WAITING

N. T. Meek

1 Thessalonians 1: 9, 10; 1 Samuel 16: 11, 12; Luke 10: 38, 39; Isaiah 42: 1–4; 51: 5

I wanted to say a word about waiting; it has often been used as a subject. It is a feature of Christianity that we wait. We wait for our Lord to be vindicated, and we wait for Him to come. How real one’s waiting is is a question, it is easier to speak of than to do. It is intended that when the Lord comes He shall find a waiting people; the intention will be realized.

As to the Thessalonian saints, Paul uses this word that they had “turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, and to await his Son from the heavens”. I ask myself as to how much I do that; how deeply, characteristically do I wait for the Lord to come? How bright, or how dull, is that hope in my heart? Another year has passed and the Lord has not come; He did not come in 1991; maybe He will come this year. Would you value that, would you appreciate that? Is that a hope or just a fact that you store in your mind? O yes, you say, the Lord might come this year, the Scripture says He is going to come, I believe He will. The day is several hours long, has it entered into our minds that He

might come today? That is how it is, beloved, that the Lord Jesus might come today. He may not wait till evening either. Perhaps the saints have got so used to hearing this that it tends to lose its reality. I agree it does, it does not burn as it should, it has not quite the thrilling prospect. You think of a wife whose husband has been a soldier and the armistice has now been signed, she waits every day for a knock on the door, she waits for her loved one—it is not historical with her, it is not that he might come, she hopes he will come today; she hopes he will come in time for dinner. It is clear and bright because he is living in her heart. So it should be with us we await our Lord to come. I do not doubt there have been such persons down the dispensation who waited and longed and yearned for the Lord to come. What does He mean to you? What does He mean to me? We have meetings together and we pray, and we say ‘we’, and that is right, but what about ‘me’. What about your prayer, is it that He is coming for you, and you want Him too?

These saints awaited God’s Son from the heavens. That will be a miracle, we may as well accept it that many things in Scripture are miracles, and the Lord Jesus is going to come. He whom the world has rejected is going to come back, and He is going to take away His own.

What a wonderful prospect we have, the Lord is going to come as sure as sure can be. There is no doubt about it. He is going to come; if you believe the Scriptures you must believe that He is going to come. The question is, Am I waiting for Him? Just when He comes we do not know, you just have to leave that. It has been designedly left open, but every true heart has that element that longs for Him, longs to see Him vindicated, longs to see Him accorded the rights that are His, and also longs to see Him for His own sake because of who He is, in His person and glory.

In 1 Samuel we get a different setting to the Lord’s coming. Described here we have what is like a

meeting, a gathering of the saints, and Samuel is there, a very valuable brother, a prophet, judge, and priest; Samuel will be at the meeting! Some of you would not remember it, but word used to get round that Mr. Taylor Snr. is coming on the afternoon boat, he will be at Hampton this evening, and that meant something. There would be a meeting and Mr. Taylor would be there. You got time off your work and you went without your tea to get there.

Those of the older generation here would remember it, I can just remember it. Well, Samuel was going to be there on this occasion, and the elders of Bethlehem would be there, and Jesse would be there, and David’s brothers would be there. You say, it is going to be a good time.

But the real question is, Will David be there? Will the Lord be there? that is what sanctions a gathering, the Lord’s presence. You say it is a habit of brethren to have reading meetings and prayer meetings; well and good, it is a good habit, but the real test is whether the Lord is going to be present. The Lord said, “where two or three are gathered together unto my name, there am I in the midst of them”, Matthew 18: 20. His presence gives them sanction to act. In this select and very fine company, even Samuel said, Well, we will have to wait for David. It says, “we will not sit at table till he come hither”.

We convene meetings, we convene them in faith, we make the announcements, but really it is the Lord’s presence that will make the meeting, and we must wait for it. I am not saying we do not give out a hymn, we do, we give out a hymn and we pray, and we may proceed for a little while, and then we are aware of the Lord’s presence. I would like to know it more. I would like to be more sensitive to the Lord’s presence; “He manifested himself thus”, John 21: 1. It is worth waiting; it is worth going quietly. At the beginning of a reading let us remember to give the Lord room to come in. What I mean is, we do not want to overcrowd the meeting. If it is a large meeting and several want to take part, we find a way in love of making way for all that, but it is

the Lord’s presence, beloved, that makes the meeting. Thank God for every gift; thank God for a Mr. Taylor Snr. and a Mr. Darby, these and other men to whom we owe such a great, deal. I am told that Mr. Taylor used to sometimes go without his tea; he would go up to his room and come down in time for the meeting. He would apologize to the host and the hostess, and the brethren that had been invited round to meet him for being absent, and would say, I have been trying to get a little food for the Lord’s household. Now that is affecting, is it not? I would not like to say a word that would sound derogatory, or imply anything about the Lord’s servants past or present, but I do think, dear brethren, that really the occasion waits on the Lord’s presence.

Samuel says, We will have to wait for someone to bring Him in, and it is left open. I suppose it was Jesse who went, but what a privilege! What a privilege it is to be able to say, It is the Lord. Sometimes in a reading, in a meeting, you are aware of it, perhaps most of all at the Supper, the Lord’s presence is realized. This is most important, it marks off a gathering of the saints, where the Lord’s headship is known in some way. Without making extravagant claims where there is a waiting for Him, there is affection for Him, and He comes. It says, “Before I was aware, My soul set me upon the chariots of my willing people”, Song of Songs 6: 12.

In Luke 10, we have Mary and Martha, and Mary is waiting on His word. She deliberately set herself to get the gain of the Lord’s word. Martha had Him in the house. They were both excellent sisters really. We know that Martha needed a little adjusting but she was a fine sister. But it is said of Mary, “having sat down at the feet of Jesus was listening to his word”.

She was very deliberate. She would say, Well, it is a great thing to have Him in the house, a great privilege, but the important thing as far as I am concerned is not what we have for tea, but it is to hear what He has to say, to listen to His word. I think it has been said that the Lord

always has a word for every circumstance, and we may just have to wait for it. She composed herself; Martha was busy, perhaps over busy, but Mary sat listening to His word. If you think of the disciples together, if you think of the twelve, it does not seem the Lord was always with them; He went and prayed alone. You think of the twelve there having a gathering, talking things over. When the Lord came in would they carry on talking? I think they would wait. They would say, Lord, we have been saying so-and-so, but we would like to hear what You say. That is to be the attitude of our minds beloved, that is what it is intended to be in our gatherings, that the Lord should have the first, the distinct, and the pre-eminent place. I am sure we all subscribe to it in principle; it is a question of how it may work out to listen and to catch His word. Mr. Muggleton told me (it is safe to speak about these departed brethren) that in the war a bomb landed on one of the rooms at Croydon and knocked it flat.

He went out the next morning, he was walking along looking at the devastation and came across the room and it was just a pile of rubble; he walked across and stood on the rubble and looked round. They had had many happy meetings in that room, and often enjoyed fellowship together there. He thought that is where So-and-so used to sit, and that is where Mrs So-andso sat. What gatherings they had had, what history they had had, and now it was all just a pile of rubble. He climbed up and took off his hat and said, Lord, give me a word. He said the Lord said to him, We have not here an abiding city but we seek a heavenly one, and that satisfied him. He went home and ate his lunch with composure. It is a great thing to get the Lord’s word, and the Lord would give it. I am sure the Lord will give it; He may keep us waiting, but the Lord loves His people, and it says, “no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly”, Psalm 84: 11.

Now, I read in Isaiah 42. I sometimes think, if I might say this, that it may be time for us to be speaking

more about the world to come. The great testimony of Scripture is really to the world to come as I understand. We speak of the millennium, the word just means a long period of one thousand years, or we speak of it as the millennial period, or the day of Christ. It is going to come and that is going to be a miracle; it is going to be real of course, but it is going to be a miracle. The world is getting very old now in all ways, though it prides itself on being so modern, but it is getting very old, very worn, it is falling to pieces, but there is the world to come of which we speak (see Hebrews 2: 5). The Lord is coming and He is going to take up His place. His rightful place, and He is going to set everything right. As you look round and see the world as it is at the moment, it is very encouraging to think that One is going to come whose right it is to reign, and He is going to solve every international question, and every national question, and every family question, and every personal question, and many other questions. Russia will be no problem to Him, nor the Balkans, nor the European Community.

The Lord is going to introduce His own system and His own government, it is going to increase “Of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end” (Isaiah 9: 7)—the believer understands that morally of course; the increase of His government, that is the believer comes under the Lord’s sway in His government, then he finds deepening peace; he takes that up morally, but it will actually happen, there will be an increase of His government. You say, More government? Yes, and matchless government too; it will cater for every matter, it will not be founded on hard cases, and it will not go by precedent, it will go by justice.

In Isaiah 42 it says, “He shall not faint nor be in haste, till he have set justice in the earth—

and the isles shall wait for his law”. I suppose the British Isles will be among them. There is no doubt about it—“the isles shall wait for his law”. We need to think of these things, dear brethren, how it will work. I think they will

get the word, the news will spread, I suppose from Jerusalem, that One is coming and He will take up the case of the isles, take up the case of the continents too. He will take it all up—and they “shall wait for his law”. I think they will be ready for it and it will be worth waiting for.

I suppose in a way the present working out of things among the nations is making way for it.

They are trying to make things firm. It says in this book, “he fasteneth it with nails, that it be not moved”, Isaiah 41: 7. It will all collapse in a heap, and then the Lord will come, and out of that chaos He will introduce His benign reign. What a time it is to look for, we break bread in view of that, in view of the One who is to come whose right it is to reign.

Well, they are going to wait for His law, but I did notice that in the other chapter we read, Isaiah 51: 5, it says, “the isles shall wait for me”. I think that is a little bit better, is it not?

Wait for His faultless law. Moses was the great law giver. The Lord Jesus is greater than Moses. They will wait for the law—thank God for the order, but then “the isles shall wait for me”. Think of that, they will welcome His presence; they will welcome what He introduces, but they will welcome Him—“the isles shall wait for me”. Is that not fine? The question is, beloved, as to whether you and I will wait for Him. You say, We shall witness this, shall we not? Will we not witness this happening when we shall be in heaven? The church is raptured to heaven before the millennium comes. People come round and knock on our doors and tell us something different but it is not the truth. The church is raptured, and we will see the earth from above. You say, Are you not being fanciful? I do not think so. The Lord will have a consort, the assembly, and it will be with Him in His headship, with Him in His rule. His word will govern, it will go out, I take it, through the assembly down to Israel and out to the nations; it seems to be how it will work. But, “the isles shall wait for me”. I love that expression. They do not wait yet, but the time will come when they will wait

for Him, and in His arm they will trust. These will be real things. We take them up, justifiably so, in the moral bearing of them, but they will actually be fulfilled. Let us wait for that day, it will be well worth waiting for, it certainly will; it will be unparalleled in its character, in the introduction of rule and order, and they will be waiting for the Person. I think that is very sweet, they will wait for the Person. Other scriptures show how they will go up to Jerusalem, and whether they see the Person I do not think it is too clear; maybe they will see the Prince, the Prince of Ezekiel, His representative. The Lord will come, His feet will stand on the mount of Olives, but generally I think He will be above, will He not? He will be with His church above, the most favoured company of them all—Israel will be there and the saved nations, but the church the most favoured, enjoying the Lord’s company, and that can be touched even now.

May the Lord help us, especially to be really waiting. We have to make our arrangements, we have to fix our dates ahead, fill in engagements in our diaries, but we could perhaps do with more revival of the sweetness and the reality of our Lord coming for us, the One who has done so much for us. I have referred to the returning soldier, but who suffered like He did, who suffered like Jesus did? His wife waits patiently for Him; she does not put it off, she hopes He will come today. May we be more like her for His name’s sake.

Address at Birmingham
11 January 1992