Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to Isaiah chapter 49 and reading
for our text just the last part of verse 23. They shall not be
ashamed that wait for me. The whole verse reads, and kings
shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing
mothers. They shall bow down to thee with
their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet. And thou shalt know that I am
the Lord, for they shall not be ashamed that wait. for me. This chapter begins with a prophecy
of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, spoken in a way of showing
that when our Lord should come, it would appear that he had laboured
in vain and spent his strength for naught. His own people, we
read, he came unto his own, and his own received him not. As many as did receive him, to
them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them
which did believe on his name. But we have then a turning from
the Jews and from his own people and a turning unto the Gentiles. And there is beautiful promises
from verse 5 right through to verse 12 of the promise to the
Gentiles that though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be
glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength. These things are spoken of as
from Christ. And so he says in verse 6, and
he said, it is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved
Israel, I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles,
that thou mayest be my salvation unto the ends of the earth. It
is very clear, fulfilled in the calling of the Gentiles, the
time that Peter is called from Joppa, to go to Cornelius's house
those 10 years after Pentecost, and the blessing of the Holy
Spirit to fall on the Gentiles then. And Paul opens this out
in writing to the Ephesians, a Gentile church. and shows how
they are joined together with the Jews and brought in to the
covenants of promise and of the blessings of the Lord. And so we have this in the prophecy
here, some 700 or so years before our Lord was to come upon the
earth. We have then the church enlarged
by the Gentiles in verse 18. The church has complained of
its being forgotten by the Lord in verses 13 to 17, as if the
Lord had completely forsaken her. On one hand she's told to
sing and be joyful, but Zion is saying, the Church of God
is saying, the Lord hath forsaken me and my Lord hath forgotten
me. But the Lord gives this illustration
of a woman with her sucking child and says, should she forget that
child? Yet they may forget. Yet will
I not forget thee? Behold, I have graven thee upon
the palms of my hands. Thy walls are continually before
me. The Lord will not forget his
church, his people, in whatever changing seasons of the history
of the world. The Lord will never forget his
church. His church is redeemed. He has
nailed the Calvary's cross for her. He bled for her. He has saved her. He's bought
her. They are his. He bought with
a price. And so we are short of that here. But then when we have the case
of the Jews and the people, of Israel. Paul, when he writes
to the Romans, he says his heart goes out, he longs for them because
they were ignorant of God's righteousness, going about to establish their
own righteousness. But the Lord then turns to the
Gentiles and where's the church wondering where her increase
and blessings shall come from He says in verse 18, lift up
thine eyes round about and behold, all these gather themselves together
and come to thee. You know, when the Lord was at
Jacob's well with the woman at the well of Samaria, and the
woman had gone back to her people and said, come see a man that
told me all things that ever I did. Is not this the Christ? His disciples came. And said,
Master Eden, he says, I have meat to eat that thou knowest
not of. And then he says, look on the
fields. He says they are already ripe and to harvest. And it was
the harvest of souls. It was those that were coming,
the woman, she came to her people. They all came out to Christ.
They heard him. They said to her, Now we believe
not because of thy saying, we have heard him ourselves. And
we know that this in very deed is the Christ. And of course,
the Samaritans were despised by the Jews. And much more was
Peter contended for when he went into the Gentiles. But these
things had been prophesied and foretold that the increase and
building up should be from there. And when we look at the church
now, and the Lord had given commission to go into all the world and
preach the gospel to every creature, and we find Israel and the believers
that are there, but we find the gospel after 2,000 years, it
is still being proclaimed in many, many nations and spreading
throughout the earth, the word of God, the Holy Bible, is still
the most sold book of any book in history and in each year as
well. And the blessing that the Lord
has put upon his church, many of them hidden and not known.
Why, if Elijah did not know of 7,000 in Israel that had not
bowed the knee to Baal that were true worshippers of God, how
much less do we know how many. will truly fear God and serve
him and amongst the Gentiles. And this is what is set forth
before us here. The certainty of the Church's
deliverance is also set forth at the end of the passage. Shall the prey be taken from
the mighty or the lawful captive delivered? It's a question asked.
But thus saith the Lord, even the captives of the mighty shall
be taken away. The Lord shall deliver his people
from Satan's hand, from all that oppress them, and they shall
not be held. Nothing shall keep the Lord from
his people, or the people from himself. We believe in irresistible
grace and the power of God in conversion and in saving of souls,
and that he should use all of the structures of the world to
this end. We have in the verse of our text,
and we believe it not just not written for a spiritual way,
but in a very literal way. And some feel that in a way that
this is fulfilled with Cyrus, those years later, after
the children of Israel were 70 years in captivity, those lawfully
captives, by the Lord's chastening hand, shall they be delivered?
It would seem a strange thing that they should be 70 years
in a strange land, their own temple and land destroyed, that
they should ever be brought back. But the Lord did bring them back.
And he used kings to facilitate that. Cyrus, name by name, and
even Nebuchadnezzar in bringing them under the chastening hand
of God, was called the Lord's servant. And the Lord then has
used throughout history, he's used kings and queens to further
the cause of his church. We think of the version of the
Bible that we use, the King James Authorised Version brought about
by King James desiring one more faithful translation of the Word
of God, there being many at that time, and caused that it be done
and made arrangements for it to be done. And so we have that
faithful translation, accurate translation of the Word of God
to this day, greatly blessed over the years. And when we see
this, we see how God uses kingdoms, he uses rulers, he uses secular
powers, he raises them up, he casts them down, and yet in the
constant of all of that is his one church. His people in every
nation and kindred and tongue and to the ends of time they
shall be a people scattered amongst others and amongst the nations
of the earth and all things shall work for good to them." But the
Church then has its children, it has its people and it has
those that are brought to know the Lord and to wait for Him
and to wait for His salvation. The church has a saviour and
each individual of that church in their time and their day will
come to know that saviour and to believe in him and to be blessed
by him. And so it is the word at the
end of this verse I desire to bring this evening, they shall
not be ashamed that wait for me. In other words, as they wait
over a period of time that the waiting shall come to an end
and result in blessing and with the visits of the Lord and the
blessing of the Lord in their souls. So I want to look firstly
at who we are to wait for and that is set forth in our text
as me wait for me for the Lord Jesus Christ or for Jehovah,
the eternal God, the God of salvation and his provision. But secondly,
how we are to wait. If we are to wait, how is it
that we are to do so? And then thirdly, the promise
that they shall not be ashamed that wait. But firstly, who we
are to wait for? Well of course this is Old Testament
prophecy but speaking to Gospel days but thinking of it firstly
in the Old Testament expectation of the coming seed of the woman
that should bruise the serpent's head. When that promise was first
given in the Garden of Eden and given to our first parents, yes,
they heard it as spoken to Satan, that the seed of the woman should
bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel. The expectancy
of the Church of God has been for the coming of that seed. The promise was given to Abraham
and to thee and thy seed. And Paul says very clearly that
that is not to seeds as of many, but of one which is Christ. The Old Testament church waited
for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Saviour,
the Redeemer. They were not told when, But
they waited, and many, as we are told of that long cloud of
witnesses in Hebrews 11, they died before they actually saw
the Lord coming to this earth. Those like Simeon and Anna, they
waited, and then they came by the Spirit, as Simeon did, into
the temple when Mary brought in her child Jesus to do for
him after the law, and he had been told that he should not
die until he had seen the Lord's Christ. How long before, we do
not know, but that time of waiting came to an end when he took the
babe in his arms and said, Lord, now let us, thou thy servant,
depart in peace according to thy word, for mine eyes have
seen thy salvation. And so the Old Testament Church
knew what it was to have a waiting time. They were told what should
come and they had to wait for the Lord to come in His time
and His way. And we know, we have that complete
history and setting forth of the coming of the Son of God,
of His birth, of his ministry, of his life, of his death. The New Testament church also
is a waiting church because when the Lord was taken up into heaven,
the angels, they said that he should come in like manner. And
we know from Paul's writings that he shall come with power
and great glory and it shall be the end of the world. Our Lord himself testified of
that. The end of the world and the
coming of the Lord with power shall be at the same time. And then it shall be that the
dead in Christ shall be raised first and those that are alive
and remain shall be caught up in the air with the Lord. So
shall we be forever with the Lord. Or when he writes to the
Thessalonians, he says that they were called. One of the things
they were called to is to wait for his son from heaven. And as a church, we are to be
waitful and constantly expecting the Lord himself to come. The Lord has said, I go to prepare
a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you,
I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I
am, there ye may be also. And so, who we are to wait for? We are to wait for Christ, we
await for the Lord, we await for the Lord's provision. Dear
Abraham, on the Mount Moriah, he said to his son, my God, my
son, God will provide himself a lamb prayer burnt offering,
and he had to wait until the last moment before the angel
then stayed his hand and showed him the ram in the thicket. But thinking of that provision
of the Lord Jesus Christ, that is the provision for the church
of God that the church waited for. And in these gospel days,
we proclaim the coming of the just one and of his salvation. but there is an awaiting in a
way of experience for the people of God. Each one that is quickened
into life, spiritual life, when we are dead in trespasses and
sins, have not really in a sense waited for Him, because the Lord
passes by us when we are in our blood and bids us live. And it is the Lord that begins
that good work in us. He which hath begun a good work
in you shall perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. One mark of those that walk by
faith is that they see the promises afar off and embrace them. And that will be known in a personal
way. When the Lord first gives us
spiritual life, brings us into concern for our souls, makes
us to know that it is in the Lord Jesus Christ that there
is peace and pardon and reconciliation and that there is our Redeemer
and Saviour, then we are to seek him and we are to wait for his
blessing in our souls. We are not dictators to the Lord,
the Lord is a sovereign as to when he quickens his people,
when he brings them into gospel liberty, when he visits their
souls, when he blesses their souls, and one mark of the reality
of God's work in the soul. is for a soul to wait for the
Lord in a personal way for His blessing in their souls and for
the Holy Spirit to reveal the Lord Jesus Christ with power
and to give us faith in Him. The spiritual blessings the Lord
has to give He opens his hands and he satisfies the desire of
every living thing. And those times of blessing,
we have cases in the scripture. We have the eunuch that was obviously
searching the scriptures and coming up to Jerusalem to worship. And the Lord had that set time
when Philip was to come and preach to him from Isaiah and begin
at the same scripture and preach unto him Jesus. And that was
a time when he saw him, believed in him, and walked in his ways. Now we are then when we are brought
to know our need of the Lord to be in a waiting frame, an
awaiting spirit. Sometimes those that desire to
know the way of the Lord and to seek the ways of the Lord,
they think, well, surely there must be, and some churches teach
it, you've only got to do this and that, you've got to pray
a prayer, and when you pray the prayer, then you have eternal
life and you have those blessings. And there is no waiting element
whatsoever There's nothing in the sovereign hand of God. It
is in the hand of man. The scriptures are very clear
that God is to be waited for and waited on in his appointed
ways. And his coming is a sovereign
way. And the blessings of grace are
given by grace. They are graciously given. When
our Lord rose from the dead, He appeared just to those of
his own people and never on their own terms. He always appeared
in his own time and own way and a place of his own appointing. That was in the Lord's hand.
When we read of the blessing to the Gentiles, of which this
is relevant here in this passage, We have Cornelius, a man, a just
man, he is serving God regularly in prayers and in worship, but
he's ignorant of Christ. He needs Christ revealed. He
needs Christ preached to him unfolded. And the Lord appears,
an angel appears to him and bids him to get Peter and that he
should preach to him, clearly showing that the blessing of
the Lord is through the preaching of the word by sinners, not by
angels, but by those who have known the grace and blessing
of God themselves, and they preach the Lord Jesus Christ, and through
that the blessing was given. And so we are to know what it
is to wait upon the Lord, in that way, it's the Holy Spirit's
work. We have the Apostle when he writes
to the Galatians and he says in Galatians 5, verse 5, for
we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by
faith. And it is the work of the Holy
Spirit to reveal the Lord Jesus Christ Those who are brought
into need, they are to have that revealed to them so clearly.
And this is what Paul could see that his own countrymen in Romans
were ignorant of. They were going about to establish
their own righteousness, but to have the hope of the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ raised up. that it is in, as the hymn
writer says, in Christ's obedience clothed, and wash me in his blood,
so shall I lift my head with joy amongst the sons of God. And so it is in a spiritual way
that we are to wait for the Lord. We think also in providential
ways, the Psalms are full of such ways of waiting On the Lord,
we have in Psalm 25, which is a Psalm of David, verse three,
yea, let none that wait on thee be ashamed. Let them be ashamed
which transgress without cause. And then in verse five, 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 then in verse 21, let integrity
and uprightness preserve me, for I wait on thee, redeem Israel,
O God, out of all his troubles. That is the only right way of
getting out of troubles and tribulations, is to be set free by redemption. It is by the payment of a price,
not just released from trouble, it is through the Lord Jesus
Christ and the sacrifice at Calvary. Then we have the beautiful Psalm
37, well known to many of us, and especially the way of providence. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently
for him. Fret not thyself because of him
who prospereth in his way. because of the man who bringeth
wicked devices to pass. The evildoers shall be cut off,
but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the
earth. And so the one that we are waiting
for, we're waiting for the Lord to appear and the Lord to deliver,
the Lord to bring about that time in providence that he has
promised the children of Israel in Egypt, the time that he should
bring them out of Egypt. He promised it to Abraham 400
years from the promise, or the fourth generation, and that was
to come to pass. And it did come to pass. When
the children of Israel got to the Red Sea, they had to be told
to wait, to stand still, and then see the salvation of the
Lord. And then they had to go forward. But there was a time
that they were to wait upon the Lord for the Lord's time and
the Lord's way. And so the scriptures teach the
sovereignty of God, the blessing of those that are seeking Him
and are waiting upon Him in providence in their lives, in things that
happen in their lives, and in their souls, and for the blessing
of the Lord in their souls to bring them into gospel liberty,
to bring them into a time of blessing, to deliver them, it
may be out of a time of temptation and a time of trial, to save
them from adversaries, to appear for them in particular trials. There are many times that we
would wait upon the Lord feeling unable to extricate ourselves
and we hope to look a bit later at those that were not ashamed
because they had waited upon the Lord. It is the Lord that
brings about those things that are spiritual blessings and blessings
in our lives. Who is he that saith, and it
cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not, and the blessing
of the Lord, it maketh rich, he addeth no sorrow within, and
his word shall not return unto him void, it shall accomplish
the thing whereto he sent it. They shall not be ashamed that
wait for me. Well, how are we then to wait
for the Lord? Well, we say firstly that he
is not to be waited for in a careless, fatalistic way. If you and I
know the worth of our souls, the evilness of sin, or the reality
of troubles that we are in, then our waiting will be a real thing,
a hard thing. If we were in trouble in some
matter, and we were looking for a person to come and help us,
then as that trouble got worse and worse, then we would be very
urgent for a cry. If we were in our homes and a
piece of furniture fell on top of us, and we were pinned under
this furniture, and we cried out for help, and we knew that
someone had heard us, and they say, well, wait. We will come
and we'll help you. We just need to do this, or we
need to do things before we can come,
or need to get some tools or get some rope or something to
help, and we're waiting for them. We've been pained, we've been
need, and perhaps our cries would be more and more urgent that
that person come and help us. And it is in that way, not in
a careless, way, or fatalistic way, that we are to wait for
the Lord. If we really have trials and
troubles, if we really know our need, then it will be an urgency
of waiting. We are told at the end of the
Old Testament, and I begin here because this is the Old Testament
church and what the Lord, in the last words we have to that
church, gave them to do in waiting for the coming of the Lord. In Malachi chapter 4 and verse
4 we read this, with his statutes and judgments. Behold, I will send you a line
to the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day
of the Lord." And of course, here's his speaking of John the
Baptist, "...he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children,
heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite
the earth with a curse." So the church was left with a way of
waiting upon what they already had. They were given the law,
they were given the ceremonies, they had to continue in that.
And of course we know when the Lord came they were still observing
the Passover. They couldn't see that the Lord
himself was the Passover Lamb, but they were still walking in
that way, though in many ways they taught for commandments
the traditions of men. But we are to continue in the
Word. Peter, when he speaks about the
Transfiguration, he says, but we have a more sure word of prophecy,
which is the Word of God, whereunto ye do well to take heed as a
light that shineth in a dark place until the day star arise
in your hearts and there is that expectancy then of paying attention
to the Word of God, reading the Word of God, seeking the Word
of God until the Lord is pleased to shine in our hearts and to
bless us through that Word. We are not to be like the five
wise and five foolish virgins in Matthew 25 which the Lord
spoke of as being sleepy and careless. They weren't watching
for the Lord to come. We are to be a praying people,
praying for the Lord and asking for his coming. And in that time
we are to be a people that are exercised, exercised in faith. Faith is that which is hoping
for that we do not see. And so it's an exercise of hope
as well and of patience. the patient waiting for the Lord. Our eyes are to be upon the Lord
and our expectation is to be from Him. We have those beautiful
promises that thine expectation shall not be cut off. We shall have the expectation
from the Word of God that the Lord shall come and shall bless
us. The Lord himself says that we
are to ask and it shall be given us. Seek and you shall find not,
and it shall be opened unto you. We have these promises. We are
to be like that described in Psalm 123. Behold, Unto thee lift I up my eyes,
O thou that dwellest in the heavens. Behold, as the eyes of servants
look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden look
unto the hand of her mistress, so our eyes wait upon the Lord
our God, until that he have mercy upon us. So there's that waiting,
that expectation for the mercy of God, and it's turned into
prayer. Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have
mercy upon us, for we are exceedingly filled with contempt. And so the waiting is an active
waiting at the courts of his house, at the posts of his doors,
watching and waiting upon the Lord. It is a blessing to be
so doing. The Lord puts it in this way,
blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness,
for they shall be filled. In other words, the blessing
is already on them that are hungering and thirsting. If they didn't
need to wait, they would never hunger and thirst, immediately
have a provision and have food immediately. but they wait on
the Lord for it. He opens his hand, he satisfies
the desire of every living thing. I say to those that awaken to
their need of a saviour, that wait for him, and wait for him
with expectation, with prayer, in the word, and attending to
the means of his grace, but looking for Him and looking for His blessing
in your soul. I want to look, in the third
place, at the promise, they shall not be ashamed. You know, if we went to a bus
stop to wait for a bus, and we're waiting for that bus, we're relying
upon the sign on that stop that that bus should come. When the
bus came, we wouldn't be ashamed because we'd been waiting and
there was the bus. But what if there'd been a change
of schedule? What if someone had passed by
and offered us a lift and we said, well, no, no, no, we're
waiting for the bus, it's all right, says it's going to come.
When the time came, no bus and no bus. And then we were ashamed
because what we'd been waiting on and said to others that we
were, it'd never come. But the Lord does not raise an
expectation for his people, his church, and then never bless
them. Those that wait for him, we are
told they shall not be ashamed. We go back to Abraham that was
given a promise that In him and in his seed all nations should
be blessed. And he's brought up out of Ur
of the Chaldeas when he was 75 years of age. And it was at that
time he was given that expectation of a child and fruitfulness.
He was married, but his wife was barren. And so 10 years later,
his wife suggested that he actually took his maid for a mistress
and raised up a child that way. Really didn't wait on the Lord,
took matters in his own hand, and the maid had a child. And
that was Ishmael. But the Lord said, no, the blessing,
the promise, seed of the woman would not come through Ishmael,
but through the child that Sarah should bear. And the thing is
that Abraham had to wait upon the Lord for that. And to make
it so clear that it was the Lord's doing, Abraham was old, Sarah
was old. In natural ways, it was impossible. And yet, though Ishmael was born
there 11 years into the time when the promise had been given,
It was when Abraham was 100 years of age, that is 25 years after
his first expectation of a child, that Isaac was born. God's promise
of seed to Abraham through Sarah did come to pass. That expectation
was not put to shame and those that wait Abraham that had to
wait, he was not ashamed. And the history records that,
that he was not ashamed. We have then the case, the history
of Joseph. We read Joseph was given the
dreams and he had the expectation that God would bring them about.
But then he was sold by his brothers, cast into a pit, and sold, and
he was brought into prison. He had that expectation that
the butler, who he'd interpreted the dream for, would speak to
Pharaoh and he'd soon be out of prison. But the butler forgot
him. And so he had to wait and languish in that prison again
and again. And we read in Psalm 105 that His feet they hurt with fetters
until his time came. The word of the Lord tried him. It tried him. The Lord had promised him through
those dreams there should be a bringing up and a time when
even his brothers should bow down to him. Well, that time
did come to pass. Pharaoh had a dream. Joseph must
come up out of prison. the butler must remember him,
is made next unto Pharaoh, is able then to say to his brothers
when he is made known to them, you sent me not hither but God
to preserve your lives by a great deliverance. And when we look
at Joseph's life, Those that wait on the Lord in providence
and for the blessing of the Lord while He is intimated, they shall
not be ashamed. Joseph was not ashamed. At the
end of that matter, he could speak very clearly. We think
of the case of dear Mary at the tomb. She'd come to the Lord,
she'd come to the tomb. They've taken away my Lord. We
know not where they have laid Him. And there she waited at
that tomb. And then the Lord was pleased
to come, and the Lord blessed her and spoke to her. And, oh,
that must have been so sacred when she recognised the Lord. Where were the other disciples?
They'd all gone away to their own home. But there she is remaining,
and she gets the blessing and the visit that the others didn't. May we not be so quick to go
away from where we last seen the Lord. and away from the word,
may we truly have a visit like she had. We think of the apostles,
the Lord said to them, tarry at Jerusalem until ye be endued
with power from on high. Why tarry? Was it in their power
to bring down the Spirit, to bring the blessing? Had not the
Lord commissioned them to preach? Yes, He had. But they had to
wait first and wait for the promise of the Father. How would that
promise come? The Lord said, I will pray the
Father and He shall give you another comforter. Tarry at Jerusalem. And they waited. And on the day
of Pentecost, 10 days after, the Lord had ascended up into
heaven. Well, 50 days after the Passover,
the crucifixion, then the Holy Spirit was given at that festival. The power of God descended, and
the profound difference in the apostles and the power attending
the Word, and the amount of souls that were converted, the Gentiles,
later, 10 years later, in the same way, with the power of the
Spirit. And so we have the expectation
of the Church and expectation of the people of God that they
were not put ashamed. They shall not be ashamed that
wait for me. May this be an encouragement
this evening, encouragement to everyone that seeks the Lord,
that waits upon Him in providence, that waits in His ways and their
eyes are up unto Him, Is anything too hard for the Lord? Nothing
is too hard for the Lord. The Lord will perform His will,
His purposes. The hymn says His purposes shall
ripen fast, unfolding every hour. The bud may have a bitter taste,
but sweet will be the flower. So may we remember this word,
for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me.