Genesis 49:18 I have waited for your salvation, O LORD. I. THE LIVING SAINT'S CHARACTER. He is one who is "waiting for the salvation of God." By the term "salvation" here, we are probably to understand the Saviour Himself — the Messiah who had been promised. By the words he uses in the text, Jacob evidently expressed his faith in the testimony of God as to the coming of the Messiah, to whom he looked, as every guilty sinner must do, and in whose name he trusted for salvation and eternal life. Salvation, taken in its fullest sense, expresses all that the soul can require for time and eternity. And well might this good old saint, Jacob, say here, in addressing God, "Thy salvation." The glorious design of saving sinners of the human race by a Mediator was conceived in the infinite Mind, and determined upon in the counsels of God, before the foundations of the world were laid, or even time had begun its course. For this salvation Jacob had waited. Numerous had been the incidents of his past life, but amidst them all he had kept his eye fixed on the salvation of God, and had consequently passed through things temporal so as not to lose those things which were eternal. II. THE DYING SAINT'S COMFORT. Brethren, there is no real comfort in dying moments, but that which comes from having waited for God, and being in immediate prospect of entering on a full and uninterrupted enjoyment of the salvation of God; a lively and well-grounded confidence that we are in Christ, and shall be saved in Him, with an everlasting salvation; a hope that maketh not ashamed, that we are heirs of, and are about to be admitted to, glory, honour, and immortality. Sorrow is banished, and desire fully satisfied. A well-grounded hope of thus receiving the end of his faith, even the salvation of his soul, and of being admitted to the felicities, full and perfect and enduring, of the heavenly world, affords strong and abundant consolation to a dying saint. To enjoy this salvation at death and in eternity, it must now be sought by you. (W. Snell.) Parallel Verses KJV: I have waited for thy salvation, O LORD. |
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