435. The Lord will Defend
Zechariah 12:8 In that day shall the Lord defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David shall be as God, the angel of the Lord before them.
The Lord promises to defend the Church of believers in Jesus Christ. We need a strong defense since we are constantly under attack from our spiritual enemies. Sin, Death, and the Devil are relentlessly at war with us the children of God, and they are intent on killing and destroying and stealing our life and our secure relationship with the Lord God. They will not succeed because the Almighty Lord is our Defender. The Bible is full of war imagery because the spiritual warfare is serious and deadly. It is vital that we place ourselves in the hands of the Defender. We can count on the Lord to keep His promise: He not only saves and keeps but He also defends and guards.
The peace of God will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. He guards like a precious pearl the precarious bond of faith that keeps us with Jesus Christ our Lord. Our faith relationship is tenuous and precarious because we believe it but we don’t see it. We cannot see the castle fortress that keeps us in the one true faith. We all know people who may have believed in Jesus at one point in their life, but they have since shipwrecked their faith on the rocky shoals of unbelief. We are reminded that our faith may be weak and fragile, but a little bit of faith in Christ is strong enough to save, to keep and defend us, for He is strong.
The further promise is that the weak and feeble in the Church will be as strong and mighty as David. When we are weak, then He is strong. We shall be as David, and the house of David (the Church) shall be as God. There is a safe place to go: go to the gathered believers who preach and hear the Gospel. David was a strong and bold warrior, able to leap tall buildings and such, because he strengthened himself in the Lord. He had and he kept a heart for the Lord; he was “a man after God’s own heart.” This is the strength of David: he trusted the Lord. That is where we find our strength, in the Lord Jesus Christ, and that strong name will defend us.