2. As a season for acting faith at present, and an encouragement of
shall find relief suitable to every kind of danger they are in. The spirit of prayer upon the church is but the presage of their adversaries' ruin. When God seeks to destroy the nations that come against Jerusalem, he will pour upon the inhabitants of it a spirit of grace and of supplication: Zech. 12:9, 'And in that day I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem, and I will pour upon the house of David, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication.' This time of extremity, when all their hands fail, should edge the church's prayers. Our great intercessor seems in this case to set us a pattern: Zech. 1:12, 'O Lord of hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy upon Jerusalem!' (אּתה single by itself, not in an affix.) When all the earth sits still and is at rest, unconcerned in the affairs of thy church, if thou wilt not have mercy on them in this strait, who shall relieve them? none else have any mind to it; then issue out comfortable words to the angel from the mouth of God.
This is an advantage of extremity; it sets Christ a pleading, and the church on praying.
2. As a season for acting faith at present, and an encouragement of reliance upon him in future straits. As a season for acting faith at present. Our Saviour lets Lazarus die and stink in the grave, before he raised him, that he might both confirm faith in his disciples' hearts, and settle it in the hearts of some of the Jews. John 11:15, 45,
'I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent that ye may believe.' What, let Lazarus die, one that he loved, one so strongly pleaded for by two sisters that he loved too, and solicited upon his friendship to relieve him! ver. 3, 'Behold, he whom thou lovest is sick,' and our Saviour glad he was not there to prevent it! yes, not glad of Lazarus his extremity, nor of the church's, but of the opportunity to give them greater ground of faith and encouragement to trust him. The church's faith is God's glory. He that hath many things to trust to, is in suspense which he should take hold of; but when there is but one left, with what greediness will he clasp about that! God cuts down worldly props, that we might make him our stay. How will the church in extremity recollect all the deliverances of it in former ages, and put them up in pleas to God, for a renewal of
his wonted kindness and new successions of deliverance, whereby God gets the glory of his former work, and his church the present comfort in renewing fiducial acts upon him! How doth Jehoshaphat put God in mind of his gracious assistance acted some ages before, when he was in a strait, by the invasion of a powerful army: 2 Chron.
20:7, 'Art not thou our God that didst drive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel?' ver. 12, 'We know not what to do, but our eyes are upon thee.' Never are the church's eyes so fixed upon God, never God's eyes so fixed upon the church, as in times of their distress. Then there is a sweet communion with, and recounting of all their former friendships. The church then throws itself wholly upon God; its prosperity is but like a troubled sea, its distress is the time of its rest. So Asa, when assaulted by a million of men under Zerah the Ethiopian, how doth he throw himself and the whole weight of his concerns upon the hands of God, and makes his cause
God's! 2 Chron. 14:11, 'Help us, O Lord our God, for we rest on thee; O Lord, thou art our God, let not man prevail against thee.'
And there is an encouragement also in the deliverance for future faith. It gives a ground for future faith from the riches of the present experience; in such distresses there is the highest experience of God, and hope is the fruit of experience. How apt are we to believe God in other straits, when we have had assistance (like they that dreamed) come unexpectedly upon us. God overthrew Pharaoh's host in the Red Sea, when they were upon the heels of the affrighted Israelites and ready to crush them, but God gave them 'to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness,' Ps. 74:14, as a standing excellent dish to feed their hopes for all future deliverances upon their trust in God. And indeed that deliverance was an earnest of their perpetual security, by special providence in any succeeding trouble. And God often gives them a particular charge to remember that deliverance, with a practical remembrance to still their fear and support their faith: Deut. 7:18, 'Thou shalt not be afraid of them, but shalt well remember what the Lord thy God did unto Pharaoh, and to all the Egyptians.' He would have them remember it as a covenant-mercy,
'what the Lord thy God did,' thy God in covenant, not what the Lord