day, because we seldom reckon right, yet he never fails his own day.’ That of the apostle is observable.  He exhorts the Thessalonian church there, ‘that they would not be shaken in mind, or be troubled, as that the day of Christ were at hand,’ II Thes. 2:2, 3.  But what need of this exhortation to saints, that look for their greatest joy to come with the approach of that day? Can their hearts be troubled to hear the day of their redemption draws nigh, the day of refreshing is at hand?  It was not therefore, I conceive, the coming of that day which was so unpleasing and affrighting, but the time in which some seducers would have persuaded them to expect it, as if it had been at the very doors, and presently would have surprised them in their genera­tion, which had been very sad indeed, because then it should have come before many prophecies and prom­ises had received their accomplishment, and by that means the truth of God would have gone off the stage with a slur, which must not, shall not be, as he tells them, ‘For that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition,’ II Thes. 2:3.  And as that promise stays but till those intermediate truths, which have a shorter period, be fulfilled, and then comes without any possible stay or stop; so do all the rest but wait till their reckoning be out, and what God hath ap­pointed to intervene be despatched, and they punctu­ally shall have their delivery in their set time.

           

Hope will enable the soul to wait when the promise stays longest.

           Third.  Hope will enable the soul to wait when the promise stays longest.  It is the very nature of hope so to do. ‘It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord,’ Lam. 3:26.  Hope groans when the mercy promised comes not, but does not grumble.  Hope's groans are from the spirit sighed out to God in prayer, Rom. 8:26, and these lighten the soul of its burden of fear and solicitous care; whereas the groans of a hopeless soul are vented in discontented passions against God, and these are like a loud wind to a fire, that makes it rage more.  ‘They shall drink, and be moved, and be mad, because of the sword that I will send among them,’ Jer. 25:16.  It is spoken of the enemies of God and his people.  God had prepared them a draught which should have strange effects—‘they should be moved;’ as a man, whose brain is disturbed with strong drink, is restless and unquiet: yea, ‘be mad.’  As some, when they are drunk, quarrel with every one they meet, so should their hearts be filled with rage even at God himself, who runs his sword into their sides, because they had no hope to look for any healing of their wounds at his hand.  But now where there is hope, the heart is soon quieted and pacified.  Hope is the handkerchief that God puts into his people’s hands to wipe the tears from their eyes, which their present troubles, and long stay of expected mercies, draw from them.  ‘Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy, and there is hope in thine end,’ Jer. 31:16, 17.  This, with some other comfortable promises which God gave his prophet Jeremiah in a vision, did so overrun and fill his heart with joy, that, he was as much recruited and comforted as a sick or weary man is after a night of sweet sleep: ‘Upon this I awaked,...and my sleep was sweet unto me,’ ver. 26.  When, however, the promise seems to stay long, hope pacifies the Christian with a threefold assurance.  First. Hope assures the soul, that though God stays a while before he performs the promise, yet he doth not delay.  Second. That when he comes he will abun­dantly recompense his longest stay.  Third. That while he stays to perform one promise, he will leave the comfort of another promise, to bear the Christian company in the absence of that.

Our duty is to wait, when God stays his longest before fulfilling his promise

           Second.  When God stays long before he makes payment of the promise, then it is the believer’s duty to wait for it.  ‘Though it tarry, wait for it,’ Hab. 2:3. He is speaking there of the good of the promise, which God intended to perform in the appointed time; and because it might tarry longer than their hasty hearts would, he bids them wait for it.  As one that promiseth to come to a friend’s house sends him word to sit up for him, though he tarry later than or­dinary, for he will come at last assuredly.  This is hard work indeed!  What! wait? When we have stayed so long, and no sight of God’s coming after this prayer, and that sermon!  So many long looks given at the window of his ordinances and providences, and no tidings to be heard of his approach in mercy and comfort to my soul; and after this, still am I bid wait? This is wearisome work.  True, to flesh and blood it is; yea, weak faith is oft out of breath, and prone to sit down, or turn back, when it hath gone long to meet God in the returns of his mercy, and misseth of him; and therefore the apostle ushers in his duty with an affectionate prayer.  ‘The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ,’ II Thes. 3:5.  He had laid down a strong ground of consolation for them in the preceding chapter, in that they were ‘chosen to salvation,’ and ‘called by the gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ,’ II Thes. 2:13, 14, and assured them that God, who is ‘faithful,’ would ‘stablish them, and keep them from evil,’ II Thes. 3:3.  He means [this] so as they should not miscarry, and at last fall short of the glory promised; but, being sensible how difficult a work it was for them amidst their own present weaknesses, the apostasies of others, and the assaults of Satan upon themselves, to hold fast the assurance of their hope unto the end, he turns himself from them to speak to God for them.  ‘The Lord direct your hearts.’  And, as if he had said, it is a way you will never find, a work you will never be able to do of yourselves—thus to wait patiently till Christ come, and bring the full reward of the promise with him; the Lord therefore direct your hearts into it.  And Moses, it seems, before he ascended the mount, had a fear and jealousy of what afterward proved too true, that the Israelites' unbelieving hearts would not have the patience to wait for his return, when he should stay some while with God there out of their sight; to prevent which, he gave express command before he went up that they should tarry there for him, Ex 14:14. Indeed, a duty more contrary than this of waiting quietly and silently on God, bear our manners, and lackey after us, before we do what he commands: but if the promise comes not galloping full speed to us, we think it will never be at us.

           Question.  But why doth God, when he hath made a promise, make his people wait so long?

           Answer.  I shall answer this question by asking another. Why doth God make any promise at all to his creature?  This may be well asked, considering how free God was from owing any such kindness to his creature; till, by the mere good pleasure of his will, he put himself into bonds, and made himself, by his promise, a debtor to his elect.  And this proves the former question to be saucy and over-bold.  As if some great rich man should make a poor beggar that is a stranger to him his heir, and when he tells him this, he should ask, ‘But why must I stay so long for it?’  Truly, any time is too soon for him to receive a mercy from God that thinks God's time in sending it too late.  This hasty spirit is as grievous to God as his stay can be to us.  And no wonder God takes it so hei­nously, if we consider the bitter root that bears it.

           First. It proceeds from a selfishness of spirit, whereby we prefer our own content and satisfaction before the glory of God, and this becomes not a gra­cious soul.  Our comfort flows in by the performance of the promise, but the revenue of God's honour is paid into him by our humble waiting on him in the interval between the promise and the performance, and is the main end why he forbears the paying it in hastily.  Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and God sure may better make us wait, before the promise is given in to our embraces by the full accomplishment of it.  ‘For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the prom­ise,’ Heb. 10:36.  It is very fit the master should dine before the man.  And if he would not like a servant that would think much to stay so long from his meal as is required at his hands for waiting at his master’s table, how much more must God dislike the rudeness of our impatient spirits, that would be set at our meal, and have our turn served in the comfort of the prom­ise, before he hath the honour of our waiting on him!

           Second.  It proceeds from deep ingratitude; and this is a sin odious to God and man.  ‘They soon for­gat his works; they waited not for his counsel,’ Ps. 106:13.  God was not behindhand with his people.  It was not so long since he had given them an experi­ment of his power and truth.  He had but newly lent them his hand, and led them dry‑shod through a sea, with which they seemed to be much confirmed in their faith, and enlarged in their acknowledgments, when they came safe to shore: ‘then believed they his words; they sang his praise,’ Ps. 106:12.  One would have thought that God's credit now would have gone for a great sum with them ever after.  But it proved nothing so.  They dare not trust God with so much as their bill of fare—what they shall eat and drink; and therefore it is said, ‘they waited not for his counsel, but lusted exceedingly in the wilderness.’  That is, they prevented the wisdom and providence of God, which would have provided well for them, if they could but have stayed to see how God would have spread their table for them.  And why all this haste? ‘They forgat his works.’  They had lost the thankful sense of what was past, and therefore cannot wait for what was to come.

God oft stays long before he fulfills his promise

           First.  God oft stays long before he pays in the good things of the promise.  The promise contains the matter of all our hopes;—called therefore ‘the hope of the promise.’  To hope without a promise is to claim a debt that never was owing.  Now the good things of the promise are not paid down presently; in­deed, then there would be not such use of the prom­ises.  What need of a bond where the money is pres­ently paid down?  God promised Abraham a son, but he stayed many years for him after the bond of the promise was given him.  He promised Canaan to him and his seed, yet hundreds of years interposed be­tween the promise and performance. Esau was spread into a kingdom before the heirs of promise had their inheritance, or one foot of land [was] given them in it.  Yea, all the patriarchs, who were the third genera­tion after Abraham, died, ‘not having received the promises,’ Heb. 11:13.  Simeon had a promise ‘he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord’s Christ,’ Luke 2:26.  But this was not performed till he had one foot in the grave, and was even taking his leave of the world.

           In a word, those promises which are the portion of all the saints, and may be claimed by one as well as by another, their date is set in the book of God’s de­cree, when to be paid in to a day; some sooner, some later; but not expressed in the promise.  He hath engaged to answer the prayers of his people, and ‘ful­fil the desires of those that fear him,’ Ps. 145:19.  But it proves a long voyage sometimes before the praying saint hath the return of his adventure.  There comes oft a long and sharp winter between the sowing time of prayer and the reaping.  He hears us indeed as soon as we pray, but we oft do not hear him so soon. Prayers are not long on their journey to heaven, but long a‑coming thence in a full answer.  Christ at this day in heaven hath not a full answer to some of those prayers which he put up on earth.  Therefore he is said to ‘expect till his enemies be made a footstool,’ Heb 10:13.  Promises we have for the subduing sin and Satan under our feet, yet we find these enemies still skulking within us; and many a sad scuffle we have with them before they are routed and outed our hearts.  And so with others.  We may find sometime the Christian—as great an heir as he is to joy and comfort—hardly able to show a penny of his heavenly treasure in his purse.  And for want of well pondering this one clause, poor souls are oft led into tempta­tion, even to question their saintship.  ‘Such promises are the saints’ portion,’ saith one; ‘but I cannot find them performed to me, therefore I am none of them. Many a prayer I have sent to heaven, but I hear no news of them.  The saints are conquerors over their lusts; but I am yet often foiled and worsted by mine. There is a heaven of comfort in the promise, but I am as it were in the belly of hell, swallowed up with fears and terrors.’  Such as these are the reasonings of poor souls in the distress of their spirits; whereas all this trouble they put themselves to might be prevented, if they had faith to believe this one principle of un­doubted truth—that God performs not his promises all at once, and that what they want in hand they may see on the way coming to them