Psalms 62:5

My soul, wait thou only upon God.

The waiting soul

The text applies to every believer.

I. Consider what it is to wait upon God. It is the act of the soul. Here, the soul means the whole man.

II. It is a waiting like that of a servant upon his Master.

III. It excludes all other waiting: “wait thou only upon God.”

IV. It is an act of spiritual intelligence. No man waits upon God until he knows God.

V. Of childlike trust.

VI. The motive of all this--“my expectation is from Him.” It is a great expectation: of guidance now, of eternal life with Christ hereafter. And it is from God,. derived from, warranted by, established in God. And all on account of the redemption which is in Christ. (George Fisk.)

“Silent unto God!”

“My soul!” Here is a man communing with his own soul! He is deliberately addressing himself, and calling himself to attention. He is of set purpose breaking up his own drowsiness and indifference, and calling himself to a fruitful vigilance. There is nothing like the deliberate exercise of a power for making it spontaneously active. We must challenge our own souls, and rouse them to the contemplation of the things of God. “My soul! look upon this, and look long!” But let us see to it that when we do incite the attention of our spirits we give them something worthy to contemplate. Here the psalmist calls upon his soul to contemplate the manifold glory of God. Let us gaze at one or two aspects of the inspiring vision. “He only is my rock.” Here is one of the figures in which the psalmist expresses his conception of the ministry of his God. “My rock!” The figure is literally suggestive of an enclosure of rock, a cave, a hiding-place. Perhaps there is no experience in human life which more perfectly develops the thought of the psalmist than the guardianship offered by a mother to her baby-child when the little one is just learning to walk. The mother literally encircles the child with protection, spreading out her arms into almost a complete ring, so that in whatever way the child may happen to stumble she falls into the waiting ministry of love. Such is the idea of “besetment” which lies in this familiar word “rock.” It is a strong enclosure, an invincible ring, a grand besetment within which we move in restful security. “He is my salvation.” Then He not only shields me, but strengthens me! Salvation implies more than convalescence, it denotes health. It is vastly more than redemption from sin; it is redemption from infirmity. It offers no mediocrity; its goal is spiritual prosperity and abundance. This promise of health we have in God too. He accepts us in our disease; He pledges His name to absolute health. “Having loved His own, He loved them unto the end.” “He is my defence.” The psalmist is multiplying his figures that he may the better bring out the riches of his conception. “Defence is suggestive of loftiness, of inaccessibility. It denotes the summit of some stupendous, outjutting, precipitous crag! It signifies such a place as where the eagle makes its nest, far beyond the prowlings of the marauders, away in the dizzy heights which mischief cannot scale. God is my defence! He lifts me away into the security of inaccessible heights. My safety is in my salvation. Purity is found in the altitudes. In these three words the psalmist expresses something of his thought of the all-enveloping anal protecting presence of God. He is “my rock,” “my salvation,” “my defence.” What then shall be the attitude of the soul towards this God? “My soul, wait--be thou silent unto God.” The spirit of patience is to be hushed and subdued. Our own clamorous wills are to be checked. The perilous heat is to be cooled. We are to linger before God in composure, in tranquillity. We are to be unruffled. “One evening,” says Frances Ridley Havergal, “after a relapse, I longed so much to be able to pray, but found I was too weak for the least effort of thought, and I only looked up and said, ‘Lord Jesus, I am so tired,’ and then He brought to my mind ‘Rest in the Lord,’ and its lovely marginal rendering, ‘Be silent to the Lord,’ and so I was just silent to Him, and He seemed to overflow me with perfect peace in the sense of His own perfect love.” “My expectation is from Him.” The word translated “expectation” might also be translated “line” or “cord.” “The line of scarlet thread.” The line of all my hope stretches away to Him, and from Him back to me! The psalmist declares that however circumstances may vary, the cord of his hope binds him to the Lord. Ever and everywhere there is the outstretched line! “My line is from Him.” Whether he was in trouble or in joy, in prosperity or adversity, on whatever part of the varying shoreline he stood, there was the golden track between him and his God. “Thine expectation shall not be cut off;” the line shall never be broken. “I shall not be moved.” Of course not! A man whose conception of God is that of “Rock,” “Salvation,” and “Defence,” and who is “silent unto Him,” and is bound to Him by the golden “cord” of hope, cannot be moved. But mark how the psalmist’s confidence has grown by the exercise of contemplation. In the outset of the psalm his spirit was a little tremulous and uncertain. “I shall not be greatly moved.” But now the qualifying adverb is gone, the tremulousness has vanished, and he speaks in unshaken confidence and trust, “I shall not be moved.” (J. H. Jowett, M. A.)

The inexhaustible fount

This is faith with its eyes open, seeing how great and how good our God is. If only we know God, and know Him as “our God,” we at once pass into the possession of a great inheritance. This includes safety, rest, transfiguration of soul, victory, eternal joy.

I. The soul is our chief concernment. The body of man has a value peculiarly its own, yet the soul is incomparably more precious. The body looks down and searches the ground for its delights; the soul looks up and culls treasures from the realms beyond the stars. Its home is on high; it is destined to soar.

1. The soul has kinship with God.

2. The soul has large capacities.

3. The soul has the possibility of endless life.

II. The soul is full of need.

1. This is a patent fact. Can the tree flourish without its root? Can a house stand without a foundation? Can a babe prosper without its mother? Nor can man without God.

2. We need Divine instruction. The first cry of the soul is for light.

3. We need God’s life within. Penitence is budding life; prayer is life; pardon is life; righteousness is life; sonship in God’s household is life; hope of heaven is life. “He that hath the Son hath life.”

III. The source of real good--God. This is a vital discovery; for there is a sad tendency to trust in anything rather than in God. But here we have--

1. Great resources. He who created out of nothing this vast universe can as easily create more. Can we hold the Atlantic in the palm of our hand? Neither can we measure the resources of God.

2. Great promises, God’s promises are the forthputtings of Himself. They are God’s character transposed into words. What magnificent pledges have we from God! “I will be to them a God, and they shall be to Me a people; My covenant with them will I not break; With that man will I dwell, who is of an humble and a contrite heart;.. . Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.”

3. Great provisions. Everything is laid under tribute to serve redeemed men, viz. nature, providence, human history, angels, suffering, death, the cross of Jesus Christ.

IV. The channel of blessing, viz. waiting upon God.

1. This implies faith. In every transaction of daily life we exercise faith. We put our faith in men, though they have often deceived us. We put our faith in the processes of nature--in the revolutions of the seasons, in the stability of this very unstable globe. Shall we not much more put our faith in the everlasting God?

2. Waiting implies submission. “To wait” means that I defer to the good pleasure of God. Though He tarry, I will wait for Him. My range of vision is very narrow. His eye sweeps the universe. My idea of what is best is very imperfect; His idea is perfect. God is my King--my gracious Master; therefore I will “wait.”

3. Waiting means prayer. It is not essential that there should be words, though words are helpful to ourselves. The mightiest prayer is silent,--the outgoing of unconquerable desire. (J. Dickerson Davies, M. A.)

Waiting upon God

I. Exhortation--“wait.” It is easier for some to fret and fume. Waiting is a lesson taught in the school of experience. But we are often like children scratching in their gardens to see if the seeds sown yesterday are coming up.

II. Definition--“upon God.” To some, waiting is sitting with folded hands. This is not waiting upon God. In this, courage, resolution and other manly qualities are demanded--patient, prayerful use of moans.

III. Limitation--“only.” Only? yes, only! This is a limitation indeed. Is it not written, “It is better to trust in the Lord than put confidence in princes”? Also, “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no salvation,” and again, “Thus saith the Lord, Cursed be the man that trusteth in man,” etc.

IV. Illumination--“Expectation.” If the picture has been grey or dark hero is illumination. This may appear mercenary. Mercenary? Listen, was Moses mercenary? “He had respect unto the recompense of reward--he esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt.” Remember Him also, who for “the joy that was set before Him endured the cross,”

V. Application--“my soul,” “thou,” “my”: this application is personal. This is the only fitting application, “My soul, wait thou only upon God,” etc. (Pulpit Treasury.)

My expectation is from Him.--

Expectation

There is nothing that fills life with such joy and rest as expectation! It is the “beyond” of human history, and no landscape is beautiful without perspective. David’s light was dim, but there was a “beyond” in his life. So with Isaiah. But it was Christ that most of all kindled this expectation. Now, concerning it, note--

I. It will not be disappointed.

II. It will not be altogether defined.

III. It will not injure duty. Secularists say it will and does. But what would the present life become were there no expectation of a future?

IV. It will not die out. Man cannot else live. We have in Christ the earnest of it. (W. M. Statham.)