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Matthew 23:37:
37O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!
Under her eyes, and yet freely, the hen allows her chickens to run about till danger threatens.
But then, at once, with raised wings she clucks her brood toward herself and does not rest until the last chick has crowded itself under her wings, and animal mother-faithfulness covers all the young innocents.
But then the chick does not yet hide itself with the mother-hen.
It only hides when for itself it sees the danger approach, and of its own initiative runs to the mother-hen, in order to seek protection beneath her wings.
The "Jerusalem, Jerusalem," which Jesus declaimed against Zion, in its touching pathos was doubly upbraiding, because it reproached Israel both for having surmised no danger, and for having sought defense and cover only with men, and not with God.
In time of need, the people should have called upon God and should have poured out their prayer and supplication for help and deliverance to the God of their fathers, and without waiting for an answer to their cry, as soon as the waters in the flood of destruction that came upon them began to rise, with their whole soul they should have hidden themselves with God.
But this the people did not do. They trusted in their own strength, and underestimated the danger. And then, instead of the people calling upon God, God called to his people: "O Israel, flee to me and let me be your shield." So God called not once but many times. And Israel heard that call and those alluring words of her God, but hardened her heart, and would not. And only then the abandonment became judgment: "How often would I have gathered thee, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not; behold, your house is left unto you desolate!" And at this judgment, Israel did not weep with shame in self-reproach but planted the Cross of Golgotha; and He Who wept over His people was the Lord.
Here you stand before all sorts of spiritual conditions.
One will be in danger who neither knows God nor is known of Him, and yet when the ship threatens to go down calls out: "O God, help me," but with a cry that is lost in the storm.
Another will be in danger, but he will bravely struggle against it, and have no thought of God.
Still another in time of stress will hear the warning call of God but will not heed it.
But there also will be those who, in the hour of grave need, will of themselves flee to God, will call upon Him and hear His call, and before the soul can be delivered, find themselves hidden with their God, overshadowed by His wings and covered by His faithfulness.
These last alone are they from whose soul in truth the call of confidence goes forth: "I hide me, Lord, with thee." (Psalm 143:9, marg. reading).
Hiding with God is something else than dwelling in His tent and knowing the secret grace of the hidden walk.
Hiding never indicates a fixed condition, but is always something transient. You hide from a thunderstorm, in order, presently, when the sun shines again, to step out from your hiding place, and continue on your way. The chicks hide with the mother hen, when the hawk is around; but when it is gone, they run out again. And so, also, the soul of him who knows God hides with his Father as long as trouble lasts; but when it is overpast there is no more need of hiding.
To hide with God is not the common, but tne special condition of a moment: "Until these calamities be overpast" (Psalm 57:1), or as said in Isaiah 36:20: "Until the indignation be overpast."
Even he who fears God, does not hide with Him in every time of need.
Trouble and care follow us after all the days of our life; our cross must be taken up each day anew. But, as a rule, in every day life the child of God calmly pursues his way in the assured confidence of Divine protection. He knows that his God fights for him, that God is his Shade, that God, as his Good Shepherd, leads him, and that when too violent an assault threatens, God covers him with His shield.
He then truly dwells with his God, and God does not forsake him, but it is the daily, common activity of faith, the operation of God's faithfulness and of the trustful confidence of his child.
But hiding is something else, something more, something connected with the hour of terror. When the waters have risen to the lips. When dark dread has suddenly overtaken the soul. When there is no way of escape. When dark night settles on the heart. When faith has no more confidence in itself.
Then there is a heroic taking hold of oneself, and as in a moment of danger the child runs to mother and hides himself in her dress, so does the soul fly to God and draw close up to Him, concealing itself in His sanctuary, and hiding with Him.
In doing this, the soul has no thought of anything, nor time for making a plan, but seeks, solely and alone this one thing of being hid in God, of being safe with Him, and of finding deliverance with Him.
If there ever were such a thing possible as a despair of faith, then hiding with God would be defined most aptly as the act of despair.
And although there never is despair in faith, there is despair in that the child of God in his anxiety despairs of himself, despairs of all help and deliverance from without, despairs of the working of the ordinary powers and gifts, which at other times are at his disposal, and now gives up even planning means of defence or resistance, because he feels that he can not face anything like this, that it is too strong for him, that he must unquestionably suffer defeat, and, therefore, has no courage left to run another futile risk, but throws pike and shield aside, and, helpless and powerless, takes refuge with his God, uttering the suppliant cry: "O God, fight thou for me;" and now hides himself with God.
When the chicks have crept under the wings of the mother hen, the hawk that drew near no longer sees the chicks, but only the angry mother hen. When the child runs to his mother and hides himself in her dress, the assailant has no longer to do with that helpless child, but with the mother, who lioness-like takes the part of her child. And so, when the child of God hides with his God, then the battle is no longer between him and the world, but between this world and God.
He who hides with God, has committed his cause to God. He withdraws himself from it. All his support and hope stands in the justice of his Lord. And only when the fact that God has righted all has become evident to him, does he come out from his hiding place again, in order to finish his course.
And, therefore, this hiding with God is not an act of the soul that is resorted to every time anything goes wrong. It is an act which only takes place amid circumstances of utmost perplexity and stress.
Only when David's spirit was overwhelmed within him, and he was forced to exclaim: "My heart within me is desolate" (Psalm 143:4), so that he "dwelt in darkness as those that have long been dead," was this cry for help wrung from his heart, and he was able to strike the keynote and to find the word which in moments of like stress the soldiers of Christ have echoed from their overwhelmed heart.
There is, however, also a hiding with God in times of oppressive anxiety and need, which are occasioned by the common course of life. For though the call to fight the battle of the Lord, as in the case with David, is only exceptional with believers, something of the nature of this battle repeats itself in every family and in every course of life.
Instances of mortal anxieties, which in circles of the world lead to despair and suicide, are almost without number; and this is the noteworthy point in faith, that that which through despair brings a man of the world to suicide, impels the believer to hide with his God.
They both give up, the man of the world and the child of God, but while the man of the world seeks surcease in self-destruction, just merely to get away from his troubles, the hope of eternal life dawns on the soul of the believer, and he also seeks to do away with himself, but only by not expecting anything more from his own capacities and powers, and by resigning everything to the hand of his God.
Thus one may be incurably ill and suffer agonies, and be no longer able to endure them and expect no more help from medicine, and yet he may hold out unto death, because he can hide with his God. So there can be despair in the family, through consuming sorrow, through bitter sin, through never-ending adversity, through lack of bread. So there can likewise be a grievance, through scorn and slander, so deep, so cruel, that there is no more restoration of honor possible, and life becomes a burden.
In all this, the cause of the Lord may be involved, but, for the most part, such is not the case, and all this dreadful darkness comes looming up from the common course of life. But even though the matter itself has nothing to do with the battle for God, yet of itself this battle enters in, just because these grievous troubles spend their wave-beat against the faith in the heart of God's child.
And then it can do no other than become a battle of faith, a combat between the authority of the world and the power which the faith will reveal. Anxiety would strike faith dumb, and faith will yet persist in crying for help against this mortal dread.
And in all such cases faith begins with resisting it, then tries to conjure the storm, then fights as long as strength holds out; and when at length it can do nothing more, and feels that it is ready to faint, then it puts forth the last heroic effort, by which it triumphs; for then it lets go, it gives up, in order now to leave it all with the Lord, and then the tempest-tossed and distressed one hides himself with his God, and his God binds up his wounds.
* * * * * * *This devotional classic offers 110 meditations on a single thought from Psalm 73: "As for me, it is good to be near to God." The author states, "The fellowship of being near unto God must become reality ... it must permeate and give color to our feeling, our perceptions, our sensations, our thinking, our imagining, our willing, our acting, our speaking. It must not stand as a foreign factor in our life, but it must be the passion that breathes throughout our whole existence."
The meditations reflect the blending of spiritual vigor with doctrinal loyalty so consistently expressed in the life of Abraham Kuyper. These are devotions with true substance, avoiding the extremes about which Kuyper adds a word of caution: "Stress in creedal confession, without drinking from the Living Fountain, runs dry in barren orthodoxy, just as truly as spiritual emotion, without clearness in confessional standards, makes one sink in the bog of sickly mysticism."
Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) was a Dutch political leader and Calvinist theologian. Elected to parliament in 1874, he became Prime Minister in 1901 and served in that capacity until 1905. As a theologian, he revived a systematic, orthodox Calvinism. He founded the Free Reformed Church and the Free University of Amsterdam. His other works include Principles of Sacred Theology, Lectures on Calvinism, and The Work of the Holy Spirit
Further information about Abraham Kuyper's life can be seen in the translator's "Biographical Note"; further information about To Be Near Unto God can be Abraham Kuyper's "Preface" to that book.
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