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The Free Presbyterian Magazine
promise. We must be as earnest to do what God has commanded as to enjoy
the good which He has promised.
2. Why godly men thus wait for the good which God has promised. I shall
name seven reasons.
(1.) They know they are servants. Servants must wait upon their masters
for the good they expect (Ps 123:2). The people of God know they are only
servants, and servants that depend on the free will of God for everything;
this makes them willing to wait on God. He that will not wait on God denies
that he is a servant and that God is his master (Lk 12:35-37).
(2.) They know God has given them both faith and hope so that they may
wait on Him. Waiting is nothing else but the acting of hope. A child of God
would not have any grace lie idle in his soul. He knows God has given every
grace to be exercised. Not to use the grace received is to abuse it. A child of
God would not abuse a thing so excellent as hope. Now, he knows that hope
is given to enable him to wait for the fulfilling of promises.
(3.) They therefore know in some measure what a great sin it is not to
wait. To refuse to wait on God for the fulfilling of His promise is to slight
God – to undervalue the promise, as if there was nothing in it worth waiting
for. A man cannot disparage either God or His promises more openly than
by refusing to wait on Him for His promises. Now, a child of God would not
willingly cast any reproach either on God or His promises, from which he
receives so much good.
(4.) They are not unmindful how long and with how much patience God
waited on them for their obedience. They remember God tarried sermon
after sermon, year after year, for their conversion. The Apostle speaks of
God’s long-suffering in waiting on the old world (1 Pet 3:20). Every one
of God’s children is conscious of God waiting on them patiently when they
had no mind to know Him. When they slighted grace, when they scorned
mercy, God waited; this makes them so ready to wait on God (Is 30:18).
(5.) They know that they do not deserve the good promised. The children
of God know that all His promises are free to them. They will readily assent
to Jacob’s acknowledgment: “I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies,
and of all the truth, which Thou hast showed unto Thy servant” (Gen 32:10).
They know how well they deserve the heaviest threatening but how unworthy
they are of the least mercy. With an unfeigned heart they say, as
David did when God had promised to build his house: “Who am I, O Lord
God, and what is my house, that Thou hast brought me hitherto?” (2 Sam
7:18). The motto of a child of God is: Less than the least of all mercies of
God. This makes them wait.
(6.) They know how certain the promises of God are. They have experi-