I. THE PREVALENCE OF TROUBLE IN THIS WORLD OF SIN. "That day" was the day of national disaster, and, therefore, of individual distress. In the more settled and durable condition of modern times and Western lands, we are much less liable to suffer from this particular cause. But civilization brings its own perils and its own troubles, and while sin lasts "the day" of sorrow will be continually recurring. How many are the sources whence it may spring! Pecuniary embarrassment; disappointment; the loss of kindred or friends, or (what is worse) the loss of their love and their friendship; humiliation; ill health, and the fear of sudden removal from those who are clinging, and perhaps dependent; a sense of guilt before God; a sense of defeat as a Christian aspirant or Christian workman, etc.

II. GOD'S PURPOSE IN SENDING IT.

1. God does send it. (See Amos 3:6.) He directly inflicts it, or he furthers it in his Divine providence, or, at the least, he permits it (see, also, Matthew 10:29).

2. He sends it to draw us to himself.

(1) To withdraw us from the inferior and the untrustworthy objects; that a man may "not look to the altars, the work of his hands;" that we may discover, what we are so slow to learn, that all human help and all earthly securities are insufficient and unavailing; that these things of our own devising and constructing, which our fingers have made, break down in the time of our distress, and leave us "naked to our enemies."

(2) To draw us to the mighty and the holy One. Our Maker will not want the power to redeem us. The Holy One of Israel will not fail to sanctify to us the evil he has sent us. He draws us to himself that, at his throne of grace, in sacred fellowship with him, we may be drown to penitence, to trustfulness, to prayerfulness, to the consecration or the rededication of our lives to his service. - C.

I. TO RECALL THEIR WANDERING HEARTS TO HIMSELF. "A man will look to his Maker —

1. With a suppliant eye, to find in Him sources of consolation and a rock of defence such as the world cannot furnish (Psalm 123:1, 2; Jonah 2:1).

2. With a penitent eye (Luke 22:62; Zechariah 12:10).

3. With a confiding and believing eye (chap. 8:17).

4. With a rejoicing eye (Romans 5:11; Habakkuk 3:18).

II. TO RAISE THEIR ESTIMATE OF THE HOLINESS OF THE DIVINE CHARACTER AND THE RECTITUDE OF THE DIVINE DISPENSATIONS. "Shall have respect unto the Holy One of Israel."

III. TO SEPARATE THEM FROM ALL SINFUL AND IDOLATROUS DEPENDENCES. "He shall not look," etc.

IV. TO ENDEAR THE MERCY THAT MINGLES WITH THE TRIALS. This appears —

1. In the moderate degree in which God's people are corrected, compared with the final and exterminating judgments which fall upon the wicked. Damascus was to be utterly destroyed (ver. 1), but a remnant was to be left to Israel (ver. 5). God's people always see that He has afflicted them less than they deserve (Lamentations 3:22).

2. In the alleviations of their trials.

3. In the triumphant issue of the whole.

(S. Thodey.)