Sung on Europe's Battle Fields by J. S. WASHBURN

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · May 20, 1915

Sung on Europe's Battle Fields

By J. S. WASHBURN

J. S. WASHBURN

ONE of the most remarkable signs of the coming of the Lord, given by Christ himself in his great prophecy recorded in Luke 21: 25, 26, is “distress of nations, with perplexity, . . . men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things that are coming on the earth.” That we are in that time and that condition today, no one will deny. Statesmen, business men, the masses of the people, all have a feeling of unrest, and a fear that cannot be banished by the foolish cries of “Peace, peace, when there is no peace.”

In “such a time as this,” the very time for which God's people “are come to the kingdom,” the Lord's command to us is, “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people.” “Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not.” “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore [when the hearts of wicked men are failing them for fear] will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.” Ps. 46: 1-3. Though the mighty tidal waves of the sea roar and

bring ruin and devastation, there is a peaceful river, even the river of life, that shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High.

For God not only dwells in his temple in the holy city, New Jerusalem, but he says, “I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit.” Isa. 57: 15. He is in the midst of his people on earth. “I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever.” Eze. 43: 7. “And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God.” Joel 2: 27. Therefore, “she [the church] shall not be moved: God shall help her, when the morning appeareth.” Ps. 46: 5, margin. When the great morning of eternity shall come, the morning that ends the church's night of woe, God shall help her with everlasting help. There is a very striking thought in this marginal rendering—“when the morning appeareth.”

“The heathen [“nations,” R. V.] raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted.” Verse 6. What a striking statement! In the beginning, “he spake, and it was done.” Now he utters his voice, and all is undone. Creation goes back to chaos. And O, remember, it is on this mighty word that can create and can destroy that we may rest secure amid the wreck of the world and all that is therein! For “the Lord of hosts is with us” (verse 7), not against us; and “the God of Jacob is our refuge.” Jacob, who wrestled with the angel all night,—he who had sinned, and who that night was dying to all the sins of his past life, a final, a complete change,—represents God's people, who have all sinned, coming to the great crisis of humanity, when all faces gather paleness. “Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.” Jer. 30: 6, 7. The same God who delivered and saved Jacob, will save his people from their enemies, as he saved Jacob from Esau.

“Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he hath made in the earth. He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire.” Verses 8, 9. After this terrible scene of destruction, so vividly described in these verses, there follows one of the most majestic verses in all the Bible. As after the whirlwind and the earthquake and the fire, God spoke to Elijah in the “still small voice;” so after the awful tempest of desolating war, and after God's judgments in earthquake and destruction have been manifest, he says, “Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” Verse 10.

Then how precious the solemn, blessed, comforting assurance, more solid than the earth itself. “The Lord of hosts is with us: the God of Jacob is our refuge.” This wonderful forty-sixth psalm is our strong assurance, our battle hymn, in the last-day perils. We are not surprised at the statement made in “The Great Controversy,” page 639, that in the great final crisis, God's people will sing the forty-sixth psalm. Nor can we wonder that in the midst of the awful perils of Europe's battle fields, one of our faithful believers sang the forty-sixth psalm every day. Brother E. Hanson says:—

“During the first four months of the great European war, I was living near the border line between Russia and Germany, in a town that was occupied alternately by the Russians and the Germans. We were many times in the midst of great battles, and were exposed to many dangers and hardships. During this time of peril I sang the forty-sixth psalm every day. I had learned the music to the sublime words of this psalm in Philadelphia before going to Europe; and in time of peril and danger, I truly found in this wonderful psalm a ‘refuge and strength.’ Surely all of God's people will sing that psalm in the time of war and trouble.”

Philadelphia, Pa.