THE SECRET OF POWER
"They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength"
(Isaiah xl. 31).
If I were dying, and had the privilege of delivering a last
exhortation to all the Christians of the world, and that message had
to be condensed into three words, I would say, "Wait on God!"
Wherever I go I find backsliders -- Methodist backsliders, Baptist
backsliders, Salvationist backsliders -- all kinds of backsliders by
the thousand, until my heart aches as I think of the great army of
discouraged souls, of the way in which the Holy Spirit has been
grieved, and of the way in which Jesus has been treated.
If these backsliders were asked the cause of their present
condition, ten thousand different reasons would be given; but, after
all, there is but one, and that is this: they did not wait on God.
If they had waited on Him when the fierce assault was made that
overthrew their faith and robbed them of their courage and
bankrupted their love, they would have renewed their strength and
mounted over all obstacles as though on eagles' wings. They would
have run through their enemies and not been weary. They would have
walked in the midst of trouble and not fainted.
Waiting on God means more than a prayer of thirty seconds on getting
up in the morning and going to bed at night. It may mean one prayer
that gets hold of God and comes away with the blessing, or it may
mean a dozen prayers that knock and persist and will not be put off,
until God arises, and makes bare His arm on behalf of the pleading
soul.
There is a drawing nigh to God, a knocking at Heaven's doors, a
pleading of the promises, a reasoning with Jesus, a forgetting of
self a turning from all earthly concerns, a holding on with
determination to never let go, that puts all the wealth of Heaven's
wisdom and power and love at the disposal of a little man, so that
he shouts and triumphs when all others tremble and fail and fly, and
becomes more than conqueror in the very face of death and Hell.
It is in the heat of just such seasons of waiting on God that every
great soul gets the wisdom and strength that make it an astonishment
to other men. They, too, might be "great in the sight of the Lord,"
if they would wait on God and be true, instead of getting excited
and running to this man and that for help when the testing times
come.
The Psalmist had been in great trouble, and this is what he says of
his deliverance: "I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined
unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible
pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and
established my goings. And He hath put a new song in my mouth, even
praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in
the Lord" (Ps. xl. 1-3).
The other day I went to a poor little corps where nearly everything
had been going wrong. Many were cold and discouraged; but I found
one sister with a wondrous glory in her face, and glad, sweet
praises in her mouth. She told me how she had looked at others
falling around her, had seen the carelessness of many, and noted the
decline of vital piety in the corps, until her heart ached and she
felt disheartened and her feet almost slipped. But she went to God,
and got down low before Him, and prayed and waited, until He drew
near her, and showed her the awful precipice on which she herself
was standing -- showed her that her one business was to follow
Jesus, to walk before Him with a perfect heart, and to cleave to
Him, though the whole corps backslid. Then she confessed all that
God showed her; confessed how near she had come to joining the great
army of backsliders herself through looking at others; humbled
herself before Him, and renewed her covenant, until an unutterable
joy came to her heart, and God put His fear in her soul, and filled
her with the glory of His presence.
She told me, further, that the next day she fairly trembled to think
of the awful danger she had been in, and declared that that time of
waiting on God in the silence of the night saved her, and now her
heart was filled with the full assurance of hope for herself, and
not only for herself, but also for the corps. Oh, for ten thousand
such soldiers!
David said, "My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is
from Him (Ps. lxii. 5); and again he declares: "I wait for the Lord,
my soul doth wait, and in His name do I hope. My soul waiteth for
the Lord more than they that watch for the morning" (Ps. cxxx. 5);
and he sends out this ringing exhortation and note of encouragement
to you and me: "Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and He shall
strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord" (Ps. xxvii. 14).
The secret of all failures, and of all true success, is hidden in
the attitude of the soul in its private walk with God. The man who
courageously waits on God is bound to succeed. He cannot fail. To
other men he may appear for the present to fail, but in the end they
will see what he knew all the time: that God was with him, making
him, in spite of all appearances, "a prosperous man."
Jesus puts the secret into these words: "But thou, when thou
prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door,
pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in
secret shall reward thee openly" (Matt. vi. 6).
Know, then, that all failure has its beginning in the closet, in
neglecting to wait on God until filled with wisdom, clothed with
power, and all on fire with love.
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