(Ver 2.1)  Did you know that God is waiting for specific things to occur before Jesus comes back?  If you did not know this you could be a potential hindrance to when Jesus comes back.  I know that doesn’t sit well with a lot of religious minded people.  People widely believe that God is sovereign and because God is sovereign they believe that He also gets whatever He wants, whenever He wants it.  Nothing happens they believe unless God commits it or permits it.  If this was the way God really was, He would remind me more of an immature two year old who always wants their way and screams when they do not get it.  I do not think God acts like a two year old.   A two year old has no patience!  But, God is described to be the God of Patience in Romans 15:5.  You do understand that if God was not waiting for anything to happen, then God would have no need for the virture of “Patience”, right?  The association of God with the term Patience reveals that God waits for things to occur and that He does not cause these things to occur.  Of course it is more complex than this, because even the farmer has patience for his crops, but yet he is the one that planted the seeds to cause the predetermined future outcome of his crop.  This is really a better anaology for God’s patience also.  God awaits for His outcomes to come to maturity that He has planted and we will see this more clearly as we continue through this lesson.  I hope that you understand what I just said about the concepts of paitiece and what the word means.  You see, I do believe that God is sovereign, but I also believe that God has character, morals and principles that place self imposed limitations upon Himself to what He does and when He does it.  This is called self-control and this is a clear sign of physical and spiritual maturity.  Patience is also a Christian developed attribute or fruit that God is awainting to manifest in all of us. 

There is a popular church doctrine called preminence that states Christ’s return is emminent and at hand.  Meaning there are no scriptures left to be fulfilled in all of Bible prophecy for His soon return.  There is two erroneous assumptions dictated in this doctrine.  The first problem is that you assume that you know and understand every Bible prophecy and this is clearly a mistake from someone who has raised themselves beyond where they are presently in spiritual knowledge.  No one but God knows every prophecy and understands them all.  Are you God?  Then there are the verses in the Bible like the ones that I’m going to give you today, that these types of teachers must explain away or ignore completely to hold fast to their doctrine of preimence.   So what does the Bible tell us are the certain specific things that God is patiently waiting for to happen before Jesus returns?  Today I am going to discuss three things that God is waiting for.  When I read verses like these, I ask myself, if God wanted them to happen, why doesn’t He just make them happen?  That of course is an excellent question.  Apparently God is not in total control of everything like some people think He is.   Before we start let’s define waiting.  What is waiting?

WAITING:  remaining inactive in one place while expecting something to happen

According to this defintion , the word waiting means to sit inactive in one place while expecting something to happen.  Does God do this?  To think of God being inactive blows my mind, and I know it is hard for people to conceptualize.  However, you might be surprised that God does do this.  You should actually read your Bible more closely and pay attention to find out what God does and what God doesn’t do instead of just assuming you know.

1. GOD WAITS FOR THE PRECIOUS FRUIT OF THE EARTH

Let’s look at an important verse found in the book of James that clearly tells us something that God is patiently waiting for, before Jesus returns to the earth:

Jas 5:7  Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.

What is this precious fruit of the earth that God is waiting for?  This verse is clearly saying God is waiting for something in relationship to a prerequisite requirement that must occur before Jesus’ return.  You do realize that God is the husbandman in this symbolic filled verse?  One interpretation for this verse is telling us that God is waiting for people to get saved before Jesus returns.  God wants everyone to get saved according to 2 Peter 3:9.  If you read 2 Peter 3:9 you will find the word “longsuffering” associated with God and this is again referring to God’s great patience in waiting.  If God wants everyone to be saved, why isn’t everyone saved already?  Apparently it is up to others to go tell people so that they can get saved.  Apparently people have to accept the free gift of salvation.  So apparently God has done everything that He is going to do to get people saved and He is now waiting on us to go into all the world and preach the gospel (Mk 16:15).  This verse in James tells us that God has “long patience”.  Did you know that patience is a sign of maturity?  If you do not make people do the right thing, then sometimes it takes patients to give people the opportunity to learn to do the right thing.  This is one of the greatest qualities of the Omnipotent God!  God wants people to get saved, but will not force anyone into making this decision.  So God is waiting with great patience for as many people to get saved as can.  There are many days on earth I look around and see all of the evil things going on and ask God “What about today?  Send Jesus back today!”.  But, I know there are so many more people who can be saved if we try to reach them.

The salvation process is also being called a farming process.  A husbandman is the owner of a field where a crop was planted.  The husbandman plants specific seeds into the field that He desires to see grow to produce specific mature crops and this created process always requires time to develop.  What does a farmer do after planting his crop?  Mostly a farmer waits for the crop to come up.  This is an inactive time befor the coming harvest season.  Is God’s crop ripe yet?  Has this planted crop fully matured?  You do know that the harvest season is upon us?

2. GOD WAITS FOR HIS ENEMIES TO BE MADE HIS FOOTSTOOL

So we have seen that God has long patience and can wait for what He wants to happen without forcing them to happen.  What else is God waiting for, before Jesus comes back?  In this next verse God informs us of something that is potentially controversial, yet I still believe what it says:

Heb 10:13  From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.

God is waiting for His enemies to put under His feet.  A footstool is where you put your feet to rest them.  The coming time of rest is a 1000 year millennial time period that corresponds to the 7th day of creation when God rested from His work in Genesis 1 and 2.  God expects His enemies to be made His footstool before this happens.  Where are God’s feet?  The feet are in the body of Christ.  Christ is the head, but the church is the body of Christ so where is God’s feet?  Who are God’s enemies that He is expecting to be under our feet?  It is Satan and his demonic host of angels.  God expects them to be placed under our feet.  Jesus will not return until this happens and I know that is a very controversial part of my blog.  I have heard many preachers claim that Satan was put under foot by Jesus on the cross.   However, the Bible has so much more to say about that and I will not attempt to elaborate on all of these verses in this blog.  If you desire to learn more about this you can read my blog on “The Seed of the Woman, The Seed of the Serpent“.  So the Bible says God is waiting for His enemies to be made His footstool, when is this going to happen?  How is this going to happen?  What is God waiting for, is it you again?  I’ll give you a very quick overview to help get you started:

Rom 16:20  And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.

I will close this section with this verse helping to prove Satan is not underfoot yet.  At the time of the writing of this book of the Bible, the Apostle Paul claimed that Satan’s head was not yet bruised.  Paul wrote this well after Jesus was raised from the dead and had returned to heaven.  The majority of preachers today teach that Jesus was the seed of the woman that bruised the head of Satan, but they have to ignore Romans 16:20 to adhere to that interpretation and that is a major problem.  Therefore we can easily understand that Satan has not yet had his head bruised.  If you recall this was a prophecy that God made in Genesis 3 speaking to Satan.  God told Satan that the woman and her seed would bruise his head.  Who is this prophetical woman and what is her seed?  If you read the Bible study above you have a good idea already that this is the church body.  The church is the bride of Christ called the coming woman in Genesis 3:15 and she is the woman that will bruise the head of the serpent.

3. GOD IS WAITING FOR THE MATURITY OF THE CHURCH

We are now at the third thing that God is waiting for before Jesus comes back.  Again, we have more controversy with these verses, because they are difficult for many immature Christians to accept.  It is many times like discussing Algebra with a 4 year old.  They are just not ready to accept it and do not have the basic understanding of all of the necessary subjects to discuss these advanced topics.  Nevertheless, here I go and I hope you will understand it:

Gal 4:1  Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all;

Gal 4:2  But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father.

There is a parallel being given to us in these two verses of scriptures.  They state that a child is not ready to rule until he or she has grown up and matured.   As long as they are still a child, it says they are no different than a servant, even though they are ruler of everything.  Children require teachers and governors so they do not hurt themselves or others either by accident or on purpose.  Children do not have the maturity God is looking for to put His enemies under His feet.  God is waiting for the church to grow up and to become mature.  Quit bickering and fighting over trivial childish things and become a mature Christian.  The church is the joint heirs with Christ that this verse is paralleling.  Even though we are these heirs, many Christians are still developing and in need of maturation.  God is waiting for us to grow up.

Rom 8:19  For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.

God is waiting for the manifestation of His children.  Even as a natural child is born physically and needs constant care and attention, over time they begin to develop skills that allow them to take more and more responsibility over what they do and how they do it.  This is a natural process that corresponds to a spiritual process that God is trying to get us to see and understand.

1Co 3:1  And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.

In this verse God says that He could not talk to the people in Corinth about spiritual things, because of their immaturity.  God is saying that every Christian starts as a baby Christian, but He expects them to grow up and mature.  An immature Christian is mostly concerned with carnal or natural things.  A mature Christian is more concerned with spiritual things.  This is one of the signs of maturity in the body of Christ.  Where does this put you in the spiritual growth chart?

Heb 5:12  For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.

God’s word is spiritual growth food for your spirit.  But, this spiritual food comes in two extremes of basic milk formula for children and strong meat for mature Christians.   A new baby Christian requires to focus on the very basic milk concepts of God’s word in order to grow.  God’s word has both basic milk simple subjects and complex advanced meat meat subjects.  These advanced topics are the strong meat that God is referring to and a baby Christian will choke if you try to feed them these subjects.  Just like little natural babies cannot eat any solid food for many months, spiritual babies cannot understand the strong meat of God’s word.  Natural babies are introduced to small quantities of soft non-milk food and they eventually will develop enough to be able to eat anything.  This makes it very difficult to teach any subject, since we are all in varying stages of spiritual development.  I have a tendency to teach advanced subjects, but some people do not understand them simply because of where they are in their spiritual growth. 

1Co 1:7  So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ:

So if you are like me, we are all waiting for Jesus to come back and take us out of here, but who is waiting for who?  You have to ask yourself what can I do to help this process along.  Is there anything God is needing me to do today?  Do I need to grow up and become more spiritually aware?  Do I need to mature spiritually?   Do I need to do anything to allow God to put His enemies under my feet?  Do I need to go and tell someone about Jesus today?  Do I have anything to do with when the return of Jesus is?  I hope that you see that you do.  Share this lesson with your friends today to help them grow and learn that there are things that God is waiting on patiently before Jesus returns for us and by us cooperating we could help God end this thing more quickly.  God Bless you and thanks for reading my Bible lesson today.