The Pulpit Commentary — Isaiah — Volume 1 — Section 411

L WAITING OIROUMBTANOES, It WIIS a waiting-time for the godly in Judah when IBBiah wrote. In their ~wn country, luxury a~d profligacy were plainly bearing the co~ntry ?n to some terrible doom. In the nations around them the cup of iniquity was gettmg full, and overwhelming judgments were falling on one after another. Every man who believed in the covenant was put into silence and waiting. The scenes around him he could not reason out. Precisely what God would do with his peop;e he could not know. .All a~ut him was painful mystery_; he could only wait, keeping firm hold of the truth, faithfulness, and love of God while he waited. When circumstances are against us, the beet thing we can do is to wait, "Wait thou hie time, so shall thy night Boon end in joyons day." The history of God's ancient people ie a series of waiting circumstances. Through a long Egyptian bondage they were called to wait for the day of their deliverance. Surrounded with perils, they stood at the shores of the Red Sea, and were bidden to wait for the salvation of God. Crowded in the plain before the Mount of Sinai, the people failed to wait in patience until Moses reappeared. For forty years they wandered, waiting for admission to their promised land. In their first siege they must wait until God's signal for the falling walls. At last they must hang their harps on the willows, in the stranger's land, waiting the completion of their seventy years of judgment. And 'llven to-day, among us, Israel stands in waiting circumstances-- waiting while her land lies fallow; waiting while the times of the Gentiles are being fulfilled. While the story of that people Israel remains upon the records, all may know that God does a part of his work of grace in men, by placing them in waiting circumstances. What is true of the nation is true of her heroic sons and daughters : e.g. Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, Simeon, and a host of others bad to wait, and often wait Jong, for the fulfilment of their hopes. So we are still placed in waiting circumRtances. 'l'here are often times when we can do nothing-we can only sit at the window, like the sailor's wife when the storm-wrack fills the sky, and the sea makes its moan almost to heart-breaking. Times when we are put aside from busy life. 'l'imes when our way seemed to be walled up, no door would open, no sign of the guiding hand appeared; we could only wait. But this is true, the circumstances are God's arrangement, and the waiting does God's work. Life itself is one great waiting- time. The earth itself is but in waiting circumstances (Rum. viii. 22). II. WAITING ATTITUDES, 1. The attitude of prayer, using that word in its large sense of openness of soul to God; the outlooking, up-looking of the soul to God; the humble sense of self; the silent and the spoken cry for the light and help of God. The union of prayer with waiting lift;i it from the mere dull and stricken submission of the slave, into the pleasant waiting of the child, who, being sure of the Father's love, keeps looking for the Father's time. Waiting work never becomes weary work, or bitter work, until we cease to pray. 2. The attitude of expectancy. Waiting ought to become watching, in strong faith and assured hope; ,vatching like that of David, when he could sing out his confidence and say, "Yet the Lord will command his loving-kindness in the daytime." Such a spirit the captives in Babylon might cherish. Flinging open their windows westward, as they knelt, they might see the temple arise, the streets of the holy city fill wiLh busy people, and the walls encircle a delivered and independent nation; and with such expectations it could not be hard to wait, for God's time to bless is never more than a " little way off." 3. The attitude of keeping on in the ways of righteousness, whether we find them pay or not pay. Doing right, even if it does seem to bring suffering. Purposing that our mouth shall not transgress. If, while we wait, we faint in spirit, let us take good care never to faint from righteousness. III. WAITING OONSOLATIONS. We may be quite sure that God is in the waiting. Nearer than ever to us in the hours of delay. If the waiting is God's, if it belongs to the mysterious ways of the Divine love, then even waiting-times are blessed. They are even a gracious agency for the culture of our souls; and often times better things are done for us in the waiting than in the suffering times. '!'he great lessons of the perfect trust are learned in ths waiting houfll j and " patience gets her perfect work." -ll, T.  THE BOOK OF ll'HE •:PROl'HE•r IRAIAH. [011, %XVI. 1-,-2;1,