50. This is my comfort in my affliction
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50. This is my comfort in my affliction; for Your word has quickened me.
David was encouraged to plead the word of promise in prayer, from the recollection of its comfort in his affliction. For the man of God is not exempted from affliction, but he is comforted in it with God's comforts, flowing from the fountain-head. And truly no comforts are like God's comforts, and there are none beside His.
They are indeed strong consolations, both in their foundation and their influence; supporting—not only in the prospect, but under the actual pressure of trouble, and fully proportioned to the need of the most sinking calamity. Never therefore are we left unsupported in such a time, or called to drink a cup of unmingled tribulation. In the moments of our bitterest sorrow, how are we compelled to stand amazed at the tenderness, which is daily and hourly exercised towards us!
We have always some word exactly suited to our affliction, and which we could not have understood without it; and "a word" thus "spoken in due season, how good is it!" One word of God, sealed to the heart, infuses more sensible relief, than ten thousand words of man. When therefore the word assures of the presence of God in affliction; of His continued pity and sympathy in His most severe dispensations; and of their certain issue to our everlasting good; must not we say of it,This is our comfort in our affliction?
How does the Savior's love stream forth from this channel on every side; imparting life, refreshment, strength to those, who but for this comfort would have "fainted," and "perished in their affliction!" This indeed was the end, for which the Scriptures were written; and such power of consolation have they sometimes administered to the afflicted saint, that tribulation has almost ceased to be a trial, and the retrospect has been the source of thankful recollection.
But first the word becomes life—then comfort. And those only, who have felt the quickening power of the word, can realize its consolations. Be thankful, then, Reader, if, when dead in sins, it "quickened you;" and, when sunk in trouble, once and again it has revived you. Yet do not think, that it is any innate power of its own, that works so graciously for you. No. The exhibition of the Savior is the spring of life and consolation.
It is because it "testifies of Him," "the consolation of Israel" "afflicted in all our afflictions"—and never failing to uphold with "grace sufficient for us." It is not, however, the word without the Spirit, nor the Spirit generally without the word; but the Spirit by the word—first putting life into the word, and then by the word quickening the soul. The word then is only the instrument. The Spirit is the Almighty agent. Thus the work is the Lord's; and nothing is left for us, but self-renunciation and praise.
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