1 Samuel 23:19

"Doth not David hide himself with us in strong holds?" 1 Samuel 23:19 .

A useful spiritual application of these words instantly suggests itself; still we are simply on the ground of accommodation, and not on the ground of critical exposition. The great spiritual lesson is that the good man is always hidden in a stronghold. "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." We are to be hidden in the Rock of Ages. We are not protected merely by the shadow of some perishing substance; we are hidden under the wings of the Almighty. The Lord is our shield and buckler, our sword and our invincible defence. There are strongholds of faith, reason, experience; there are strongholds of history, of general testimony on the part of Christian believers, and above all in our own consciousness of the divine nearness and the divine ministry in our personal life. We know in whom we have believed, and we know that he is able to keep that which we have committed to his charge. It is in no poor hut that the Christian lives, but in the very centre of the pavilion of God. Our citizenship is in heaven: we seek a country out of sight: we have bread to eat that the world knoweth not of. They who take the soul of the Christian captive must first overcome the Almightiness which guards it. Being assured that we are in a stronghold, let us be cautious how we adventure out of it. Imagination may tempt us, speculation may promise us glittering rewards, foolish friends may implore us to come away and to range the larger country and increase our experience of life and nature: all these temptations may be addressed to us without any purpose of mischief: we should therefore so know ourselves as to realise our weakness, and so far be assured of our need of divine help as never to go beyond the limit which God has imposed upon us; Let the soul say morning by morning, "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help: my help cometh even from the Lord, who hath made heaven and earth." We can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth us. Our sufficiency is of God. All these promises are full of sacred and tender comfort, and were written not to be looked upon with the eye of the body only but to be gazed upon with the vision of the soul, until all that is most beautiful in them passes into the spirit and becomes part of our manhood. Whenever the enemy rises against us may we remember that we are hidden in a stronghold; may we never live so loosely and vainly as to give that enemy the impression that we can be found wandering alone in any place at any hour; may our steadfastness and our zeal be such that we shall be found evermore within the sacred and impregnable enclosure of the divine sovereignty and protection.