He Will Keep the Feet of His Saints

Introduction

The story of Hannah in I Samuel is one of my favorite in the entire Bible. After years of barrenness, Hannah sees her prayer answered, and she gives her little son to the Lord, exactly as she had promised. How easy it would have been to retract her vow and to keep Samuel for herself, but Hannah not only does nothing of the kind, she presents Samuel to Eli with triumphant rejoicing. Her prayer of dedication after Samuel has been weaned (I Samuel 2:1-10) bears many similarities to Mary's Magnificat in Luke 1:46-55. The Lord of Hannah is not only the God of the holy, the hurting, and the humble, He is the Lord of salvation. This salvation is all-encompassing in a way we seldom hear about today. How trite is the contemporary view of what "salvation" means, often resulting in the shoddy use of the word "sinners" rather than "saints" to identify the Lord's children. Hannah's prayer not only provides a rich context for the Old Testament's use of the word "saints," it connects with a tapestry of meaning woven throughout the entire Bible.

I Samuel 2:8-9 reads, "For the pillars of the earth are the LORD's, and He has set the world upon them. He will keep the feet of His saints, but the wicked shall be silent in darkness." The immediate context of Hannah's utterance of this promise--He keeps the feet of His saints--reveals the Lord's governance over the earth itself. The pillars upon which the Lord has set the earth are not some ignorant misconception of Hannah's of a flat earth; they are an accurate description of the moral and ethical foundations upon which the Lord has set all of reality. This moral bedrock of truth and light is the context out of which Samuel himself will execute judgment as the last of the judges. It is also the warning within his first encounter with the Lord (I Samuel 3) in which the destruction of the wicked Eli and his debauched sons is prophesied. Corruption and decay may appear to erode the foundations of society, but they can never shake the pillars of truth upon which the Lord has established reality itself.

How He does so is indeed the entire scope of the salvation He brings. When we remember that it is Samuel who anoints David as king while Saul yet claims the title, and when we consider that David is a type of Christ and that his "Son" is Truth Himself, we read with greater richness the words of David's son, Solomon, who prayed, not for wealth, long life, the lives of his enemies, or personal glory, but for wisdom. And in Proverbs 9:1, Solomon speaks of the seven pillars of wisdom. Surely, the one who walks with God not only walks upon the sure foundation of truth with light as his guide, he himself possesses wisdom to lead others. It is this wisdom that qualifies Solomon to be king. The best way in which to walk, then, is surely "in His steps," as Charles Sheldon shows in his eloquent 1896 classic, In His Steps. This work, though sometimes criticized for its leanings towards a social gospel, nevertheless links with the key themes of Hannah's prayer: God is, after all, vitally interested in saving those who cannot save themselves. And why would the Lord save anyone He cannot keep?

The Words Themselves

When we think of each word of this phrase from Hannah's prayer, each takes on its own significance. "He will keep the feet of His saints" begins, of course, with "He." We are commanded in Ephesians 5:15-17 to walk circumspectly, and we know we bear responsibility for where our feet take us, but ultimately, it is the Lord, not our own selves, who keeps our feet. Aren't you grateful? And what about "keeps"? The Hebrew word used here, yishmar, which comes from the root, shamar, means to guard, to watch over, to protect with great care, and to preserve. The sense of protection implied in this one little word extends not merely to physical danger but especially to moral danger. This word also implies that the "way" itself in which "He keeps" His saints (Proverbs 2:8), is a special path--which following "in His steps" certainly implies. And what about "feet"? Why doesn't Hannah use a different word, like "way"? But when we realize that our time on earth is a journey, we realize that we travel through this world on foot, after all. "Feet" is a vivid word.

Think of all the Scriptures that refer to our feet. We even have armor, Paul says, for our feet--the shoes of peace (Ephesians 6:15). And think of what Jesus did for His disciples within hours of being betrayed. He washed their feet and left them an example to follow. Feet that are godly are prepared for the journey. Have you ever seen someone wearing shoes you thought were not only utterly ridiculous but completely inappropriate for their job? I knew a beginning teacher who wore spike heels even when she was eight months pregnant. Her zip and cheer rivaled her flamboyant style. In my mind, I said, "Just wait. One day, you will wear sensible shoes." And, then, of course, the word "saints," is a word I have been thinking about recently. This passage in I Samuel is the next passage to feature this word in Scripture, after its use by Moses in Deuteronomy 33:2-3. God's people are referred to all throughout Scripture as "saints," not "sinners," as is the word of choice today.

The Direction of Our Feet

When we think of the way that our Lord keeps our feet, four things come to mind: direction, danger, duration, and dominion. God's Word is rich indeed on each topic connected to this text. The Lord keeps the feet of His saints by giving them divine direction. I Peter 2:21 tells us that we should follow in His steps (the Scripture for Charles Sheldon's book), and these steps will indeed lead us into God's will. Proverbs 3:6 promises that, if we acknowledge the Lord in all our ways, He will direct our paths. Isaiah 30:21 shows that the Lord will make His direction clear, "This is the way; walk in it." We will not get lost on the right hand or on the left when we follow where the Lord is leading, but haven't you had some close calls? I certainly have! Samuel learns divine direction early on as a small child when he first hears the Lord's voice. The morally bankrupt Eli teaches Samuel to answer the Lord's call, "Speak, Lord, for your servant hears" (I Samuel 3:10). Can you imagine saying this every morning? My father loved The Hymn Makers' version of Frances Ridley Havergal's hymn, "Speak, Thy Servant Heareth," showing the soul's utter devotion to the voice of the Lord, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2vnD9oWtxE

The Dangers for Our Feet

The Lord who directs the feet of His saints also protects them from danger. Our Lord taught us to pray, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil" (Matthew 6:13). My mother put it like this: "Life is a journey of sensing and correcting." We would say, "What you walk into innocently, walk out of wisely." We do have the Lord's wisdom to guide us, but we also have feet of clay, and we are like sheep prone to going astray. Not only are we prone to going our own way, we are likely to go down the slippery slope of our own culture and ultimately plummet to moral ruin. Here, especially, our Lord keeps our way if we want to be kept. That, in fact, is the key: do we want to be kept? We certainly can be! David says in Psalm 18:33, "He makes my feet like hinds' feet and sets me upon my high places." When life feels like a precarious uphill climb, the Lord keeps us from falling.

The Lord knows how to keep us from entering danger in the first place, as Peter says in II Peter 1:10, "If you do these things, you will never fall." What things? All the things that build the Christian life on those pillars of the Lord that Hannah mentioned in her prayer. Peter says to add to our faith virtue; to our virtue, knowledge; to knowledge, self-control; to self-control, patience; to patience, godliness; to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love (II Peter 1:5-10). Those who say all we have to do is believe (to have "faith") are also likely to claim constant defeat as "sinners" in this Christian walk. They have not allowed the Lord to keep them from falling because they have not added to their faith all the seven pillars of wisdom--virtue, knowledge, self-control, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, love--that make them walk on a sure foundation. But God's Word is full of promises that we need not fall. Jude 24 promises that the Lord is able to keep us from falling. As Ben Franklin would say, wouldn't an ounce of prevention be worth a pound of cure?

But what if we do fall? What then? When Psalm 37:23 promises that the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, who delights in his way, this would seem to imply that the path is smooth, but it isn't. The Lord knows the way will be rough. But don't you absolutely love what David says next? "Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the LORD upholds him with his hand." How different does this sound from Jonathan Edwards' famous sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"? Wouldn't you rather be the saint whose feet the Lord keeps than the sinner who falls into the Lord's Hand? How gracious is our Lord in keeping us! Psalm 145:14 comforts us this way: "The Lord upholds all that fall and raises up all those that are bowed down." Proverbs 3:26 says, "For the Lord will be your confidence, and will keep your foot from being taken." Our Lord knows how to protect us from danger.

The Duration of Our Feet

And what about duration? The very word "keep" promises the long haul. When Hannah prays this prayer, "He will keep the feet of his saints," we cannot help wondering if she was literally thinking of the provision of the Lord for His people in the wilderness for forty years where their shoes did not wear out (Deuteronomy 8:4; 29:5; Nehemiah 9:21). How do we explain this? We know that it is, after all, the Lord who "keeps the feet of His saints." His keeping power is more than a verbal cliché of security. It is the actual, ever-present keeping power of the blessed Holy Spirit that we need to claim today in this age of quick fixes and butterfly attention spans. We are commanded not to be weary in well-doing, for we shall reap if we do not faint (Galatians 6:9).

But our culture doesn't think much of sticking power these days, apparently. I heard a contractor say recently that he has had new hires who didn't even show up the first day. There cannot be even one day where we do not "show up" for the Lord's service, no matter how tired our spiritual feet have become. He tells us over and over that "he who endures to the end shall be saved." The Puritans called this the perseverance of the saints, but today the meaning of this term has pejorated to indicate a superficial security regardless of the way we walk and live. Scripture does not promise protection to the one who heeds no warnings and who is unwilling to endure. "He will keep the way of His saints" means He keeps them all the way to the end.

The Dominion of Our Feet

And, finally, dominion is promised for those whose feet the Lord has kept in His way. Scripture is rich indeed on this thought, and the symbolism of feet all throughout God's Word deserves its own study. Just think of what the Lord said to Joshua, "Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given you" (Joshua 1:3). And when Joshua put his foot in the Jordan, the waters parted and his people walked over on dry ground. Jesus walked on water, not during perfect calm, but during a severe storm (Matthew 14:22-33; Mark 6:45-52; John 6:15-21). The Lord of the storm gives us dominion and commands us not to be afraid. The earth, after all, is the Lord's, and Christ Himself will put His foot on the Mount of Olives one day as King over all creation. Meanwhile, as His children, we are told to shake off the dust from our feet for those places that rejected our dominion and authority. It doesn't matter if we have a following.

The feet of Christ Himself, forever scarred with nail prints, are majestic in their swift sweetness and authority. John in The Revelation describes them this way, "And his feet [were] like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace" (Revelation 1:15). I cannot help being reminded of the great image in Daniel 2:33 and 41, where the best feet earth had to offer the kingdoms of this world were made partly of iron and partly of clay. The great image in Nebuchadnezzar's dream was vulnerable in its feet, and the entire kingdom fell in a day. So much for the pillars of politics and earthly wisdom. But the stone cut without hands crushes all this "wisdom" in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, and the feet of Christ will crush the serpent's head (Genesis 3:15) in that Final Day. How well I remember seeing when Saddam Hussein's statue was toppled in 2003, a few years before his execution for crimes against humanity. Children beat his statue with their shoes, symbolizing the victory that was soon to come.

Conclusion

"He will keep the feet of His saints" is a prayer we would do well to pray with Hannah. We don't think of our feet much these days, except perhaps to sport new shoes or to show off a pedicure. But are we allowing the Lord to do what He promised in our lives? We are on a long and difficult journey, and the Lord knows how to bring us home.