Another Follow-Up to the “Waiting and Praying” sermon of May 31

This excerpt is taken from a lecture given by Oswald Chambers to British Common-wealth troops in Egypt during WWI.

Hab 2:1-2  I will take my stand at my watchpost and station myself on the tower, and look out to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint.  And the LORD answered me: "Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it.

How steadily all through the Old and New Testament God calls us to stand on the watch and wait for His indications, and how often God's answers to our prayers have been squandered because we do not watch and wait. My brother or sister, are you thoroughly perplexed over God's way?--you cannot reconcile God's clear way as revealed in His Book with the way He is leading you. Take the line of this prophet (Habakkuk) during his perplexity, stand and watch to see what God will say--watch at the right place.

There is a difference in the prayers of the Old and New Testament. In chapter 3 the prophet bases his prayer on the character of God, and appeals to God's great mercies.  In the New Testament, prayer is based on a relationship with God through Jesus Christ:  "When ye pray, say, Our Father."  There is another difference--the prayers in the Old Testament have to do with an earthly people in an earthly setting; the prayers in the new Testament have to do with a heavenly state of mind in a heavenly people while on this earth. We are continually being reminded that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and the rulers of this world's darkness. The first thing to remember is that we watch at the right place, ie., the place God has put us in. Watch for God's answer to your prayers, and not only watch, but wait. When God calls upon you to pray, when He gives the vision, when He gives an understanding of what He is going to do through you in your Sunday-school class, in your Church, or home--watch. How many of us have had to learn by God's reproof , by God's chastisement, the blunder of conferring with flesh and blood.

Are you discouraged where you are, worker? Then get upon this tower with God, and watch and wait.  The meaning of waiting in both the Old and New Testament is "standing under," actively enduring.  It is not standing with folded arms doing nothing, it is not saying, "In God's good time it will come to pass"--that often means in my abominably lazy time I let God work.  Waiting means standing under, in active strength, enduring till the answer comes.