DELIVERANCE IN TROUBLE Call upon
Me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and you shall
glorify Me. Psalm 50, verse 15. How varied are our days of trouble! Sickness, with its hours of restlessness
and languor, bereavement with its rifled treasures and aching
hearts, loss of substance, the curtailment or forfeiture of
worldly possessions, riches taking to themselves wings and fleeing
away, or, severe than all, the wounds from friends, abused confidence,
withered affections, hopes scattered like the leaves of autumn. But
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Tried one, He leaves not your
defenseless head unsheltered in the storm. Call upon Me, He
invites you. He invites you into the pavilion
of His presence. better the bitter Mara waters,
with his healing, than the purest fountain of the world, and no
God. Better the hottest furnace-flames,
with one there, like the Son of God, than that the dross should
be allowed to accumulate, and the soul left to cleave to the
dust. He, the Purifier of Silver, is
seeded by these flames, tempering their fury. Yes, he gives the
special promise, I will deliver you. It may not be the deliverance
we expect, the deliverance we have prayed for, the deliverance
we could have wished, but shall not the most severe trial be
well worth enduring if this be the result of his chastening
love? You will glorify me. Glorify
him? How? by a simple, unreasoning
faith, by meek, lowly, unmurmuring acquiescence in His dealing,
these dealings endearing the Saviour and His grace more than
ever to our hearts. The day of trouble led His saints
in all ages to glorify Him. David never could have written
his touching psalms, nor Paul his precious epistles, had not
God cast them both into the crucible. To be teachers of the church
of the future, they had to graduate in the school of affliction.
If he is appointing similar discipline, let it be our endeavor to glorify
him by active obedience, as well as passive resignation, not abandoning
ourselves to moody, sentimental, selfish grief, but rather going
forth on our great mission, our work and warfare, with a vaster
estimate of the value of time and the grandeur of existence. Give glory to the Lord your God,
before He cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon
the dark mountains. And while you look for light,
He turned it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness.