All These Things Are against Me by Rev. W. M. Taylor, LL. D.

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 6, 1883

"All These Things Are against Me."

By Rev. W. M. Taylor, LL. D.

ALAS, poor Jacob! He was, indeed, brought very low when he could speak thus; and though we may not vindicate him for murmuring, we understand his state of heart too well to think of upbraiding him for thus giving way to the bitterness of his grief. He that is without sin among you let him cast the first stone at him; for myself, I have been too often in the same condemnation with him to allow myself to judge him with harshness. It is very easy for those who take no thought of his affliction, or who have themselves known no serious sorrow, to speak loftily of his weakness, and utter biting things about his unbelief; but when we remember how he was situated and what he had suffered, we shall admit that his emotion was, at least, natural. Blameworthy no doubt it was. But it is God's to measure the blame, while it is ours to sympathize with his sorrow, and to be instructed by his despair. For many years he had carried in his heart a grief, which was all the more consuming because it was unspoken. His favorite son had been taken from him under such circumstances as left him in terrible uncertainty as to his fate. He had the apparent evidence, indeed, that an evil beast had devoured him; and there was at the same time the knowledge that his other children, so far from sharing his sorrow, rejoiced in the absence of the envied son.

Then there came upon him and his family a sore famine, which compelled him to send for supplies to Egypt, where Simeon had been in some mysterious manner detained as a hostage for the appearance of Benjamin; and now, when the pressure of scarcity was again felt, the necessity of letting his youngest son go, coupled with the possibility that he might never return, fairly overcame the patriarch, and he sobbed out in broken utterance these despairing words: "Me ye have bereaved of my children; Joseph is not, Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away; all these things are against me."

But natural as this outgush of feeling was, it was essentially atheistic. He makes no mention of God in his exclamation. He speaks angrily to his sons, as if they had done it all, and doubtless, knowing what at that time he did not know, we cannot but admit that they had been grievously to blame; but he has no reference here to him who on the memorable night at Bethel had said to him, "I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land." For the moment he has forgotten how the Lord had led him at first to Laban's house, and had given him prosperity during his twenty-one years sojourn in Padan-aram; how he had cared for him when he left his father-in-law; how he had mollified the rage of the offended Esau; how he had blessed him at Peniel by giving him rightfully as a suppliant the birthright which he had formerly sought wrongfully as a supplanter; and how he had protected him at the time when the violence of some of his sons might have drawn upon him the vengeance of the Shechemites. Was it indeed so, that all these things had been against him? We see, indeed, that after awhile, when his sons were in the very act of bidding him farewell, he came back to his trustfulness, and offered for them this prayer: "God Almighty give you mercy before the man, that he may send away your other brother and Benjamin; if I be bereaved of my children, I am bereaved." But, at first, when the full shadow of his trouble passed over him, his faith was, for the moment, eclipsed, and his God was for the time forgotten. But so it is with men still. The mercies of a life-time are ignored in the bitterness of a single trial, and God, who has been our friend for years, is accounted our enemy, because of some severe affliction which has come upon us; or we forget him altogether, and throw the blame on some external cause, even as in the blind passion of the instant I have seen the workman fling away his tool, because he could not get it to do just as he wished. We remember not, faithless as we are, that God does not change toward us with the changing aspects of his providence, but that he is as really our friend when we are plunged in trial as when basking in prosperity.

The surgeon has a stern aspect, and, apparently an unfeeling hand, when he cuts into the flesh or amputates a broken limb, but he has a loving heart, and the patient trusts him the while, hoping for recovery as the result. Even so in knowing God's heart toward him, and remembering his past dealings with him, Jacob might have had confidence that after and out of this sorrow there would come a richer joy. But he had forgotten God for the time, and so it was no wonder that he said, "All these things are against me."

But atheistic as this sentiment was, it was also quite untrue. These things were not against him. They were really working for his after good. They were onward steps in that process by which he was to recover his long-lost son, and was to have conferred upon him those years of happiness which, as we read the story, we are apt to call the Sabbath of his life, with its rest, its thankfulness, and its joy. Oh, how he would upbraid himself for these hasty words in later days, when he went to see Joseph in his palace and took his grandsons on his knees; and when at length, he shall enter the heavenly land, and see God's purpose running through his life, I can imagine him saying, "Now I know the thoughts of thy heart towards me, and bless thee, that they were thoughts of peace and not of evil to give me this expected end."

We all feel that there are times when we are prone to fall into this despair. We all acknowledge, too, that such a state of mind is sinful. Yet, perhaps, the very next affliction that comes upon us, be it bereavement, or temporal misfortune, or distress of whatever sort, will draw from us this wailing cry. Let us see, therefore, what considerations we may draw from this Book, or from our own experience, wherewith we may fortify ourselves for the resistance of the strain of this temptation. The storm is always trying to the mariner, but it is not nearly so formidable to him who has a well-appointed vessel and active crew, as to him whose ship is ill-found, and whose sailors are disabled by intemperance. If, therefore, we would stand the strain, we must have everything in readiness for meeting it when it comes. Now there are some truths which, treasured up in the memories of our hearts, would keep us from sinking into Jacob's despair.

First of all we have the unqualified assurance that God is the friend of his people; and that he is directing and controlling all things for their highest good. Again and again he has said to his own, "Fear not, for I am with thee," and he has declared that he will "never leave them nor forsake them." Nay, to make assurance doubly true, he has appealed to the most stable things in nature, saying, "The mountains may depart, and the hills be removed, but my loving kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord, who hath mercy upon thee." Nor is this all; in one of the most beautiful passages which the Old Testament contains, he represents himself as the author of his people's trials, while at the same time he sets forth the reason why he sends them, and describes the gracious results which flow from them. "Therefore,"—that is, as the previous verse makes clear, because she forgot God,—"therefore, behold I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her, and I will give her vineyards from thence, and the Valley of Achor for a door of hope, and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of Egypt." Now, all these declarations, and a hundred others which might be quoted, are not mere utterances of courtesy or of course. They are the words of him who is the truth, and who is able to bring to pass that which is good for us, and to perfect that which concerneth us. He is the great center of providence. "Of him, and to him, and through him, are all things." He doth according to his will in the armies of Heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth. All things, the tiniest as well as the most stupendous, are under his control, and what he promises he is able to perform. He does not say what he does not mean, neither does he pledge himself to anything which he cannot carry through. "He is God, and beside him there is none else." Now, with such assurances from such a Person, why should we ever fall into despair? We can trust the word of a fellow-man, though that has often enough been falsified; we can rely upon an arm of flesh, though we know that it is feeble and finite as our own; why, then, do we not confide in God? Is it because he is unseen, or because we do not understand his workings? Nay, surely, for not seldom our trust reposes on men whom we have not seen, and frequently our faith in them remains even when we do not comprehend their designs. Why, then, should we distrust the Lord? Let us but hold fast to the conviction that the God of Jacob is our refuge, and then it will be easy to sing all the rest of that spirit-stirring forty-sixth psalm.