Lenten Midweek Sermon 4 - When in the Hour of Deepest Need - 2020

Stanzas 1, 2, 2.2:

When in the hour of deepest need

We know not where to look for aid;

When days and nights of anxious thought

No help or counsel yet have brought,

Then is our comfort this alone

That we may meet before Your throne;

To You, O faithful God, we cry

For rescue in our misery.

To You we raise our hearts and eyes,

Repenting sore with bitter sighs,

And seek Your pardon for our sin

And respite from our griefs within.

Homily 1:

Early in Paul Eber’s life (the author of our hymn this evening), while away at an academic high school, he became seriously ill and had to return home. On his way home he was thrown from his horse, but still tied to it, and so he was dragged behind it for more than a mile, leaving him permanently disabled. 

Eber wrote many hymns and sermons, and this particular hymn was written in his latter years. Appended to this hymn on the original broadsheet is this sentence: “Paul Eber wrote this hymn in the year 1566, when the Turks raged in Hungary and the pestilence in this our region.” 

Numerous other stories exist regarding this particular hymn; times when towns and villages were under siege, when buildings were burning and life was seemingly ending for many people, in the midst of grave tragedies the people sang this hymn. They had nowhere else to turn, death and despair seemed imminent, so they turned to the Lord in prayer through this hymn.

Paul Eber modeled this hymn after the prayer of Jehoshaphat, and intended it to be a musical version of 2 Chronicles 20. When Judah was surrounded by three of its enemies, with nowhere to turn, no hope of survival, what did the people do? “Judah assembled to seek help from the Lord.” In the midst of this great assembly of people, gathered before the temple, king Jehoshaphat cried out in prayer to God: “If disaster comes upon us, the sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we will stand before this house and before you—for your name is in this house—and cry out to you in our affliction, and you will hear and save… We are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”

Dear Christian friends, in the midst of this, our modern pestilence, we are in similar straits which have been experienced by a host of Christians who have gone before us. We are not in uncharted waters. While this may be the first time we’ve personally experienced something like this, it’s not the first time the church has faced heartbreak. Actually, when we’re in our hour of deepest need, and we know not where to look for aid; when days and nights of anxious thought no help or counsel yet have brought; now, at this time, we Christians are in our element! We know where to look! 

While the world looks to man, to scientists, doctors, and rulers, to quarantines and shutdowns, and cowers in their homes afraid to go out because of their fear of death, we Christians know exactly where to look and what to do. “Then is our comfort this alone that we may meet before Your throne; to You, O faithful God, we cry for rescue in our misery.” 

While the world is praying to governors and scientists, hoping man will find a cure, we Christians raise our hearts and eyes to God, repenting sore with bitter sighs. We seek from God pardon for our sin and respite from our grief within! 

Stanzas 3, 4, 5

For You have promised, Lord, to heed

Your children’s cries in time of need

Through Him whose name alone is great,

Our Savior and our advocate.

And so we come, O God, today

And all our woes before You lay;

For sorely tried, cast down, we stand,

Perplexed by fears on ev’ry hand.

O from our sins, Lord, turn Your face;

Absolve us through Your boundless grace.

Be with us in our anguish still;

Free us at last from ev’ry ill.

Homily 2:

The story of Jehoshaphat is an incredible one! The Israelites didn’t lift a finger to fight their enemies, all they did was pray and sing. God fought for them and turned their enemies against one another, so that the three armies all killed each other. God rescued them from their misery! God promises the same for us.

He promises to hear us, His children, in our time of need. He is our Savior, our advocate, He looks out for us and defends us against all evil. He promises to preserve His people, even when the bloodshed and pestilence is great, even when the world is cowering in their closets, He promises to hearken unto our cries for mercy.

Do not cower and do not fear, stop praying to doctors and governors, and come to God this day and all your woes before Him lay! If you're sorely tired and cast down, perplexed by fears on every hand, turn your face to God and look to Him alone for mercy. His eyes are ever on us, and yet He has turned His face away from our sin! He absolves us through His boundless grace. If God has so forgiven our sins, which are a much greater pestilence than any virus, then so will He be with us in our anguish and free us from every ill of body and soul, including our pestilence.

Stop cowering dear Christian; do not fear! Tell Satan and his demons of anxiety to be gone! Rather follow the example of Judah and Jehoshaphat, go to the house of the Lord, pray to God and implore His mercy, repent of your sins, beg for forgiveness, and then sing! While Jehoshaphat and all the people bowed their faces to the ground, “the Levities stood up to praise the Lord, the God of Israel, with a very loud voice.”

Hear me, you Christians and inhabitants of Iowa! “Believe in the Lord your God, and you will be established; believe His prophets, and you will succeed.” Go against this pestilence and sing to the Lord and praise Him in holy attire! “Give thanks to the Lord, for His steadfast love endures forever!” Let us, the church, learn again what it means to sing in the face of death like Judah and Jehoshaphat, like Paul and Silas, like the martyrs being led to the lions; let us learn to sing with all our hearts and each day to God our glad thanksgiving pay! While the world cowers in darkness, we will sing of the light of Christ; while the world hoards bread, we will feast upon the bread of life; while the world looks to scientists, we will look to God.

Stanza 6

So we with all our hearts each day

To You our glad thanksgiving pay,

Then walk obedient to Your Word,

And now and ever praise You, Lord.