In the Highlands of Scotland there is a mountain gorge twenty feet in width and two hundred feet in depth. Its perpendicular walls are bare of vegetation, save in their crevices, in which grow numerous wild flowers of rare beauty. Desirous of obtaining specimens of these mountain beauties, some scientific tourists once offered a Highland boy a handsome gift if he would consent to be lowered down the cliff by a rope, and would gather a little basketful of them. The boy looked wistfully at the money, for his parents were poor, but when he gazed at the yawning chasm, he shuddered, shrank back, and declined.
But filial love was strong within him, and after another glance at the gift and at the terrible fissure, his heart grew strong, his eyes flashed, and he said, “I’ll go, if my father will hold the rope!” And then with unshrinking nerves, cheek unblenched, and heart stout and strong, he suffered his father to put the rope about him, lower him into the abyss, and to suspend him there while he filled his little basket with the coveted flowers. It was a daring deed, but his faith in the strength of his father’s arm gave him power and courage to perform it.
This is just an illustration of the power of our God and Father exercised on our behalf. There is not only power to save us, to deliver us from the penalty of sin, “from the wrath that is coming,” but after we are saved, to keep us from falling, to uphold us, and strengthen us in every time of weakness and difficulty. All that we have to do is to trust this power; just as the brave lad trusted his father’s strong arm, and all is well. The promises of God in His Word as to His keeping power are very precious; “He is able to keep us from falling”; He has promised to “keep the feet of His saints”; and, lastly, this one, where the Lord’s people are compared to a vineyard, “I the Lord do keep it, I will water it every moment, lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day.”