Seeking the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to the book of the Lamentations
of Jeremiah, and chapter 3, that is page 766 in the Bible box,
Bible 766. Lamentations, chapter 3, and reading for our text, verses
25 and 26. The Lord is good unto them that
wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that
a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the
Lord. Lamentations 3 verses 25 and
26. These are the Lamentations of
Jeremiah. Jeremiah lived to see the prophecies
that he had made. The Lord has spoken through him
of the fall of Jerusalem, of Nebuchadnezzar coming, taking
away the people, and later on the destruction of the temple. And these lamentations, they
speak of that distress that he felt and saw during this time. The book of the Lamentations,
the first three chapters, they are an acrostic with the Hebrew,
the letters, 22 letters in the alphabet. You notice there are
66 verses in this chapter, so three times 22, each verse beginning
with a letter of the alphabet. done in a way that should be
remembered, especially by the Hebrews. And when we think that
they were to go into captivity in Babylon, and the Lord would
accomplish 70 years there. He wasn't going to reduce that
time. They were in a foreign land.
At the end of that time, God had given them promise to bring
them back again. So throughout that time, And
the Lord was pleased to give them prophecies, both Isaiah,
in Ezekiel, in Lamentations, in Jeremiah, but here in Lamentations,
really, and the verses that are for our text, the Lord gives
them how they should act during those times. There's many other
directions as well. They had to make houses, they
had to dwell in them, they had to multiply, They hadn't just
to give up and just waste and do nothing during that time of
chastening and time of captivity. And so we have the words around
our text, the Lord has not cast off his people, so they're able
to say, the Lord is my portion, saith my soul, therefore will
I hope in him. The words of our text are especially
applicable really to all people and especially as a way of direction
to these captives. The Lord is good unto them that
wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. So there's that
promise to those captives that the Lord, even though they're
under his chastening hand, though he was dealing with them for
years of idolatry and forsaking him, the Lord is good. Not might be, he is good unto
them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. So there's
direction there to wait and to seek, and that is then reinforced
in verse 26. It is good that a man should
both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. Now
if you picture that word given to the captives in Babylon, as
a real encouragement, real direction for them to hope and quietly
wait. The Lord would deliver them out. He would bring them back to their
own land. And more than that, to wait for
the salvation of the Lord. Wait for the Lord's Christ. Wait for the blessing of faith
and to embrace those promises seen afar off, in the long cloud
of witnesses described in Hebrews 11, that they should wait for
the salvation of the Lord, the same as dear Jacob said, I have
waited for thy salvation, O Lord. So we have the word, the context
here, what it must have meant to those directly but this word
applies to all generations, and this is part of the Scriptures
which is written for our learning, that we, through patience and
comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope as well. And so, I want to just look firstly
at these, the two verses as set before us here, The first verse
25, a real clear statement that the Lord is good. We do have a good God, a good
and a gracious God, and though this is written in the context
of the chastening of the Lord, We see in that the goodness. A child left to itself bringeth
its mother to shame. And the Lord has said in Hebrews
that it is the mark of being a son of God that the Lord chastens. And in Psalm 107, we have many
of the changing scenes of God's people, how low they were brought,
and for their sins and foolishness and rebelliousness, And they
were brought then to cry unto the Lord in their trouble and
in their distress. And the Lord heard them and brought
them out. And we read at the end of that
psalm, who so is wise and will observe these things, even they
shall understand the loving kindness of the Lord. And even in the
context of chastening, of adversity, of troubles, of being like the
Jews here, carried away into captivity, we still should remember
this most wonderful and blessed truth, that the Lord is good,
and is specifically set forth here that he is good unto them
that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. We may ask
ourselves, how is the Lord good to them? How is that actually
realised? How do we understand the goodness
of the Lord? Well, really, the goodness of
the Lord in this context was that He didn't cast them off,
but that He corrected and chastened them. And that is His promise
to all of His children, that rather than casting them off,
that He'll correct them and chasten them. The parent doesn't throw
a child out of their house Because they do things wrong, they're
corrected, they're chastised. Whereas if it was a guest or
someone that was staying that was not part of the family, then
you'd say, well, if you don't obey the rules of the house,
then you go out. The dealings with a child is
different than those that are just visiting and not of that
family. So the Lord is good in that way,
but the Lord is good unto them those that wait for Him and seek
Him, in that He will teach them, He will instruct them, He will
guide them into the truth, He will deal with them as an answer
to those things that they are seeking after, and reveal to
them those things which are eternal, those things that are hidden
from the wise and prudent and revealed unto babes. we see especially
those blessings, those that sought the Lord in the time of his sojourn
upon earth. The Lord was so good to them
and so blessed them, and many were healed even in a natural
sense, and many were favoured in their souls and blessed in
their souls. And it is a real promise that
we should really lay hold on and especially eternal good.
We have in Paul's writings to the Romans, we know that all
things work together for good to them that love God, to them
that are the called according to his purpose. And even this,
the chasting, these things that happened to God's ancient people,
they were working together for good. And we have to remember
that. read the psalm 37 specifically in this right through that psalm
you've got a contrast between the righteous and the wicked
the contrast of those that are not seeking the lord that despise
him hate his word hate his ways and to those that love the lord
that seek him that follow him that desire to know him and to
walk in his ways the one, the wicked, they may prosper. And
this theme is taken up many times in scripture, Psalm 73, Asaph
again, where it seems that those that hate the Lord and will have
nothing of his ways, they have wealth, they have health, they
have the blessings of time, but that is all they have. Very often,
The Lord does bring judgment in their lives. They're not satisfied
with their riches. They're empty and they soon pass
away and we can carry nothing of this life away beyond the
grave. But it is something that has
tried and stumbled many of the Lord's dear people that when
they have seen the wicked, as we read, spreading himself like
a green bay tree, And the devil is quick to suggest, look, here
are those that don't fear the Lord, they don't walk in his
ways, and how much better they are getting on. But the Lord
says to his people, this is not your rest. It is polluted. And
this world is not our home. We have an eternal home. And
the Lord has come here. And when the Lord was here, the
world said to him, away with him, away with him, crucify him. And the Lord said, if they have
done these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the
dry? And the friendship of the world
is enmity with God. But in his temple, everyone does
speak of his glory. And so that contrast between
the righteous and the wicked is one that goes right through
the whole word of God. The very first psalm has that
same theme. Blessed is the man that walketh
not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners,
nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is
in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day
and night. And then he's stating what he
shall be like, a tree planted by the rivers of water, that
bringeth forth his fruit in his season, his leaf also shall not
wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. And then the immediate
contrast with the ungodly. The ungodly are not so. They are like the chaff which
the wind driveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not
stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. The Lord knoweth the way of the
righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. And there's
a constant comparison between the two. And our texts are very
clear that the Lord is good unto them that wait for him. And we
can trust that that which is taught them, the way they are
guided, even in the things that happen to them in their lives,
in providence, that those things though may be bitter at first,
yet they shall work together for good and be a blessing. And we are to trust the Lord
in that, that he is a good and gracious God, and that though
those things may have a bitter taste at the start, yet, as the
hymn writer says, yet sweet will be the flower. The second verse, verse 26, states
that it is good and it is a specific encouragement to walk in a particular
path, identifying that a certain path is a good path and to walk
in that path. The Book of Ruth, we have Naomi,
who had gone with her husband into Moab when they'd had a famine
at Bethlehem. She had suffered bereavement.
Her husband had died. Then her two sons married wives
from Moab, and both of her sons died. And she was then left with
her daughter's in-law. And when she desired to go back
to Bethlehem, Ruth, she claimed to her, wanted to stay with her,
went back with her from her own country, leaving her own family
and own gods and cleaving to Naomi. When they came into the
land of Bethlehem, then Ruth wanted to go and glean. They
were very poor, though dependent upon what they could glean in
the fields at harvest time. And she happened to start gleaning
in the field of boas. And when she came home, Naomi
noticed how much more she had gleaned than what was usual.
And she asked her who it was that had taken knowledge of her
and whose field that she had been in. Now, when Ruth told
her, she knew that Boaz was actually a near kinsman and was able to
say in Ruth chapter 2, the man is near of kin unto us, one of
our next kinsmen. And Naomi didn't yet tell Ruth,
but there was the law of redemption that would allow Boaz to redeem
Ruth, to marry her, and to raise up seed unto her husband, because
they hadn't had children themselves. And so Naomi said unto Ruth,
her daughter-in-law, in verse 22 of chapter 2, it is good,
my daughter, that thou go out with his maidens, that they meet
thee not in any other field. So Naomi has seen this that Ruth
has started to do and walk in. Rather than discourage her and
send her off to another field, she says that it is good, and
the effect with Ruth was she kept fast by the maidens of Boaz
to glean unto the end of barley harvest and of wheat harvest
and dwelt with her mother-in-law. So with that first introduction,
this path is good. Ruth kept on in that path and
we know at the end of this book, beautiful book, we find Ruth
married to Boaz and in the line to the Lord Jesus Christ, in
the line to King David. And so we have here as well that
it is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for
the salvation of the Lord. And may we be like Ruth in that,
hearing this, not just from Naomi, but hearing it from the Lord
through His holy and sacred word, through Jeremiah, hearing the
lamentations, that it is good, it is the right path. Now remember,
Ruth wasn't immediately, she didn't immediately find Boaz
to be her husband, but is the right path, and this is how I've
said it before you. Know the blessing you might not
have immediately, and it might not be for many days, but the
path that is walked on is a good and a right path. It's the most
solemn thing. There are many in this world
that are walking in paths that are not good. They're walking
in ways that the end shall be bitterness, and sorrow and death,
and that many they do not know that or will not listen to the
warnings that are given them. But when we come into a path
that is a right path, that will end in blessing, though the blessing
is not there yet, to know that it is the right path, the blessing,
is a blessed thing. If we were going on a journey,
if we were going on travelling, we need to know that we're in
a right way. And this last week, going down
to Trowbridge, I just relied on maps, I got to the chapel
all right, but coming back and it was dark, and I thought I'd
got the right way, then suddenly realised I was going back on
myself, not once, but twice, And then I got on a road I thought
was right, but there was no signs. And I thought, how do I know
whether this is right? I had to stop and get out the
sat-nav. If I'd have gone but another
mile, I would have come to a roundabout, and the signs would have been
there again. But even in a natural way, we
need to know that the road that we're on, the way that we're
on, is good, that it will end up eventually at the destination
that we want to go. or a good, a right destination. And so here is set before us,
it was set before the captives that were going to Babylon who
had 70 years to go. What a blessed thing to be told
of the way that they should go and what was good in that time
and likewise with us in our lives. to be told what is good, what
is the right way for us to walk. It is good that a man should
both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. Well, what is the salvation that
is spoken of here? The salvation of the Lord. Well,
with the Jews, they were to wait to be delivered out of Babylon. and brought again into their
own land. The salvation of God. God is
the God of salvation, told beautifully in Psalm 68. It is a deliverance
from hell and to heaven. It is not just a half salvation. It is not just saving from the
wrath to come. It is bringing to heaven, to
an inheritance that is incorruptible, and undefiled, fadeth not away
reserved in heaven for you. And it is a complete salvation
delivering from condemnation we have in the very beginning
of Romans chapter 8. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them that are in Christ Jesus, to them that walk not after the
flesh but after the Spirit. And it is the salvation that
comes through our Lord Jesus Christ. There's only one way
of deliverance from the wrath to come. There's only one name
given among men, whereby we must be saved, and that is through
the Lord. Our Lord said, if you believe
not that I am He, you shall perish in your sins. And dear Simeon,
when he comes, and he had been waiting For the salvation of
the Lord, waiting for the Lord, he'd been told by the Holy Ghost
that he should not see death until he had seen the Lord's
Christ. And when they came into the temple
with the babe Jesus to do after him according to the custom of
the law, then he took him up in his arms. He said, Lord, now
lettest thou thy servant depart in peace. according to thy word,
for mine eyes have seen thy salvation. And he could see past that bay,
to see this was the eternal Son of God. This was the promised
seed of the woman that should bruise the serpent's head. This
was the promised one. And he viewed him and he believed
and was able then to die, resting and trusting in that which was
30 years later to be accomplished at Calvary, the precious bloodshed. Without the shedding of blood,
there is no remission. And so we have the salvation of the Lord in the
Lord Jesus Christ, and in a personal way, when an individual is brought
to saving faith, in the Lord and views, by faith, the Lord
Jesus Christ as their Saviour and their Redeemer. So we have
these two verses, the Lord is good and it is good that a man
should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the
Lord. Now, To fully understand these
verses, we need to ask ourselves what is meant by seeking? How can we seek? What is meant
by waiting here? How do we wait? And what it is
to hope as well? And wherever there is an exhortation
in the Word, It will lose its strength if we don't understand,
actually, what is being exhorted and what is being set before
us. So, I want to then look, with
the Lord's help, at three points. Firstly, seeking. Secondly, waiting. And thirdly, hoping. Seeking, waiting, hoping. Our text says that the Lord is good unto them that
wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. Now we know, of
course, that we are not seeking a person upon this earth like
the wise men were, or like the shepherds were, that we're told
to go and find in a manger a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes.
So we're not looking for a person, we're not looking for the Lord
upon this earth. We are not seeking the Lord in
that way. But we are seeking Him. And there is a very direct object
that we are seeking. And the whole work of salvation,
the whole redemption is to bring a people that in the Adam fall
were alienated from God by wicked works, to bring them back to
God. The first commandment is that
we should love the Lord our God with all our heart and all our
mind and all our soul. And yet man does not do that.
Man is at enmity and hatred to God. Man was banished from the
Garden of Eden instead of having fellowship with the Lord, walking
in the cool of the day, that was severed, and the fall meant
spiritual death and the inability to commune or have fellowship
with the Lord at all. The natural man knoweth not the
things of God, neither can he know them. And man has not been
given to be able to find God through natural wisdom. I think
we mentioned in prayer and the wonderful ordaining of God that
though he has given man such wonderful wisdom in many, many
things, man able to design and invent many things and get to
the moon and do all sorts of things, amazing things, yet in
God's wisdom he hasn't given man the ability to find out God. Man cannot seek God in the way
that he'd seek after the sciences, or maths, and inventions, and
medicine, or things like that, that he cannot attain to a knowledge
of God in that way. And yet, he is to seek God. And the whole work of the gospel,
the work of redemption, is to bring man again to find God,
to know God, to actually see Him by faith here below and then
to see Him face to face in heaven. And we need to keep this in view,
the object of the people of God and the object of redemption,
is to bring man again back to God. Man who is a rebel, to bring
him again as a child, to bring him again into the Lord's family. The Lord says in that beautiful
prayer in John 17, Father I will that they whom thou has given
me be with me where I am. And the blessing of walking with
the Lord, of knowing the Lord, it begins here below. John, in the end of his gospel,
he says that there are many things that the Lord did on the earth
that are not written in this book, but these are written that
ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, and that in believing
ye might have life through his name. And we seek him then in
the way that he has appointed. The Lord said to those Jews of
his day, search the scriptures for in them you think you have
eternal life and they are they which testify of me. And the
Lord would bring to the two on the way to Emmaus after his death
and resurrection and show them that Jesus of Nazareth, in being
crucified, it was exactly what had been foretold of Christ,
the seed of the woman. And so he takes them right through
these Old Testament scriptures and shows them all the types
and shadows, the sacrifices, the ordinances that all pointed
to the coming Messiah and their heart burned within them and
afterwards he revealed himself to them. We have the same with
the eunuch who was reading in Isaiah 53 and no doubt in reading
that he was seeking, he was seeking and he's asking of Philip who
came to him Understandest thou what thou readest? Philip asked
the eunuch, he said, how can I accept some man guide me? And
his question regarding that passage, of whom speaketh the prophet
of this of himself or some other man? And it was then through
the preaching, as Philip began at the same scripture and preached
unto him Jesus, that he was brought to believe and then be baptized
on profession of faith I believe that Jesus is the son of God. And so when we seek, we are to
seek the Lord where he is to be found. We are to seek him
in his word. We are to seek him in the way
that he has ordained that faith should come. Faith cometh by
hearing and hearing by the word of God. And the Lord is the author
and finisher of faith. You know, even in a natural sense. If we are looking for something,
then we will want to know where we are to find it. If it was
to be an animal, say if we wanted to find an elephant, well, yeah,
in this land you might be, you'd go to a zoo. If we were looking
out in nature, in the land, you could look from one end of England
to the other and you wouldn't find one. And you could go to
Australia and you wouldn't find one. But if you went to Africa
or you went to India, then you would have some hope of finding
and seeing these animals in the wild. And we're used to this,
that there are some places a fisherman, if he's looking for a certain
type of fish, he knows there are some places, however long
he'd be there, he'd never find that which he was seeking. But
other places, he has an expectation of it. And so, even in a natural
sense, there are those things that we seek after, and we can
be sure if we seek in a particular place, we've no hope of finding
it. And other times, if we seek in
a place, we might have to wait a long, long while, but eventually
we will, and we have that expectation of doing so. And it is so here
as well. We are seeking the Lord. If we
are seeking, we will be reading the Word of God. Believing that
from Genesis to Revelation, it is the Word of God. Not just
those words that in some Bibles are written in red that our Lord
spoke on earth. No, every word of God is pure. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And we must
be very sure of that and not then think that, well, because
Paul wrote his epistles, they are Paul's. Words are not God's
word. It is holy men of God, spake
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. And when Paul spoke, and
he says to the Thessalonians that you receive the word of
God as it is in truth, not the word of man, but as it is in
truth, the word of God. And he that cometh to God must
believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that
diligently seek him. And so the seeking is very important. The Bereans, they heard the Apostle
Paul preaching, and though he was inspired, though he was the
Apostle, he would have been preaching from the Old Testament Scriptures.
They took those scriptures and they compared what Paul was saying
with those scriptures. And we read that because of this,
many of them believed. So if we are seeking, we will
be reading the Word of God. We will also be seeking of the
Lord in prayer. We mention that in Hebrews, he
that cometh to God. The way that we come to God is
in prayer. And we need to remember that.
The Lord Jesus Christ appears in the presence of God for us. And the blessed truth is that
men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and
without doubting. And we have a throne of grace
to come to, not a throne of a tyrant, but a throne of grace, a blood-sprinkled
throne, a mercy seat, and we come there and present our petitions
in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament,
when the children of Israel would seek the Lord, they went to the
tabernacle. They went to Jerusalem. We think
of in the wise men that they were seeking the Lord Jesus Christ. They thought that they should
seek him at Jerusalem. Why? He was a king. He would
be born in Jerusalem. But the scriptures said, no,
it should be Bethlehem. And so they were directed there. And the scriptures had preeminence
over what man and what their expectation was. And really,
our faith Faith, it looks and believes what God has said in
his word. And that is what faith does.
Natural reasoning would say, well, we will go by that and
we'll fit the word of God in with that. Faith says, no, God's
word is true. Everything else must fit in with
that. We'd rather believe God than
man. So if we are seeking him, we
also seek him in the house of God. Everyone shall speak of his glory
in his temple. And we can't expect, if we're
seeking the God of heaven and seeking salvation, that we will
find him in the pursuits of those that hate God, in the world at
large amongst those that have no place for the Lord in their
lives at all. If we are seeking Him, then go
amongst those of His people, and those who have found Him,
those who know the Lord, go where they go, and hear what they hear,
and make company with them We have also the promise that
it hath pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save
them that believe. This is the way that he reveals
himself and shows himself to his people is through preaching. The way that is despised by man,
ridiculed by man, and yet is God's choice of revealing himself
to his people. And we hold fast to that. It
is a miracle that any know God that find Him, but it is made
known to us how God shows Himself to His people. And so we are
to seek Him in those ways. The same as what Naomi said to
Ruth, you go to this field and you seek and glean in that field. While we may ask ourselves, in
what field do we seek? And what field do we glean? And
what do we hear? And what is set before us? So may we be clear what is meant
here when the Lord says, the Lord is good unto them that wait
for him, to the soul that seeketh him. And may we ask, do we seek
him? And do we seek him diligently,
or do we just read and pray and come to the house of God with
no object, with no aim? Paul, he says, let us run the
race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus. We have an object. The Greeks, they came to the
apostles. They said, sir, we would see
Jesus. And they had that object. in the resurrection morning,
what was it they were seeking? They were seeking the Lord. They
didn't know that he had risen, but we know that he has, and
we're seeking not a dead God, but a living God, and a seeking
one that will be found of his people and will be seen by faith. So that is the first, seeking. May we be a seeking soul. Seeking after the Lord, seeking
his salvation, seeking his forgiveness, seeking eternal life, seeking
the blessing of the gospel, seeking the secret of the Lord which
is with them that fear him. Seeking, as we read the Word
of God, we'll find many other things that we will want to seek
in connection with the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. We want to seek to walk in his
ways, to know his will, to do those things which are pleasing
in his sign. Well, secondly, we have waiting,
waiting. In the history of the Church
of God, there are two great long waiting periods. The first giving
of the promise of the seed of the woman, the coming of the
Lord Jesus Christ, the Old Testament church waited for 4,000 years
from the beginning of the world to when Christ came. It was a
waiting time, resting upon the promises God had made. They did
not know the time, they did not know when, but we in these gospel
days can look back over all that history And we know that God's
promises did come to pass, and those that waited for the Lord,
he did come. We've already mentioned about
Simeon right at the end, and he says that, I've waited for
thy salvation, and he saw him. Now in Hebrews, we go back with
a whole long list of those who died by, walked and died in faith,
mentioning with Abel, they all died with the faith that the
Lord would provide that lamb, the blood would be shed, and
that is why they got to heaven. There's not two different ways,
one way for Old Testament, one way for new. All were saved in
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The second long period is in
the church now, because the church now are those that wait for his
son from heaven. This was where The Thessalonian
church was brought to wait for God, wait for him to come. Why
was it? Because in the Acts of the Apostles,
we read when the Lord was taken up into heaven and the disciples
were standing, gazing up into heaven, there appeared an angel
next to them who said, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? He
that thou hast seen ascend up into heaven shall come again
in like manner. And the Church's expectation
is that the Lord will come at the end of the world. He shall
come with all his saints with him. The dead in Christ shall
rise first, and we which are alive and remain shall be caught
up with him in the air. And we're looking for that, expecting
that the Lord would come. We are waiting for the Lord to
come. Now, going back, in the middle
of this then, these two long waiting periods, There are those
shorter times that the Church knows are waiting. In the Old
Testament here, in the very context with Lamentations, they had 70
years in Babylon, and they had to wait. They had to wait for
God's appointed time to bring them up out of Babylon. We know they waited. We have
the history of it. how even by name Cyrus was named
the king who should rise up and to bring about their return back
to their own land. We see that. And we'd be before
that even when they were in Egypt. God has said to Abraham that
he'd accomplish four generations and then he'd bring them out.
And we know that history, what God had said, he did. And we
see how they waited in Egypt under their bondage and in their
trials, but the Lord brought them out. And so, where the Lord
gives a very long period of waiting, like these two periods, or like
in the Gospel days, He gives those shorter times so that people
of God know what it is to wait upon Him, wait upon His promises,
and see these things fulfilled. Our Lord said to the Jews of
five months or so before He was crucified, He was in Galilee,
they'd sought to slay Him in Jerusalem. His brethren said
that, you know, go to Jerusalem, if thou wouldst be seen and known
of men, then show thyself. And our Lord said to them, your
time is already. but my time is not yet. You go
to Jerusalem, or the Lord did go to the Feast of Tabernacles
later on, but we're impatient. We think that the time should
come. We think of some solemn times
in the Word. We think of Abraham, who received
promise, a seed, and time went on, and he got impatient, and
so Sarah, she gave him his maid to wife, and he had Ishmael.
And then the promise was given later. And we are taught there
he should have waited for the promise of the Lord. But we have
the case, the solemn case, with King Saul. King Saul was to offer
up or wait till Samuel came to offer up the bird sacrifice and
the peace offering before they went to battle with the Philistines. But Samuel was late in coming. He didn't come too late because
he came after Saul had offered himself the burnt offering and
ready, really, before he could offer the peace offering. And
Samuel greatly reproved him. It was not the place of a king
to offer the sacrifice. So Saul, he said, I force myself
and offer the burnt offering. but he should have waited, and
we're like that in life. We don't wait for the Lord, and
we need to be taught the need to wait for the Lord. We need
to wait for the Lord in salvation. If we get one that preaches that,
well, man does not need to wait for the Lord if he follows a
certain set of rules, and if he seeks in the right way, then
there's something wrong if he's not brought to be a believer
in man's set time and scale of things. But there is a set time
to favour Zion. And this is not that we should
then wait in a careless, fatalistic way. This is spoken of to seekers,
those who really want the Lord. And that time of blessing, the
time of teaching, all the typical Israel going through wilderness,
was all the timings were of the Lord. Whenever they moved, the
cloudy fiery pillar over the tabernacle determined when they
stayed and when they moved. When they came to the law, when
they came to Canaan, our birth is set, our death is set, our
first birth is set, our second birth, where we are born again
to the Spirit, is also set. And so, The blessing of the Lord
is to those that wait. And we mentioned, Dear Jacob,
I've waited for thy salvation, O Lord. We have it in Isaiah
25, verses 8 and 9, speaking of the Lord's coming. He will
swallow up death in victory, and the Lord God will wipe away
tears from awful faces. And the rebuke of his people
shall he take away from off all the earth, for the Lord has spoken
it. 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 be glad and rejoice in
his salvation. And it is really a beautiful
token of the reality of a work of God. This is the work of God
that ye believe in him whom God has sent. He which hath begun
a good work in you will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. The seeking is of the Lord, is
a blessed thing to seek, and then to wait upon the Lord, and
look for him to come and bless the word. True waiting is by
seeking, not in a fatalistic way, not in a careless way. If we understand the worth of
our souls, then our waiting is seeking. And, you know, the Apostle
Paul, there was times that he had to wait. He had to wait at
Athens. He didn't waste that time. His spirit was stirred. He spoke to them the word of
the Lord. When we are waiting upon the
Lord, it's not wasted time. It's active time. We're seeking
time. praying time, earnest time, time
that we so long after Him. And while we're speaking of this,
just briefly, if we know what it is to wait upon the Lord,
we want to know and do His will, and all of our lives we'll be
waiting upon the Lord. In Providence, when we are looking
for a job, when we are seeking to change and move home, You
know, when I look back over my life and the exercises of coming
back to this land, the exercise and burden of a partner in life,
a wife, the ministry that lay on me for 13 years, the coming
to a pastorate in England, or when that should be, so much
of my life has been awaiting upon the Lord, 13 years with
the exercise of the ministry, earnest seeking, and even holding
prayer meetings that it might be brought about. The friends
at Melbourne pressuring me to enter in their ministry, but
feeling bondage, I couldn't until the Lord set me free. But it was a praying time, a
burden time, and I look back over my life in that. The Lord
is the order of the time. My times are in his hand. But
through it all, there was a seeking in prayer and a waiting upon
him. And I hope with you each in your
paths of providence, those things you exercised in, and in your
homes, and especially in the matter of your souls and your
soul's salvation, that you are true waiters in that you're seeking
and much in prayer and bring these things before the Lord
and waiting upon him to perform them and to bring them about.
And those are sacred times when we may say with Hannah, for this
child I prayed, or those things that have come to pass that we
have been burdened over for many, many years. and the Lord has
brought them about, he's performed them, and those waiting times,
the times when the Lord is honoured and glorified in our waiting
upon him. We're testifying that we have
no power, no might ourselves, but the Lord has might and he
has power and he has sovereignty and he controls our lives and
our blessings, our joys, our sorrows, they all come and go
at His command. And may we then be in this word
here, quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. The Lord is good
unto them that wait for Him, to the soul that seeketh Him.
Well, there's one last word, and that is hope. Hoping, hoping
in the Lord. Where we are waiting, there is
a hope. And it's not a hypocrite's hope. It's not an empty hope. It's
not a vain hope. It is based upon the word of
God itself. And it is based upon what the
Lord has said and done. Our hope, it is built upon God's
word and God's word alone. the many promises to those that
wait, it is on those promises that we actually hope. We have in Psalm 25, a Psalm
of David, that none that wait on thee be ashamed. Let them
be ashamed which transgress without cause. And then we have in verse
5, lead me in thy truth and teach me For Thou art the God of my
salvation, on Thee do I wait all the day. And we have these
verses here, verse 21 in that same psalm. Let integrity and
uprightness preserve me, for I wait on Thee. Redeem Israel,
O God, out of all his troubles. And the word that speaks of a
waiting soul and The hope of the Lord appearing and blessing
that soul is what raises up a real hope in us. And Psalm 62, a Psalm
of David, verse 5, My soul wait thou only upon God, for my expectation
is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation. He is my defense, I shall not
be moved. and the hope is built upon the
Word of God, Thou saidst. All the promises of God are yea
and amen in Christ Jesus and we have that, it is so valid
and so right that we should hope in Him, hope in His mercy, hope
in His Word, hope in the performing God and the power that He has
and those of us who have experience already, we can look back over
our lives at one matter after another, one appearance after
another, this should all strengthen us in fresh occasions to hope
in the Lord. In David when he, or the psalmist
in Psalm 42 and 43, cast down, why art thou cast down O my soul? Why art thou disquieted within
me? Hope thou in God, for I shall
yet praise him who is the help of my countenance and my God. And so may we have not a hypocrite's
hope, not a hope that is unfounded, but a founded hope upon the word
of God and upon what the Lord has done already and how that
he has been to us before. It is, we are saved by hope,
but hope that is not seen is not hope. For what a man seeth,
why doth he yet hope for? So these words are very encouraging
words, and may it be, whether it is in the way of salvation,
may that be our chief desire and seeking after the Lord for
that. Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation,
and not rest short in that. But in all of our lives, we wait
upon the Lord to go before us, to teach us his way, and to appear
for us. The Lord is good unto them that
wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that
a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the
Lord. Amen.