In The Day Of Trouble

by J. Miller | Category: General | Nov 1961

The day of trouble comes for all God's saints; it was so in past times; it is so now, and will be so till the Lord comes again, and then the troubles of saints will cease, in the place where the wicked cease from, troubling, and the weary are at rest. Asaph, in Psalm 77, is found saying,

In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord:

My hand was stretched out in the night, and stacked not;

My soul refused to be comforted" (verse 2).

In his present spiritual plight Asaph considered the years of ancient times and his own times of spiritual happiness when he, a sweet singer, sang a song to the LORD in the night. These experiences of his fathers and his own precious times with the LORD he could not push from his thoughts. But as he thought in his present spiritual distress he asked six weighty questions

"Will the Lord cast off for ever?

And will He be favourable no more

Is His mercy clean gone for ever

Doth His promise fail for evermore

Hath God forgotten to be gracious?

Hath He in anger shut up His tender mercies? " (verses 7-9).

Such questions show the weakness of the human spirit in trouble. In such a condition doubts of God's care and goodness fly in like a host of locusts to eat up every green blade of hope within us. The answer to each of Asaph's questions is, No!

It may be that in trouble God may do as He did with Hezekiah; it says of this good king, that God left him to try him, that He might know all that was in his heart" (2 Chronicles 32.81). It is well at such times to follow the exhortation of Isaiah:

"Who is among you that feareth the LORD, that obeyeth the voice of His Servant? he that walketh in darkness, and hath no light, let him trust in the name of the LORD, and stay upon his God" (Isaiah 50.10).

No advantage will be gained if we should in trouble turn against God; we should be turning against our best Friend, the One in whom all our hopes for good, for time and eternity, are centred.

Asaph did well, after he had asked his six questions, to take himself to task. "And I said, This is my infirmity." This is the same infirmity from which we all suffer, the infirmity of unbelief. It is the sin which doth so easily beset (entangles or surrounds) us (Hebrews 12.1). It is ever ready to damage our running and put us out of the race, and destroy all hope of winning a prize. If we begin to doubt God's promises and His faithfulness to fulfil them, then we are venturing to steer our bark on life's sea without looking above for guidance, as any mariner would do if he were at sea without chart or compass. But Asaph fell back on sure and certain ground on which he could safely stand. He said, "But I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High" (verse 10). He goes back in thought to the beginning of God's dealings with Israel. He said,

"Thou hast with Thine arm redeemed Thy people, The sons of Jacob and Joseph" (verse 15).

Then from Egypt he follows in thought their course to the Red Sea, and he says,

"Thy way was in the sea,

And Thy paths in the great waters,

And Thy footsteps were not known.

Thou leadest Thy people like a flock,

By the hand of Moses and Aaron" (verses 19, 20).

Here was his safety and ours also. Asaph goes back to the Scriptures, to the record of the book of Exodus. These were the years of the right hand of the Most High. We have our records too, not only in the Old Testament, but more especially in the New. We go back to the glorious records of the Gospels and to the Epistles, with the Acts and the Revelation, and here we see the years of the Most High in this dispensation. Let us each be as the psalmist in Psalm 119.

"Remember the word unto Thy servant,

Because Thou hast made me to hope.

This is my comfort in my affliction

For Thy word hath quickened me" (verses 49, 50).

Unless Thy law had been my delight,

I should then hove perished in mine affliction" (verse 92).

J. Miller | Nov 1961
General