Making Sense Of God's Delays

When we receive a calling from the Lord it can be an exciting time! We will immediately start looking forward to seeing our calling realized! However, for a reason known only to God, we might have to wait longer than others in order to see His plan fulfilled in our life, and it can be a frustrating situation.

Sometimes the Lord will delay because we need to be purified of sin. At other times God will postpone our calling as we grow in our knowledge and understanding of Him, and as He prepares the hearts of the people that will eventually come into our life. In our message this evening, I’m going to share about a delay that we might encounter in pursuing our God-given vision.

I wish to begin with an encouraging illustration to assure us that God’s delays can turn out for our good, and also benefit the kingdom:

When George Muller was a young man, he had a dream - an earnest hope for his life and legacy. He would become an evangelist, who would take the message of Christ to the world. But after several unsuccessful attempts in his twenties to follow this career, he concluded it wasn’t in God’s will for him, and he gave up - until age sixty-seven.

At this unlikely point in his life, his dream finally materialized; and for the next twenty years - until he was eighty-seven - George Muller traveled many thousands of miles, carrying out numerous speaking missions, and becoming one of the nineteenth century’s foremost Christian statesmen.

Muller’s path to becoming an evangelist illustrates one of the most fascinating and encouraging aspects of God’s providence that we experience. It’s the fact that certain dreams we have, which we assume have failed and forever been denied by God, do eventually succeed - but at a later point than we expected. For some of us, a dream is realized much later in life than we thought possible.(1)

Remember, the Bible says, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Rom 8:28). I believe this evening’s message will bring about some much-needed encouragement, and help us understand a few things we can do in order to see our calling come to pass.

Daniel Awaited God’s Vision (vv. 1-3)

In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia a message was revealed to Daniel, whose name was called Belteshazzar. The message was true, but the appointed time was long; and he understood the message, and had understanding of the vision.

In those days I, Daniel, was mourning three full weeks. I ate no pleasant food, no meat or wine came into my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, till three whole weeks were fulfilled (Daniel 10:1-3).

A message was to be delivered unto Daniel, which contained a vision. It was a true message which wouldn’t be fulfilled for a very long time, at an exact and appointed moment in the future. In chapters eleven and twelve, we see how the vision was finally revealed to Daniel, and we are privileged to the information he received. Allow me to summarize the prophetic events contained in chapters eleven and twelve:

We learn about many kings and kingdoms at war with one another (Dn 11:1-20), and then we read about the rise of a king who will seize the world by intrigue (11:21). He is the antichrist, or the beast, referred to in Revelation chapter thirteen. A league, or alliance, will be made with him and he shall rise in power (11:23). He will show great favor unto those who forsake the Lord and the holy covenant (11:30), and his followers “shall defile the sanctuary fortress; then they shall take away the daily sacrifices, and place there the abomination of desolation” (11:31).

Those who remain faithful and true to God will be persecuted (Dn 11:33-34), which will serve to refine them and make them strong until the end of time (11:35). Then “the king shall do according to his own will: he shall exalt and magnify himself above every god, [and] shall speak blasphemies against the God of gods” (11:36), but his time will come to an end (11:45). The archangel named Michael will rise up to assist God’s people during a time of great trouble (12:1), and then “many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt” (12:2), which will be “the end of the days” (12:13).

We now see why the “appointed time was long” (Dn 10:1) and very far off, for it was an end-times prophecy. Daniel would be dead and buried before the events of this vision would unfold (12:13). This was the message and vision that Daniel would receive, but when we find him here it had not yet been delivered. Daniel was still waiting for this prophetic vision or revelation to arrive from the Lord.