The Biblical Illustrator
Psalms 47:9
The shields of the earth belong unto God:
God’s shields
“The shields of the earth,” all veritable protectives, are the property of God, and are of His creation.
But why do I require a shield? What are my perils and foes? The fire of passion. The sharp gnawing tooth of care. The dull, heavy pressure of monotony. The burden of apparently unrequited toil. The slug of sloth. The moth of indifference. The rust of contempt. The awful weight of accumulating years. If I am to be protected against these perils I require varieties of shields, and “the shields of the earth belong unto God.” He has shields for every type of peril; there is no unprotected corner which has been overlooked by our Lord. Our perils change their guise with our changing seasons, and the gradient of our age. In youth we frequently find our antagonism in “the lust of the flesh.” Against this all-consuming passion we require a shield I In our prime “the lust of the flesh” changes into “the lust of the eyes,” and perhaps matures into “the pride of life.” Passion is converted into acquisitiveness, and acquisitiveness refines itself into vanity. If we are to resist these fatal fascinations we require a shield. In age we are imperilled by our disillusions. The unaccomplished purpose becomes a snare. The radiant ideal seems no nearer achievement, and our poor attainments look upon us with confounding mockery. Then are we prone to become sour and crabbed, and life may pass into an impoverishing loneliness. If we are to be guarded against these perils we need a shield! And right through our life, from early youth to extreme old age, our course lies through perils of over-changing variety. With these environments of continuous danger, what shall we do? We must seek for an adequate shield, and “the shields of the earth belong unto God.” Let us leek at two or three of them.
I. The shield of good spirits. We often say of a man, “His good spirits were his salvation.” There was a certain cheery radiancy of spirit about his life. He was possessed by unfailing cheer and geniality, lie saw everything through his own warmth. His warmth was his shield, and by it he was delivered from a thousand snares. Where did he get his warmth? “The shields of the earth belong unto God.” I have often known men who have been passing through a November season of life in which other people have found nothing but coldness and gloom, but their life has been so possessed by the spirit of geniality, that the bird-song had never seemed to be silent, and the atmosphere was always redolent of the spring. Charles Kingsley passed through many a November season; trials and persecutions were not absent from his day, and yet his good spirits were always abounding, and by his good spirits the gloom was always illumined. Where do these people get their good spirits? They get them from the Lord. Just outside Buda Pesth there is now a spring of continuous hot water, which is practically supplying the needs of an entire population. Boring has been continued to the depth of five thousand feet, and the genial spring has been unloosed. Is not this parabolic? If we want the genial springs, we must go to the requisite depths; we must not be surface characters, or our waters will be chilled in the first day of a cold November. We must bore deep. We must reach as far as God, and when we come into communion with Him, tits water shall be in us a “well of water springing up into everlasting life.”
II. The shield of holiness. The pure allures the pure and resists the impure. But the life must be scrupulously pure! It must be healthy. Our imperfect consecrations are our perils; they are like ridged and wrinkled surfaces in which uncleanness easily hides. Holiness will not take stains. Lay your unclean finger upon soft and unfinished porcelain, and it will take the impress of your defiling touch. But lay your finger upon the shining, finished, perfected ware, and the substance will not take the stain. The virus which is inoculated for the prevention of small-pox frequently “does not take”; the body is so healthy that it affords no foothold for the invader! And surely that is what we need in the spirit! We require a spirit so healthy that evil suggestions will not “take.” “Let integrity and uprightness preserve me.” That is the shield we require! How can we get it? We shall have to get away unto the Lord, and in deep humility of spirit pray that He will communicate unto us His own saving health.
III. The shield of faith. “The shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one.” What are the perils? “Darts”--sharp, sudden, fierce experiences; “fiery darts”--sharp experiences that come to us in heat; “fiery darts of the evil one”--sharp experiences in the nature of sinful temptations that come to us in the feverish moments of our life. They are provocatives to temper, impatience, rashness, and sinful pique. What do we need as our protective? “The shield of faith.” Faith gives quietness. “Let not your heart be troubled, believe!” Where belief is settled, the heart is delivered from distraction, and remains in fruitful peace. Faith gives collectedness. Our powers are no longer a turbulent mob, but a deliberative assembly. A man is not “all sixes and sevens,” he is a living unit, all his powers co-operating in gracious harmony. This is the shield we require. Where can we get it? We must go to the Lord our Saviour, and in simplicity of spirit we must urge upon Him the prayer of the disciples of old, “Lord, increase our faith.” (J. H. Jowett, M. A.)
The law of protection
The text has a special appropriateness for troublous times, and in troublous times the Church has often remembered and verified it. When threatened and terrified, hunted and harried, made the victim of earthly tyranny, the object of earthly assaults, the Church has discovered that just where the earthly danger was, there also was the earthly shield--raised up, brought near, and made available by Him who is the Sovereign of the earth, for the assistance of His cause and the safe-keeping of His people.
I. The shield political is in the hand of God. We refer to the protecting influence of good government. What an unspeakable, yet often forgotten, blessing is the blessing of a civilized and enlightened constitution, considered simply as a shield! It is the principle and the pride of good government like our own that it aims at the throwing of its protecting screen over strong and weak, rich and poor alike, seeking to deal open and even-handed justice to all, without favour and without fear. Well, the shield political is in the hand of God. It is He who appoints it, maintains it, and directs it as need arises or danger demands. What is the practical lesson? For one thing, let there be recognition of God’s power and gratitude for God’s goodness in extending such a shield, so near, so ample, so strong; thus setting our lines in pleasant places, and appointing us a goodly heritage. Let there be prayer for God’s blessing, that those who compose that shield, the living minds that plan, the living hands that execute, may lend themselves more and more to the influence of a Christian spirit and the accomplishment of Christian ends.
II. The shield domestic is in the hand of God. We refer to the protective influence of a pious home. Home is home, indeed, only when it surrounds the growing boy or girl with a whole investiture of pure and affectionate influences--kind deeds, kind words, kind thoughts--and thus forms a quiet pavilion, where the young life can feel itself safe. Let parents grudge no pains, spare no expedients, that tend to the maintenance of this feeling, and the drawing and the keeping of their children together under the shadow of that safeguard which we call home. And let all, whether parents or children, remember that, like other shields, the shield of a happy Christian home is in the hand of God. It is God who erects it. It is God who keeps it together. Therefore, in all that pertains to our home, let God have the guidance, and let God have the glory.
III. Shields social are in the hands of God. Here we pass to another protective influence of life, and note the preserving power of helpful and beneficent institutions. We live in an age of organizations. They are with us upon every hand--organizations philanthropic, moral, religious. We have our societies for the promotion of health, the diffusion of literature, the increase of temperance, the preservation of purity. And all these are shields, or are meant to be shields, for the young, the innocent, the feeble, the tempted, and the penitent. The point we should always notice is this, that they are shields in the hand of God. The fact is suggestive of two things we do well to keep constantly in mind.
1. Such safeguards owe their origin to Divine revelation. Philanthropy springs from the plains of Galilee, where the Saviour fed the hungry and healed the ailments of the multitude.
2. They owe their efficiency to Divine grace. A white cross will not keep a man pure; again, it is only a symbol and expression: what will save and preserve him is the same grace of God.
IV. Shields physical are in the hands of God. Among the protecting influences of life there is the influence of the powers and processes of natural law. Think of these influences in their broadest and most general sense as a protection and a benefit to the race at large. How wonderfully force balances force, and principle supplements or cheeks principle!--the great and grand resultant being the safety and stability of the natural order we belong to, and the safety and stability of ourselves in the midst of it. Let us believe in a Providence that keeps the feet of the saints, and, if necessary for the keeping of them, can make nature itself a minister of grace. A friend writes thus in a letter: “Did I tell you of my escape from drowning last year in Derwentwater, after my return from Brittany? My canoe upset. But angels that remove some stones out of the way can place other stones in it when needful. So was I preserved!”
V. Shields spiritual are in the hands of God. Let us select, as our last illustration, the protection afforded by the prayers and the presence of the saints. It is a fruitful and inspiring thought! For as the supplications of the saints go up, from the public assembly, from the household hearth, from the solitude and secrecy of private chambers and private hearts, for a race beset by sorrow and defiled by sin, they interpose a real and a solid barrier between those interceded for and the dangers that surround. Tim world owes more to them than it knows. Why is anger restrained? Why is chastisement delayed? Often for the saints’ sake. May He in whose hand are the shields of the earth continue this shield, the shield of earnest and faithful intercession, till those that are sheltered beneath its shadow make their peace with Himself, and become intercessors in their turn! (W. A. Gray.)