THE Word of God tells us that “man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble,” and that he is “born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.” All this is the result of the sin of our first parents in Eden, for it opened the flood-gates of trouble and as the Shorter Catechism so clearly puts it, made us “liable to all the miseries of this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell forever.” While this is true in a general way, it is also true that particular sins are followed by special forms of trouble. At the present time we, as a nation, are involved in a war of such a nature that no one can say what the end of it will be, or what new troubles may appear as it proceeds, but that new troubles will appear seems certain because we are not acknowledging God’s hand in this, or His justice in bringing troubles upon us for our particular sins, yea, we are, nationally, breaking out in new forms of transgression against God’s Law, and thus treasuring up to ourselves, “wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.”
The Lord’s people in this nation will have their own share of these troubles which are the result of national sin, for though much against their will, they are as citizens of this Empire sharing in her guilt. This is a cause of great sorrow for them, and it will constrain them to send many an appeal to the Throne of God. However, in the midst of all their troubles they are not without comfort, for a being “heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ,” they can say, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” They may see again, as they have seen in former troubles, men in high places, who thought their positions impregnable, and boasted in their strength, cast down and fleeing from the scene of conflict in order to preserve life and liberty; the boundaries of nations altered in a way that the most far-seeing person could not have predicted, new conditions imposed upon the vanquished, and more of perishing worldly glory heaped upon the victors, but in the midst of it all their God remains unchanged.
Such troubles may bring many personal afflictions to God’s people. When war breaks out, if they are not directly involved in it themselves, there are others in whom they are interested who are. Who can describe the bitter anguish of a godly parent’s heart over one or more sons who are in the fighting line or in other positions of extreme danger, when he cannot entertain a hope that it is well with their souls, or the distressing sorrows of a minister of the gospel over the young men of his congregation who have listened with apparent indifference to his most solemn warnings, and who are now beyond the reach of his voice, perhaps, in the case of some of them, never to hear that voice again in this world. These troubles are often increased by most subtle forms of Satan’s temptations which will cause the true Christian many tossings in the silent watches of the night. God reveals Himself as a refuge to such when He says, “O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones.”
The national troubles may, and often do, open the flood-gates of oppression for God’s people. When a nation, as in the case of our own at this time, is facing a cruel and unscrupulous foe the tendency is, under cover of the necessity of using every weapon of offence and defence, to totally disregard the claims of God’s Law and an enlightened conscience. Thus we find that men, with whom no fault can be found except in regard to the Law of their God, are asked to do work, especially on the Sabbath Day, which neither the Law of God nor their own consciences approve of. When they make it clear that the ruling principle in their lives is, that they ought to obey God rather than men, they will find that some men, invested with a little brief authority, will victimise and insult them in a way inconsistent with the best traditions of this nation, and would make their lives unbearable for them were it not that it is written, “The Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble.”
At this critical time the Lord’s people have troubles in connection with the good of Zion. Whatever may be said about us as a nation as far as our backsliding condition is concerned, we still retain the name of Christian and have many of the Characteristics of a Christian State. We have been honoured by God, as instruments for advancing the Cause of Christ in many ways, especially among the heathen. This cannot be said of our enemies. They are doing their utmost to blot out the Christian religion from off the face of the earth so that the present conflict resolves itself into a conflict between Christian and non-Christian. The Lord’s people will often be asking themselves the question, “What would the state of affairs be if Germany would win?” The answer to that question is to be found in the concentration camps and in the barbarous tortures meted out in Germany to every one who, in his opinions, will differ a shade from the opinions held by Herr Hitler. In their perplexity the Lord’s people can look only in one direction, and that is to God. They are encouraged to do so by what He has done in the past when His people were in great danger. They call to remembrance His deliverance at the Red Sea. “And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians. And took off their chariot wheels, that they drave them heavily: so that the Egyptians said, Let us flee from the face of Israel, for the Lord fighteth for them against the Egyptians . . . . and the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea.” Bearing in mind His mercies in the past they are encouraged to pray, “Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art not thou it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon.” To such He will manifest Himself as their refuge, and they get a sweet view of Him as the Omnipotent God when He will say to their enemies, “Because thy rage against me, and thy tumult, is come up into mine ears, therefore will I put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest.”
It is a great comfort to the true Christian, in the midst of troubles, to have a refuge that will not fail him, and to be assured that in that refuge “all is well.” On the other hand, what a dismal world it would be for him were it not that it is written, “The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms: and He shall thrust out the enemy from before thee, and shall say, destroy them.” The God who is His people’s refuge knows their troubles and dangers, and all the infirmities with which they are compassed, and exhorts them not to fear on account of these things “Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord.”—J. C.