“
I will always be with you”—“nor forsake you.” The force
of that promise is, “Being with you, I will never let you
work alone. I will help you. I will not desert you as to My
Presence and I will not desert y
ou as to My succor. I will be
with you and I will help you in all that you have to
do.” This is a double promise and it is doubly sweet!
Besides that,
this promise wards off from us the most terri
ble calamity that could possibly occur to us
. It may help to
make this promise increasingly precious to us if we think for a
minute what would become of
us if God did leave us or
forsake us. Then, indeed, might the heavens be hung with bl
ackness and the light of the sun be put out forever if God
should leave us! The straight road to
Hell would be open before us and we shoul
d soon be going there if we were forsaken
of God. It would have been far better to
never have been born, or never to have
known the way of life at all than, after
all, to be deserted of God and be left to perish! Thank God
that can never be the portion of
anyone who has truly trusted
in Him.
Recollect also that,
if He had not been God, He w
ould have forsaken us long ago
. Our patience with our fellow crea-
tures holds out but a very little while. But it is because G
od is God and, therefore, changes not, that we are not con-
sumed. Have you not done a t
housand times enough to have made Him forsake
you if He were like the
sons of men? I con-
fess sorrowfully that I know I have. And if He could turn
from His eternal purpose, and if His everlasting love could
change, then surely He would long ago have cast my poor soul
far away from His Presence, to receive its well-deserved
punishment! Is it not a blessed thing to think that the very th
ing that is most to be feared by any man can never happen to
a Believer, for God has said, “I will neve
r leave you, nor forsake you”? You well de
serve to be forsaken
of God, but He
will never leave you! He will deal with yo
u in the way of Grace, and not of Justice.
If He left you, you would utterly pe-
rish, but He will not and cannot do so
—you are too dear to Him for His he
art to ever turn away from you.
”
”