Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayer for attention to the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah
chapter 32, and reading for our text, verse two. Isaiah chapter 32, and verse
two. And a man shall be as an hiding
place from the wind, and a cover from the tempest, as rivers of
water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary
land. Isaiah 32 and verse 2. It's very evident from the words
of our text that there is a need of a hiding place. We have wind,
we have the tempest, we have that need of not only a hiding
place, but provision in that hiding place. And the man spoken
of here, as we will see shortly, is our Lord and Saviour, Jesus
Christ. We especially would think of
how it is worded by the Apostle in the first epistle of Timothy
and chapter 2 and verse 5. For there is one God and one
mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus. And it is this man, Christ Jesus,
that is spoken of here as a hiding place. And if we think even in
a natural way, how vital it is that we have a suitable hiding
place. Many years ago, in the woods
near here, I was there with our young son at the time. and suddenly
there came very, very heavy rain. Now we were far from home, to
run home, but there was a holly tree nearby with very thick leaves. We ran to that and we hid under
it and we were safe from the wind and the rain at that time. But if we'd have been in Australia,
where we spent many of my years of my life, The danger often
there is not the rain, but the fires. And if we'd have used
that same refuge as the holly bush when a fire was coming,
it would have proved no use whatsoever. And so the refuge, the hiding
place, must be a suitable one and one that is exactly matching
the danger that is before us. And so I want to look this morning
at what Christ, the man, is to poor sinners. Firstly, I want
to look at the Lord Jesus Christ as an hiding place. And then secondly, a source of
rivers of water in a dry place. And thirdly, the shadow of a
great rock in a weary land. All these three things the Lord
Jesus Christ is as set forth here and a man shall be as an
hiding place from the wind and a cupboard from the tempest as
rivers of water in a dry place as the shadow of a great rock
in a weary land. So the first is that it is to
be a hiding place. Our Lord spoke most solemnly
of His coming the second time. And those that are not in Christ
when He appears in great power and glory in the clouds of heaven
They shall call upon the rocks and the hills to hide them from
the face of Him that sitteth upon the throne. They will then
realize and know that they need a hiding place to hide them from
the face of a holy God, Almighty God, a God coming in wrath and
injustice, and they shall call upon what shall never save them
and never help them in that day. But the Lord says of his people,
when you see these things come to pass, then look up for your
redemption draweth nigh. They do not have the same fear
when Almighty God shall come. And the reason is because they
have a hiding place in the very one that is coming, our Lord
and Savior, Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh, a real
man, and yet really and truly God, made manifest as the one
mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. And he's
beautifully set forth here as a hiding place. We would think
firstly then of what need there is for that hiding place. When our first parents sinned,
when they fell, then they came under the wrath of God and the
sentence of death. In the day that thou eatest thereof,
thou shalt surely die. And all of the seed of Abraham
is now under that sentence of death. We have broken the law,
as Adam did, and we are separated from God, alienated from God,
and the wrath of God is upon us, the curse of God is upon
us. And without there being a plan,
a provision, hiding place provided by God, that wrath must fall
upon us and eternally. It is a just wrath upon sinners
who have sinned, who have brought the wrath of God upon them. We
have some most solemn illustrations in the Old Testament of the wrath
of God being poured out. One such time is in the days
of Noah, when God saw the wickedness of man that was very great, and
so he destroyed all of mankind except for the eight that were
in the ark. The ark was a type of Christ. It was a hiding place for Noah
and those that were with him. The Lord said to Noah, come thou,
into the ark. The Lord was in the ark, that's
why he could say come. And when the fountains of the
great deep were opened up, when the heavens showered down the
rain, when the earth was overflowed with water, then those in the
ark, the ark bore the water, that bore the wrath of God, if
you like. that was coming on those outside
of it and destroying them, but the Ark wasn't destroyed, and
those that were in the Ark were not destroyed. It was most suitable. Any other refuge from such a
flood and from such a wrath of God would not have availed anything. And the Lord told Noah to build
that Ark, and He shut him into that Ark. And Noah, he numbers
amongst those in Hebrews 11, that by faith he built an ark
to the saving of his house. And so this hiding place in this
gospel day, it's not Noah's ark, it's not a tree, it's not a physical
place that we hide in, but it is the Lord Jesus Christ himself
and we hide in Him by faith. It is through faith that we rest
in Him and shelter in Him and trust in Him. Another most solemn illustration
of the judgment of God was in the night of the Passover in
Egypt. The Lord had already dealt nine
wonders in Egypt and destroyed much of the land. At that night,
he said, the angel would go over the land of Egypt and all the
firstborn of men, of beasts, the firstborn of the servants,
or the firstborn in Pharaoh's house, they would all be slain. the wrath, the just wrath of
God and judgment of God would come upon them. But the Lord
gave away that the children of Israel and those that obeyed
him would escape from that destruction. And it was that they should kill
a lamb, that they should take the blood of the lamb, that they
should put it upon the lintel, and the doorposts of their houses,
and that they should then go into their houses, that they
would eat that Passover and be clothed ready to go out of Egypt. They were to eat it in haste.
And God gave a promise that when I pass over the land of Egypt,
when I see the blood, I will pass over you and not destroy
your firstborn. and this then was a shelter,
not just in their houses, but especially the sheltering beneath
the blood. We have sung in our hymn, let
the water and the blood from thy riven side which flowed,
be of sin the double cure, cleanse me from its guilt and power. Forty years later, When the spies
went into the promised land, they went into the house of Rahab. Rahab lived upon the wall, where
the walls of Jericho were going to fall down. But she was to
be saved in coming into that house, and the spies told her
to put the scarlet line in the window, the line that they had
being let down over the wall to escape with, they told her
to put that in the window. So not the blood, but what pointed
to the same blood, a scarlet lime. And the Lord honoured that,
that part of the wall was not destroyed. Rahab was to be incorporated
into Israel. She married into Israel. She is in the line to Christ.
And it was all because of that God-appointed hiding place. It is the blood of Jesus Christ,
God's Son, that cleanseth from all sin. We read in our reading
in Exodus of Moses, in Exodus 33, where Moses desired the Lord's
presence to go with them. That chapter follows where the
children of Israel had made a golden calf. The wrath of God had been
upon them, many had been slain. The law of God was cast down
the tables and broken at the foot of the mount, that mount
that smoked and quaked and the thunder loud and strong. And
God said that he would destroy the people But Moses stood in
the breach. He made intercession for them,
and God destroyed them not. But Moses wanted to see the glory
of the Lord. And the Lord said that there
was a place by me, that is the Lord Jesus Christ in time. Thou
shalt stand upon a rock. He was to stand upon the Lord
Jesus Christ. I will put thee in a cliff of
the rock. The Lord Jesus Christ, his side
was riven. Before this as well, when they
were given water, Moses stood there and the Lord said he would
stand upon the rock and Moses smote the rock. The Lord Jesus
Christ is the smitten rock. And it is in him, in his wounded
side, in his sufferings, in what he has done, enduring the wrath
of God falling upon him, that the people of God shelter in
him, knowing that he has suffered the wrath of God, he has put
away his people's sin, he has finished the work his father
gave him to do, and the empty tomb gives assurance of that,
that there is a judgment to come, but the Lord also has already
judged his people that he should bear their sin upon Calvary's
tree, and that their refuge then is to be in the Lord Jesus Christ. We read in the Psalms of a secret
place, Psalm 91 in the first verse, he that dwelleth in the
secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow
of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is
my refuge and my fortress, my God in Him will I trust. Surely He shall deliver thee
from the snare of the fowler and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with His
feathers and under His wings shalt thou trust. His truth shall
be thy shield. and buckler, and there is the
hiding place in our Lord Jesus Christ that is described to us. We have another picture of this
also in the Song of Solomon, and in the second chapter of
that book, we have in verse 14, O my dove, thou art in the clefts
of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs. Let me see thy
countenance, let me hear thy voice, for sweet is thy voice,
and thy countenance is comely. The Lord's people in the Lord
Jesus Christ, and he wants to hear from them, and they shall
hear from him. This is that hiding place then,
that is looked to by faith, that is trusted in. The Lord Jesus
Christ is the only name given among men, whereby we must be
saved. There is no other refuge. Our
own works, they cannot save us. No other man or woman can save
us. Our parents cannot save us. But
salvation is of the Lord. It is only through our Lord Jesus
Christ and through faith in Him, not of works, lest any man should
boast. By grace ye are saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. May we then know that hiding
place. May we be really sure that we
need a refuge, we need a hiding place. that death is on the road
we have a soul shall live forever and forever and the Lord direct
us and through his word this morning to look unto him as our
Lord said look unto me and be saved or the ends of the earth
for I am God and there is none else. Blessed thing to be found
in Christ as Paul says Not having mine own righteousness, which
is of the law, but that which is of faith of Jesus Christ. Faith in Christ, but especially
faith that comes from him. It is of him. He is the author
and finisher of faith. I want to look then secondly at
a source of rivers and water in a dry place. The Lord's people will find this
world to be a dry place, a wilderness, very typical. The children of
Israel going through the wilderness is very typical of a child of
God going through this world. For them there was not naturally
any water, there was no food, there was no shelter. They needed
food, they needed sustenance, they needed a provision. And
God who brought them into that wilderness, He provided for them. He not only sheltered them on
the Passover, and through that released them from Egyptian bondage. But once they were released,
then he provided for them. And God's people, who are called
by his grace, are brought to believe on him, are given spiritual
provision. Our Lord said to Satan, what
is recorded in Deuteronomy, man shall not live by bread only,
but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. The
provision of a child of God is spiritual food. Spiritual things
the natural man receiveth not the things of God, neither can
he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. When our
Lord began teaching to Nicodemus the need of the new birth, he
must be born again, Nicodemus immediately thinks, naturally,
how can a man come into his mother's womb and be born again? But our
Lord is speaking of a spiritual birth. Then when we go on to
the fourth chapter, we have the case with the woman at the well
of Samaria, and she wonders how the Lord can get water. The well
is deep. has nothing to draw. She's thinking
of natural water. The Lord is speaking of spiritual
water. He's speaking of the blessings
of the gospel in the Lord Jesus Christ. The provision for the
people of God. The meat that I shall give, the
food that I shall give, the words that I speak unto you, they are
spirit and they are life. Then we go on to Chapter 6, and
we find again the Lord saying to those that followed Him from
over the sea, because He'd worked the miracle of the loaves and
the fishes, He says, labour not for the meat that perisheth,
but for that which endureth unto eternal life. And so there He
insists, except ye eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son
of Man, ye have no life in you. So that provision is to be the
word of the Lord. It is to be meat and drink for
the people of God. It is to be like we read in the
portion from Paul writing to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians
10. We read in verse 4, or verse
3 and 4, and did all eat the same spiritual meat. and did
all drink the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that
spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ."
So that provision, not only is Christ an hiding place, but He
also is a provision. And where He is one, then He
is the other. Jeremiah, he says, thy words
were found, And I did eat them, and they were to the joy and
rejoicing of my soul. So, for the people of God, those
streams that were to flow forth from Calvary, half toward the
former sea, half toward the Jews, half toward the hinder sea, towards
the Gentiles, in summer and winter shall this be, that constant
stream, That picture that was shown in Ezekiel, where from
the threshold of the temple came the river that got deeper and
deeper, became a river to swim in. This is the river of life,
the river of the Gospel, the river of the Word of God. This
is what flows forth from the Lord, those streams of mercy
and streams of love and streams of grace. streams of truth, those
things that all flow and they all centre in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And that is to be the meat and
drink of the people of God. That is what they feed upon,
meditate upon, think upon, go over, be like the clean beasts,
like the lambs that will eat once and then they'll lie down
and they'll chew the cud. and they go over and over what
they have eaten. This is for the people of God,
a source. And so our text says, a man shall
be as a hiding place from the wind and a cover from the tempest
as rivers of water in a dry place. And we'll find this world does
not satisfy a real Christian. We read in, again, Hebrews 11
and verse 13, that the people of God, they confess that they
were strangers and pilgrims in the earth. They do not find that
which satisfies them here. Vanity of vanities, saith the
preacher, all is vanity, is all empty. It is all passing away,
it's vain. But those things which are spiritual
are eternal, they pass not away. The words that I speak unto you,
they are spirit and life. Heaven and earth shall pass away,
my words shall not pass away. And it is that which marks out
the difference between the people of God and the people of the
world. The Lord says in John 17, I have
given them thy word, and the world hath hated them. That's
all it needs for the people of God, to have the word of God,
and the world does not like the word of God. Men will not come
to the light, the light makes manifest, shows their deeds to
be evil, but that very word is meat and drink to the people
of God. A source of rivers, in a dry
place. So there's two things we should
be concerned with there with ourselves. How do we view this
world? Is it a dry place? Has the Lord
taken away the love of the world, the lust of the flesh, desires
of the things of this world, and has he made it to be a wilderness
to us, where we look for that manna from heaven, where we look
for the rivers of water that flow forth from the smitten rock,
and that is our sustenance. And do we not only find that
this world doesn't supply what the Lord has given us an appetite
for? Remember the Lord said, blessed
are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for
they shall be filled. And the other side then is, do
we partake Have we fed upon the Word? Do we come to the house
of God for this purpose? And with this prayer, Lord, give
me a portion. Make me to be like Ruth, gleaning
amongst the sheaves, picking up a little here and a little
there, or perhaps a handful of peppers given to our souls through
the Word of God. And we go home and that Word
remains with us and the Holy Spirit Sometimes we might think
we haven't profited in the house of God, but the Holy Spirit brings
to our remembrance what has been said, and He comes back to us,
and that's a blessing to us. And may we be finding this, that
Christ is not only a hiding place to us, that we come unto, go
unto in all our trials, in all our tribulations, in may He show
our peace, In the world you shall have tribulation, but he's also
a source for us of our food, of our water. Well, the third
point of what Christ is to us is the shadow of a great rock
in a weary land. We've said regarding those in
Hebrews that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. That's what they found. And often
there is felt the heat of that which is here below. Now naturally
in climes where it is very hot, then a welcome shade of a tree
or shade of a rock is very, very welcome indeed. To be underneath
it and the sun smiting down, only those that have actually
endured that will know what it is to find a shelter. And so here below, all that comes
upon a child of God, all that they feel of the world, the flesh,
and the devil, they make it like the beating down of the sun on
a hot day. And the Lord here is said to
be as the shadow of a great rock. a rock that casts its shadow,
that doesn't move, and that gives real relief to the people of
God. In heaven there shall be complete
relief. In heaven no more sin, no more
devil, no more flesh that fights against the Spirit. But here
below we have this conflict that the Lord has provided those times. of real rest and real shadow
under his wings when we are brought to be near him and hear his word. And it's like he said to the
disciples, come ye apart and rest a while. Come on apart,
sit down and hear my word. Not be all burdened and concerned
with all the burdens and things of this life. Sometimes as well
it can be felt. where we've had temptation after
temptation, trial after trial, and we feel so weary we can't
take any more, and then to find the sweetness in the house of
God, or in our closet, and with the Lord coming to us and blessing
us, and it's a sweet shadow and a taking away of the heat of
those things that we are going through. This is to be. For the people of God are weary
land, but their refuge, their hiding place, their shelter is
the Lord Jesus Christ. He is everything the people of
God need. Naturally, when we need help
here below, often we've got to go to several sources for it,
even medically. We might have a condition and
we go to one specialist, but he's not able to help us in another
condition. But here we have the Lord providing
everything. He's providing the hiding place.
He's providing the source of the food and the rivers and water. He's also providing the shelter
and the shadow of this great rock. The Lord is the rock on
which the Church of God is built. He is the great rock, the rock
Christ Jesus. He is the stone that was rejected
of the builders, the Jews. but which is the headstone of
the corner. He is what is set forth here,
God made manifest in the flesh, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
truly God and truly man, a man shall be. And may we be able
to say, the Lord has been, the Lord is. We know it in the gospel
sense, we know it as set forth in the word of God, But are we
able to give that amen in a personal sense, a way of experience? And
you say, this word says, a man shall be as a hiding place. I
know he has been to me. He is my refuge. He is my hiding
place. A man shall be as a hiding place
from the wind and a coven from the tempest. as rivers of water
in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. The Lord had his blessing.