The Lord has left on record in His Word many precious promises. His people have need of them in their wilderness journey through this world. The Lord has left these promises for the strengthening and encouragement of His people. That the Lord will never leave nor forsake His people is a promise to which they have to resort when in a very desolate state. The promise that the Lord shall guide them continually is another promise which is full of comfort to His believing people.
The children of God are prone to wander out of the way. They will turn aside to the right hand and to the left, if they are left to themselves. They cannot keep themselves nor direct their way aright but need to be kept and guided by One who knows their waywardness.
The history of Israel in the wilderness bears sad testimony to the proneness of the Lord’s people to wander from the Lord and turn aside out of the way. How often did the children of Israel go astray though they were God’s covenant people. They needed to have their way hedged up, they needed to be corrected and to have their feet directed anew into the right way. So it is with His people still. There is in them an evil heart of unbelief against which they are warned. There is in every one of them an old nature that would draw them aside on every occasion from the way in which they should go. Self confidence is of no avail in keeping them in the right way. They need dependence on One who is able to keep them and guide them continually.
The promise which is given in the Word of God to those who look to the Lord for guidance is — “The Lord shall guide thee continually.” He who has brought them into the narrow way, out of the broad way which leads to destruction, is to preserve them in that narrow way guiding their steps aright. He led His people in the wilderness in the pillar of cloud by day and by the pillar of fire by night — and He is the same God still. He is to direct all their paths. They are to hear a voice behind them saying, This is the way, walk ye in it.
The Lord will guide His people as a shepherd does his flock for He is the Shepherd of Israel. He leads His people by the still waters. He satisfies their thirst in drought. He will guide them in a right way that they may go to a city of habitation. Job could say, He knows the way that I take. The Lord’s eye is ever upon His own. They are precious in His eyes as purchased by Him. They are His by right of conquest, who delivered them out of the hand of the enemy. The path they are treading He has marked out for them so it is well known to Him. When they are passing through great trials and difficulties, still the promise remains sure — “The Lord will guide thee continually.” He has engraven His people on the palms of His hands.
The Psalmist in his day had to say:
Thou, with Thy counsel, while I live,
wilt me conduct and guide;
And to Thy glory afterward
receive me to abide.”
Ps. 73: 24
From this we see that the Lord is not only leading and guiding his people day by day but is guiding them to a certain destination. He did not bring His people out of the land of Egypt to leave them in the wilderness — though an unbelieving generation perished there — but to bring them into the land of Canaan, the land of promise. So, too, with His people in every generation, the Lord is to bring each one of His people into the inheritance which He has prepared for them. He is guiding them onward to Zion. He is at last to bring them into the haven of rest. They are to sit down there with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. They are to be brought to the heavenly Jerusalem, for it is there that the Lord has been leading and guiding His people. And, when they arrive there at the Father’s house of many mansions, they will have to acknowledge to the praise of His glorious grace that He led them by a right way to a city of habitation. From there they shall never go out world without end.