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THE WAITING TIME
R. Taylor
Philippians 3: 20, 21; 2 Corinthians 5: 1–10; 2 Timothy 4: 6–8;
I wish to speak of the waiting time. It is a very testing time, and
yet is to be a very blessed time. The first scripture and the last
we read refer to us as waiting, and what we wait for will require
new conditions for its fulness, yet it is to regulate us in the
present time. I feel the importance of that, dear brethren. God
has brought His choicest thoughts within our reach, and we
have been given the earnest of the Spirit that these things,
which as to their fulness are yet to come, should have a
regulating influence upon us now. I think you can see that in
the ways of God it has always been so. Enoch, in a difficult
day, had the light of the Lord coming judicially, and the effect
of that was that he “walked with God”, while the rest of men
were living to themselves. Enoch was
thus regulated in his walk; he did not go where the rest of men
went or involve himself in what the others were involved in. It
says, “And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God
took him”, Genesis 5: 24. God was pleased to translate him
because he was already walking with him.
It brings to my mind a Christian who at the end of his life said,
‘Death does not hold any fear for me. In death I shall change
my condition, but not my company’. He was already enjoying
Christ’s company. Enoch did not change his company; he
walked with God, and God took him. I wonder, dear brethren,
at the rapture, will you and I change our company? When the
Lord comes to take us to Himself, what will the change be? In
Philippians here it says it will be a change of body; He will
“transform our body of humiliation”, a change of condition.