“The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and He knows them that trust in Him” (Nahum 1:7).
The Bible student may not find the minor prophets so interesting as many other parts of the Bible. How absorbing in interest, for instance, are the four gospels, telling us as they do of the Life of lives; or the epistles, that unfold to us the wonderful scheme of Christianity—the moral triumph of God in a world of ruin; or the Pentateuch, that tells us of the first beginning of things, and prefigures, in wonderful type and shadow, that which should come to pass in the person of Jesus! “The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”
But individual exercise is, at the root of things, essentially the same in all ages, and here and there in the minor prophets—as much, surely, a part of Scripture as the gospels and the epistles—we find experience which appeals to us now as freshly as when first written.
True, we increase by the knowledge of God, and God being more fully revealed now than then, we should walk in the light of that fuller revelation. Thus many an Old Testament scripture yields peculiarly real instruction and comfort when viewed in the full light of the revelation of God. The Psalms are pre-eminently an example of this.
And the scripture before us is a very precious example among many. A little meditation on it will be profitable.
“The Lord is good.” It is one of the greatest triumphs of God that He has given the knowledge of His perfect goodness to many a frail man, so that the most untoward circumstances, the deepest bereavement or sorrow or suffering, cannot shake their confidence. Even Job said, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” But we are permitted to go a step further. We know that whatever is brought upon the believer by God is not merely the product of divine goodness, but the positive plannings of divine love. However severe the trial and deep the pain and trying the exercise, it does but the more convince us of that clear warm love that makes no mistakes—a love which is so deeply concerned that the divine purpose should be worked out in us that it will not shrink from adopting means that may at the moment bring the tear to the eye and make the whole frame wince and quiver. Nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them which are exercised thereby” (Heb. 12:11).
Ask that dying saint, racked with pain, lying, it may be, in a damp cottage with no earthly comfort; ask that bereaved one, out of whose life has passed for ever with the silence of death the object of deepest affection, and each will answer, with brightening eye and kindling voice, “The Lord is good.”
“A stronghold in the day of trouble.” Ay, the One we turn to in our stress, and who never fails or disappoints us; the One who never flatters us; the One who looks right down to the roots of pride and self-sufficiency; the One who sees the idol in the heart or the little foxes that spoil the tender vines; yet the One who remembers we are but dust, and who makes a way of escape for us, that we may be able, not to escape, but to bear the trial, He is a strong hold. What security, what rest, what comfort! No wonder our hearts and minds are garrisoned by the peace of God when we turn to Him in our day of trouble!
“And He knows them that trust in Him.” He knows, not we know. That we know God is evidenced in measure, at least when we can say, The Lord is good.” But here it is that He knows us—that He knows the heart that trusts in Him.
Peter could lay open his heart to Him, and say, “Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee.” How sweet in trouble, when we dare not openly boast that we trust Him, that we have the confidence that He knows that we trust in Him—One who will never fail the simple trust of a dependent soul!
Would that we better knew the preciousness and sweetness of this verse!