He Will Keep You from All Evil

Psalms 121:1-2 ESV

 

“I lift up my eyes to the hills.

    From where does my help come?

My help comes from the Lord,

    who made heaven and earth.”

 

If we are genuine followers of Jesus Christ, by God’s grace, through God-given faith in Jesus Christ, thus we have died with Christ to sin, and we are daily dying with him to sin, and we are living to him and to his righteousness, our help comes from him in every circumstance in our lives.

 

He is our mainstay, our lifeblood, our support, our strength, our foundation. He gives us everything we need to live godly and holy lives, pleasing to him. He guides us through every decision, and he carries us through every trial. Our lives are fully under his control.

 

So, whatever we are going through, God/Jesus Christ is there for us to give us comfort, to show us the way we should go, and to give us strength and courage for every trial. We can trust him fully with our lives. And we can lean on him for support and for help to do what is right.

 

Psalms 121:3-4 ESV

 

“He will not let your foot be moved;

    he who keeps you will not slumber.

Behold, he who keeps Israel

    will neither slumber nor sleep.”

 

When this says that he will not let your foot be moved, it appears to mean that he will enable you to stand firm in the faith and to not fall into sin. And this reminds me of 1 Corinthians 10:13:

 

“No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”

 

This is not saying that you will no longer be capable of sin or that you can’t possibly fall into sin ever again, otherwise at least half of the New Testament would not be necessary for the church. So, the Lord doesn’t prevent you from sinning if your heart is bent on sin.

 

What he does is he provides the strength and power you need to resist Satan and to flee temptation and to draw near to God in full assurance of faith. Because of what he did for us on that cross, and because by faith we have died with him to sin, and we now have the Holy Spirit living within us, we are empowered of God to say “No!” to sin and “Yes!” to God.

 

We just have to take the way out he provides for us. We have to say “No!” to ungodliness and fleshly lusts and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the power of God’s Spirit. And we have to not “play” with sin or to tempt ourselves by going places we ought not to go.

 

Psalms 121:5-6 ESV

 

“The Lord is your keeper;

    the Lord is your shade on your right hand.

The sun shall not strike you by day,

    nor the moon by night.”

 

If we truly belong to the Lord, by genuine faith in him, we are being kept by him in his care. Nothing can touch us unless God allows it for his purposes, for our good, for our strengthening in the faith, for our maturing, and that we may share in his holiness becoming like him in his death.

 

Now, this is not to say that we won’t ever suffer or that we won’t go through difficulties. We will. Jesus said we would, and the New Testament teaches us over again that we will go through trials and temptations and difficulties and persecutions to try our faith, that our faith may prove genuine.

 

But we are not left helpless against the attacks of our enemy. God has given us his spiritual armor which we are to apply to our lives daily so that we are able to fight against the devil’s schemes against us. And we have the guidance and empowering of the Holy Spirit to help us, too.

 

We just have to turn to the Lord and rely on his strength and follow his good counsel and not rely on our own strength and human resources. He provides all that we need. We just have to surrender our lives to him, and submit to his Lordship, and follow him in obedience to his ways.

 

Psalms 121:7-8 ESV

 

“The Lord will keep you from all evil;

    he will keep your life.

The Lord will keep

    your going out and your coming in

    from this time forth and forevermore.”

 

Again, what we are being told here is what God provides, but we must accept those provisions, and we must tap into them and apply them to our lives. They don’t just happen to us automatically. We don’t become marionettes on strings with God pulling the strings when we believe in Jesus.

 

And that is why we have so many instructions written to the church in the New Testament reminding us of all that Jesus provided for us, and of what that means for us, and of what we must do in obedience to our Lord in order to take advantage of those provisions and to make them ours.

 

I hear so many people who profess faith in Jesus Christ making all kinds of excuses for why they are still walking in sin, living to please the flesh, caught up in sinful addictions, and not living victorious Christian lives free from the control of sin and Satan over their lives.

 

But their excuses “don’t hold water,” i.e., they don’t hold up against the Word of God and what it teaches us regarding what Jesus did for us on that cross and what that means for us in our daily lives and walks of faith and obedience to our Lord.

 

Therefore, many so-called “Christians” are continuing in sinful practices, not because God didn’t come through for them or because the Lord failed them, but because they don’t want to let go of their sins, and they don’t want to take the way of escape that Jesus provided for them, but they want to continue in their sinful practices, continuing to make excuses for why they are still there.

 

So, if we want the Lord to keep us from evil, and to keep our going out and our coming in, we have to yield control of our lives over to him daily, and we must submit to his will and purposes for our lives, we must put on that spiritual armor, and we must walk in obedience to his commands.

 

All I Ask of You

 

by Andrew Lloyd Webber

 

No more talk of darkness,

Forget these wide-eyed fears;

I'm here, nothing can harm you,

My words will warm and calm you.

Let me be your freedom,

Let daylight dry your tears;

I'm here, with you, beside you,

To guard you and to guide you.

 

Let me be your shelter,

Let me be your light…

 

Love me, that's all I ask of you

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uahlf4fo3iQ

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