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JACOB (Gen. 28: 3, 4, 11, 15, 20).
"And God Almighty bless thee . . . . . and give thee the blessing of Abraham
. . . . . and lay down in that place to sleep . . . . . Behold, I am with thee, and will
keep thee . . . . . and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on . . . . ."
SAMUEL (I Sam. 3: 3, 4).
"And ere the lamp of God went out in the temple of the Lord, where the ark
of God was, and Samuel was laid down to sleep, that the Lord called Samuel."
SOLOMON (II Sam. 12: 25 and I Kings 3: 5-16).
"And He called his name Jedidiah (The beloved of the Lord) because of the
Lord."
"In Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said,
Ask what I shall give thee."
To these, examples from the N.T. could be added, such as the deliverance of Peter
from prison (Acts 12:), the deliverance of Paul and all on board from the shipwreck
(Acts 27:) and even the mighty resurrection of God's Beloved Son from the power of
the grave. Enough has been brought forward. Here is a corrective to that feverish haste
and vain labour that attempts the impossible without the Lord.
"Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord."
#33.
The beloved of the Lord.
"The safe dwelling."
pp. 39, 40
No title of the Lord Jesus is more full than that which God used when He broke the
silence of centuries at the waters of Jordan: "This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am
well pleased" (Matt. 3: 17). Perhaps no summary of blessing is so precious as that
which concludes the will of the Father in Eph. 1: 6, "accepted in the Beloved", and there
is certainly no title given to His people that is nearer to His heart than the one given to
Israel in Deut. 33: 12, "The beloved of the Lord". A meditation upon some of the
occurrences of this title will surely be a means of consolation to many if not all our
readers.
In the ministry of consolation we do not attempt analysis, and are not too much
concerned with dispensational distinctions, realizing that in the realm of love, such
differences, if they exist, are not too evident:--
"The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by Him; and the Lord shall cover him
all the day long, and he shall dwell between His shoulders" (Deut. 33: 12).
The special blessing attached to this title that we here consider is the provision for the
beloved of the Lord of a safe dwelling, both during life's pilgrimage, and when we shall
reach the house of the Lord to dwell therein for ever.