Worm Jacob!

(John MacDuff, "Help for the Feeble") LISTEN to audio!

(You will find it helpful to listen to the audio above, as you read the text below.)

Isaiah 41:14, "Do not be afraid, O worm Jacob! O little Israel, for I Myself will help you! declares the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.

Worm Jacob!

What weakness!

    What insignificance!

        What unworthiness!

Yet it is this helpless, groveling "worm," that receives God's sympathy, and has the assurance of His almighty aid.

Believer, beaten down it may be, with a great fight of affliction; or trembling under a sense of your unworthiness and guilt; mourning . . .
  the coldness of your faith,
  the lukewarmness of your love,
  the frequency of your backslidings,
  the fitfulness of your best purposes,
  and  the feebleness of your best services
—your God draws near to you. He remembers that though you are a worm, still you are "worm Jacob!" His own beloved one.

"I Myself will help you!" Yes, poor, weak, trembling one; the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One, loves to draw near to His redeemed people in the extremity of their weakness.

"I Myself will help you" is enough for all the emergencies of the present, and all the contingencies of an untried, and, it may be, a dark future!

"My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth!" Psalm 121:2