Affliction as a deliverer.
Elihu says that God delivers the afflicted by his affliction. We have been accustomed to look on affliction as an evil, from which some deliverer may set us free. Elihu startles us with a very different view of it. In his opinion the affliction is itself a deliverer.
I. AFFLICTION IS NOT THE GREATEST EVIL. In our selfish cowardice we look for some escape from pain, as though that were our supreme foe. But sin is worse than suffering—more hurtful, more objectionable in itself. Any escape from trouble that leaves wickedness untouched is no salvation; but any process, however painful, that frees us from the power of sin is salvation.
II. AFFLICTION MAY BE NO EVIL AT ALL. In itself, of course, it is undesirable. But its "peaceable fruits of righteousness" may be so wholesome and profitable that, on the whole, the affliction must be accounted a good thing. We should judge of any experience by its results, not by its passing phases. We have to learn that the pain that blesses is really itself a blessing. The black cloud that brings a refreshing shower is not a threatening storm. The spur that drives us from the desert where we would perish to the streams of living water is not a cruel instrument of torture. The heavy blow that awakens us when we are sleeping in the snow the sleep that would end in death is nothing less than an angel of mercy.
III. AFFLICTION MAY BE A REAL DELIVERER. We have now to ask how this paradox can be true.
1. By humbling pride. When all is well we are tempted to be self-sufficient and self-satisfied. But in suffering we are cast low, and then our lowliness may be our salvation.
2. By inducing thought. We let the happy hours glide by in careless ease, dreaming life away. Trouble arouses us with a trumpet-blast. It odes, "Awake! Think!"
3. By revealing sin. In our humility and our reflectiveness we are led to a consciousness of sin.
4. By driving us to God. We need most of all to be delivered from ourselves and to be brought back to God. The utter helplessness of great trouble urges us in this direction.
IV. AFFLICTION DELIVERS FROM ITSELF. It is its own deliverer when it is rightly received.
1. The right reception of it overcomes its bitterness. There is no such victory over pain as the capacity to endure it with equanimity. We are more delivered from an evil when the thing we have regarded as evil ceases to hurt us than when we only escape from its clutches.
2. The patient endurance of it brings it to an end. When God sees that his scholar has learnt the desired lesson, he can close the book. No more of the scorching lines need be spelt out with tearful eyes. The student has graduated. Henceforth he is free from the old drudgery. Therefore the true way to escape from dreaded suffering which God sends as discipline is not to murmur against it, but to make the best use of it, in order that, being purified by fire, we may become vessels fit for the King's use.—W.F.A.