by Dr. V. Raymond Edman, President, Wheaton College and small. “ Straightway he preached Christ ilWnesynagagues, that He was the Son of God” 9:20). Then came the discipline of delay in the isert of Arabia, where he learned by revelation of God, not by precept of man, the glorious gospel of the grace of God. From Arabia he could go to Antioch and its world-wide missionary program, to Athens and its proud Areopagus, to Achaia and its wicked Corinth, to the arena of Ephesus, and if necessary, to Rome. The delay that instructs and prepares saves time, never loses it. From it one can walk with a step of assurance and a heart of flame. Hudson Taylor knew the testing that tempers the steel of the soul. Invalided at home at twenty-nine after six years of intensive service in China, he settled with his little family in the east end of London. Outside interests lessened; friends began to forget; and five long hidden years were spent in the dreary street of a poor part of London, where the Taylors were “ shut up to prayer and patience.” From the record of those years it has been written, “Yet, without those hidden years, with all their growth and testing, how could the vision and enthusiasm of youth have been matured for the leadership that was to be?” Faith, faithfulness, devotion, self-sacrifice, unre mitting labor, patient, persevering prayer became then- portion and power, but more, there is “ the deep, prolonged exercise of a soul that is following hard after God . . . the gradual strengthening here, of a man called to walk by faith not by sight: the unutterable confidence of a heart cleaving to God and God alone, which pleases Him as nothing else can.” As the years of obscurity pro gressed, “prayer was the only way by which the burdened heart could obtain any relief” ; and when the discipline was complete, there emerged the China Inland Mission, at first only a tiny root, but destined of God to fill the land of China with gospel fruit. Have you come to the discipline of delay? Inactivity you have for activity, weakness for strength, silence for speaking, sickness for health, forgetfulness for friendship, obscurity for opportunity. Let the darkness of delay discipline your soul in the patience of the saints, in the promises of God, who will not suffer His faithfulness to fail, in the presence of the Saviour by His Spirit, in the provision of needed grace from nail-scarred Hands. In God’s time and way there will be a position for you as for David, prevailing prayer as for Elijah, and place of service as for Paul, and Hudson Taylor. Delay will strengthen and hasten your steps of true service. In every life There’s a pause that is better than onward rush, Better than hewing or mightiest doing; ’Tis the standing still at Sovereign will. In every life There’s a hush that is better than ardent speech,
W e h a v e been told that God’s disappointments His appointments, that God’s delays are not denials; but do we believe what we hear? Delay, w il its apparent destruction of all hope, can be a deep disci pline to the soul that would serve the Lord Jesus. We'' live in a restless, impatient day. We have little time for preparation, and less for meditation or worship. We feel we must be active, energetic, enthusiastic, and humanly effective; and we cannot understand why inactivity, weak ness, weariness, and seeming uselessness should become our lot. It all appears to be so futile and foolish, without plan or purpose. The discipline of delay is written large in the life of God’s people, as we could observe in Abraham’s long waiting for the son of promise, in Joseph’s years in Egypt as a victim of cruel circumstances, in Moses’ long obscurity in the desert, in Hannah’s empty home and aching heart, even in the silent years spent by our Lord Jesus in the narrow streets of Nazareth. We trace that discipline in a few lives whose experience we can compare with our own, for our learning and encouragement. David knew this discipline. As a lad, caring for his father’s sheep, he was anointed of Samuel to be king over Israel; but thereafter stretched years of delay, on the stony hillsides of Bethlehem, in the cave of Adullam whither he had been driven by the insane and unneces sary envy of Saul, until he fled to the fierce Philistines, more friendly than his own people. There he could say truly, “ I was a reproach among all mine enemies, but especially among my neighbors, and a fear to mine acquaintance; they that did see me without fled from me. I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind; I am like a broken vessel” (Ps. 31:11, 12). The delay seemed to be interminable and intolerable, but was indispensable in preparing David for his long career as king of his people, to which office he had been appointed many years before. Delay never thwarts God’s purpose; rather, it polishes His instrument. Elijah endured the exercise of patience. Called to pro phetic office in a day of moral and spiritual declension among his people, he announced the judgment of famine with all the vigor of pyrotechnic personality. At the moment when it seemed he was most needed by his people, he experiences an inexplicable, inscrutable delay, with “ Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith” (I Kings 17:3). Israel’s famine for bread and the Word of God burned deeply into his soul; their lack of repentance grieved him; his solitary position of obedience toward God and the solitude of his lonely post seemed overwhelming. Even the brook, with its friendly murmuring and its supply of needed water, dried up. The discipline was not yet complete, for there remained silent years in a humble home in Zare- phath, among strangers and aliens. When God’s hour came, however, the discipline of Cherith and Zarephath was distilled into intercession on Mount Carmel that brought heavenly fire upon the altar and rain upon the thirsty fields. Delay does not forget God’s servants nor cause His faithfulness to fail; rather, it fortifies their souls and vindicates His name. Paul came to know the patience of hindered purpose. Stopped at the gate of Damascus, penitent in the street called Straight, seeing under the touch of Ananias and filled with the Spirit, he was a chosen vessel to bear the
Better than sighing or wilderness crying; ’Tis the being still at Sovereign will. The pause and the hush sing a double song In unison low and for all time long. 0 human soul, God’s working plan Goes on, nor needs the aid of man!
Stand still, and see! Be still, and know!
THE KING'S BUSINESS
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