Hebrews 10:36 For you have need of patience, that, after you have done the will of God, you might receive the promise. Observe patience in its poise and pose. It is the consummation of a thing which determines its appreciation. Nothing that is desirable looks to be such in its preliminary stages. On the contrary, whatever is exquisite in its completeness may be unsightly in its incipience. Patience alone comprehends the cases and fulfils the course. Patience sees things as they are by seeing things as they shall be; patience puts things together and makes sense of them. It is the Divine glory to see the end from the beginning; it is human wisdom to see the beginning from the end. Right triumphs in the sequel. Great truths move over the world at their own paces. Ships move when they seem only to rock, cutting their curves against the sky. Prejudices die, truth comes out by the witness of reason and the facts of history, as the kernel of grain comes out, just when the husk drops away. Any great cause seems, for a long time, to be a struggling and a sorry cause. Generations always scout what is to be the pride of coming generations. That old maxim, "Magna est veritas et prevalebit," is not correct in any sense of immediata consequence. Justice is the latest arrival, the last intelligence upon earth, but justice comes to stay. Justice once done is done for ever. Its final decision is distinct. No man is so sure to be righted as the man who is wronged; no heart is so sure to be remembered as the heart that was slighted; no character is so likely to be lauded as the character which has been scouted; no man is so certain to be remembered as he who had been forgotten, he who, for sake of others, could forego himself. These all hoard their claims, and put them out at interest, as the provident pinch themselves to invest their savings, that the present may lay up for the future. It is the sequel that determines any fact, as the denouement determines a fiction. Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. Now, look a little further, taking a wider range. The patience of faith is the self-possession of fact; the long agony of time is the long suffering of eternity. Most unbelief is petulant impatience. If there be a God, to worship is to wait; to wait is to worship; to wait upon Him is to have Him for waiting. Tread softly; speak gently amid these ranges and mazes. Look cheerfully upon these mysteries. God is busy with His own arrangements. His kingdom is coming by His own processes, in His own time and ways. (H. S. Carpenter.) Parallel Verses KJV: For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.WEB: For you need endurance so that, having done the will of God, you may receive the promise. |
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