TRULY God doth not only bring His children into the school of affliction, but many times keeps them long there: “The rod of the wicked indeed shall not always rest on the back of the righteousness,” Psalm cxv. 3. But it may lie long, for months, for years, for many years together; seventy years were the Jews in the house of correction at Babylon; four hundred years in the brick-kilns of Egypt. History and experience will serve in instances without number. Hence you have the people of God often at their how-longs in their sufferings, “But thou, O Lord, how long?” Psalm vi., 3. “How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord? for ever? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul? How long shall mine enemy be exalted over me?” Psalm xiii., 1, 2. In this Psalm where my text is, “How long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph?” twice how long, before he can vent his complaint; and yet again the third time, “How long shall they utter and speak hard things?” “How long,” cries Jeremiah, “shall I see the standard, and hear the sound of the trumpet?” Jer. iv., 21. And Zechariah, “O Lord of hosts how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem, and on the cities of Judah?” Zeck. i., 12. The souls under the altar, Rev. vi., 10, cry with a loud voice, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” Verily God doth keep His people, sometimes, so long under their pressures, that they begin at length even to give themselves up to despair, and to conclude they shall never see deliverance. Thus you find not only the common multitude of the Jews in the Babylonian captivity, concluding desperately, “Our bones are dried, our hope is lost, we are cut off for our parts,” dry bones may as well live, as our captivity have an end; but even the prophet Jeremiah himself, whether in his own person, or in the name of the whole church, I know not, possibly both, “They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and cast a stone upon me,” Lam. iii., 53. He seems to himself to be in the condition of a man that is dead and buried, and the grave-stone rolled to the mouth of the sepulchre: a metaphor expressing a hopeless and desperate condition: yea hence it is, that when deliverance is nigh, they cannot believe it, though a prophet of God, or an angel from heaven, should report it. “Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion: for the time to favour her, yea the set time is come,” sings the prophet Daniel, or some other that lived near the expiration of the seventy years’ captivity; and yet in the mean time the Jews reply as before, “Our bones are dried, our hope is lost, we are cut off for our parts”; which means, Tell not us of God’s arising, we shall never see Zion again, we are but dead men. Observe it by the way, they that would not believe the captivity while it was in the threatening, Hab. i., 5, would not believe deliverance when it was in the promise; a just judgment upon them, that those who would not believe God threatening should not believe God promising. But that is not all; deliverance was so incredible after so long a captivity, that they could not believe it when they saw it. “When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream,” Psalms cxxvi., 1. They knew not, as it fared with Peter, half awake and half asleep, Acts xii., 9, whether it was true, or whether they saw a vision only; is this a real deliverance? or are we in a dream only? Our Saviour tells us, that when the Son of man shall come, that is with particular deliverances to His church, He shall not find faith on the earth, Luke xviii., 8, there will not be faith enough in the people of God to believe it, by reason of the long pressures and persecutions that have been upon them.
Now, I say, what is the reason that God suffers affliction to lie so long upon the backs of His children? Truly one reason is, because they have lived long in sin; they have been long sinning, and, therefore, God is long correcting. God puts them to their how-longs, because they have put God to His how-longs. “How long refuse ye to keep my commandments, and my laws? How long will this people provoke me? and how long will it be ere they believe, Exod. xvi., 28. “How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?” Jer. iv., 14. “How long will it be ere they attain to innocence,” Hosea viii., 5. And truly if they have made God complain of their how-longs, no wonder if God make them complain of His how-longs. But then again, another and the main reason is, because the work is not yet done; they do not receive instruction by their correction, else affliction would quickly cease. God giveth not a blow, He draws not a drop of blood, more than needful; “For a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness,” I. Peter i., 6. If there be heaviness, there is need of it; and, if heaviness continue long, there is need of it. It is not to gratify their enemies that God keeps them so long under their lash, but to teach them; not that God afflicts willingly, Lam. iii., 33, but that He may do them good in their latter end; that by the rod of correction He may drive out that folly which is in their hearts. And when that is done, then they shall stay no longer for their deliverance; then God opens the prison doors, and throws the rod into the fire; and infinite mercy it is, that they are not delivered till they are bettered; that God will not cease chastening till they are willing to cease sinning; saying, “I have borne affliction, I will offend no more; that which I see not, teach thou me; and if I have done wickedly, I will do so no more.”—Case’s Correction, Instruction: The God and the Word.