Authority Requires Meekness

We have seen that waiting often requires more faith than working. Waiting is one of the tests to which God almost invariably subjects the servants He intends to use. I’ll give you just a little list. Abraham. “You’re going to have a son who will be the head of a nation that will be unique in the Earth.” How long did he have to wait? Twenty-five years. Meanwhile his dear wife Sarah tried to help him and complicated things. It’s interesting, she said, “Listen to me, do what I say.” First of all, have a child by Hagar and later she said get rid of the child. That’s the counsel of the flesh, it’s inconsistent. It tells you to do one thing and later cancels it.

But Abraham became the man he was by waiting. He had to watch his wife pass the age of childbearing and still wait. It amazes me that Abraham is so highly rated in the Bible because, what did he do? Essentially, he was a prosperous cattle farmer and he wandered around the area to the east end of the Mediterranean looking after his flocks and his herds. He did nothing very dramatic until the time came he was willing to offer up his son Isaac.

I’ve often asked myself what was it in Abraham that caused God to esteem him so highly that he was called the friend of God. I’m not sure that I really know the answer but I think one way he earned God’s favor was by waiting. Some of you are going to forfeit God’s favor if you don’t wait.

And then there was Joseph. I love the passage in Psalm 105 that speaks about Joseph. I think I can identify with this to some extent from my own experience. Psalm 105:17 and following:

“God sent a man before them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave. They hurt his feet with fetters, his soul came into irons. Until the time that His word came to pass, the word of the Lord tested him.”

That’s a test. The Lord gives you a glorious, tremendous promise. And after that everything goes the opposite way. Instead of becoming the ruler of your brethren you end up in jail in Egypt. And, I can’t think of a worse place to be in jail than Egypt. What was God doing? Testing him. What was the test? Waiting.

And then if you want to look at others, for example Moses. It says in Numbers 12:3 that Moses was the meekest man on earth. How did Moses learn meekness? By waiting forty years.

Somebody asked a preacher friend of mine, “Why did God keep Moses waiting forty years?” The answer was, “Because He couldn’t do it in thirty-nine.”

God will not finish until the test is complete. When Moses first thought he could deliver Israel out of Egypt he was a very arrogant young man. Forty years later he was the meekest man on earth. And, no one except Jesus has ever exercised such authority as Moses exercised. So, if you want to have authority, you know what you need to cultivate? Meekness. God cannot trust His authority to the arrogant, the proud, the self-assertive.