1 Samuel 25:29

God's Jewel-Case

Bound in the bundle of life (RVm “the living”) with the Lord thy God. 1 Samuel 25:29.

Where do you keep you treasures? Have you a special “hidey hole” that nobody knows of but yourself? Have you a box with a real lock and key?

Have you perhaps a cash-box, a miniature copy of the one in father's office? Or have you a little jewel-case with divisions and a velvet lining, exactly like the one in which mother keeps her brooches and rings?

I know you have something. For everybody has his or her special treasure holder. It may be anything from the foot of an old stocking to a magnificent fireproof steel safe with the latest lock. But whatever it may be, you trust it to keep your treasures safe.

Have you ever seen the kind of bag in which an Oriental ties up his precious belongings? It is a very primitive safe indeed, for it is just a piece of woven silk, sometimes only a scrap of common yellow cotton. It is gathered up in the form of a bag and then it is carefully whipped round the neck with a length of string. If the owner wishes to make it more secure he puts a seal on the string. That is the Oriental purse or jewel-case. It is not unlike the bag you make with your handkerchief when you gather wild fruit by the wayside and have no basket in which to carry it home.

That Eastern bag or bundle is our text this morning. For when Abigail wished that the soul of David might be “bound in the bundle of the living” with the Lord his God, she just meant that she wished his life might be in God's safe-keeping, like a precious jewel safely stored.

Some wise people tell us that there was an ancient belief that the soul could be separated from the body and locked up safely at home while its owner was abroad. Perhaps the Hebrews held this belief and gave their soul into the safe keeping of God. That would explain Abigail's remark when she wished that David's soul might be kept in God's jewel-case.

Now we don't believe that we can lock up our soul at home when we go out. We know that wherever we go our soul goes with us. And yet we can give our soul to God to keep. That sounds impossible. How can we both carry our soul with us, and give it to God to keep? Shall I tell you how we can do it? You know that God is everywhere. Wherever we go, God is there. Well, if God is everywhere we go, and if we carry our soul everywhere we go, it stands to reason that wherever our soul may be God is. And so, if God is where our soul is, He can watch over it, He can take care of it for us.

An English poet, who wrote many fine verses, which I hope you may read one day, wrote at the end of a well-known poem which is often sung as a song:

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.

He meant that he had thorough command and control of his own soul, and so he feared nothing that could happen to him. It was a fine idea, but the poem would have been still finer and nobler had Henley been able to write:

God is the Master of my fate,

God is the Captain of my soul.

Wise man as he was, he was not so wise as the little child whom a gentleman overtook one dark night as he hurried home through the streets of a great city. The little thing slipped her hand confidingly into his, and when he glanced down at her he was surprised to discover that she was a small girl of five whom he knew.

“Why, child!” he exclaimed, “what are you doing here all by yourself? Is your father not with you?” “No,” she said.

“But aren't you afraid, dear?”

“Afraid!” she replied. “Oh, no! You see, God is everywhere, and He takes care of me.”

Yes, God is everywhere, and God will let no harm befall our soul, if if and this is so important that it requires three underlinings if we put our soul in His charge.

We can refuse to have any captain of our soul but self. We can even choose Satan as its master. We can, if we like, entrust it to his keeping. The choice is ours. God leaves us free.

But I'll tell you this. It is only in God's “bundle of the living” that our soul will be safe.

And I'll tell you this, besides. If our soul is bound up in God's “bundle of the living” it is bound up also in God's bundle of eternal life. God will not only watch over our soul here; He will take it to live with Him forever in a life so wonderful, so happy, that we cannot even imagine how glorious it will be.