Our Hiding Place
(No. 2856)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1903.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
NOVEMBER 11, 1877.
"And a man shall be as a hiding place from the wind, and a cover from
the tempest." Isaiah 32:2.
[When the Tabernacle was thrown open to all comers.]
ONE who is really worthy to be called "a man" is a rare creature. There
are great numbers of human beings who come under the generic name,
"men," who do not possess those noble, manly characteristics which
would entitle us truly to speak of any one of them as "a man." When God
gives "a man" to any nation, it is a grand gift. There are many names
in history which remind us how much blessing may be conferred upon a
race and upon an age by the raising up of one
man.
It is possible that in the first instance my text refers to Hezekiah
the king of Judah. The Assyrians had invaded the land and the army and
the nation were powerless to defend their territory. It seemed as
though the homes of the people would be utterly destroyed by fire and
that the inhabitants would be either slain by the sword or carried away
into captivity. But there was one man, named Hezekiah, who, though he
had not a great army, had great faith in the power of prayer to God.
And so he took Rab-Shakeh's blasphemous letter and spread it before the
Lord in earnest supplication. He sent word to another true man, the
Prophet Isaiah, begging him to also lift up his prayer to God–and the
Prophet sent to the king the cheering intelligence that the Assyrian
monarch would not be able to enter Jerusalem, but would be driven back
to his own city of Nineveh–and should be slain by the sword in his own
land! Hezekiah and Isaiah were, for Judea, a hiding place from the wind
and a cover from the tempest in that time of stress and storm.
Nor is it only in sacred story that we find illustrations of such an
experience as my text describes. I might remind you of some of our
kings and other great men who have been a hiding place and a cover to
our own land in the day of danger and of distress. The name of Alfred
the Great will always shine brightly in our national history and, much
later, there was "a man" who wore no regal crown, but who was the
greatest and best of all the kings. Oliver Cromwell was a real hiding
place and cover to this land in the days when the crowned king was
unworthy to rule. In him, God raised up "a man" who risked everything
in defense of the liberties which we still enjoy. What a hiding place
from the wind and what a cover from the tempest he was to the little
company of persecuted saints in the valleys of Piedmont! The Duke of
Savoy had determined to extirpate the Protestants, but Cromwell heard
of his cruelties and resolved that he would do all that he could to
rescue them from their persecutor's power.
He sent for the French ambassador and told him to let his master know
that he must have those persecutions stopped immediately. His majesty
replied that Savoy did not belong to him and that he could not
interfere with the Duke. "Nevertheless," replied Cromwell, "if you tell
the Duke that you will go to war with him if he does not cease
persecuting the Protestants, he will soon stop his butcheries. If you
will not do that, I will go to war with you, for, in the name of the
Lord of Hosts, I will defend His persecuted people!" Of course such a
brave message as that speedily took effect. Oh, that, in every age, in
every land–whenever and wherever there is oppression or persecution to
be rebuked and tyranny to be overthrown–God may always find "a man"
who shall come boldly to the front and speak and act for truth and
righ-
teousness, and so become "a hiding place from the wind, and a cover
from the tempest," to the people whom he has the honor to protect in
such a time as that!
I have no more to say upon that view of our subject except to pray God
to make us all manly in that sense, so that all of us may, through His
Grace, take our proper place in the battle for the right and the true
against the wrong and the false.
I have, however, to speak of another Man to whom this text more
especially refers. It is the Messiah, the Man Christ Jesus, the
Mediator between God and men–God's greatest gift to men, the Nazarene,
Jesus Christ of the house of Da-vid–who is the true Hiding Place from
the wind, and Cover from the tempest to all who take shelter in Him. If
my lips are Divinely helped to extol Him and if your hearts are
Divinely taught to rejoice in Him, we shall all be blessed! In speaking
about my text, I want to show you, first, that this life is very liable
to storm. Secondly, that from all these storms, the Man Christ Jesus is
our Hiding Place. And that, thirdly, our wisdom is to shelter in that
Hiding Place.
I. First, then, THIS LIFE IS LIABLE TO MANY STORMS.
He that reckons upon a calm from his cradle to his grave reckons
altogether amiss. You may set sail upon a sea as smooth as glass, but I
doubt not that, before your voyage is completed, you will often have to
reel to and fro and stagger like a drunken man–and be at your wits'
end by reason of the fury of the storm!
We are subject to great mental storms. No man can be a true thinker
without finding his mind occasionally storm-tossed. A rushing mighty
wind of doubt seems to come sweeping down from the mountains of
speculation, driving everything before it. Anchors begin to drag and
firmly moored beliefs are driven headlong towards the rocks of
destruction. We have known what it is, sometimes, to have such a
terrible cyclone of doubt and questioning raging around us that we have
hardly felt our own existence to be a fact and have had grave questions
concerning our own inner consciousness. When we have these stormy winds
and tempests howling within the little world of our souls, we
appreciate the promise of the text–"A man shall be as a hiding place
from the wind, and a cover from the tempest."
At other times, the stormy winds take another shape, namely, that of
outward trial and trouble. "Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly
upward." Doubtless, there is a skeleton in every house–some cause of
sorrow in every family. A man may have a flourishing business, but
there may come serious losses. Or he may have the flush of health upon
his cheeks and may suddenly begin to lose his vigor. The little ones
around him who are his joy, may sicken and he may have to follow his
loved ones to the grave. The wife of his youth may be taken away from
him or the friend of his middle age may suddenly be smitten down. The
world is full of what we sometimes call, "accidents," though we know
that they are Providences–Providences of a sad and mournful character
to us. God will not let us, who are His songbirds, build our nests
here. He will send a rough wind through the forest which will make the
limb on which we try to build rock to and fro in the storm till we are
obliged to take to our wings again, for there is no resting place for
us upon any of the trees in this world! Many of you only too well know
that there are rough winds of outward trial and trouble. I do not doubt
that many a stormy blast has swept across your heart, in your families,
or in yourselves, or in your estates. Some way or other, you have
realized your need of "a hiding place from the wind, and a cover from
the tempest."
Then there is a wind which sometimes blows upon men–a penetrating,
searching, cutting wind–which may bring good with it, but which, at
the time it is blowing, is a truly terrible wind to endure! I mean that
of spiritual distress on account of discovered sinwhen, looking into
your soul, you have spied out what you could not have believed was
there. Sins and iniquities which had long hidden their heads, have
suddenly appeared before you and you have been almost swept off your
feet as by a tornado! I recollect when that wind blew through and
through my soul. No comfort could I get by day or by night. My
transgressions haunted and hunted me. I had not been worse than other
young men, nor as bad as many whom I knew, but I seemed so to myself.
It appeared to me as if I had become the very chief of sinners and the
most surely condemned of all who ever lived! Remembering the experience
I then passed through, I can truly say that I know of no pain that can
be felt by the body which is comparable to the terrible pangs of
conscience when the searching breath of the Eternal Spirit goes through
the soul and withers up all the comeliness of our own righteousness and
spoils all the supposed beauty of our own good works! That is a wind
which I trust we all have felt, or shall yet feel, but, still, while it
blows, it is dreadful to endure.
There is another wind which follows upon this and of which this is the
prelude unless Infinite Grace shall interpose, that is, the awful wind
of the Infinite Wrath of God. When that mighty blast begins to blow
upon men, it makes their
beauty to consume like the moth. When they first realize that "God is
angry with the wicked every day," they tremble in His Presence! But
what will their terror be when that wind is let loose upon them in all
its fury? When God's right arm shall be bared for war and thunders
shall clothe His cloudy car, and He shall come forth armed with sword
and buckler to confront His foes, saying "I will ease Me of My
adversaries"–who shall be able to stand before Him? Good Mr.
Whi-tefield used to cry, "Oh, the wrath to come! The wrath to come!"
And, verily, I know not what he could have said about it except to
utter the exclamation–and there to leave it–for that wrath to come
must surpass all human language or imagination! Sometimes it blows upon
men before they leave the body–they begin to be caught by the eternal
whirlwind before they have quite got clear of the shores of time and
mortal life. And some of them have let us know, by their terrible
terror as they have died, a little of what that awful blast must mean
to those who are swept away by it.
I will mention but one other wind and that is one to which the best of
men, as well as the worst, are exposed– namely, the sudden and
mysterious temptations of the devil He knows how to take us unawares
and he finds in our natural depravity, an ally, so that when he comes
and knocks at the door of our heart, the sin that is within arises and
opens to him. And then he comes in and terrible is his entrance into
the soul! I have known a young man who appeared to be upright and
honest, suddenly decoyed into an act of theft by the temptation of the
Evil One. I have seen those who have been, apparently, pure in mind and
heart and who, at any rate in their youth, dreaded every thought of
immorality–all of a sudden cast down into the very depths of
filthiness by a strong Satanic temptation which has assailed them.
There is no man living who can truly say, "I am secure against the
devil's assaults." You may resolve as you please, but Satan is older
and more cunning than you are, and he knows your weak points and how he
can most easily cast you down. He is the prince of the power of the
air, and he can bring with him such a wind as shall smite the four
corners of the human house at once and level it to the ground. Woe to
the man who is tempted by the devil in such a way as that, unless he
has a hiding place wherein to shelter himself in the stormy and dark
day!
I hope I have said enough upon this point. If I go on in this strain,
you will think that my sermon is like the roll of the Prophet, written
within and without with lamentations and woe.
II. Now, in the second place, blessed be God that I can tell you that
FROM ALL THESE STORMS THE MAN
CHRIST JESUS IS OUR HIDING PLACE. I have to try to set Him before you
by the help of His Holy Spirit. "A man shall be as a hiding place from
the wind, and a cover from the tempest." It is to Him we sing–
"The tempests awful voice was heard–
O Christ, it broke on You!
Your open bosom was my ward,
It braved the storm for me.
Your form was scarred, Your visage marred–
Now cloudless peace for me." "A man"–yet One who is more than a man–a
Man of whom it is written, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God." It is the Man Christ Jesus who is,
nevertheless, to be adored as "over all God, blessed forever,"
reigning, as He now does, in the highest heavens, crowned with glory
and honor. I invite all of you who are afraid of the storms of doubt,
or trial, or temptation, or of the wrath of God, to put your trust in
the Lord Jesus Christ, because, being God, He is Omnipotent and,
therefore, nothing can be too difficult for Him. Once enclosed within
His hands, where is the power that can reach you there, or pluck you
from them? If your shield shall be the Almighty One, Himself, then are
you secure from all hurt or harm!
Yet, as the text says, "a man shall be as a hiding place from the wind,
and a cover from the tempest," I remark that Christ is truly a Man. Oh,
how often, in the thought of Christ's real Humanity, has my soul found
a hiding place from all manner of storms! "God"–the word is great!
"God"–the idea is sublime! The great Eternal Jehovah who made the
heavens and the earth and who bears them up by His unaided power, who
rides upon the stormy sky and puts a bit into the mouth of the raging
tempest, how shall I, a poor worm of the dust, draw near to such a God
as this? The answer quickly comes, "He has been pleased to reveal
Himself in the Man, Christ Jesus." "God was in Christ, reconciling the
world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." God
deigned to take upon Himself the nature of man! There He lies in the
manger, the Infinite, yet an Infant, Omnipotent, yet swaddled by a
woman and hanging as though helpless at her breast. Let Bethlehem
always tell the matchless mystery of godliness–God manifest in human
flesh! Why
should I dread to appear before God, now that, in the Person of His
Son, Jesus Christ, there is a link between my manhood and His Deity?
The awful gulf that sin had made is bridged and now I perceive how near
God comes down to man and how closely He lifts up man to Himself. Jesus
Christ was truly Man! With the exception of being free from sin, He was
in no respect different from ourselves. And at this moment, though He
occupies the very Throne of God in Glory, His sympathies run towards
us–
"He knows what sore temptations mean. For He has felt the same."
He is ready to succor us, for His delights are still with the sons of
men. He became a Man because He loved men. God has such affection for
our race that He has married our nature to Himself. Oh, what joy there
ought to be in our hearts because of this! Whenever the thought of the
greatness, the holiness and the terrible majesty of God oppresses
anyone of us, let him say, with good Dr. Watts–
"Till God in human flesh I see,
My thoughts no comfort find.
The holy, just, and sacred Three
Are terrors to my mind.
But if Immanuel's face appears,
My hope, my joy begins!
His name forbids my slavish fear,
His Grace removes my sins."
The very fact that God has become Incarnate makes Him to be a Hiding
Place from the wind and a Cover from the tempest.
Further, Christ is the substitutionary Man, for He stood forward as the
Man to die instead of guilty men. Have you not often heard this life
called a state of probation? That is a most incorrect term, for our
probationary period passed away long ago. There was a man, the first of
men, Adam–and the whole human race was put upon probation in him. If
he had obeyed his Maker's command, all his seed would have lived by
virtue of his obedience. But as he disobeyed, his entire race has
suffered. He could not endure the test applied to him, for he ate of
the forbidden fruit and so fell from his high estate. And, in his fall,
you, and I, and all mankind fell down. We fell in another–we had
nothing to do with the matter, for it all happened thousands of years
before we were born. Some have questioned the justice of this
arrangement. If you have done so, I pray you to lay aside all such
questions, for this is the door of hope for you! Because our fall was
caused by another, there remained the possibility–on the same plan of
representation and substitution–of our being lifted up by Another and
saved by Another! So, in the fullness of time there came a second Man,
the Lord from Heaven, and stood in our place. Did He obey the Law of
God? For 30 years and more He was upon His trial, but He never failed.
"In Him was no sin."
But man was under condemnation because of his guilt–will Jesus Christ,
as the great Substitute for sinners–bear upon Himself the punishment
due to human guilt? He could not have borne it if He had not been God
as well as Man! Being the God-Man, He said that He would bear sin's
penalty, that all who would put their trust in Him might forever go
free! It was a wondrous sight, when, on that awful night in dark
Gethsemane, He began to bear His people's guilt and so was made to
sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling down to the ground
while His soul was exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death.
I hope you all know the sad yet glad story. I expect most of you have
often heard it, how Jesus bore that tremendous load of our guilt upon
His own shoulders though His back was bleeding from Pilate's cruel
scourging. How He bore it though they nailed His hands and feet to the
accursed tree. How He bore it though the sun refused to look upon Him
and traveled on in tenfold night. How He bore it though Jehovah,
Himself, forsook Him while He was bearing our sins in His own body on
the tree, so that He was compelled to cry, "My God, My God why have You
forsaken Me!" He bore that terrible burden right to the end! And on the
Cross He cried, "It is finished," before He gave up the ghost. This is
the Man who is the Hiding Place from the storm, and the Cover from the
tempest, the substitutionary Man, the surety Man who stood in the place
of guilty man–the just Man bearing, instead of unjust man–the
deserved wrath of God!
If you, my dear Friends, will only put your trust in Him, you will find
Him to be a blessed Cover from the storm that is now threatening you.
How can God's wrath touch you if Christ has borne it all in your place?
A hiding place shelters a man because it bears the full force of the
storm while he is protected from it fury. Because Christ died for us,
therefore we, who take shelter in Him, shall not die! Our debt is paid,
Justice is satisfied, Mercy triumphs and we go free! This is the Man,
the substitutionary Man, who is "as a hiding place from the wind, and a
cover from the tempest," to all who put their trust in Him!
That is not all, however, for this substitutionary Man remains the
representative Man. And if you are Believers in Him, He represents you
in everything. He died, but He also rose again–what a shelter from all
tempestuous thoughts of death there is in that glorious Truth! For–
"As the Lord our Savior rose, So all His followers must."
The wind howls sadly out yonder among the tombs in the cemetery. One
would scarcely choose to spend a night there, alone, among the dead,
but even that mournful wind, when it is heard by the ear of faith, has
music in it. That ancient message is yet to be fulfilled, "Your dead
men shall live, together with My dead body shall they arise." This is
what Christ says to us, so we need not stand by the pious dead and weep
as those without hope, but we may already begin to anticipate the
dawning of that glorious morning when, at the summons of the descending
Savior, "the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive
and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet
the Lord in the air; and so shall we always be with the Lord."
Jesus, therefore, as our Representative, is a Hiding Place to us from
all the winds which would come to us by the way of the sepulcher. We
are not afraid to die, for Jesus lives. And He said to His disciples,
"Because I live, you shall live, also." He has also gone up into
Heaven. In His glorified body He ascended up on high, there to appear
in the Presence of God for us. So, whenever you have any dread about
the future, remember that you will be where He is. If you are a
Believer in Him, you must ascend to Heaven even as He has done and, as
He sits upon His Throne, even so shall you! And as He is perfected in
Glory, even so must you be! Between the Man, Christ Jesus, and all
Believers in Him, there is such unity that wherever He is, there must
His people also be. This is what He rightfully demands on their behalf,
by virtue of His atoning Sacrifice–"Father, I will that they, also,
whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My
Glory, which You have given Me: for You loved Me before the foundation
of the world." If you hide behind this rampart of stupendous Rock, this
mighty mound of Divine Consolation, it matters not what winds may rage,
or what storms may roar–you may rest in security and serenity behind
the great representative Man who is "as a hiding place from the wind,
and a cover from the tempest."
We also have to bless the name of our Lord Jesus that He is the
ever-living Man, who is, at all times, a shelter from the wind to those
who trust in Him. Our earthly friends may die, but we shall never lose
our Best Friend. All merely human comforters will fail us sooner or
later, but He will always abide true and steadfast to all who rely upon
Him–
"He lives, the great Redeemer lives," so His cause is always safe and
our safety is always secured in Him. Hide yourself, therefore, in the
ever-living Man, for there you need not fear any change that the
rolling ages may bring.
Blessed be the name of Jesus! He is also the interceding Man, for at
this very moment He is pleading for His people before His Father's
Throne. We cannot see Him, yet sometimes when our faith is in lively
exercise, we can almost behold Him and can all but hear Him presenting
His almighty pleas on behalf of all those who have entrusted their case
into His hands. O Beloved–
"In every dark distressful hour When sin and Satan join their power,
Let this dear hope repel the dart, That Jesus bears us on His heart."
If nobody else remembers us, He does–and He spreads His wounded hands
in powerful, prevalent intercession on our behalf. And our comfort is
that "He is also able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God
by Him, seeing He always lives to make intercession for them."
It is true that He is a Man, but He is a Man clothed with Infinite
Power. So think no longer of the Christ as "despised and rejected of
men: a Man of Sorrows, and acquainted with grief," for He has done with
all that! He has ascended from His Cross to His Throne–
"The highest place that Heaven affords Is His, is His by right! The
King of kings, and Lord of lords, And Heaven's eternal Light."
Do not look at crucifixes, or any such representations of Christ for He
in whom you trust is neither upon the Cross nor in the tomb for He is
risen! "Come, see the place where the Lord lay." But do not forget to
look up to the place where He now sits, for, "this Man, after He had
offered one Sacrifice for sins, forever, sat down at the right hand of
God; from henceforth expecting till His enemies be made His
footstool."Before He ascended, He said to His disciples, "All power is
given unto Me in Heaven and in earth. Go you, therefore, and teach (or,
make disciples of) all nations, baptizing them (those who are made
disciples) in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit." We serve the Christ whom all His creatures must obey–angels
fly at His bidding and devils tremble at His frown. He allows the kings
of the earth to sway their mimic scepters for a time, but all the while
He is King of kings and Lord of lords! For our Lord Jesus Christ, we
claim a universal monarchy! He sits enthroned upon the circle of the
heavens, and the nations of the earth are but as grasshoppers before
Him–
"Sweet majesty and awful love
Sit smiling on His brow,
And all the glorious ranks above
At humble distance bow.
This is the Man, the exalted Mann,
Whom we unseen adore!
But when our eyes behold His face,
Our hearts shall love Him more!" I close my description of this
wondrous Man by reminding you that He is the coming Man. It is but a
little while and He that shall come will come. The great drama of this
world's history draws towards its close. We know not when it will end,
for it is not for us "to know the times or the seasons which the Father
has put in His own power." But there comes to us, as a clear, ringing
message out of the deep mystery of the future, the voice of our Savior,
saying, "Surely I come quickly," to which our glad response is, "Even
so, come, Lord Jesus!"
I cannot foretell to what a state of anarchy or of despotism this world
may yet come. I cannot forecast the ultimate issues of great wars and
conflicts between divers nations. But the saints of God shall always
have a Hiding Place from every stormy wind that shall ever blow. "The
Lord Himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of
the archangel, and with the trump of God." "He comes to judge the
earth: He shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with
His Truth." There shall come a day when that ancient prophecy shall be
fulfilled, "He shall live, and to Him shall be given of the gold of
Sheba: prayer also shall be made for Him continually, and daily shall
He be praised." There shall yet come a halcyon period when they shall
hang the useless helmet high and study war no more–but the silver
trumpet of the blessed Jubilee shall sound aloud for Christ, the great
Prince of Peace shall then have returned to reign and His unsuffering
Kingdom shall know no end! This is the world's hope, that the people's
Christ, the Man chosen out of the people, the Lover of mankind, the
great Philanthropist, the Divine Man–He shall come and reign among His
loyal subjects and be to them "as a hiding place from the wind, and a
cover from the tempest."
To sum all up, Beloved, I do not know what your storms, inwardly or
outwardly, may be, or what may be your special dread or terror; but if
you hide away in the Man Christ Jesus, you will find that He will
afford you shelter from every trouble that can possibly befall you!
III. So I close my discourse by saying to you, AS THE LORD JESUS CHRIST
IS SUCH A HIDING PLACE AS
THIS, LET US RUN TO HIM FOR SHELTER.
First, let us stand behind Him whenever we approach God. I can imagine
someone saying, "I want to pray, but I am afraid to appear before the
Lord, for, if His eyes of fire shall look upon me, they may utterly
consume me. What shall I do?" Why, stand behind His Son and say unto
Him–
"Him, and then the sinner see– Look through Jesus' wounds on me."
Come not to God yourself directly, but come unto Him through Jesus
Christ the Mediator and Intercessor! Then His wrath cannot reach you,
for Christ, your Hiding Place will stand between you, the offender and
the God whom you have offended. This seems to me to be very simple. If
there are any here who have never acted thus, I entreat the Lord to
lead them to do so now. Come, poor Soul, you know that you cannot keep
the Law and that you cannot bear the punishment due to sin! Well, then,
will you not trust the Lord Jesus Christ to stand in your place and to
suffer instead of you? If you do, all is done that is necessary. You
are in the Shelter, so the wind cannot blow upon you.
Even when you have done that, there are the storms of this life still
to be met, so get behind Christ by following Him in the path of duty.
If you never go anywhere but where Christ leads the way, you need not
be afraid of storms, for they will beat upon Him more than upon you.
When I was quite a young man, I was greatly reviled for preaching the
Gospel and, sometimes, my heart would sink a little under the cruel
slanders that many uttered. But I often used to go upstairs to my room
and, after a season of sweet fellowship with my Lord, I would come down
singing–
"If on my face for Your dear name,
Shame and reproaches be,
All hail reproach, and welcome shame,
If You remember me."
Whenever there is a cross to be carried by any of Christ's followers,
He always bears the heavy end on His own shoulders! He always takes the
bleak side of the hill, Himself, and His disciples may be well content
to follow when they have so good a Master to lead the way! Yes,
Beloved, whenever any of the troubles of life come upon you, get near
to Jesus and shelter behind Him. When John the Baptist was put to
death, his disciples took up his body and went and told Jesus. That was
the best thing they could have done. When the little baby dies, dear
Mother, take up its body and go and tell Jesus. When you are out of
employment, Man, and the supply of bread is short in the home, go and
tell Jesus. He will sympathize with you, for He also was hungry. And
when others of the trials of life come upon any of you, do not hesitate
as to what you will do, but, if you have hidden behind Him on account
of sin, go and hide in Him on account of sorrow, for this Man shall
always be a Hiding Place from every stormy wind that blows if you but
know how to go and trust in Him.
Come to my Lord Jesus Christ, my dear fellow men, because He is an
effectual Hiding Place. Many of us have tried Him and proved that He is
all that I have said. There have been millions upon millions of His
saints, in all ages, who have cast upon Him their entire life-burden
and He has never failed to relieve any of them yet. I have stood by the
bedside of many dying Christians, but, to this moment, I have never
heard one of them say that Christ had played him false. There are hosts
of biographies of Christians published–did you ever find, in any of
them, a single instance in which a Believer in Christ found Himself
deserted and forsaken by his Savior? No, but on the contrary, the
testimonies are heaped up far beyond any evidence that ever could be
demanded in a court of law–and they prove, beyond all question, that
Christ helps His children in all their emergencies and delivers them in
every time of trouble!
I appeal to any of you who have had godly parents. What your father
tried and your mother tried, young man, I ask you to try! Where your
gracious grandmother rested all her hope and you know that, poor simple
woman as she was, she died triumphantly–be not you so unwise as to
refuse to rest your hope! I like things that have been tried and
proved! The new-fangled notions of this modern age may do for
lackadaisical gentlemen who seem to scarcely know whether they have a
soul to lose, but I know that I have one, and I cannot afford to risk
it on speculations and novelties! That Gospel which has saved the
saints for nearly two thousand years is good enough for me–so I trust
myself in this ancient Hiding Place of God's people, the refuge which
they have found to be safe in all generations! And I invite all of you,
by a simple act of faith in Jesus Christ, to do the same.
"But," says someone, "there are so many sinners in the world! If they
were all to come at once into this Hiding Place, would there be room
for them?" Oh, yes! For, as the caverns of Engedi could hold all
David's men, and Saul's men, too, and yet they scarcely came near each
other, so, in the secret caverns of Almighty Love, in the Person of the
Man, Christ Jesus, there is room enough and to spare for all the
sinners who ever lived on the face of the earth! It will never be truly
said, "The salvation of God is worn out. The pasture has been fed upon
by too many sheep, so it is all gone. The Great
Supper has been all consumed because there were too many guests."
Never, never shall this happen! There is room in Christ Jesus for every
soul that shall ever come to Him. God help you all to come at once!–
"Come, sinner, to the Gospel feast!
Oh, come without delay!
For there is room in Jesus' breast
For all who will obey."
Lastly, this is an available Hiding Place. I think I read, some time
ago, of a ship caught in a storm which might not have been lost but
that the port it was trying to reach could only be entered at high
tide. As the tide was low, the poor vessel had to stay outside to be
dashed to pieces within sight of the harbor. My Lord's love is never
like that harbor–it is always at flood-tide. Now, poor weather-beaten
vessel, almost ready to go down, steer straight for the harbor mouth
between the two red lights! There is water enough for you, though you
may be so deeply laden a sinner that you seem to draw a thousand
fathoms. The Infinite Love of Jesus Christ is bottomless, so there is
room enough in it for you and millions more! Steer for it at once by
simply saying, "I will believe in Jesus. I will take Him to be my
Substitute and Repre-sentative–the appointed Man who died instead of
me."
If you come to Him thus, you shall certainly find that He will accept
you. Your salvation will not depend upon who or what you are, but only
upon your Hiding Place. Here is a sinner, almost as big as Giant
Goliath, going into this Hiding Place and it completely shields him
from the stormy blast! Here is a little tot–is the Hiding Place safe
for such a tiny child as he is? Yes, it is quite as safe for him as for
the giant if he does but come into it. You who know that you have been
big sinners, if you get into this Hiding Place, will be secure! And you
who feel yourselves very weak and insignificant– you young children
who may be here–if you come to Christ and trust Him, you will be just
as safe as the oldest saints–
"Only trust Him, only trust Him,
Only trust Him now!
He will save you, He will save you,
He will save you now!"
That is the way into this Hiding Place–trust in the Lord Jesus Christ!
Depend upon Christ for the pardon of your sin and for everything you
need for time and for eternity, and you shall find Him shield you from
every storm henceforth and forever! The Lord bless you all, for Jesus
Christ's sake! Amen.