- Save the Afflicted
Psalm 18.27
For thou wilt save the afflicted people;
But wilt bring down high looks.
God promises to save the afflicted from whatever they are afflicted with; and He will save the afflicted from those who afflict them. When we are afflicted by anything for any reason we only need to look to this promise from God: He will save the afflicted people. When we are afflicted we are more likely to turn to the Lord for help and salvation than when we are smug and secure in our own right. God loves all people and would save everybody, but those who are smug with “high looks” do not need help and do look to the Lord for salvation. But God loves the high and mighty, too, and so He brings them down and afflicts them, in order that they might call on the Lord and that they might receive His Salvation. Poverty of spirit is willinging to receive a gift. Psalm 34:19: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.” James 2:5: “Hath not God chosen the poor of the world to be rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to those who love him?”
The old saying used by preachers who remind themselves to preach Law and Gospel goes like this: “The Word of God comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable.” The proper distinguishing of Law and Gospel is to know when and to whom the Law or the Gospel should be preached. And I individually need to know when I need to apply one or the other particularly to my own heart. There are seasons when I feel pretty comfortable and at ease, smug and on top of the world: those times I need to hear the Law to bring me down to repentance in dust and ashes, to let the Law afflict me with guilt and shame and fear that I might repent and turn to the Lord for Salvation. There are other seasons when I feel down, blue, and afflicted with guilt and weakness and despair and in need of help: those times I need to hear the Gospel to lighten my spirit, lift my burden, fill by heart with joy, forgive my sins and save me from my afflicted feeling.
God always resists the proud and hates pride in anyone. He will correct it in His people and punish it in His enemies. His threat will always come true: he that exalts himself shall be abased; “He will bring down high looks.” The humility of Christ subdued the pride of Satan; my very salvation depends on the outcome of that contest between these two principles in my heart.
True happiness and the joy of life in part comes from knowing the difference: when I need Law or Gospel; affliction or comfort; salvation or conviction; repentance or faith. Either time, the point is always the same: to save the afflicted people; two different and contradictory “words from God” have the same purpose, salvation. God’s wisdom will be shared with us so that we will know when and how to appropriate the promise at the right time.