Salvation-a gift of such comprehensive and enduring blessing-is it not worth the waiting trial?

Posted : 7 Jul, 2013 05:23 AM

Psalm 119:123 Mine eyes fail for Your salvation, and for the word of Your righteousness.





And do your eyes, tried believer, begin to fail? So did your

Redeemer's before you. He, whom you have been recollecting

as your Surety, when He stood in your place, burdened with

the intolerable load of your sin-bearing the weighty strokes of

Infinite justice upon His soul-He too was constrained to cry

out, "My eyes fail, while I wait for my God." Listen, then, to

your deserted Savior counseling His deserted people; "gifted

with the tongue of the learned, that he should know how to

speak a word in season to you that are weary"-"Who is among

you that fears the Lord, that obeys the voice of His servant;

that walks in darkness, and has no light? Let him trust in the

name of the Lord, and stay upon his God."

That our Surety will plead for our good, doubt not. Yet "the

vision is for an appointed time." "But shall not God avenge His

own elect, which cry day and night unto Him, though He bear

long with them?" Salvation-a gift of such comprehensive and

enduring blessing-is it not worth the waiting trial? Wonderful is

that arrangement, by which the word of grace is made the

word of righteousness! God has bound Himself to us by His

promises of grace, which are not, Yes and no, but "Yes and

amen"-under His own hand and seal. Who that has tried them,

but will "set to his seal that God is true?" Cheering indeed is

the thought, that, amid the incessant changes in Christian

experience, our hope is unchangeably fixed. We may not

indeed always enjoy it; but our salvation does not depend

upon our present enjoyment of its consolation. Is not the

blessing as certain-yes-is not our assurance of an interest in it as clear, when we are brought to the dust under a sense of

sin, as if we were "caught up into the third heaven" in a vision

of glory?

In a season of desertion, therefore, while we maintain a godly

jealousy over our own hearts, let us beware of a mistrustful

jealousy of God. Distrust will not cure our wound, or quicken

us to prayer, or recommend us to the favor of God, or prepare

us for the mercy of the Gospel. Complaining is not humility.

Prayer without waiting is not faith. The path is plain as noonday. Continue to believe as you can. Wait on the Lord. This is

the act of faith, depending on Him-the act of hope, looking for

Him-the act of patience, waiting His time-the act of

submission, resigned even if He should not come. Like your

Savior, in His "agony" of desertion, "pray more earnestly."

Condemn yourself for the sins of which you are asking

forgiveness. Bless Him for His past mercy, even if you should

never taste it again. Can He frown you from His presence?

Can He belie His promise to His waiting people? Impossible!

No! while He has taken away the sensible apprehensions of

His love, and in its room has kindled longing desires for the

lost blessing; is not this to show Himself-if He be "verily a God

that hides Himself"-yet still "the God of Israel, the Savior?"

Though He delays His promise, and holds us as it were in

suspense; yet He would have us know, that He has not

forgotten the word of His righteousness. But this is His wise

and effectual mode of trying His own gift of faith. And it is this

"trial of faith"-and not faith untried-that will be "found to praise,

and honor, and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ."

The full consolation of the Gospel is therefore the fruit of

patient, humble waiting for the Lord, and of earnest desire,

conflicting with impatience and unbelief, and at length issuing

in a state of child-like submission and dependence. The man

who was here expressing his longing expectation for God's

salvation, was evidently, though unconsciously, in possession of the promise. Nor would he at this moment have exchanged

his hope, clouded as it was to his own view, for all "the

pleasures of sin," or the riches of the world. Although at this

moment he appeared to be under the partial hidings of his

Father's countenance, yet it is important to observe, that he

was not satisfied, as an indolent professor, to "lie upon his

face" in this sad condition. His "eyes failed with looking

upward"-stretched up with earnest expectation to catch the

first rising rays of the beaming Sun of Righteousness. He

knew, what all Christians know, who walk closely with God,

that his perseverance in waiting upon God, would issue in the

eventual fulfillment of every desire of his heart.

But can we assuredly plead the word of His righteousness for

the anticipation of the object of our desire? Have we always

an express promise answering to our expectations, "putting

God in remembrance" of His word? Possibly we may have

been asking not "according to His will," and therefore may

have "charged God foolishly," as if He had been unfaithful to

His word, when no engagement had been pledged: when we

had no warrant to build upon from the word of His

righteousness. If, however, our petition should be found to be

agreeable to His word of promise, and faith and patience hold

on in submission to His will, we must not, we cannot,

suppose, that one tittle that we have asked will fail. Whether

the Lord deliver us or not, prayer and waiting will not be lost. It

is a blessed posture for Him to find us in, such as will not fail

to ensure His acceptance, even though our request should be

denied. An enlivening view of the Savior is in reserve for us;

and the word of righteousness will yet speak-"This is the rest,

with which you may cause the weary to rest: and this is the

refreshing." To every passing doubt and rising fear, oppose

this word of His righteousness.

But let me bring my own heart to the test. Am I longing for the

manifestation of God? Surely if I am content with what I already know, I know but very little of the unsearchable depths

of the love of Christ; and I have abundant need to pray for

more enlarged desires, and a more tender enjoyment of His

Divine presence. If faith is not dead, yet it may have lost its

conquering and quickening vigor. Let me then exercise my

soul in diligent, careful, patient waiting upon God, equally

removed from sloth and frowardness-and I shall yet find the

truth of that consoling word of His righteousness-"Light is

sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart."



by

Charles Bridges

Post Reply