They mean the absolute promise from God of protection for His people
from _every_ evil. We are not to cut it down, not to say that it
applies absolutely in regard to the spiritual world, but that it does
not apply in regard to temporal things. Yes, it does entirely, only you
have to rise to the height of God's conception of what is good and what
is evil in regard to outward things, before you understand how
completely, and without qualification or deduction, this promise is
fulfilled to every man that puts his trust in Him. Of course, I do not
need to remind you, for your own lives will do so sufficiently, that
this hovering protector, this strong Shield, this Destroying Angel that
passes by our houses if the blood is on the threshold, does not
guarantee us any exemption from the common 'ills that flesh is heir
to.' We all know that well enough. But what does it guarantee? That all
the poison shall be wiped off the arrow, that all the evil shall be
taken out of the evil, that it will change its character, that if we
observe the conditions, the sharpest sorrow will come to us with this
written on it by the Father's hand, 'With My love to My child'; that
pain will be discipline, and discipline will be blessed. Ah! dear
friends! I am sure there are many of us that can set to our seals that
God is true in this matter, and that we have found that His rod does
blossom, and that our sorest sorrows have been our greatest mercies,
drawing us nearer to Him; 'Defending He will deliver, and passing over
He will preserve.'
III. And now let me remind you of the way by which we can make the
reality of these pictures ours.
You know that all the promises and prophecies of the Old Testament are
conditional, and that there are many of them that were never fulfilled,
and were spoken in order that they might not be fulfilled, if only the
people took warning. I wish folk would carry a little more consciously
in their minds that principle in interpreting them all, and in asking
about their fulfilment. Not only in regard to these ancient events, but
in regard to our individual experience, God's promises and threatenings
are conditional.
Take that first metaphor of the hovering mother-bird. Listen to this
expansion of it in one of the psalms: 'He shall cover thee with His
feathers, and under His wings shalt thou trust.' The word for _trust_
here means to 'fly into a refuge.' Can you not see the picture? A
little brood round the parent bird, frightened by some beast of prey,
or hovering hawk in the sky, and fluttering under its wings, and all
safe and huddled together there close against the warm breast, and in
amongst the downy feathers. 'Under His wings shalt thou trust.' Put
thou thy trust in God, and God is to thee the hovering bird, the broad
shield, the Angel that 'passes over.'
Take the other picture of the Passover night. Only by our individual
faith in Jesus Christ as our individual Saviour can we put the blood on
our door-posts so that the Destroying Angel shall pass by. So, if we
would have the sweetness of such words as these fulfilled in our daily
lives, however disturbed and troubled and sorrowful and solitary they
may be, the first condition is that under His wings shall we flee for
refuge, and we do so by trust in Him.
But having thus fled thither, we must continue there, if we would
continue under His protection. Such continuance of safety because of
continuous faith is possible only by continued communion. Remember our
Lord's expansion of the metaphor in His lament: 'How often would I have
gathered thy children together as a hen gathereth her chickens under
her wings, and ye would not.' We can resist the drawing. We can get
away from the shelter of the wing. We can lift up our wills against
Him. And what becomes of the chicken that does _not_ run to the
mother's pinions when the hawk is hovering? That is what becomes of the
man that stops outside the refuge in Christ, or that by failure of his
faith departs from that refuge. 'Ye would not; therefore your house is
left unto you desolate.' That house, in the Jerusalem which God
'defends,' is _not_ defended.
Another condition of divine protection is obedience. We need not expect
that God will take care of us, and preserve us, when we did not ask His
leave to get into the dangerous place that we find ourselves in. Many
of us do the converse of what the Apostle condemns, we begin 'in the
flesh,' and think we shall end 'in the Spirit'; which being translated
is, we do not ask God's leave to do certain things, to enter into
certain engagements or arrangements with other people, and the like,
and then we expect God to come and help us in or out of them. That is
by no means an uncommon form of delusion. You remember what Jesus
Christ said when the Devil tried to entice Him to do a thing of that
sort, by quoting Scripture to Him--'He shall give His angels charge
concerning Thee, to keep Thee in all Thy ways. Cast Thyself down. Trust
to the promise as a kind of parachute to keep Thee from falling bruised
on the stones of the Temple-court.' Christ's answer was: 'Thou shalt
not tempt the Lord thy God.' You will not get God's protection in ways
of your own choosing.
And so, brethren, 'all things work together for good to them that
love,' to them that trust, to them that keep close, to them that obey.
And for such the old faithful promise will be faithful and new once
more, 'Because He hath set His love upon Me, therefore will I deliver
Him'--that will be the summing up of our lives; 'and I will set Him on
high because He hath known My Name,' that will be the meaning of our
deaths.