Kept from the Evil One

Beloved, there are two voices in these verses, and both of them speak of keeping; yet how different the music! In the psalm it is the Father promising; in the gospel it is the Son praying. In the psalm the saint is lifted high above the fowler's snare; in the gospel the saints are left in the very field where snares are set. And yet there is no discord between them, for both come from one heart of love, and both are fulfilled in one Keeper.

Mark well what draws down the promise in the fourteenth psalm of the third book: not our strength, not our wisdom, but our love. "Because he hath set his love upon me." The Hebrew word is a clinging word — such a love as fastens itself upon its object and will not be torn away. Do you so love the Lord? Then hear Him say it: "I will deliver him." He doth not say, "Because thou art strong," nor "because thy faith never trembles," but because thou lovest Me, though it be but with a love that is itself His gift. Oh, what encouragement for the feeblest heart! The weakest clutching at Christ is dearer to God than the proudest standing without Him.

But observe, further, why He sets His child on high: "because he hath known my name." To know God's name is no idle piece of information; it is to have proved His character — to have fled to Him as Refuge in the day of trouble and found Him a very present help. Have we known that name? Then let us not fear though a thousand fall at our side.

Now turn to the upper room, and hear the same Keeper praying on the night of His betrayal. Wonderful words! He does not ask that we be taken out of the world. There are times, brethren, when we wish He had prayed otherwise — when the battle presses sore and we cry for the chariot of fire. But the Master knows better than our weariness. We are sent into the world as He was sent into it; salt must be rubbed into the meat, and light must shine in the darkness. So He asks, not our removal, but our preservation: "Keep them from the evil."

And who is this evil? The old serpent, the prince of this world — even he who once dared to quote this very ninety-first psalm, and quote it to the Lord Himself upon the temple's pinnacle! Mark the audacity of the fiend: he took the promise of protection and made it an argument for presumption. But the Saviour answered him with the written word, and He will answer all his children's foes in like manner. Learn hence, beloved: the promise is a staff for walking, not a ladder for leaping. He that dwells in the secret place need fear no pestilence; but he who leaps from the pinnacle has forsaken the dwelling though he holds the promise on his tongue.

Here then is the marrow of the whole matter. The Lord keeps His people *in* the conflict, not from it; He does not carry the soldier off the battlefield, but He guards his head in the hottest charge. Some trust in protections of their own devising — walls of wealth, moats of prudence — but the believer's keeping is a Person: "Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me." The Son who kept His disciples while on earth is now ascended, and He prays still; and shall the Father refuse the Son? Never! Every prayer of Christ is recorded in heaven and paid out in grace.

Then, Christian, art thou tempted? Thou art kept. Art thou hated of the world? It is because thou art not of it, and thou art kept. Doth the evil one go about as a roaring lion? Yet he is a chained lion, and thou art kept. Thy safety lies not in thy grip of Christ, but in His grip of thee — He said it Himself: "While I was with them in the world, I kept them." And He is not less able now that He sits upon the throne.

Love on, then, poor trembling heart. Cling closer. Know the Name better every day — Jehovah, the Lord thy Righteousness — and hear Him say again over thee, "Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him." The world cannot take thee from Him; the wicked one cannot pluck thee from His hand. Kept in time, kept in death, kept forever.

Lord, keep us from the evil, and make us more loving while Thou keepest us. Amen.

(Source: A modern reflection adopted from the style of Charles Spurgeon)