I. How we are to wait on God. (1) We are to wait on God in His ordinances. (2) We are to wait on God in His ordinances with faith and perseverance.
II. They that wait on the Lord shall receive strength. God shall make good His promise, "As thy days are, so shall thy strength be."
T. Guthrie, The Way to Life,p. 282.
References: Psalms 27:14. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxiii., No. 1371; Ibid., Morning by Morning,p. 243.
No state is more dreary than that of the repentant sinner when first he understands where he is and begins to turn his thoughts towards the Great Master whom He has offended. A man finds that he has a great work to do, and does not know how to do it, or even what it is; and his impatience and restlessness are as great as his conscious ignorance; indeed, he is restless because he is ignorant. There is great danger of his taking wrong steps, inasmuch as he is anxious to move and does not know whither.
I. Repentant sinners are often impatient to put themselves upon some new line of action or to adopt some particular rule of life. It commonly happens that God does not disclose His will to them at once, and for that will they ought to wait, whereas they are impatient; and when God's will does not clearly appear, they try to persuade themselves that they have ascertained it when they have not. St. Paul should be the pattern of the true penitent here.
II. Next, I would say to such persons as I have described, Be on your guard, not only against becoming committed to some certain mode of life or object of exertion, but guard against excess in such penitential observances as have an immediate claim upon you and are private in their exercise. All things are done by degrees. All things, through God's grace, may come in time, but not at once. As well might a child think to grow at once into a man as the incipient penitent become suddenly like St. Paul the aged.
III. When persons are in acute distress about their sins, they are sometimes tempted to make rash promises and to take on them professions without counting the cost. Perhaps they have even been imprudent enough to make their engagement in the shape of a vow, and this greatly increases their difficulty. This shows how very wrong it is to make private vows. It is safer and more expedient to make it a point ever to pray God for that gift or that state which they covet.
IV. When men are in the first fervour of penitence, they should be careful not to act on their own private judgment and without proper advice. Not only in forming lasting engagements, but in all that they do, they need a calmer guidance than their own. As no one would ever dream of being his own lawyer or his own physician, so we must take it for granted, if we would serve God comfortably, that we cannot be our own divines and our own casuists.
J. H. Newman, Sermons on Subjects of the Day,p. 41.