LET us picture to ourselves three scenes in the history of the people of Israel.
First: A nation born in a day, rejoicing in the Lord. (Ex. 14, 15).
It is the eve of their birthday as a nation. Hitherto, though increased to a nation’s stature, they have only been like an overgrown family. At their first coming to Egypt they were honored guests; later they were oppressed, and eventually became slaves, toiling in the execution of Pharaoh’s building projects. God came down to deliver them at long last, sending Moses His servant to bid Pharaoh let His people go. How Pharaoh resisted, how God compelled his stubbornness to break after the tenth of His sore inflictions has occupied the preceding chapters of Exodus, till now, in this fourteenth, Israel is well away from the taskmasters. And yet not away at all. Pharaoh with his chosen chariots is in pursuit; the Red Sea on the one hand, and the mountains on the other cut off escape. Hemmed in, cornered, trapped. They are sore afraid, and cry to the Lord, and reproach Moses. Listen to his message to them: “Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord.... The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace” (vs. 13. 14). As was the word, so the deed. The pillar of His presence came between them and their foes, the blast of His nostrils divided the waters of the sea, and silent, with awed spirits, His people passed over. He blew with His wind; the sea covered their enemies, and drowned Pharaoh and his host. Listen again to Israel’s song on their birthday morning: “The Lord is my strength and song, and He is become my salvation,”
Second: This same nation, grown old, scheming under the fear of man. (Isa. 30)
Again this very people of God, centuries later, in a comparable peril and, alas! the same fear. Not the whole of the noble Israel that had David for its head, but the surviving kingdom of Judah. The days are those of King Hezekiah. The Assyrian king had subdued the separate sister kingdom of Israel and transplanted its inhabitants. The leaders and people of Judah were agitated by fear of the like happening in their own case. Pressed from the north, they look for help from the south, from Egypt. They did more; they sent ambassadors. Doubtless they received promises of help. They secured horses. If the worst came to the worst they had these swift means of retreat, falling back on allies who had horses many, chariots many, and horsemen strong. Help from Egypt! It had been the house of their bondage long ago. If ever its history read a lesson to a people, Israel’s did. Out of Egypt God had brought them. And they who sang, “The Lord is my strength,” now seek to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh. The prophet warned them that the Egyptians should help in vain (Isa. 30:77For the Egyptians shall help in vain, and to no purpose: therefore have I cried concerning this, Their strength is to sit still. (Isaiah 30:7)). If only they had responded in loyal faith like David (Psa. 108:1212Give us help from trouble: for vain is the help of man. (Psalm 108:12)), “Give us help from trouble, for vain is the help of man!” Then He would have comforted them with the words of our text, “In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.” But, “ye would not.” Alas! now therefore the prophet’s utterance is a reproach: its rich comfort a memorial only of what might have been, but was not. Though exhorted to depend on the living Jehovah alone, they refused. Can this be the people that sang at the Red Sea, “The Lord is my strength,” having seen its proof with their own eyes?
Third: The Lord’s deliverance and the faith of their king. (Isa. 37).
Only a few short years have elapsed, and what they feared seems to have come. The Assyrian host, having laid waste the country, is at the gates of Jerusalem. The enemy ridicules the idea of their Jehovah’s strength being able to deliver them out of his hand. But whatever the feeling of certain leaders may be, Hezekiah their king found his refuge in the Lord. He humbled himself, went to the house of the Lord, spread out there the blasphemous letter of the foe with its daring reproach of the living God, praying. “Now therefore, O Lord our God, save us from his hand.” (vs. 20). Promptly the answer came (vs. 33), “I will defend this city to save it.” Neighboring countries might worship idols, quail before Sennacherib and fall, but, “the virgin, the daughter of Zion, hath despised thee and laughed thee (Sennacherib) to scorn.” (vs. 22.) For, “the angel of the Lord went forth and smote in the camp of the Assyrians... early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.” (vs. 36.) Hezekiah reigned on for fifteen years in peace. One wonders whether some of his “wise” advisers used their horses and fled, before the Assyrian host beleaguered the city; if so, we may be sure they were pursued and overtaken according to Isa. 30:1616But ye said, No; for we will flee upon horses; therefore shall ye flee: and, We will ride upon the swift; therefore shall they that pursue you be swift. (Isaiah 30:16). But Hezekiah found his strength, according to the word of the Lord in remaining at Jerusalem “in quietness and in confidence.”
How often the first two of those scenes are re-enacted in individual lives! Many who remember the “happy day that fixed” their choice, lose heart long afterward in the campaign of life. Fear possesses those who once boasted in God. Often since, indeed, have they celebrated that first happy day in song; they have gone on singing through good days―
“When He His people’s cause defends
Who then shall stay His hand?”
But now trouble has beset them round, and they are afraid. They spend days in feverish activity and nights in anxious thought; where is the blessedness of which they sang?”
Or, in the course of a work for God a crisis comes, as came recently in the case of this magazine and its associated activities. Death seems to demand that everything should cease which began long years ago in faith, and was led on to blessing in the goodness of God. The honored servant of God is gone, and what are we?
The king’s faith in the prophet’s despised message depicted in the third scene will help us all. “In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.” The danger could not be closer, nor more serious. Humanly speaking, it was the end. This enemy had swept away all resistance before him; reason seemed on the side of his scorn of weak Jerusalem. But really he reproached the living God. This was what Hezekiah felt. It was a setting at defiance of Jehovah of the Red Sea. He was the God of Jerusalem and the temple, where sang the worshippers, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear though the earth be removed.... God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved.... Be still and know that I am God” (Psa. 46) Ah, that is it. When things are “hopeless,” then is the time for Him to work, and for us to be still. The Saviour of our first love is our Helper all the days. How well we know Him already, surely! For us, oh, wonder of wonders, in the great sin question, the Justifier of him that believes in Jesus. For us in the maze of life, weaving its tangled threads into a secret pattern of His own, making “all things work together for good to them that love Him.” For us against ourselves, against the indwelling sin within us, by His Spirit, working in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. The future goal is, through His grace, as sure as on the happy starting day of long ago. Is the present trouble precisely where He is going to fail us? Never. The Psalm does not say He is a very doubtful help in present trouble. This is what my unbelieving fears are whispering. No: let trouble assail, me, real, overwhelming trouble, and the pledge is given; He is a very present help, just there and then. Therefore let me, like Hezekiah, leave it to Him to take my part against them that are, or whatever is, against me. “In quietness and in confidence shall be my strength.”
How difficult it is to be still when danger threatens. The very realization of peril quickens the pulse. And this even to physical distress, if the horror overhangs our helplessness, as many know who have passed through an air raid. Every instinct urges to flight if the onset is sudden and irresistible; every power of mind and resource of material is mobilized, if there exists the possibility of overcoming it. The heart cries out. We cannot sit still and do nothing. The very beasts, often afraid without cause, respond to the same elementary impulses. Not long ago the newspapers reported how a herd of chamois fleeing on the snow-covered mountains of Switzerland started an avalanche, which resulted in the death of two of the party of climbers that alarmed them. Just such a moment of panic fear might overwhelm the believer’s trust, suggesting flight or resort to the help of those who have not like precious faith, and filling him with dismay because no help seems to be at hand. But, again, “In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.” Clearly, only the certainty that God will be our defender can justify such an attitude. He never fails. “So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me” (Heb. 13:66So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me. (Hebrews 13:6)). The living God, whose power subdues kings and clothes lilies cares for me. Though He seem to sleep, He will rise up at the right moment and bid the storm “Be still.”
“Lo, through the pathless midnight
The fiery pillar leads,
And onward goes the Shepherd
Before the flock He feeds.
Unquestioning, unfearing,
The lambs may follow on
In quietness and confidence,
Their eyes on Him alone.”
(G. Tersteegen, tr. by Mrs. Frances Bevan.)
T.D.