How To Walk And Not Be Weary

Introduction

I’d go a different way with the microphone tonight. It speaks so this morning. Good to see each of you present tonight, and certainly it’s been a beautiful day to come together to worship the Lord and enjoy the blessings that He’s bestowed upon us. Some of you have asked about the class tomorrow night that my wife Arlene teaches. And though she has been ill and not able to be out today, I know that she is planning to be here tomorrow evening. She was studying this afternoon when I left. And it’ll be the last class in the study of the book of Esther, the last two chapters if you’ve been attending, and I know it’ll encourage her, and she appreciates so much for those who can come at the 7 o’clock hour tomorrow evening.

This morning I announced that tonight I wanted to preach a lesson that I would call how to run and not be weary. Those of you who know me know that I’m not talking just about athletics. There’s a time when I used to jog, but I always got weary. In fact, I always uh like that philosophy that said that running is like hitting your head over uh with a hammer. It felt good when you quit. I never got to the point of thinking that jogging was just something that you know you couldn’t quit. I’ve heard of people who get into that thought that it’s just sort of some kind of ethereal feeling that they just want to keep on keeping on running. But obviously, I’m talking about a passage from the scripture that uses the expression how to run and not be weary.

But it’s not talking just simply about physical running, but rather about spiritual. I think it’s one of the most beautiful passages in all the Bible that encourages us and strengthen us. It’s found in Isaiah chapter 40, and in verse 31. Isaiah 40 and verse 31, that says, 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. They shall walk and not faint. To be able to run and not be weary, to walk and not faint, even to mount up with wings as eagles, obviously, is a figure of speech, is a way of describing the kind of help and encouragement and assistance to keep on keeping on that we receive from the Lord Himself.

1. Man Is of Few Days and Full of Trouble

Indeed, all of us, in our pilgrimage to the heavenly city, experience troubles and sorrows and trials and disappointments along the way. I think we all can relate even to the statement of Job in chapter 14 and verse 1, when he said, Man that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. We know not how many days we have, but even if we live to be what we might call a rife old age, it’d still be few. And certainly every one of us, young or old, experience frailties of the flesh. Not only sometimes do we have physical inabilities, but we sometimes experience such disappointments in life. Some of the hopes and aspirations are never fulfilled. Sometimes even those things that we feel like are just do not occur.

How often do we hear life is just not fair? Well, there’s some people who feel that way all the time. Life is just not fair. But actually, God has not promised heaven on earth. And indeed, what is just and what is fair will be rewarded to those who are his faithful servants. But while God hasn’t promised heaven on earth, that is a perfect dwelling place, he has promised to help those who are his. We may find ourselves facing.

And becoming so discouraged that they almost want to quit. I have seen some who even quit trying to serve the Lord. Because they wonder, why did the Lord let this happen to me? Well, as a good God let that happen, is sometimes the way it is worded. But indeed, it’s the wrong perspective of God. He hasn’t caused the trouble and the sorrows in life. We need to be blaming the devil, because it is the result of sin that death came about, physical death, as well as the separation from God. And as a result of that physical death, the body begins to have its own maladies and frailties and the things that cause us so many disappointments in this life are really the result of sin itself.

So let’s blame the devil, not God, when those things do happen. The man who does not have God as his strength, he really faces life in a different perspective. He faces life without hope. There’s a great deal of difference between living life with hope and living life hopeless.

2. Great Men Got Discouraged, But They Didn’t Quit

What do you mean by renewed? Yes, there are times we get down and discouraged. I think in the Old Testament, even where we find not only Job who got discouraged, we may remember him as the great man of patience, and he was. But when you read through the book of Job, you understand Job got very, very low. And even his supposed friends who came began to say, Job, what sin have you done? I mean, this wouldn’t happen to you if you hadn’t been a sinner. That was sort of a common thinking. But we know that Job had not committed sin. It was a result of Satan testing him and trying him, whether he really had faith in God. Job did, though he got discouraged, he didn’t quit serving the Lord.

On the other hand, there was Elijah. And Elijah, after he had had really, you may say, conquered those enemies of God. At the time when there was this great test between the prophets of Baal and the prophets of God. And in fact, he said, look, if the Lord be God, serve him, if Baal be God, then serve him, but you cannot halt between two opinions. And after indeed the manifestation of God sending fire down to consume that altar that was the water all poured around, and the prophets of Baal couldn’t do as much as even have fire come on a dry altar. And yet, there’s old Jezebel who said, Tomorrow by this day your life will be like those prophets that were slain. Elijah said, Lord, take my life.

I’m the only one left. Can you imagine how low he got? Then there was Jeremiah, the great prophet Jeremiah, in a time where God’s people had had really turned to idolatry and to the worship of the neighbors about them. In fact, he said, you’ve hewed out cisterns that can hold no water. You’ve turned away from God. What has God done to cause this in your heart? There was one passage in the book of Jeremiah, where he said, I wish I’d never been born, putting in our words. Can you imagine how discouraged? Here are some great men we think. Jeremiah, Elijah, Job. Yes, they got discouraged, but you know what made each one of them great? They didn’t quit. They got up and went on. They kept turning to the Lord.

3. They Waited Upon the Lord; Their Strength Was Renewed

They waited upon the Lord. Their strength was renewed. And that really is in substance what Christians have the privilege and opportunity, and that is to have our strength renewed. Those who wait upon the Lord. Really, it’s a common expression in the Old Testament. We don’t find it in the news. But the expression to wait upon the Lord is found some 33 times in the Old Testament. It’s found in the book of Isaiah some nine different times. More often in the book of Psalms, it’s found seventeen different times. The idea, of course, is patiently serving the Lord, doing the will of the Lord, and with the confidence that he will bless those who faithfully serve him. I have to tell you, it was first impressed upon me when I was at a very low point.

And we had moved to Australia, and we were at a time early in our life there, and trying to establish a congregation in the city of three million. We lived in Sydney at the time. But at the time there’d been a message sent around that that all these American preachers who had come, Brother Harold Comer and Jim Everett and I had gone together, and the word was sent around to all the Christians in Australia we’re going to do great harm to the cause of Christ.