"Prophet Isaiah", c 1516, by Fra Bartolomeo.
This post is part of my 31 day journey through Andrew Murray's
devotional treatise, "Waiting on God". You can find my reasons for
this journey at this link.
Isaiah 26:8-9 - In the path of your judgments,
O Lord, we wait for you...For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
Isaiah 30:18 - ...For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.
God's Judgment.
When post-modern ears hear those words, it is generally met with disdain, and a turning ear. It's somewhat politically correct to speak of God's love, but his judgment is met with turned tails, immediately scrambling for the bushes.
I suppose a great part of the problem is that people have made their own judgments, of God's judgment. Likely, that have in the catalog of their minds, some hypocritical preacher screaming of their impending destiny in hell.
May I make a suggestion? Ignore your presuppositions, and read God's words directly from his mouth.
I am not suggesting that you will not find Judgment. You will. Justice is a part of God's character. If it weren't, then we would all be screaming foul. We all want justice. We all want a fair judge.
Andrew Murray reminds us, while we are waiting on God, to not forget that he is a God of judgment:
"If we are honest in our longing for holiness, in our prayer to be wholly the Lord's, His holy presence will stir up and discover hidden sin, and bring us very low in the bitter conviction of the evil in our nature, its opposition to God's law, it impotence to fulfill that law. The words will come true, "Who may abide the day of His coming, for He is like a refiner's fire." "Oh, that You would come down, as when the melting fire burns!" In great mercy God executes within the soul His judgments upon sin, as He makes it feel its wickedness and guilt. many a one tries to flee from these judgments: the soul that longs for God, and for deliverance from sin, bows under them in humility and in hope. In silence of the soul it says, "Arise, O Lord! And let Your enemies be scattered. In the way of Your judgments, we have waited for you."
Murray reminds us of another unspeakable part of God's judgment:
"There is another application still, one of unspeakable solemnity. We are expecting God, in the way of His judgments, to visit this earth; we are [literally] waiting for Him. What a thought! We know of these coming judgments, we know that there tens of thousands of our professing Christians who live on in carelessness, and who, if no change come, must perish under God's hand. Oh, shall we not do our utmost to warn them, to plead with and for them, if God may have mercy on them. If we feel our want of boldness, want of zeal, want of power, shall we not begin to wait on God more definitely and persistently as a God of judgment, asking Him so to reveal Himself in the Judgments that are coming on our very friends, that we may be inspired with a new fear of Him and them, and constrained to speak and pray as never yet."
While we are waiting on God, we must understand that there exists two judgments. The judgments of a loving father, while we are sojourning this earth, and a final, eternal judgment, where all will bend the knee to Christ.
My soul, wait only upon God!
