- Overcomer Literature Trust
- Swindon
- Wiltshire
THE PLACE OF QUIET.
By H.C.G. Moule.
“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” (Psalm 121 v5-6).
“The Lord is your shade at your right hand.” The word shade appears here and elsewhere in Scripture to be used as another word for protection. In a land like Palestine, exposed to the fierce rays of the sun for a large part of the year, the thought of shade as a protection from the sun would naturally be expanded into the thought of protection in general. When the spies returned from their exploration of the land the people in their unbelief, alarmed at the report of the spies, cried out, ‘It is impossible to conquer Canaan’. Joshua and Caleb appealed to them to exercise faith and assured them that as far as the inhabitants of the land was concerned, ‘their protection is gone’. So it is often translated but in the Hebrew it is, ‘their shade has departed’. Their protection, under which they might otherwise have fought and conquered is gone, they are exposed, they are alone, in the name of God you will find them undefended as you attack.
No doubt there is some reference in the word shade here from sun-stroke, but assuredly the thought goes much further. It reminds us that from every point of view the Lord is our protection, at our right hand. Yes, in every kind of danger or assault, every need for protection, there He is to be our shield.
The shade is at your right hand. Why the right hand? Probably the defence on the right hand is spoken of with the thought that the right hand is our side of vigour and action. Accordingly the Lord places Himself there to be the protection and the power of His people in the activities of life. “Because He (the Lord) is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken' (Psalm 16 v8). Asaph, in Psalm 73 v23, realised that “I am always with You, You hold me by my right hand”. The Lord, the Almighty, becomes our arm, our right arm. He is not only our shelter and defence, under whom we may act, He is the power within us.
Then we come to verse 6 and the promise that the sun and moon shall not hurt those who trust. It is possible to read that verse, ‘The sun will not harm you by day, and there will be a moon by night’, as much as to say ‘You will have the sun by day, but without its fiery heat, and when the darkness of the night comes the moon, the wonderful Eastern moon, will be there to guide you’. He will keep you in the sunlight and in the moonlight.
We may take this as a parable of the spiritual dangers which may assail the pilgrim of the Lord. There is the sun, with its fiery arrows by day, but the dreaded sunstroke will not harm the traveller. He may be out in the open field of publicity and action with all that can assail him, but he will find cool shade in the shelter of the Lord. Then there may come what we can call life’s intervals of night, when sorrow falls on us, when we feel completely alone, when we have to contend with life’s chilly shadows and fitful light, yet we can know His guidance.
When the fiery sun of life beats hottest and you feel most alone, when the duties of life press on you and the pitiless world, in one form or another, invades your heart, “it will not harm you”. He will not forget, He will be sheltering you, around you, close to you. Faith, looking up, will not be disappointed. When the need is greatest, the help is closest, and the Lord’s shade deepest.
Let us take this to our hearts. God will adapt His keeping power to every detail and variation of the lives of His servants. He will never be taken by surprise. Does your case seem to be unique? It is not unprovided for by Him, and somewhere or other, as Peter says (1 Peter 5. 9), “your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings”. But even suppose that your case is indeed unique, your Keeper knows well how to meet what to you is unimagined and unforeseen. Day and night in your life, from end to end of it, and in every incident of the path, the Lord will be at your right hand.
“The Lord is your Keeper.” Realise the grandeur of what those five words mean. Look at the facts, ‘The Lord’ and you, and He is ‘your Keeper’. You want, you need, a ‘Keeper . You need, more even than you know, the One, as the original means, who is always watching that He may preserve you.
Often you have proved how your unready heart can be surprised. You understand too well how the expected and the unexpected can alike become a temptation. Some sudden fear, some sudden joy, some acute and critical trial, some long period of ease and rest, can all beset you. You know how terrible can be the power of circumstances around you, and how you can be defeated by the world, the flesh (that is to say, self) and the devil. You know, a little, what these powers of darkness can do and how urgently therefore you need watching, guarding and keeping by the Stronger than the strong. But you have Him! You actually have One who can take your weakness and put His strength between it and the assault. You have ‘at your right hand’ One who can come to the feeble will, so that you are held and shall not be moved. You have learned to lean against the Rock! You want One, and you have One, who can come and plant Himself in the very midst of the restless imagination and keep it quiet, pure and true.
Yes, He is competent and can subdue all things to Himself, because He is the Lord. You want One who can stand between you and the provocation, the bitter word, the unkind act, and there He is, and the fiery spark does not fall upon the tinder of your irritability, it is met by Him, it is quenched in that wonderful ‘shade at your right hand’.
He, who stands beside you knows how to do the impossible because He is the Lord. So, if you want to be at rest, contemplate Him. If you want to believe, consider Him. If you would have your faith grow you must look not at the faith but at the Lord. Every fresh sight of Him will be another reason to enjoy deep rest.
The message which comes to us is, “Only Believe“. This is the watchword of Christianity. From the earliest days of the Church the great motto has not been, ‘I will do’, but ‘I believe.’ In order to do I must believe, in order to conquer I must believe, in order to serve I must believe. I have a pathway to tread, a foe to meet and the sunstroke to avoid, then I will remember and believe.
The New Testament gives us a grand echo to this passage in the Psalm, it is 1 Peter 1 v5, “who through faith are shielded by God’s power”. Kept by the power of God, there is power enough then for the work. Kept by the power of God through faith, the reception of that power is the simplest act possible on my part, faith in the promise.
“The Lord is your keeper”. Lift up your eyes and accept the keeping power. Nothing less than the power of God is behind you, around you, beneath you and above you, everywhere and for everything. And it is all received through faith, through taking God at His word. So let us be of good cheer, walking in the Lord’s keeping power by faith, till we pass upwards into the eternal salvation which the Lord, the Keeper, keeps for the kept ones who are His.
From ‘Thy Keeper’.