Article December 12, 1914 Issue

God the Ever-present Help

ALBERT E. MILLER

In this day and hour, the broader recognition of God as "a very present help in trouble" is revealing in ever-increasing measure the power and majesty which appertain to Him; but remembering the declaration of Jesus that to know God aright is life eternal, yet seeing death and decay in all about them, men are beginning to realize how meager, after all, is their knowledge of Him who, as the psalmist affirmed, "healeth all thy diseases," as well as "forgiveth all thine iniquities."

Time and again, in seeking a panacea for their ills, mankind have learned the futility of trusting to material means for permanent cure. Materia medica has never ceased to be experimental: it is constantly revising its list of remedies and adopting new theories of disease entirely at variance with former ones. The vaunted medical discovery of today may be, and frequently is, thrown aside as worthless tomorrow. Notwithstanding all this, and perhaps because there seemed to be no other way of escape, the majority of mankind have continued to put their trust in drugs and physicians for deliverance from physical ills, giving them the benefit of the doubt, in case of failure, by ascribing it to the will of an inscrutable Providence.

It may well be asked why men go on trusting in a system whose fallibility is acknowledged even by its exponents. Why do they not instead turn to God in their hour of need, and appeal to Him for deliverance from physical as well as mental torment? Does not the Bible give assurance that "every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning"? The gift of bodily health, of wholeness or holiness, is truly a good and perfect gift, and assuredly it comes from above.

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