Deliverance From a Scourge by W. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 3, 1910

Deliverance From a Scourge

By W. A. S.

THE heart of faith believes not merely in a God who has power away yonder in the heavens. Faith clings in loving trust to One who not only has the power, but has the willingness and the care actually to do things out of the ordinary when to his glory and for the good of his children. In the REVIEW of June 30, 1896, an article by Lois A. Calkins bore witness to a manifest interposition of the Lord's power in deliverance from a scourge. It is a testimony that will bear repeating. The time was the early seventies. The writer said:—

My people lived at Chain Lakes, Martin Co., Minn. I do not remember the exact time when the grasshoppers came, but I think it was in August. We were returning home from meeting on the Sabbath, and when about half-way home, we saw the grasshoppers. We had never seen so many before; we were soon surrounded by them, and could go nowhere without coming in contact with them. They destroyed much of the grain that year, and deposited their eggs very thickly for many miles around. A bounty was offered, and large machines were used for their destruction, and thousands of bushels were destroyed in this way; but this did not seem to diminish them.

My father was an old man in very feeble health; mother was not strong, and I had two little brothers. My health was also very poor; and our income was small. Still, we were not discouraged; we studied the Bible, and believed that the promises of God are the same to us in these last days as they were to his people in olden times, and we laid the matter before him. We told him how we were situated, and asked him to bless us in planting a garden, and to protect it from the grasshoppers; and we believed he would do it. . . .

In the spring when the grasshoppers hatched out, they covered a large portion of our small garden spot. To all outward appearances, it would be useless to plant a garden there. However, we had the ground prepared, and planted our garden, trusting in the Lord to protect it from the grasshoppers. When the seeds came up, there were no grasshoppers in our garden, and the vegetables grew rapidly. When the grasshoppers were full grown, in the time of day when they hopped and flew, it sounded like the fast falling of hail all around and over the garden; and in the time of day when they were quiet, they were in great heaps around the garden.

When I went into the garden, and saw everything growing so thriftily, exceeding everything I had ever seen or heard of, and the grasshoppers so very thick around it, and knew that everything else was destroyed for many miles around by them, it seemed almost like holy ground. I could not but think what a kind Heavenly Father we have, and how unworthy we are of his favors.

The small garden yielded beyond all expectations, we are told; fifty bushels of beets from a small patch, eighty-three very large squashes from three vines:—

It seemed to us that the ground had surely brought forth its increase. Forty of the squashes we put into the cellar, and they lasted until the spring, and not a rotten spot came upon one of them.

People came eight miles to buy of us, and though our garden was very small, we sold fifteen dollars' worth of vegetables from it, at the usual price, and gave some to our neighbors, and had our cellar well filled. When people came to buy of us, they wondered at the abundant yield, in the midst of the grasshoppers. Even those who were not Christians, when they saw our garden, would exclaim, “How you are blessed!”

In conclusion, the sister said:—

We had just begun to pay tithes, it being the first time we had ever heard anything on the tithing system, and had not noticed what the Lord says: “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground.” In this, the Lord fulfilled his promise.

Not always, of course, does the Lord ward off temporal disaster. His accounts with his children are not settled in this world. Some are called upon to take joyfully the spoiling of their goods, knowing that in heaven they have the enduring substance. Therefore, with Habakkuk, we will say: “Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; . . . yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.” He is our God, and we trust him just the same. w. A. S.