Focus: Divine Security

Text: Dt.33:27

"The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms: and he shall thrust out the enemy from before thee; and shall say, Destroy them."

Israel as a very small nation on earth has for ages survived disintegration and extinction. They have been through wars since the day God delivered them from the Egyptian bondage in the 13th century BCE. The people of Judah went to exile in Babylon, and for 70 years were held captive, but they eventually came out it. Nation after nation have attempted to extinguish the Israel as a people, but they have not been successful. Bigger, larger and stronger nations have come and gone, but small Israel is still here. 

Moses asked, "How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had shut them up?" (Dt.32:30). God is the only explanation or reason behind the survival of Israel since antiquity. Paul asked, "If God be for us, who can be against us?" (Rom.8:31).

I make bold to say that our refuge is not a place; it is rather a person - God Himself. God is our refuge - our secured place. Making God our safe place is absolutely essential and fundamentally reasonable. Let me explain. Christ committed His life into the able hands of His Father, and after that, He died. 

Handing His life over to God did not stop Him from dying, but it guaranteed His resurrection from the dead, and an endless life.

Christ Himself said, "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen…" (Rev.1:18). That is what it means when you secure your life with God. He says to the people, "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live" (Jh.11:25). Again He says, "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul…" (Mt.10:28). In Christ our security is eternally assured.

The psalmist declares, "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty" (Ps.91:1). Our Creator and Savior is also our Protector. He guides and guards His people. He watches over us and fights our battles. Paul says to the believer in Christ, "For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God" (Col.3:3). We remain invincible until God says otherwise or our time is up for departure from this world. Our lives remain untouchable and unconquerable until our time to go home to our God. Our lives are hidden in Christ and Christ is hidden in God. As a child of God, you carry an anointing that makes the foe keep a distance from you.

The psalmist expresses his faith in his God, "For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock" (Ps.27:5). God is the hiding place for those who trust in Him. He is our safe place in this world. He says again, "Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man: thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues" (Ps.31:20). In His presence we are safe. In His pavilion we are preserved.

O yes, we are safe in God's hands and we are secure in His presence. He saves and secures His own. We are privileged and blessed to have divine security. Paul testifies, "Who DELIVERED us from so great a death, and DOTH DELIVER: in whom we trust that he will YET DELIVER us" (2Cor.1:10). This is deliverance in three tenses of past, present, and future, meaning that God absolutely delivers us. He delivered us yesterday, He's delivering us today, and He will deliver us tomorrow. Most assuredly, our deliverer is also our defender. In Christ our security is guaranteed.

by Bishop Moses E. Peter