God Keeps Us Safe /
God Keeps Us Safe Foundation Text— "Iam with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."
—Gn 28:15 (RSV) We all feel the need of being kept by a power outside of ourselves. Life is full of dangers to both soul and body, and we are most of the time too blind to see them. We are like little helpless, ignorant children, walking in strange pathways, and knowing nothing of the snares and pitfalls that await our unwary steps.
We have need to cry out continually with the Psalmist:
But my eyes are fixed on you, O Sovereign Lord; / in you I take refuge—do not give me over to death. / Keep me from the snares they have laid for me, / from the traps set by evildoers.
—Ps 141:8-9 And continually we have the Lord's answer:
For he will command his angels concerning you / to guard you in all your ways; / they will lift you up in their hands, / so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. / You will tread upon the lion and the cobra; / you will trample the great lion and the serpent.—Ps 91:11-13
16 / The Open Secret Then you will go on your way in safety, / and your foot will not stumble; / when you lie down, you will not be afraid; / when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet. / Have no fear of sudden disaster / or of the ruin that overtakes the wicked, / for the Lord will be your confidence / and will keep your foot from being snared.—Prv 3:23-26 The Lord is like a mother who holds the hand of her little child as they walk together, that she may keep it from falling over the snares that lie in its way. It is the mother holding the child that makes it safe, not the child holding the mother.
Notice the words "lift you up," illustrated by the infant in the mother's arms, safe because of her upholding. Its little frightened gasps when danger is near, do not make it any safer, for its safety consists in the fact that its mother holds it, and everything depends on whether she is able to keep it safe.
To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy.
—Jude 24 Mothers are not always able to keep their children from falling, but God is always able.
I, the Lord, watch over it; / I water it continually. /I guard it day and night / so that no one may harm it.—Is 27:3
Our hearts are like a garden open on every side to enemies who are pressing in to ravage and destroy; and there is no safety for us except in the keeping power of the Divine
Husbandman, who neither slumbers nor sleeps, and whom no enemy can either elude or conquer.
"Hear the word of the Lord, O nations; / proclaim it in distant coastlands: / 'He who scattered Israel will gather them / and will watch over his flock like a shepherd.'"—Jer 31:10
We are like the poor helpless sheep who have no armor against their enemies, and no wisdom to save themselves from
God Keeps Us Safe / 17 danger. But we have a Divine Shepherd to care for us, and therefore we need not fear.
For the Lord's portion is his people, / Jacob his allotted inheritance. / In a desert land he found him, / in a barren and howling waste. / He shielded him and cared for him; / he guarded him as the apple of his eye.—Dt 32:9-10
Nothing is dearer to a man or more tenderly cared for than the apple of his eye. And since we are to the Lord "as the apple of his eye," we must be sure of the tenderest divine keeping.
Show the wonder of your great love, / you who save by your right hand / those who take refuge in you from their foes. / Keep me as the apple of your eye; / hide me in the shadow of your wings. / from the wicked who assail me, / from my mortal enemies who surround me.—Ps 17:7-9 The mother hen keeps her little chickens under the shadow of her wings, and so will the Lord keep us, if we will let him.
But this is a very large "if?" What would we think of a little chicken which should stand off by itself, trembling with fright when danger was near, and saying, "I am not worthy to go under my mother's wing. Iam too little, and too weak, and too insignificant. I must wait to go under until I am stronger and more worthy of her love?" Would not the mother hen have answered such a foolish little chicken by saying, "It is just because you are little and weak that I am spreading out my wings to cover you, and am clucking for you to come. If you were grown large and strong I would not want you. Your littleness and your weakness are your claim to my care."
Is there nothing in this parable to teach us a lesson?
He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High / will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. / I will say of the Lord, "he is my refuge and my fortress, / my God, in whom I trust." / Surely he will save you from the fowler's snare / and from the deadly pestilence. / He will cover you with his feathers, / and under his wings you will find refuge; / his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. /
18 / The Open Secret You will not fear the terror of night, / nor the arrow that flies by day.—Ps 91:1-5 (6-10) Have we never said, or at least thought, that we were too weak and unworthy to make the Lord our refuge; and have we not sometimes in our secret hearts planned to seek this refuge when we should feel ourselves more worthy of entering it?
My help comes from the Lord, / the Maker of heaven and earth. / He will not let your foot slip— / he who watches over you will not slumber; / indeed, he who watches over Israel / will neither slumber nor sleep. / The Lord watches over you—/ the Lord is your shade at your right hand; / the sun will not harm you by day,
/ nor the moon by night. / The Lord will keep you from all harm— / he will watch over your life; / the Lord will watch over your coming and going / both now and forevermore.
—Ps 121:2-8 This Psalm might be called the Bible Keep. The Keep in an ancient castle was always the strongest and best protected room in the Castle, the one which could be the last reached by any enemy. In this Keep all the sick and weak and helpless inmates of the Castle were hidden in every time of danger. The qualification for entrance was simply and only, need and weakness. How foolish then it would have been for any to have made their weakness the reason for remaining outside! And yet how continually is this done towards the Lord's Keep.
The Lord protects the simplehearted; / when I was in great need, he saved me. / Be at rest once more, O my soul, / for the Lord has been good to you. / For you, O Lord, have delivered my soul from death, / my eyes from tears, / my feet from stumbling.
—Ps 116:6-8 It is the simple, the weak, those who are "brought low" whom the Lord preserves.
Notice the fact that this Divine Keeper never slumbers nor sleeps, and therefore never neglects those for whom he cares.
Think of the fatal consequences of neglect on the part of
God Keeps Us Safe / 19 keepers ofa prison, or keepers ofa flock of sheep, or keepers of a vineyard on a frosty night, or sentinels keeping a dangerous outpost, and show by contrast what sort of a Keeper our Lord is.
We all realize the responsibilities of the human keeper to whose care anything has been committed. When anything is given to ourselves to keep, we feel that we must care for that thing in preference to our own, if there is any choice. And from these high ideals of responsibility in our own case we may learn what our Divine Keeper must necessarily do.
I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name—the name you gave me—so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.
—Jn 17:11-12 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.—Jn 6:38-39 We may therefore commit ourselves with the utmost confidence to the keeping of the Lord our Keeper.
So then, those who suffer according to God's will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.—1 Prt 4:19
For our Creator is our Keeper. And he is a faithful Creator.
Men whom we trust often prove unfaithful, but he never! And if we are grieved when doubts are felt of our faithfulness to any trust committed to us, how much more must he.
This is what God the Lord says— / he who created the heavens and stretched them out, / who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it, / who gives breath to its people, / and life to those who walk on it: / "I, the Lord, have called you in
20 / The Open Secret righteousness; / I will take hold of your hand. / I will keep you and will make you / to be a covenant for the people / and a light for the Gentiles—Is 42:5-6 (2 Thes 3:3) Therefore Paul could say:
That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet Iam not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day.—2 Tm 1:12
If we know him, we can not fail to trust him. No one who knows him ever did yet. And this after all is the true secret of confidence—knowledge of the trustworthiness of the one to be trusted. We act on this in our earthly affairs, and are never so silly as to look inside ourselves to see whether we can or ought to trust another. We look at that other instead, and try to find out his character and his ways. But in their intercourse with the Lord many act on an entirely different principle. They look at themselves for a warrant and ground of trust, instead of at him. They behold self and its untrustworthiness, and are filled with doubts and despair. Whereas a single soul-look at him will fill us with perfect peace, because of Ais utter trustworthiness.
You will keep in perfect peace / him whose mind is steadfast, / because he trusts in you.—Is 26:3
Emphasize the words "perfect peace," and illustrate them by the peace that comes when we have entrusted any precious thing to safe-keeping. A bank for instance. Think how we are continually trusting banks, and how comfortable we feel when we have transferred our money from our own keeping to that of some safe bank. Illustrate what trust in God ought to be, by the nature of our trust in the bank. Show the folly of doubt, by the folly of every hour running back to the bank to see if our money is safe. And, by the indignation of the bank officers at such a course, show how our doubts and fears must grieve our
God.
God Keeps Us Safe / 21 Our part in this divine keeping is threefold, as it alwaysis in every stage of the spiritual life. We must yield, and trust and obey.
How great is your goodness, / which you have stored up for those who fear you, / which you bestow in the sight of men / on those who take refuge in you. / In the shelter of your presence you hide them / from the intrigues of men; / in your dwelling you keep them safe / from the strife of tongues.—Ps 31:19-20 (Ps 25:20)
There can be no keeping without yielding and trusting. In the very nature of things, a keeper must have that which he is to keep, entrusted utterly to his care.
Neither can there be any keeping without obedience.
My son, keep your father's commands / and do not forsake your mother's teaching. / Bind them upon your heart forever; / fasten them around your neck. / When you walk, they will guide you; / when you sleep, they will watch over you; / when you awake, they will speak to you. / For these commands are a lamp, / this teaching isa light, / and the correction of discipline / are the way to life, / keeping you from the immoral woman, / from the smooth tongue of the wayward wife.
—Prv 6:20-24 (Prv 4:4-6; Dt 7:11-12) If we would be kept, we must be guided, and must follow that guidance.
It was the Lord our God himself who brought us and our forefathers up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we traveled.—Josh 24:17 (Ex 23:20; Dt 8:2-6)
We are tempted to think that it is not true keeping unless it is in our own way and according to our own ideas. But our Lord himself has taught us that it must be in God's way and not our own, or it would not be true keeping at all.
The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw
22 / The Open Secret yourself down from here. For it is written:
"He will command his angels concerning you / to guard you carefully; / they will lift you up in their hands, / so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'"
Jesus answered, "It says: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.""—Lk 4:9-12 Only God, who knows the end of things from the beginning, can keep us, and if he shall seem to leave us to the will of our enemies for a time, it is only that he may bring us to a grander victory in the end.
{For weare not to be taken out of the world and its trials, but are to be kept in the midst of them, and are to be preserved from the evil that is in them.| Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come upon the whole world to test those who live on the earth.
—Rv 3:10 (Jn 17:15; Pt 1:5-7) The divine pathway by which we may enter this heavenly keep, even while here on earth, is plainly set before us.
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.—Phil 4:6-7
We must give up all care of our own, by an utter surrender of everything to the Divine Caretaker, and by an implicit trust in him; and then must just simply let him know our wants and our needs from day to day. And if this is honestly done, and persisted in steadfastly, the result will unfailingly be, that the peace of God will keep the hearts and minds of all who thus commit themselves and all they have to his care.
I remember once hearing of a man who thought he could not live unless he kept himself alive. He was afraid his breath would stop if he did not keep it going by his own efforts, and he tried so hard to keep breathing, that he nearly strangled himself in the struggle. His family in great alarm called in a
God Keeps Us Safe / 23 physician, who, seeing at once the difficulty, called out to him peremptorily to stop trying to breathe. "I shall die if I do," gasped out the poor man. "Die then," exclaimed the doctor,
"but STOP!" The man, overborne by the voice of authority, obeyed, and the moment he stopped trying to breathe, his breath came easily and without effort.
Just so it is with some Christians. They are trying to keep themselves alive, and their life is nearly strangled in the effort.
If they would but give up trying to live, and would let Christ keep them alive, they would find themselves living easily and without effort.
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