The Refuge For The Oppressed

Next Part The Refuge For The Oppressed 2

"The Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed – a refuge in times of trouble. And those who know Your name will put their trust in You – for You, Lord, have not forsaken those who seek You." Psalm 9:9-10

I found upon the vestry table this morning a letter requesting me to preach from a certain text, "Jesus wept." The writer of that letter must know very little of the perplexities and exercises that I and every minister of truth have with respect to the texts that we preach from. I cannot take a text, and speak from it in the mere exercise of my judgment. Before I can take a text, and preach from it, I must have three things. First, I must see a vein of experience in it; in other words, I must have light upon it – secondly, I must find a measure of sweetness and savor in it; I must know something personally of the experience contained in it, and feel a measure of dew and unction to rest upon it; in other words, I must have life from it – and thirdly, I must find in it sufficient matter to form a tolerably full and connected discourse. I cannot run here, there, and everywhere all through the scriptures, nor deal in vague, loose generalities – but as far as the Lord gives me wisdom, strength, and ability, my path is to unfold the mind of the Spirit in such portions of the scripture as are commended with some savor to my conscience. In making these remarks, I wish not to condemn other gracious men who are led differently. Each has his own path and his own work – and God will bless each according to that line in which he leads him.

I have been much exercised and perplexed as to what text I should preach from. I think I have turned the Bible over this afternoon from beginning to end, without finding any one text in which I could see and feel these three things. At last, my eyes, in turning over the Psalms, fell upon these words. But it remains to be proved whether God directed my eyes there; for if he directed my eyes there, and brought a measure of their sweetness and savor into my soul, the effects and fruits will be seen and felt in your consciences.

The text consists of four clauses. May the Lord enable me, in taking up these clauses, so to unfold them, that the dew, power, and savor of the Holy Spirit may rest upon, and seal them with a divine unction to our hearts.

I. "The Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed." By "the Lord," in the text, we are to understand Jehovah in his Trinity of Persons, and Unity of Essence – Jehovah the Father, Jehovah the Son, and Jehovah the Holy Spirit, Israel's Three-one God. Now God, in his Unity of Essence, and Trinity of Persons, is a refuge to God's poor, oppressed family.

How he is, I shall endeavor under my third head more particularly to unfold – but previously, it will be desirable to enter a little into the meaning of the word "REFUGE."

1. The leading idea contained in the word "refuge" is that of shelter. For instance, we read in the scripture of "the cities of refuge." These were certain cities, three on one side of Jordan and three on the other, which God appointed for the manslayer to flee unto, that the avenger of blood might not smite him with the sword. When the manslayer had fled into these cities of refuge, he found in them shelter, protection and safety.

2. Again. Stongholds, fortified cities, and lofty rocks are set forth in scripture as places of refuge. David says, "The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer.., my high tower, and my refuge" 2Sa 22:2,3 . "The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats" Psalm 104:18. All these expressions imply, that when a person escapes to a fortified city, a lofty tower, or a high rock, there he finds shelter.

3. Again. A harbor of refuge is an expression in common use, that is, a natural or artificial haven along a rocky or dangerous coast, into which a ship tossed by the storm, or in danger of being cast upon the rocks, may run, and find safety.

Thus, the leading idea in the word "refuge" is shelter and safety – a place where one that has the guilt of blood upon his conscience, or one who is attacked by an enemy, or one who is tossed upon the stormy main, may find a secure shelter.

The Lord Jehovah in his Trinity of Persons, is this refuge for his people! He is their city, he is their rock, he is their harbor – unto him they flee in their distress, and find eternal safety.

But before we can find the Lord to be a refuge and a shelter for our souls, we must, by the work of the Holy Spirit upon our conscience, be brought into that spot to which the Lord as a refuge is adapted. The cities of refuge were nothing except to the man who had shed blood – the stronghold and fortified city are nothing except to one who is pursued by an enemy – the harbor of refuge is nothing to a vessel sailing on a smooth sea. Danger, attack, alarm, violence, peril – these things make a refuge suitable and desirable.

Carry this idea into spiritual things, as the text unfolds it. "The Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed." Does not the Holy Spirit here point out the people who need refuge?

Who are these "oppressed"? They are the Lord's tried family, his quickened, exercised, and often perplexed people. These are oppressed in various ways. But it is their oppression which makes Jehovah sought after as a refuge for their souls.

There is a great deal of NATURAL oppression in this country. What strides it is making! This country presents at this moment a fearful spectacle – the rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer; avarice sweeping into its lap the labors of the poor, increasing thereby its ill-gotten substance – and many of those who toil by their hands reduced to extremity and well-near starvation. These things I would not allude to, were not many of God's people suffering participants. The poor child of God suffers under the iron hand and iron heel of oppression just as much as his fellow men.

But there is this difference between them. The oppressed men of the world know no Jehovah as a refuge to flee unto – but the Lord's oppressed family flee for refuge unto that invisible God whom the world knows nothing of. They have a God of providence on whom to fix their eye – and the Lord, who counts the very hairs of their head, and who knows they stand in need of supplies for their temporal necessities, at times opens his hand. They have not fled to him for refuge in vain – for they thus see more clearly his bounty in providence relieving them from their oppression.

But there is another sense of the word, a higher and deeper signification, that is, oppressed SPIRITUALLY. All the Lord's people are not oppressed naturally – but all the Lord's people are, in their measure, oppressed spiritually. For instance,

1. There is the HEAVY BURDEN OF SIN. The guilt of sin lies weighty and powerful upon many a tender conscience. This is an oppression which often bows the family of God down to the earth with sorrow, fills them with fearful pangs of apprehension as to what will be their future portion, lays and keeps them low, and often makes them sigh and groan under the heavy burden upon their shoulders. But it is this very oppression, in the hands of the Spirit, which leads them to make the Lord their refuge. We need heavy weights and burdens to bring us to a point in our souls. We are often trifling with the things of God, getting a few doctrines in our judgment without knowing their power and blessedness in our soul's experience. And so some go on for years hovering around the truth, without coming into the feeling power of it, satisfied with a sound creed, without having the sweetness and savor of divine realities made manifest in their conscience.

Now, when the Lord has purposes of mercy and love to manifest – when he is determined that a man should know him to be the only refuge, he lays burdens upon his back, he brings guilt into his conscience, he sets his secret sins before his eyes, he makes him feel that of sinners he is chief. Wherever this is laid by the Spirit upon a man's conscience, it will bring him, sooner or later, to the Lord as his refuge. 'What can I do?' says the poor burdened soul; 'what help can I find from the creature? What salvation can I find in myself, a poor guilty wretch, weighed down with the oppression of sin?' This will make him seek after the Lord as his refuge, for he has none other to flee unto.

2. But he is oppressed also by SATAN, that enemy of his soul's peace. And O, what an oppressor is this! I have been speaking of earthly oppressors. I have been endeavoring to shoot an arrow at those exactors who grind the face of the poor. But what are those outward oppressors to the inward oppressor? What is the iron hand of creature oppression to the iron hand of Satan when he is let loose upon a man’s soul? How many of God's people have to groan and sigh bitterly on account of the oppression of this cruel exactor, harassing, teasing, assailing, tempting, perplexing, and confusing them in some way or other – drawing them into sin, or driving them into despondency. The Lord came, it was an especial part of his mission, to heal those who were oppressed by the devil. Satan is the oppressor of the whole human race – but he is the oppressor particularly of God's family. But when we are oppressed in this way, if the Lord be our teacher, it will drive us off the creature, out of a mere name to live, out of fleshy religion and natural wisdom, and bring us to the Lord himself, as the refuge of our souls.

3. The DAILY CONFLICT that God's people have to pass through, produced by the body of sin and death under which they "groan being burdened," and by the sinfulness of a depraved nature, grievously oppresses all the living family of God. But this very oppression is overruled for their good – this very body of sin and death, which is the heavy burden of their souls, is made to work for their spiritual profit – it leads them to the Lord to support them under it, who graciously brings them through, and enables them to overcome in this battle.

Now the Lord is "a refuge for the oppressed." Every oppressed soul, sooner or later, finds him to be such. But in order to find the Lord to be our refuge, we must be cut off from every false refuge; as the prophet declares, "The hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding-place" Isaiah 28:17. As long as we can hide our heads in a lie, we shall hide them there; as long as we can escape into a creature refuge, into that hole shall we slink. The hail therefore of God's wrath needs to be felt in the soul to sweep away the lying refuges; the waters of judgment must come into, and overflow our flimsy hiding-place, and bring us out of it, lest they drown us in it; and then, and not until then, shall we know by heart experience that the Lord God Almighty is a refuge for the oppressed.

II. But the second clause of the text opens up still further when Jehovah is a refuge – "a refuge IN TIMES OF TROUBLE." Do you not see how the scriptures always put together the malady and the remedy? How they unfold the promises as suitable to certain states and cases of soul? and how all the perfections of God are adapted to his people only so far as they are brought into peculiar circumstances? This vein runs through all the scripture. So here the Lord is declared to be a refuge. But when? "In times of trouble." We do not need him to be a refuge when there is no trouble. Shall I use the expression without irreverence? – we can then do without him. We can love the world, can amuse ourselves with the things of time and sense, can let our heads go astray after the perishing, transitory vanities of a day – we can set up an idol in our heart – we can bow down before a ‘golden god’ – we can have our affections wholly fixed on those naturally dear to us – we can get up in the morning, pass through the day, and lie down at night very well without God.But when times of trouble come, when afflictions lie heavily upon us, when we are brought into those scenes of tribulation through which we must pass to arrive at the heavenly Canaan – then we need something more than flesh and blood – then we need something more than the perishing creature can unfold; then we need something more than this vain world can amuse us with. We then need God; we need the everlasting arms to be underneath our souls; we need to feel support; we need manifestations and consolations; we need something from the Lord's own lips dropped with the Lord's own power into our hearts!

1. These "times of trouble" are sometimes times of TEMPORAL trouble. If you live long enough, you will have about as much temporal trouble as you can well stand under; you will have as many waves and billows of temporal sorrow as will sometimes seem about to drown you. But what a mercy it is, when the waves and billows of temporal sorrow beat upon the head, like the surf upon the rocks, to have a God to go to! not to be looking here and there, driven perhaps to a mad-house, to strong drink, to the noose, razor, or pond. But to have a God to go to! an ever-living, ever-loving Jesus, who opens wide his arms, unfolds the treasures of his sympathizing bosom, and says, "Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

Now these "times of trouble" which the Lord's people have to pass through, make them to know that there is a God above. And this is a grand distinguishing feature of a child of God – that his very worldly troubles are, so to speak, the wave that carries his bark farther on towards the kingdom of God. When worldly troubles come upon a natural man, they are the ebbing wave that carries him away from God to dash him upon the rocks. But when temporal troubles come upon a child of God, they are the flowing wave that takes him into the peaceful haven of Jehovah's bosom.

2. But there are SPIRITUAL troubles. And what are all our temporal troubles put together, compared to our spiritual troubles? They are but a drop in a bucket – they are but the dust in the balance. Soul trouble outweighs and ever will outweigh natural trouble. But soul trouble will drive a man to the Lord, if anything will. When we are in soul trouble, we need such a God as he has revealed himself to be in the scriptures – a God of infinite power, infinite mercy, infinite faithfulness, infinite forgiveness, and infinite love.

These times of soul trouble make God's people know that the Lord is their refuge. If I am in soul trouble – if my heart is surcharged with guilt – if my conscience is lacerated with the pangs of inward compunction, can the creature give me relief? can friends dry the briny tear? can they still the convulsive sigh? can they calm the troubled breast? can they pour oil and wine into the bleeding conscience? They are utterly powerless in the matter. They may increase our troubles, and they often, like Job's friends, do so – but they cannot alleviate it. Only one hand can ease the trouble – the same hand that laid it on; only one hand can heal the wound – the same that mercifully inflicted it.

Now, in these times of soul trouble, if ever we have felt it – and we must know for ourselves whether we ever have, we shall make the Lord our refuge. There is no other to go to. We may try every arm but his, we may look every way but the right, and we may lean upon every staff but the true. But, sooner or later, we shall be brought to this spot – that none but the Lord God Almighty, who made heaven and earth, who brought our souls and bodies into being, who has kept and preserved us to the present hour, who is about our bed, and about our path, and spies out all our ways, and who has sent his dear Son to be a propitiation for our sin – that none but this eternal Creator, Preserver, and Redeemer, who made and upholds heaven and earth, can speak peace, pardon, and consolation to our hearts.

But you will observe, that the text speaks of "TIMES of trouble." It does, not define and it is a great mercy it has not defined what these times are, how many, or how long – nor does it define what that trouble shall be. Whatever trouble comes upon a child of God, is a "time of trouble," and however long it may last, or however short it may endure, it is still a "time of trouble." And in these times of trouble, the Lord will be his refuge.

But how sweet it is in these times of trouble to have a God to go to – to feel that there are everlasting arms to lean upon, that there is a gracious ear into which we may pour our complaints, that there is a heart, a sympathizing heart, in the bosom of the Lord of life and glory, that feels for us; to know that there is a hand to relieve, and to experience, at times, relief from that Almighty and gracious hand!

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