The Tested Refuge
* The Lord hear thee in the day of trouble; the name of the God of Jacob defend thee.” — Psalm xx. i.
“The name of the God of Jacob”! I thought that was the very thing which was not revealed! I thought the angel that struggled with Jacob refused to give his name! Yes, but he gave his blessing. He left behind him something by which he could be distinguished from all other presences — something which marked out his identity from all beside. It is this, I think, which the Psalmist here takes hold of. I understand him to mean: “May your religious refuge in trouble be no party cry, no special Church, no sectarian name! May it be precisely that which you cannot name, which you can only feel! May your name for God be ’ the God of Jacob ’ — the God who in the struggle of a human soul sent a blessing through the pain — the God who gave power through a shrunk sinew and strength by halting on the thigh! “That is what I take the Psalmist to mean. And truly it is the only kind of refuge that will do for a ‘day of trouble” — for the time when the trouble remains. It is only the God of Jacob that gives strength in trouble. The God of Abraham and the God of Isaac give strength by taking trouble away — Abraham gets back his son, Isaac renews his wells. But the blessing of JacoT) comes in his calamity — comes by the very touch that lames him. The struggle itself is his blessing — not the cessation of the struggle. The angel that wrestles with him is, in the very act of wrestling, a herald of the dawn. The day is breaking just where Jacob’s heart is breaking. His is a refuge, not from the flood, but in the flood. All former men are saved by rescue: Enoch escapes death, Noah survives the waters. But Jacob is saved in the waters; he is supported in the midst of the storm; he ascends through the medium of his chariot of fire.
May the God of Jacob be my refuge! The angel I need is a strengthening angel — my
Lord’s Gethsemane angel. It is not often now that an angel rolls away the actual stone; the calamities of life are not,. in my day, miraculously lifted. But still there remains a defence for me — the name of the God of Jacob. The strength of Gethsemane is not dead. The place where Jacob stood, the place where Jesus stood, is waiting for me still. Still can I find the nameless strength, the incomprehensible peace. Still can I drain the cup and not faint; still can I bear the cross and not die. I cannot say that my Father will avert the cup; I cannot say that my Father will remove the cup; but I can always say that my Father will make the cup tolerable. Not always can I repair to the God of Abraham — ask exemption from the wood and the fire. But ever can I repair to the God of Jacob. Ever can I ask a voice from the burning bush — the voice that forbids it to be consumed. Ever can I claim the peace tn pain, the rest m wrestling, the calm tn conflict. Ever can I expect the bow in the midst of the cloud, the bread in the depih of the desert, the garden by the side of the tombstone. These are the miracles of the God of Jacob.