---

There are three things named here, and they reach a sort of climax in the third — to hope, to wait, and to wait quietly, or in silence. It is sometimes hard to hope when there are no signs of promise, and no break in the clouds; it is harder to wait. And the heart gets sick with deferred hope, and still the end seems no nearer; but the hardest thing is to wait without a word of anger, reproach, or impatience, though the eyes have got wearied with watching — watching for what never comes. And yet this hardest thing is the best if we can attain to it. "It is good that a man should both hope and wait," and wait in silence.

I. PATIENT WAITING. This is a Divine virtue. It is that quality in man which makes him most like God. It is commended to us in every part of the Bible as the distinguishing quality of the faithful. It is needed in every age, but we especially need it in this particular age, for the times in which we live are characterised by rush, fever, and haste. That is the paramount feature of the time. We want to force the pace, to break the record, and to make God's machinery, as well as human machinery, move faster. It is a fast age; life is in a ferment of activity, the nerves are too highly strung, the brain is in a whirl, and we cannot bear delays. We want to see the dawn breaking while it is still midnight, and to clear away all our obstructions, difficulties, and troubles by one stroke. We want to be rich without any loss of time; to reach to top places without the disagreeable necessities of slow climbing, and oh! that some prophet would fix the day and the hour for us; how handsomely we would pay him if he would fix it early and antedate God's time, for the "mill of God" does grind so slowly, so slowly. But here comes the sweet, tender, chiding answer. "It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord."

II. HOPE DEPENDENT ON WAITING. Without hope life has no sky; it is a plant which virtually dies for want of nourishment, light, and air. When hope goes, energy goes, and all earnest hope, and any emotion of joy, and there is nothing left to live for. The pessimist says, "Is life worth living?" and I answer him emphatically, "No, it is not — to one in your mood." Hope always perishes where there is no patient waiting. If you cannot bear to have your hopes delayed, you soon come to the conclusion that every hope is a deception, every promise is a delusion, and every prayer a mockery; and then presently you are found repeating with grim despair that most dismal of all proverbs, "Blessed is the man that expecteth nothing." Pessimists are always men who have lost their hopes and lost their hearts because their hopes have not been speedily fulfilled.

III. WAITING THE TEST OF MANHOOD. It marks the highest type of man, it distinguishes the man from the child, the thinking man from the intellectual weakling, the higher races from the lower races, the civilised man from the savage. The savage is always like a child, impatient; you can hardly persuade him to till the ground, because he would have to wait six months for the harvest; he kills the goose which lays the golden eggs, because he cannot wait for a slow return. And there are hundreds of young men who are as senseless as the savage in that respect: they burn the candle of pleasure at both ends, and in the middle too, heedless of darkness that is coming in future years, if they can only make a big glaring flame at the present moment. But as soon as ever you lift men up in the scale of being, they begin to build and plant and labour, though the results may not be seen for years; and you can always measure the strength and nobility and the very magnitude of a man by this: Does he know how to wait? We are told of the astronomer Kepler that when his great discoveries were announced, but rejected and scorned by all the learned and religious world, he quietly said, "If the Almighty waited six thousand years for one man to see what He had made, I may well wait two hundred years for one man to understand what I have seen." There was a great soul behind that utterance.

IV. The BLUNDERS OF IMPATIENCE. Men become like wild creatures in their hurried haste to be rich; they want to win in a day what honest industry would only win in years, and then craft takes the place of toil; astute cunning and sleight of hand the place of diligence and perseverance; madness engulfs sober reason, greed devours all human feeling, and manhood perishes; and often the only end of it is bankruptcy, ruin, and disgrace. These are the works of impatience; and am I not right in saying that nearly all the follies of political life and the blunders Which great nations commit are the result of impatience? Just think what a wretched coil of trouble was made for us in the Transvaal some years ago by the strong-headed men — nay, the hot-headed boys — who raided and failed: mad haste and long repentance for them and others — that is what comes of it. And now through all this crisis we hear voices urging the same mad haste. Strong and sober and level headed men have been saying throughout, and are saying now, "Be firm, press your just claims, do not draw back, but above all things be patient." It is patience that wins in these difficulties, and especially when justice is on its side.

V. THE REWARD OF WAITING. If you labour on and do not lose heart, and bind yourselves fast to that hard, just master, Duty, you win your proper place in time. If God sees the fitness in you, the world will see it by and by. Nothing can keep a man permanently down if the higher voice is bidding him "Come up higher." It is only a question of time and patience, if you labour and do always the thing that is right. The Christian work that has been so disappointing and unprofitable will at last yield the fruits of righteousness. And your own besetting sins, too, against which you fought and prayed so long, will at last be trampled down by Him who subdues all things unto Himself.

(J. G. Greenhough, M. A.)

---

---

KJV: It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.

WEB: It is good that a man should hope and quietly wait for the salvation of Yahweh.