THE WAITING TIME
R. D. Plant
2 Samuel 19: 24–30; 1 Samuel 3: 1–4; Luke 2: 22–32; Revelation 1: 9–11
I wanted to say a few words about the waiting time. One of the remarkable things about this dispensation in which we are is the length to which it has gone. One of the hymns speaks about the Lord Jesus as the Man of patience waiting now (No.274). Think of the mighty work He has done and all He has died to secure and yet He is waiting for the full answer to Himself. The day of faith has gone on now for a long time, nearly two thousand years, and there are many things in it which test us; reproach tests us, and seeking to maintain what is true and the truth is a testing matter for us, but I believe the waiting time itself is one of the most testing things. Someone has said that the test of reality is continuance, and I suppose we could say another test of reality is how we come through the waiting time.
God can do things quickly, the creation was completed in six days. The life of Jesus was very short, thirty-three and a half years probably in total; three and a half years in public service, and perhaps only a few days of that recorded in the gospels. How much was secured in three hours at Calvary; and then in three days and three nights! In a day to come, after the saints are gone, it speaks of Babylon the great corrupt system that would take Christ’s name and yet give glory to itself, “Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! for in one hour thy judgment is come”, Revelation 18: 10. In one hour, that is remarkable. It seems as if a great joining together of nations will be used to overthrow Babylon, but what they will have done is to destroy themselves as well, and the whole commercial system will follow Babylon down. These are difficult times in the business world but what a collapse that will be when it is realised how much the prosperity of the great commercial system is tied up with Babylon the great harlot. So God can do things quickly. Think of all the years that Babylon has been built up, and yet it will be finished in one hour.
Yet God waits in this day in which we live, and in the glad tidings He waits in grace with hands outstretched to bless. There are many here who have cause to thank God for the fact that He waited for them. Some of us had heard the gospel preached for quite a while before we yielded to it. What would it have been if God had not waited for us? It says, “And therefore will Jehovah wait, that he may be gracious unto you”, Isaiah 30: 18. Perhaps there is somebody like that. Perhaps there is someone here today to whom that word would come that He has waited for you; He has waited until today, perhaps because you have turned away from Him, or not given Him what is due to Him.
Perhaps He is reaching out with His long arm and touching you today. You say, I did not expect the gospel at these meetings. The gospel should never be far from us. He has waited that He might reach you today, as the hymn writer says—
‘Jesus lingers still, ‘tis for you He waits,
And He’s waited for you long;
He waits that heav’n, with its fadeless joy,
May yet to you belong’. (Hymn 439)
It is all for you; perhaps the dispensation has just waited for you. I think the believer understands that God is waiting because He is not willing that any should perish. The scripture says to us, He is not willing that any should perish—any man, woman or child—He is not willing that any one of them should perish; that is the gospel preached in the waiting time.
I have digressed, but I believe we find the waiting time tests us. Most of us here know the Lord Jesus as Saviour, we know what is prepared for us, we know that the only future for the Christian is glory, but the waiting time tests us. Throughout the Scriptures it has been so; it tested them in Moses’ day when he went up the mountain to receive the law for six weeks and in six weeks they forgot him. How long would it take you and me to forget Christ? How much we need to be kept in the area of the truth, to be kept in the area of the Spirit, to be kept with one another, and to be kept fresh in our spirits too. How we do need to be kept! There is not one of us here who is much in himself or herself. It is His love we rely on, not ours, a love that will not let us go. It speaks in the New Testament of a bondman who says in his heart, My lord delays to come, and he began to beat the menservants and the maidservants and so on because of this (see Luke 12: 45). Then Peter refers to what the mockers said,
“Where is the promise of his coming?” 2 Peter 3: 4. These are all things that test us, are they not? Our profession really is that our hopes and aspirations are all set in another Man in another
place, and yet the years go on. I believe we are very tested by this waiting time.
I read about these four persons, who I believe were helped to be maintained in the waiting time, that we might get some help from them. The first one is Mephibosheth. If Mephibosheth sets out anything, he sets out, by application, someone who was personally attached to Christ. It is possible for us to be interested and almost fascinated by the truth, and the testimony. Well, that is good in as far as it goes, but Mephibosheth was personally attracted to David; for us that would be to Christ. You could give him his liberty, you could set him at David’s table continually, you could make him as one of the king’s sons, you could give him all the territory of Jonathan his father, but he would say, in type, I will give it all away if only I can have Christ. There are not many of us like that. One thing that would help us in the waiting time is to be more personally attached to Christ. He had not had an easy up-bringing. He was the son of Jonathan, who had been slain on mount Gilboa, the house of Saul had come down. Mephibosheth is one of the few that are left, and he was lame on both his feet. He had been affected by things that had happened before he was of responsible years.
We have to say sadly, some of us who are older, that some young people here have been affected by things that were not their responsibility. But then David said one day, Are there any left of Saul’s house, that I might show the kindness of God to them? and you can see that Mephibosheth was reserved for grace to find; he was not reserved to have the kingdom. You younger ones have not exactly been reserved for a system of thousands of persons, and a great organisation, but you have been reserved for grace. God in His mercy and infinite grace has reached out and preserved for us, up till now, another generation. Mephibosheth never forgot the grace of David. He would say, I was just a dead dog; I had nothing by way of right, but David has given me everything, and I will give everything to him. Are
we like that for Christ?
Then you remember David was driven from his kingdom, he goes into exile because his son Absalom comes and usurps the throne, typical of the anti-Christian principle that we spoke about in the reading. What is anti-Christian? Do not get some impression of some ferocious beast in what is anti-Christian; it is a suggestion that somebody can do better for you than Christ can, that is what it is. That is what Absalom did, he said to the people, If you will only give me a place I will look after all your problems; I will give you all the attention you should have. Some followed him in their simplicity. I would say to you, especially to the young ones, that the world is full of what is anti-Christian, it is full of what will undermine the value of Christ in your soul. It will be done subtly, it is not a frontal attack upon Him, it is the way the enemy would undermine Christ’s power and influence in your soul.
Now Mephibosheth was lame and could not go with David in his rejection, and when David comes back the question arises as to whether he has been loyal to David or loyal to Absalom.
The question is left in the scripture. These other men go out to meet the king; Shimei, he was a devious man, who had cursed David when he fled, but when David comes back, Shimei comes out with a thousand men, making a big show, and pleads his allegiance to David. Ziba also comes out with fifteen sons and twenty servants, and fords the Jordan to welcome David.
Mephibosheth did not come just then. There is a lovely touch here, “And Mephibosheth ...
came down to meet the king ... And as soon as Jerusalem came to meet the king”. He was truly a man in Jerusalem. It says, that he had neither washed his feet nor trimmed his beard, nor washed his clothes from the day the king departed until the day, he came again in peace.
You may say Mephibosheth had become almost obnoxious, but what he had done was to demonstrate, in the king’s absence, that he shared his rejection with him. If David
was gone, for Mephibosheth everything was gone. Would that we had a deep and abiding affection for Christ. Would that we could see where Christ is, and show in our behaviour, in our dress, and in our deportment that we do not belong here, we belong to a rejected Man.
That was Mephibosheth, that is what kept him. He did not get carried away with Absalom, and when David comes back he is not sure about Mephibosheth, and the scripture leaves the record that way. But Mephibosheth had waited typically for Christ. Are you doing that?
There are older men and women here, and some younger ones, who have a peculiar link with the Lord Jesus. Let us all seek to develop this and find out all you can about Him. Never let the impression of grace leave us. If it had not been for that wonderful grace that reached out to each one of us, where would we be today? Mephibosheth retained the sense of it, and that lovely word remains on the page of Scripture, “Let him even take all, since my lord the king is come again in peace to his own house”.
Then in 1 Samuel 3, it is at a time when things had got very, very low in Israel. I think it was about three hundred and fifty years, as far as I can make out from the books, from the time they crossed the Jordan to this point. The people had gone through the time of the judges, and it says, at the end of the book of Judges, that every man did what was right in his own eyes; things had deteriorated. It seems that they had brought the tabernacle into the land, after having crossed the Jordan with it, and I think first of all it was pitched at Gilgal; then it seems that they had re-erected the tabernacle at Shiloh, and there it had remained, it was static. I judge from the scripture where we have read that they had made additions to it and generally the impression that you get is that things had declined, and the conduct of the priesthood had declined. Publicly things have declined today. There is a sense of neglect in relation to the things of God that results in dishonour to His name.
Yet here He is going to revive something through a young boy. I think somebody has said that when you think things are at their darkest and most dismal, look out, for that is the time God loves to work. He does not work like men work; and here He begins to work in a boy, Samuel. I did not want to speak about Samuel so much, but of what it says, “Eli lay in his place”, that is the official priest, “(now his eyes began to grow dim, he could not see), and the lamp of God had not yet gone out”. It was three hundred and fifty years since the crossing of the Jordan, things were neglected, the priesthood was corrupt, the Philistines according to the history were encroaching every day, crushing the life out of Israel, and yet here in the temple it says, “the lamp of God had not yet gone out”. That is a very significant thing. I think it must refer to the candlestick. If you went into the court of the tabernacle, you would have the brazen altar, then the laver, and then the entrance to the holy place. In the holy place there would be the golden altar, and on one side the table of showbread, and on the other side the candlestick. The candlestick was of beaten gold, and may refer to Christ as the light-bearer and what is maintained of Him in the affections and exercises of His own. Think of how Christ, the light-bearer was maintained, for instance, in the Reformation, where these men and women went to the stake, the beaten gold was there, and the light was shining. Did not Bishop Latimer say as he went to martyrdom, ‘We shall thus this day light such a candle by God’s grace in England as shall never be put out’? Think of Jesus maintaining the shining.
One striking thing about the candlestick is that the oil for the candlestick was provided by the people, olive oil, beaten out.
Now where I have read here, the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and it must have meant that despite the neglect, someone was still beating out the oil. Is that not fine? Three hundred and fifty years from Jordan, and someone, every day, was beating out the oil.
It is said of the candlestick in the holy place, that the light shone over against itself. Think of the light, you may say, shining on the beaten gold; think of the light shining upon what speaks of Christ, the light-bearer. Think of it shining over the dark ages! I think we can say the light, the lamp, has never gone out. Then it says it shone opposite to the table, and there on the table were the twelve shew loaves that speak of all the saints maintained before God.
What a thing, if there is someone here who could be maintained not only in personal attraction to Christ, but in seeking to maintain the whole of God’s thoughts in exercise, and in that way providing the oil for the lamp. Someone was exercised to find the olives and to beat out the oil, and carry it to the lamp for the priest to use. Is there someone exercised in Edinburgh, or in any other locality, that the light might still shine, and the truth as to Christ, not only what He is personally, but what He is as the light-bearer? Are you still bringing the oil in this waiting time? I just commend these thoughts to you, because these persons were helped and kept in the waiting time. It tested them but someone held on in it, in loyalty to the full light of Christ, and what is suggested in the table.
Then in Luke we read of Simeon, I do not know exactly how long it was but there is a big time gap from the end of the Old Testament to the New, probably three hundred years anyway. And here it speaks about a man in Jerusalem. The power of Rome was everywhere at this time. Caesar Augustus had decreed that he would take a census of all the habitable world. Just think of that decree that every person should go to their own city and register on the census roll; the whole world was at his command. Here, over against all that, there was something coming in. I commend to you what has been said in ministry, that amidst the public power of Rome, the kingdom of God came in silently. There was a man in Jerusalem, and he had been waiting for it. I cannot go into the detail of it, but I would just like it to affect
your heart, he had been waiting and he was an old man now; he had kept himself in the area of divine communication. People would be talking about Rome and its greatness and I suppose here it was close to the pinnacle of its power. Rome was everywhere, its power, its administration, its cruelty, and people would be talking about it, but here is a man waiting for something else, waiting for the consolation of Israel. Then one day these two with the child Jesus came in, bringing with them the smallest offering mentioned in the law, “A pair of turtle doves, or two young pigeons”, and that is how the Lord of glory came publicly into the temple along with the smallest offering of all. Think of the two little birds that they bring there, perhaps a pair of pigeons; how very small things were. In Matthew you get the magi, the star in the sky, and the question, “Where is the King of the Jews ... ?” But there is nothing like that in Luke. In Luke we have ‘a houseless, homeless Stranger, our sorrows all to share’.
He is brought into the temple and there is one man there who is waiting and he receives Him into his arms, and says, “Lord, now thou lettest thy bondman go ... for mine eyes have seen thy salvation”. Let none of us, old or young, get too occupied with the power and greatness of man and his world. Mighty events have happened even in this past year, things that most never thought would happen. Do not think that means that all the danger is over, it may just be beginning. We have seen in the affairs of men tremendous change; we have seen the great power of armies and man’s armaments, but do not get carried away by it. The kingdom of God is much greater. It says in the prophet Daniel that the God of the heavens will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, and which will break in pieces every other kingdom (Daniel 2: 44). The kingdom of God had come in Jesus; it was not the day for the breaking up of other kingdoms. It was the day of salvation for men, and that day continues still; but His kingdom will break every other kingdom, and the greatness of Christ will be known through the whole earth. Simeon was a man who could
be aside from the world’s glory. It is a simple word, perhaps especially for those who are younger, for we can be carried away by the power of the world’s affairs. I commend that word to all of us that the kingdom of God came in silently. What was in the arms of Simeon was something that was going to change the whole face of this earth, and the whole future of millions of men and women. Jesus came, a houseless, homeless Stranger, and Simeon was so in the Spirit that he received Him into his arms. He did not have to wonder whether it was the right way, he did not hesitate a moment, he said this is God’s salvation.
Finally, I read in Revelation, where the writer John is in the island of Patmos, “for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus”. The Lord says to Peter, as to John, “If I will that he abide until I come, what is that to thee?”, John 21: 22. In a certain way I suppose the beginning of the dispensation was marked by Peter, and all that happened in Jerusalem publicly. Then you have Paul, and the end of the day really is John’s day. John writes his gospel when the assembly publicly had failed; you may say it looked as if everything might fall apart, but despite that John writes about believing that Jesus is the Christ and having life in His name. He never calls himself an apostle. In his gospel he never even gives himself a name, nor does he speak about the assembly formally; he does not speak about any formal order of things here at all. In this book he calls himself, “I John, your brother and fellow-partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and patience, in Jesus”. Then he says he was “in the island called Patmos”. He was exiled there I suppose; he was not there for a holiday. The power and opposition of the world was brought to bear on this servant of the Lord, who had never sought a place, and never sought a name. They had banished him there with a view, I suppose, that he should work there till he died. What terrible opposition the world would use to crush out the very name of Jesus. It would crush every bit of life towards God, that is what the enemy would do to you, he
would crush you in spirit; he would crush these men in the Scriptures in their bodies. At the Reformation believers were burned at the stake after being tortured with all kinds of instruments of torture. The world, despite its often religious guise, would crush out every expression of Christ.
But there is one thing that it could not do to John, for he says, “I became in the Spirit on the Lord’s day”. I wonder if we know what it is to take advantage of the fact that there is an area of things that is beyond anything that man can do. I do not have the impression that this is just something he had done for the first time, but he was able to abstract himself from the toil.
There amidst his cares, he says, “I became in the Spirit on the Lord’s day”. That is the recompense. If we are to be kept in the waiting time amidst the pressure and the sorrow of what will come against us, then I think we need to know what it is to habituate the sphere of privilege. May we be encouraged in that. May we know what it is to turn aside from all else and enter a sphere of things where there is no pressure, where there is no sorrow, and where there will never be an end. That is your privilege and mine in the Spirit. John says, “I became in the Spirit on the Lord’s day”. I think that may be the only reference to the Lord’s day in Scripture. The first day of the week is the distinctive Christian day, not the Sabbath but the first day of the week is the day that Jesus rose from among the dead. But when the pressure of the world is exerted on you, that would crush out His name, I believe it is not only the first day of the week but it is the Lord’s day. I am not talking only about whether shops should be opened or closed on that day, but much wider than that. The world would range all it can against the believer, against his profession and his hopes, but it is the Lord’s day, and there is a world beyond the pressure and the sorrow. While we await the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ we can know the privilege of, “I became in the Spirit”. May we know the blessedness of that privilege that is beyond everything
here, and be helped in the waiting time, for His name’s sake.
Address at Edinburgh
1 January 1992