Upon Me in the Day of Trouble : I Will Deliver Thee, and Thou Shalt Glorify Me."

I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I we it.” — Genesis xxviii. 13.

TIMOROUS souls find much difficulty in laying hold upon the promises of God as being made to themselves: they fear that it would be a presumption to grasp things so good and precious. As a general rule, we may consider that if we have faith to grasp a promise that promise is ours. He who gives us the key which will fit the lock of his door intends that we should open the door and enter. There can never be presumption in humbly believing God; there may be a great deal of it in daring to question his word. We are not likely to err in trusting the promise too far. Our failure lies in want of faith, not in excess of it. It would be hard to believe God too much: it is dreadfully common to believe him too little. “According to your faith be it unto you,” is a benediction from which the Lord will never draw back. “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.** It is written, “they could not enter in because of unbelief;” but it is never said that one who entered in by faith was censured for his impertinence and driven out again.

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the God of grace under lock and key. The promise is not only “unto you, and to your children/* but also” to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call/* What a comfort is this! Let us take up our common-rights, and possess by faith what the Lord has made ours by a covenant of salt.

Words spoken to Jacob belong equally to all believers. Hosea says of him, “Yea he had power over the angels, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication unto him: he found him in Bethel, and there he spake with us*’ So that Jehovah spake with us when he spake with the patriarch. The wonders which God displayed at the Red Sea were wrought for all his people, for we read ^Hhere did we rejoice in him,** (See Psalm lxvi. 6.) It is true we were not there, and yet the joy of Israel’s victory is ours. The apostle quotes the word of the Lord to Joshua as if it were spoken to any and every child of God, — “He hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee (Heb. xiii. 5), the fact being that no word of the Lord ends with the occasion which called it forth, or spends itself in blessing the individual to whom it was first addressed. All the promises are to believers who have faith enough to embrace them, and plead them at the throne of grace. What God is to one who trusts him, he will be to all such according to their circumstances and necessities.

The Bible has its eye upon each one of us as it utters its words of grace. A Bampton lecturer has well said, “We, ourselves, and such as we are. are the very persons whom Scripture speaks of and to whom, as men, in every variety of persuasives form, it makes its condescending, though celestial, appeal. The point worthy of observation is, to note how a book of its description and its compass should possess this versatility of power, this eye, like that of a portrait uniformly fixed upon us, turn where we will.”

“Eye of God’s word! where’er we turn,
Ever upon us thy kind guze
Doth all our depths of woe discern,
Unravel every bosom’s maze.”

“What word is this? whence know’st thou me?
All wondering cries the humble heart,
To hear thee that deep mystery,
The knowledge of itself, import.”

This singular personality of the word to each one of a thousand generations of believers is one of its greatest charms, and one of the surest proofs of its divine inspiration. We treat our Bibles, not as old almanacs, but as books for the present, new, fresh, adapted for the hour. Abiding sweetness dwells in undiminished freshness in the ancient words upon which our fathers fed in their day. Glory be to God, we are feasting on them still; or if not, we ought to be; and can only blame ourselves if we do not!

The wells of Abraham served for Isaac, and Jacob, and a thousand generations. Come, let us let down our buckets, and with joy draw water out of the old wells of salvation, digged in the far-off ays when our fathers trusted in the Lord, and he

elivered them! We need not fear that we shall

superstitious or credulous. The promises of the

ord are made to all who will believe them: faith

s itself a warrant for trusting. If thou canst trust,

:hou mayest trust. After being fulfilled hundreds

f times, the words of promise still stand to be yet

further made good. Many a time and oft have we

stooped down to the spring-head in the meadow,

sind quaffed a cooling draught; it is just as full

2ind free, and we may drink to-day with as much

confidence as if we now stooped for the first time.

Men do not keep their promises over and over

again: it would be unreasonable to expect it of

them. They are cisterns, but thou, O Lord, art a

fountain! All my fresh springs are in thee.

Come, reader, imitate Jacob! As he laid him down in a certain place, and took of the stones of the place for his pillows, so do thou. Here is the whole Bible for a couch, and here are certain promises to serve as pillows; lay down thy burdens, and thyself also, and take thy rest. Behold, this Scripture and its promises are henceforth thine, — ^’the land whereon tlwu licsty to thee will I give it’*