Constant renewals of Divine help.
"Be thou their Ann every morning." Prophetic reference is made to that wonderful morning, when the inhabitants of Jerusalem arose, and, looking forth from the walls of the city, beheld the besieging army of Sennacherib a multitude of corpses (Isaiah 37:36). The prayer is that every morning of life may bring its witness of as real, if not as striking, helpings and deliverings and defendings of God. The reference to the "arm" is specially appropriate, as keeping in view the soldierly defense of the city. The prophet and others may do what they can with heart and head; but in view of defense against an outward enemy, those that serve with the arm are specially important. Therefore we have the prayer that the Lord himself might be the Arm of those who have devoted their arm to the country. Matthew Henry paraphrases thus: "Hezekiah and his princes and all the men of war need continual supplies of strength and courage from thee; supply their need, therefore, and be to them a God all-sufficient. Every morning, when they go forth upon the business of the day, and perhaps have new work to do, and new difficulties to encounter, let them be afresh animated and invigorated, and, 'as the day so let the strength be.'" Treating the text as a basis for meditation, we observe that God has been graciously pleased to arrange our life on earth, not as one continuous and unbroken space of time, but as a succession of brief periods, carefully and regularly separated from each other; a series of days, we call them, divided by ever-recurring nights of sleep. A man's life is not properly a thing of so much length; it is made up of so many days. Looking back over life, the patriarch Jacob says, "Few and evil have the days of the years of the life of my pilgrimage been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the lives of my fathers." If our life on earth were one continuous, unbroken scene, it would surely be impossible for any of us to become truly good. So much of our hope of ever winning goodness lies in our being able to try again and again, to begin again and again with each returning day. However hopelessly we may end one day, we may step cheerfully forth to new endeavors as each new morning comes. Then how tenderly helpful is the assurance that we can have the "arm of the Lord" for our help every morning! God's idea of life for us is that it shall be given to us in pieces, separated from each other—pieces shaped and fashioned as he may please, and each piece given to us as fresh as if we were really born again every day. God gives us thus, morning by morning, and day-by-day, in order that our thoughts may be fully concentrated on today. Today is ours. To night is not ours. Tomorrow is not ours. No man has any to-morrow until God gives it to him, and then he must call it today. We cannot grasp a whole life; we can grasp the duties of today. What "grace" is for a long and changeful life we do not know, we cannot know. God offers us grace for just the day that begins with this morning. And the arm of the Lord is precisely what we need day by day. Gathering up the scriptural associations of this figure, especially in the Book of Isaiah, the following points may be illustrated.
I. EVERY MORNING WE NEED ASSURANCE OF GOD'S ARM TO LEAN ON. The distinction between the godly and the ungodly man cannot be more sharply defined than by saying, "The ungodly man tries to stand by himself, and the godly man loves to lean on another." The change, the renewal, the new birth of a man, finds its expression in this "loving to lean." It is but the gracious response of God to this gracious disposition, that he offers his arm afresh every morning for the good man to lean upon. "On my arm shall they trust."
II. EVERY MORNING WE NEED THE ASSURANCE OF GOD'S ARM TO GUIDE US. It is the fact of life, but it is much more than that—it is the experience of life, that "it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." So Isaiah, speaking of the journeyings of God's people, refers to God who "led them with his glorious arm." That arm is like a signal held out, showing our daily path. It is even the arm and hand that keeps us steadily in the right, the narrow path. The figures of the unknown journey, or voyage, may be used. This journey is taken in stages, and every morning our wise, safe, strong Guide is waiting, ready to give us his good help.
III. EVERY MORNING WE NEED THE ASSURANCE OF GOD'S ARM TO DEFEND US. "That arm is not shortened, that it cannot save." How little we realize our day-by-day dependence on Divine providence! "Dangers stand thick and hover round." By what we call "accidents," men and women about us are killed or wounded every day. Some one defends us. It would be well for us if we more clearly saw God's saving arm defending us continually. Then there are our enemies; some are by circumstance enemies, and some are by willfulness enemies. But how little they ever do that really hurts us! Noisily they dwell around us, like the armies of Sennacherib, but our Defender is there every morning, Shield for each new day. But it is more searching to think of our bad selves and how we need defending from them. Every morning wakes the old self, with some of the old frailties, habits, prejudices, passions. Above all else we need, day by day, the presence and the power of him who alone can defend us from ourselves.—R.T.