The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him.-NAHUM i. 7. -What sort of trouble? The promise embraces all burden, and all your cares. your Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive: and let thy widows trust in me.-JER. xlix. 11. He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord.-Ps. cxii. 7. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace (in peace, peace-so the original) whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.-ISA. xxvi. 3. -The peace is so perfect that it becomes joy. What time I am afraid, I will trust,-says one.-Ps. Ivi. 3. -And another sends back the word: I will trust, and not be afraid.-ISA. xii. 3. -So that it comes to this, in all times, in all complications: They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever.-Ps. cxxv. 1. -But I want you to notice a little carefully the special point to which the glass of faith was turned, in the hand of down-trodden Israel, when such light came in. When they heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel, and that he looked upon their affliction.-Ex. iv. 31. -Or, as it is in the New Testament: We have known and believed the love that God hath to us.1 JOHN iv. 16. -And if you search you will see, that our fears and worries and forlornness come really-the most part of them, the worst part of them-from our miserable doubts of God. Thus it was with Israel. Thinking themselves forgotten, the next step was to forget. And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say unto me, What is his name?-Ex. iii. 13. -The people were stupefied with sorrow. For so long Pharaoh had seemed to be the only power in the universe, that they had begun to think there was no other. From which of the sacred animals that the Egyptians worshipped, did these men profess to bring a message? For as to the God of their fathers, they had forgotten even his name. See how dangerous it is to let sorrow-even of the most legitimate kind—have its unchecked way. See what it is to fear them which kill the body, and after that have no more which they can do. Who art thou which art afraid of a man that shall die, and forgettest the Lord thy Maker ?-ISA. li. 12, 13. -For that is the point to which all excessive dwelling upon mortal troubles most surely tends. Hath God forgotten?-Ps. lxxvii. 9. -Instead of the sweet words of Job: He knoweth the way that I take: when he has ried me, I shall come forth as gold.-JOB Xxiii. 10. For I know their sorrows.-Ex. iii. 7. -And as soon as the people believed that, They bowed their heads and worshipped.-Ex. iii. 31. XVI. Egypt. And there was a great cry in Egypt.-Ex. xii. 30. They THE people of the East are in no wise secretive. sleep on their housetops, they pray at the street corners; and if sorrow enters a life or a dwelling, the fact is proclaimed in the loudest and shrillest of tones. As in the days of the patriarchs, so now, Jacob lifted up his voice,' and Job's friends 'lifted up' theirs; and some years ago, when the plague was in Cairo, at night when the air was still, the wail of the city could be heard for miles away. And there was a great cry in Egypt.-Ex. xii. 30. Such as there was none like it, nor shall be like it any more.Ex. xi. 6. For there was not a house where there was not one dead.-Ex. xii. 30. -At first one thinks only of the awfulness of that night; the sudden bereavements, the crushing desolation. In palace, in hovel; in the house, in the field,-ay, even in the prison ! It came to pass, that at midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne, unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of cattle.-Ex. xii. 29. -There was not a house where there was not one dead. And in some houses how much more than one, where father and son, and perhaps even grandson, were all 'firstborn.' Even the firstborn of the poor 'maidservant behind the mill' was not overlooked in the great desolation. Children and old men fell down together; and in the fields, and in the stalls, sheep and cattle and horses and camels lay dead on every hand. 'And there was a great cry in Egypt.' Vengeance is mine: I will repay, saith the Lord.-ROM. xii. 19. There had been a cry before in Egypt, lasting year after year; a pitiful cry, which nobody heeded. The children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried.-Ex. ii, 23. -The cry of those who seemed helpless, under others who seemed all-powerful. Now all that is changed; and from the side of the oppressors comes a cry, not only helpless but hopeless. Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard.-PROV. xxi. 13. -The firstborn of Egypt were not 'cast into the river,' like the little ones of Israel; but they fell here, and they fell there,' at midnight,' as the Lord passed through. By whose sin? Of course Pharaoh's name comes first. As a roaring lion, and a ranging bear; so is a wicked ruler over the poor people.-PROV. xxviii. 15. |