THOSE who have tasted, as guilty, vile sinners, that God is good, and have done so through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Redeemer, have all been led also by the Spirit of Grace to be dependent upon and to look to the mighty God of Jacob in their every season of need. At such seasons they are liable to conclude that the time they consider proper and necessary for God to act on their behalf must also be agreeable to the divine Mind. How often believers have discovered that God’s time is “not yet” and that He delays to manifestly engage Himself and His resources in grace and providence on their behalf. The silence and inactivity of the Most High in relation to His people, are dictated by the character of His purposes, by His divine wisdom and covenant love. They are limited in their knowledge of what is good for them and what will serve the glory of their God in their particular case and peculiar circumstances. What they know not now, they shall know hereafter.
God cares for and rules over His people, even while their trials and burdens remain unrelieved. Whatever their spiritual or providential burdens and anxieties may be as to weight, bitterness and duration, yet the Lord of them a care doth take. He will not allow any temptation or trial to become greater than they are able to bear, although He leave them long under it; but will in His own time make a way of escape for them. “… But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it,” (I Cor. x, 13).
The soul spiritually tried, is ready to say, “How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord?” (Psalm xiii, 6). But then there may have been a backsliding forgetfulness of the Lord on the part of the believer, and thus the Lord chastens in covenant love, by depriving such an one of any sensible comfort in relation to their interest in Christ and the blessings of their salvation. They now seek mournfully that the Lord would restore unto them the joy of His salvation; but they seek and do not find. The Most High leaves them to the discipline of this state of soul for a period, as He would have them to learn more deeply than ever that their forgetfulness of Him is most grievous, that sovereign grace is wonderful and precious, and that they need to be kept by His power through faith unto salvation and unto the heavenly Kingdom. Then the day of relief will come in God’s time, and the soul will have another song, “He hath dealt bountifully with me,” (Psalm xiii, 6).
The Lord delays to interpose for the deliverance of His people for His own glory. They are enjoined to call upon Him in the day of trouble, with the precious promise attached to this counsel, “I will deliver thee,” (Psalm l, 15); yet the time and mode of deliverance is often ordered with the pre-eminent end of showing forth the glory of God. In a very special way this was outstandingly true in the case of Lazarus (see John xi). Lazarus fell sick, and Martha and Mary sent unto Jesus, saying, “Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick,” (verse 3). “When he had heard therefore that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was,” (verse 6). Jesus had previously said that this sickness was not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby. Lazarus in the meantime having died; the view of the whole circumstances to afflicted Martha and Mary, was expressed by sorrowing Mary when she said to Jesus later, “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died,” (verse 32). But Jesus in answering statements by Martha, said, “Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God,” (verse 40). And he did, when he raised Lazarus, show forth His glory as God made manifest in the flesh. And His refraining from hastening to heal Lazarus when sick was in line with the divine purpose and wisdom to the end that God’s glory might be seen in His ultimate act of raising Lazarus from the dead. What a revelation and privilege to Martha and Mary!
These briefly stated points may suggest further meditation to readers.