Today's Gospel Message

I would like to share with you some thoughts on haste.

“He that believeth shall not make haste.”
Isaiah 28:16

Hurry, hurry is the cry of the moment. Time is money; let’s get it done as fast as we can. We seem to rush from one thing to another so that we have very little time free from the hurry of the hour. There seems to be a real lack of restfulness in our lives. The stress and push take their toll in lives every day. This is also true in churches as numbers of people and meetings fill our week nights. George Morrison used this text years ago in a sermon on “The Leisure of Faith” and he points out that where there is greater haste there is also found lesser faith.

We do not become strong mature Christians overnight. God moves slowly but surely in our lives to accomplish His will in us. It took years for Israel to learn the lessons from God. It takes us a long time to learn from God that which He wants us to learn. God is not hasty in His judgments and in his dealings with us.

The haste of which our text speaks is not the urgency and the push that is laid upon the serious Christian to get the work done. The harvest is ready and the workers are few. Every Christian should sense the urgency and the “now-ness” of the hour in which we live. Yet he will “run with patience the race that is set before him”. UN-hasting, not UN-resting should be our motto.

Our text speaks of the haste that makes waste. Haste without faith produces work without fruit. We Christians find ourselves caught up in the rush and hurry of the day. We find we are more interested in producing results in less time than we are in waiting on God with patience and with faith. This haste is the cause for many of our problems.

Hasty judgments are so easy to make and yet cause much hurt. Why is it so hard to hold back from making a hasty judgment? There seems to be nothing harder than to suspend judgment of another in our daily contact with people.

We live in haste to get enough money saved so we can retire. Many a couple have saved and worked hard for enough for the later years, only to find out at retirement that they have no more strength left. Why not a four day week if we can get the work of five days done in four? Result is poor quality and wasted time.

Hasty decisions have been the cause of failure in many instances. We need always to guard ourselves as Christians in this matter of decision. It’s the little decisions that make the difference, it takes time to know God’s will in making those decisions. God’s promise to us is:

“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.”

It is our desire that this little message be a blessing to each of you.

Thank you very, very much..
Bill Gibson
Craig Alaska, Fall 1985