I. STILLNESS OF CONFIDENCE IN RELATION TO GOD'S REDEMPTIVE PROVISION IS STRENGTH. The sacrifice of Christ is all-sufficient.

II. STILLNESS OF CONFIDENCE IN RELATION TO YOUR FUTURE HISTORY IS STRENGTH. "Take no thought for the morrow," etc.

III. STILLNESS OF CONFIDENCE IN RELATION TO PRESENT PROVIDENTIAL TRIALS IS STRENGTH. The Israelites, with piled mountains on each side of them, the sea rolling before them, and Pharaoh and his host approaching them, were exhorted by their leader to "stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord." Peter slept between two soldiers; and Paul said, "None of these things move me."

(Homilist.)

1. It will not apply when we have to get our daily bread. We are to be diligent in business, as well as fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. Neither do we say so when learning is to be acquired. This is to be sought by application, and earned by incessant toil. Neither is our preaching by sitting still. If any think to enter the ministry that they may sit still, and spend a life of ease, they utterly mistake the office.

3. Nor when any temptation is to be resisted, or any evil overcome. You are to resist the tempter. And you are to maintain that particular virtue, which is in direct defiance of the particular temptation. If you are tempted, there is another thing which you can do. You can flee. Safety is often in flight. Joseph fled. "Flee youthful lusts."

4. Nor does the text apply when duties of any kind are to be done. Idleness is a base condition. Better dig a hole and fall it up again. Better roll a stone up and down a hill, than pass your time in listlessness and languor. There are duties belonging to every state of life. Let them be attended to in promptitude and despatch.

5. Nor is the text applicable when good works are to be undertaken. We have many instructions in Scripture on this subject. "Be not weary in well-doing," etc. "Be steadfast, unmovable," etc. "These things," says St. Paul, "I will that ye affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God, may be careful to maintain good works."

6. We do not say it when the heavenly prize of eternal life is to be contended for.

II. STATE THE CONDITION OF THINGS TO WHICH THE AXIOM DOES APPLY.

1. It will apply to many important questions concerning the salvation of the soul. It will apply to the expiation of guilt. So respecting regeneration. "Ye must be born again." There must be wrought an inward change. It will be wrought of God. And the Spirit of God works when, how, and where He pleases.

2. There are some matters belonging to our daily and nightly life, in which the principle is likewise of great value and importance. For example, the evening is come. The day's labour is finished. It is time to cease. God says to you, Lie down; go to sleep. And when you sleep, "Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain." Be not afraid. God will keep both the city and the watchman. Then, here is God's own day. This is the day when God emphatically says, "Sit still"; and in quietness and rest is your strength. Be not afraid. Commerce will be uninjured, and none the worse for your being quiet on this day. You will return to your occupations with augmented might and vigour on the morrow.

3. Then, again, there are providential conjunctures, in which we can do nothing, in which every effort and interference of ours is of no avail. And now the end of all this is manifest. Man's chief wisdom is —(1) To be active and diligent in all his appointed fields of labour and exertion.(2) To be tranquil, and resigned, and passive in matters over which he has no control.(3) To trust God, and acquiesce in the Divine will in everything.

(J. Straiten.)

1. It indicates a condition of silence. Times occur for silence before men — when it is best to refrain from all vindications touching our character and doings. There are seasons for silence before God — times when our lips are neither opened in complaint nor importunity. "Rest in the Lord (be silent to the Lord), and wait patiently for Him."

2. A condition of resting is suggested. We must resign our opinions, anxieties, merit, strength, and resources, looking simply into heaven.

3. It is also the attitude of waiting. "I bide my time," is the motto of one of our noble families, and he who can bide his time, or, to speak more accurately, can bide God's time, is perfect in the sublime art of sitting still.

4. The text also sets forth a condition of expectation. Sir Thomas Lawrence painted the portrait of the Duke of Wellington, and when the portrait was half finished, the Duke was represented as holding a watch in his hand, waiting for the Prussians at Waterloo. When the great soldier understood what the watch was intended to indicate, he observed, "That will never do. I was not waiting for the Prussians at Waterloo. Put a telescope in my hand, if you please, but no watch." The temper here enjoined is very different to stoicism, involving no sacrifice of sensibility; it is distinct from fatalism, because it recognises the good and righteous God freely acting in all the government of the world; and it cannot be confounded with despair, for its inspiration is faith and hope.

II. The SEVERAL OCCASIONS when the admonition before us is specially applicable.

1. In the development of our religious life we may sometimes remember the text with advantage. Spiritual life commences in the passive mood.

2. But "justified by faith" "we often forget we must "live by faith," and by pure and simple faith pass into the highest stages of spiritual life.

3. There are two sides to a complete Christian life — the contemplative and enterprising, the hearkening and speaking, the receptive and communicative and it is of prime importance that both sides receive full attention.

4. Distressed by the problems and tribulations of life we may justly rest in the passive mood. Sometimes we are bitterly bereaved. In these days when our eyes are full of heartbreak let us not go down into the Egypt of carnal reason for light or help — only be still. God does not even expect us to say big words in such crises — only to be still. Sometimes we are prostrated by extreme physical suffering. Said a poor afflicted woman, "All that God requires from me now is to lie here and cough." Yes; simple suffering and quiet confidence — that, and nothing more. Sometimes we are defamed. When our reputation is unjustly eclipsed, are we to agitate and worry ourselves? Let us rather exemplify the maxim of Lavater: "I can wait"; let there be no impatience, no fretfulness, no bitterness. In the days of sorrowful surprise, of overwhelming misfortune, of sore dilemma, let us not go down into Egypt for wisdom to explain, or strength to bear, or consolation to soothe, but looking up to the everlasting Love, a whole army of fiery cars and coursers shall shelter and deliver us.

5. The counsel of the text is applicable to us when oppressed by spiritual conflict and darkness. "Who is there among you that feareth the Lord," etc. (Isaiah 50:10).

6. This monition is applicable to us also when we are discouraged in our evangelistic enterprises. The Indian juggler is said to contrive to make a flower grow from a seed to maturity before the eyes of the spectators in a few moments; and thus we expect the truth we sow to spring forth speedily bearing its rich crown of beauty and fruit. But alas! we wait, wait long, and sometimes sink into a state very like despair. Then again, when the triumph of the truth is delayed, workers are tempted to alloy it, with a view to its speedier popularity; hoping that in its debased form it may secure an entrance denied to pure doctrine. And yet once more, when the faith of Christ has not forthwith run and been glorified, the Church has been tempted to form political, artistic, and worldly alliances, which in the end only betray and mock. Paradoxical as it may seem, it is a grand thing for workers to "sit still"; having with both hands toiled for God, calmly and confidently to wait the issue (James 5:7, 8). The difficulty of rendering obedience to this injunction is really great. There is a sitting still easy enough and common enough, but to rest in God with an absolute faith is neither easy nor common.

(W. L. Watkinson.)

1. They do in regard to our character. When shall we understand we are clay in the Potter's hand, and our grand business the simple yielding of ourselves to the fashioning of God's sovereign Spirit? How often our overweening care, our intrusive curiosity, our vanity and self-will have spoiled God's grand handiwork, and arrested the growing completeness of our spirit!

2. And so in regard to our circumstances — our safety is in quietness. In days of tempest the helm is safest in charge of the pilot; in moments of alarm the reins are best in the driver's skilful grasp; and if the man overboard will only be still all the Waves of the sea shall not drown him. Oh! when shall we learn the blessedness of resignation, the power of passivity, the victory of faith?

(W. L. Watkinson.)

II. As arising from this, WE ARE STRONG IN LIFE JUST AS WE LAY HOLD OF THIS PRINCIPLE and learn to restrain ourselves.

(W. Baxendale.)

1. You are naturally, it may be, somewhat apathetic. I fear we all are so in religion — in the concerns of the soul. And this natural indolence is sometimes greatly strengthened by a false theology, a one-sided, overstrained evangeliser, which, by forever insisting on the one point of human inability, has a tendency to lull men asleep. And thus it is that multitudes sit down with folded hands, in an attitude of waiting, as they say, for I know not what mysterious influence from on high to visit their souls. The error is a very grievous one. Scripture bids us awake out of sleep, it bids us flee from the coming wrath, it bids us turn from sin unto God, avoid temptation, resist Satan, restrain our own evil tendencies; it bids us repent, and believe, and pray, and use the means of grace.

2. There is another class, however, who are likely to fall into an opposite error. They are not apathetic, their natural constitution of mind is the very reverse of this. These are your active, bustling, restless people. There is no quietness about them, no repose, no calmness. You read their character in their very look. There is an uneasy air, a feverishness, a fretfulness, characterising them and all their actions, which distinguish them from others, and place them in a class by themselves. When the Gospel comes to one of this class, saying, Cease from all efforts of your own for acceptance; — "your strength is to sit still, to rest in God, to believe in Jesus; in returning and rest thou shalt be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength," — is there no risk that there be a temporary recoil from a system that thus comes so directly into collision with his individualism of character? His first prompting is to something quite different. Let him have his own way, then; it is humbling he needs. It is not necessary we should follow him in his efforts; they are the same as the efforts of those who "go about to establish their own righteousness." We know what the result must be; nor are we mistaken, for by and by we find him by the Cross — he has sunk down there exhausted. Yet there are other occasions on which his natural constitution — strong, because deeply rooted — will rise up, and place itself in antagonism with the dealings of God; and chiefly, perhaps, in these two ways — duty and suffering.(1) Suffering. He is now a child of God, but not on that account exempt from chastisement; nay, rather on that very account exposed to it as part of that salutary discipline by which he is training up for Heaven. Perhaps such a man as he needs a severer discipline than that of a more quiet, subdued, restful disposition, to humble him, and wean him from all vain confidences; and so affliction comes in some shape or other — such as will touch him most acutely. We need not think it strange if he go down to Egypt for help; if he have recourse to false physicians; if, instead of looking to God, he trust in an arm of flesh to deliver him; if he weary under God's chastening hand, and wish it removed ere the end in view has been answered. He finds no rest till he returns to God, and says, He hath put me into the furnace, and here will I lie quietly till He take me out again.(2) Passing now from the sphere of suffering to that of duty, we find him maintaining the same conflict between the Divine authority and his own will. Remember he is essentially active. He loves a conspicuous position. It is not exactly that he is vain or ambitious, but something within him stimulates him to come forward; he feels as if he were formed for a position of usefulness and eminence; and perhaps he is right. Only he must wait God's time for this; he must suffer God to choose for him; and this is what he is rather unwilling to do.

(A. L. R. Foote.)

1. The strength of the Church in troublous times is not in listening to carnal counsel.

2. Nor in trusting in carnal confidences.

II. POSITIVELY.

1. The strength of the Church in troublous times is to sit still in the way of seeking and obeying Divine direction.

2. To sit still in the way of exercising a humble dependence upon Divine aid (ver. 15).

3. To sit still in the way of holding fast all her scriptural attainments.

4. To return to the Lord in those respects in which she has departed from Him.

5. To go forward in the performance of whatever work God is laying to her hand.

(James Patrick.)

(W. L. Watkinson.)

(W. L. Watkinson.)

(W. L. Watkinson.)

(W. L. Watkinson.)

     1421   oracles

God's Waiting and Man's
'And therefore will the Lord wait, that He may be gracious unto you, and therefore will He be exalted, that He may have mercy upon you: for the Lord is a God of judgment: blessed are they that wait for Him.'--ISAIAH xxx. 18. God's waiting and man's--bold and beautiful, that He and we should be represented as sharing the same attitude. I. God's waiting, 1. The first thought is--why should He wait--why does He not act at once? Because something in us hinders. We cannot enter into spiritual blessings …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Voice Behind Thee
The word behind us which is spoken of in the text is mentioned as one among other covenant blessings. No "if" or "but" is joined to it. It is one of those gracious, unconditional promises upon which the salvation of the guilty depends. There are many comforts of the new life which depend upon our own action and behaviour, and these come to us with "ifs"; but those which are vital and essential are secured to the chosen of God without "but" or "peradventure." It shall be so: God declares it shall, …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 28: 1882

My God Will Hear Me
"Therefore will the Lord wait, that He may be gracious unto you. Blessed are all they that wait for Him. He will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry; when He shall hear it, He will answer thee."--ISA. xxx. 18, 19. "The Lord will hear when I call upon Him."--PS. iv. 3. "I have called upon Thee, for Thou wilt hear me, O God!"--PS. xvii. 6. "I will look unto the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me."--MIC. vii. 7. The power of prayer rests in the faith …
Andrew Murray—The Ministry of Intercession

With a Heart Full of Anxious Request,
"In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength." -- Isaiah 30:15. With a heart full of anxious request, Which my Father in heaven bestowed, I wandered alone, and distressed, In search of a quiet abode. Astray and distracted I cried, -- Lord, where would'st Thou have me to be? And the voice of the Lamb that had died Said, Come, my beloved, to ME. I went -- for He mightily wins Weary souls to His peaceful retreat -- And He gave me forgiveness of sins, …
Miss A. L. Waring—Hymns and Meditations

But Though Prayer is Properly Confined to Vows and Supplications...
But though prayer is properly confined to vows and supplications, yet so strong is the affinity between petition and thanksgiving, that both may be conveniently comprehended under one name. For the forms which Paul enumerates (1 Tim. 2:1) fall under the first member of this division. By prayer and supplication we pour out our desires before God, asking as well those things which tend to promote his glory and display his name, as the benefits which contribute to our advantage. By thanksgiving we duly …
John Calvin—Of Prayer--A Perpetual Exercise of Faith

"Take My Yoke Upon You, and Learn of Me," &C.
Matt. xi. 20.--"Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me," &c. Self love is generally esteemed infamous and contemptible among men. It is of a bad report every where, and indeed as it is taken commonly, there is good reason for it, that it should be hissed out of all societies, if reproaching and speaking evil of it would do it. But to speak the truth, the name is not so fit to express the thing, for that which men call self love, may rather be called self hatred. Nothing is more pernicious to a man's …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

The Girdle of the City. Nehemiah 3
The beginning of the circumference was from 'the sheep-gate.' That, we suppose, was seated on the south part, yet but little removed from that corner, which looks south-east. Within was the pool of Bethesda, famous for healings. Going forward, on the south part, was the tower Meah: and beyond that, "the tower of Hananeel": in the Chaldee paraphrast it is, 'The tower Piccus,' Zechariah 14:10; Piccus, Jeremiah 31:38.--I should suspect that to be, the Hippic tower, were not that placed on the north …
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

Sennacherib (705-681 B. C. )
The struggle of Sennacherib with Judaea and Egypt--Destruction of Babylon. Sennacherib either failed to inherit his father's good fortune, or lacked his ability.* He was not deficient in military genius, nor in the energy necessary to withstand the various enemies who rose against him at widely removed points of his frontier, but he had neither the adaptability of character nor the delicate tact required to manage successfully the heterogeneous elements combined under his sway. * The two principal …
G. Maspero—History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, V 8

How those are to be Admonished who have had Experience of the Sins of the Flesh, and those who have Not.
(Admonition 29.) Differently to be admonished are those who are conscious of sins of the flesh, and those who know them not. For those who have had experience of the sins of the flesh are to be admonished that, at any rate after shipwreck, they should fear the sea, and feel horror at their risk of perdition at least when it has become known to them; lest, having been mercifully preserved after evil deeds committed, by wickedly repeating the same they die. Whence to the soul that sins and never …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

Concerning Worship.
Concerning Worship. [780] All true and acceptable worship to God is offered in the inward and immediate moving and drawing of his own Spirit which is neither limited to places times, nor persons. For though we are to worship him always, and continually to fear before him; [781] yet as to the outward signification thereof, in prayers, praises, or preachings, we ought not to do it in our own will, where and when we will; but where and when we are moved thereunto by the stirring and secret inspiration …
Robert Barclay—Theses Theologicae and An Apology for the True Christian Divinity

A Sermon on Isaiah xxvi. By John Knox.
[In the Prospectus of our Publication it was stated, that one discourse, at least, would be given in each number. A strict adherence to this arrangement, however, it is found, would exclude from our pages some of the most talented discourses of our early Divines; and it is therefore deemed expedient to depart from it as occasion may require. The following Sermon will occupy two numbers, and we hope, that from its intrinsic value, its historical interest, and the illustrious name of its author, it …
John Knox—The Pulpit Of The Reformation, Nos. 1, 2 and 3.

The Evening Light
This chapter is an article written by the author many years after she had received light on the unity of the church. It will acquaint the reader with what is meant by the expression "evening light." "At evening time it shall be light." "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark: but it shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light" (Zechariah 14:6,7). The expression …
Mary Cole—Trials and Triumphs of Faith

The Baptist's Inquiry and Jesus' Discourse Suggested Thereby.
(Galilee.) ^A Matt. XI. 2-30; ^C Luke VII. 18-35. ^c 18 And the disciples of John told him of all these things. ^a 2 Now when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent by his disciples ^c 19 And John calling unto him two of his disciples sent them unto the Lord [John had been cast into prison about December, a.d. 27, and it was now after the Passover, possibly in May or June, a.d. 28. Herod Antipas had cast John into prison because John had reproved him for taking his brother's wife. …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

The Eternity of God
The next attribute is, God is eternal.' Psa 90:0. From everlasting to everlasting thou art God.' The schoolmen distinguish between aevun et aeternum, to explain the notion of eternity. There is a threefold being. I. Such as had a beginning; and shall have an end; as all sensitive creatures, the beasts, fowls, fishes, which at death are destroyed and return to dust; their being ends with their life. 2. Such as had a beginning, but shall have no end, as angels and the souls of men, which are eternal …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

How Christ is Made Use of for Justification as a Way.
What Christ hath done to purchase, procure, and bring about our justification before God, is mentioned already, viz. That he stood in the room of sinners, engaging for them as their cautioner, undertaking, and at length paying down the ransom; becoming sin, or a sacrifice for sin, and a curse for them, and so laying down his life a ransom to satisfy divine justice; and this he hath made known in the gospel, calling sinners to an accepting of him as their only Mediator, and to a resting upon him for …
John Brown (of Wamphray)—Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life

The Prophet Hosea.
GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS. That the kingdom of Israel was the object of the prophet's ministry is so evident, that upon this point all are, and cannot but be, agreed. But there is a difference of opinion as to whether the prophet was a fellow-countryman of those to whom he preached, or was called by God out of the kingdom of Judah. The latter has been asserted with great confidence by Maurer, among others, in his Observ. in Hos., in the Commentat. Theol. ii. i. p. 293. But the arguments …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

The Gospel Message, Good Tidings
[As it is written] How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the Gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! T he account which the Apostle Paul gives of his first reception among the Galatians (Galatians 4:15) , exemplifies the truth of this passage. He found them in a state of ignorance and misery; alienated from God, and enslaved to the blind and comfortless superstitions of idolatry. His preaching, accompanied with the power of the Holy Spirit, had a great and marvellous effect. …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 2

"They have Corrupted Themselves; their Spot is not the Spot of his Children; they are a Perverse and Crooked Generation. "
Deut. xxxii. 5.--"They have corrupted themselves; their spot is not the spot of his children; they are a perverse and crooked generation." We doubt this people would take well with such a description of themselves as Moses gives. It might seem strange to us, that God should have chosen such a people out of all the nations of the earth, and they to be so rebellious and perverse, if our own experience did not teach us how free his choice is, and how long-suffering he is, and constant in his choice. …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

The Covenant of Works
Q-12: I proceed to the next question, WHAT SPECIAL ACT OF PROVIDENCE DID GOD EXERCISE TOWARDS MAN IN THE ESTATE WHEREIN HE WAS CREATED? A: When God had created man, he entered into a covenant of life with him upon condition of perfect obedience, forbidding him to eat of the tree of knowledge upon pain of death. For this, consult with Gen 2:16, 17: And the Lord commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

A Description of Heart-Purity
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Matthew 5:8 The holy God, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity' calls here for heart-purity, and to such as are adorned with this jewel, he promises a glorious and beatifical vision of himself: they shall see God'. Two things are to be explained the nature of purity; the subject of purity. 1 The nature of purity. Purity is a sacred refined thing. It stands diametrically opposed to whatsoever defiles. We must distinguish the various kinds …
Thomas Watson—The Beatitudes: An Exposition of Matthew 5:1-12