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God in the Day of Trouble.
“Pay thy vows unto the Most High. .And call
upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee,
and thou shalt glorify me.” Ps. 14: 15.
HE one certain thing in life next to
death is trouble. There is no man or
woman who will not, at some time or
other, have his or her share of trouble.
This will be a comfort to some, for
there are some people I have met who
are never so happy as when they are
looking for trouble, and never so trou
bled as when they are looking for hap-
T
piness. It is such a delight for them to peer through
the distance for trouble; if they can find a bit of
it as big as a gnat’s heel, how they do love to think
about it, turn it over, roll it around, look at it, think
about it, and, above all, talk about it.
Some time ago I was calling upon a woman
whose child had passed through a serious spell of
measles. I said to the mother, “You ought to
be very grateful for the restoration of your child.”
“But, Dr. Broughton,” she said, “to think of it,
she has got to have chickenpox and mumps.”
I was in a little town waiting for a train some
time ago, and fell into conversation with an old
farmer who was there selling his cotton. He sold
a great quantity of cotton, and got over ten cents
per pound for every bit of it. I said, “Well, I
suppose you feel happy to-day?” “What about?”
said he. “Why, getting ten cents per pound for
your cotton.” “Yes, but I shall never get it any
more; cotton is higher now than it is ever going
to be again.” He could not rejoice in what God
had done for him in this glad day of prosperity
for thinking about the probability of calamities
that were ahead. After all, it is the trouble that
we never have that troubles us most; it is the cal
amity that never befalls us that gives us most con
cern. There is no use whatever that we should
be out with a microscope looking for trouble, for
trouble is coming without going out and searching
for it. There is no way under the sun by which
we can keep it off. Old Jacob said, “Man that is
born of woman is full of trouble.” And he said
the truth. It may not have come our way yet,
but every man and woman has got to have his or her
share of it.
I was talking some time ago with a woman, a
member of our church; she said, “There is a large
family of us, but we have never had any real
trouble.” But it was not three weeks before that
family had trouble. God called one of them home.
So, my friends, you may feel assured that you will
have your share of trouble without searching for
it.
The Remedy for Trouble.
But the problem for us this morning, is not so
much to show that trouble is certain; it is to present
some thoughts concerning the remedy for trouble
when it comes. Upon this problem the wisdom of
all ages past has been centered. You ask that man,
that sordid money-getter, why it is that he is so
greedy about money? If some of them tell the
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truth, they will say, “For no special reason; just
because I love to have it.” But the vast majority
of them will say, “I am trying to hedge against
future trouble, for there is nothing that helps one
in the days of trouble like money.” In a certain
sense that is true, but in another sense, it is not
true. Why, do you remember that picture that the
Master drew of the rich man who had been so
blessed as to have more than he could house in his
barns, and felicitated himself with the thought that
he could now take his ease and be merry; but that
night the Lord said, “Thy soul shall be required
of thee”? At the very time he was preparing for
ease, trouble was rattling at his door. And so,
there is no way under the sun for warding off
trouble. What we want is deliverance when trou
ble comes. God says: “Call upon me in the day
of trouble, and I will deliver thee.” Is this true?
Is it true that if I call upon the Lord, he will de
liver me from my trouble? I say it is true. It is
true, first of all, because it is in God’s word. I
want no better proof of anything than to find it in
the word of God. It makes no difference what it is,
if it is in the word of God, to me, it is final. Wheth
er I ever experience it or not, does not change my
confidence in it. I will know that the fault is not
in the word. This word is true, and all that it
says is true.
Prophets and Patriarchs.
But it is true for other reasons than this. It
is true in the experience of the people who have
tried it. Go back into the history of the old patri
archs and prophets, and see if it is not true. I
often wish that we could call up some of them.
“What have you to say, Moses, about this text?
Is it true? Is it true that when you called upon
God, he delivered you from your trouble?” I
fancy that he reaches forth his finger and points
toward the Red Sea, and to the spot where God
divided the waters. There is no need that he should
say anything at all; just point out the path that
was made through the sea by the hand of God.
Suppose we call up Jonah; and somehow I fancy
he laughs when we call him up, there have been
so many jokes told on him, and so many lies preach
ed about him. “What have you to say, Jonah?”
I fancy that Jonah just calls to memory his expe
rience in the belly of the whale. “But, Jonah,
some of our preachers have been making out that
you did not have any connection with the whale
at all, that you just swapped boats, that is all—
that you got out of one boat into another.” Then
I fancy Jonah laughs again, for he never had any
doubts about that experience.
Then I call up Daniel, and say: “Daniel, what
about this text I am preaching on this morning?
People want to know if it is true.” Daniel says:
“Just remind the people of my experience in the
lions’ den; ask them if they can account for it
in any other way than by the intervention of God’s
hand?”
Then I call up the three Hebrew children, and
say: “You boys, tell us about this text. Did you
ever have any experience that will back it up?”
And I hear them all speaking in concert: “Why,
yes, we were put in the fiery furnace, and God de
livered us.”
Then call upon Peter: “Peter, did you ever have
any experiences in your life that would thtrow
light on our text?” And Peter says: “Yes,, I had
a good many, but one in particular.” “Well,
mention it, Peter.” “You know that time I saw
the Master walking on the sea, and I jumped over
board and walked to him?” “Yes, I know about
that.” “You know I got my eyes off of Him and
started to sink?” “Yes, I know about that.” “I
The Golden Age for July 19, 1906.
Le n G . Broughton
called upon Him, and at once He delivered me.”
Finally, I call upon Paul, and ask him about it,
and he says, “Why, yes, I tested that text at the
very first step that I took in my Christian expe
rience, when I was struck blind and fell prostrated
in the road; I cried unto God: 1 What wouldst thou
have me to do?’ And I got up and He took me
by the hand and led me over to Damascus, to the
very man that was to instruct me, and thus he de
livered me out of my troubles.”
Now, we could call upon scores and scores of
these old saints that were used of God in the
making of the Bible, and the testimony of every
one of them would back up the statement of this
text.
Present Day Witnesses.
But we need not confine ourselves to the testi
mony of the Scripture; we can come down to our
own time, and find thousands and thousands of
people that would like to be called up for testi
mony. I fancy that George Mueller, if he hears
what I am saying, and no one knows but that
he does; I fancy that his heart is beating with
great eagerness to get in his testimony to the truth
of the promise. And, I shall give him a chance.
Hear him: “God is just as true to answer prayer
to-day as he was to answer prayer in the days
when Elijah called down fire from Heaven.”
And I think Spurgeon would like to talk, too, so
we shall give him a chance. On his fiftieth anniver
sary, somebody addressed him a letter and said:
“Please tell us on your fiftieth anniversary if you
still believe that the God of the Bible is a God of
present-day miracles ? ” In answer to that question,
Mr. Spurgeon said: “The God of the Bible is
just as much a God of miracles to-day as the Bible
itself is a miracle.”
But we need not stay on the other side of the
Atlantic; blessed be God; we have got these testi
monies right here on our own shores. How do we
account for those magnificent buildings, costing up
in the millions, at Northfield and at Chicago, erect
ed by the labors of a man who never had a dollar
that he would call his own? Where did Moody get
that money? Hear what he says. Only a few
months before he died, when someone was congratu
lating him upon his work, he turned and slowly said,
( I thank you for your kind words, but only remem
ber, what you see is not my work, but what God
has seen fit to work through me.”
Nor do we have to go up in New England; we
have to go no further than our own work at this
place. How do you account for what God has
wrought through us at this place, except as you ac
count for it by the truthfulness of our text?
Surely, we have not forgotten those early days
of struggle. There is absolutely no way of ac
counting for our work except it be through and by
God.
I am tempted here to tell something that I do
not think I have ever told. Before we bought this
property upon which our present Sunday school
building stands, some of us were greatly burdened
for a place for our Sunday school. We got to
gether and formed a prayer circle and began to
pray about it. We said nothing to the world out
side about it. There were not a dozen people in
the church that knew it. Finally, an option was
secured on the property at a price of two thousand
dollars. Five hundred dollars was to be paid cash,
the other we were to have time on. Well, what
were we to do? We did not have five hundred dol
lars.
This same little company of men that had been
praying about it, asked God if it was His will to
pile still more debt upon us; if it was for His