The Everlasting Arms

Spurgeon, Charles Haddon

Deuteronomy 33:27

The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms: and he shall thrust out the enemy from before you…

This short passage is found in the midst of a mass of gold, sentences containing the richest treasures of truth. All this spiritual wealth is the heritage of the people of God. Notice, in vers. 26-29, how near God is said to be to His people. Above, before, around, and in the text beneath us.

I. THE QUARTER THAT IS THUS HONOURABLY SECURED. "Underneath."

1. The point of mysterious assault. You may be tempted by Satan, but it shall only be in a measure; God will not let him put forth all his diabolical strength.

2. The place of our daily pilgrimage. Some of you go forth to your daily labours, and you find the place of your service to be a real wilderness, full of trial and everything that is unpleasant to you. Yet look again, with eyes touched with heaven's eye-salve, and instead of seeing the bitter poverty, and the grinding toil, and the daily trial, you will begin to see that God is in it all, and "underneath are the everlasting arms."

3. The place of perilous descent. You cannot go so low but that God's arms of love are lower still.

4. A matter of intense concern. Examine your foundations.

5. The secret of singular discoveries that will yet be made. Perhaps some of us are in sore perplexity; we cannot understand the Lord's providential dealings with us. He does not always tell us the reason for His actions; we might not understand if He did, but we may rest assured that He is working out purposes of infinite love. He ceases not to care for us even when things appear to be at their very worst. I bear my willing witness to the faithfulness of God; I am not so old as some, but I am old enough to have gone through fire, and through water, and I am here to testify that I have not been burned by the one, nor drowned by the other. Cannot many of you say the same? In your sorest trials, and in your hottest furnaces, has He not been specially present with you, and bestowed great blessings upon you?

II. THE MANNER IN WHICH THIS QUARTER IS SECURED.

1. God Himself is close to us, guaranteeing the eternal safety of all who trust in Him. Even the false prophet, Mahomet, had a strong faith in God, — in Allah, — and when he fled for the first time, and hid in a cave with only one friend, his companion said to him, "Our pursuers are after us, and there are only two of us." "Stop," exclaimed Mahomet, "there are three, for Allah is here!" It was the utterance of a brave and grand faith; would that his whole career had been in harmony with it! Wherever there are two of God's people, there is Another with them, for God is there. Mr. Wesley said, as he died, "The best of all is, God is with us"; and that is the best of all, is it not?

2. The Lord's immutable purpose is being fulfilled. Where God's arms are, He is at work, and He is at work accomplishing His purposes of grace.

3. His inexhaustible patience is waiting its time. "Underneath are the everlasting arms," bearing up thy load, sustaining it with long endurance, while He keeps on working for thee — invisible, yet active on thy behalf.

III. THERE ARE TIMES WHEN THIS TEXT IS VERY PRECIOUS TO BELIEVERS.

1. When we are very sick and very feeble. It is delightful to feel that our feebleness impinges on Omnipotence; that, just when there is nothing left to us, then God comes in with His fulness, and bears us up.

2. When burdened with sore trouble, or oppressed with heavy labours. The most wonderful joys that ever were felt by mortal hearts, have been felt by men who, on the morrow, were to be burned at the stake; but whose very souls have danced within them because of the unspeakable delight which the presence of God has given to them. I think it was Socrates who said that "Philosophers could be merry without music." I take the statement from his mouth, and alter it, and say, Christians can be happy without happy circumstances; they can sometimes, like nightingales, sing best in dark nights. Their joy is not mere outward mirth. Sorrows fall upon them; yet, from the deep that lieth underneath, wells up yet more exceeding joy.

3. When trembling and shaking. Your wing feathers will grow by your very attempt to fly; the possibilities of grace are boundless; leave yourself to them. Be not always weak and trembling; God help you to become as a David, and you who are as David to become as an angel of the Lord!

4. The hour will come when everything will begin to melt away beneath your feet. Earthly comforts will fail you, friends will be unable to help you; they can wipe the clammy sweat from your brow, and moisten your lips with a drop of water, but they cannot go with you on the great voyage upon which you are about to be launched. When heart and flesh fail, then may the Lord speak to you the sweet words before us, "Underneath are the everlasting arms"! It will be a sinking to the flesh, but a rising to the spirit.

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