Seedsower Music:: If The Lord Had Not Been On Our Side

Life is more fragile than we realize. Our very existence hangs by a thread. But unless God wants that thread to break for some reason, we are perfectly safe. And if it snaps by his will, he is ready to catch us. The saints of God are secure in Him.

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If The Lord Had Not Been On Our Side

January 20, 2009

"He's got the whole world in his hands..." Or so the lyric goes. God is never "hands off." A sparrow doesn't fall but that he is aware. He even keeps a running count of the hairs on our head! Now that's impressive!

But more than just being aware of our needs, our God intervenes in our lives for our good. He watches out for us. David, when fleeing from Saul, found a cave to hide in. Those were grim days. And gratefully, we have Psalm 57, a testimony to what to do with real fear, and the calm that can be found in the middle of life's intensity.

Psalm 57 When he David had fled from Saul into the cave.

Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me, for in you my soul takes refuge. I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed. I cry out to God Most High, to God, who fulfills his purpose for me.

He sends from heaven and saves me, rebuking those who hotly pursue me; God sends his love and his faithfulness.

I am in the midst of lions; I lie among ravenous beasts - men whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords.

Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth.

They spread a net for my feet - I was bowed down in distress. They dug a pit in my path - but they have fallen into it themselves.

My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast; I will sing and make music. Awake, my soul! Awake, harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn. I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples. For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth.

John Paton, the extraordinarily courageous missionary to an island in the South Pacific, found himself facing a serious life-threatening crisis as every bit as harrowing as David's.

Various tribes were going at it in all-out-war, and the flesh-eating tribes, while killing each other off, decided that they had had enough of this God-fearing man and decided to end his life in the process. For several days, in circumstance after circumstance, John was delivered, miraculously.

There came a point when a native named Nowar said to him, "You cannot remain longer in my house. My son will guide you to a large chestnut tree in my plantation in the bush. Climb up into it, and remain their until the moon rises."

Paton recalls in his autobiography, "Being entirely at the mercy of such doubtful and vacillating friends (Paton no longer knew who was to be trusted) I, though perplexed, felt it best to obey. I climbed into the tree, and there was left there alone in the bush. The hours I spent there live all before me as if it were but of yesterday."

"I heard the frequent discharging of muskets, and the yells of the savages. Yet I sat there among the branches, as safe in the arms of Jesus. Never, in all my sorrows, did my Lord draw nearer to me, and speak more soothingly in my soul, than when the moonlight flickered among these chestnut leaves, and the night air played on my throbbing brow, as I told all my heart to Jesus."

"Along, yet not alone! If it be to glorify my God, I will not grudge to spend many nights alone in such a tree, to feel again my Savior's spiritual presence, to enjoy His consoling fellowship. If thus thrown back upon your own soul, alone, all, all alone, in the midnight, in the bush, in the very embrace of death itself, have you a Friend that will not fail you then?"