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4 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