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Title: Waiting On God!
Creator(s): Murray, Andrew
Print Basis: New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1894
Rights: Public Domain
CCEL Subjects: All; Christian Life
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Note: In Scripture references, Murray used Roman numerals. For the sake
of the modern reader, these have been converted to Arabic numerals in
the following public domain text. Also, the convention of dividing the
verse from the chapter with a colon has been implemented in place of
the period.
WAITING
on
GOD!
DAILY MESSAGE FOR A MONTH
by
Rev. ANDREW MURRAY
AUTHOR OF “WITH CHRIST,” “ABIDE IN CHRIST,” ETC., ETC.
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO
Publishers of Evangelical Literature
TO
MR. AND MRS. ALBERT A. HEAD
WHOSE LOVE GAVE US SUCH A BRIGHT HOME
DURING OUR ABSENCE FROM OUR OWN
AND TO WHOSE LABOURS AND PRAYERS
THE DAYS OF QUIET WAITING ON GOD
IN WHITECHAPEL
AND THE DAY OF UNITED PRAYER
IN EXETER HALL
OWED SO MUCH
THIS LITTLE VOLUME
IS
AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED
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Wait Thou only upon God.’
My soul, wait thou only upon God. ‘ – Ps. 62:5
A God . . which worketh for him that waiteth for Him.’ -Isa. 64:4(R.V.)
WAIT only upon God;’ my soul, be still,
And let thy God unfold His perfect will,
Thou fain would’st follow Him throughout this year,
Thou fain with listening heart His voice would’st hear,
Thou fain would’st be a passive instrument
Possessed by God, and ever Spirit-sent
Upon His service sweet–then be thou still
For only thus can He in thee fulfil
His heart’s desire. Oh, hinder not His hand
From fashioning the vessel He hath planned.
Be silent unto God,’ and thou shalt know
The quiet, holy calm He doth bestow
On these who wait on Him; so shalt thou bear
His promises, and His life and light e’en where
The night is darkest, and thine earthly days
Shall shew His love, and sound His glorious praise
And He will work with head unfettered, free
His high and holy purposes through thee.
First on thee must that hand of power be turned,
Till in His love’s strong fire thy dross is burned,
And thou come forth a vessel for thy Lord,
So frail and empty, yet, since He hath poured
Into thine emptiness His life, His love
Henceforth through thee the power of God shall move
And He will work for thee. Stand still and see
The victories thy God will gain for thee;
So silent, yet so irresistible,
Thy God shall do the thing impossible.
Oh, question not henceforth what thou canst do;
Thou canst do naught. But He will carry through
The work where human energy had failed
Where all thy best endeavours had availed
Thee nothing. Then, my soul, wait and be still;
Thy God shall work for thee His perfect will.
If thou will take no less, His best shall be
Thy portion now and through eternity.
FREDA HANBURY
EXTRACT
FROM
ADDRESS IN EXETER HALL
May 31st 1895
I HAVE been surprised at nothing more than at the letters that have
come to me from missionaries and others from all parts of the world,
devoted men and women, testifying to the need they feel in their work
of being helped to a deeper and a clearer insight into all that Christ
could be to them. Let us look to God to reveal Himself among His people
in a measure very few have realized. Let us expect great things of our
God. At all our conventions and assemblies too little time is given to
waiting on God. Is He not willing to put things right in His own divine
way? Has the life of God’s people reached the utmost limit of what God
is willing to do for them? Surely not. We want to wait on Him; to put
away our experiences, however blessed they have been; our conceptions
of truth, however sound and scriptural we think they seem; our plans,
however needful and suitable they appear; and give God time and place
to show us what He could, what He will do. God has new developments and
new resources. He can do new things, unheard of things. Let us enlarge
our hearts and not limit Him. When Thou camest down, Thou didst
terrible things we looked not for; the mountains flowed down at Thy
presence.’
A. M.
CONTENTS
DAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PAGE
Preface. . . . . . 13
WAITING ON GOD:
1. The God of our Salvation.–Ps. 62:1. . . 17
2. The Keynote of Life.–Gen. 49:18. . . 21
3. The True Place of the Creature.–Ps. 104:27, 28. . . 25
4. For Supplies.–Ps. 114:14, 15. . . 29
5. For Instruction.–Ps. 25:4, 5. . . 33
6. For all Saints.–Ps. 25:3. . . 37
7. A Plea in Prayer.–Ps. 25:21. . . 41
8. Strong and of Good Courage.–Ps. 27:14. . . 45
9. With the Heart.–Ps. 31:24. . . 49
10. In Humble Fear and Hope.–Ps. 33:18-22. . . 54
11. Patiently.–Ps. 37:7,9. . . . 59
12. Keeping His Ways.–Ps. 37:34. . . 63
13. For More than we Know.–Ps. 39:7, 8. . . 67
14. The Way to the New Song.–Ps. 40:1-3. . . 71
15. For His Counsel.–Ps. 56:12. . . 75
16. And His Light in the Heart.–Ps. 80:5, 6. . . 79
17. In Times of Darkness–Isa. 8:17. . . 84
18. To Reveal Himself.–Isa. 25:9. . . 89
19. As a God of Judgment.–Isa. 26:8, 9. . . 93
20. Who Waits on Us.–Isa. 30:18. . . 97
21. The Almighty One.–Isa. 40:31. . . 101
22. Its Certainty of Blessing.–Isa. 49:23. . . 105
23. For Un-looked for Things.–Isa. 64:4. . . 110
24. To Know His Goodness.–Lam. 3:25. . . 114
25. Quietly.–Lam. 3:26. . . 118
26. In Holy Expectency.–Mic. 7:7. . . 133
27. For Redemption.–Lu. 2:25,38. . . 126
28. For the Coming of His Son.–Lu. 12:36. . . 130
29. For the Promise of the Father.–Acts 1:4. . . 135
30. Continually.–Hos. 12:6. . . 140
31. Only.–Psa. 62:5, 6. . . 145
Note: The Power of the Holy Spirit. By W. Law. . . . 150
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PREFACE
PREVIOUS to my leaving for England last year, I had been much impressed
by the thought of how, in all our religion, personal and public, we
need more of God. I had felt that we needed to train our people in
their worship more to wait on God, and to make the cultivation of a
deeper sense of His presence, of more direct contact with Him, of
entire dependence on Him, a definite aim of our ministry. At a welcome’
breakfast in Exeter Hall, I gave very simple expression to this thought
in connection with all our religious work. I have already said
elsewhere that I was surprised at the response the sentiment met with.
I saw that God’s Spirit had been working the same desire in many
hearts.
The experiences of the past year, both personal and public, have
greatly deepened the conviction. It is as if I myself am only beginning
to see the deepest truth concerning God, and our relation to Him,
centere in this waiting on God, and how very little, in our life and
work, we have been surrounded by its spirit. The following pages are
the outcome of my conviction, and of the desire to direct the attention
of all God’s people to the one great remedy for all our needs. More
than half the pieces were written on board ship; I fear they bear the
marks of being somewhat crude and hasty. I have felt, in looking them
over, as if I could wish to write them over again. But this I cannot
now do. And so I send them out with the prayer that He who loves to use
the feeble may give His blessing with them.
I do not know if it will be possible for me to put into a few words
what are the chief things we need to learn. In a note at the close of
the book on Law I have mentioned some. But what I want to say here is
this: The great lack of our religion is, we do not know God. The answer
to every complaint of feebleness and failure, the message to every
congregation or convention seeking instruction on holiness, ought to be
simply, What is the matter: Have you not God? If you really believe in
God, He will put all right. God is willing and able by His Holy Spirit.
Cease from expecting the least good from yourself, or the least help
from anything there is in man, and just yield yourself unreservedly to
God to work in you: He will do all for you.
How simple this looks! And yet this is the gospel we so little know. I
feel ashamed as I send forth these very defective meditations; I can
only cast them on the love of my brethren, and of our God. May He use
them to draw us all to Himself, to learn in practice and experience the
blessed art of Waiting only upon God. Would God that we might get some
right conception of what the influence would be of a life given, not in
thought, or imagination, or effort, but in the power of the Holy
Spirit, wholly to waiting upon God.
With my greeting in Christ to all God’s saints it has been my privilege
to meet, and no less to those I have not met, I subscribe myself, your
brother and servant,
ANDREW MURRAY.
Wellington
3rd March 1896
[Page 16 is blank]
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First Day.
WAITING ON GOD:
The God of Our Salvation.
My soul waiteth only upon God [marg:is silent unto God]; from Him
cometh my salvation.’–Ps. 62: 1(R.V.).
IF salvation indeed comes from God, and is entirely His work, just as
our creation was, it follows, as a matter of course, that our first and
highest duty is to wait on Him to do that work as it pleases Him.
Waiting becomes then the only way to the experience of a full
salvation, the only way, truly, to know God as the God of our
salvation. All the difficulties that are brought forward as keeping us
back from full salvation, have their cause in this one thing: the
defective knowledge and practice of waiting upon God. All that the
Church and its members need for the manifestation of the mighty power
of God in the world, is the return to our true place, the place that
belongs to us, both in creation and redemption, the place of absolute
and unceasing dependence upon God. Let us strive to see what the
elements are that make up this most blessed and needful waiting upon
God: it may help us to discover the reasons why this grace is so little
cultivated, and to feel how infinitely desirable it is that the Church,
that we ourselves, should at any price learn its blessed secret.
The deep need for this waiting on God lies equally in the nature of man
and the nature of God. God, as Creator, formed man, to be a vessel in
which He could show forth His power and goodness. Man was not to have
in himself a fountain of life, or strength, or happiness: the
everliving and only living One was each moment to be the Communicator
to him of all that he needed. Man’s glory and blessedness was not to be
independent, or dependent upon himself, but dependent on a God of such
infinite riches and love. Man was to have the joy of receiving every
moment out of the fulness of God. This was his blessedness as an
unfallen creature.
When he fell from God, he was still more absolutely dependent on Him.
There was not the slightest hope of his recovery out of his state of
death, but in God, His power and mercy. It is God alone who began the
work of redemption; it is God alone who continues and carries it on
each moment in each individual believer. Even in the regenerate man
there is no power of goodness in himself: he has and can have nothing
that he does not each moment receive; and waiting on God is just as
indispensable, and must be just as continuous and unbroken, as the
breathing that maintains his natural life.
It is, then, because Christians do not know in their relation to God of
their own absolute poverty and helplessness, that they have no sense of
the need of absolute and unceasing dependence, or of the unspeakable
blessedness of continual waiting on God. But when once a believer
begins to see it, and consent to it, that he by the Holy Spirit must
each moment receive what God each moment works, waiting on God becomes
his brightest hope and joy. As he appreciates how God, as God, as
Infinite Love, delights to impart His own nature to His child as fully
as He can, how God is not weary of each moment keeping charge of his
life and strength, he wonders that he ever thought otherwise of God
than as a God to be waited on all the day. God unceasingly giving and
working; His child unceasingly waiting and receiving: this is the
blessed life.
Truly my soul waiteth upon God; from Him cometh my salvation.’ First we
wait on God for salvation. Then we learn that salvation is only to
bring us to God, and teach us to wait on Him. Then we find what is
better still, that waiting on God is itself the highest salvation. It
is the ascribing to Him the glory of being All; it is the experiencing
that He is All to us. May God teach us the blessedness of waiting on
Him.
My soul, wait thou only upon God!’
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Second Day.
WAITING ON GOD:
The Keynote of Life.
I have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord!’–Gen. 49: 18.
IT is not easy to say exactly in what sense Jacob used these words, in
the midst of his prophecies in regard to the future of his sons. But
they do certainly indicate that both for himself and for them his
expectation was from God alone. It was God’s salvation he waited for; a
salvation which God had promised and which God Himself alone could work
out. He knew himself and his sons to be under God’s charge. Jehovah the
Everlasting God would show in them what His saving power is and does.
The words point forward to that wonderful history of redemption which
is not yet finished, and to the glorious future in eternity. They
suggest to us how there is no salvation but God’s salvation, and how
waiting on God for that, whether for our personal experience, or in
wider circles, is our first duty, our true blessedness.
Let us think of ourselves, and the inconceivably glorious salvation God
has wrought for us in Christ, and is now purposing to work out and to
perfect in us by His Spirit. Let us meditate until we somewhat realize
that every participation of this great salvation, from moment to
moment, must be the work of God Himself. God cannot part with His
grace, or goodness, or strength, as an external thing that He gives us,
as He gives the raindrops from heaven. No; He can only give it, and we
can only enjoy it, as He works it Himself directly and unceasingly. And
the only reason that He does not work it more effectively and
continuously is, that we do not let Him. We hinder Him either by our
indifference or by our self-effort, so that He cannot do what He would.
What He asks of us, in the way of surrender, and obedience, and desire,
and trust, is all comprised in this one word: waiting on Him, waiting
for His salvation. It combines the deep sense of our entire
helplessness of ourselves to work what is divinely good, and the
perfect confidence that our God will work it all in His divine power.
Again, I say, let us meditate on the divine glory of the salvation God
purposes working out in us, until we know the truth it implies. Our
heart is the scene of a divine operation more wonderful than Creation.
We can do as little towards the work as towards creating the world,
except as God works in us to will and to do. God only asks of us to
yield, to consent, to wait upon Him, and He will do it all. Let us
meditate and be still, until we see how appropriate and right and
blessed it is that God alone do all, and our soul will of itself sink
down in deep humility to say: I have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord.’
And the deep blessed background of all our praying and working will be:
Truly my soul waiteth upon God.’
The application of the truth to wider circles, to those we labor among
or intercede for, to the Church of Christ around us, or throughout the
world, is not difficult. There can be no good but what God works; to
wait upon God, and have the heart filled with faith in His working, and
in that faith to pray for His mighty power to come down, is our only
wisdom. Oh for the eyes of our heart to be opened to see God working in
ourselves and in others, and to see how blessed it is to worship and
just to wait for His salvation!
Our private and public prayer are our chief expression of our relation
to God: it is in them chiefly that our waiting upon God must be
exercised. If our waiting begin by quieting the activities of nature,
and being still before God; if it bows and seeks to see God in His
universal and almighty operation, alone able and always ready to work
all good; if it yields itself to Him in the assurance that He is
working and will work in us; if it maintains the place of humility and
stillness and surrender, until God’s Spirit has quickened the faith
that He will perfect His work: it will indeed become the strength and
the joy of the soul. Life will become one deep blessed cry: I have
waited for Thy salvation, O Lord.’
My soul, wait thou only upon God!’
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Third Day.
WAITING ON GOD:
The True Place of the Creature.
These wait all upon Thee;
That Thou mayest give them their meat in due season.
That Thou givest unto them, they gather;
Thou openest Thine hand, they are satisfied with good.
Ps. 104:27, 28(R.V.).
THIS Psalm, in praise of the Creator, has been speaking of the birds
and the beasts of the forest; of the young lions, and man going forth
to his work; of the great sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable,
both small and great beasts. And it sums up the whole relation of all
creation to its Creator, and its continuous and universal dependence
upon Him in the one word: These all wait upon Thee!’ Just as much as it
was God’s work to create, it is His work to maintain. As little as the
creature could create itself, is it left to provide for itself. The
whole creation is ruled by the one unalterable law of–waiting upon
God!
The word is the simple expression of that for the sake of which alone
the creature was brought into existence, the very groundwork of its
constitution. The one object for which God gave life to creatures was
that in them He might prove and show forth His wisdom, power, and
goodness, inHis being each moment their life and happiness, and pouring
forth unto them, according to their capacity, the riches of his
goodness and power. And just as this is the very place and nature of
God, to be unceasingly the supplier of every want in the creature, so
the very place and nature of the creature is nothing but this–to wait
upon God and receive from Him what He alone can give, what He delights
to give. (See note on Law, The Power of the Spirit.)
If we are in this little book at all to appreciate what waiting on
Godis to be to the believer, to practice it and to experience its
blessedness, it is of consequence that we begin at the very beginning,
and see the deep reasonableness of the call that comes to us. We shall
understand how the duty is no arbitrary command. We shall see how it is
not only rendered necessary by our sin and helplessness. It is simply
and truly our restoration to our original destiny and our highest
nobility, to our true place and glory as creatures blessedly dependent
on the All-Glorious God.
If once our eyes are opened to this precious truth, all Nature will
become a preacher, reminding us of the relationship which, founded in
creation, is now taken up in grace. As we read this Psalm, and learn to
look upon all life in Nature as continually maintained by God Himself,
waiting on God will be seen to be the very necessity of our being. As
we think of the young lions and the ravens crying to Him, of the birds
and the fish and every insect waiting on Him, until He give them their
meat in due season, we shall see that it is the very nature and glory
of God that He is a God who is to be waited on. Every thought of what
Nature is, and what God is, will give new force to the call: Wait thou
only upon God.’
These all wait upon Thee, that thou maygive.’ It is God who gives all:
let this faith enter deeply into our hearts. Ere yet we fully
understand all that is implied in our waiting upon God, and ere we ever
have been able to cultivate the habit, let the truth enter our souls:
waiting on God, unceasing and entire dependence upon Him, is, in heaven
and earth, the one only true religion, the one unalterable and
all-comprehensive expression for the true relationship to the
ever-blessed One in whom we live.
Let us resolve at once that it shall be the one characteristic of our
life and worship, a continual, humble, trustful waiting upon God. We
may rest assured that He who made us for Himself, that He might give
Himself to us and in us, that He will never disappoint us. In waiting
on Him we shall find rest and joy and strength, and the supply of every
need.
My soul, wait thou only upon God!’
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Fourth Day.
WAITING ON GOD:
For Supplies.
The Lord upholdeth all that fall,
And raiseth up all those that be bowed down.
The eyes of all wait upon Thee;
And Thou givest them their meat in due season.’
–Ps. 145:14, 15.
PSALM 104 is a Psalm of Creation, and the words, These all wait upon
Thee,’ were used with reference to the animal creation. Here we have a
Psalm of the Kingdom, and The eyes of all wait upon Thee’ appears
especially to point to the needs of God’s saints, of all that fall and
them that be bowed down. What the universe and the animal creation does
unconsciously, God’s people are to do intelligently and voluntarily.
Man is to be the interpreter of Nature. He is to prove that there is
nothing more noble or more blessed in the exercise of our free will
than to use it in waiting upon God.
If an army has been sent out to march into an enemy’s country, and
tidings are received that it is not advancing, the question is at once
asked, what may be the cause of delay. The answer will very often be:
Waiting for supplies.’ All the stores of provisions or clothing or
ammunition have not arrived; without these it dare not proceed. It is
no otherwise in the Christian life: day by day, at every step, we need
our supplies from above. And there is nothing so needful as to
cultivate that spirit of dependence on God and of confidence in Him,
which refuses to go on without the needed supply of grace and strength.
If the question be asked, whether this be anything different from what
we do when we pray, the answer is, that there may be much praying with
but very little waiting on God. In praying we are often occupied with
ourselves, with our own needs, and our own efforts in the presentation
of them. In waiting upon God, the first thought is of the God upon whom
we wait. We enter His presence, and feel we need just to be quiet, so
that He, as God, can overshadow us with Himself. God longs to reveal
Himself, to fill us with Himself. Waiting on God gives Him time in His
own way and divine power to come to us.
It is especially at the time of prayer that we ought to set ourselves
to cultivate this spirit.
Before you pray, bow quietly before God, just to remember and realize
who He is, how near He is, how certainly He can and will help. Just be
still before Him, and allow His Holy Spirit to waken and stir up in
your soul the childlike disposition of absolute dependence and
confident expectation. Wait upon God as a Living Being, as the Living
God, who notices you, and is just longing to fill you with His
salvation. Wait on God until you know you have met Him; prayer will
then become so different.
And when you are praying, let there be intervals of silence, reverent
stillness of soul, in which you yield yourself to God, in case He may
have aught He wishes to teach you or to work in you. Waiting on Him
will become the most blessed part of prayer, and the blessing thus
obtained will be doubly precious as the fruit of such fellowship with
the Holy One. God has so ordained it, in harmony with His holy nature,
and with ours, that waiting on Him should be the honor we give Him. Let
us bring Him the service gladly and truthfully; He will reward it
abundantly.
The eyes of all wait upon Thee, and Thou givest them their meat in due
season.’ Dear soul, God provides in Nature for the creatures He has
made: how much more will He provide in Grace for those He has redeemed.
Learn to say of every want, and every failure, and every lack of
needful grace: I have waited too little upon God, or He would have
given me in due season all I needed. And say then too–
My soul, wait thou only upon God!’
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Fifth Day.
WAITING ON GOD:
For Instruction.
Shew me thy ways, O Lord; Teach me Thy paths.
Teach me Thy paths.
Lead me in Thy truth, and teach me;
For Thou art the God of my salvation;
On Thee do I wait all the day.’– Ps. 25:4, 5.
I SPOKE of an army, on the point of entering an enemy’s territories,
answering the question as to the cause of delay: Waiting for supplies.’
The answer might also have been: Waiting for instructions,’ or, Waiting
for orders.’ If the last despatch had not been received, with the final
orders of the commander-in-chief, the army dared not move. Even so in
the Christian life: as deep as the need of waiting for supplies, is
that of waiting for instructions.’
See how beautifully this comes out in Ps. 25. The writer knew and loved
God’s law exceedingly, and meditated in that law day and night. But he
knew that this was not enough. He knew that for the right spiritual
apprehension of the truth, and for the right personal application of it
to his own peculiar circumstances, he needed a direct divine teaching.
The psalm has at all times been a very favourite one, because of its
reiterated expression of the felt need of the Divine teaching, and of
the childlike confidence that that teaching would be given. Study the
psalm until your heart is filled with the two thoughts–the absolute
need, the absolute certainty of divine guidance. And notice, then, how
entirely it is in this connection that he speaks, On Thee do I wait all
the day.’ Waiting for guidance, waiting for instruction, all the day,
is a very blessed part of waiting upon God.
The Father in heaven is so interested in His child, and so longs to
have his life at every step in His will and His love, that He is
willing to keep his guidance entirely in His own hand. He knows so well
that we are unable to do what is really holy and heavenly, except as He
works it in us, that He means His very demands to become promises of
what He will do, in watching over and leading us all the day. Not only
in special difficulties and times of perplexity, but in the common
course of everyday life, we may count upon Him to teach us His way, and
show us His path.
And what is needed in us to receive this guidance? One thing: waiting
for instructions, waiting on God. On Thee do I wait all the day.’ We
want in our times of prayer to give clear expression to our sense of
need, and our faith in His help. We want definitely to become conscious
of our ignorance as to what God’s way may be, and the need of the
Divine light shining within us, if our way is to be as of the sun,
shining more and more unto the perfect day. And we want to wait quietly
before God in prayer, until the deep, restful assurance fills us: It
will be given–the meek will He guide in the way.’
On Thee do I wait all the day.’ The special surrender to the Divine
guidance in our seasons of prayer must cultivate, and be followed up
by, the habitual looking upwards all the day.’ As simple as it is, to
one who has eyes, to walk all the day in the light of the sun, so
simple and delightful can it become to a soul practiced in waiting on
God, to walk all the day in the enjoyment of God’s light and leading.
What is needed to help us to such a life is just one thing: the real
knowledge and faith of God as the one only source of wisdom and
goodness, as ever ready, and longing much to be to us all that we can
possibly require–yes! this is the one thing we need. If we but saw our
God in His love, if we but believed that He waits to be gracious, that
He waits to be our life and to work all in us,–how this waiting on God
would become our highest joy, the natural and spontaneous response of
our hearts to His great love and glory!
My soul, wait thou only upon God!’
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Sixth Day.
WAITING ON GOD:
For all Saints.
Let none that wait on Thee be ashamed.’– Ps. 25:3
LET us now, in our meditation of today, each one forget himself, to
think of the great company of God’s saints throughout the world, who
are all with us waiting on Him. And let us all join in the fervent
prayer for each other, Let none that wait on Thee be ashamed.’
Just think for a moment of the multitude of waiting ones who need that
prayer; how many there are, sick and weary and solitary, to whom it is
as if their prayers are not answered, and who sometimes begin to fear
that their hope will be put to shame. And then, how many servants of
God, ministers or missionaries, teachers or workers, of various name,
whose hopes in their work have been disappointed, and whose longing for
power and blessing remains unsatisfied. And then, too, how many, who
have heard of a life of rest and perfect peace, of abiding light and
fellowship, of strength and victory, and who cannot find the path. With
all these, it is nothing but that they have not yet learned the secret
of full waiting upon God. They just need, what we all need, the living
assurance that waiting on God can never be in vain. Let us remember all
who are in danger of fainting or being weary, and all unite in the cry,
Let none that wait on Thee be ashamed’!
If this intercession for all who wait on God becomes part of our
waiting on Him for ourselves, we shall help to bear each other’s
burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.
There will be introduced into our waiting on God that element of
unselfishness and love, which is the path to the highest blessing, and
the fullest communion with God. Love to the brethren and love to God
are inseparably linked. In God, the love to His Son and to us are one:
That the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me, may be in them.’ In Christ,
the love of the Father to Him, and His love to us, are one: As the
Father loved me, so have I loved you.’ In us, He asks that His love to
us shall be ours to the brethren: As I have loved you, that ye love one
another.’ All the love of God, and of Christ, are inseparably linked
with love to the brethren. And how can we, day by day, prove and
cultivate this love otherwise than by daily praying for each other?
Christ did not seek to enjoy the Father’s love for Himself; He passed
it all on to us. All true seeking of God and His love for ourselves,
will be inseparably linked with the thought and the love of our
brethren in prayer for them.
Let none that wait on Thee be ashamed.’ Twice in the psalm David speaks
of his waiting on God for himself; here he thinks of all who wait on
Him. Let this page take the message to all God’s tried and weary ones,
that there are more praying for them than they know. Let it stir them
and us in our waiting to make a point of at times forgetting ourselves,
and to enlarge our hearts, and say to the Father, These all wait upon
Thee, and Thou givest them their meat in due season.’ Let it inspire us
all with new courage–for who is there who is not at times ready to
faint and be weary? Let none that wait on Thee be ashamed’ is a promise
in a prayer, They that wait on Thee shall not be ashamed’! From many
and many a witness the cry comes to everyone who needs the help,
brother, sister, tried one, Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and
He shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the Lord. Be of good
courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all ye that wait on the
Lord.’
Blessed Father! we humbly beseech Thee, Let none that wait on Thee be
ashamed; no, not one. Some are weary, and the time of waiting appears
long. And some are feeble, and scarcely know how to wait. And some are
so entangled in the effort of their prayers and their work, they think
that they can find no time to wait continually. Father! teach us all
how to wait. Teach us to think of each other, and pray for each other.
Teach us to think of Thee, the God of all waiting ones. Father! let
none that wait on Thee be ashamed. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.
My soul, wait thou only upon God!’
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Seventh Day.
WAITING ON GOD:
A Plea in Prayer.
Let integrity and uprightness preserve me; for I wait on Thee.’– Ps.
25:21
FOR the third time in this psalm we have the word wait. As before in
ver. 5, On Thee do I wait all the day,’ so here, too, the believing
supplicant appeals to God to remember that he is waiting on Him,
looking for an answer. It is a great thing for a soul not only to wait
upon God, but to be filled with such a consciousness that its whole
spirit and position is that of a waiting one, that it can, in childlike
confidence, say, Lord! Thou knowest, I wait on Thee. It will prove a
mighty plea in prayer, giving ever-increasing boldness of expectation
to claim the promise, They that wait on Me shall not be ashamed’!
The prayer in connection with which the plea is put forth here is one
of great importance in the spiritual life. If we draw near to God, it
must be with a true heart. There must be perfect integrity,
wholeheartedness, in our dealing with God. As we read in the next Psalm
(26: 1,11), Judge me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity,’ As
for me, I will walk in my integrity,’ there must be perfect uprightness
or single-heartedness before God. As it is written, His righteousness
is for the upright in heart.’ The soul must know that it allows nothing
sinful, nothing doubtful; if it is indeed to meet the Holy One, and
receive His full blessing, it must be with a heart wholly and singly
given up to His will. The whole spirit that animates us in the waiting
must be, Let integrity and uprightness’–Thou seest that I desire to
come so to Thee, You know I am looking to Thee to work them perfectly
in me;–let them preserve me, for I wait on Thee.’
And if at our first attempt truly to live the life of fully and always
waiting on God, we begin to discover how much that perfect integrity is
wanting, this will just be one of the blessings which the waiting was
meant to work. A soul cannot seek close fellowship with God, or attain
the abiding consciousness of waiting on Him all the day, without a very
honest and entire surrender to all His will.
For I wait on Thee’: it is not only in connection with the prayer of
our text but with every prayer that this plea may be used. To use it
often will be a great blessing to ourselves. Let us therefore study the
words well until we know all their bearings. It must be clear to us
what we are waiting for. There may be very different things. It may be
waiting for God in our times of prayer to take his place as God, and to
work in us the sense of His holy presence and nearness. It may be some
special petition, to which we are expecting an answer. It may be our
whole inner life, in which we are on the lookout for God’s putting
forth of His power. It may be the whole state of His Church and saints,
or some part of His work, for which our eyes are ever toward Him. It is
good that we sometimes count up to ourselves exactly what the things
are we are waiting for, and as we say definitely of each of them, On
Thee do I wait,’ we shall be emboldened to claim the answer, ‘For on
Thee do I wait.’
It must also be clear to us, on Whom we are waiting. Not an idol, a God
of whom we have made an image by our conceptions of what He is. No, but
the living God, such as He really is in His great glory, His infinite
holiness, His power, wisdom, and goodness, in His love and nearness.
Itis the presence of a beloved or a dreaded master that wakens up the
whole attention of the servant who waits on him. It is the presence of
God, as He can in Christ by His Holy Spirit make Himself known, and
keep the soul under its covering and shadow, that will awaken and
strengthen the true waiting spirit. Let us be still and wait and
worship until we know how near He is, and then say, ‘On Thee do I wait.
And then, let it be very clear, too, that we are waiting. Let that
become so much our consciousness that the utterance comes
spontaneously, On Thee I do waitall the day; I wait on Thee.’ This will
indeed imply sacrifice and separation, a soul entirely given up to God
as its all, its only joy. This waiting on God has hardly yet been
acknowledged as the only true Christianity. And yet, if it be true that
God alone is goodness and joy and love; if it be true that our highest
blessedness is in having as much of God as we can; if it be true that
Christ has redeemed us wholly for God, and made a life of continual
abiding in His presence possible, nothing less ought to satisfy than to
be ever breathing this blessed atmosphere, I wait on Thee.’
My soul, wait thou only upon God!’
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Eighth Day.
WAITING ON GOD:
Strong and of Good Courage.
Wait on the Lord: be strong,
And let your heart take courage:
Yea, wait thou on the Lord.’– Ps. 27:14 (R.V.)
THE psalmist had just said, I had fainted, unless I had believed to see
the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.’ If it had not been
for his faith in God, his heart had fainted. But in the confident
assurance in God which faith gives, he urges himself and us to remember
one thing above all,–to wait upon God. Wait on the Lord: be strong,
and let your heart take courage: yea, wait on the Lord.’ One of the
chief needs in our waiting upon God, one of the deepest secrets of its
blessedness and blessing, is a quiet, confident persuasion that it is
not in vain; courage to believe that God will hear and help; that we
are waiting on a God who never could disappoint His people.
Be strong and of good courage.’ These words are frequently found in
connection with some great and difficult enterprise, in prospect of the
combat with the power of strong enemies, and the utter insufficiency of
all human strength. Is waiting on God a work so difficult, that, for
that too, such words are needed, Be strong, and let your heart take
courage’? Yes, indeed. The deliverance, for which we often have to
wait, is from enemies, in presence of whom we are impotent. The
blessings for which we plead are spiritual and all unseen; things
impossible with men; heavenly, supernatural, divine realities. Our
souls are so little accustomed to hold fellowship with God, the God on
whom we wait so often appears to hide Himself. We who have to wait are
often tempted to fear that we do not wait aright, that our faith is too
feeble, that our desire is not as upright or as earnest as it should
be, that our surrender is not complete. Our heart may well faint and
fail. Amid all these causes of fear or doubt, how blessed to hear the
voice of God, Wait on the Lord! Be strong, and let your heart take
courage! Yea, wait thou upon the Lord! Let nothing in heaven or earth
or hell–let nothing keep you from waiting on your God in full
assurance that it cannot be in vain.
The one lesson our text teaches us is thus, that when we set ourselves
to wait on God, we ought beforehand to resolve that it shall be with
the most confident expectation of God’s meeting and blessing us. We
ought to make up our minds to this, that nothing was ever so sure, as
that waiting on God will bring us untold and unexpected blessing. We
are so accustomed to judge of God and His work in us by what we feel,
that the great probability is that when we begin more to cultivate the
waiting on Him, we shall be discouraged, because we do not find any
special blessing from it. The message comes to us, Above everything,
when you wait on God, do so in the spirit of abounding hopefulness. It
is God in His glory, in His power, in His love longing to bless you
that you are waiting on.’
If you say that you are afraid of deceiving yourself with vain hope,
because you do not see or feel any warrant in your present state for
such special expectations, my answer is, it is God, who is the warrant
for your expecting great things. Oh, do learn the lesson. You are not
going to wait on yourself to see what you feel and what changes come to
you. You are going to WAIT ON GOD, to know first, WHAT HE IS, and then,
after that, what He will do. The whole duty and blessedness of waiting
on God has its root in this, that He is such a blessed Being, full, to
overflowing, of goodness and power and life and joy, that we, however
wretched, cannot for any time come into contact with Him, without that
life and power secretly, silently beginning to enter into us and
blessing us. God is Love! That is the one only and all-sufficient
warrant of your expectation. Love seeks not its own: God’s love is just
His delight to impart Himself and His blessedness to His children.
Come, and however feeble you feel, just wait in His presence. As a
feeble, sickly invalid is brought out into the sunshine to let its
warmth go through him, come with all that is dark and cold in you into
the sunshine of God’s holy, omnipotent love, and sit and wait there,
with the one thought: Here I am, in the sunshine of His love. As the
sun does its work in the weak one who seeks its rays, God will do His
work in you. Oh, do trust Him fully. Wait on the Lord! Be strong, and
let your heart take courage! Yea, wait on the Lord’!
My soul, wait thou only upon God!’
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Ninth Day.
WAITING ON GOD:
With the Heart.
Be strong, and let your heart take courage,
All ye that wait for the Lord.’– Ps. 31: 24. (R.V.)
THE words are nearly the same as in our last meditation. But I gladly
avail myself of them again to press home a much-needed lesson for all
who desire to learn truly and fully what waiting on God is. The lesson
is this: It is with the heart we must wait upon God. Let your heart
take courage.’ All our waiting depends upon the state of the heart. As
a man’s heart is, so is he before God. We can advance no further or
deeper into the holy place of God’s presence to wait on Him there, than
our heart is prepared for it by the Holy Spirit. The message is, Let
your heart take courage, all you that wait on the Lord.’
The truth appears so simple, that some may ask, Do not all admit this?
where is the need of insisting on it so specially? Because very many
Christians have no sense of the great difference between the religion
of the mind and the religion of the heart, and the former is far more
diligently cultivated than the latter. They know not how infinitely
greater the heart is than the mind. It is in this that one of the chief
causes must be sought of the feebleness of our Christian life, and it
is only as this is understood that waiting on God will bring its full
blessing.
Proverb 3: 5 may help to make my meaning plain. Speaking of a life in
the fear and favor of God, it says, Trust in the Lord with all your
heart, and lean not upon your own understanding.’ In all religion we
have to use these two powers. The mind has to gather knowledge from
God’s word, and prepare the food by which the heart with the inner life
is to be nourished. But here comes in a terrible danger, of our leaning
to our own understanding, and trusting in our understanding of divine
things. People imagine that if they are occupied with the truth, the
spiritual life will as a matter of course be strengthened. And this is
by no means the case. The understanding deals with conceptions and
images of divine things, but it cannot reach the real life of the soul.
Hence the command, Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not
upon your own understanding.’ It is with the heart man believes, and
comes into touch with God. It is in the heart God has given His Spirit,
to be there to us the presence and the power of God working in us. In
all our religion it is the heart that must trust and love and worship
and obey. My mind is utterly impotent in creating or maintaining the
spiritual life within me: the heart must wait on God for Him to work it
in me.
It is in this even as in the physical life. My reason may tell me what
to eat and drink, and how the food nourishes me. But in the eating and
feeding my reason can do nothing: the body has its organs for that
special purpose. Just so, reason may tell me what God’s word says, but
it can do nothing to the feeding of the soul on the bread of life–this
the heart alone can do by its faith and trust in God. A man may be
studying the nature and effects of food or sleep; when he wants to eat
or sleep he sets aside his thoughts and study, and uses the power of
eating or sleeping. And so the Christian needs ever, when he has
studied or heard God’s word, to cease from his thoughts, to put no
trust in them, and to awaken his heart to open itself before God, and
seek the living fellowship with Him.
This is now the blessedness of waiting upon God, that I confess the
impotence of all my thoughts and efforts, and set myself still to bow
my heart before Him in holy silence, and to trust Him to renew and
strengthen His own work in me. And this is just the lesson of our text,
Let your heart take courage, all you that wait on the Lord.’ Remember
the difference between knowing with the mind and believing with the
heart. Beware of the temptation of leaning upon your understanding,
with its clear strong thoughts. They only help you to know what the
heart must get from God: in themselves they are only images and
shadows. Let your heart take courage, all ye that wait on the Lord.’
Present it before Him as that wonderful part of your spiritual nature
in which God reveals Himself, and by which you can know Him. Cultivate
the greatest confidence that, though you cannot see into your heart,
God is working there by His Holy Spirit. Let the heart wait at times in
perfect silence and quiet; in its hidden depths God will work. Be sure
of this, and just wait on Him. Give your whole heart, with its secret
workings, into God’s hands continually. He wants the heart, and takes
it, and as God dwells in it. Be strong, and let your heart take
courage, all ye that wait on the Lord.’
My soul, wait thou only upon God!’
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Tenth Day.
WAITING FOR GOD:
In Humble Fear and Hope.
Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear Him,
Upon them that hope in His mercy;
To deliver their soul from death,
And to keep them alive in famine.
Our soul hath waited for the Lord;
He is our help and our shield.
For our heart shall rejoice in Him,
Because we have trusted in His holy name.
Let thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us,
According as we wait for thee.’
–Ps. 33:18-22(R.V.).
GOD’S eye is upon His people: their eye is upon Him. In waiting upon
God, our eye, looking up to Him, meets His looking down upon us. This
is the blessedness of waiting upon God, that it takes our eyes and
thoughts away from ourselves, even our needs and desires, and occupies
us with our God. We worship Him in His glory and love, with His
all-seeing eye watching over us, that He may supply our every need. Let
us consider this wonderful meeting between God and His people, and mark
well what we are taught here of those on whom God’s eye rests, and of
Him on whom our eye rests.
The eye of the Lord is on them that fear Him, on them that hope in His
mercy.’ Fear and hope are generally thought to be in conflict with each
other; in the presence and worship of God they are found side by side
in perfect and beautiful harmony. And this because in God Himself all
apparent contradictions are reconciled. Righteousness and peace,
judgment and mercy, holiness and love, infinite power and infinite
gentleness, a majesty that is exalted above all heaven, and a
condescension that bows very low, meet and kiss each other. There is
indeed a fear that has torment, that is cast out entirely by perfect
love. But there is a fear that is found in the very heavens. In the
song of Moses and the Lamb they sing, Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord,
and glorify Thy name?’ And out of the very throne the voice came,
Praise our God, all His servants, and ye that fear Him.’ Let us in our
waiting ever seek to fear the glorious and fearful name, The Lord thy
God.’ The deeper we bow before His holiness in holy fear and adoring
awe, in deep reverence and humble self-abasement, even as the angels
veil their faces before the throne, the more will His holiness rest
upon us, and the soul be fitted to have God reveal Himself; the deeper
we enter into the truth that no flesh glory in His presence,’ will it
be given us to see His glory. The eye of the Lord is on them that fear
Him.’
On them that hope in His mercy.’ So far will the true fear of God be
from keeping us back from hope, it will stimulate and strengthen it.
The lower we bow, the deeper we feel we have nothing to hope in but His
mercy. The lower we bow, the nearer God will come, and make our hearts
bold to trust Him. Let every exercise of waiting, let our whole habit
of waiting on God, be pervaded by abounding hope–a hope as bright and
boundless as God’s mercy. The fatherly kindness of God is such that, in
whatever state we come to Him, we may confidently hope in His mercy.
Such are God’s waiting ones. And now, think of the God on whom we wait.
The eye of the Lordis on them that fear Him, on them that hope in His
mercy; to deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in
famine.’ Not to prevent the danger of death and famine–this is often
needed to stir up to wait on Him–but to deliver and to keep alive. For
the dangers are often very real and dark; the situation, whether in the
temporal or spiritual life, may appear to be utterly hopeless; there is
always one hope: God’s eye is on them.
That eye sees the danger, and sees in tender love His trembling waiting
child, and sees the moment when the heart is ripe for the blessing, and
sees the way in which it is to come. This living, mighty God, oh, let
us fear Him and hope in His mercy. And let us humbly but boldly say,
Our soul waiteth for the Lord; He is our help and our shield. Let Thy
mercy be upon us, O Lord, according as we wait for Thee.’
Oh, the blessedness of waiting on such a God! a very present help in
every time of trouble; a shield and defense against every danger.
Children of God! will you not learn to sink down in entire helplessness
and impotence, and in stillness to wait and see the salvation of God?
In the utmost spiritual famine, and when death appears to prevail, oh,
wait on God. He does deliver, He does keep alive. Say it not only in
solitude, but say it to each other–the psalm speaks not of one but of
God’s people–Our soul waits on the Lord: He is our help and our
shield.’ Strengthen and encourage each other in the holy exercise of
waiting, that each may not only say it of himself, but of his brethren,
We have waited for Him; we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.’
My soul, wait thou only upon God!’
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Eleventh Day.
WAITING ON GOD:
Patiently.
Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him.
Those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the land.’–Ps. 37:
7,9(R.V.).
IN patience possess your souls.’ Ye have need of patience.’ Let
patience have its perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire.’
Such words of the Holy Spirit show us what an important element in the
Christian life and character patience is. And nowhere is there a better
place for cultivating or displaying it than in waiting on God. There we
discover how impatient we are, and what our impatience means. We
confess at times that we are impatient with men and circumstances that
hinder us, or with ourselves and our slow progress in the Christian
life. If we truly set ourselves to wait upon God, we shall find that it
is with Him we are impatient, because He does not at once, or as soon
as we could wish, do our bidding. It is in waiting upon God that our
eyes are opened to believe in His wise and sovereign will, and to see
that the sooner and the more completely we yield absolutely to it, the
more surely His blessing can come to us.
It is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that
shows mercy.’ We have as little power to increase or strengthen our
spiritual life, as we had to originate it. We were born not of the will
of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of the will of God.’ Even so,
our willing and running, our desire and effort, avail nought; all is of
God that showeth mercy.’ All the exercises of the spiritual life, our
reading and praying, our willing and doing, have their very great
value. But they can go no farther than this, that they point the way
and prepare us in humility to look to and to depend alone upon God
Himself, and in patience to await His good time and mercy. The waiting
is to teach us our absolute dependence upon God’s mighty working, and
to make us in perfect patience place ourselves at His disposal. They
that wait on the Lord shall inherit the land; the promised land and its
blessing. The heirs must wait; they can afford to wait.
Rest in the lord, and wait patiently for Him.’ The margin gives for
Rest in the Lord,’ Be silent to the Lord,’ or R.V., Be still before the
Lord.’ It is resting in the Lord, in His will, His promise, His
faithfulness, and His love, that makes patience easy. And the resting
in Him is nothing but being silent unto Him, still before Him. Having
our thoughts and wishes, our fears and hopes, hushed into calm and
quiet in that great peace of God which passeth all understanding. That
peace keeps the heart and mind when we are anxious for anything,
because we have made our request known to Him. The rest, the silence,
the stillness, and the patient waiting, all find their strength and joy
in God Himself.
The needs be, and the reasonableness, and the blessedness of patience
will be opened up to the waiting soul. Our patience will be seen to be
the counterpart of God’s patience. He longs far more to bless us fully
than we can desire it. But, as the husbandman has long patience until
the fruit be ripe, so God bows Himself to our slowness and bears long
with us. Let us remember this, and wait patiently: of each promise and
every answer to prayer the word is true: I the Lord will hasten it in
its time.’
Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him.’ Yes, for Him. Seek not
only the help, the gift, you need; seek Himself; wait for Him. Give God
His glory by resting in Him, by trusting him fully, by waiting
patiently for Him. This patience honors Him greatly; it leaves Him, as
God on the throne, to do His work; it yields self wholly into His
hands. It lets God be God. If your waiting be for some special request,
wait patiently. If your waiting be more the exercise of the spiritual
life seeking to know and have more of God, wait patiently. Whether it
be in the shorter specific periods of waiting, or as the continuous
habit of the soul; rest in the Lord, be still before the Lord, and wait
patiently. They that wait on the Lord shall inherit the land.’
My soul, wait thou only upon God!’
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Twelfth Day.
WAITING ON GOD:
Keeping His Ways.
Wait on the Lord, and keep His way,
And He shalt exalt thee to inherit the land.’–Ps. 37: 34.
IF we desire to find a man whom we long to meet, we inquire where the
places and the ways are where he is to be found. When waiting on God,
we need to be very careful that we keep His ways; out of these we never
can expect to find Him. Thou meetest him that rejoices and worketh
righteousness; those that remember Thee in Thy ways.’ We may be sure
that God is never and nowhere to be found but in His ways. And that
there, by the soul who seeks and patiently waits, He is always most
surely to be found. Wait on the Lord, and keep His ways, and He shall
exalt thee.’
How close the connection between the two parts of the injunction. Wait
on the Lord,’–that has to do with worship and disposition; and keep
His ways,’–that deals with walk and work. The outer life must be in
harmony with the inner; the inner must be the inspiration and the
strength for the outer. It is our God who has made known His ways in
His Word for our conduct, and invites our confidence for His grace and
help in our heart. If we do not keep His ways, our waiting on Him can
bring no blessing. The surrender to a full obedience to all His will,
is the secret of full access to all the blessings of His fellowship.
Notice how strongly this comes out in the psalm. It speaks of the
evildoer who prospers in his way, and calls on the believer not to fret
himself. When we see men around us prosperous and happy while they
forsake God’s ways, and ourselves left in difficulty or suffering, we
are in danger of first fretting at what appears so strange, and then
gradually yielding to seek our prosperity in their path. The psalm
says, Fret not thyself; trust in the Lord, and do good. Rest in the
Lord, and wait patiently for Him; cease from anger, and forsake wrath.
Depart from evil, and do good; the Lord forsakes not His saints. The
righteous shall inherit the land. The law of his God is in his heart;
none of his steps shall slide.’ And then follows–the word occurs for
the third time in the psalm–Wait on the Lord, and keep His ways.’ Do
what God asks you to do; God will do more than you can ask Him to do.
And let no one give way to the fear: I cannot keep His ways; it is this
robs us of our confidence. It is true you have not the strength yet to
keep all His ways. But keep carefully those for which you have received
strength already. Surrender yourself willingly and trustingly to keep
all God’s ways, in the strength which will come in waiting on Him. Give
up your whole being to God without reserve and without doubt; He will
prove Himself God to you, and work in you that which is pleasing in His
sight through Jesus Christ. Keep His ways, as you know them in the
Word. Keep His ways, as nature teaches them, in always doing what
appears right. Keep His ways, as Providence points them out. Keep His
ways, as the Holy Spirit suggests. Do not think of waiting on God while
you say you are not willing to walk in His path. However weak you feel,
only be willing, and He who has worked to will, will work to do by His
power.
Wait on the Lord, and keep His ways.’ It may be that the consciousness
of shortcoming and sin makes our text look more like a hindrance than a
help in waiting on God. Let it not be so. Have we not said more than
once, the very starting-point and groundwork of this waiting is utter
and absolute impotence? Why then not come with everything evil you feel
in yourself, every memory of unwillingness, unwatchfulness,
unfaithfulness, and all that causes such unceasing selfcondemnation?
Put your trust in God’s omnipotence, and find in waiting on God your
deliverance. Your failure has been owing to only one thing: you sought
to conquer and obey in your own strength. Come and bow before God until
you learn that He is the God who alone is good, and alone can work any
good thing. Believe that in you, and all that nature can do, there is
no true power. Be content to receive from God each moment the inworking
of His mighty grace and life, and waiting on God will become the
renewal of your strength to run in His ways and not be weary, to walk
in His paths and never faint. Wait on the Lord, and keep His ways’ will
be command and promise in one.
My soul, wait thou only upon God!’
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Thirteenth Day.
WAITING ON GOD:
For more than we know.
And now, Lord, what wait I for? My hope is in Thee. Deliver me from all
my transgressions.’–Ps. 39:7, 8.
THERE may be times when we feel as if we knew not what we are waiting
for. There may be other times when we think we do know, and when it
would just be so good for us to realize that we do not know what to ask
as we ought. God is able to do for us exceeding abundantly above what
we ask or think, and we are in danger of limiting Him, when we confine
our desires and prayers to our own thoughts of them. It is a great
thing at times to say, as our psalm says: And now, Lord, what wait I
for?’ I scarce know or can tell; this only I can say–My hope is in
Thee.’
How we see this limiting of God in the case of Israel! When Moses
promised them meat in the wilderness, they doubted, saying, Can God
furnish a table in the wilderness? He smote the rock that the water
gushed out; can He give bread also? Can He provide flesh for His
people?’ If they had been asked whether God could provide streams in
the desert, they would have answered, Yes. God had done it: He could do
it again. But when the thought came of God doing something new, they
limited Him; their expectation could not rise beyond their past
experience, or their own thoughts of what was possible. Even so we may
be limiting God by our conceptions of what He has promised or is able
to do. Do let us beware of limiting the Holy One of Israel in our very
prayer. Let us believe that every promise of God we plead has a divine
meaning, infinitely beyond our thoughts of them. Let us believe that
His fulfilment of them can be, in a power and an abundance of grace,
beyond our largest grasp of thought. And let us therefore cultivate the
habit of waiting on God, not only for what we think we need, but for
all His grace and power are ready to do for us.
In every true prayer there are two hearts in exercise. The one is your
heart, with its little, dark, human thoughts of what you need and God
can do. The other is God’s great heart, with its infinite, its divine
purposes of blessing. What think you? To which of these two ought the
larger place to be given in your approach to Him? Undoubtedly, to the
heart of God: everything depends upon knowing and being occupied with
that. But how little this is done. This is what waiting on God is meant
to teach you. Just think of God’s wonderful love and redemption, in the
meaning these words must have to Him. Confess how little you understand
what God is willing to do for you, and say each time as you pray And
now, what wait I for?’ My heart cannot say. God’s heart knows and waits
to give. My hope is in Thee.’ Wait on God to do for you more than you
can ask or think.
Apply this to the prayer that follows: Deliver me from all my
transgressions.’ You have prayed to be delivered from temper, or pride,
or self-will. It is as if it is in vain. May it not be that you have
had your own thoughts about the way or the extent of God’s doing it,
and have never waited on the God of glory, according to the riches of
His glory, to do for you what has not entered the heart of man to
conceive? Learn to worship God as the God who does wonders, who wishes
to prove in you that He can do something supernatural and divine. Bow
before Him, wait upon Him, until your soul realizes that you are in the
hands of a divine and almighty worker. Consent not to know what and how
He will work; expect it to be something altogether godlike, something
to be waited for in deep humility, and received only by His divine
power. Let the, And now, Lord, what wait I for? My hope is in Thee’
become the spirit of every longing and every prayer. He will in His
time do His work.
Dear soul, in waiting on God you may often be ready to be weary,
because you hardly know what you have to expect. I pray you, be of good
courage–this ignorance is often one of the best signs. He is teaching
you to leave all in His hands, and to wait on Him alone. Wait on the
Lord! Be strong, and let your heart take courage. Yea, wait on the
Lord.’
My soul, wait thou only upon God!’
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Fourteenth Day.
WAITING ON GOD:
The Way to the New Song.
I waited patiently for the Lord, and He inclined unto me, and heard my
cry. . . . And He hath puta new song in my mouth, even praise unto our
God.’–Ps. 40: 1-3.
COME and listen to the testimony of one who can speak from experience
of the sure and blessed outcome of patient waiting upon God. True
patience is so foreign to our self-confident nature, it is so
indispensable in our waiting upon God, it is such an essential element
of true faith, that we may well once again meditate on what the word
has to teach us.
The word patience is derived from the Latin word for suffering. It
suggests the thought of being under the constraint of some power from
which we want to be free. At first we submit against our will;
experience teaches us that when it is vain to resist, patient endurance
is our wisest course. In waiting on God it is of infinite consequence
that we not only submit, because we are compelled to, but because we
lovingly and joyfully consent to be in the hands of our blessed Father.
Patience then becomes our highest blessedness and our highest grace. It
honors God, and gives Him time to have His way with us. It is the
highest expression of our faith in His goodness and faithfulness. It
brings the soul perfect rest in the assurance that God is carrying on
His work. It is the token of our full consent that God should deal with
us in such a way and time as He thinks best. True patience is the
losing of our self-will in His perfect will.
Such patience is needed for the true and full waiting on God. Such
patience is the growth and fruit of our first lessons in the school of
waiting. To many a one it will appear strange how difficult it is truly
to wait upon God. The great stillness of soul before God that sinks
into its own helplessness and waits for Him to reveal Himself; the deep
humility that is afraid to let its own will or its own strength work
aught except as God works to will and to do; the meekness that is
content to be and to know nothing except as God gives His light; the
entire resignation of the will that only wants to be a vessel in which
His holy will can move and mold: all these elements of perfect patience
are not found at once. But they will come in measure as the soul
maintains its position, and ever again says: Truly my soul waiteth upon
God; from Him cometh my salvation: He only is my rock and my
salvation.’
Have you ever noticed what proof we have that patience is a grace for
which very special grace is given, in these words of Paul: Strengthened
with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all’–what?
patience and long-suffering with joyfulness.’ Yes, we need to be
strengthened with all God’s might, and that according to the measure of
His glorious power, if we are to wait on God in all patience. It is God
revealing Himself in us as our life and strength, that will enable us
with perfect patience to leave all in His hands. If any are inclined to
despond, because they have not such patience, let them be of good
courage; it is in the course of our feeble and very imperfect waiting
that God Himself by His hidden power strengthens us and works out in us
the patience of the saints, the patience of Christ Himself.
Listen to the voice of one who was deeply tried: I waited patiently for
the Lord, and He inclined unto me, and heard my cry.’ Hear what he
passed through: He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of
the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.
And He has put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God.’
Patient waiting upon God brings a rich reward; the deliverance is sure;
God Himself will put a new song into your mouth. O soul! be not
impatient, whether it be in the exercise of prayer and worship that you
find it difficult to wait, or in the delay in respect of definite
requests, or in the fulfilling of your heart’s desire for the
revelation of God Himself in a deeper spiritual life–fear not, but
rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him. And if you sometimes feel
as if patience is not your gift, then remember it is God’s gift, and
take that prayer (2 Thess. 3: 5 R.V.): The Lord direct your hearts into
the patience of Christ.’ Into the patience with which you are to wait
on God, He Himself will guide you.
My soul, wait thou only upon God!’
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Fifteenth Day.
WAITING ON GOD:
For His Counsel.
They soon forgot His works: they waited not for His counsel.’–Ps. 106:
13.
THIS is said of the sin of God’s people in the wilderness. He had
wonderfully redeemed them, and was prepared as wonderfully to supply
their every need. But, when the time of need came, they waited not for
His counsel.’ They thought not that the Almighty God was their Leader
and Provider; they asked not what His plans might be. They simply
thought the thoughts of their own heart, and tempted and provoked God
by their unbelief. They waited not for His counsel.’
How this has been the sin of God’s people in all ages! In the land of
Canaan, in the days of Joshua, the only three failures of which we read
were owing to this one sin. In going up against Ai, in making a
covenant with the Gibeonites, in settling down without going up to
possess the whole land, they waited not for His counsel. And so even
the advanced believer is in danger from this most subtle of
temptations–taking God’s word and thinking his own thoughts of them,
and not waiting for His counsel. Let us take the warning and see what
Israel teaches us. And let us very specially regard it not only as a
danger to which the individual is exposed, but as one against which
God’s people, in their collective capacity, need to be on their guard.
Our whole relation to God is rooted in this, that His will is to be
done in us and by us as it is in heaven. He has promised to make known
His will to us by His Spirit, the Guide into all truth. And our
position is to be that of waiting for His counsel, as the only guide of
our thoughts and actions. In our church worship, in our
prayer-meetings, in our conventions, in all our gatherings as managers,
or directors, or committees, or helpers in any part of the work for
God, our first object ought ever to be to ascertain the mind of God.
God always works according to the counsel of His will; the more that
counsel of His will is sought and found and honoured, the more surely
and mightily will God do His work for us and through us.
The great danger in all such assemblies is that in our consciousness of
having our Bible, and our past experience of God’s leading, and our
sound creed, and our honest wish to do God’s will, we trust in these,
and do not realize that with every step we need and may have a heavenly
guidance. There may be elements of God’s will, applications of God’s
word, experiences of the close presence and leading of God,
manifestations of the power of His Spirit, of which we know nothing as
yet. God may be willing, no, God is willing to open up these to the
souls who are intently set upon allowing Him to have His way entirely,
and who are willing in patience to wait for His making it known. When
we come together praising God for all He has done and taught and given,
we may at the same time be limiting Him by not expecting greater
things. It was when God had given the water out of the rock that they
did not trust Him for bread. It was when God had given Jericho into his
hands that Joshua thought the victory over Ai was sure; he now knew
what God could do, and waited not for counsel from God. And so, while
we think that we know and trust the power of God for what we may
expect, we may be hindering Him by not giving time, and not definitely
cultivating the habit of waiting for His counsel.
A minister has no more solemn duty than teaching people to wait upon
God. Why was it that in the house of Cornelius, when Peter spoke these
words, the Holy Ghost fell upon all that heard him’? They had said, We
are here before God to hear all things that are commanded you of God.’
We may come together to give and to listen to the most earnest
exposition of God’s truth with little spiritual profit if there be not
the waiting for God’s counsel. In all our gatherings we need to believe
in the Holy Spirit as the Guide and Teacher of God’s saints when they
wait to be led by Him into the things which God has prepared, and which
the heart cannot conceive.
More stillness of soul to realize God’s presence; more consciousness of
ignorance of what God’s great plans may be; more faith in the certainty
that God has greater things to show us; more longing that He Himself
may be revealed in new glory: these must be the marks of the assemblies
of God’s saints, if they would avoid the reproach, They waited not for
His counsel.’
My soul, wait thou only upon God!’
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Sixteenth Day.
WAITING ON GOD:
For His Light in the Heart.
I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait,
And in His word do I hope.
My soul waiteth for the Lord
more than they that watch for the morning:
More than they that watch for the morning.’– Ps. 130:5, 6.
WITH what intense longing the morning light is often waited for. By the
mariners in a shipwrecked vessel; by a benighted traveler in a
dangerous country; by an army that finds itself surrounded by an enemy.
The morning light will show what hope of escape there may be. The
morning may bring life and liberty. And so the saints of God in
darkness have longed for the light of His countenance, more than
watchmen for the morning. They have said, More than watchmen for the
morning, my soul waiteth for the Lord.’ Can we say that too? Our
waiting on God can have no higher object than simply having His light
shine on us, and in us, and through us, all the day.
God is Light. God is a Sun. Paul says: God has shined in our hearts to
give the light.’ What light? The light of the glory of God, in the face
of Jesus Christ.’ Just as the sun shines its beautiful, life-giving
light on and into our earth, so God shines into our hearts the light of
His glory, of His love, in Christ His Son. Our heart is meant to have
that light filling and gladdening it all the day. It can have it,
because God is our sun, and it is written, Your sun shall no more go
down forever.’ God’s love shines on us without ceasing.
But can we indeed enjoy it all the day? We can. And how can we? Let
nature give us theanswer. Those beautiful trees and flowers, with all
this green grass, what do they do to keep thesun shining on them? They
do nothing; they simply bask in the sunshine, when it comes. Thesun is
millions of miles away, but over all that distance it sends its own
light and joy; and thetiniest flower that lifts its little head upwards
is met by the same exuberance of light and blessingas flood the widest
landscape. We have not to care for the light we need for our day’s
work; thesun cares, and provides and shines the light around us all the
day. We simply count upon it, andreceive it, and enjoy it.
The only difference between nature and grace is this, that what the
trees and the flowers do unconsciously, as they drink in the blessing
of the light, is to be with us a voluntary and a loving acceptance.
Faith, simple faith in God’s word and love, is to be the opening of the
eyes, the opening of the heart, to receive and enjoy the unspeakable
glory of His grace. And even as the trees, day by day, and month by
month, stand and grow into beauty and fruitfulness, just welcoming
whatever sunshine the sun may give, so it is the very highest exercise
of our Christian life just to abide in the light of God, and let it,
and let Him, fill us with the life and the brightness it brings.
And if you ask, but can it really be, that even as naturally and
heartily as I recognize and rejoice in the beauty of a bright sunny
morning, I can rejoice in God’s light all the day? It can, indeed. From
my breakfast-table I look out on a beautiful valley, with trees and
vineyards and mountains. In our spring and autumn months the light in
the morning is exquisite, and almost involuntarily we say, How
beautiful! And the question comes, Is it only the light of the sun that
is to bring such continual beauty and joy? And is there no provision
for the light of God being just as much an unceasing source of joy and
gladness? There is, indeed, if the soul will but be still and wait on
Him, will only let God shine.
Dear soul! learn to wait on the Lord, more than watchers for the
morning. All within you may be very dark; is that not the very best
reason for waiting for the light of God? The first beginnings of light
may be just enough to discover the darkness, and painfully to humble
you on account of sin. Can you not trust the light to expel the
darkness? Do believe it will. Just bow, even now, in stillness before
God, and wait on Him to shine into you. Say, in humble faith; God is
light, infinitely brighter and more beautiful than that of the sun. God
is light. The Father, the eternal, inaccessible, and incomprehensible
light. The Son, the light concentrated, and embodied, and manifested.
The Spirit, the light entering and dwelling and shining in our hearts.
God is light, and is here shining on my heart. I have been so occupied
with the rushlights of my thoughts and efforts, I have never opened the
shutters to let His light in. Unbelief has kept it out. I bow in faith:
God’s light is shining into my heart. The God of whom Paul wrote, God
hath shined into our heart,’ is my God. What would I think of a sun
that could not shine? what shall I think of a God that does not shine?
No, God shines! God is light! I will take time, and just be still, and
rest in the light of God. My eyes are feeble, and the windows are not
clean, but I will wait on the Lord. The light does shine, the light
will shine in me, and make me full of light. And I shall learn to walk
all the day in the light and joy of God. My soul waits on the Lord,
more than watchers for the morning.
My soul, wait thou only upon God!’
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Seventeenth Day.
WAITING ON GOD:
In Times of Darkness.
I will wait upon the Lord, that hideth His face from the house of
Jacob; and I will look for Him.’–Isa. 8: 17.
HERE we have a servant of God, waiting upon Him, not on behalf of
himself, but of his people, from whom God was hiding his face. It
suggests to us how our waiting upon God, though it commences with our
personal needs, with the desire for the revelation of Himself, or of
the answer to personal petitions, need not, may not, stop there. We may
be walking in the full light of God’s countenance, and God yet be
hiding His face from His people around us; far from our being content
to think that this is nothing but the just punishment of their sin, or
the consequence of their indifference, we are called with tender hearts
to think of their sad estate, and to wait on God on their behalf. The
privilege of waiting upon God is one that brings great responsibility.
Even as Christ, when He entered God’s presence, at once used His place
of privilege and honor as intercessor, so we, no less, if we know what
it is really to enter in and wait upon God, must use our access for our
less favored brethren. I will wait upon the Lord, who hides His face
from the house of Jacob.’
You worship with a certain congregation. Possibly there is not the
spiritual life or joy either in the preaching or in the fellowship that
you could desire. You belong to a Church, with its many congregations.
There is so much of error or worldliness, of seeking after human wisdom
and culture, of trust in ordinances and observances, that you do not
wonder that God hides His face, in many cases, and that there is but
little power for conversion or true edification. Then there are
branches of Christian work with which you are connected–a Sunday
school, a gospel hall, a young men’s association, a mission work
abroad–in which the feebleness of the Spirit’s working appears to
indicate that God is hiding His face. You think, too, you know the
reason. There is too much trust in men and money; there is too much
formality and self-indulgence; there is too little faith and prayer;
too little love and humility; too little of the spirit of the crucified
Jesus. At times you feel as if things are hopeless; nothing will help.
Do believe that God can help and will help. Let the spirit of the
prophet come into you, as you take his words, and set yourself to wait
on God, on behalf of His erring children. Instead of the tone of
judgment or condemnation, of despondency or despair, realize your
calling to wait upon God. If others fail in doing it, give yourself
doubly to it. The deeper the darkness, the greater the need of
appealing to the one only Deliverer. The greater the self-confidence
around you, that knows not that it is poor and wretched and blind, the
more urgent the call on you who profess to see the evil and to have
access to Him who alone can help, to be at your post, waiting upon God.
As often as you are tempted to complain, or to sigh and say ever
afresh: I will wait on the Lord, who hides His face from the house of
Jacob.’
There is a still larger circle–the Christian Church throughout the
world. Think of Greek, Roman Catholic, and Protestant churches, and the
state of the millions that belong to them. Or think only of the
Protestant churches with their open Bible and orthodox creeds. How much
nominal profession and formality! how much of the rule of the flesh and
of man in the very temple of God! And what abundant proof that God does
hide His face!
What are those to do who see and mourn this? The first thing to be done
is this: I will wait on the Lord, who hides His face from the house of
Jacob.’ Let us wait on God, in the humble confession of the sins of His
people. Let us take time and wait on Him in this exercise. Let us wait
on God in tender, loving intercession for all saints, our beloved
brethren, however wrong their lives or their teaching may appear. Let
us wait on God in faith and expectation, until He shows us that He will
hear. Let us wait on God, with the simple offering of ourselves to
Himself, and the earnest prayer that He would send us to our brethren.
Let us wait on God, and give Him no rest until He make Zion a joy in
the earth. Yes, let us rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him who
now hides His face from so many of His children. And let us say of the
lifting up of the light of His countenance we desire for all His
people, I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and my hope is in His
word. My soul waits for the Lord, more than the watchers for the
morning, the watchers for the morning.’
My soul, wait thou only upon God!’
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Eighteenth Day.
WAITING ON GOD:
To Reveal Himself.
And it shall be said in that day,Lo, this is our God;we have waited for
Him, and He will save us: THIS IS THE LORD; we have waited for Him, we
will rejoice and be glad in His salvation,’–Isa. 25:9.
IN this passage we have two precious thoughts.
The one, that it is the language of God’s people who have been unitedly
waiting on Him; the other, that the fruit of their waiting has been
that God has so revealed Himself, that they could joyfully say, Lo,
this is our God: this is the Lord. The power and the blessing of united
waiting is what we need to learn.
Note the twice repeated, We have waited for Him.’ In some time of
trouble the hearts of the people had been drawn together, and they had,
ceasing from all human hope or help, with one heart set themselves to
wait for their God. Is not this just what we need in our churches and
conventions and prayer-meetings? Is not the need of the Church and the
world great enough to demand it? Are there not in the Church of Christ
evils to which no human wisdom is equal? Have we not ritualism and
rationalism, formalism and worldliness, robbing the Church of its
power? Have we not culture and money and pleasure threatening its
spiritual life? Are not the powers of the Church utterly inadequate to
cope with the powers of infidelity and iniquity and wretchedness in
Christian countries and in heathendom? And is there not in the promise
of God, and in the power of the Holy Spirit, a provision made that can
meet the need, and give the Church the restful assurance that she is
doing all her God expects of her? And would not united waiting upon God
for the supply of His Spirit most certainly seem the needed blessing?
We cannot doubt it.
The object of a more definite waiting upon God in our gatherings would
be very much the same as in personal worship. It would mean a deeper
conviction that God must and will do all; a more humble and abiding
entrance into our deep helplessness, and the need of entire and
unceasing dependence upon Him; a more living consciousness that the
essential thing is, giving God His place of honor and of power; a
confident expectation that to those who wait on Him, God will, by His
Spirit, give the secret of His acceptance and presence, and then, in
due time, the revelation of His saving power. The great aim would be to
bring every one in a praying and worshipping company under a deep sense
of God’s presence, so that when they part there will be the
consciousness of having met God Himself, of having left every request
with Him, and of now waiting in stillness while He works out His
salvation.
It is this experience that is indicated in our text. The fulfilment of
the words may, at times, be in such striking interpositions of God’s
power that all can join in the cry, ‘Lo, this is our God; this is the
Lord!’ They may equally become true in spiritual experience, when God’s
people in their waiting times become so conscious of His presence that
in holy awe souls feel, ‘Lo, this is our God; this is the Lord!’ It is
this, alas, that is too much missed in our meetings for worship. The
godly minister has no more difficult, no more solemn, no more blessed
task, than to lead his people out to meet God, and, before ever he
preaches, to bring each one into contact with Him. We are now here in
the presence of God’ — these words of Cornelius show the way in which
Peter’s audience was prepared for the coming of the Holy Spirit.
Waiting before God, and waiting for God, and waiting on God, are the
one condition of God showing His presence.
A company of believers gathered with the one purpose, helping each
other by little intervals of silence, to wait on God alone, opening the
heart for whatever God may have of new discoveries of evil, of His
will, of new openings in work or methods of work, would soon have
reason to say, ‘ Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, He shall
save us: this is the Lord ; we have waited for Him, we will be glad and
rejoice in His salvation.’
My soul, wait thou only upon God!’
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Nineteenth Day.
WAITING ON GOD:
As a God of Judgment.
Yea, in the way of Thy judgments, O Lord, have we waited for Thee: . .
. for when Thyjudgments are on the earth, the inhabitants of the world
learn righteousness.’–Isa. 26:8,9.
The Lord is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for
Him.’–Isa. 30:18.
GOD is a God of mercy and a God of judgment. Mercy and judgment are
ever together in His dealings. In the flood, in the deliverance of
Israel out of Egypt, in the overthrow of the Canaanites, we ever see
mercy in the midst of judgment. Within the inner circle of His own
people, we see it too: the judgment punishes the sin, while mercy saves
the sinner. Or, rather, mercy saves the sinner, not in spite of, but by
means of, the very judgment that came upon his sin. In waiting on God,
we must beware of forgetting this: as we wait we must expect Him as a
God of judgment.
In the way of Thy judgments, have we waited for Thee.’ That will prove
true in our inner experience. If we are honest in our longing for
holiness, in our prayer to be wholly the Lord’s, His holy presence will
stir up and discover hidden sin, and bring us very low in the bitter
conviction of the evil of our nature, its opposition to God’s law, its
impotence to fulfil that law. The words will come true, Who may abide
the day of His coming, for HE is like a refiner’s fire.’ O that Thou
would come down, as when the melting fire burns!’ In great mercy God
executes, within the soul, His judgments upon sin, as He makes it feel
its wickedness and guilt. Many a one tries to flee from these
judgments: the soul that longs for God, and for deliverance from sin,
bows under them in humility and in hope. In silence of soul it says,
Arise, O Lord! and let Thine enemies be scattered. In the way of Thy
judgments we have waited for Thee.’
Let no one who seeks to learn the blessed art of waiting on God, wonder
if at first the attempt to wait on Him only discovers more of his sin
and darkness. Let no one despair because unconquered sins, or evil
thoughts, or great darkness appear to hide God’s face. Was not, in His
own Beloved Son, the gift and bearer of His mercy on Calvary, the mercy
as if hidden and lost in the judgment? Oh, submit, and sink down deep
under the judgment of thine every sin: judgment prepares the way, and
breaks out in wonderful mercy. It is written, Thou shalt be redeemed
with judgment.’ Wait on God, in the faith that His tender mercy is
working out in you His redemption in the midst of judgment: wait for
Him, He will be gracious to thee.
There is another application still, one of unspeakable solemnity. We
are expecting God, in the way of His judgments, to visit this earth: we
are waiting for Him. What a thought! We know of these coming judgments;
we know that there are tens of thousands of our professing Christians
who live on in carelessness, and who, if no change come, must perish
under God’s hand. Oh, shall we not do our utmost to warn them, to plead
with and for them, if God may have mercy on them. If we feel our want
of boldness, want of zeal, want of power, shall we not begin to wait on
God more definitely and persistently as a God of judgment, asking Him
so to reveal Himself in the judgments that are coming on our very
friends, that we may be inspired with a new fear of Him and them, and
constrained to speak and pray as never yet. Verily, waiting on God is
not meant to be a spiritual self-indulgence. Its object is to let God
and His holiness, Christ and the love that died on Calvary, the Spirit
and fire that burns in heaven and came to earth, get possession of us,
to warn and rouse men with the message that we are waiting for God in
the way of His judgments. O Christian! prove that you really believe in
the God of judgment.
My soul, wait thou only upon God!’
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Twentieth Day.
WAITING ON GOD:
Who waits on us.
And therefore will the Lord wait, that He may be gracious unto you; and
therefore will He be exalted, that He may have mercy upon you: for the
Lord is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for
Him.’–Isa. 30:18
WE must not only think of our waiting upon God, but also of what is
more wonderful still, of God’s waiting upon us. The vision of Him
waiting on us, will give new impulse and inspiration to our waiting
upon Him. It will give an unspeakable confidence that our waiting
cannot be in vain. If He waits for us, then we may be sure that we are
more than welcome; that He rejoices to find those He has been seeking
for. Let us seek even now, at this moment, in the spirit of lowly
waiting on God, to find out something of what it means: Therefore will
the Lord wait, that He may be gracious unto you.’ We shall accept and
echo back the message: Blessed are all they that wait for Him.’
Look up and see the great God upon His throne. He is Love–an unceasing
and inexpressible desire to communicate His own goodness and
blessedness to all His creatures. He longs and delights to bless. He
has inconceivably glorious purposes concerning every one of His
children, by the power of His Holy Spirit, to reveal in them His love
and power. He waits with all the longings of a father’s heart. He waits
that He may be gracious unto you. And each time you come to wait upon
Him, or seek to maintain in daily life the holy habit of waiting, you
may look up and see Him ready to meet you, waiting that He may be
gracious unto you. Yes, connect every exercise, every breath of the
life of waiting, with faith’s vision of your God waiting for you.
And if you ask, how is it, if He waits to be gracious, that even after
I come and wait upon Him, He does not give the help I seek, but waits
on longer and longer? there is a double answer. The one is this: God is
a wise husbandman, who waits for the precious fruit of the earth, and
has long patience for it.’ He cannot gather the fruit until it is ripe.
He knows when we are spiritually ready to receive the blessing to our
profit and His glory. Waiting in the sunshine of His love is what will
ripen the soul for His blessing. Waiting under the cloud of trial, that
breaks in showers of blessing, is as needful. Be assured that if God
waits longer than you could wish, it is only to make the blessing
doubly precious. God waited four thousand years, until the fulness of
time, before He sent His Son: our times are in His hands: He will
avenge His elect speedily: He will make haste for our help, and not
delay one hour too long.
The other answer points to what has been said before. The giver is more
than the gift; God is more than the blessing; and our being kept
waiting on Him is the only way for our learning to find our life and
joy in Himself. Oh, if God’s children only knew what a glorious God
they have, and what a privilege it is to be linked in fellowship with
Himself, then they would rejoice in Him, even when He keeps them
waiting. They would learn to understand better than ever; Therefore
will the Lord wait, that He may be gracious unto you.’ His waiting will
be the highest proof of His graciousness.
Blessed are all they that wait for Him.’ Queen has her
ladies-in-waiting. The position is one of subordination and service,
and yet it is considered one of the highest dignity and privilege,
because a wise and gracious sovereign makes them companions and
friends. What a dignity and blessedness to be attendants-in-waiting on
the Everlasting God, ever on the watch for every indication of His will
or favor, ever conscious of His nearness, His goodness, and His grace!
The Lord is good to them that wait for Him.’ Blessed are all they that
wait for Him.’ Yes, it is blessed when a waiting soul and a waiting God
meet each other. God cannot do His work without His and our waiting His
time: let waiting be our work, as it is His. And if His waiting be
nothing but goodness and graciousness, let ours be nothing but a
rejoicing in that goodness, and a confident expectancy of that grace.
And let every thought of waiting become to us simply the expression of
unmingled and unutterable blessedness, because it brings us to a God
who waits that He may make Himself known to us perfectly as the
Gracious One.
My soul, wait thou only upon God!’
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Twenty-First Day.
WAITING ON GOD:
The Almighty One.
They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount
up with eagle wings; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk
and not faint.’–Isa. 40: 31.
WAITING always partakes of the character of our thoughts of the one on
whom we wait. Our waiting on God will depend greatly on our faith of
what He is. In our text we have the close of a passage in which God
reveals Himself as the Everlasting and Almighty One. It is as that
revelation enters our soul that the waiting will become the spontaneous
expression of what we know Him to be–a God altogether most worthy to
be waited upon.
Listen to the words: Why sayest thou, O Jacob, my way is hid from the
Lord?’ Why speakest thou as if God does not hear or help?
Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, that the Everlasting One, the
Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is
weary?’ So far from it, He giveth power to the faint, and to them that
have no might He increaseth strength. Even the youths’–the glory of
young men is their strength’–even the youths shall faint, and the
young men shall utterly fall:’ all that is accounted strong with man
shall come to nought. But they that wait on the Lord,’ on the
Everlasting One, who does not faint, neither is weary, they shall renew
their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall
run and,’–listen now, they shall be strong with the strength of God,
and, even as He, shall not be weary; they shall walk and,’ even as He,
‘not faint.’
Yes, they shall mount up with wings as eagles.’ You know what eagles’
wings mean. The eagle is the king of birds, it soars the highest into
the heavens. Believers are to live a heavenly life, in the very
Presence and Love and Joy of God. They are to live where God lives;
they need God’s strength to rise there. To them that wait on Him it
shall be given.
You know how the eagles’ wings are obtained. Only in one way–by the
eagle birth. You are born of God. You have the eagles’ wings. You may
not have known it: you may not have used them; but God can and will
teach you to use them.
You know how the eagles are taught the use of their wings. See yonder
cliff rising a thousand feet out of the sea. See high up a ledge on the
rock, where there is an eagle’s nest with its treasure of two young
eaglets. See the mother bird come and stir up her nest, and with her
beak push the timid birds over the precipice. See how they flutter and
fall and sink toward the depth. See now (Deut. 32: 11) how she
fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them,
beareth them on her wings,’ and so, as they ride upon her wings, brings
them to a place of safety. And so she does once and again, each time
casting them out over the precipice, and then again taking and carrying
them. So the Lord alone did lead him.’ Yes, the instinct of that eagle
mother was God’s gift, a single ray of that love in which the Almighty
trains His people to mount as on eagles’ wings.
He stirs up your nest. He disappoints your hopes. He brings down your
confidence. He makes you fear and tremble, as all your strength fails,
and you feel utterly weary and helpless. And all the while He is
spreading His strong wings for you to rest your weakness on, and
offering His everlasting Creator-strength to work in you. And all He
asks is that you should sink down in your weariness and wait on Him;
and allow Him in His Jehovah-strength to carry you as you ride upon the
wings of His Omnipotence.
Dear child of God! I pray you, lift up your eyes, and behold your God!
Listen to Him who says that He faints not, neither is weary, who
promiseth that you too shall not faint or be weary, who asketh nought
but this one thing, that you should wait on Him. And let your answer
be, With such a God, so mighty, so faithful, so tender,
My soul, wait thou only upon God!’
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Twenty-Second Day.
WAITING ON GOD:
It Certainty of Blessing.
Thou shalt know that I am the Lord; for they shall not be ashamed that
wait for Me.’ –Isa. 49:23.
Blessed are all they that wait for Him.’ –Isa. 30:18.
WHAT promises! How God seeks to draw us to waiting on Him by the most
positive assurance that it never can be in vain: They shall not be
ashamed that wait for Me.’ How strange that, though we should so often
have experienced it, we are yet so slow of learning that this blessed
waiting must and can be as the very breath of our life, a continuous
resting in God’s presence and His love, an unceasing yielding of
ourselves for Him to perfect His work in us. Let us once again listen
and meditate, until our heart says with new conviction: Blessed are
they that wait for Him!’ In our sixth day’s lesson we found in the
prayer of Psalm 25: Let none that wait on Thee be ashamed.’ The very
prayer shows how we fear lest it might be. Let us listen to God’s
answer, until every fear is banished, and we send back to heaven the
words God speaks, Yes, Lord, we believe what You say: ‘All they that
wait for Me shallnot be ashamed.’ Blessed are all they that wait for
Him.’
The context of each of these two passages points us to times when God’s
Church was in great straits, and to human eye there was no possibility
of deliverance. But God interposes with His word of promise, and
pledges His Almighty Power for the deliverance of His people. And it is
as the God who has Himself undertaken the work of their redemption,
that He invites them to wait on Him, and assures them that
disappointment is impossible. We, too, are living in days in which
there is much in the state of the Church, with its profession and its
formalism, that is indescribably sad. Amid all we praise God for, there
is, alas, much to mourn over! Were it not for God’s promises we might
well despair. But in His promises the Living God has given and bound
Himself to us. He calls us to wait on Him. He assureth us we shall not
be put to shame. Oh that our hearts might learn to wait before Him,
until He Himself reveals to us what His promises mean, and in the
promises reveals Himself in His hidden glory! We shall be irresistibly
drawn to wait on Him alone. God increase the company of those who say,
Our soul waiteth for the Lord: He is our Help and our Shield.’
This waiting upon God on behalf of His Church and people will depend
greatly upon the place that waiting on Him has taken in our personal
life. The mind may often have beautiful visions of what God has
promised to do, and the lips may speak of them in stirring words, but
these are not really the measure of our faith or power. No; it is what
we really know of God in our personal experience, conquering the
enemies within, reigning and ruling, revealing Himself in His Holiness
and Power in our inmost being, –it is this will be the real measure of
the spiritual blessing we expect from Him, and bring to our fellowmen.
It is as we know how blessed the waiting on God has become to our own
souls, that we shall confidently hope in the blessing to come on the
Church around us, and the key-word of all our expectations will be; He
hath said: All they that wait on Me shall not be ashamed.’ From what He
has done in us, we shall trust Him to do mighty things around us.
Blessed are all they that wait for Him.’ Yes, blessed even now in the
waiting. The promised blessings, for ourselves, or for others, may
tarry; the unutterable blessedness of knowing and having Him who has
promised, the Divine Blesser, the Living Fountain of the coming
blessings, is even now ours. Do let this truth get full possession of
your souls, that waiting on God is itself the highest privilege of the
creature, the highest blessedness of His redeemed child.
Even as the sunshine enters with its light and warmth, with its beauty
and blessing, into every little blade of grass that rises upward out of
the cold earth, so the Everlasting God meets, in the greatness and the
tenderness of His love, each waiting child, to shine in his heart the
light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ.’ Read these words again, until your heart learns to know what
God waits to do to you. Who can measure the difference between the
great sun and that little blade of grass? And yet the grass has all of
the sun it can need or hold. Do believe that in waiting on God, His
greatness and your littleness suit and meet each other most
wonderfully. Just how in emptiness and poverty and utter impotence, in
humility and meekness and surrender to His will, before His great
glory, and be still. As you wait on Him, God draws near. He will reveal
Himself as the God who will fulfil mightily His every promise. And let
your heart ever again take up the song: Blessed are all they that wait
for Him.’
My soul, wait thou only upon God!’
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Twenty-Third Day.
WAITING ON GOD:
For Unlooked-for Things.
For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived
by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside Thee, what He hath
prepared for him that waiteth for Him.’–Isa. 64:4.
THE R.V. has: ‘Neither hath the eye seen a God beside Thee, which
worketh for him that waiteth for Him.’ In the A.V. the thought is, that
no eye hath seenthe thingwhich God hath prepared. In the R.V. no eye
hath seen a God, beside our God, who worketh for him that waiteth for
Him. To both the two thoughts are common: that our place is to wait
upon God, and that there will be revealed to us what the human heart
cannot conceive. The difference is: in the R.V. it isthe God who works,
in the A.V. the thing He is to work. In 1 Cor. 2:9, the citation is in
regard to the things which the Holy Spirit is to reveal, as in the
A.V., and in this meditation we keep to that.
The previous verses, specially from chap. 63:15, refer to the low state
of God’s people. The prayer has been poured out, Look down from
heaven.’ (ver. 15.) Why hast Thou hardened my heart from Thy fear?
Return for Thy servants’ sake.’ (ver. 19.) And 64:1, still more urgent,
Oh that Thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, .
. . as when the melting fire burneth, to make Thy name known to Thy
adversaries!’ Then follows the plea from the past, When Thou didst
terrible things we looked not for, Thou camest down, the mountains
flowed down at Thy presence.’ For’–this is now the faith that has been
awakened by the thought of things we looked not for, He is still the
same God–‘eye hath not seen beside Thee, O God, what He hath prepared
for him that waiteth for Him.’ God alone knows what He can do for His
waiting people. As Paul expounds and applies it: The things of God
knoweth no man, save the Spirit of God.’ But God hath revealed them to
us by His Spirit.’
The need of God’s people, and the call for God’s interposition, is as
urgent in our days as it was in the time of Isaiah. There is now, as
there was then, as there has been at all times, a remnant that seek
after God with their whole heart. But if we look at Christendom as a
whole, at the state of the Church of Christ, there is infinite cause
for beseeching God to rend the heavens and come down. Nothing but a
special interposition of Almighty Power will avail. I fear we have no
right conception of what the so-called Christian world is in the sight
of God. Unless God comes down as the melting fire burneth, to make
known His name to His adversaries,’ our labors are comparatively
fruitless. Look at the ministry–how much it is in the wisdom of man
and of literary culture –how little in demonstration of the Spirit and
of power. Think of the unity of the body–how little there is of the
manifestation of the power of a heavenly love binding God’s children
into one. Think of holiness–the holiness of Christ-like humility and
crucifixion to the world–how little the world sees that they have men
among them who live in Christ in heaven, in whom Christ and heaven
live.
What is to be done? There is but one thing. We must wait upon God. And
what for? We must cry, with a cry that never rests, Oh that Thou
wouldest rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might flow
down at Thy presence.’ We must desire and believe, we must ask and
expect, that God will do unlooked-for things. We must set our faith on
a God of whom men do not know what He has prepared for them that wait
for Him. The wonder-doing God, who can surpass all our expectations,
must be the God of our confidence.
Yes, let God’s people enlarge their hearts to wait on a God able to do
exceeding abundantly above what we can ask or think. Let us band
ourselves together as His elect who cry day and night to Him for things
men have not seen. He is able to arise and to make His people a name,
and a praise in the earth. He will wait, that He may be gracious unto
you; blessed are all they that wait for Him.’
My soul, wait thou only upon God!’
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Twenty-Fourth Day.
WAITING ON GOD:
To Know His Goodness.
The Lord is good unto them that wait for Him.’ — Lam. 3:25
THERE is none good but God.’ His goodness is in the heavens.’ Oh how
great is Thy goodness, which Thou hast laid up for them that fear Thee
Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!’ And here is now the true way
of entering into and rejoicing in this goodness of God–waiting upon
Him. The Lord is good–even His children often do not know it, for they
wait not in quietness for Him to reveal it. But to those who persevere
in waiting, whose souls do wait, it will come true. One might think
that it is just those who have to wait who might doubt it. But this is
only when they do not wait, but grow impatient. The truly waiting ones
will all have to say, The Lord is good to them that wait for Him.’
Wouldst thou fully know the goodness of God, give thyself more than
ever to a life of waiting on Him.
At our first entrance into the school of waiting upon God, the heart is
chiefly set upon the blessings which we wait for. God graciously uses
our need and desire for help to educate us for something higher than we
were thinking of. We were seeking gifts; He, the Giver, longs to give
Himself and to satisfy the soul with His goodness. It is just for this
reason that He often withholds the gifts, and that the time of waiting
is made so long. He is all the time seeking to win the heart of His
child for Himself. He wishes that we should not only say, when He
bestows the gift, How good is God! but that long ere it comes, and even
if it never comes, we should all the time be experiencing: It is good
that a man should quietly wait’: The Lord is good to them that wait for
Him.’
What a blessed life the life of waiting then becomes, the continual
worship of faith, adoring and trusting His goodness. As the soul learns
its secret, every act or exercise of waiting just becomes a quiet
entering into the goodness of God, to let it do its blessed work and
satisfy our every need. And every experience of God’s goodness gives
the work of waiting new attractiveness, and instead of only taking
refuge in time of need, there comes a great longing to wait continually
and all the day. And however duties and engagements occupy the time and
the mind, the soul gets more familiar with the secret art of always
waiting. Waiting becomes the habit and disposition, the very second
nature and breath of the soul.
Dear Christian! do you not begin to see that waiting is not one among a
number of Christian virtues, to be thought of from time to time, but
that it expresses that disposition which lies at the very root of the
Christian life? It gives a higher value and a new power to our prayer
and worship, to our faith and surrender, because it links us, in
unalterable dependence, to God Himself. And it gives us the unbroken
enjoyment of the goodness of God: The Lord is good to them that wait
for Him.’
Let me press upon you once again to take time and trouble to cultivate
this so much needed element of the Christian life. We get too much of
religion at second hand from the teaching of men. That teaching has
great value if, even as the preaching of John the Baptist sent his
disciples away from himself to the Living Christ, it leads us to God
Himself. What our religion needs is–more of God. Many of us are too
much occupied with our work. As with Martha, the very service we want
to render the Master separates from Him; it is neither pleasing to Him
nor profitable to ourselves. The more work, the more need of waiting
upon God; the doing of God’s will would then, instead of exhausting, be
our meat and drink, nourishment and refreshment and strength. The Lord
is good to them that wait for Him.’ How good none can tell but those
who prove it in waiting on Him. How good none can fully tell but those
who have proved Him to the utmost.
My soul, wait thou only upon God!’
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Twenty-Fifth Day.
WAITING ON THE LORD:
Quietly.
It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the
salvation of the Lord.’–Lam. 3: 26
TAKE heed, and be quiet: fear not, neither be faint-hearted.’ In
quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.’ Such words reveal
to us the close connection between quietness and faith, and show us
what a deep need there is of quietness, as an element of true waiting
upon God. If we are to have our whole heart turned towards God, we must
have it turned away from the creature, from all that occupies and
interests, whether of joy or sorrow.
God is a being of such infinite greatness and glory, and our nature has
become so estranged from Him, that it needs our whole heart and desires
set upon Him, even in some little measure to know and receive Him.
Everything that is not God, that excites our fears, or stirs our
efforts, or awakens our hopes, or makes us glad, hinders us in our
perfect waiting on Him. The message is one of deep meaning: Take heed
and be quiet;’ In quietness shall be your strength;’ It is good that a
man should quietly wait.’
How the very thought of God in His majesty and holiness should silence
us, Scriptureabundantly testifies.
The Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before
Him’ (Hab. 2: 20).
Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord God.’ (Zeph. 1:7).
Be silent, O all flesh, before the Lord; for He is raised up out of His
holy habitation’ (Zech. 2:13).
As long as the waiting on God is chiefly regarded as an end towards
more effectual prayer, and the obtaining of our petitions, this spirit
of perfect quietness will not be obtained. But when it is seen that the
waiting on God is itself an unspeakable blessedness, one of the highest
forms of fellowship with the Holy One, the adoration of Him in His
glory will of necessity humble the soul into a holy stillness, making
way for God to speak and reveal Himself. Then it comes to the
fulfilment of the precious promise, that all of self and self-effort
shall be humbled: The haughtiness of man shall be brought down, and the
Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.’
Let everyone who would learn the art of waiting on God remember the
lesson: Take heed, and be quiet;’ It is good that a man quietly wait.’
Take time to be separate from all friends and all duties, all cares and
all joys; time to be still and quiet before God. Take time not only to
secure stillness from man and the world, but from self and its energy.
Let the Word and prayer be very precious; but remember, even these may
hinder the quiet waiting. The activity of the mind in studying the
Word, or giving expression to its thoughts in prayer, the activities of
the heart, with its desires and hopes and fears, may so engage us that
we do not come to the still waiting on the All-Glorious One; our whole
being is not prostrate in silence before Him. Though at first it may
appear difficult to know how thus quietly to wait, with the activities
of mind and heart for a time subdued, every effort after it will be
rewarded; we shall find that it grows upon us, and the little season of
silent worship will bring a peace and a rest that give a blessing not
only in prayer, but all the day.
It is good that a man should quietly wait for the salvation of the
Lord.’ Yes, it is good. The quietness is the confession of our
impotence, that with all our willing and running, with all our thinking
and praying, it will not be done: we must receive it from God. It is
the confession of our trust that our God will in His time come to our
help–the quiet resting in Him alone. It is the confession of our
desire to sink into our nothingness, and to let Him work and reveal
Himself. Do let us wait quietly. In daily life let there be in the soul
that is waiting for the great God to do His wondrous work, a quiet
reverence, an abiding watching against too deep engrossment with the
world, and the whole character will come to bear the beautiful stamp:
Quietly waiting for the salvation of God.
My soul, wait thou only upon God!’
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Twenty-Sixth Day.
WAITING ON GOD:
In Holy Expectancy.
Therefore will I look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my
salvation; my God will hear me.’–Micah 7: 7.
HAVE you ever read a beautiful little book, Expectation Corner? If not,
get it; you will find in it one of the best sermons on our text. It
tells of a king who prepared a city for some of his poor subjects. Not
far from them were large storehouses, where everything they could need
was supplied if they but sent in their requests. But on one
condition–that they should be on the outlook for the answer, so that
when the king’s messengers came with the gifts they had desired, they
should always be found waiting and ready to receive them. The sad story
is told of one desponding one who never expected to get what he asked,
because he was too unworthy. One day he was taken to the king’s
storehouses, and there, to his amazement, he saw, with his address on
them, all the packages that had been made up for him, and sent. There
was the garment of praise, and the oil of joy, and the eye salve, and
so much more; they had been to his door, but found it closed; he was
not on the outlook. From that time on he understood the lesson Micah
would teach us today; I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God
of my salvation; my God will hear me.’
We have more than once said: Waiting for the answer to prayer is not
the whole of waiting, but only a part. Today we want to take in the
blessed truth: It is a part, and a very important one. When we have
special petitions, in connection with which we are waiting on God, our
waiting must be very definitely in the confident assurance: My God will
hear me.’ A holy, joyful expectancy is of the very essence of true
waiting. And this not only in reference to the many varied requests
every believer has to make, but most especially to the one great
petition which ought to be the chief thing every heart seeks for itself
— that The Life of God in the soul may have full sway; that Christ may
be fully formed within; and that we may be filled to all the fullness
of God. This is what God has promised. This is what God’s people too
little seek, very often because they do not believe it possible. This
is what we ought to seek and dare to expect, because God is able and
waiting to work it in us.
But God Himselfmust work it. And for this end our working must cease.
We must see how entirely it is to be the faith of the operation of God
who raised Jesus from the dead–just as much as the resurrection, the
perfecting of God’s life in our souls is to be directly His work. And
waiting has to become more than ever a tarrying before God in stillness
of soul, counting upon Him who raises the dead, and calls the things
that are not as though they were.
Just notice how the threefold use of the name of God in our text points
us to Himself as the onefrom whom alone is our expectation. I will look
to The Lord; I will wait for The God of my Salvation; My God will hear
me.’ Everything that is salvation, everything that is good and holy,
must be the direct mighty work of God Himself within us. For every
moment of a life in the will of God, there must be the immediate
operation of God. And the one thing I have to do is this: to look to
the Lord; to wait for the God of my salvation; to hold fast the
confident assurance, My God will hear me.’
God says: Be still, and know that I am God. ‘
There is no stillness like that of the grave. In thegrave of Jesus, in
the fellowship of His death, in death to self with its own will and
wisdom, its own strength and energy, there is rest. As we cease from
self, and our soul becomes still to God, God will arise and show
Himself. Be still, and know,’ then you shall know that I am God.’ There
is no stillness like the stillness Jesus gives when He speaks, Peace,
be still.’ In Christ, in His death, and in His life, in His perfected
redemption, the soul may be still, and God will come in, and take
possession, and do His perfect work.
My soul, wait thou only upon God!’
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Twenty-Seventh Day.
WAITING ON GOD:
For Redemption.
Simeon was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and
the Holy Ghost was upon him. Anna, a prophetess, . . . spake of Him to
all then that looked for redemption in Jerusalem.’–Luke 2: 25, 38.
HERE we have the mark of a waiting believer. Just, righteous in all his
conduct; devout, devoted to God, ever walking as in His presence;
waiting for the consolation of Israel, looking for the fulfilment of
God’s promises: and the Holy Ghost was on him. In the devout waiting he
had been prepared for the blessing. And Simeon was not the only one.
Anna spoke to all that looked for redemption in Jerusalem. This was the
one mark, amid surrounding formalism and worldliness, of a godly band
of men and women in Jerusalem. They were waiting on God; looking for
His promised redemption.
And now that the Consolation of Israel has come, and the redemption has
been accomplished, do we still need to wait? We do indeed. But will not
our waiting, who look back to it as come, differ greatly from those who
looked forward to it as coming? It will, especially in two aspects. We
now wait on God in the full power of the redemption: and we wait for
its full revelation.
Our waiting is now in the full power of the redemption. Christ spoke,
In that day you shall know that you are in Me. Abide in Me.’ The
Epistles teach us to present ourselves to God as indeed dead to sin,
and alive to God in Christ Jesus,’ blessed with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.’ Our waiting on God may now be in
the wonderful consciousness, wrought and maintained by the Holy Spirit
within us, that we are accepted in the Beloved, that the love that
rests on Him rests on us, that we are living in that love, in the very
nearness and presence and sight of God. The old saints took their stand
on the word of God, and waited, hoping on that word; we rest on the
word too — but, oh! under what exceeding greater privileges, as one
with Christ Jesus. In our waiting on God, let this be our confidence:
in Christ we have access to the Father; how sure, therefore, may we be
that our waiting cannot be vain.
Our waiting differs also in this, that while they waited for a
redemption to come, we see itaccomplished, and now wait for its
revelation in us. Christ not only said, Abide in Me, but also I in you.
The Epistles not only speak of us in Christ, but of Christ in us, as
the highest mystery of redeeming love. As we maintain our place in
Christ day by day, God waits to reveal Christ in us, in such a way that
He is formed in us, that His mind and disposition and likeness acquire
form and substance in us, so that by each it can in truth be said,
Christ liveth in me.’
My life in Christ up there in heaven and Christ’s life in me down here
on earth — these two are the complement of each other. And the more my
waiting on God is marked by the living faith I in Christ, the more the
heart thirsts for and claims the CHRIST IN ME. And the waiting on God,
which began with special needs and prayer, will increasingly be
concentrated, as far as our personal life is concerned, on this one
thing, Lord, reveal Your redemption fully in me; let Christ live in me.
Our waiting differs from that of the old saints in the place we take,
and the expectations we entertain. But at root it is the same: waiting
on God, from whom alone is our expectation.
Learn from Simeon and Anna one lesson. How utterly impossible it was
for them to do anything towards the great redemption — towards the
birth of Christ or His death. It was God’s work. They could do nothing
but wait. Are we as absolutely helpless as regards the revelation of
Christ in us? We are indeed. God did not work out the great redemption
in Christ as a whole, and leave its application in detail to us.
The secret thought that it is so lies at the root of all our
feebleness. The revelation of Christ in every individual believer, and
in each one the daily revelation, step by step and moment by moment, is
as much the work of God’s omnipotence as the birth or resurrection of
Christ. Until this truth enters and fills us, and we feel that we are
just as dependent upon God for each moment of our life in the enjoyment
of redemption as they were in their waiting for it, our waiting upon
God will not bring its full blessing. The sense of utter and absolute
helplessness, the confidence that God can and will do all, — these
must be the marks of our waiting as of theirs. As gloriously as God
proved Himself to them the faithful and wonder-working God, He will to
us also.
My soul, wait thou only upon God!’
__________________________________________________________________
Twenty-Eighth Day.
WAITING ON GOD:
For the Coming of His Son.
Be ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord.’–Luke 3:36.
Until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which, in His own time,
He shall shew, who is theblessed and only Potentate, the King of kings,
and Lord of lords.’–1 Tim. 6:14,15(R.V.).
Turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait
for His Son from heaven.’–1 Thess. 1: 9, 10.
WAITING on God in heaven, and waiting for His Son from heaven, these
two God has joined together, and no man may put them asunder. The
waiting on God for His presence and power in daily life will be the
only true preparation for waiting for Christ in humility and true
holiness. The waiting for Christ coming from heaven to take us to
heaven will give the waiting on God its true tone of hopefulness and
joy. The Father who in His own time will reveal His Son from heaven, is
the God who, as we wait on Him, prepares us for the revelation of His
Son. The present life and the coming glory are inseparably connected in
God and in us.
There is sometimes a danger of separating them. It is always easier to
be engaged with the religion of the past or the future than to be
faithful in the religion of today. As we look to what God has done in
the past, or will do in time to come, the personal claim of present
duty and present submission to His working may be escaped. Waiting on
God must ever lead to waiting for Christ as the glorious consummation
of His work; and waiting for Christ must ever remind us of the duty of
waiting upon God, as our only proof that the waiting for Christ is in
spirit and in truth. There is such a danger of our being so occupied
with the things that are coming more than with Him who is to come;
there is such scope in the study of coming events for imagination and
reason and human ingenuity, that nothing but deeply humble waiting on
God can save us from mistaking the interest and pleasure of
intellectual study for the true love of Him and His appearing. All ye
that say ye wait for Christ’s coming, be sure that you wait on God now.
All ye that seek to wait on God now to reveal His Son in you, see to it
that ye do so as men waiting for the revelation of His Son from heaven.
The hope of that glorious appearing will strengthen you in waiting upon
God for what He is to do in you now: the same omnipotent love that is
to reveal that glory is working in you even now to fit you for it.
The blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and
Savior Jesus Christ,’ is one of the great bonds of union given to God’s
Church throughout the ages. He shall come to be glorified in His
saints, and to be marveled at in all them that believe.’ Then we shall
all meet, and the unity of the body of Christ be seen in its divine
glory. It will be the meeting-place and the triumph of divine love.
Jesus receiving His own and presenting them to the Father. His own
meeting Him and worshiping in speechless love that blessed face. His
own meeting each other in the ecstasy of God’s own love. Let us wait,
long for, and love the appearing of our Lord and Heavenly Bridegroom.
Tender love to Him and tender love to each other is the true and only
bridal spirit.
I fear greatly that this is sometimes forgotten. A beloved brother in
Holland was speaking about the expectancy of faith being the true sign
of the bride. I ventured to express a doubt. An unworthy bride, about
to be married to a prince, might only be thinking of the position and
the riches that she was to receive. The expectancy of faith might be
strong, and true love utterly wanting. It is love in the bridal spirit.
It is not when we are most occupied with prophetic subjects, but when
in humility and love we are clinging close to our Lord and His
brethren, that we are in the bride’s place. Jesus refuses to accept our
love except as it is love to His disciples. Waiting for His coming
means waiting for the glorious coming manifestation of the unity of the
body, while we seek here to maintain that unity in humility and love.
Those who love most are the most ready for His coming. Love to each
other is the life and beauty of His bride, the Church.
And how is this to be brought about? Beloved child of God! if you would
learn aright to wait for His Son from heaven, live even now waiting on
God in heaven. Remember how Jesus lived ever waiting on God. He could
do nothing of Himself. It was God who perfected His Son through
suffering and then exalted Him. It is God alone who can give you the
deep spiritual life of one who is really waiting for His Son: wait on
God for it. Waiting for Christ Himself is, oh, so different from
waiting for things that may come to pass! The latter any Christian can
do; the former, God must work in you every day by His Holy Spirit.
Therefore all you who wait on God, look to Him for grace to wait for
His Son from heaven in the Spirit which is from heaven. And you who
would wait for His Son, wait on God continually to reveal Christ in
you.
The revelation of Christ in us as it is given to them who wait upon God
is the true preparationfor the full revelation of Christ in glory.
My soul, wait thou only upon God!’
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Twenty-Ninth Day.
WAITING ON GOD:
For the Promise of the Father.
He charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the
promise of the Father.’–Acts 1:4.
IN speaking of the saints in Jerusalem at Christ’s birth, with Simeon
and Anna, we saw how, though the redemption they waited for is come,
the call to waiting is no less urgent now than it was then. We wait for
the full revelation in us of what came to them, but what they scarce
could comprehend. Even so it is with waiting for the promise of the
Father. In one sense, the fulfillment can never come again as it came
at Pentecost. In another sense, and that in as deep reality as with the
first disciples, we daily need to wait for the Father to fulfil His
promise in us.
The Holy Spirit is not a person distinct from the Father in the way two
persons on earth are distinct. The Father and the Spirit are never
without or separate from each other: the Father is always in the
Spirit; the Spirit works nothing but as the Father works in Him. Each
moment the same Spirit that is in us, is in God too, and he who is most
full of the Spirit will be the first to wait on God most earnestly,
further to fulfil His promise, and still strengthen him mightily by His
Spirit in the inner man. The Spirit in us is not a power at our
disposal. Nor is the Spirit an independent power, acting apart from the
Father and the Son. The Spirit is the real living presence and the
power of the Father working in us, and therefore it is just he who
knows that the Spirit is in him, who will wait on the Father for the
full revelation and experience of what the Spirit’s indwelling is, for
His increase and abounding more and more.
See this in the apostles. They were filled with the Spirit at
Pentecost. When they, not long after,on returning from the Council,
where they had been forbidden to preach, prayed afresh forboldness to
speak in His name–a fresh coming down of the Holy Spirit was the
Father’s freshfulfilment of His promise.
At Samaria, by the word and the Spirit, many had been converted, and
the whole city filled with joy. At the apostles’ prayer the Father once
again fulfilled the promise. Even so to the waiting company–We are all
here before God’–in Cornelius’ house. And so, too, in Acts 13. It was
when men, filled with the Spirit, prayed and fasted, that the promise
of the Father was afresh fulfilled, and the leading of the Spirit was
given from heaven: Separate Me Barnabas and Saul.’
So also we find Paul in Ephesians, praying for those who have been
sealed with the Spirit, that God would grant them the spirit of
illumination. And later on, that He would grant them, according to the
riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by the Spirit in the
inner man.
The Spirit given at Pentecost was not a something that God parted with
in heaven, and sent away out of heaven to earth. God does not, cannot,
give away anything in that way. When He gives grace, or strength, or
life, He gives it by giving Himself to work it — it is all inseparable
from Himself. (See note on Law, The Power of the Spirit, at the end of
this volume.) Much more so is the Holy Spirit. He is God, present and
working in us: the true position in which we can count upon that
working with an unceasing power is as we, praising for what we have,
still unceasingly wait for the Father’s promise to be still more
mightily fulfilled.
What new meaning and promise does this give to our life of waiting! It
teaches us ever to keep the place where the disciples tarried at the
footstool of the Throne. It reminds us that, as helpless as they were
to meet their enemies, or to preach to Christ’s enemies, until they
were endued with power, we, too, can only be strong in the life of
faith, or the work of love, as we are in direct communication with God
and Christ, and they maintain the life of the Spirit in us. It assures
us that the Omnipotent God will, through the glorified Christ, work in
us a power that can bring to pass things unexpected, things impossible.
Oh! what will not the Church be able to do when her individual members
learn to live their lives waiting on God, and when together, with all
of self and the world sacrificed in the fire of love, they unite in
waiting with one accord for the promise of the Father, once so
gloriously fulfilled, but still unexhausted.
Come and let each of us be still in presence of the inconceivable
grandeur of this prospect: the Father waiting to fill the Church with
the Holy Ghost. And willing to fill me, let each one say.
With this faith let there come over the soul a hush and a holy fear, as
it waits in stillness to take it all in. And let life increasingly
become a deep joy in the hope of the ever fuller fulfilment of the
Father’s promise.
My soul, wait thou only upon God!’
__________________________________________________________________
Thirtieth Day.
WAITING ON GOD:
Contually.
Therefore turn thou to thy God: keep mercy and judgment, and wait on
thy God continually.’–Hos. 12:6.
CONTINUITY is one of the essential elements of life. Interrupt it for a
single hour in a man, and it is lost, he is dead. Continuity, unbroken
and ceaseless, is essential to a healthy Christian life. God wants me
to be, and God waits to make me, I want to be, and I wait on Him to
make me, every moment, what He expects of me, and what is well-pleasing
in His sight. If waiting on God be of the essence of true religion, the
maintenance of the spirit of entire dependence must be continuous. The
call of God, Wait on your God continually,’ must be accepted and
obeyed. There may be times of special waiting: the disposition and
habit of soul must be there unchangeably and uninterrupted.
This waiting continually is indeed a necessity. To those who are
content with a feeble Christian life, it appears a luxury something
beyond what is essential to being a good Christian. But all who are
praying the prayer, Lord! make me as holy as a pardoned sinner can be
made! Keep me as near to Thee as it is possible for me to be! Fill me
as full of Thy love as You are willing to do!’ feel at once that it is
something that must be had. They feel that there can be no unbroken
fellowship with God, no full abiding in Christ, no maintaining of
victory over sin and readiness for service, without waiting continually
on the Lord.
The waiting continually is a possibility. Many think that with the
duties of life it is out of the question. They cannot be always
thinking of it. Even when they wish to, they forget.
They do not understand that it is a matter of the heart, and that what
the heart is full of, occupies it, even when the thoughts are otherwise
engaged. A father’s heart may be filled continuously with intense love
and longing for a sick wife or child at a distance, even though
pressing business requires all his thoughts. When the heart has learned
how entirely powerless it is for one moment to keep itself or bring
forth any good, when it has understood how surely and truly God will
keep it, when it has, in despair of itself, accepted God’s promise to
do for it the impossible, it learns to rest in God, and in the midst of
occupations and temptations it can wait continually.
This waiting is a promise. God’s commands are enablings: gospel
precepts are all promises, a revelation of what our God will do for us.
When first you begin waiting on God, it is with frequent intermission
and frequent failure. But do believe God is watching over you in love
and secretly strengthening you in it. There are times when waiting
appears to be just losing time, but it is not so. Waiting, even in
darkness, is unconscious advance, because it is God you have to do
with, and He is working in you. God who calls you to wait on Him, sees
your feeble efforts, and works it in you. Your spiritual life is in no
respect your own work: as little as you began it, can you continue it;
it is God’s Spirit who has begun the work in you of waiting upon God;
He will enable you to wait continually.
Waiting continually will be met and rewarded by God Himself working
continually. We are coming to the end of our meditations. Would that
you and I might learn one lesson: God must, God will work continually.
He ever does work continually, but the experience of it is hindered by
unbelief. But He who by His Spirit teaches you to wait continually,
will bring you to experience also how, as the Everlasting One, His work
is never-ceasing. In the love and the life and the work of God there
can be no break, no interruption.
Do not limit God in this by your thoughts of what may be expected. Do
fix your eyes upon this one truth: in His very nature, God, as the only
Giver of life, cannot do otherwise than every moment work in His child.
Do not look only at the one side: If I wait continually, God will work
continually.’ No, look at the other side. Place God first and say, ‘God
works continually, every moment I may wait on Him continually.’ Take
time until the vision of your God working continually, without one
moment’s intermission, fill your being. Your waiting continually will
then come of itself. Full of trust and joy, the holy habit of the soul
will be, On Thee do I wait all the day.’ The Holy Spirit will keep you
ever waiting.
My soul, wait thou only upon God!’
__________________________________________________________________
MOMENT BY MOMENT
I the Lord do keep it: I will water it every moment.’
Dying with Jesus, by death reckoned mine,
Living with Jesus a new life divine;
Looking to Jesus till glory doth shine,
Moment by moment, O Lord, I am Thine.
Chorus–Moment by moment I’m kept in His love,
Moment by moment I’ve life from above;
Looking to Jesus till glory doth shine;
Moment by moment, O Lord, I am Thine.
Never a battle with wrong for the right,
Never a contest that He doth not fight;
Lifting above us His banner so white,
Moment by moment I’m kept in His sight.
Chorus.
Never a trial that He is not there,
Never a burden that He doth not bear,
Never a sorrow that He does not share,
Moment by moment I’m under His care.
Chorus
Never a heartache, and never a groan,
Never a teardrop, and never a moan;
Never a danger but there on the throne
Moment by moment He thinks of His own.
Chorus.
Never a weakness that He doth not feel,
Never a sickness that He cannot heal;
Moment by moment, in woo or in weal,
Jesus, my Savior, abides with me still.
Chorus.
(Music in Christian Endeavor Hymns by I. D. Sankey). Or on leaflet by
Morgan & Scott
__________________________________________________________________
Thirtieth-First Day.
WAITING ON GOD:
Only.
My soul, wait thou only upon God;
For my expectation is from Him.
He only is my rock and my salvation.’–Isa. 62:5,6.
IT is possible to be waiting continually on God, but not only upon Him;
there may be other secretconfidences intervening and preventing the
blessing that was expected. And so the word only must come to throw its
light on the path to the fulness and certainty of blessing. My soul,
waitthou only upon God. He only is my Rock.’
Yes, My soul, wait thou only upon God.’ There is but one God, but one
source of life andhappiness for the heart; He only is my Rock; my soul,
wait thou onlyupon Him. Thou desirest to be good. There is none good
but God,’ and there is no possible goodness but what is received
directly from Him. Thou hast sought to be holy: There is none holy but
the Lord,’ and there is no holiness but what He by His Spirit of
holiness every moment breathes in thee. Thou wouldest live and work for
God and His kingdom, for men and their salvation. Hear how He says, The
Everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He “alone”
fainteth not, neither is weary. He giveth power to the faint, and to
them that have no might He increaseth strength. They that wait upon the
Lord shall renew their strength.’ He only is God; He only is thy Rock:
My soul, wait thou only upon God.’
My soul, wait thou only upon God.’ Thou will not find many who can help
you in this. Enough there will be of thy brethren to draw thee to put
trust in churches and doctrines, in schemes and plans and human
appliances, in means of grace and divine appointments. But, My soul,
wait thou only upon God Himself.’ His most sacred appointments become a
snare when trusted in. The brazen serpent becomes Nehushtan; the ark
and the temple a vain confidence. Let the Living God alone, none and
nothing but He, be thy hope.
My soul, wait thou only upon God.’ Eyes and hands and feet, mind and
thought, may have to be intently engaged in the duties of this life; My
soul, wait thou only upon God.’ Thou art an immortal spirit, created
not for this world but for eternity and for God. O, my soul! Realize
thy destiny. Know thy privilege, and wait thou only upon God.’ Let not
the interest of religious thoughts and exercises deceive you; they very
often take the place of waiting upon God. My soul, wait thou, thy very
self, your inmost being, with all its power, wait thou only upon God.’
God is for thee, thou art for God; wait only upon Him.
Yes, my soul, wait thou only upon God.’ Beware of your two great
enemies — the World and Self. Beware lest any earthly satisfaction or
enjoyment, however innocent it appears, keep you back from saying, I
will go to God, my exceeding joy.’ Remember and study what Jesus says
about denying self, Let a man deny himself.’ Tersteegen says: The
saints deny themselves in everything.’ Pleasing self in little things
may be strengthening it to assert itself in greater things. My soul,
wait thou only upon God;’ let Him be all your salvation and all your
desire. Say continually and with an undivided heart, From Him comes my
expectation; He only is my Rock; I shall not be moved.’ Whatever be thy
spiritual or temporal need, whatever the desire or prayer of thy heart,
whatever thy interest in connection with God’s work in the Church or
the world–in solitude or in the rush of the world, in public worship
or other gatherings of the saints, My soul, wait thouonlyupon God.’ Let
your expectations be from Him alone. He only is your Rock.
My soul, wait thou only upon God.’ Never forget the two
foundation-truths on which this blessed waiting rests. If ever you are
inclined to think this waiting only’ is too hard or too high, they will
recall thee at once. They are: your absolute helplessness; and, the
absolute sufficiency of thy God. Oh! enter deep into the entire
sinfulness of all that is of self, and think not of letting self have
anything to say one single moment. Enter deep into thy utter and
unceasing impotence ever to change what is evil in thee, or to bring
forth anything that is spiritually good. Enter deep into thy relation
of dependence as creature on God, to receive from Him every moment what
He gives. Enter deeper still into His covenant of redemption, with His
promise to restore more gloriously than ever what thou hadst lost, and
by His Son and Spirit to give within you unceasingly, His actual divine
Presence and Power. And thus wait upon your God continually and only.
My soul, wait thou only upon God.’ No words can tell, no heart
conceive, the riches of the glory of this mystery of the Father and of
Christ. Our God, in the infinite tenderness and omnipotence of His
love, waits to be our Life and Joy. Oh, my soul! let it be no longer
needed that I repeat the words, Wait upon God,’ but let all that is in
me rise and sing: Truly my soul waits upon God. On Thee do I wait all
the day.’
My soul, wait thou only upon God!’
__________________________________________________________________
NOTE.
MY publishers have just issued a work of William Law on the Holy
Spirit. [The Power of the Holy Spirit: An humble earnest, and
affectionate Address to the Clergy. With Additonal Extracts and
Introduction, by Rev. Andrew Murray. (Fleming H. Revell Company.
$1.00)] In the Introduction I have said how much I owe to the book. I
cannot but think that anyone who will take the trouble to read it
thoughtfully will find rich spiritual profit in the connection with a
life of Waiting upon God.
What he puts more clearly than I have anywhere else found are these
cardinal truths:–
1. That the very Nature and Being of a God, as the only Possessor and
Dispenser of any life ther is in the universe, imply that He must every
moment communicate to every creature the power by which it exists, and
therefore also much more the power by which it can do that which is
good.
2. That the very Nature and Being of a creature, as owing its existence
to God alone, and equally owing to Him each moment the continuation of
that existence, imply that its happiness can only be found in absolute
unceasing momentary dependence upon God.
3. That the great value and blessing of the gift of the Spirit at
Pentecost, as the fruit of Christ’s Redemption, is that it is now
possible for God to take posses of His redeemed children and work in
them as He did before that fall in Adam. We need to know the Holy
Spirit as the Presence and Power of God in us restored to their true
place.
4. That in the spiritual life our great need is the knowledge of two
great lessons. The one our entire sinfulness and helplessness–our
utter impotence by maintenance and increase of our inner spiritual
life. The other, the infinite willingness of God’s love, which is
nothing but a desire to communicate Himself and His blessedness to us
to meet our every need, and every moment to work us in by His Son and
Spirit what we need.
5. That, therefore, the very essence of true religion, whether in
heaven or upon earth, consists in an unalterable dependence upon God,
because we can give God no other glory, than yielding ourselves to His
love, which created us to show forth in us the glory, that it may now
perfect its work in us.
I need not point out how deep down these truths go to the very root of
the spiritual life, and specially the life of Waiting upon God. I am
confident that those who are willing to take the trouble of studying
this thoughtful writer will thank me for the introduction in his book.
On this day...
- What if Jesus meant the stuff he said? - 2011
- Heroes of the Cross - 2011
- We didn't dare them to take Jesus seriously - 2011
- Our King Forever - 2011
- The flesh, and the spirit - 2011
- God has done everything necessary to enthrall us with Himself - 2011
- Acknowledging our sin - 2011
- A decision for Jesus Christ - 2011
- Where worship doesn't exist - 2011
- Kept for the Master's Use - Havergal - 2010
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