THE condition of the Church and the State as described by the prophet was lamentable but there was a remnant of godly people left in the midst of all the evils that existed in both Church and State. It is of this remnant our text speaks and we shall notice three things concerning them.
- That they were an afflicted and poor people;
- What God was to do with this remnant;
- How these people were supported in their affliction.
I. They were an afflicted and poor people.
(1) They were afflicted. It is written that—“many are the afflictions of the righteous but that the Lord will deliver them out of them all at last.” There are many things that cause affliction to the Lord’s people—sin in themselves afflicts them, and they must be afflicted on that account till they are made perfectly holy. They are afflicted also when wicked men are in high places in the Church to bring it low, and to provoke the Most High to pour out His judgments upon them, and when rulers in the State are doing their utmost to ruin the Lord’s cause. They are, also, afflicted by the many tribulations to which they are liable in this world. Some have more tribulations than others. These tribulations may affect mind or body or both. Some of the Lord’s people have been known to be afflicted by losing the use of their reason which had the effect of bringing them into despondency or almost despair concerning the salvation of their souls. Those who have the use of their reason should sympathize with these and pray that the Lord would support them by His grace in their trying affliction. To see them afflicted by that malady causes affliction to their brethren who are free from it. Though Job’s reason was not touched he had great affliction of mind and body as you may see in the account given of his sufferings. His friends who came to comfort him though they were good men did not understand his case and charged him with having committed some great sin for which God was chastising him, but it was not for any particular sin that Job committed that he suffered so much in mind, and body, and property but for the trial of his faith and when the trial was over those who charged him with sin as the cause of his trouble were not accepted of God till Job prayed for them. It is dangerous to misjudge the Lord’s people in their sufferings. Others are afflicted in their body as Lazarus was. There are some yet living who have been invalids from their youth while their mind was sound and clear on the Word of God. Though there is an intimate connection between mind and body so that what afflicts the one afflicts the other yet the affliction of the body is not so trying as the affliction of the mind. The temptations of Satan afflict them much. He is a “roaring lion seeking whom he may devour” and as he knows that he cannot devour the Lord’s people he assaults them with manifold temptations. If he cannot tempt them to break God’s law he takes another way to cause them trouble. He works very much on the imagination of man and cunningly draws a picture of the evils that are to befall them which sometimes terrifies them and leaves them restless and uncomfortable and although they have found him always a liar yet they believe him when he comes in another form and the nearer they come to their end in this world the more and the oftener he torments them with his temptations as he knows that his time of tempting them is short. He was so bold that he tempted our Saviour in the Wilderness and no wonder that he tempts His people. But as Christ was tempted in all points like His people He is touched with the feeling of their infirmities. He is able to sympathize with them and succour them when they are tempted. “In all their afflictions He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them” (Is. Ixiii. 9). But Satan’s temptations are among the all things that work together for their good. It is for this reason that God permits the Evil One to tempt them. They are not so much afraid of Satan if he came to them as a naked, black spirit as they are when he becomes incarnate and assaults them by the agency of wicked men. Those of them who on account of their worldly calling have to mix with wicked men have experience of this. Lot in Sodom was vexed with the filthy conversation of his neighbours (II. Peter ii. 7).
(2) They are a poor people.
One of the marks that Christ gives of them is that they are poor in spirit. Spirit here means the new nature or the new man. “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John iii. 6). The old man is never poor in his own estimation. They are not poor as to their rights for all things are theirs, Christ is theirs. The blessings of salvation are theirs. The Bible is theirs. The ministers of the gospel are theirs. Grace and glory are theirs. They are not poor as if they had not received anything of the benefits of Christ’s redemption, for they are justified, adopted, and partially sanctified but they are poor because they have not yet possessed all the good God provided for them. They are poor and yet they are rich. The richest spiritually of all men in the world. They may say with the psalmist: “The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance, and of my cup: thou maintainest my lot. The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage” (Ps. xvi. 5, 6). To be afflicted and poor is characteristic of them during their time in the world, but the time is coming when they shall neither be afflicted nor poor. At death when they leave this world they shall leave behind them forever all their afflictions and all their poverty. They shall be put in possession of the glorious inheritance of which they received the earnest on earth. The psalmist said while on earth: “I am poor and needy yet the Lord thinketh upon me” (Ps. xl. 17).
II. What God is to do with this afflicted and poor people.
He says I will leave them in the midst of thee. (1) While He is to destroy others and to remove them out of the world by His judgments He is to spare these and leave them in the world. It is a mercy that the Lord leaves the remnant of His people on earth when many others are removed from it by His judgments. When God destroyed the old world by a flood He preserved alive Noah and those with him in the Ark. When so many of our fellow creatures are removed from the world in the present terrible War the great majority of whom are lost for ever in eternity it becomes us to say: “It is of the Lord’s mercy that we are not consumed.”
(2) He leaves them to be witnesses for Him in the world. If the Lord’s people were all removed from the world He would have no witnesses on earth but however low the cause may come He never leaves Himself without a witness—”And ye also shall bear witness” (John xv. 27). They shall be left in the world so long as the Lord has work for them to do, and also so long as He has a work to do in them by His Spirit, and when their work for Him is finished and His work in them is completed He removes them from the world and raises up others to witness for Him.
(3) He leaves them as a seed in the church from which shall grow a rich crop of believers. The farmer is careful to preserve the seed which he is to sow and so God is. When He destroyed the world by a flood He kept the seed in the ark. However few the Lord’s people are in our own day there is a remnant left as a seed from which is to spring the rich crop that shall cover the earth in the glorious period of the millenium, which period is drawing nearer every day.
III. How these people are supported in their affliction.
It is by trusting in the name of the Lord—”And they shall trust in the Lord.” The word trust here is translated in Gaelic; hope. It means both trust and hope. They rely upon Him with confidence and they hope in Him to support them in their affliction.
(1) They have the grace of hope wrought in them by the Holy Spirit.
(2) There is the exercise of that grace—they shall put their trust or hope in the name of the Lord. The Lord is the object of their hope and they hope in His name. That is as He revealed Himself in His Word. The Word is the means by which they put their trust in Him and they cannot be in any condition but there is something in the revelation the Lord gave of Himself in the Scriptures to encourage and support them. “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it and is safe” (Prov. xviii. 10). “He has magnified His Word above all His name” (Ps. exxxviii. 2). The works of creation reveal Him as the Creator, but the word of the gospel reveals Him as the God of salvation. They that know His name in the revelation of the gospel shall put their trust in Him (Ps. ix. 10).
Oh! the need we have in this time of trouble and distress to flee to Christ for refuge as the psalmist did. “I flee unto Thee to hide me” (Ps. cxliii. 9). And the need we have of trusting in His name when Germany and her Allies are doing their utmost to destroy us as a nation. If we as a nation trusted in the name of the Lord more than in weapons of war and numbers of soldiers, though these are not to be despised, we would gain the victory over our enemies. Prayer is a powerful weapon to gain the victory. We have heard that in time of war in the past in which this nation was involved a godly man in the north spent a whole day in prayer pleading with God that He would give the victory to our soldiers over their enemies. After the war came to an end an officer came to the Highlands and met with a friend who brought him to the praying man’s house, and when he saw the man he said: “I saw you before.” The man asked: “Where?” and he replied: “In such a place abroad.” The man said: “I never left the Highlands; you could not have seen me.” The officer said: “I did see you. On such and such a day there was a battle fought and I saw you walking up and down between us and our enemies. So that at last they got terrified of us and fled away.” Then he asked the man: “Do you remember anything you were doing on that day?” The man said: “I do; knowing that there was a great battle on that day I spent the whole day praying that God would defeat your enemies.” This is an instance of the power of prayer. In these days when the enemy is making a great effort in France to destroy our Army we should pray for our soldiers day and night that they might be protected and made victorious over our enemies and God is the hearer and answerer of prayer. When a large multitude came to war against Judah, King Asa cried to the Lord and said: “Lord it is nothing with thee to help, whether with many or with them that have no power: help us, O Lord, our God; for we rest on Thee, and in Thy name we go against this multitude. O Lord, thou art our God; let not man prevail against Thee. So the Lord smote the Ethiopians before Asa, and before Judah and the Ethiopians fled” (II. Chron. xiv. 11, 12). When David went to fight with Goliath he said to his antagonist: “Thou comest to me with a sword and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied. This day will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand, and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcasses of the host of the Philistines this day to the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel and all this assembly shall know that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the Lord’s and He will give you into our hands” (I. Samuel xvi. 45-47). David trusted in the name of the Lord and gained the victory over his enemy. The German Emperor defies the armies of Israel and the God of Israel and, however long he may continue his ambitious struggle it is to be hoped that he shall be defeated at last, but the sooner we as a nation come to acknowledge the Almighty and turn to Him with repentance the sooner the victory shall come. Are you afflicted for our young men in the trenches in mud up to their knees and for the great multitude of them killed in this war? Or whatever your affliction may be—trust in the name of the Lord.
The Judge of the earth keepeth His petty-sessions now, letting the law pass upon some few, reserving the rest until the great Assizes.—John Trapp.
There is no wrinkle on the brow of eternity.—Thomas Manton.