I wait for the Lord.
Waiting, hoping, watching
I. Waiting.
1. This is the constant posture of all the saints of God. Fancy not that in heaven they have no emotion but that of joy; we know that all their emotions are joyous, but among them is this one,--that they, too, are waiting until the Lord shall again manifest Himself, for, in the day of His appearing, those disembodied spirits shall put on their resurrection bodies.
2. The children of God, on earth, are frequently in the posture of waiting as individuals. Do you not wait to be able to serve God better? Are not some of you waiting to have your tongues unloosed,--waiting to have your hearts enlarged,--waiting for better opportunities of doing God’s work, or for more grace to use the opportunities you have,--and waiting for the Divine seal upon the efforts which you have put forth? I know that is so; and if we could get all that, we should still be waiting,--waiting to see all our families saved,--waiting to see all our neighbours saved.
3. It is a very blessed posture, for waiting tries faith, and that is a good thing, because faith grows by trial. Waiting exercises patience, and that is also a good thing, for patience is one of the choice gifts of God. Waling endears every blessing when it comes; and thus we get two joys,--the joy of waiting for the joy, as well as the joy of enjoying the joy when it comes.
II. Hoping.
1. Hope is the reason for waiting.
2. Hope is the strength of waiting.
3. Hope is the sweetener of waiting. But make sure that your hope is a good hope, that it is a well-founded hope, that it is a happy hope, that it is a hope that “maketh not ashamed,” that it is a hope that fixes itself on Christ alone; for if you have not that hope, you will not wait; and if you do not wait, you will not receive. It is the waiting soul that gets the blessing.
III. Watching. He that waits, and he that hopes, learns to watch. First notice the figure here used, and then observe that the figure is exceeded: “My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.”
1. First, what is the figure here used? With steady and weary tramp, the watchman has gone from one tower to another speaking to his brother sentinel as he has met him, keeping to his beat all through the dreary, cold, rainy, windy night; and he says to himself, “I wish it were morning.” As he exchanges the watchword with his companion, he says, “I wish it were morning. My eyelids are heavy; my head begins to ache with this constant watching for the enemy; I wish it were morning.” Have you never been in that posture?
2. But the figure is exceeded by the fact, for the text says, “My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning.” We have been watching longer than they who guard the city towers. The sentinel has only a few hours’ night-watch; but some of us have been watching for these thirty years, some of you for these fifty years; ah, some of you for sixty years! I do not wonder that you have a stronger desire for the morning than they have wire have only watched for one night. Besides, you expect so much more than they do, for when the day comes, what does it bring to them? A little ease for the sentinel, a little rest for the nurse; but they will have to go back to the nursing or the watching as soon as the shades of night return. You and I are waiting for a daylight that will bring us endless rest and perfect joy; well may we watch more than they that watch for the morning, for theirs is but the morning of a day, but ours is the morning of an eternity which shall know no end. They do but watch for the sun with his passing beams; we watch for the Sun of Righteousness whose glory makes heaven itself. Well may we grow eager when we think of what is yet to be revealed in us. Well may our hunger increase as we think of the sweets that are reserved for us. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The quiet life in its dependence
There is a true dependence and a false dependence. The one is the fatalistic faith of the Arabs and those Easterns who have become stolid in character, and who denude death of its horrors, to some extent, by the idea of fate. But faith and fate are different things. There always runs through the Psalms the golden thread of the personality of God. True dependence is in a person, a living God, upon whom weariness can lean, and in whom weakness is made strong.
I. True dependence is restful in God. There are two beings hers--God and the soul. If I am to depend upon God, I must look within upon my own life and see whether I so live that I can fairly lean on the great Father and depend upon Him. It is here that the beautiful question of a child’s relationship to the Father comes in. May a wicked man say, “I depend upon God; He will bring all things right”? Look at this matter fairly. Is our dependence such as ought to characterize one who seeks the help and favour of God? Are our objects His objects? Are our aims His aims? Is the life we are living only an edifice to worldly ambition, or is it a temple fitted for the skies? I am to wait for the Lord. But while I am waiting, what am I? Is it the dependence of a child, seeking to do God’s will; looking thoughtfully around to know how the life may glorify Him? It is waiting that is so difficult. But in our hours of waiting, painful as I deem them to be, God comes very near to us. We pray more at such times. I think that these long trials make the hungry eyes look longingly over the sea to earth sight of the sails of the vessel in which God’s angels are coming! I think the long night makes us hopeful for the dawn of the day. I think that whilst we wait, we learn more of that purifying consciousness of dependence that slays our pride, and feeds our humility. There is much that is disciplinary in this, “I wait for the Lord.”
II. True dependence is watchful. In this world, when we are dependent upon anything, we always get ready. If houses of business think there is to be a spring trade in something that appertains to artistic beauty or modes of dress, and men are dependent upon this for revival of trade, they watch for every sign of plenty. They can do nothing until the “wave” comes. But the “wave” would be no use to them if they had not stocked their warehouses. “My soul waiteth for the Lord, more than they that watch for the morning.” You like to be watched for. You like the little children in the summer-time to say, “Father is coming.” The fisherman likes to see his wife and daughter on that old pier watching for him. God likes us to watch for Him.
III. True dependence is hopeful. “In His Word do I hope;” for “God is not a man that He should lie, or the Son of man that He should repent.” And in that Word the true believer does hope continually. It is not the testimony of the past only, it is the experience of the children of God to-day, that the promises--and they are greater in number than the stars--all the promises of God in Christ Jesus are yea and amen.
IV. True dependence is complete. “He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.” I like to follow that thought out, and to feel that quiet dependence upon God is personal in regard to one’s own life of sin and transgression. I like to follow it out in regard to one’s family life, and to feel how God will work if we only trust Him. (W. M. Statham.)
Waiting
I. The object of the Christian’s waiting. He waits for the development of God’s purposes, for the accomplishment of God’s will, for the coming of the Lord to his soul, in all the fulness of His grace to scatter the clouds of ignorance, be overpower the strength of temptation, to silence the upbraidings of conscience, to purge his soul of corruption, to confirm his faith and holy resolutions, and so to deliver him from the dangers of sin, the sharp pang of sorrow, and the misgivings of unbelief.
II. The spirit of the Christian’s waiting.
1. Patience. To wait for the Lord is to rest in Him, to abide in Him.
2. But this patience is not a mere passive submission, as the slave bows his head under the yoke he cannot throw off. All the active qualities of the Christian life are associated with that waiting for the Lord, which the spirit of patience invests with peace.
3. While he waits for the Lord, he does so with an earnest expectation and desire.
4. With loins girt and lamps burning.
III. The encouragement by which the spirit of waiting is sustained. The faith of man is built upon the faithfulness of God. There is a promise for every need, and certainty in every promise. (A. J. Macleane, M. A.)
The soul waiting for God
I. By whom can this language be appropriated?
1. By the penitent.
2. By the backslider.
3. By the afflicted Christian.
4. By the Christian about to die. As the long absent child, arrived at the door of his father’s house, pants for admittance there, so does the soul of the believer, on the threshold of eternity, wait for its God.
II. On what ground may the language of the text be appropriated with confident expectation.
1. “The Word of the Lord,” it should never be forgotten, “is a tried Word.” It has cheered the gloomy, and strengthened the feeble, and animated the dying.
2. The extent of a Christian’s privileges no mind can embrace. Take him at his worst state, in the difficulties of his first approach to God; in subsequent darkness; or in death; having still an interest in the promises of God, he claims an inheritance which monarchs might envy, and which angels delight to share. (O. A. Jeary.)
The estate and disposition of the holy man after his prayer
Though he had formerly sense of mercy and pardon, yet he waits for more full and sweet apprehension thereof. In them we may observe, first, though God be exceeding gracious, yet there is matter of waiting, so long as we live hero on earth, for He gives not all the fulness of His blessing at once. Though He may give taste of pardon of sin in present, yet not presently deliverance out of danger (Proverbs 4:18). There is no day that is perfected in an instant; and the reasons hereof may be--
1. To force us be search our souls, whether we be fit for blessing; whether we be thoroughly humbled, and have thoroughly repented or not. Thus dealt he with Jonas, and thus with the children of Israel for Achan’s cause.
2. It may be a means to stir us up to more earnestness in seeking: to make us like the woman of Canaan, more earnest the more she was repelled.
3. He gives us occasion of waiting, to show the truth and soundness of His graces in us; otherwise should we have no means to try how the grace in us would serve us in time of need.
4. Hereby God doth endear those favours that we want, that it may come the more welcome to us, and we be the more thankful for it. Thus God dealt with this holy man; and thus doth He with His Church. For while we live here we are always children of hope; not miserable, because we have a sweet taste of what we hope for, and not perfectly happy, because we want fulness. Before Christ, they hoped for His coming in the flesh; since Christ, we look for His “second coming in glory”; in grace we look for glory; and when our souls are in glory, they look for the redemption of the bodies, and for the day of restoring of all things.
5. This should whet in us our desires and prayers for our heavenly estate; and not make our heaven here on earth, but desire earnestly the full harvest, by considering how excellent the first-fruits of glory in this life are; and with the creature (Romans 8:19), “wait, and expect, and long, and groan for the time of the dissolution of all things”; and make this a note to discern of our estate; for it is a certain infallible token of a good frame of spirit in us, if we can long for that better life in the fulness that we have here; that we can desire to be with Christ. Furthermore, note this as a difference between the estates of the wicked and the godly. The wicked must look for worse and worse continually. His best is here, and while he hath this world; but the godly, their worst is here, their best is to come. (R. Sibbes.)