We Who Believe in the Lord are Truly Blessed
The angel of the LORD encamps all around those who fear Him, and delivers them. (Psalm 34:7 NKJV)
Fearing the Lord
In the Bible worship is described in a number of ways. Those who call on the name of the Lord (in contrast to those who call on idols) are those who are worshiping the Lord by praying to Him. Those who fear the Lord (and this may be reverence or respect or true trembling) are those who believe that the Lord is in charge of their lives, and they recognize their accountability to Him. If we really “fear the Lord” then the Angel of the Lord is our protector according to this verse. The unsaved cannot claim this blessing although I am convinced that the Lord often protects the unsaved as well as He gives them chance after chance to believe in Him and worship Him.
Who is this Angel of the Lord?
I am convinced that the Old Testament references to the Angel of the Lord are references to the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus. If that is true, then the Lord Himself was intervening in the lives of His saints in the Old Testament just as He does in the New Testament. John says, “No one has seen God (the Father) at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him (John 1:18 NKJV).” This appears to be true in the Old as well as the New Testament.
The Lord Jesus Knows His Own
Somehow it seems to me that having the Lord with us, protecting us, guiding us and preparing for our arrival in heaven is a whole lot better than going through life thinking that God doesn’t exist, that each person was miraculously made from a lump of clay without a divine designer, and presuming that we came from nowhere and we go into nothingness.
I am glad that I have seen the Lord intervene in my life in miraculous ways. He has kept His promise to encamp around me and my family and to deliver us. I have been delivered from jobs that involved unscrupulous managers. I have been delivered from financial disaster while preaching the Gospel freely. I have been delivered from this pandemic by falling and hyper-extending my knee so that I had to remain isolated while it healed during the worst part of the pandemic. I have been delivered from deer on the road (that others hit). And I am sure that I don’t know how many times the Angel of the Lord has protected and delivered me and my family when we were not even aware of it. The nice part about this is that I used to think that my Angel of the Lord was a guardian angel but now I am convinced that this verse is telling us that if we fear the Lord, the Lord Himself is protecting and delivering us. We may have guardian angels as well but that is a story for another time.
It is the Lord Himself that Delivers
Hagar, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Balaam, Gideon, and Elijah all had the Angel of the Lord appear to them and in each case, statements are made that convince me that the Angel of the Lord was God. And since God has always been revealed by the Lord Jesus, I am convinced that the Lord Jesus has always taken a personal interest in His own true believers.
It’s a grand thing to be saved,
It’s a grand thing to be saved,
And to know it too,
And to show it too,
It’s a grand thing to be saved.
The Lord not only died to save us for eternity, He lives to encamp around us if we believe in Him and to preserve us. What a blessing!
Bruce Collins
Meditation for the weeks of October 2 and 9, 2022