A local convenience store displays a sign, "Open 7 Days." This doesn't mean that the store will be in business only seven more days. Rather we understand that this is an abbreviation stating that the store is open every day of the week. Another common sign is, "Open 24 hours," meaning that this store is open every day for 24 hours. In other words, it never closes. This is accomplished by utilizing multiple shifts of workers. Usually the day is separated into three eight-hour shifts, but not always. One of my neighbors is employed by the county sheriff's department, and he has a twelve-hour shift four days a week. Evidently his organization feels that a twelve-hour shift per day for four days is more economical than an eight-hour shift per day for five. The expression 24/7 is being used to describe the continuous, around the clock action of our troops in the war for 'Iraqi Freedom.' It means that the action never ceases, it goes on seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. This is a relentless assault involving planes, tanks, ships, and troops. I am not sure how they arrange for breaks from the action for eating and sleeping, but no doubt some provision has been made for these accommodations.
There is one organization, however, that is on a 24/7 schedule with no breaks. We are told that God never slumbers nor sleeps, that He is always on the job of keeping watch over His own.
"And, behind the great unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, Keeping watch over His own." James Russell Lowell, 1845
Of course, 'His own' covers a lot of territory, namely the whole universe. How He does this is a mystery. God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, but He has help. We are told that He is omnipresent by His Spirit (Ministry of Healing, p 417). But the Holy Spirit also has help. We are told that the Spirit has been sent down to earth as Captain of the Lord's Host to conduct the Great Controversy (Desire of Ages, p 352). The Lord's Host is the multitude of angels who were mobilized into the army of heaven at the time of Satan's rebellion. The Holy Spirit is the commander of this army, and it is through the combined effort of the Holy Spirit and the angels that we receive around the clock protection and guidance. The angels, who neither slumber nor sleep, are on a 24/7 schedule.
