Tim Maas Supporter Retired Quality Assurance Specialist with the U.S. Army

I would express it by saying that, for believers who seek to do His will, God gives the degree of protection that is required for them to accomplish what He wants them to do during their earthly lives. (I have always believed that, in eternity, the redeemed will have full visibility and knowledge of the ways in which God protected and enabled them in their work for Him, including ways of which they had not been aware, or which they may even have regarded at the time as hindrances).

At the same time, no one is to tempt God for protective action in relation to the taking of needless or gratuitous risks (as Jesus demonstrated when he rebuked Satan for the temptation to throw Himself down from the temple in Luke 4:9-12).

And, of course, God's protection also does not override the eventual finality of death, unless the believer is alive at the time of the Rapture or Christ's return.

Scripture also records instances (such as in Judges 2, Isaiah 10, Jeremiah 25, and Jeremiah 27) of God withdrawing His protection from Israel, and using Israel's enemies (such as Assyria and Babylon) as a means of executing His judgment against Israel and Judah for their idolatry and other sins, even going so far as to refer to the rulers of those enemy nations as "My servant", and also even though God made clear His additional future intention to harshly judge those same enemy nations by other nations or rulers, including Persia, whose king Cyrus (whom God called His anointed in Isaiah 45:1) conquered Babylon.

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