Divine guardianship.
"Lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day." Then there are hurtful powers and hurtful people in the world. The Word itself lets light in upon the condition of humanity. There are hidden invisible foes; and there is need for One who can discern and defeat them.
I. THE EYE THAT SEES. This is all-important. For we are blind to our worst enemies. Evil puts on the garb of good. And evil hides itself. The serpent is coiled up at the bottom of the cup. The adder lurks in the grass. By the river-side the alligator lurks; his skin the very color of the stones. God's eye can search all. His vision sweeps all space. His vigilance never sleeps. "He that keepeth thee will not slumber."
II. THE HEART THAT LOVES. This is our truest defense. It is affection that keeps alive this vigilance. There is no eye like the eye of love. We know this in a measure from our observation of the human spheres. How quick a mother's eye is to detect first departures from the holy and the true—first dalliances with evil! The tutor is not so sure a guardian as the parent. All Divine revelation tells us that God is love. Why warn, rebuke, exhort? Why send the prophet to the guilty cities, and the only begotten Son, the Savior, to the lost race? This is the explanation of all: "God so loved the world."
III. THE GUARDIANSHIP THAT IS COMPLETE. Lest "any." That includes all the' forms and forces of evil. We may be awake to special dangers, just as we pay honor to special virtues. There are dangers which are so pronounced, where the penalties are so marked, that our consciousness is awake to the dread results. But when we remember the vast and varied sources of peril, we rejoice to know that there may be immunity from all disaster. "Deliver us from evil" is the prayer taught us by the Savior; and God will hear that prayer, for "thine is the power."
IV. THE WATCHFULNESS THAT NEVER SLEEPS. "By night and by day." In the darkness and in the night. For the darkness is no darkness to God. As Sentinel he never sleeps. Our watch-fires die out, and the beasts of the forest break into the camp in the silent hours of darkness. We cannot "keep." But the soul is too precious to be left to finite watchfulness. The Tower of London contains no jeweled crowns so rich in value as the nature that contains the pearl of great price. The temple of Jerusalem had costly vessels and sacred altars; but the temple of the soul has in it the true Shechinah. This is God's promise. This is his own testimony to himself; and it is g promise to wear as an amulet on the heart in such a world as this.—W.M.S.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON