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Waiting For God in Daily Life.
“They that wait for the Lord shall renew their
strength. ’ ’ — lsaiah 40:31.
Y
consider the condition of the promise.
There was very little reference made to it. So this
morning I feel led to come back to it, and talk
upon the condition of the great promise. “They
that wait for the Lord shall renew their strength.”
Now, you will observe, there is a vast difference
in the translation in the revised version and the
authorized version. The authorized version trans
lates this “upon” the Lord, while the revised ver
sion translates it “for” the Lord, and I think the
difference is very significant. There is a vast dif
ference in waiting “upon” and “for.” Waiting
“upon” the Lord would indicate a state of “do
nothing-ism” on the part of the waiter, and that
God is always and everywhere opposed to.
Jesus Christ said: “My Father worketh hith
erto and I work.” By this, He meant to say,
“Every time my Father strikes a lick, I strike with
Him.” So intimate are they that everything the
Father does, He does, and everything He does, the
Father does. This is very essential, for the only
reason the world is not converted is because the
world has to a great extent folded its arms, and let
God do the work. Ever since God first touched this
world, He has endeavorod to demonstrate the fact
that He is in co-operation with man, and when
man withholds his help, the work stops.
GOD CO-OPERATING WITH MAN.
For hundreds of years the world kept its arms
folded, waiting for God to convert the heathen, and
even after William Cary got on fire for the con
version of the heathen, and began to agitate the
great work of foreign missions, the Church said to
him, “When God gets ready to convert the world,
He will do it without your help or mine,” and so
there is a tendency today, and a tendency among
very good people, to sit idly down, and in a sort
of sentimental way, “wait upon God.”
Then, you will obesrve that the commentators,
many of them translate this text, ‘wait with
God,” which is a very, very erroneous translation.
It would indicate that God Himself waits, and God
never waits of Himself. The only thing in the
world that causes God to wait is the indifference of
man. There never has been a time since man fell
in the Garden of Eden that God was not ready to
save every man in the world. There never has been
a people on the face of this earth that God was not
ready to save. There never was a condition of sin
and shame and disgrace in any community that
God was not ready and willing to clean up and
straighten up. There never was a state or a nation
that God was not willing to take charge of. There
never v r as a city or a community, never a Church
that God was not ready and walling to take per
fect control of, and conform to His own perfect
pattern.
But the trouble with us is we are disposed to
fancy God in an attitude of unpreparedness, wait
ing of Himself for something to be done other than
W’hat man can do.
The true translation of the text, without a doubt,
is the one that the revised version gives: “They
that w r ait ‘for’ the Lord shall renew their
strength.” “For” the Lord indicates supreme au
thority and control, and places those who wait in
the attitude of receiving from God orders and in
structions for the work that is to be done, and it is
with respect to this that I desire to speak this
morning.
GOD’S PERSONAL NEARNESS.
There are three questions to ask and answer con
cerning it: Why? When? Where?
OU will remember, those of you who
were here last Sunday morning, our
treatment of this text. At that time,
we considered simply the promise:
“They shall mount up with wings as
eagles; they shall run, and not be
weary; they shall walk, and not faint.”
We did not have time at that time to
The Golden Age for November 22, IGO6.
Tabernacle Sermon by Rev. Len. G. Broughton.
First, why wait for the Lord ? Why not go ahead
of ourselves? My answer is, first, because of His
intense personal interest in every detail of the
work and the woiker. I do not think there can
be conveyed to the mind any more helpful sugges
tion than that God is personally and directly inter
ested in every detail of the work that is to be done
and the worker who is to do it.
The prophet Isaiah in this same chapter gives us
a brief testimony of this fact in the 11th verse:
“He will feed His flock like a shepherd. He will
gather the lambs in His arms, and carry them in
His bosom, and will gently lead those who have
their young.” What a beautiful picture of the
personal interest of God in His children! So in
terested is He that when one is scared, or fright
ened, or wounded, or lost, or slow, and cannot keep
up, He, like the gentle, loving shepherd, finds
that one, and takes him in His arms, and lets him
rest upon His loving bosom.
Oh, my brothers, one of the greatest needs of
the Christian world today is to realize the nearness
of God; that God is personally near and personally
interested in everything that pertains to His people.
Interested in all our trials, interested in all our
victories, interested in all our struggles, that there
is nothing that pertains to your life and mine that
is not of interest to Him.
SUPERIOR WISDOM.
The next reason I would suggest is this: That
God is of superior wisdom. There would be no
need for us to wait for God if God did not have
greater wisdom than we have, but our God is a
God of superior wisdom.
Again, the prophet Isaiah gives us a gentle hint
of the extent of this in the 28th verse: “His un
derstanding is far beyond searching.” That it is
so great that the mind of man cannot search it out.
That is God, and that is why He tells us to wait
for Him, for He knows far beyond our ability to
know. He knows beyond the ability of all the com
bined wisdom of this world to know. He knows
the things that are not yet to be known as well as
the things that are known. Everything is perfect
ly plain to God. Our very existence here this morn
ing is perfectly plain to Him. He knows every one
of us, our names, where w 7 e sit, what we are here
for. He knows whether we are sincere or not.
lie knows whether we are going to get a blessing.
He knows the conditions of our homes, just how we
will be received when we get back. Lie knows
the condition of our business in the morning, or
perhaps, tonight. He knows the dangers and pit
falls, our trials and temptations as v’ell as the
periods of success before us. All these things are
known.
MAJESTIC GREATNESS.
Again, we should wait for God because of His
majestic greatness. This is also brought out by
the prophet in verse 15: “Behold the nations are
as a drop of a bucket, and we are accounted as the
small dust of the balance: behold He taketh up
the isles as a very little thing. And Lebanon is
not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof for a
burnt offering. All the nations are as nothing be
fore Him. They are accounted by Him as less than
nothing.”
I heard once of a little boy who was sent to the
blackboard by his teacher for the purpose of dem
onstrating to him and the class that nothing could
not be reduced. The boy was told to write a nought
on the board. He did so. “Now, reduce it,” said
the teacher. “Well, it can be done,” said the boy.
“Then do it,” said the teacher. The boy got an
eraser, and said: “I can rub the rim off the
nought.”
Now, if you can imagine a nought with the rim
off, you have the idea of the greatness of God com
pared to the world. So, again, I say, how grateful
we should be for the invitation coming by inspira
tion to us: “Wait for God!”
But then the question naturally comes, “How are
we to wait for God?” What are the things that
are involved in this waiting process?
ACKNOWLEDGE GOD.
The first thing is this: “Wait for God by ac
knowledging Him in all our ways. “Solomon in
Proverbs 3:6, makes this clear: “Acknowledge the
Lord in all thy ways, and He shall make plain thy
path.”
There’s no use sitting down, folding our arms,
and waiting for God to speak to us until we are
assured that we are acknowledging Him in all our
ways. Acknowledge Him in our religious way, in
our domestic way, in our business way, in our so
cial way, in our pleasures. “In all thy ways, ac
knowledge Him, and He will make plain thy path.”
My brother, what is the supreme motive of your
life ? What is the supreme motive of your business
life? What are you engaged in business for? You
are a merchant. For what are you engaged in mer
chandising? Is it that through you God may do
a greater work than otherwise He could do?
You are a traveling man. Your business is to
sell goods. What is the supreme motive that un
derlies that business? Oh, to live! Certainly; but
why do you want to live? What is the purpose
even of living? Is the supreme motive in your
career as a traveling man and salesman to greater
glorify God through the money you make and the
contact you have with men?
In your home life, my sister, what is the supreme
motive that underlies your domestic life? Why do
you clean house? Why do you want the floors al
ways swept, and the beds made, and the furniture
dusted? Now, don’t go to frowning at me, looking
ugly. I do not blame you for wanting a clean
house. I want one myself. I am trying to get
down to the tap root of one of the biggest things
that ever throbbed in a mind. What is the under
lying motive of your house-keeping? Is it for the
sake of having a nice house that your friends may
call you a nice house-keeper? Is it to have a nice
house for your bon ton friends? What, I ask you
before God, what is the underlying purpose of this
thing? Is it that through these things you may up
lift humanity, and make the world better, and glori
fy God in the end? What is your motive in your
religious life? Is it simply to get to Heaven? If
so, you are supremely selfish. That’s all there is
about it. Why do you think God saved you?
What lies back of your salvation? You may rest
assured it was not simply to save you. You are no
better by nature than somebody else who is not
saved. What is back of your religious life? Is it
that through your religious life you may glorify
God, that you may touch hearts, and uplift human
ity, and make the world better to live in, and get
glory to God?
PERSONAL WILLINGNESS.
The next thought, close akin to that, is this: In
the acknowledgment of God in all our ways, there
is personal willingness to follow in the direction
of God’s ways. “I will make plain thy path.”
Now then, in the acknowledgment of God in all
our ways, I tell you, there’s wrapped up the idea
of personal willingness to walk in the plain path
which God reveals. God will not baize out the path
of any soul until he sees that soul is willing to
walk in the path blazed out. He would not make
plain the path of duty if He positively knew we
were not going to walk in it. What is the use of
it? People come to me, asking for advice when I
know positively they are not going to take it, hence,
I do not give it. I beat around the bush, kill time,
and wind up. I must know there is a willingness
on their part to walk in the way I outline, pro
vided they see it is the proper thing to do. I be
lieve here lies the secret of the failure in Christian
life. God knows we are not walling and henca
keeps silent.
I remember well the first time I ever went to
the city. I remember as well as yesterday when
my father took me, and started down the street on