God's help in time of need.
"For the Lord God will help me." This one assurance suffices, and gives the Servant of Jehovah an indomitable strength. "Against the crowd of mockers he places Adonai Jehovah." "Those whom God employs he will assist, and will take care they want not any help that they or their work call for. God, having laid help upon his Son for us, gave help to him, and his hand was all along with the Man of his right hand" (Matthew Henry). "Greater is he who is with us than all that can be against us."
"God is my strong Salvation:
What foe have I to fear?"
John Ashworth, in his 'Strange Tales,' dwells on the satisfying fulness of the short and simple prayer, "Lord, help me!" It will fit in everywhere and to everything. It stuns up all our need. It appropriately meets us whatever may be our circumstances. In the text, the special need of Divine help is felt in the doing of God's work. If we are resolutely set, as Christ was, upon doing and finishing just that which God has given us to do, then—
I. WE MAY MEET WITH INDIFFERENCE. And this is often harder to bear than opposition. Men pass us by. We are not interesting. We are a "voice crying in the wilderness.'' Sometimes we are behind our age, and God has bidden us remind men of things they ought not to have lost; and then they pass us by as old-fashioned. Sometimes we are called to be critics of the age in which we live; and then men pass us by because we annoy them by showing up their faults. And sometimes we are before our age, and prepare for the changes that are to come; and then men pass us by, with a smile at our unpractical talk, and call us "foolish dreamers." But we must witness on, whether men will or will not hear; and God will be sure to keep us cheerful.
II. WE MAY MEET WITH OPPOSITION. Messengers for God usually do. It is a bad sign when all men speak well of them. God's messages are always likely to offend self-seeking men, and, as a consequence, God's messengers have to stiffer. But God's help will tide us over all times of trial. We only have to learn the holy lesson "how great things we must suffer for his sake." God's help is our unfailing support—a "rock that cannot move." The help of God stands always waiting for us as promise. It never actually comes to us until the need has arrived for it. Then we find it is always ready. The grace is there, for the day, for every day. "We can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth us."—R.T.