Help Is On the Way!
One of the clarion sounds of our civilization is the
siren. Every time I hear an ambulance in rescue mode, two thoughts
cross my mind. First, someone is in trouble. Second, help is on the
way! When spoken to a person in distress, those five words can be a
great source of encouragement. It can be the difference between
hanging on and letting go. But it’s not enough to hear the words. At
some point the help must show up!
Trouble is an integral part of life. Even when we
don’t look for trouble, trouble seems to look for and find us. In
times of ‘deep’ trouble, we are sometimes overcome with a
claustrophobic feeling that there’s no way out. This feeling is
common to the human race; believers are not immune. At points in
their spiritual sojourn, every child of God experiences that same
sense of helplessness. Whether the trouble is routine or rigorous,
the child of God can rest assured that help sufficient to our need
is on the way!
While that phrase is never found in scripture, it is
certainly applicable to any number of situations where God stepped
in to provide the help his people needed. Through the centuries the
Lord has demonstrated, over and over again that he can handle
loneliness, entrapment, intimidation, death threats and the deepest
stains of sin!
On the sixth day of creation, Adam was observing what
God had made (Genesis 2:19-25). The fellowship was splendid. The
Lord brought to Adam the animals he created. Rather than name each
one, the Lord deferred to Adam. The Lord brought them male and
female to Adam for naming. It wasn’t long before Adam discerned the
pattern. Perhaps he deduced that God wasn’t quite finished because
“there was not found a help meet for him” (2:20). But help was on
the way! Adam was one sleep cycle and a single rib away from meeting the
love of his life!
After Moses and Israel exited Egypt, they found
themselves encamped by the Red Sea, waiting for the next move
(Exodus 14:9-22). When Israel saw Pharaoh closing in, they were
overcome by entrapment fears. They saw no way to avoid death and
burial in the wilderness. Hope was abandoned, but help was on the
way. The Lord told Moses to command Israel to start marching
‘forward’ to the Sea, and to stretch out his rod to divide the
waters. The walkover on dry land was beyond miraculous. Death and
burial was definitely in the cards. But the Lord saw to it that his
people were the observers rather than the receivers. Timely help,
wouldn’t you say?
Saul, as king of Israel, encountered Philistine
intimidation in the form of their champion Goliath (1 Samuel
17:20-51). Goliath was the latest manifestation of Philistine
provocation that had gone on for years. Twice a day for forty days
he made his appearance and offered his challenge. Goliath was
eighty-for-eighty in striking fear into the hearts of the Israeli
army. Then came that pivotal day when David showed to check on his
brethren. David heard Goliath taunt the army, and decided the giant
must die.
In no one’s eyes but the Lord’s could this shepherd
boy have been considered ‘help’. But help he was! In fact, what a
man is in the Lord’s eyes is the sole criterion as to whether a man
is a help or a hindrance! Israel was no more than a sling, a stone,
and a sword away (all wielded by faith in a single day) from a
headless giant and a scattered-defeated Philistine army. The help
God sent that day would endure and benefit Israel for the next half
century. Does that sound like the kind of help America needs at this
hour?
Death threats can sometimes develop into attempts to
carry them out. That very thing happened to the Hebrew children
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego after their refusal to bow before an
image king Nebuchadnezzar had erected for worship (Daniel 3:1-25).
The resolve of these three young men is the stuff of biblical
legend! As they explained to the king, whether the outcome was
miraculous deliverance or a martyr death, they would not bow!
A king “full of fury” ordered the furnace to be
heated “seven times” its normal heat (3:19). I am convinced that the
number ‘7’ flashed in his mind the instant he heard: “Our God whom
we serve is able to deliver us” (3:17). He figured their God was
probably able to handle normal heat, but surely not seven-fold heat.
So he ordered a heat level that he thought NO God could overcome.
But help was on the way in the form of a Fourth Man like unto the
Son of God (3:25). His presence enveloped those three men with
greater effectiveness than the best fire suit known to man! No pun
intended, but is that the kind of help you could live with?
Six hundred years later,
the One who had helped Adam, Moses, David and three Hebrew children
was hanging on a cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world.
While his critics mocked him for his inability to save himself, he
reminded them that ‘help’ consisting of twelve legions of (72,000)
angels was standing by (Matthew 26:53). Angelic help was available
to deliver him from suffering, But his sinless suffering was the
help sinners needed to atone for and purge sin’s deepest stains! In
that he suffered, died and rose again, we can now approach him in
times of trouble as David did: “Hear, O Lord, and have mercy upon
me: Lord, be thou my helper” (Psalm 30:10).
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