A Very Present Help by Eld. A. S. Hutchins

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 20, 1883

A Very Present Help.

By Eld. A. S. Hutchins

BY ELD. A. S. HUTCHINS.

"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." Ps. 46:1. There can be no doubt that these words were uttered by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. They express firm confidence in the protecting care of God; implicit trust in him as a present help, help in trouble. This psalm sets forth the "desolations" of earth, —the shaking and overturning of mountains, the removal of kingdoms, the melting of the earth, etc.

Amidst these devastations of property and life everywhere, terrifying the ungodly, and rending the hearts of those who have no hope in the Saviour, a voice is heard, "Be still, and know that I am God." Afflicted, chastened child, do you in this recognize the voice of a loving Father? And of him can you exclaim: "The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; the God of my rock; in him will I trust; he is my shield, and the horn of my refuge, my Saviour"?

The judgments of God are wide-spread in the earth. Floods sweep away the treasures of this world. Costly mansions with their valuable contents float away like a bubble upon the surface of the water, or the earth opens and swallows them up with their inmates, and they are seen no more.

Cyclones do their strange and terrible work, leaving death, mourning, and poverty, widows and orphans, in their track. Disasters upon the sea cause thousands of hearts to bleed, while over the throbbing wires the terrible news flash again and again of railroad catastrophes, saddening homes unexpectedly and mysteriously bereaved, paralyzing the energies of those bowed with age and feebleness, who mourn the loss of the cherished and loved, torn from us at a time when we least knew how to spare them.

All these scenes of grief are but a faint prelude, or index of what lies before the inhabitants of earth. And do hope and courage fail here? Let them not. Rather let us draw near to God in full assurance that "The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him."

"Afflicted saint, to Christ draw near, Thy Saviour's gracious promise hear; His faithful word declares to thee, That as thy day thy strength shall be.

"Let not thy heart despond, and say, How shall I stand the trying day? He has engaged by firm decree That as thy day thy strength shall be."

Afflictions are far from being conclusive evidence that God does not love his people. We may complain to God, but must not complain of him. Says David, "I poured out my complaint before him; I showed before him my troubles." And again, as evidence that the Lord was to him a present help in time of trouble, he exclaims, "I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me."

The king of glory will soon come. The resurrection morning is near. The sleeping saints will awake to life and immortality. Had some earthly benefactor whom we never met been continually granting us favors and needful blessings from the earliest moments of our existence, how much we should want to see him; with what respect and reverence we should speak of him; with what unfeigned gratitude should we call him to mind. Well, he who shed his blood for us, he who liveth to make intercession for us, is coming again. Would we see him? would we live and reign with him? If so, may we "endure hardness as good soldiers of Christ," and trust him as a very present help in trouble.