Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1413
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, May 12, 1878
“Underneath are the everlasting arms.” Deuteronomy 33:27.
GOD surrounds His children on all sides—they dwell in Him. The passage before us shows that the Lord is above, for we read, “There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who rides upon the Heaven to help you, and in His excellency on the sky.” Assuredly He is around them, for, “The eternal God is your refuge.” And He is before them, for, “He shall thrust out the enemy from before you; and shall say, Destroy them.” Here, according to the text, the Lord is also under His saints, for, “Underneath are the everlasting arms.” “Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations,” and by You we are surrounded everywhere, as the earth is by the atmosphere—
“Within Your circling power I stand. On every side I find Your hand. Awake, asleep, at home, abroad, I am surrounded still with God.”
The verse which contains our text should be interpreted somewhat after this fashion—“The eternal God is your dwelling place, or your rest, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” The parallel passage is that verse in the Song wherein the bride exclaims, “His left hand is under my head, and His right hand does embrace me.” The soul has come to its resting place in God and feels itself to be supported by the Divine strength. The heart has learned to abide in Christ Jesus to go no more out, but to lean on His bosom both day and night. It is somewhat in the condition of Noah’s dove which, when weary, was about to drop into the destroying waters, but Noah put out his hand and plucked her to him into the ark. And when she was all safe, in the hollow of his hands, held by her preserver with a firm but tender grasp, she found in that place a refuge which surrounded her and upheld her from below. The hands covered her on all sides and came beneath her, too. Even thus, the hand of God sustains all those who dwell in the secret place of the Most High and abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
I am going, however, to take the words just as they stand in our own authorized version and to consider them apart from the context. I ask your most careful consideration of them, for they must be very full of meaning and very emphatic in their force. The words are placed at the end of Moses’ song and they are its crown and climax. He had wound himself up to the highest pitch of poetic excitement and spiritual fervor—and this passage is the result. He had spoken grandly, before, concerning the separate tribes and the words which fell from his lips are unspeakably rich. But now he is about to close and, therefore, he pours forth his loftiest strains and utters full and deep meanings—the ripest and choicest fruit of a lifetime of communion with God! As our Lord ascended to Heaven blessing His disciples, so did His servant Moses, before climbing to Pisgah, pour out a torrent of benedictions, full and deep, inspired by the Holy Spirit.
It is not possible, therefore, that the language can be too greatly prized. The words mean all that we can make them mean! The nectar of their consolation is altogether inexhaustible! May God the Holy Spirit help us to weigh and measure them and then distil their inner sense and drink of the spiced wine of His pomegranate. “Underneath are the everlasting arms.” I shall handle the text in this fashion. Where? “Underneath.” What? “The everlasting arms.” When? They are underneath us now and always and if it is so, what then?
I. First let us attend to the question—WHERE? “Underneath.” Now, “underneath,” is a region into which we cannot see. We glance down and the dead cold earth stops our gaze. When we are heavy in spirit we fix our eyes upon the ground and look, and look, and look—but even an eagle’s glance cannot see far below. We scarcely can peer beneath the thin green sod—the bottom of a grave is well near the full range of mortal vision. The underworld is mysterious. We associate the subterranean with all that is dark and hidden and, because of this, it is often regarded as terrible. A man
scarcely ever fears that which he can see in proportion to his dread of what he cannot see. Therefore, our alarm at the “underneath.”
What may be underneath us when we leave this sunlit region for the grave’s overshadowing vault? What will happen to us in eternity? Life will soon end—what is death? What is the immediate result of death? What shall we feel when we are traversing those unknown tracks and finding our way to the Judgment Seat of God? Not knowing except that little which has been revealed to us, we are all too apt to conjecture terrors and invent horrors—and so to begin trembling concerning that which we do not understand! What a comfort it is to be told by the Voice of Inspiration that, “Underneath are the everlasting arms!”
Poets have usually been in a gloomy humor when picturing the underworld. Imagination is very apt to spin a black and tangled thread. You have read of dark caverns where the bodies of men are fast detained, of which caverns Death has the key. Of this the grim Anglo-Saxon poet wailed the warning note—