The Eternal God the Refuge of His Saints

Next Part The Eternal God the Refuge of His Saints 2

The eternal Goal is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. He shall thrust out the enemy from before you; and shall say, "Destroy them!" Deuteronomy 33:27

In the words of our text, I think we may observe four leading features– two statements, a promise, and a charge. The two statements are,

I. "The eternal God is your refuge," and

II. "Underneath are the everlasting arms."

III. The promise is, "He shall thrust out the enemy before you."

IV. The charge is, "Destroy them."

I. The first STATEMENT contains a grand, blessed, gospel truth– "the eternal Goal is your refuge." Let us look first a little at what a refuge is, and see how and why the eternal God is the refuge of his saints.

There are several reasons why the word "refuge," conveyed to the mind of a believing Israelite stronger ideas than it may carry to ours.

1. First, you must observe, that the natural position and circumstances of the land of Canaan differed widely from our own. Protected by the sea all around our shores, and by our powerful fleet, we are not exposed to the sudden incursions and invasions of enemies; and, therefore, our towns, except a few on the sea coast, are not walled or fortified. But it was not so in Palestine. There they were exposed to continual invasions from the warlike tribes that lay upon their frontier, and from the unsubdued Canaanites who dwelt in their very midst. They were obliged, therefore, to have strongly fortified cities, situated usually on elevated spots to protect themselves, and especially their women and children, their flocks and herds, from these invading foes. This will explain why in the Psalms David so continually speaks of the Lord as his "fortress," his "strong tower," his "high place;" for these fortified cities were generally situated on mountain tops.

2. Another circumstance which made the figure of a refuge so prominent in the Old Testament is connected with the peculiar nature of the climate of Palestine, which required accessible and speedily reached shelter, sometimes from severe thunderstorms, in which not only was the lightning very dangerous, but which were usually attended with destructive showers of hail; sometimes from the intense rays of a burning sun; and sometimes from hot pestilential winds, such as the sirocco, which blew from the wide and vast Eastern desert. We find, therefore, the prophet speaking, "For you have been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall." (Isa. 25:4.) And again, "And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." (Isa. 32:2.)

3. But there was another reason why we find the figure of a refuge to occur so frequently in the Old Testament. As you well know, Moses set apart six cities of refuge for the manslayer who had killed his neighbor unawares. But into this point I need not enter, as you are no doubt well acquainted with it, and I have much that lies before me in our text.

But the main reason why I have endeavored to explain the scriptural meaning of the word "refuge" is, that we may understand more fully, and grasp more believingly, the blessing intimated in our text, "The eternal God is your refuge." A refuge, then, signifies a shelter into which we may run when danger threatens, and find in it, as a hiding place, safety to be obtained nowhere else.

Even natural men will sometimes seek a refuge in what they think or believe is religion. Natural conscience works in the breast of many sufficiently to make them feel that they cannot die as they have lived without something like repentance and amendment of life. They know sufficiently of the anger of God revealed against sinners, and of their own sinful lives, to show them that something must be done, or at least known and felt to remove from their conscience the sting of death. It is from this instinctive sense of needing a refuge that all the false religion springs which we see on every side. Ignorant of Christ and of salvation by him, they trust to their own good works or to some form of godliness while they deny the power. Now all these refuges God has declared to be "refuges of lies," and he tells us very plainly how he deals with them in the case of his people. He says, "Behold I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation– he who believes shall not make haste. Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet; and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place." (Isa. 28:16, 17.)

We gather from these words that even his own people may make lies a refuge until the Lord drives them out by laying judgment to the line and righteousness to the plummet. This he does by the application of his law to their conscience, by which "judgment is laid to the line, and righteousness to the plummet." The figure here is that of the law, measuring a sinner's words and works in the same strict way as a mason measures, by his plumb-line and level, whether a wall stands perfectly horizontal and perfectly perpendicular. Now no sooner does this strict and unerring law detect the crookedness of the wall we have built up, than the hail sweeps it away as a refuge of lies, and the waters of God's wrath overflow the hiding place. And what is the consequence? The covenant with death is broken, and the agreement with hell no longer stands.

Can you not recollect the time when you made as it were a covenant with death? Were not these, or similar ones, the thoughts of your mind? "Was not God merciful? What had you done worse than others? If you went to hell, what would become of thousands? Who could charge you with any great or open sins? Were you not as religious as most, indeed a great deal more than many others?" Now all this was making a covenant with death and an agreement with hell, and saying, "When the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto me."

O how numerous are these lying refuges! Some fly to good works, this is their refuge; some to the sacrament and the prayers of a minister, called almost at the last hour, as if that would save them. Some fly to man's opinion, as though man's opinion would pass with God, and endorse them for heaven like a banker's bill; and some, of whom we would hope better things, fly to church membership and church ordinances, not knowing there are many members of churches who never were members of Christ; that a man may be baptized in water, who was never baptized with the Holy Spirit; and that to partake of the Lord's Supper is not the same thing as eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of God.

In fact, everything short of Christ made known to the soul by the power of God, everything short of the eternal God, as experimentally known, believed in, looked unto, laid hold of, and embraced by faith, is a refuge of lies, and will be found so in that day when God will break up the covenant which so many have made with death, and disannul the agreement which thousands and tens of thousands have entered into with hell.

But O what a mercy it is for the family of God that there is a refuge provided for them. I showed you when I was describing the places of refuge in the land of Canaan, that sometimes an invading foe, merciless and cruel, sometimes a terrific thunderstorm, sometimes the guilt of having shed blood, made a refuge both needful and desirable. And is not a refuge on similar grounds, spiritually viewed, needful and desirable now? Have we not cruel and merciless foes on every side, without and within, who would spare neither body or soul, but trample the one into the grave, and the other into hell? Is there not the storm of a fiery law ready to burst upon our head? Does not guilt, if not of actual blood, yet of crimes of as deep and dark a hue, at least in our feelings, lie upon our conscience? O the unspeakable mercy then, O the unutterable blessing, that there is a refuge provided for those who have no refuge in themselves, who have been hunted out of house and home, whose false refuges the hail has swept away, and whose hiding place the water-floods have overflowed.

But let us look a little more closely into the meaning of the words "the eternal God." How these words, as opened up and applied by the Holy Spirit, set before our eyes a blessed refuge for the poor guilty sinner who knows not where to hide his bleeding soul. "O where, O where," he sometimes cries, "shall I hide my guilty head? Wherever I go the wrath of God pursues me; wherever I turn all is darkness, blackness, and despair. If I look to self– what is there but a wreck and ruin? If I look to the law– what is there but curses and bondage? If I look to man, I must say with Job, 'Miserable physicians are you all.' If I look to friends, what can they do for me upon a dying bed, when the cold sweat will stand upon my brow and I must soon pass into eternity? Wife, children, relations, even the dear family of God, or the servants of his choice, may surround my bed, but can they speak peace and pardon to my guilty soul when I need it most?"

Now as the soul is thus hunted here and there, and driven out of false refuges, then does the eternal God begin to open his blessed arms, and to unfold what he is as the refuge of poor sinners who are driven out of every other.

But who is this eternal God? He is the great and glorious Jehovah, eternal in his Trinity of Persons, and in the Unity of his Essence. As such, the Father is the eternal Father, the Son is the eternal Son, and the Spirit is the eternal Spirit; and these three eternal persons in a glorious Trinity form one eternal God. Must it not needs be so? Can one of the Persons in the Trinity be eternal, and another not eternal also? How weak then, how more than weak, how wicked to own an eternal Father, and an eternal Spirit, and to deny and disown an eternal Son. What dishonor is thereby cast upon the glorious Person of the Son of the Father in truth and love, and how the Trinity itself is riven asunder and made no longer a Trinity of three co-equal, co-eternal Persons in one eternal, undivided Essence.

But what a depth of blessedness there is in this God being an eternal God; and that in and of this eternity, each Person of the Godhead has an equal share. Look at the love of the eternal God. How eternal was that– not a thing of time, not fixed upon us when first brought into being, not issuing out of his bosom first when we were quickened into divine life; but a love from all eternity, as being the love of an eternal God. "I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn you."

And how eternal are the thoughts of God– those thoughts which were of good, not of evil. They were eternal thoughts of peace to the Church; eternal thoughts of mercy to his beloved family; eternal thoughts of manifesting his grace in the Person and work of his dear Son; eternal flowings forth of goodness and love to those whom he had chosen in Christ, that they might be one with him, members of that glorious body of which his dear Son should be the Head. And eternal purpose also that nothing could defeat, that all the waves of time could not break through; eternal wisdom also to devise, and eternal power to accomplish.

O this eternal God! We look back into eternity; we see what God was from all eternity; and then we look forward to what he will be to all eternity. And we see him unchanging and unchangeable, resting in his love without variableness or the shadow of a turn, whether in eternity past, or in eternity to come. We think of the spirits of just men made perfect; we follow in faith and hope the souls of our dear departed friends; we view their drinking the pleasures which are at his right hand forever; and so they will be there to all eternity, ever basking in the smiles of an eternal God, ever living in his favor, ever conformed to the glorious image of his eternal Son, and ever drinking fresh draughts of love and bliss in his eternal presence.

O this eternal Father in the depths of his fatherly love in the gift of his dear Son! O the love, condescension, and tenderness of this eternal Son in the depths of his mercy and grace in suffering, bleeding, and dying for poor guilty sinners! O the wisdom, the power, the grace, and the blessedness of this eternal Spirit, in taking of the things of Christ, unfolding the Person of Jesus, bringing him near, revealing him to the soul, sprinkling the conscience with his blood, and making him known and precious! What a depth of gratitude is everlastingly due from the redeemed church of God, to all the three sacred Persons of the glorious and undivided Trinity, and that both in his Trinity of Persons and his Unity of Essence the eternal God should be their refuge!

Now, poor sinner, upon whose head the beams of a fiery law are darting; now, poor sinner, distressed in your mind, guilty in your conscience, plagued with a thousand temptations, beset by innumerable doubts and fears– can you not look up a little out of your gloom and sadness, and see that the eternal God is your refuge? Do you not cleave to him with the utmost of your power, as being beaten out of every other? Have you not taken hold of his strength that you may make peace with him? Are you not looking to him? And does he not say– "Look unto me and be saved, all the ends of the earth?" He bids you look at him as Moses bade the Israelites look to the bronze serpent.

Poor sinner, groaning under the weight of your transgression, he bids you look to him. Has the blessed Lord, he into whose lips grace was poured, not said, "Him who comes to me I will in no wise cast out?" Why should you not look? Why should you not come to him? Will he cast you out? Do you not feel the secret drawings of his grace, movements upon your heart which make you come often with strong crying and tears, with groans and sighs, earnest, vehement, and continual supplications? What are these but the inward teachings of God? as our Lord said, "It is written in the prophets– they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that has heard, and has learned of the Father, comes unto me." (John 6:45.)

And do you not know that the Lord himself said, that no man can come to him except the Father which has sent him draws him? These comings, therefore, of your soul in earnest and vehement desire are, according to his own testimony, from the special teachings and gracious drawings of God in you. Having made his dear Son to be the refuge of your soul, he is now drawing you unto him that you may find pardon and peace in him.

But perhaps you will say, "I am so sinful, so guilty, I have been such a sinner, much worse than you can form any conception of; and it is this which sinks me low." Are you lower than brother Jonah when he was in the whale's belly, and, in his own feelings, in the belly of hell? And yet what said he? "Yet will I look again toward your holy temple." Can you not look again toward the holy temple? Is his mercy clean gone forever? So David felt and feared, but it was not so, for "his mercy endures forever;" and that is a long and strong word. Look and live, look and live! What! Have you no eyes to see the suitability of Jesus? No eyes to see the glorious Person of the Son of God? No eyes to see his bleeding wounds? No eyes to see his dying love, no eyes to see his power to save, no eyes to see what he has done for others, and what he can do for you if he has not done it yet? "The eternal God is your refuge."

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