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LIKE MEN THAT WAIT

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Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, June 24, 1880

FromAdvent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 56, No. 1

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“LIKE MEN THAT WAIT.”

By Mrs. Stephen Menzies

The waiting attitude has been the posture of the church during well-nigh nineteen centuries of her widowhood. We, in the end of these days, are watching and waiting still; or, at least, we profess to be waiting, looking for, and hasting unto that moment of untold glory and blessing, when, not as now through a glass darkly, but face to face, it will be wondrously true, “We see Jesus.”
But the practical thought which has been impressed on my own mind, and which I would pass on to others, is the great force which seems conveyed in that little word like—“like men that wait.”
How much solemn, practical teaching is suggested by that one little word, like. How it touches every relationship, every duty, every engagement, every association! How very often the testimony, if expressed, of those around us, would be—that God’s children are very unlike “those that wait!”
We profess to believe that these are the last days, that the time is short, very short; and yet, whilst we see multitudes around us in darkness, we are hoarding up wealth which God would have us use for the winning of precious jewels, for his crown in the day of his royal espousals. Is this “LIKE MEN THAT WAIT?”
We make a profession of love to Christ, we come before God as his people, we sing “Jesus has satisfied,” and yet practically we manifest that Jesus has not satisfied; for we must needs have recourse to the same broken cisterns as the world; we cannot do without our evening at the oratorio, or in the concert-hall, or the ball-room! And the world makes its comments, and utters its surprise that we should be there! And young Christians, in whose heart the Spirit of God is whispering, “Come out from among them, and be ye separate,” are tempted to stifle the divine monition and reply, “But good Mrs. So-and-so was there, and the Rev. So-and-so, and therefore, what harm can there be?”
Is this “LIKE MEN THAT WAIT?”
We know that the Master has bidden us watch, and at any moment be ready for his coming again; but our tongues are not guarded; we give way to words and looks and tempers far different from those in which we should indulge if we REALLY believed that the Master was at the very door.
Is this “LIKE MEN THAT WAIT?”
The world around are watching God’s people with keen eyes (would that we saw ourselves as others see us!) nor is it unreasonable that they should observe those who make a profession of being no longer of this world, but “other-worldly”—of living no longer to themselves, but for Christ—of having now fresh motives, fresh aims, fresh principles of action—of having received a new, even a divine life, and of being in living union with the Son of God! Surely such high doctrine should be accompanied with a corresponding high and holy life. Surely the world has a right to expect from such a root, lovely and beautiful fruit! And when we TALK of living in heavenly places with Christ, and yet lose our tempers; when we TALK of living resurrection lives, yet fail to manifest the ordinary transparency and integrity which characterize even men of the world, is it any marvel if they should call us hypocrites! Alas! there have been ample grounds for the charges brought against professing Christians.
Surely, therefore, it becomes us as God’s saints to humble ourselves before him in this matter, and solemnly ask, “Am I, in my temper, in my conversation, in my walk before those outside, before my family, in the ordering of my household, in the impress stamped day by day on all around me, am I like or unlike those who wait for their Lord?”
Ah! how many things there are which, if we certainly knew that the Lord Jesus would return to-morrow, we should at once begin to alter. If he were here, should we invite his blessed, holy companionship at the forthcoming opera or concert, at our whist parties or the billiard-table? You recoil at the very thought! But surely, if our Master could find no place there, how should his servants, during his absence? If his place and his presence are to be our exceeding great reward ere long, surely, surely, his path and his place here should be our joy and our privilege now.
“LIKE UNTO MEN THAT WAIT.”
As waiting children, walking in obedience to the Father’s commands, heeding every little word, and walking in love to all the members of the Father’s family. Alas! too often we regard that future life beyond as a totally different and entirely new existence, instead of the continuance and consummation of life in Christ, and for Christ, and with Christ, begun already here. Christ is our life here; Christ will be our life there. Christ is our joy here; Christ will be our joy there. Christ is the center of every aim and effort and motive here; Christ will be the center yonder.
“In the midst”—’tis his own place. In the midst of the furnace through which tried saints passed of old; “in the midst” of his gathered, worshiping people here; “in the midst” of his glorified church hereafter. And the more perfectly our life here is assimilated to his life, so will the gulf between the present and the future be proportionably less.
“LIKE UNTO MEN THAT WAIT.”
Like waiting servants, left for a little while to occupy for our absent Master, to carry on his work: “when he went and sat on the right hand of God,” on his little band of disciples devolved his own mission, “and they went forth and preached.”
And have we answered his expectation? Are we holding forth the word of life so clearly that many are by it being led into the way of peace? Is the light never dimmed by the inconsistencies of the lamp-bearer? Are we clean, consecrated vessels—vessels never used otherwise than for the Master’s service and for the Master’s glory? Alas! do we not too often divide off a portion of the day, when the sacred vessel of the sanctuary may be carried down into the world, to grace and adorn a scene where Christ is not, and where the presiding spirit is the god of this world? Is it any marvel that (as is often the case) the world wonders and stands aghast at such a spectacle? Is it any marvel that we hear God’s people bemoaning their barrenness, “My leanness! My leanness”? Is it any marvel that their testimony should be powerless, and that their work should tell so feebly?
O fellow-servants of Christ! shall we not flee to our closets and to our knees, and ask that he whose eyes are as a flame of fire would search us through and through, and cleanse every corner of his temple, if need be, with a whip of small cords.
“LIKE UNTO MEN THAT WAIT.”
His waiting church ready, eagerly longing for her Lord’s return. Ah! is it thus with his church, or has she become unequally yoked with those who have despised and scorned the One who should be so infinitely precious to her? or if not this, has she become stupid and slothful, her affections slumbering, her expectations dulled, and her waiting attitude well-nigh forsaken?
We are on the threshold of another year. May it be a proving season to each one of us, and may we seek such a fresh anointing with the Holy Ghost and with power, that whether the waiting days be few or many, we may, in heart, in life, in service, unmistakably manifest to the world, to Christ, and to our fellow-believers, that we ARE “LIKE men that wait;” and being thus like men that wait, we shall ere long enter upon the blessedness of those whom, when he cometh, he shall so find.—Mrs. Stephen Menzies, in Word and Work.