Understanding the Everlasting Arms of God, by J.R. Miller (1840–1912)

“The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms!” Deuteronomy 33:27

The picture suggested is that of a little child lying in the strong arms of a father who is able to withstand all storms and dangers. At the two extremes of life–childhood and old age, this promise comes with special assurance.

A Word for the Children:

“He shall gather the lambs in His arms and carry them in His bosom” (Isaiah 40:11)

Blessed Comfort for the Aged:

“Even to your old age and gray hairs I am He, I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you. I will sustain you and I will rescue you!” (Isaiah 46:4)

What does an arm represent?

The thought of God’s embracing arms is very suggestive. What is the thought suggested by the arm of God enfolded around His child?

Protection

As a father puts his arm around his child when he 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!”

Affection

• The father’s arm drawn around a child is a token of love, being held in the father’s bosom, near his heart.
• The shepherd carries the lambs in his bosom.
• John lay on Jesus’ bosom.
• A mother holds the child in her bosom because she loves her child.

This picture of God embracing His children in His arms tells of His love for them–His love is tender, close, intimate.

Strength

The arm is a symbol of strength. God’s 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)

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 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!

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 forever 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!

Divine Care

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 waves.
• 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!