Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to Psalm 62. We'll read for our
text, verse 8. Trust in Him at all times, ye
people, pour out your heart before Him. God is a refuge for us,
see thou. Psalm 62 and verse 8. Prior to verse 8, David the Psalmist has been speaking
of his own trust and what God is to himself. When we have verse 4, He's reflecting
on those that only consult to cast down the Lord from His Excellency,
delighting in lies. Then in verse 5 he charges his
own soul, my soul, wait thou only upon God for my expectation
is from Him. And then he gives in verses 6
and 7, what God is to himself. He only is my rock and my salvation. He is my defense. I shall not
be moved. In God is my salvation and my
glory. The rock of my strength and my
refuge is in God." Then in our text, he changes it to speak
as to the people and to exhort them for the same trust he has,
and in the same prayers, and then joins himself with them,
God is a refuge not just for David, not just for the people,
but for us. And it is a good thing when the
people of God are able to speak from their own experience and
to point others to the same trust, the same helps. David had known
what it was when he went against Goliath to trust in the Lord
and really he was thinking back to when the Lord had helped him
with the lion and with the bear coming against the flock and
he uses that past help And blessing that the Lord had blessed him
with a deliverance as a strength for going against Goliath, the
God who delivered me out of the paw of the bear and the paw of
the lion, he will deliver me from this Philistine. And so
the Lord did. And it is then when David came
to Ziklag, you might say, well, here, what is David doing in
the Philistine's land? What had he been doing there?
Where had his trust been? And we find Ziklag, or burn with
fire, and his own men were talking of stoning him. And David encouraged
himself in the Lord his God. Again, he cried to the Lord,
and the Lord did deliver them, made it a great blessing, overcoming
the adversary, recovering all of his people, and with great
bounty that he then sent forth through all the coasts of Israel."
Really a wonderful providence just before he was to take the
kingdom after Saul had died. The Lord ordering it in that
way, but it began with a very dark, dark providence with the
destruction of Ziklag, and yet he must have been encouraged
to To see there was no dead bodies around in that city. They had
taken them all captives rather than slaying them. That must
have been an encouragement to David Wright at the start. We think also the time with Samson,
when Samson rose up, sorry, not Samson, Absalom, rose up against
David. And it must have been a real
shock, a sudden telling that he'd risen up, and instead of
going his way of thanksgiving, David thought he had sent him
away for one purpose, but he just gathers against him. And then added to that is Ahithophel. And it was said to David, Hethafel
is amongst the conspirators. And David immediately turns to
prayer and prays, Lord, make the council of Hethafel into
foolishness. And so when we think of our text
here, David's trust in the Lord and the trust that he is exhorting
others to have. And then he says, ye people,
pour out your heart before him that exactly What David did in
the case of the news he'd heard with Ahithophel, immediately
there was joined prayer, and the account tells how the Lord
did overturn the good counsel of Ahithophel for David and his
men's good and health. And we are to remember that those
things that we go through, and we don't have to be a minister
for this to apply, Those things we go through are to be used
for the benefit and good of others. Our experience is not just for
us only, but it's for others as well. Remember many years
ago when we first came over here and our son was just five and
one night I had very bad dreams, nightmares, and came down into
the house and felt I couldn't get to sleep again and had to
really make it a matter of prayer. And the Lord did take away those
thoughts, those things that had been going on in my head, and
I got a good night's sleep. Well, a week later, the same
happened to my son. And downstairs, trying to comfort
him, trying to get him to be able to go back to bed again,
And still a small voice said within me, tell him what happened
to you a week ago. You had the same thing happen.
Point him to the Lord. No. Another voice said, he's
only a little child. He won't understand. And I thought,
no, the very purpose, the reason why I had it, and he's experiencing
the same thing, point him to your God. Point him to the same
way. So I did, and prayed with him. And in the morning he said, Dad,
I slept very well. I prayed to the Lord. And I have
never forgotten that. I think he probably has. But
what we experience, then we find others coming into the same.
And we have this principle, the apostle saying, that we are able
to comfort others with the same comfort wherewith we ourselves
are comforted. And this is the principle of
our great high priest above as well, because he dwelt upon this
earth, and that he might be a sympathising high priest over the house of
God, he experienced what he experienced and what he went through on this
earth, so that he who knows our frame, he remembers we are but
dust, he is able to suitability, in a suitable way, command his
blessing and bring the Word to us. We're not dealing with a
God who has no idea of what we go through, has no idea what
it is to live in His creation and to eat the food and to breathe
the air and to endure the contradiction of sinners. He does. He's been
through it all here below. And that is a wonderful thing
for us. And so this, the very start of
the bringing to the text here is upon the basis of one already
experiencing these things and to be able to say to others,
trust in Him at all times. Ye people, pour out your heart
before Him. God is a refuge for us. And then at the end there, to
pause. Sometimes it's very good when
we come and I know the psalms were meant to be sung, but lost,
as it were, in our translation, but we have these pauses, and
it's good for us to pause on the word, not just to read right
through as if, well, we've just read the word, but to pause and
think about what we've just read. One of the psalms, it adds another
word to it, sila hegeon, that is pause and meditation. And so, in this situation as
well, just pause and thinking upon the exhortation and word
that is before us. I want to divide it up into the
natural parts that it is in. The message, David's message
to the people, or God's message to you and to I through David. The first, trust in Him at all
times. And then secondly, pour out your
heart before Him. And then thirdly, God is a refuge
for us, joining David and the people, or joining those that
speak such exhortation with those that they exhort. But firstly, trust in Him at
all times. The first point I want to make
is the hymn that comes through several times in this verse,
or a couple of times. It is to God that our trust is
to be. You might say, well, isn't that
self-evident? But when we have in this world
many that trust in all sorts of gods, all sorts of things,
and how easy it is to trust in something else, trust in ourselves. And we say we're trusting in
the Lord, but really we're not fully. Where our trust, our faith
is in the Lord is leaning fully upon Him. Our expectation is
not from anywhere else but the Lord. And so the word here is
trust in Him. Pour out your heart before Him. And then God is the refuge. It is God. It is trusting in
God. This is where the psalm begins. Truly my soul waiteth upon God. From Him cometh my salvation. It is possible to go through
a lot of doctrines or scripture teaching and lose sight of God
himself. Lose sight of the one for whose
glory this world is made, for his purpose, and upon whom all
of our blessings rest. And so it is good for us, before
ever we think of what we are doing in trusting or praying,
to think of who this God is, who it is we're coming before,
not be strangers unto God. You think of those at Mars Hill,
they wanted to worship gods and having all sorts of altars and
then to the unknown God, a solemn thing. If we want to just champion
faiths, but not in a specific God, not in the true and living
God, the God that made heaven and the earth, the solemn thing,
to not have any real view of the reality of God so that we
can make Him into anything that we want. Well, the word that
David has is first pointing the people to God, pointing to Him
who is worthy for our trust. Trust in Him, in God, at all
times. Now, I want to really try and
convey what is upon my spirit on this point. It is true that
We are to trust in the Lord when we come like David into the situation
of Keilah, or if we're like Job, and we come into a situation
which we cannot understand, Satan has stirred it up, and the Lord
is hiding his face. We are to trust in the Lord at
that time, We're still to trust in the Lord at times of blessing,
times of prosperity. We are to trust in the Lord even
when we are under the Lord's chastening hand, when we realise
that what we're in and the trouble we're in is because of our sin
and what we have done and what we have said. And we think, well,
how can we go to the Lord? How can we look to Him? How can
we trust in Him? When we've sinned against Him,
we've done evil against Him. But we are to trust in Him at
those times as well. At all times, not just times
when we feel, well, we're quite worthy that the Lord should help
us and appear for us. Easy to trust in the Lord like
that. Really, in one way, we're putting Him At our debtor we
secretly are saying, we're good Christians, we're in need, now
you help us. But when it is at all times,
it is when we are sinners, when we have no claim, and feelingly
have no claim upon the Lord at all. But the way I felt it this
week, trust in Him at all times, was through something that we've
been through this week, with the car. Now we had, I had no
idea that the back tires on the car were perishing. They got cracks around them,
they had done 40,000 miles, been moved from the front to the back,
so they weren't worn down, they still got tread on them, but
they were old as it were. And so they're starting to perish.
And I had no idea, I just checked the thread depth, tread depth,
but didn't realise the state of them. And then coming back
from the special services, Hayward's Heath, on Thursday, as we got
into the car, there was the red light on to show that one of
the tyres was low pressure. We checked the pressures and
then found it was 10 or so pounds lower, obviously leaking slowly,
and we pumped it up again and got safely home. In the morning,
again, it was down a lot, lot lower than what it should be.
It's still drivable, but I had to pump it up again. And I tried
to get it repaired locally, but there was no space to get it
repaired, thinking it was just a nail gone in to repair it.
So I had to go 13 miles away to Tunbridge Wells to a place
where we could get them repaired. They also fit tires and supply
them as well. My usual place where I spit tyres,
I couldn't have had them done until next week, Wednesday. Well,
Tuesday, I'm off to Norfolk, preaching hundreds of miles away,
and so needed the car. Well, I went there, and they
checked it out, and they came to me, and they said, well, we
think there's probably been a nail gone in and out, it's leaking
slowly, but that's not your problem. you've got perishing tyres."
And I looked at them and could see immediately and took a photograph
of it. They said, you need two new back
tyres. It's just as well you came in.
And they were able to supply them and have them fit within
an hour or so. There was driving, the puncture
was repaired, the tyres replaced. And I thought this, there was
something that I did not even know I needed the Lord's help. I wasn't even aware of it. If
I'd have been trusting on, well, I look after my car, I inspect
it, I can find out when something is wrong, when something needs
replacing, well, that trust was ill-founded. But in trusting
the Lord at all times, those things we have no idea we need
help in, those things that we we don't even pray for because
we think, well, everything's going well. But when you find
something that happens like that, the Lord knew what was wrong
with those times. So, how did he alert me to it? Gave there to be a small leak,
so that I was drawing attention to it. How did he make sure it's
not just a repaired leak and the rest of the situation ignored?
made sure the local garage couldn't replace it or repair it. And then, so I had to go to a
place where I could get tyres straight away and get it fixed
and all ready for the ministry next week. And I marvel at these
providences. I marvel at how the Lord made
me aware and also put everything in train to get it completely
sorted And so the car was available
for the service of the Lord and for going long journeys. And
this word came to me after that, trust in Him at all times. Not just when we have something
before us that we say, I need to trust in the Lord to provide
this, to do this, to go before me in this. It is at all times. While everything seems to be
smooth, everything is going well, we don't know what is going wrong
around us in our homes, in our health, our strength. How many
have had perhaps something like a cough or something minor that
has been wrong? Well, again, another thing with
myself, I've been having trouble with my eyes in driving Sometimes
the road is not really in focus. And I thought perhaps it's diabetes
or so. But the eye specialist, where
I get my glasses from, they kept emailing me, kept saying, you
must go and get your eyes tested. I thought, well, I haven't had
my glasses 18 months yet. But I had had them tested two
years ago. Well, I decided I'd go in. They
were able to do that the next day. This has happened this week
as well, just before the Thursday, on the Wednesday. And go in. They test one eye. I can read the bottom line. They
test the other eye, and I couldn't even read the top. I said, it's
all blurred. And they said, your stigmatism has changed. You need
new glasses. And again, it was something I
wasn't aware of, I was perhaps putting off, putting it down
to something else, but in God's providence, brought to have it
done and changed, and God willing, a week or so, it is time she'd
have her new glasses. And it's in things like this,
this word, trust in Him at all times. You know, sometimes we
can fear Fear the unknown way. Fear something is happening we
don't know about it. Fear those things that come upon
us as if we've got to make this provision. No. The Lord sees
and the Lord knows it. It's like when we drive on the
motorway and we might see the speed limit reduce right down
to 40 miles an hour instead of 70 and you think, why is that?
The road's nice and clear, and you drive along, and then suddenly
it changes up to full speed again, and you don't see anything wrong. And you think, well, why have
they done that? Well, they tell you the reason why. They can
see 15 miles ahead. You can't. You can only see just
a few hundred yards ahead. And they can see someone's broken
down. They're blocking a lane. They're
trying to get them cleared off the motorway, so they slow everyone
down miles away. so that they don't come and cause
congestion. They get the vehicle out of the
way, then they speed everyone up again. By the time you get
to where that's happened, you don't see any sign of it, or
perhaps something's on the side it's being tended to. And the
reason is they have seen in advance what you couldn't see, and so
they've made that provision. And God is like that. God knows
what shall happen. He knows what is in store. He
knows what He has. purposed and what he has planned
for us is not by chance. And so there are those times
that he shows us and makes known to us and what to do. We think of, with the case of
Joseph, what was brought, when he was brought before Pharaoh,
he was able to interpret the dreams God gave him, that interpretation,
he says, interpretations belong unto God. And what was it? God was showing what was going
to be done in the future. Pharaoh didn't know. His people didn't know. Joseph
didn't know. No one knew that there was going
to be a reason why all of this prosperity, and then there's
suddenly going to be seven years of famine. But the Lord made
it known. And so they made that provision.
They laid up in store. And there was a store just when
They needed it. And the Lord always has a reason
for it. Years ago, when I was single
on my own, I was able to save a lot. And I thought, why is
the Lord giving me this ability? I'm able to save. And I thought,
there's come a time you're going to need this money. And of course,
all the trips we've had from Australia to here, we needed
it. But it's a good thing to remember
that When the Lord does something, there is a purpose and reason
for it. One of our special services here,
years ago, when I had the allotments, and I always keep holding on
to them, my conscience said, that's not well time spent for
a minister. You should give it up. Well,
no, I still want it. And then we had the special services,
and the collection was for ourselves. There was a couple of hundred
pounds more than was usually given. And we thought, well,
that might be nice for a holiday or something. Well, the next
day or so, I went down to the allotment, starting to prepare
it with a strimmer for next year, and broke the conservatory window
of one of the neighbours. That money was to pay for that,
not any holiday. And I went straight down to the
council offices and cancelled the allotments. I didn't need
to be told any more by the law. The Lord supplied the means,
He supplied the money. First, He didn't even make me
pay it out of my own hand in His chastening. And so when I
look back, how many things the Lord has taken in hand, and the
Lord has dealt in mercy, and He warrants our trust Not just
at, say, I'm going to trust Him for that, but the rest of the
things in my life, I can manage them, and things are going well
now. I can sort that out. That's what we often are like.
But here it says, no. Day by day, may we exercise that
trust and leaning upon the Lord that those things that we do
not see, those things that might suddenly come upon us, haven't
come upon, the Lord by sudden, like with David, suddenly hearing
about Absalom, suddenly hearing about Ahithophel, immediately
going to prayer. And so this is how I felt this
word. It's a given thing, you might
say, for the people of God to trust in the Lord when they have
a specific thing they're trusting in. But when it is your whole
life when it is everything, whether it is in providence, whether
it is your health, whether it is spiritual. What if I get caught
up in an error? What if I be tempted by the devil
to go in some wrong way? We need the Lord to bring his
word, to deliver us out of those snares and to save us. And sometimes they come so suddenly,
so quickly. Hold thou me up and I shall be
safe. How we need to have that abiding
trust or reliance and faith in the Lord all our days and not
any time think, well, he's only for the bad times. It's only
for when I haven't got strength or when I can't see what needs
doing. No. It is in everything. And if we are brought to do that,
what a rest that is. And how strengthening, when we
have these things, like I've had this week, how strengthening. If the Lord has watched over
in that, He'll watch over in other things, in all things.
This, this is our God. He is the one that's able to
point out these things and to Make them known to us. You think
of the sudden things that happened to Daniel. Suddenly summoned,
because the king had had a dream. He knew he'd had a dream, but
didn't know what, couldn't remember the dream, nor know the interpretation,
and commanded that all of his wise men be destroyed. And how
that suddenly come upon Daniel and his friends. They turned
into prayer, made the matter before the Lord, and the Lord
made known to them the King's dream. There's many things that
come upon the people of God, and they come suddenly, come
unexpectedly, but the Lord knows. Now, years ago, after my mother
died and I'd been over in Tasmania for the funeral, I came back,
And that first night, the Lord drew near and He blessed my soul.
The next morning, I had a phone call from my sister that my father
was taken into hospital with a heart attack, and my heart
sank. And then I remembered the blessing
the night before, and it sank on that, rested on that. The Lord knew what was going
to happen. My dad survived that heart attack, but the Lord gave
me that to rest upon, to help. He knew what I needed before
I knew what help I needed, and His Spirit brought that back
to my remembrance, so that we rested, I rested on that, sunk
on that. And you may have those times
too, when things come, and instead of being dismayed, you sink onto
those everlasting arms, and you see, and I hope some of you can,
you can look back to see what the Lord has done. David says
at the end of Psalm 23, Surely goodness and mercy shall follow
me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of
the Lord forever. When our trust is upon the Lord
at all times, we can truly say that, because we have proved
it, we have known it so, and we give Him the honour and glory.
Paul says to those in Athens, in Him we live and move and have
our being. In other words, trust in Him
who gives your breath, maintains your breath, and is your life
when Christ who is our life. So may this word be, in our first
point, a real suitable exhortation to you this morning. Trust in
Him at all times. I want then to look at our second
point, which is pour out your heart before him. As we said with David at Ziklag,
and David when Ahithophel was known to be with the conspirators,
his first response was to go before the Lord in prayer. This
doesn't mean then that And it really highlights that this trust
is not just a fatalistic trust. It's not saying, well, the Lord
will help, but not going before him. A true faith, a true trust,
is always joined in prayer. And it is not to suggest that
we're not trusting in the Lord because we are asking and because
we're pouring out our hearts. And another aspect is this. Often
with us there's many fears, there's doubts, there's questioning,
sometimes there's even anger against the Lord. And so when
He says, pour out your heart, we're not like, you've been boiling
some vegetables on the stove and you take it over the sink
and you're going to drain off the water. You make sure you
don't tip out everything. You don't tip out the vegetables.
You put the lid half on and so the water goes out and the vegetables
stay in. But if you're going to just pour
it out, everything goes out. And so the idea is here. We're not sifting and think,
I mustn't say that to God. That would be terrible to give
utterance to that, those unbelieving thoughts that I've got, where
I feel secretly angry that he's dealt with me in that way. I
can't tell him that. And you hold all these things
back. But we mustn't do that. There's been times that I have
been, I say it in a way to my shame, angry with the Lord. And I've told him in prayer.
And the Lord has taken away that anger by dropping in one soft,
secret word to reprove me and to show the true state of things.
And his aunt said, he hasn't been silent, he hasn't been angry
with me in return, but he's taken away that anger immediately.
And we are not to hold back from the Lord. Hannah said when she
was praying before Eli, that she was a woman of a sorrowful
spirit, she'd poured out her heart to the Lord. The Lord knows
anyway. He knows our thoughts. He knows
what is going on within. And we're not to hide it from
Him. This is what real prayer is. It's not praying for a whole
list of things that we think we should pray for, and it's
the same yesterday, today, the next day, and every week. Our
prayers, if they're real, they're a change from day to day. They
that know no changes fear not God. But when things come, they
affect us. And that is reflected in our
prayers. You imagine, if the Lord deals
with us, if he's chasing us, if he's correcting us or hiding
his face, and he looks upon his children, he says, I can do anything
to them. It doesn't have any effect at
all. Sometimes we've had that with some of our children. and
you could correct them and you could smack them and you could
do all sorts and it doesn't make any effect at all. Well, the
Lord knows how to deal with his children, but is it so that he'd
deal with us and then look upon us and think, well, I've smitten,
I've corrected, I've reproved, and their prayers are all the
same. They don't make any reflection. They're not sighing, they're
not crying, they're not searching their heart, they're not confessing,
they're not even angry against me. Is this soul alive? No, if we're a living soul, it
will change with those things that we're going through. We're
not just stoics and say, well, I trust in the Lord at all times. Therefore, I'm not going to be
ever sad. I'm not going to be ever despondent.
I'm not going to be ever thinking that things are not going to
turn out very well. It is true that where we think that
beautiful word, thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind
is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee. And the Lord
does do that. I've known that. But there are
those times that though we are seeking to trust in him at all
times, We are still but men at best, and at times we really
feel our weakness, and when we cannot see what the Lord is doing,
well, pour out our hearts before the Lord. Pour out your heart
before Him. Now, it's a blessed thing, isn't
it? This word says you're ye people. It's not saying you go
to a priest, he'll pray for you. or you need to go through someone
else. The blessings of a gospel day,
and it was in this day, is to be able to go before the Lord
in prayer, through our Lord Jesus Christ, present our petitions. He is our advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous. He appears in the presence of
God for us. Whatsoever ye ask in my name,
I will do it. And the way that it's worded
here, it's not pour out your hearts in asking, or pour out
your heart in thanksgiving. There may be those times that
that is exactly what it is. Pour out your heart in confession,
pour out your heart in all your confusion, in all the questions
that you have. It doesn't specify, does it?
You say, but if you knew what was in my heart, you wouldn't
want to pour that out. This is not pouring out to a
Roman Catholic confessional to a man. This is coming before
God and pouring out before Him. Pour out your heart before Him. One of our hymns speaks about
those that all the time are complaining to fellow creatures here. and
says in words to effect that if you were in prayer and poured
out your heart in prayer, then your cry would often be, hear
what the Lord has done for me. And so the question is, how much
do we pour out our hearts before one another, but don't pour out
our hearts before the Lord? There's a disparity between what
we say and share and unburdened to a fellow creature, and what
we unburden to the Lord. May we be of those that pour
out your heart before Him. There's another thought here
as well. This word says, before Him. You say, we're on earth. We might be in our closet, in
our bedroom, in our study, before Him. Are we really before Him? Is God in front of us? Is God
with us? It really reminds us of the presence
of God and what prayer is coming before the living God. Now if
it was an earthly king and we came before them and we got their
entrance and access and we came into their presence and then
we presented our petitions Before them, we could relate to that.
That person was there. That king was there. The one
that we were telling was right in front of us. But how much
sense have we of God being in front of us? That our prayer
is before Him. That we have this access into
the holiest of all. We can present our petitions. You know, Queen Esther, she was
the wife of the king. But even though she was the wife
of the king, she couldn't just go into the king and present
her petition. She had to have the golden scepter
held out. She feared for her life going
in before the king. But not before the God of gods,
not before our God. We can come before him without
fear. Let us come therefore boldly.
under the throne of grace that we might obtain mercy and find
grace to help in time of need. What a difference. What a privilege. Why? The Lord Jesus Christ himself,
suffering, bleeding, dying upon Calvary's tree, taking away our
sin, making atonement for it, bearing the wrath of God himself,
taking away that condemnation. There is therefore now no condemnation. to them that are in Christ Jesus. That is why. And we come before
the Lord through our Lord Jesus Christ, who is, as it were, having
upon our slate, the debt is paid. Your anger, your wrath, your
feeling the Lord's doing things wrong, debt is paid. This sin,
but we're bringing it before the Lord. If we confess our sins,
he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. And sometimes in
prayer, we are confessing what we're actually feeling and going
through. They're sinful things. They're
not what thy people should be feeling and thinking, but we
pour them out before the Lord. And even in that, we are trusting
in him at all times. I want to look then at the last
point here, which is the statement, God is a refuge for us. And David is joining himself
with the people. It's not that he has a refuge
and the people are to have something different. He's got a place to
flee to, and he's pointing, well, I can flee here, but there's
no more room. You can't come here. You go somewhere
else. He's saying, God is a refuge
for us. There's room. There's room for
you. There's room in the same place,
the same hiding place, the same refuge. The children of Israel
were given Those three cities, a refuge, one on one side, Jordan,
one on the other. And they were for those who had
slain a man unawares, to flee from the relative, the avenger
of blood, lest he find him and kill him. He had to come to that
city. His case was heard. And then
if he was a murderer, premeditated, he was put to death. But if not,
then he virtually was given a life sentence until the death. of
the high priest and then he would let go. That was a provision
for the children of Israel in a very practical sense when they
came into the promised land. But it's also spiritual teaching. And remember, our great high
priest never dies. Let's put it another way. Our
great high priest has died and then risen again. And so all
those that flee under that city of refuge, the Lord Jesus Christ,
when their case is heard, they're immediately set free because
the priest has died. They don't have to stay in there
as long as he is alive and then get their release because already
the tomb is empty, he's risen again. The refuge is a beautiful illustration
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our hiding place, our refuge,
one that is just suited for a sinner. A sinner against Satan's attacks,
the wrath of God, all that shall come against a poor sinner, his
failing health, death before him, all of these things. You think of Noah and his ark,
what a refuge that was. Come thou into the ark, and Noah
came. The Lord was there. And when
the floods came, when the waters came, the ark bare all of that,
not those inside of it, they were safe. It was a refuge. Now if that had just been some
other type of refuge and not a well-designed boat, it would
have done no good at all for the water there. Or if you had
a refuge that was designed for water and bearing up, but what
came upon it was fire, that would not be any refuge. But the Lord
had designed for Noah exactly what was needed. And the Lord
in the Gospel had designed that exactly that is needed for the
people of God. Our refuge is in Christ's precious
blood. When I see the blood, I will
pass over you as the Passover lamb. Our hiding place is in
His wounded side. He Himself is our hiding place. He is our refuge. Refuge while
time endures, a refuge when we come to die. May we know it,
may we know it in time, and it be our comfort that we often
run unto Him, come unto Him, trust Him, and pour our hearts
out before Him. May the Lord bless this word
to us this morning. Trust in Him at all times. Ye people, pour out your heart
before Him. God is a refuge for us. Selah. Amen.