For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand
The Christian’s help
I. IT IS A PERSONAL HELP. “I will help thee.” When the religious element was strongly felt amongst the Jews, they looked to the King eternal for guidance and protection; nothing but His counsel would satisfy them. Man seems to have the special intuition of a personal God, as if nothing but personal contact with Him could revive the latent powers. Truth in the abstract cannot touch the heart so as to cause an inner revolution. Truth must come from God as from a living Being.
II. THIS PERSONAL HELP WILL BE GIVEN ONLY IN THE WAY OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. The children of Israel had departed from the right way, and as long as they sought their own gratification they could not expect help from the God of their fathers. The way of righteousness is not the most pleasant at all times for flesh and blood, but it is always the safest.
III. IT IS THE MOST TENDER AND CONSTANT HELP WITHIN THE REACH OF MAN. The Jewish people were bruised by their terrible fall, they had but little strength left, they were almost hopeless of ever seeing their own country. The Lord knew their helplessness, so these words are full of the greatest kindness. The way of holiness, the way to heaven, is so strange to a person who has defiled himself with sin that but little progress could be made without a guide. So the Lord tenderly takes each traveller by the hand. (Homilist.)
The promised help
I. THE LORD GIVETH STRENGTH. What a precious truth is this, if believed in, to such a feeble creature as man. It is as a covenant God in Christ that the Lord comforts the believing soul with the promise, “I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand,” etc. The Lord “thy” God.
II. MAN NEEDS THE STRENGTH which the Lord promises, and which He alone can give. Man needs strength for obedience to God’s holy laws. Vain is the help or salvation of man, even far more in things spiritual and eternal than in our temporal concerns; so that those who trust in and pray to saints and angels, and expect salvation from them, will be overcome: they will not tread down their enemies, nor obtain the conqueror’s crown. (W. Firth, B. D.)
Courage, its source and its necessity
I. ITS SOURCE. “I will hold thy right hand.” The grasp of the hand is significant of close and present friendship, of the living nearness of the deliverer. And that sense of God’s presence, so near that our faith can touch His hand and hear the deep still music of His voice--realised as it may be in Christ, is the source of a courage which no danger can dispel, no suffering exhaust, and no death destroy. The clearest way of illustrating this will be to take the higher forms of courage among men, and observe what states of soul are most conducive to it.
1. Beginning with the courage of active resistance, we find its great element in the fixed survey of the means of conquest.
2. Passing on to the courage needful for passive endurance, we find that its great feature is self-surrender to the highest law of life. The Christian endures, because the law of his being has become resignation to the will of God.
II. ITS NECESSITY.
1. It requires courage to manifest the Christian character before men.
2. To maintain steadfast obedience to the will of God.
3. To hold fast to our highest aspirations. (E. L. Hull, B. A.)
The repetitions of love
God repeats His love for, and His purpose concerning, Israel. Lacordaire said that love is always saying the same thing, yet never repeats itself. And though God repeats in both parts His love and purpose, yet it would be new all through to the Jew, sick with his sorrow and captivity; and the sum of the consolation is--“I am with thee. Fear not; rather rejoice.” No trial could or would befall the Jew but God would help him to bear it. (J. A. Davies, B. D.)
Held by God’s hand
A little lad in the hospital was asked if he could bear a severe operation. “Yes,” was his reply, “if father will hold my hand.” When we feel God’s hand holding us in times of trial, the touch gives us nerve and calm. (J. A. Davies, B. D.)