When the battleship, Hotspur, at Portland, fired her big guns on the Glatton to test the strength of its armour, the shots struck the turret with frightful force, but did no harm to the three weak, little creatures inside; a goat, a fowl, a rabbit. They were alarmed, but not harmed. They were safe inside the mighty armoured sides of the battleship. They had not strength in themselves to withstand the violence of the guns. Had they been harmed it would have shown, not their weakness, but the weakness of the armour behind which they were sheltered.
So it is with believers in Christ. They are safe indeed. As we often sing:
“Safe in Christ the weakest child
Stands in all God’s favour;
All in Christ are reconciled
Through that only Saviour.”
The believer is not safe in himself, but in CHRIST. Just as the guns of the Hotspur were aimed at the Glatton, so all the judgment of God against sin in all its terror fell on the blessed Saviour on the cross, and He exhausted the wrath of God, which should have fallen on the sinner, but which fell on Christ, in order that God might save the believing sinner righteously.
The three defenceless creatures were doubtless very much alarmed. They were put there not to frighten them, but to be a test of the battleship’s ability to withstand a broadside in battle, but, however much they were frightened, their feelings did not lessen their security.
So many a trembling believer is troubled by doubts and fears, but if be realised that his security lies in Christ, and in what He has done, and not in himself, his doubts would vanish. We cannot doubt Christ nor the sufficiency of His work.
If the three defenceless creatures in the battleship had the intelligence to understand the strength of the armour that was protecting them, they need have had no fear. Should not believers on Christ, with the Word of God in their hands, be free from doubts and fears as to their ultimate salvation?
Is not the Word of the Lord Himself sufficient, when He says of every believer in Him, “I give to them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man in pluck them out of My hand. My Father, which gave them Me is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father’s hand”? (John 10:28-29).