Some quotes have real staying power. One that is in use today, and that nearly dates to the beginning of time, are the infamous words of the murderous Cain, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” His impertinent response, while an effort to deflect attention from his crime, turns out to be quite revealing. As the firstborn child of the family and the elder brother of Able, one might think that the Lord had every reason to regard Cain as his brother’s keeper. However, nothing could be further from the truth.
A keeper is a guardian, a protector, one who watches out for the one being kept. A keeper always has preservation and safekeeping in view. Cain’s sarcastic retort to the Lord’s question revealed the truth that he was not, by any measure, his brother’s keeper.
Conversely, believers do have a Keeper that excels at His role in every sense of the term. In Psalm 121 the psalmist, King David, celebrates God’s work as keeper six times in the short eight-verse poem. Alec Motyer notes that God exercises His guardianship in three ways—as “Creator, Redeemer and Companion.”
In verses 1-2 David looks expectantly in the distance for help from the Creator:
I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?
My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.
In verses 3-4 the focus changes to God’s role as the Redeemer of His chosen people:
He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
In verses 5-6 God is steadfastly at His children’s side as a Companion, protecting them from danger:
The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade on your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
Verses 7-8 end in a crescendo of keeping promises by the Great Promise Keeper.
The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.
The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.
God has not changed. For the believer He is still Creator, Redeemer and Companion and we need not fear the devil nor any of his Cain-like descendants. The Almighty is keeping us. He is guarding, protecting and preserving those whom He loves, and it extends through all the twists and turns of life. “Your going out and your coming in” is covered starting NOW and will continue into eternity. Live confidently for Christ. You, brother and sister, have been “sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory (Eph. 1:13-14).