The thought of God's embracing arms is very suggestive. What does an arm represent? What is the thought suggested by the arm of God enfolded around His child? One suggestion, is protection. As a father puts his arm about his child when it is in danger so God protects His children. Life is full of peril. There are temptations on every hand! Enemies lurk in every shadow enemies strong and swift! Yet we are assured that nothing can separate us from the love of God. "Underneath are the everlasting arms!"
Another thought, is affection. The father's arm drawn around a child is a token of love. The child is held in the father's bosom, near his heart. The shepherd carries the lambs in his bosom. John lay on Jesus' bosom. The mother holds the child in her bosom, because she loves it. This picture of God embracing His children in His arms tells of His love for them, His love is tender, close, intimate.
Another thought suggested by an arm, is strength. The arm is a symbol of strength. His arm is omnipotence. "In the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength" (Isaiah 26:4). His is an arm that can never be broken! Out of this clasp--we can never be taken. "I give them eternal life, and they will never perish ever! No one will snatch them out of My hand!" (John 10:28)
Another suggestion is endurance. The arms of God are "everlasting." Human arms grow weary even in love's embrace; they cannot forever press the child to the bosom. Soon they lie folded in death. A husband stood by the coffin of his beloved wife after only one short year of wedded happiness. The clasp of that love was very sweet but how brief a time it lasted, and how desolate was the life that had lost the precious companionship!
A little baby two weeks old and was left motherless. The mother clasped the child to her bosom and drew her feeble arms about it in one loving embrace; the little one will never more have a mother's arm around it. So pathetic is human life with--its broken affections, its little moments of love, its embraces that are torn away in one hour. But these arms of God are everlasting arms! They shall never unclasp!
There is another important suggestion in the word "underneath." Not only do the arms of God embrace His child but they are underneath always underneath! That means that we can never sink for these arms will ever be beneath us! Sometimes we say the waters of trouble are very deep like great floods they roll over us. But still and forever, underneath the deepest floods are these everlasting arms! We cannot sink below them or out of their clasp!
And when death comes, and every earthly thing is gone from beneath us, and we sink away into what seems darkness out of all human love, out of warmth and gladness and life into the gloom and strange mystery of death still it will only be into the everlasting arms! This view of God's divine care is full of inspiration and comfort. We are not saving ourselves.
A strong One, the mighty God holds us in His omnipotent clasp! We are not tossed like a leaf on life's wild sea driven at the mercy of wind and wave. We are in divine keeping. Our security does not depend upon our own feeble, wavering faith but upon the omnipotence, the love, and the faithfulness of the unchanging, the eternal God! No power in the universe can snatch us out of His hands! Neither death nor life, nor things present, nor things to come can separate us from His everlasting arms!
[J. R. Miller]
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Deuteronomy 33:27 ... The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms: and he shall thrust out the enemy from before thee; and shall say, Destroy them.
Isaiah 40:11 ... He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.
Isaiah 46:4 ... And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.❤
