THE ETERNAL ARMS
Psalm 90:1,2: Psalm 91:1,4-11: Deuteronomy 33:27
We are gathered together this morning for comfort, especially for our dear brother and the family who are suffering a great loss. It is a wonderful thing that divine Persons have all taken the place of ‘Comforter’. You will find it in its fulness in God. He has made Himself known as a Father – is there anyone more comforting than a father? Then our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit; think of the comfort that you find in divine Persons. We need it, and especially the family. I recall our sister coming here when newly married. She came to a meeting where everybody was above pension age except for two, and she immediately made a change when she came. She brought something into the locality that was needed, and she maintained it in her service and devotion to the Lord and to the brethren to the end of her days. She proved divine help in it when testing came in. One thing marked her; she never missed a meeting when it was possible to be there. That is a voice to us all. She was a pillar and we locally, and especially her family, have lost a pillar.
That is why I read these passages. The verse in Deuteronomy says that “Thy refuge is the God of old”. Moses was a man who was personally very great. He must have been a very lonely man. Think of these words coming to him, maybe sitting in his tent at the end of a trying day: “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations”. He saw several generations, but his dwelling-place was in God. As a servant, perhaps a lot of his time was spent alone with God, and he found the dwelling-place. Dear friends, the verses I have read are not just words written, they are the experiences of a man who made God his dwelling place. Moses says, “thou hast been our dwelling-place”. He goes back over these things that God had done, then he says, “from eternity to eternity thou art God”. That simply means that God has the last word. There is nothing greater than what God is doing and what God is saying. It is final, and that is what Moses came to; he relied on that. Was he not tested? He came down from the mountain from God and what did he find? He found idolatry in the camp (Exod.32). What did he do? He waited on God, and he proved God then. On another day, he found his brother and his sister criticising him (Num.12:2). What did he do? He said nothing; he waited on God. His God was a refuge. Then God said, “Come out” to Aaron and Miriam; were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses? Moses did not do anything to defend himself; he waited on God. God was his refuge because he waited on Him.
He speaks in Psalm 90 of “our dwelling-place”. That is where he dwelt. Not on the troubles – oh, how they rolled in on him day after day, but he did not dwell on the troubles. He dwelt in God; “thou hast been our dwelling-place”. What a place to have! It is open to all. You can find your refuge there, you find it in God. As I said, He has the last word.
Then Moses says in Psalm 91, “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High …”. That is what he had, a secret place of the Most High. You think of him there under the shadow of the Almighty. What a shelter, what a resource to have. Someone else said, “In his shadow have I rapture and sit down”, Song of Songs 2:3. What rest and peace Moses found. He was very much alone but he found rest and peace in the shadow of the Almighty. As I said already, he did not need to speak to defend himself. He waited on God and he found there a resource, all the resource that he needed. It says here, “He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou find refuge”, then “he shall give his angels charge concerning thee”. Who can interrupt what the angels can do? He says, If you need it, God will send his angels. “For he shall give his angels charge concerning thee, to keep thee in all thy ways”. What a comfort, dear brethren, to have a God like that. In Deuteronomy, it says that thy refuge is the God of old, and here it is “under the shadow of the Almighty”. There is nobody greater than that, may I say, in troubles and adversities. What it is to have God on your side, you are dwelling in God. God dwells in love, the indwelling love of an abiding God. What an abiding place Moses was finding there, and everything was provided for him there, even the angels when needed.
At the end of his life, Moses says, “Thy refuge is the God of old”; a well proved God, from eternity to eternity. We find in this time scene that we are in a time of suffering. We are in the dip into time, and God is there. “Thy refuge is the God of old” and “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to-day, and to the ages to come”, Heb.13:8. That is the God that Moses was resting on, and not on others. It reminds me of John; he was in the bosom of Jesus (John13:23), leaning on His breast. John showed the results of that in his writings. He did not write a lot, but you see in the writings of John a man who was in the bosom of Jesus, leaning on His breast, and you see the beautiful ministry he gave. He was the apostle who lived the longest. You see him there at the end of the Bible, in captivity, but God had been his dwelling-place. It was known not only by Moses, but it has come right down through the apostles. Look at Paul and Peter, put in prison. What happened? The doors were opened to them. The Almighty God is our refuge. What forces there were against the Lord. What forces there were against the disciples and against those I have spoken of, but they could say, ‘The Lord is in charge’. God is in charge; He has the last word.
Moses proved that underneath are the eternal arms. You may fall a bit, but what you find is that, if you fall down, underneath are the eternal arms. It reminded me of Elijah. He got down in his spirit, and God said to him, ‘What are you doing here Elijah?’. He said, ‘Everything has gone’ (1 Kings 19:10). He had forgotten that the eternal God was his refuge. Well, what happened? He fell asleep and when he awakened, what was there? Food for his soul. That was the eternal God – there were the eternal arms underneath him. When he looked about, he saw food. And what happened then? It says that he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb. Elijah came back into circulation, you may say, back into the acknowledgement and enjoyment of the eternal God being his refuge. The last we hear of these two men – Moses and Elijah – is on the mountain with Jesus. You can see how they were brought through.
Here in Deuteronomy Moses says that “Thy refuge is the God of old.” A well proved God, and underneath are the eternal arms. Oh, how strong they are! Moses experienced them on Mount Nebo, on the top of Pisgah when God showed him the whole land, Gilead to Dan (Deut.34:1). Another has said that in principle, God showed Moses heaven with the saints in it, then He buried him. What a beautiful finish, as Hymn 160 says:-
‘Long proved in secret help
With Thee alone’.
Our brother is proving the eternal arms today and we locally are proving them too, underneath us. Everything is not gone. Everything is not breaking up. Underneath, for you and for me, are the eternal arms. May we know the support of them in these days we are in. May we know the strength of them to keep us, I might say, in circulation and in the stream of divine speaking. May we prove that the eternal God is our refuge, and that underneath are the eternal arms. Many in this room can speak about it and our brother has proved it. Our sister proved it. May we all prove it increasingly. We will find the support – we are never outside of the reach of God wherever we may hide ourselves. Wherever we may seek other means of protection, the eternal God is our refuge and underneath are the eternal arms. May we prove them. May our brother and the family prove them, and may we prove it locally. As I said, a pillar has gone, but the everlasting arms are there, the eternal God is there. May these passages be a comfort to us, may they strengthen us in our experiences. May it be that we prove the eternal God to be our refuge, for His name’s sake.
Word at a burial meeting, Kirkcaldy
7 October 2017
R. Taylor