Sunday, February 14, 2010

Psalm 17:8 "The Apple and the Shadow"




"Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings."

1. Keep me 2. Hide me
The psalmist asks two things of God, that he might hide him and keep him. The apple of the eye seems to convey the thought, 'don't lose sight of me God'. The "apple of the eye" communicates position or station. As God looks through omniscient eyes he views the psalmist always. He is front and center at the cross hairs of Gods scope. An apple denotes sweet flavor, an aesthetic quality that is-full of color, symmetrical, and shapely. God in his sweet and favorable disposition keeps his children (the Church) always at the fore-front of his eternal eye. The worm of sin seeks to invade and destroy from the inside out, but in Gods keeping we are always preserved-fresh, ripe. The apple could also mean the iris of the eye. When a person sees with the eye, he is seeing the world through the window of the iris. God metaphorically peers through the iris of infinite wisdom and sees his beautiful Bride. In redemptive history God has positioned her at the center of the new creation which God has initiated. The bride is swept into the unfolding drama and God is keeping her as the apple of his eye as she fulfills her calling. He not only is keeping her but he hides her in the shadow of his wings. The imagery is that of a mother bird hiding her young under her pinions. This is for warmth, protection, comfort. They are sheltered from the adverse weather and lurking prey. The wild weather of false doctrines and cults which seek to uproot and destroy the Church; the prey from within and without-those buzzards and wolves who are attacking Gods word and Gods people. Even as Christ church is moving about the eagle of God is soaring above and we are continually kept in his shadow. He is not only our defense, swooping down in times of trouble and duress, but he is there ever flying with us in times of joy. The Sons pinions are unbreakable and the predators and purveyors of false religion cannot harm her. She is the apple of his eye and she is under his shadow. We have nothing to fear.

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