7 AUGUST
Shielded from evil
‘After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.’ Genesis 15:1
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Psalm 91:1–16
Consider the believer’s safety from the evil that is in the world, whether affliction or opposition. He is shielded:
(i) by his providence. We are liable to many harms and dangers continually, by night and by day, abroad and at home, and have need of a defence from wicked men. We see too many who love to practise mischief, and they have a secret grudge at the Lord’s people. Why are they preserved? Because he is their shield and sets a hedge about them. It is true the Lord protects careless sinners likewise. It is because some of them, though not yet called, shall live to know his name. Others, though tares, grow among the wheat and are preserved for the wheat’s sake. The preservation of others is a judgement. They are suffered to go on to add sin unto sin. But the protection he affords his own people is of special grace and he enables them to see, own and rejoice in it as such.
(ii) by his Spirit. When he suffers affliction to touch them, he interposes his grace to take away the evil of it and to support them under it. The sting, the curse, is taken away and they are strengthened with strength in their souls, with patience, resignation and peace, so that often the heaviest blows are hardly felt.
FOR MEDITATION: Ask yourselves, my friends, what you think of this shield. You need one. And if not conscious of it now, you will be hereafter when death comes with his dart and the summons of judgement shall be sounding in your ears.
SERMON SERIES: GENESIS, NO. 29 [4/5], GENESIS 15:1
Milo 