Does God help those who help themselves?

The principle of the pool is that "God helps those who help themselves". But Christ shows that He helps a man who owns that he is utterly helpless. The power is in Christ; deliverance depends upon the Deliverer.

"It is not trying, but trusting, that saves. And the Bible does not say, 'The Lord helps those who help themselves.'"

Last of all here the good ship needs a covering, and the idea is, to protect it from the sun. The isles of Elishah furnish this in the purple colors, which speak of earthly dominion, whether this may refer to the powers of the world, whose protection she may fairly claim as servant to all their interests, or whether it refer to the claim of dominion on her own part, her power rooting itself so firmly as it does in the interests of the many. In the language of the day, she is abundantly insured in this way; but, whether it be the men or the measures by which she insures herself, how much its motto finds adoption in the principle held secretly, if not openly, that "God has forgotten." This seems to be the meaning of Elishah here; and is not this the secret of the abundant care which everywhere the world must take of itself? — that which the serpent taught man in Eden; and the question as to God once raised, man's hand is immediately lifted to pluck for himself the fruit, though forbidden. That "God helps those who help themselves" means, in the ear of faith, that God can be trusted no more.

We have now a prophecy of a wholly different character; it is a natural corollary of what we have had before us. Israel are now the people of God. But "was not Esau Jacob's brother?" It is God's own challenge to Israel in Malachi: "Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the Lord. Yet I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness. Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus saith the Lord of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the Lord hath indignation forever. And your eyes shall see, and ye shall say, The Lord will be magnified from the border of Israel" (Mal. 1:2-5). This is the question which comes up here, Esau was Jacob's brother. Were they so unlike each other after all? Was he not Jacob "the supplanter?" — the man with the hand upon the heel of his brother; the man always intent upon his own gain and little careful as to his means of acquirement; the man who believed in himself and who, if he cannot fully trust God, must act for himself? whose motto, "God helps those who help themselves" has had wide circulation. It is but the picture of a fallen being, and Jacob was such, we know. Are any of us different? We may take comfort then that God can yet say: "I loved Jacob!" Nay, that He can call Himself "The God of Jacob," which is but another way of saying, The God of grace. Jacob has another name, as we know, but that is what he is by the work of God, by that only. This "worm" Jacob can only by divine fashioning become a threshing instrument which shall "thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and make the hills as chaff ". (Isa. 41:15). Upon these two names, Jacob and Israel, God dwells in contrast all through their history. It is the history essentially of every soul that has learnt what divine grace is; as Esau's, on the other hand, is the history of a soul that has never learnt grace, and whose misery is this, not only that he has never learnt it, but resists it.

Beware, young believer, of proud thoughts. They are an abomination to God: "Be clothed with humility." You want God's help in the smallest matters, and He will not withhold it from the prayer of faith. At the bench or in the counting-house, at school or in household duties, seek aid from on high in all your difficulties, and you will find what resources there are in God for the prayerful soul. This will not encourage you in idleness for you must not suppose God will do for you what you yourself are too lazy to attempt. While you ought to pray as if everything depended on Omnipotence, you must also work as if all depended on yourself.

1889 366 In contending with Amalek there is as great a necessity for praying (ver. 11) as for fighting: one is the complement of the other — as much so as eating and drinking; and one will not suffice without the other, or we may drift either into the dreamy fatalism of the hermit, or else into the barren "perpetual motion" of the sensationalist. Cromwell's maxim about the powder is sound theology; and though his troops were often seen on their knees by their enemies, they found they were not on their knees to them; their enemies never had the advantage of seeing them with their backs turned, anyway. There is no antagonism between prayer and energy, trust and vigilance: true prayer will lead to energy; true energy will lead to prayerfulness. We should pray as if all depended on God, and fight as if all depended on us.

Further we have God on our side. We are told that He works IN what we should work OUT. He works in to will and to do of His good pleasure; in other words, He gives us the desire and the power to do His good pleasure. We can confidently appeal to young Christians, for God works in you these desires. Now it lies with you to work OUT what God works IN. What a blessed partnership.

This evidently is the simple meaning of this much used, and abused, verse. Can we not each apply it to ourselves? We certainly can if we will. So may God make us willing to do so. We need not shrink from doing so in view of verse 13. We are to work out our own salvation, but it is God who works in us, to the willing and doing of His good pleasure. Let us note that. God works the willing as well as the doing, and the willing comes first. Thus God's work and our work are considered as moving harmoniously together. God's work must ever take precedence of ours both as to time and importance. Yet the thing is not presented in a way that would turn us into fatalists. Rather our working is mentioned first, and the responsibility as to it is pressed upon us. The fact that God works is brought in as an encouragement and incentive.

The work, even in our hearts and lives as believers, is all God's work, yet we must not because of that drop into a kind of fatalism as though there were nothing for us to do. We must rather remember that it pleases God to use human means in connection with much of His working, and that He has ordained that the way to spiritual prosperity for each individual believer should be by means of that believer's own spiritual diligence. This is not surprising for it is quite in accord with what we see in natural things. In the book of Proverbs we have divine wisdom applied to natural things and there we read, "Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men." (Proverbs 22:29).

What matchless grace shines in the expressions, "to him that works not," and, "he that has no money!" They are as like God as they are unlike man. Salvation is as free as the air we breathe. Did we create the air? Did we mingle its component parts? No; but we enjoy it, and, by enjoying it, get power to live and act by Him who made it. So is it in the matter of salvation. We get it without a fraction, without an effort. We feed upon the wealth of another; we rest in the work finished by another; and, moreover, it is by so feeding and resting, that we are enabled to work for Him on whose wealth we feed, and in whose work we rest. This is a grand Gospel paradox, perfectly inexplicable to legality, but beautifully plain to faith. Divine grace delights in making provision for those who are "not able" to make provision for themselves.