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4 * ||| J 18-WWBI Bfl| 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 »/j QHSE. KMmWRI MCplMr 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