“Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.”
As surely as we live there will be a “day of trouble.” This text gives us one solemn prospect and three solemn promises pertaining to the day of trouble. The Lord wants us to be aware of all of life’s exigencies and of His availability in them. Let’s see what the text promises. First, there is always the prospect of trouble. No one lives a trouble-free life. We are always going to face troubles of some kind. This is not a lovely prospect and seems negative in outlook, but is nevertheless true. There can be personal troubles that cause us to be depressed. There can be family troubles that can cause us great distress. There can be troubles at work that make our jobs more stressful. There can be troubling people who come in and out of our lives, causing us to have a problem loving them.. (You could probably name some right now. lol [maybe]) Someone has written that “life is alternate shade and sunshine.” This is true. It would be nice if trouble warned us before it came, but it seldom does. We could handle trouble better if we could always anticipate it. Alas, that cannot be done. We just need to be aware that we will have to face troubles of all kinds in this world. (Adam and Eve lost that world for us, and we haven’t done a whole lot to improve on what they did.) What can we do about these inevitable troubles that we will face? We usually try to handle them ourselves based on our own expertise. When we do this we usually get into deeper and deeper trouble. The Lord gives us the answer. Second, there is always the privilege of prayer. In the text written above, the Lord said “call upon me in the day of trouble.”Jesus said, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy-laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30) When we belong to Jesus, He is never out of range for us. I once read that, “The Lord is in hearing distance all of the time.” This is true, though in the midst of trouble we sometimes forget it. The hymn is true that tells us: “O, what peace we often forfeit, O, what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.” We need to pay attention to those words that we sing and really think about what they mean. We are like one man I talked to years ago who told me that he was going to work out everything for himself and then turn it over to God. This is the reverse of reality. In 1 Thessalonians 5:17, Paul reminded us to “pray without ceasing.” In Luke 18:1 we read: “And (Jesus) spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray and not to faint.” We need to memorize and remember passages like these to remind us of our need to pray. They will also remind us of the power of prayer in our lives. No one can take the privilege of prayer from us. Third, there is always a promise of deliverance. The language here is definite: “Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee.” He did not say, “I might deliver thee.” His deliverance is certain. There are at least two ways that the Lord delivers us in the day of trouble: (1) He delivers us from the trouble. (2) He delivers us through the trouble. Either way we are delivered. When the Lord delivers us we should always praise and glorify Him: “I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorify me.” In this way, we give credit to the Lord for our deliverance. We cannot deliver ourselves without the Lord’s intervention. We need to remember that though we will face troubles in this life, we are not alone in facing them. Take God at His word and call upon Him. He will deliver you, and when He does praise Him. Believe it and practice it. Bro. Joe
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
All
Archives
September 2021
|