Isaiah 63:9 In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them… The great majority of men dread affliction more than they dread sin. And yet the two things are related — sometimes as cause and effect and sometimes by more distant connections. I. AFFLICTIONS MAY BE DIVIDED INTO THREE CLASSES — the physical, the mental, and the emotional. Not that we can ever totally separate these three, but for purposes of consideration it may be practicable to do so. 1. It is very hard to resist a plea from physical disability. It is well that it should be so, for callous indifference to the causes of sorrow and pain found in the lives of others is surely a most unpromising state. Anything which will draw us out of ourselves, and keep us from being self-contained, must surely be, in some sort, a servant of God. Our Lord recognized the physical afflictions of men and entered sympathetically into them. 2. But physical afflictions, though more impressive, are oftentimes more endurable than mental afflictions. Indeed, when we come to the last analysis of the case, we find that the mental region is the region where pain reports itself. If we could totally separate the physical and mental, and keep the mind clear and calm while the body suffered its pains and penalties, affliction would be a very different matter from what it now is. Only that then physical affliction would lose its meaning and purpose, for everything physical is for the sake of the mental. But there are mental sufferings which do not report themselves in physical manifestations. The mind is often so tried with doubt and debate — so cast down by its own inability and decrepitude — that it is in a constant state of unrest, and no report thereof is made in the physical frame — no report anyway of such a nature that all can read it. 3. But back of the intellectual department of the mind is that other profounder realm covered by the word "emotional." This emotional region is the strangest and strongest of all. It is the realm of love, of joy, of peace — or of hatred, joylessness, discord. Without our emotions we should be not men and women, but stones, or at best animals. Our emotions gather around persons, places, objects, and these become to us of such transcendent worth that all the world seems poor in comparison with them. II. When we think of these things, HOW WONDROUS, HOW TERRIBLE DOES THIS NATURE OF OURS SEEM! We become afraid of ourselves. To be owners of ourselves seems too great a responsibility. Does it not seem to us that the Creator, in giving us this nature, has taken upon Himself a responsibility so great and so fearful that none but Himself could bear it? We ask ourselves, in amazement, what must His own nature be? III. Is not this the revelation made by the prophet, that WE ARE NOT ALONE IN OUR AFFLICTIONS. IV. As it was with the Israelites, so is it with all the Spiritual Israel; for they and we are not unlike. "In all their affliction He was afflicted." He! Who? The Deliverer. The One who identified Himself with them. And His nature has not changed. We assume that Deity cannot suffer, but we do not know it. We suppose that Deity means perfection — impassive perfection. But is impassivity perfection? May there not be suffering which has in it more of perfection than imperfection, suffering which does not arise from sin, or from weakness, or from anything outside perfection V. Anyway, Jesus Christ has come between us and naked, unknowable Deity; He has united in some way the human and the Divine. And He is, in some mysterious manner, identified with us; and in all our afflictions He is afflicted, and inside all the affliction is "the Angel of His presence" to save us. I can't tell you what this Angel of the presence means. But cherish faith in these unseen forces and powers — ay, in unseen personal ministries. (R. Thomas, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old. |
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