THE PROTECTING HAND
Isaiah 25:10. For in this mountain shall the hand of the Lord rest.
“Rest!” As a father’s hand on the head of his first-born, blessing and protecting his child. That mountain is impregnable which rests under the shadow of God’s hand.
I. Of every enterprise we should ask, “Is it right?” If wickedness be in “the mountain,” God’s protecting hand will not rest upon it. A just cause creates a good conscience, and hence inspires strength. It is only the just man who feels that God “teaches his hands to war and his fingers to fight, so that a bow of steel is broken by his arms.” “The righteous is bold as a lion.” The good man can patiently wait and confidently expect God’s blessing (James 5:7).
II. Material force allied with injustice will eventually become weak as straw, vile as a dung-heap. The strong places of Moab had no inherent lastingness, because built in a godless spirit (Psalms 127:1).
III. Forts and castles, ironclads and armies, can never save an unrighteous nation from decay. National selfishness, oppressive enterprises, weaken the strongest defences, corrupt the richest treasures. Babylon became a marsh, Nineveh a forsaken mound, Tyre a deserted rock. In the colloseum at Rome where martyrs bled, the fox, the bat, and the owl now make their home. The walls of Moab were levelled with the dust. By justice only can peoples be strong. If God be in the city, its walls will be lasting as the hills.—William Parkes.