[0:00] Hebrews chapter 10, we read at verse 36. For ye have need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.
[0:14] Now, it would be very easy for us to read this verse and think of it simply as a rebuke. As though the apostle is writing to the Hebrew Christians and saying, Oh, come on, guys, you've got to show a bit more patience than you have.
[0:27] You're not being patient enough. You know, tick them off and say, You've got need of patience. Why aren't you doing better? I would suggest to you that in the context and in the tone of this letter and of this chapter, the context in which this verse is given, this isn't so much a rebuke, but it's almost in terms of, and I don't mean this in any irreverent sense, but just as an illustration, almost like sort of a recipe.
[0:57] It's like one cook saying to another, Look, you need so many ounces of sugar and so many ounces of self-raising flour, and you need to add this, and you need to mix in the egg, and then it's going to go in the oven for a certain amount of time.
[1:13] And I'll say, Oh, why haven't you put in the sugar yet? Why haven't you added the flour? What a mess you're making of this. And I'll say, Look, you've got need of this. This is an ingredient that has to be added to your Christian walk, to your Christian witness.
[1:28] You have need of patience. Like saying you've got need of an extra spoonful of flour here. You need a wee spoonful of sugar here with a few ounces of this, an extra dose of that, and then it goes in the oven, and then it has to rise, and whatever it is it's been making.
[1:43] If you were meant to put something in an oven for 20 minutes or 40 minutes or whatever, it's no use to keep opening it after two minutes and five minutes and say, Why isn't it done yet?
[1:53] Oh, it goes again. I wonder if it's done yet. Open it again. No, it's still not done. Every time you do that, you're affecting its cooking. Every time you do that, you're affecting the potency of what is being done.
[2:07] It's not being allowed to complete its work in the oven. It's not all the ingredients are not being enabled to work together under the conditions that will bring forth the finished product.
[2:22] Now, some of you will know that in the prayer meetings on Wednesdays, we've been looking at the book of James. And in the opening chapter of James, some of you may remember, at verse 4, it says in verses 3 and 4, Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience, but let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
[2:47] And we said, of course, that the word perfect there, it doesn't mean sinless or without flaw. It means completed. It means fulfilled. It's perfect work.
[2:58] It's its work completed. Brought the design. Like putting something in the oven and giving it the perfect amount of time, checking it after it says, yes, it's risen completely.
[3:09] It's just nicely, lightly brown. It's just perfect. And you bring it out. You set it out to cool. Nobody's saying, I couldn't have done a better job. Nobody could make a better flan or souffle or loaf of bread or whatever than I've made here.
[3:23] It's just that you've put in the right ingredients. You've given it the right time. There it is. It's risen beautifully. Now it's just right. It's perfect. Take it out. Get the benefit of it.
[3:33] Let patience have her perfect work. Ye have need of patience. This is not rebuke. It is advice.
[3:44] As to how believers should make use of that which the Lord has already given them. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.
[4:00] Longsuffering is one aspect of this one fruit. They are not all separately listed items. They're all part of the one fruit. It's like saying the apple that I pluck off this tree.
[4:12] It's juicy. It's red. It's crunchy. It's got this delicate flavor. You can use all manner of things to describe it but it's still one apple in your hand. So likewise the fruit of the Spirit being love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance and so on.
[4:30] These things are all aspects, descriptions of the work of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit. Patience, longsuffering is in there. That's part of it.
[4:42] When the Lord takes a person and changes them from darkness to light, from death to alive in the Lord, when he changes their heart and gives them a new heart, patience is one aspect of the work of the Spirit that's in there.
[5:00] It's like saying to somebody cooking up the recipe, now you've got your bicarbonate and soda there in the cupboard, you've got your sugar, you've got your flour, you've got your eggs there, you've got all these things.
[5:11] Now this is how you need to put it together. It's as though saying, well you've got your patience, it's there in the cupboard, it's there in your heart somewhere. This is where you need to bring it out. This is where you need to apply it.
[5:23] It's part of the recipe. It's part of what goes to make a completed Christian. And likewise what James is talking about in testing and trying of one's faith, this is what the Apostle here is talking about as well.
[5:40] It is the testing and trial. You were made a gazing stock by reproaches and afflictions, partly while you became companions of them that were so used in compassion of me and my bonds.
[5:51] Don't cast away your confidence, which are great recompense and reward. You've come this far. Don't let it all be spoiled by a failure to apply patience.
[6:04] I know you have it, he is saying. Now is the time to use it. You have need of patience. This is what you need to add now to the recipe.
[6:16] That after you have done the will of God, you might receive the promise. Now, there is a suggestion here, you know, that there's the doing and then there's the waiting.
[6:29] As though, you know, you do the will of God and then you sit in your hands and you watch the sky and you wait for the Lord to come back. No, the patience, the waiting on the Lord is part of the doing of the will of God.
[6:43] It's not a sense of frenetic activity in one hand and then complete passivity. It's like, as one commentator has likened it to, if the Christian is a stone cut from the mat, precious stone, and it is as though the Lord polishes up one side with the active and with the work and with the struggle and with the witness and everything.
[7:06] And then he turns it over and he polishes up the other side, which is that which requires the sufferance, the waiting, the expectation, the patience.
[7:19] Because the serving of the Lord, the relationship with the Lord is, it's precisely that. It's we would sense like a recipe. You could also say it's a relationship.
[7:30] I know you'll be tired of people saying that the Christian life is more of a relationship, it's not a religion. That's true. If you think about a relationship, no, it has to be prepared to wait.
[7:42] How many of you in your younger days, you had an appointment, let's say, so-and-so agreed to meet you in town, outside such-and-such a shop, and they said maybe four o'clock, and then you're at four o'clock, five past, and they're still not there.
[7:55] Now, if you have a legalist mind, you would say, right, four o'clock, not here, right, I'm off. Or say, right, I've waited one minute past, that's it. That's not relationship, that's a legalist attitude.
[8:08] That's saying, they haven't been here, they didn't do what they said they were, that's it, it's all over. That relationship is already over before it has begun, because there's no love in it.
[8:19] There's no patience in it. Love is part of patience. Patience is part of love. They might say, well, I'll wait again, I'll wait maybe ten more minutes, I'll wait half an hour, I'll see there must be a good explanation.
[8:30] Maybe the bus broke down, maybe something happened, maybe there's been an accident, maybe there's a perfectly reasonable explanation. I remember once my old minister in Aberdeen describing a situation whereby, when he was younger, he had agreed to meet his wife in Dundee, where they lived outside at the front, at the door, outside the door of a major department store in the town.
[8:52] And he was waiting and waiting, and there was no sign of her, no sign of her. And eventually he got home and said, where were you? She said, well, where were you? She was waiting outside, except there were two doors. There was one onto one street, and one onto a different street.
[9:06] And he was waiting outside one, and she was waiting outside the other. And in the days before mobile phones, nobody had a chance to contact the other one and say, where are you? They were both right.
[9:17] There was a perfectly good explanation. It's just they hadn't agreed on which door it would be. They both thought they were doing the right thing. If somebody fails to turn up in the expected time, or even in the agreed time, it doesn't mean that they've thrown you over.
[9:36] It doesn't mean they've forgotten all about you. It's more likely to mean something has happened. There has been a hold-up. Or it might even be, if they're wanting to play tricks on your heart or detest you, that they are waiting around the corner watching and saying, what will they do if I'm a few minutes late?
[9:54] Will they wait for me? Or will they say, that's it, I'm off, they haven't shown, and so on. What is the depth of their affection for me? Are they starting to look a little bit worried? Will they be concerned, or will they just start to get angry?
[10:07] What will they do? Now, it might be a tad unkind to toy with somebody's heart like that. But where the Lord is concerned, he always keeps his word.
[10:20] But our understanding or expectation of when he is going to come, or when he is going to do a certain thing for us, may not be exactly what he said.
[10:33] We may just have picked it up with a sense of expectation. If you think about it, it's not just the relationship or the rendezvous or whatever.
[10:44] But waiting and patience is part of the biblical relationship with the Lord, not just for the Christian, but also in the Old Testament.
[10:55] You know, the apostle goes on to cite, you know, from verse 36, it said in verse 37, Now he's quoting, effectively, Habakkuk.
[11:11] Chapter 2, verses 1 to 4. I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved.
[11:24] And the Lord answered me and said, Write the vision, make it plain upon tables, that he may run that we did it, for the vision is yet for an appointed time. But at the end it shall speak, and not lie.
[11:36] Though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come. It will not tarry. Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him, but the just shall live by his faith.
[11:51] That's exactly what Hebrews is quoting here in verses 37 and 38. Back in the Old Testament, the prophets knew, The Lord has said a particular thing. He will do it.
[12:02] He may take a certain amount of time to do it. He cannot be pinned down with dotted I's and cross T's, saying, Right, we've done the will of God. That's it.
[12:13] We've followed exactly the letter of the law. We've followed exactly everything we've said. We may do and do and do, and still fail to wait, and still fail to show that patience, which is an essential part of the fruit of the spirit, of the relationship with the Lord.
[12:35] We talked about an apple a wee while ago. Suppose when you take this apple, it's shiny, it's red, it's grungy, it's sweet, it's beautiful, and you turn it around, Oh, look, there's a little worm poking its head out of one side of it.
[12:49] But the rest of it is fine. There's only one little bit that's got the worm poking its head out of it. So, you know, let's not worry about it. We can still put that on the shelf in the supermarket and expect people to buy it, can't you?
[13:00] Can it be like the traditional acythe, the so-called curate's egg, which he described as, Well, it was good in parts. You know, if you open an egg up when you're about to eat your boiled egg, you say, Well, this bit's good, but actually that bit's rotten.
[13:13] That bit's okay, but that bit's a bit iffy. No. Good in parts, it means it's not good. This is one reason why the Lord cannot have iniquity and sin with him in heaven.
[13:27] You can't say, Well, most of your life was okay. You know, you did more good than you did sin, more than evil, you know. So we'll just bring you in, sins and all. You can't have sin in glory, in heaven, in the presence of the Almighty.
[13:40] You cannot have sin. He is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. You can't bring an apple with a worm in it and say, Look, perfect piece of fruit. It's not. You can't bring an egg and say, Well, some of it's okay.
[13:53] It's just part of it that's gone rotten. You can't bring in a, supposedly a spotless white tablecloth and say, Look, it's good. There's only a few specks of dirt on it. It's not enough.
[14:03] It has to be perfect. Patience is part of what perfects the work of God. You have need of patience. That after you have done the will of God, you might receive the promise.
[14:18] You see what Jesus says in Matthew chapter 7. This is part of the Sermon on the Mount here. He says, Not everyone that say to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father, which is in heaven.
[14:33] Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name have done many wonderful works. Then will I profess so to them.
[14:45] I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Well, how can you be saying you work iniquity if you're casting out devils and you're doing wonderful things in God's name?
[14:57] Well, it doesn't say you that rocked iniquity. You that all the things you did in the past were iniquity. No, we say those were fine, but what are you doing now? That's what you did in the past.
[15:08] This is what your great claim is. Oh, Lord, in the past I cast out devils. I did great miracles in your name. I've done wonderful things. I proclaim things in your street.
[15:19] That's what you did, and that was then. But this chapter in Hebrews is talking about, amongst other things, those who sin willfully after they've received the knowledge of the truth, after they've done the right things, they then go and do the wrong things.
[15:35] They don't wait. They don't have the patience to see what the Lord intends to do. If only Judas had waited to see how the Lord intended to unfold the work of his kingdom.
[15:51] If only Judas, after three and a half years with the Lord, had not sold him for 30 pieces of silver. If he had just waited three more days, he would have seen the power of Christ revealed in the resurrection.
[16:05] He would have had the appearance in the upper room. He'd have been shown his hands and his feet saying, this is a power greater than Rome. This is a power that all the empires in the world cannot conquer, cannot overcome.
[16:17] This is the kind of kingdom I am bringing in. And he would have been convinced. But he did all the things right up to then. Oh, we've cast out devils in your streets.
[16:28] Oh, we've done this. Oh, we've done that. That's what you did. And it was fine as far as it went. Judas was sent out with the 12 two by two. They cast out demons. They preached the gospel.
[16:39] They did wonderful things. They healed people. And no doubt again, perhaps with the other 72, he was uniquely blessed with the 12 there. He had the privilege of being close with Jesus all those years.
[16:54] To be an apostle of the Lord, what a privilege. And yet Judas had that privilege. And yet he let it go at the end because he wouldn't wait. He wouldn't have that patience.
[17:07] Jesus says to these, depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Work iniquity, that's what you do now. Whatever you may have done in the past, how are you working iniquity now?
[17:18] By abandoning the Lord. By not waiting upon the Lord. By saying, well, Lord, you didn't do it in the set time, so that's me. I'm done with you now. I'm off. You said, and you didn't keep your word.
[17:29] What did God actually say? What did God actually promise? What God promises is, that if we wait upon him, he will fulfill his part.
[17:41] Again, going back to the Old Testament, Psalm 27, verses 13 and 14, I have fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
[17:54] Wait on the Lord. Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord.
[18:05] Now, that's way back in the Old Testament. It's not just in the Gospel that believers are meant to wait on the Lord. We have need of patience. Now, patience is not an easy thing to exercise.
[18:17] It's not just a case of sitting on your hands and just watching the sky. It's not just a case of doing nothing. It is a case of passively waiting in expectation.
[18:31] When we have done all the active sight, or when we still continue what is necessary in the active sight, to still be waiting on the Lord with expectation.
[18:42] And for however many years we may think, well, he didn't come, and he didn't come, and he didn't come. There will be reasons why he hasn't come yet. There will be reasons why you haven't seen some of the things you may have hoped for just yet.
[18:57] There will always be good reasons. And some of the difficulty may be that we are suffering, perhaps, as believers. You had compassion on me, he said.
[19:09] You were made a gazing stock. You endured a great fight of afflictions. You've had all this. Don't throw it all away for lack of patience. It is part of the testing, part of the trial of our faith.
[19:24] Those of you that think it in sporting terms, how many major sporting events have been lost in injury time, or in the last couple of minutes has been a complete turnaround, and you thought so-and-so was cruising for a win, and then it all changed in the last couple of minutes.
[19:44] It's not who's in front for most of the competition that matters. It's who's in front of the end. It's who plays up the referee's whistle. It's who keeps on going until the Lord says, Stop.
[19:56] Peter says in 1 Peter 4, verse 19, Wherefore, let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well-doing as unto a faithful creator.
[20:12] Trust that he is in charge, that he has control, that nothing is happening outside of God's sovereign intention. And in chapter 5, verse 10, That the God of all grace who has called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that you have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you.
[20:36] You see, suffering isn't just, in terms of, especially if you think of the old-fashioned language of the authorised version. It's not just about pain. It's not just about enduring things that are difficult.
[20:49] It almost means, also means allowing. Allowing things. And when bad things happen to us and when we're tested and when we're tried, it may not be necessarily the Lord is doing them to us, but he is allowing them to happen to us.
[21:06] Allow it. You know, when Jesus says, Suffer the little children that come unto me and forbid them not, he's not saying, make them really go through pain. He's saying, allow them to come to me.
[21:17] When Jesus speaks to John the Baptist in Matthew 3 about his own baptism and John hesitates to baptize Jesus, he says, you know, I need to be baptized with you.
[21:29] Are you coming to me? And Jesus answering said, Suffer it to be so now. Allow it to be so now. For thus it become of us to fulfill all righteousness. Then he suffered him.
[21:41] Doesn't mean then he endured great pain of affliction. He allowed it. And that which the Lord allows, he allows for a reason and for a purpose.
[21:52] And it may be that we are the equivalent of the cake or the souffle or whatever that's in the oven with all its different ingredients mixed together. And he is mixed in the patience and the long suffering and the endurance and the love and the joy and the peace and the temperance and it's all in there being baked.
[22:10] And the heat is turning up. And what's happening when the heat turns up? It rises. The effect, the product rises. It becomes perfected.
[22:22] It becomes its most sweet and edible. It becomes just right. As the chef or the cook intended it. and sometimes we are subjected to a bit of heat and a bit of suffering and endurance.
[22:38] You have need of patience. I'm not saying to everybody, oh, I've only suffered more. You'd be better people. What I'm saying is, as the apostle is saying here, this is part of the recipe.
[22:51] This is part of the relationship. Everybody knows in any relationship of love, waiting will be part of it. It will be a necessary part of it.
[23:02] How many wives are anxious when their husband is away on business? How many husbands wait anxiously outside the maternity room when their wives are giving birth to maybe their first child or whatever?
[23:13] There's waiting, waiting for an answer, waiting for a word, waiting to meet them at the airport, waiting. It's part of love. It is the patience which knows that just because they haven't come yet, it doesn't mean they don't love you.
[23:29] Just because you're going through some particular anguish or problem or difficulty, it is not because God is a sadist. It is because he is testing, trying in the sense of giving trial to your faith.
[23:46] He wants it to be able to show its love. If we can go back to the illustration of young people meeting and ones maybe hiding around the corner saying, how will they react?
[23:59] How will they react if I'm not there bang on time? Do they begin to look worried? Do they begin to look hurt? How long will they wait for me? And just when they're about to get first, say, okay, they're obviously not coming and they're not going off in anger.
[24:12] They're not about to say, how dare they stand me up like this? They're just saying, obviously they didn't want to come. Obviously I was wrong. I was mistaken. I thought they wanted to meet me.
[24:23] I thought, you know, I've waited all this time and now, okay, my heart's about to break, I'm off. And now he's come. And then, well, why didn't he come half an hour ago? Well, we don't know all about how the way the Lord works.
[24:36] You know, the instance in the Old Testament about how Samuel keeps Saul waiting before he arrives when they're meant to be offering up sacrifice.
[24:47] I think it's in chapter 12 or 13 or thereabouts of 1 Samuel. And, you know, you read it and you think, well, for goodness sake, why didn't Samuel just come? Why didn't it just happen? You know, they were complaining about the seed in the panicle that sprang up and it was looking good and it just didn't endure that.
[25:03] Why didn't they just harvest it sooner? You can't just harvest grain when it's green and when it's raw. You can't pluck the apple off the tree when it's little and hard.
[25:15] You've got to wait. And some of that waiting time will be thunderstorms and rain showers and some of it will be sunshine and some of it will be night and some of it will be exposing the fruit or the harvest to all manner of potential pests or dangers.
[25:34] That is part of the risk. It is part of the relationship you have need of patience that after you have done the will of God you might receive the promise.
[25:47] Doing the will of God is not merely a condition of activity of busyness. It is also a waiting. It is also a patience.
[26:00] I waited patiently for the Lord. I waited for the Lord my God and patiently to bear a length to me he didn't cry my voice and cry to hear.
[26:11] In Philippians chapter 2 we read a big burn chapter 1 we read verses 29 and 30 for unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ not only to believe on him but also to suffer for his sake having the same conflict which he saw in me and now here to be in me.
[26:30] Paul is not looking for the Philippians saying you guys you have to suffer me I'm okay I'm fine I'm here safe in my house people come to me I write letters I tell people what to do but I kept pretty safe I've got a cushy number you know he had been as he says to him shipwrecked a night and a day he'd spent in the deep three times he'd received the forty stripes saved one he'd been whipped he'd been cast into prison he'd been stoned he'd been left for dead he bore about in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus he had been through it all so he can write them and say this is what you can expect but at the end of the day boy is it worth it you have need of patience that after you've done the will of God you might receive the promise we turn back a couple of chapters and we find in Hebrews 6 at verse 15 talking about Abraham God made promise to Abraham because he could swear by no greater he swore by himself saying surely blessing
[27:31] I will bless thee and multiplying I will multiply thee and so after he had patiently endured he obtained the promise Abraham waited 25 years for the promise of Isaac to be fulfilled and in all that time he wasn't being persecuted and thrown into prison he wasn't being attacked and beaten it's just that he had to go on with his life day by day by day wondering waiting will this month be the time will this occasion be the time will this year be the one and it wasn't and it wasn't and it wasn't and it wasn't and then the time came when Sarah ordinarily speaking could no longer have children and Abraham would have thought well that's it you know I've waited the Lord appears not to have kept his word but what the Lord wanted to do was to show not only his power but to show his delight in his servant in doing not merely that which was unlikely or perhaps medically risky with an elderly couple but doing that which was impossible taking one as good as dead and making him a father of many nations taking an elderly woman past the age of being able to bear children and producing a healthy son
[28:56] God doing the impossible after he had patiently endured he obtained a promise and if we were to go back to verse 10 of Hebrews 6 it says God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love which you have showed toward his name and that you have ministered to the saints and do minister he doesn't forget you he's not unmindful of you but you do have need of patience this is part of the recipe it's not an undesirable optional extra it's not if you want to tick this box and have a suffering Christian life or take this box and have a nice cushy easy Christian life where nothing goes wrong that isn't an option to us we either take Christ as he is or not and when we take Christ we take him all we take all the sufferings we take all the difficulties we take the need for waiting on him in patience we take the disappointments at times when we thought he was saying one thing to us and we waited with expectation and it proves we were mistaken he meant to say something different we just picked it up wrong you have need of patience we all have need of patience if we are to continue this
[30:18] Christian life it is an essential part of the make up of that relationship it is an essential part of any relationship as we have given examples already any long term relationship any marriage there is going to be patience needed your spouse or your loved one or your children or your parents they need patience with you believe you me and yes you need patience with them because patience is part of this fruit of the spirit but each day that passes that for which we wait draws nearer your life and mine upon earth is not infinite it is finite every day every year that is marked and that passes we know that we are drawing closer to whatever the end of our days may be we don't know when that will be we might not see the end we might not see the end of next week we all tell ourselves we have no promise of tomorrow but really we expect to have a certain number of years ahead but whatever the
[31:30] Lord does whether he cuts us short tonight or whether he leaves us for another 50 years that is his prerogative you know what the disciples said about John and Jesus said if it be my will he wait until I come what is that to you follow thou me we can get hung up upon what other people and you are the easier life that we think other people have but believe you me it'll only be because we don't see everything in their lives they may seem to have some things that are more triumphal and successful than us but other aspects of their life that maybe we don't see there will be crosses that they are bearing that we know nothing about far greater perhaps than the ones we are bearing but each day that passes the Lord's fulfilment of his promise draws nearer Romans 13 at verse 12 we read the night is far spent the day is at hand let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armour of light because the day is drawing ever nearer the Lord is nearer to coming back we are nearer to beholding him in glory now this
[32:43] Lord's day than we were last Lord's day now in 2016 and we were in the year 2000 you have need of patience it's an essential part of what the Lord requires of us and you have come so far whatever your stage in the journey it is only the Lord that has brought you thus far hitherto hath the Lord helped us don't throw it all back don't let it all go in fact the Lord has this way of dealing with his people in such a way that they can't turn back they can't let go I'll just give you one little illustration of that from the physical world a couple of years back I had to attend a meeting in Edinburgh in February it was still pitch dark when I left the house with the car the street lights were all still off at that time of the morning and it was dark and there was snow on the ground I thought well let's leave it if he's so never mind took all the roads carefully all the roads in Scalpy and everything with all the hills and the blind summits and the towns they were fine
[33:45] I got across the bridge and suddenly in Kyle's the car started sliding all over the place and Kyle's has got almost as many dips in hills as Scalpy has as you know so I was beginning to get a bit worried a bit scared it wasn't so much whether or not I could control the car but what if another car comes round the corner and it can't be controlled so I'm getting up the hill and on at the Canagreek and I'm going to go back there's no way I'm going to make it to Tarver let alone to Stormy this is just way too dangerous and then I reached to myself well if you're going to stop and turn back where are you going to do a three point turn in the middle of this kind of road with ice underneath it and something could come round the corner or over a blind summit and go smack into you while you're halfway across the road you can't risk it they can't stop even if you could what are you going to do you can't go back you just have to go on so I went on and I went on and you get to the top of those bumps you know before you come to
[34:53] Arraga and the little valley there and yet going down there even more terrified praying every step of the way but you're down there no way you can go back up again in the ice and in the snow and coming to the top of the hill of Arraga down because it can't get up the hill here's me even going up and down and everything but it can't go any further there's no way I can turn round and go back after that but the Lord in his mercy by then there was grip on the road after that beyond where the lorry had been and so on and he enabled us to keep going but he makes it so often that even if you want to turn back even if Pontius thinks yes I can't go further I must turn back you can't turn back and if the Lord has his spirit in your heart there's no way you can go back there's no way you can throw up all the years that he has poured into you all the effort he has made with you all the blessings he has given you he paints you in a corner sometimes so that you can't go back thanks be to God but if we are going to keep going then verse 36 you have need of patience that after you have done the will of God you might receive the promise if we turn back and throw it all away there's no more sacrifice for sin there's nothing else that can be made but a certain fearful looking for a judgment it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living gods verse 31 but the
[36:29] Lord when he supplies his spirit he supplies all the fruit of it you're doing something with a recipe you might have to hunt through the different cupboards and look in the drawers before you find the ingredient that you need if the Lord has worked in your heart then part of the fruit of the spirit he has given you will be patience long sufferer he has given you that hunt through your cupboards look in the drawers look in all the secret places of your hearts and dig out that commodity that we have need of if we are going to go on because assuredly we can't go back ye have need of patience that after you've done the will of God you might receive the promise peace you your thanks to you Jose others who have on you to humble conversions people or almostime into a heart to his husbandæ²’ o intervene as a father god