Isaiah 27:8

He stayeth His rough wind in the day of the east wind

The rough wind stayed

Here we are taught two things: that God permits calamities to come upon man, but that He restrains them in moderation for some wise and merciful design.

It would by no means be difficult to trace out historic parallels illustrative of this truth, both in the history of nations and the annals of the Church. But the words of the text seem capable of a closer application to ourselves and the various calamities which so often overtake us. In Judea the east wind was extremely violent and destructive; allusions to which are not unfrequent in the sacred writings Job 27:21; Jeremiah 18:17). How many a one has struggled through years of difficulty, buoyed up with the warm hope of gaining some desired object; and just as his hopes are brightening, and the bow is expanding with promises of realisation, the east wind comes and shrouds the whole in darkness. The met wind has blighted your hopes and your joys, but the rough wind has been restrained.

1. Your trials, though great, have not been inflicted with intolerable severity; they have been dealt out to you with moderation for some wise and gracious design.

2. The moderation of our trials will appear, if we compare them with what is endured by others. What are our utmost trials in these highly favoured days compared with those of the early saints? What are our trials compared with those endured by “the noble army of martyrs”? And what are our trials compared with many of our brethren in the present day, who endure suffering and privation, and even death, in their intense love for souls, seeking to advance the Redeemer’s kingdom?

3. The moderation of our trials will further appear if we contrast them with what we have deserved. (W. J. Brock, B. A.)

Compensations

God determines very exactly the measure of our tribulation, ever mingling mercy with judgment, and permitting trial no further than our moral perfecting requires. He sometimes sifts by a violent wind; but He only sifts, He does not mar and destroy.

I. LIFE AT LARGE furnishes us with an illustration of the text. Through human sin the whole world has been filled with disorder and suffering. Wherever we look--whether in nature or the race--we witness scenes of confusion and misery. God did not threaten us in vain; the power of His displeasure has been bitterly felt throughout the whole creation. Yet are we sure that judgment has not come upon us to the uttermost. The world is dark enough to justify a very sad philosophy, and yet the regulations restrictive of evil, the restorative forces, the system of compensations, the wide spaces for positive pleasure which we find in nature and human life, show the world to be far from a condition of unmixed and hopeless evil. The fact is, the central truth of revelation, the redemption of the world by the Son of God, tells at every point.

II. GOD’S PROVIDENTIAL DEALINGS WITH HIS CHILDREN illustrate abundantly the same law of mercy. It is essential to the unlearning of our errors, and the perfecting of our spirit in holiness, that we should be familiar with tribulation; but it is deeply interesting to observe the various methods by which God reduces the whirlwind to a winnowing breeze.

1. Sometimes this is effected by educating us against the day of adversity. Most likely we are totally unaware of the process; it is only when we have passed through the ordeal that the discipline of years stands revealed. Then we perceive why our mind has been specially directed to given truths; why we have been led in prayer to seek special gifts and graces; why we have formed certain friendships and associations.

2. On other occasions the force of disaster is broken by the graduation of trial Is not this exemplified in the instance of Job? Successive messengers bring to the patriarch their sad tidings, but the crowning woe comes last. The same order has been observed in the sufferings of the Primitive Church. “So when they had further threatened them, they let them go” Acts 4:21). “And laid their hands on the Apostles, and put them in the common prison” (Acts 5:18). “When they had called the apostles and beaten them” (Acts 5:40). “And they stoned Stephen” (Acts 7:59). Menaces prepared them for captivity; fetters inured them for the scourge; the scourge ascertained their royalty, and left them strong enough to claim the martyr’s diadem.

3. Again, tribulation is often relieved by counterbalancing advantages. Be sure, where there is a “but” against us there are, as in the case of Naaman, several grand “buts” for us, and it will be most to our good to ponder these. In nature we constantly see this compensatory action--see the rod of God, like that of Aaron, breaking into flowers. Losing eyesight, our other faculties forthwith acquire preternatural acuteness.

4. In that law of sympathy which prevails throughout society we see once again the sword of judgment crossed by mercy’s sceptre. The sick and suffering are objects of special sympathy and succour. Macaulay writes of John Bunyan: “He had several small children, and among them a daughter who was blind, and whom he loved with peculiar tenderness. He could not, he said, bear even to let the wind blow on her.”

III. IN GOD’S SPIRITUAL KINGDOM AND GOVERNMENT we find our last illustration of the inspiring truth we seek to inculcate. In the kingdom of grace are special equivalents for life’s losses, special inspirations for the passage of flood and flame. In dark periods we acquire a special interest in the Word of God. Times of adversity bring out multitudes of precious promises, as night brings out the stars. And not only so, but in the bitter conflicts of life we gain a fuller, clearer vision of truth in general, and realise its peculiar preciousness. This fuller, richer apprehension of the mind and purpose of God imbues us with new, strange qualities, and the fire forgets its power to burn. In dark periods we also receive special measures of the grace of God. We must ever gratefully acknowledge the mercy which ameliorates the world about us and makes its conditions gentler; but we must hold firmly the truth that the rough wind is stayed in the day of His east wind, chiefly through the sanctification and exaltation of the human mind in Christ Jesus. Here we often err. We plead for the rectification and amelioration of circumstances; that our path may be smoother, our load lighter, our sky brighter, We are anxious for better health, improved trade, the restoration of friends, the reduction of life’s cares, griefs and losses. We want life tempering by making our environment less exhaustive; by adjusting the world more nearly to our weakness. But this is not God’s most approved method. He does not modify the universe about us so much as He raises the mind within us; giving us relief and victory in knowledge, power, faith, hope, love, and the joy which is inseparable from a soul so richly dowered, “In the day when I cried thou answeredst me and strengthenedst me with strength in my soul.” Lessons--

(1) We gain an affecting view of the love of God.

(2) We see in this a reason for submission and gratitude.

(3) We see the justification of confidence and quietness.

(4) Let us go forth again with renewed courage and hope.

It is generally allowed that Dante has pictured Inferno more ably than Paradiso; and the critics explain this on the ground that the poet’s gloomy genius made him more skilful in depicting a dark theme than a cheerful one. The measure of Dante’s genius is rare; the kind very common indeed. Most of us are clever at painting black pictures. (W. L. Watkinson.)

Troubles as storms

Troubles are compared in Holy Scripture to storms. As storms are not constant, not the normal state of the atmosphere, so troubles, except in some cases, are but occasional. As storms disturb the ordinary course of the elements, so troubles interfere with our usual mode of life, with our duties, with our joys, with all our habits. As storms are useful in the hand of the Great Ruler, so troubles fulfil the good purpose of the Divine will. As storms are not pleasant while they last, but promote discomfort, and awaken fear and apprehension, so troubles are not for the present joyous, but grievous. As storms are often destructive in their influence, so troubles break up and break down things that we would not have touched--precious things, hoarded things, cherished things, things upon which the eye and the heart rest, things which the hand grasps firmly, things in which we rest, and on account of which we rejoice. (S. Martin.)

Sorrows as winds

I. SORROWS ARE STRONG FORCES. They act as winds; they are forces before which we bend and bow.

II. SORROWS HAVE THEIR APPOINTED TIME. “In the day of the east wind.” There are certain winds that blow at particular seasons. Just so sorrows have their appointed times in a man’s life. There is a time to mourn. Blessed be God, in the life of Heaven’s children, sorrows have their day, their morning, their noon, and their night. They are here, and the day of their real dance may be long, but every hour of that day tells of the day’s approaching end when the trouble will be no more. Now, it occasionally happens that people in trouble say, “This affliction could not have come upon me at a worse time.” But that is never true, unless by any wilfulness you bring your own sorrows upon yourselves. If the trouble came at a time when you would not feel it at all, why, the trouble would be useless to you, and you would have to be placed in those circumstances again and again.

III. SORROWS ARE GOD’S SERVANTS. “He stayeth His rough wind in the clay of the east wind,” just because the winds are His. He holdeth them in His fist so long as He pleases to hold them--and then sendeth them forth from the hollow of His hand when He pleases to send them forth, and calleth them back into His own hand when He pleases to recall them. Just so is it with troubles. (S. Martin.)

The adaptation of trial to the state of the afflicted

I. ADAPTED BY WHOM. “He stayeth His rough wind,” etc. Adapted by the Almighty Father. If God could not adapt a rough wind to a feeble nature, He would not be almighty. The very omnipotence of God involves power to do the tender and the gentle.

II. ADAPTED TO WHAT.

1. The strength of the sufferer. There is no man who thoroughly knows his own strength--certainly not until it has been developed by circumstances. There are people who overrate it; and they will say to you that they can bear such and such a thing easily, and they look upon others, and they wonder that they should be bowed down by events of a certain class. They are placed in circumstances corresponding to those of their fellow men, and they find that their strength is absolute weakness. Other persons say, “Oh! I could never bear such a trial.” The former cannot do what he thinks he can do; the latter can do what he thinks he cannot do. Now God makes no such mistakes. He knows just what we are. “He knows our frame: He remembers that we are but dust.”

2. He moderates it, moreover, according to the work which has to be accomplished. Sometimes trouble is chastening. Then trouble is intended to do a preparatory work. Or there is something that a man has to do either down here or yonder--some work for which he is not educated--and God sends a trouble to educate the man. Now God moderates affliction according to the work to be accomplished. If there be a fault to be corrected, then the trouble must have great force in it--it must be rough in its character; whereas, if it be irately educational--just simply to bring out some dormant faculty--then it need not be rough in its character, but it requires to be longer continued.

3. Adapted to the time during which this work should be finished.

4. Adapted to the power and resources, moreover, of fellow sufferers--because in most cases others suffer with us; and you do not suppose that God does not look at the entire family when He sends sorrow unto that family.

III. HOW DOES GOD DO THIS? Sometimes by removing one trouble before another comes. By lightening the affliction itself, or by so strengthening the heart of the sufferer, that the affliction is relatively lighter, or by pouring through the soul of the troubled one rich and abundant consolation.

IV. FOR WHAT PURPOSE DOES GOD DO THIS? He does it for present peace and joy. Moreover, for your enduring benefit, and in manifestation of Himself to you as a tender Father, “He stayeth His rough wind in the day of the east wind.” Now this is the testimony of God concerning Himself; but it is also the testimony of God’s children concerning Him. Isaiah could say this from his own experience and observation; and he addressed the words of our text to those who could acknowledge them to be true. Now, tell this to one another. God intends you to comfort each other, as well as to instruct and edify one another. Then we say to others of you, be not afraid of the rough wind. Those of you who have not felt it will feel it. (S. Martin.)

A grand symbolic picture of the world

The critics find fault with Rubens’ picture of the Crucifixion--they say he has painted Golgotha like a garden where, you can scarcely see the skulls for the flowers. This may, perhaps, be a defective picture of Golgotha, but it is a grand symbolic picture of our world; the things of sadness, pain, and death being half-hidden by the flowers which mercy has caused everywhere to grow. (W. L.Watkinson.)

God’s thoughtfulness in imposing burdens

Let a ponderous weight drop suddenly on a machine, and the jerk brings it down with a crash; graduate the strain, and no harm is done. How easily the delicate mechanism of the moral man might be broken down! but whilst the engineer is imperfectly versed in “the theory of strains,” and often sadly miscalculates the “breaking point” of materials entering into his constructions, He who made us knows perfectly the strength and frailty of each, and with a faultless delicacy lays upon us the burdens of life. (W. L.Watkinson.)

Life’s roses and life’s thorns

In countless ways God makes His suffering people to know that if the roses of life bear thorns, the thorns of life also bear roses. (W. L. Watkinson.)

God’s angels--judgment and mercy

The Jewish tradition relates that after the Fall the two angels of God--judgment and mercy--were sent forth together to do their office upon the sinning but redeemed race, and together they act to this day. Where one afflicts, the other heals. Where one makes a rent, the other plants a flower. Where one carves a wrinkle, the other kindles a smile. Where one scowls a storm, the other spreads a rainbow. Where one poises the glittering sword, the other covers our naked head with succouring wing. It is ever thus. His tender mercies are over all that His hands have made, and although we have brought upon ourselves awful sorrows, yet He so administers the world that by countless devices He softens our lot and saves us from despair. (W. L. Watkinson.)

More affliction, more grace

Miss Havergal writes her mother: “More pain, dearest mother? May it be more support, more grace, more tenderness from the God of all comfort, more and more? May we not expect the ‘mores’ always to be in tender proportion to each other?” (W. L.Watkinson.)

The compensatory element in life

Plants of great splendour have usually little fragrance, and plants of much fragrance usually little colour; birds of brilliant plumage have no music, and musical birds little glory of feather; strong animals ordinarily lack speed, swift animals strength. Now that would be a very disordered state of things in which the brilliant plant ever grieved over its defect of sweetness, and the sweet flower its lack of colour; in which the bird of paradise should lament its vocalism, and the nightingale sigh over its plumes; in which the camel should fret its slowness, and the gazelle deplore its frailty. And yet this error is common to man. We look on the side of our limitations and bereavements, quite overlooking or undervaluing the particulars in which we are rich or strong. (W. L.Watkinson.)