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serving the Lord Christ. I am waiting upon my own dear Master." And you like always to have some special work in hand which is immediately done for Christ. It is your privilege, your joy, to do something for anybody's comfort— something for any- body's soul — all for Jesus. That is "waiting upon the Lord." You come up to this place not only and not so much for anything you are to get here ; but to do homage ; to attend court ; to show your affectionate reverence ; to unite with all God's hosts in every world in an act of solemn worship. That is " waiting upon the Lord." Or, you draw nearer still, into the sanctuary of the Holy Communion. You wait on Christ for some brighter manifestations of His presence. You take, at His hands, the soul's bread and the soul's wine ; and you unite yourself to Him in His own appointed way. That is service — free, holy, happy service. As true service, as acceptable to God, as the service of an angel — as the service of that blessed company in heaven, where His servants are serving Him indeed.
IL
Shall renew their Strength.
The word " renew " means here to put a new thing in place of an old thing. So in Isa. ix. 10 : " Sycomores have been cut down, but cedars will we put in their place." Hence it is, literally, to put a new fresh strength in place of the old. But how is this to be brought about ? In what way are those that wait for Jehovah to renew their strength ? To my mind there is only one possible answer to this question. Do we not read in the words almost immediately preceding : " He (Jehovah) giveth to the weary force, and unto the powerless maketh strength to abound " (Cheyne) ? In themselves those that wait for Jehovah are riot any better or stronger, they have no greater power of exertion or of endurance, than the youths who faint and are weary, and the young men who stumble. But this is the supreme advantage which they have. They renounce, abandon, their own strength, or rather their supposed strength, that strength which has been used up, that strength which has been found utterly inadequate, that strength they renounce and abandon, and they take in its place the strength of Jehovah Himself. "What they cannot do for themselves, Jehovah does for them. The strength of Jehovah, fresh, inexhaustible, almighty, 16
^2 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
Divine, takes the place of, is the substitute for, their own strength, so weak, so limited, so utterly inadequate. In other words, we have here one phase of the Christian doctrine of sicbstitution, not substitution as applied to the matter of atonement, the sacrifice offered for sin, but as applied to the spiritual experience of the believer in meeting the various temptations, sorrows, losses, afflictions, trials, and adversities of life, in performing the various duties of life and in accomplishing its work for the glory of his Lord, and the advancement of His Kingdom,
The Word of God is filled with promises, which glitter and shine on every page of this sacred Book — and yet, as every effect has a cause, so every promise has its condition ; and as in Nature the effect cannot be disjoined from the cause, no more can the blessing be disjoined from the condition. They are inseparably united. " And the word of the Lord came to Joshua, saying, Go over Jordan and take the land. There shall no man be able to stand against thee all the days of thy life, for as I was with Moses, so will I be with thee. I will never fail thee nor forsake thee. Only be thou very courageous." This law comes into our text — " They that wait upon the Lord shall ^ renew their strength." The condition of waiting upon the Lord \ must be fulfilled before we can expect the renewal of our strength. And be it remembered that here, as in all other cases, material and spiritual, the condition is not some arbitrary demand on the part of God. It is not His exorbitant price for / the blessing in question. The condition is the means whereby fT, the blessing is to be obtained. Thus the essential condition for getting a strong, muscular arm is that it shall be used to do hard and constant service. But if this condition be fulfilled, it will also prove to be the means whereby the strength is produced.
1. The man who waits upon the Lord gets an ever wider experience of God's grace and faithfulness as life advances. All experienced Christians grow brighter, stronger, and calmer in their assurance of God's love. Every one who has known anything of grace in himself can confirm this.
IT Let me call one witness — a ripe Bible scholar — but one who began life as a poor boy in a workhouse. He had lost his hearing absolutely, by an accident, while little more than a child. By
ISAIAH 1^43
well-meaning friends he was consigned to a poorhouse. But he ended, after many labours, a loved and honoured interpreter of Holy Scripture. This is what Dr. John Kitto writes on a like text in this same prophet Isaiah : " Thirty years ago, before the Lord caused me to wander from my father's house and from my native place, I put my mark upon this text : ' I am the Lord ; they shall not be ashamed that wait for Me.' Of the many books I now possess," he goes on, " the Bible that bears this mark was the only one that belonged to me at that time. It now lies before me, and I find that although the hair which was then as dark as night has meanwhile become 'a sable silvered,' the ink which marked this text has grown into intensity of blackness, corresponding with the growing intensity of convic- tion. ' They shall not be ashamed that wait for Him.' I believed it then, I know it now ; and I can write with all my heart over against that symbol, Frobatum est — ' It is proved.' Looking back through the long period which has passed since I set my mark to these words — a portion of human life which forms the best and brightest, as well as the most trying and conflicting, in all man's experience — it is a joy to be able to say it. Under many perilous circumstances, in many trying scenes, amid faintings within and fears without, under sorrows that rend the heart and troubles that crush it down, ' I have waited for Thee, 0 Lord, and I stand this day as one not ashamed.' " ^