Day 23—For Unlooked—For Things

Isaiah 64:4 - From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for Him.

The previous verses in Isaiah, especially Isaiah 63:15, refer to the low state of God's people. The prayer has been poured out, "Look down from heaven". "Why have you... hardened our heart from your fear? Return for Your servants' sake". And 64:1-2, still more urgent, "Oh that You would rend the heavens, that You would come down... as when the melting fire burns... to make Your name known to Your adversaries!" Then follows the plea from the past, "When You did terrible things which we did not look for, You came down, the mountains flowed down at Your presence". "For"—this is now the faith that has been awakened by the thought of things we did not look for, He is still the same God—"neither has the eye seen, O God, beside You, what He hath prepared for him that waits for Him." God alone knows what He can do for His waiting people. As Paul expounds and applies it: "The things of God no man knows, but the Spirit of God" (1 Corinthians 2:11). "But God has revealed them unto us by His Spirit" (verse 10).


The need of God's people, and the call for God's intervention, is as urgent in our days as it was in the time of Isaiah. There is now, as there was then, as there has been at all times, a few who seek after God with their whole hearts. But, if we look at Christendom as a whole, at the state of the church of Christ, there is infinite cause for beseeching God to rend the heavens and come down. Nothing but a special interposition of almighty power will avail. I fear we do not have a proper conception of what the so-called Christian world is in the sight of God. Unless God comes down "as when the melting fire burns... to make [His] name known to [His] adversaries" (Isaiah 64:2), our labors are comparatively fruitless. Look at the ministry: how much it is in the wisdom of man and of literary culture; how little in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. Think of the unity of the body: how little there is of the manifestation of the power of a heavenly love binding God's children into one. Think of holiness—the holiness of Christ-like humility and crucifixion to the world. How little the world sees that they have men among them who live in Christ in heaven, in whom Christ and heaven live.

Let God's people enlarge their hearts to wait on a God able to do exceeding abundantly above what we can ask or think. Let us band ourselves together as His elect who cry day and night to Him for things men have not seen. He is able to arise and to make His people a name and a praise in the earth. "The LORD will wait, that He may be gracious to you... blessed are all they who wait for Him".

"My soul, wait only upon God!"