1 Samuel 13:8-10 And he tarried seven days, according to the set time that Samuel had appointed: but Samuel came not to Gilgal… (with 1 Timothy 1:16): — The figure of Samuel is scarcely ever presented to us alone. In childhood it is ever set in contrast with the wicked practices of those sons of Eli. Those young men defiled with sin the sanctuary of God: that child adhered to duty in the very presence of their ill example. In manhood and old age, the prophet is ever confronted with the king; the messenger sent to select, to anoint, to counsel, at last to warn and to reprove, to judge and to condemn, with the unhappy object of all these ministrations; whose advancement seemed in the fore view so full of honour and of happiness, but was made by his ungoverned temper and perverse self-will so ruinous to his own peace and to his people's welfare. The king had been expressly charged to await the coming of the prophet to offer an offering in Gilgal. It was a trial of fidelity and obedience. If Saul really believed that the direction was from God, and if he was really anxious to obey God, he would wait. If he allowed any other considerations to come in, considerations of self-interest, of expediency, of what was reasonable or probable apart from the command, then, tried as he was to be, he would certainly anticipate the ceremony, and not wait. The seven days ran their course, and there was no sign of Samuel's approach. Meanwhile the people were discouraged. Accordingly the king's resolution gave way. There was some excuse, considerable temptation, no slight admixture of better motives, some superstition, some religion, some sense of the necessity of God's help, much neglect of God's directions as to the proper way of securing it. Saul's fell on this occasion through the operation of a principle (if so it can be called) which is natural to all of us, the principle of impatience. How many errors, faults, and sins, in our lives, spring out of this source! We scarcely ever do a thing (as we express it) in a hurry, without having afterwards to regret it. Nothing so done is likely to be well done. A thing may be done quickly, and well done, but not hurriedly, not in impatience. How many things have to be done twice over, because they were not done once quietly! Sometimes out of a little momentary act of haste springs a misunderstanding never to be cleared up, a quarrel never to be reconciled, an injustice never to be repaired. It is thus that impatience shows itself in the little daily acts of life: but it has a still more serious influence upon life's greater changes. Every condition of life has its less pleasant side: those who think they have a right to a portion wholly agreeable fret under these alloys of enjoyment, and can sea almost nothing else in the lot assigned to them. Every rank and every age is liable to this feeling. A servant has become dissatisfied with his present position, and in the hurry of his impatience he suddenly resolves to make a change: how often, how often, for the worse! He has changed perhaps a kind master for one cold and considerate, a Christian home for a worldly, a safe place for one full of temptation, and in point of comfort, meanwhile, he has gained nothing. He would fain have returned, but the door is closed, and even if he could, pride would not let him. And how often has a man of mature age erred, and marred his life, through the very same impatience! Keenly alive to the trials of his present position he has greedily seized some opening for change. Bitterly may he one day regret that unthankful spirit of human impatience, which doubled the aggravations of the then known and present, and blinded him to the certain dangers of the then untried and future. But most of all is the working of this mind seen, as it was seen in King Saul, when there is not only a lurking imprudence but also a lurking disobedience. It was not merely that Saul was too much in a hurry, and did that precipitately which he might have done quietly: he showed the strength of his impatience by letting it interfere with and overbear a plain command of God. And how often now is the same sin committed! A man impatient of what is, is in no safe state for choosing what shall be. To say nothing of things positively forbidden, choices which can only be made by absolute sin, there are many things wrong for the individual though not wrong for another, and of which God, in the manifold workings of conscience and of His Spirit, leaves us not in ignorance or forgetfulness. But, like all God's admonitions, these may be overborne, and often are so. There is yet, perhaps, a just application of the history before us to the subject of human impatience in matters more entirely and purely spiritual. There is a strong yearning in the heart of man for the realisation of God. We long, and it is right to do so, for something more than a mere book knowledge or a mere head knowledge of Christ and of His salvation. We would believe, not because of the saying of another, but because we have seen Him for ourselves, and know that He is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world. But, O how many, in the sickness of a hope deferred, have at last discarded it; in the impatience of nature, they have said at last. The happiness, the blessedness, of a realised conviction is not for me: they have either ceased to look for it, and gone back into the world of sense and sin, or they have accepted some lie in its place; have put their trust in forms or in shadows, in things external and ceremonial. Thus, in one way or another, after waiting their seven days almost but not quite to a termination, they have despaired of the promised advent of comfort and illumination; they have seized some offering of their own, and offered it instead of that which God hath provided; they have satisfied conscience and stifled the Spirit. Human impatience has forced itself into things spiritual, and destroyed for the soul itself God's best and highest gift. I have reserved the last few words of my sermon for that beautiful and touching thought which should correct as well as contrast with the impatience of man, the thought, I mean, of the long suffering of Christ. St. Paul gives this as the object with which he, once a blasphemer and a persecutor, he the chief of sinners, had obtained mercy, that in him first Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering for a pattern to those who should hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting. If Jesus Christ were impatient like us, where should we be at this time — where, and what? His ways are not as our ways: if He dealt with us at all as the very best deal with one another, there is not a man upon earth who would live to grow up: one and twenty years of such provocation would be absolutely impossible. But to all things there is an end. A day of grace implies a morning, a mid-day, and an evening; implies too a deep dead midnight when all work has stood still, when all prayer is silent. Let patience have her perfect work, the patience of Christ which so long calls you to repentance. (C. J. Vaughan, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And he tarried seven days, according to the set time that Samuel had appointed: but Samuel came not to Gilgal; and the people were scattered from him. |
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