Eye, Apple of—A Symbol of God’s Care – Charles Spurgeon

IN the providence of God the apple of the eye is defended with peculiar care and transcendent skill. Those who have studied the formation of the pupil itself will tell you with how many coats the retina is preserved. Then the commonest observer knows how the eyebrows, the eyelashes, and the eyelids, are formed as outworks, fences, and barricades, to protect the pupil of the eye, which is thus made to dwell securely like a citizen within the entrenchments of a fortified town. God has bestowed extraordinary pains upon all that concerns the eye; being one of the tenderest organs of the physical frame, he has used many devices that it should be well preserved, notwithstanding its exceeding sensitiveness. Nor is it merely sheltered in its own fastness, but sentries keep ward lest it should be exposed to peril. Whenever it is threatened with even the appearance of danger no time is lost in consultation with yourself, but with agility so brisk that it seems almost involuntary, the arm is lifted up and the hand is raised to screen it from harm or to resist attack. If you are about to stumble, you naturally put out your hands to save your eyes. Instinct seems to teach you at once the value of eyesight, and your whole strength is put forth to preserve it. In fact, all the members of the body may be regarded as a patrol for the wardship of the eye; and all the incorporated powers of manhood are in constant vigilance to guard and protect that precious orb. Admiring then this beautiful arrangement to conserve the delicate organ of vision, we may pray, “Lord, keep you me as the apple of the eye, with many protections. You have been pleased with the strong bastions of your providence to surround your people: I ask for such protection. Lead me not into temptation; do not suffer the events of my career or the incidents of my daily life to entangle me so that I shall be unable to escape out of the perplexing snares. Let the powers of Heaven fight for me as of old the stars in their courses fought against Sisera. Let me be in league with the stones of the field, and command the beasts of the forest to be at peace with me. Let my tabernacle be in peace; and let no plague come near my dwelling. Do you, O God, visit my habitation; and so abide with me beneath that lowly roof that I may not by any means through outward circumstances or inward thoughts be led into sin. Guard me, O my God! by all the power of those mysterious wheels, whose motions I cannot understand, but of whose results you have said, ‘All things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called according to his purpose.’ “