But here we are in the Old Testament
with a lovely picture of what it is to be in a place of refuge. It's a place to flee to for safety,
for protection, for preservation. A place where justice is established,
a place of hope. It's a particular city. It was
ordained by God. Our God, as we read earlier,
is our refuge, is a shelter from the storms of sin, from the storms
of Satan, from the storms of this world. There is just one
place of safety, there is just one refuge in all of this world,
and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Just so we have some of the picture
we might just read, you can turn with me if you like, but we might
just read some of the verses in the Old Testament that speak
of this refuge. In Isaiah 32 it begins, Behold,
a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment,
and a man shall be as a hiding place from the wind, and as a
covert from the tempest, a place where the tempest falls on the
covert and you're safe inside. as rivers of water in a dry place
in the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. And the work of righteousness
shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness shall be quietness My people shall dwell in a peaceable
habitation, and in shore dwellings, and in quiet resting places. And when it shall hail coming
down on the forest, and the city shall be low in a low place,
blessed are ye that sow beside all waters. that send forth into
the feet of the ox and the ass. There is a place of quietness. David went through a storm, didn't
he? A storm of his own making and
his own volition when he sinned against Bathsheba. And he came
to write Psalm 32 verse 7 in David's confession, isn't it?
He says, we don't have time to read all of it, but I trust that
you might be led by the Lord to go and look in delight in
this amazing Psalm. He says in verse 7, Thou art
my hiding place. Thou shalt preserve me from trouble. Thou shalt That's our prayer, isn't it? To go back
one verse. Well, this shall be, shall everyone
that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be
found, surely in the floods of great waters shall they not come
nigh unto him. As I said earlier, everything
in God's creation and everything pictured in the scriptures is
a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ and the picture of His salvation.
So this creation is designed for us to see the Lord Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. This creation exists in all of
the pictures in the Old Testament. are but pictures of the Lord
Jesus Christ and His salvation. And if we can't see it there,
then we need to plead with the Lord to show us that that's what
the story is about. It's always about Him. Every
story is always about Him. This, as someone said, is a Him
book. It's about Him. It's always about Him. So there
were six cities, as we read earlier in Joshua 20. There were six
cities, three on either side of the Jordan. So you didn't
have to swim across the river to get to the place of safety. You had to flee, obviously, but
you only fled what was probably half a day's walk or run. You
could flee to them. I can't help but think when it
says that they're on either side of the river, that beautiful
picture in Revelation 22 of the Tree of Life. John was shown. He showed me
a pure river of the water of life, clear as crystal proceeding
out of the throne of God and the Lamb and in the midst of
the street of it. And on either side of the river, there was
the tree of life. You don't have to cross the river
to get to the Lord Jesus Christ, which bear twelve manner of fruits
and yielded her fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree were
for the healing of the nations, and there shall be no more curse. But the throne of God and of
the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants shall serve him. It's a place to flee. It's a
place for someone who is a sinner. He has killed someone. It might
be unwittingly. We have, in many senses, unwittingly
murdered our own souls, haven't we? And we continue unwittingly
to do harm to ourselves in so many ways. We flee to refuge,
don't we? I want to spend a little bit
of time looking at Hebrews 6, but we might just read these
glorious verses from verse 18. Our God says that by two immutable,
unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie,
we might have strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay
hold upon the hope set before us. Salvation, brothers and sisters,
is a fleeing. It's a fleeing. It's a fleeing. What a glorious statement about
our God. You fled to refuge. You don't
just idle your way to them, do you? If you had, as the scriptures
describe, one instant if you're in the forest chopping a tree
down and the head of your axe falls off and it happens to land
and kill another person that's nearby, you are there with blood
on your hands as a murderer. And what do you do? The only
place of safety in all of Israel is to flee to the place of refuge. To flee. You didn't debate with
anyone about it. You didn't discuss the proposition.
We didn't need a dialogue session about this. Sinners flee. Sinners flee because the Avenger
of Blood is there and the Avenger of Blood legally has the right
under the law to put you to death. Now these cities, we read where
they were and the names of them, but they're the cities of the
Levites. All of the cities were cities of the Levites. Their
salvation is in a priest. Salvation is in a priest. And
the Levites had a responsibility. They had to keep the way clear. They had to remove from that
road From all the roads that came into the Sea of Refuge,
they had to remove every obstacle, every low place had to be filled
in, every high place had to be took down, all the rocks and
all the obstacles out of the way. And then they were to put
signs at every junction, at every place where there was a choice
of ways to go, they put a great sign up saying, Refuge, Refuge,
here, Refuge in this direction. And that's exactly what preaching
the gospel is about, isn't it? We're saying there's a refuge.
We're saying, look unto the Lord Jesus Christ, who's the author
and finisher of faith. And the guilty killer was safe
only when he reached the gates of the city. There was certain
death. There was lawful death outside
of the city. I will be nigh man's debtor.
We have earned death. at God's hand legally. And we all, all those who are
in the Lord Jesus Christ, escape that because of the death that
he died. We escape legally. See God's
law, God's law and God's character is magnified in the salvation
of the Lord Jesus Christ. God's justice is magnified in
the salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ. She says in Psalm 62
verse 6, 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. See, sinners alone, guilty sinners
alone, flee to the refuge. They flee to the refuge. Guilty sinners are characterized
by many things, but one is a desperate need, aren't they? We're not
here to debate with guilty sinners. We're here to proclaim that there
is a city of refuge. There is a place. Sinners. I think it was Scott Richard
who used to begin his sermons. Is there a sinner in the house?
And people will say, well, everyone's a sinner. I have met very, very
few of them. And one characteristic of this
sinner, the sinner that flees to this refuge of the Lord Jesus
Christ, is that he flees. He doesn't wait. He flees. Sinners
alone flee. Sinners like Peter who is sinking
beneath the waves, they cry out with that cry, and if you've
begun crying this to the Lord, you'll be crying it till you
finish. Lord, save me. He's sinking beneath the waves
and says, Lord, save me. He'd taken his eyes off the Lord
Jesus Christ. He was responsible for his own
sinking. And he says, Lord, save me. See, the avenger of blood. The
Avenger of Blood is legally active at all times. And the Avenger of Blood pursues,
legally pursues sinners. The scriptures say the Lord is
angry with the wicked every day. So let's turn back in our scriptures
to Joshua chapter 20 and look at some of the glorious things
about coming to this place of safety. So he's killed, verse 3, and
now he's fleeing, verse 3. And he flees to a refuge, a refuge
that's appointed by God, a refuge that's in the tribe in one of
the cities of the Levites. And then it says, it says, he shall stand. What's he do? He flees. And he'll
stand at the entering of the gate and declare his cause. So many wonderful pictures in
the Scriptures aren't there of people who stand at the gate
and plead their cause. Lord, if you're willing, you
can make me whole. If you're willing, you read the
New Testament Scriptures, you read the Gospel accounts, and
you will never find, you will never find a guilty sinner who
came to the Lord Jesus Christ and pleaded his cause. Lord save me. You never find
one that's turned away. What a glorious saviour we have. You stand at the gate and you
declare your cause. I've killed someone. The avenger
of blood is on my heels. And what do they do? Just listen
to what it says. He'll stand at the gate and declare
his cause. And they shall take him in. to the city. He'll declare his
cause in the ears of the elders of the city, and they shall take
him into the city. So you don't come into this city
just by walking. You come into this city, you
don't come into this city at your will. You come into this
city of refuge as you're taken in there. You'll take him into
the city, and you'll take him unto them, it says. You'll become
in and you'll become one with them. They take him in and they'll
give him a place. They give him a place. He doesn't earn a place. He comes
to the city of refuge. He stands at the gate and he's
taken into the city. He's taken in unto them, the
priests. They take him in and they give
him a place. They take him in and give him
a place that he may not dwell among them. And then it says
in verse 5, And if the avenger of blood pursue after him, then
shall I not deliver the slayer up into his hand? Isn't that exactly what the Lord
Jesus Christ does when he takes his people into the church? He
takes them in. He takes them in and they come
in unto him. He shall dwell in that city until
he stand in the congregation for judgment. If you turn over
to Numbers, it's on your sheet there, if you turn over to Numbers
35, verse 25, and the congregation shall deliver the slayer out
of the hand of the revenger of blood, and the congregation shall
restore him to the city of his refuge, whether he has fled,
and he shall abide in it. There will be There will be a
standing in the congregation for judgment. There will be a
time when he will have opportunity to plead his cause. And the congregation
shall deliver the slayer out of the hand and they'll restore
him to the city. So God appoints these cities.
God appoints the Lord Jesus Christ. He set forth the Lord Jesus Christ.
I love Romans 3. It's just a remarkable passage
of scripture. It deals with the nature of our
sin. the nature of what we need to be fleeing from. There is
none righteous, no not one. There is none that understands,
there is none that seeketh after God. They have all gone out of
the way. They have all together become unprofitable. There is
none that doeth good, no not one. Their throat is an open
sepulcher, and with their tongues they have used deceit. The poison
of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing
and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed
blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways. The way of
peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before
their eyes. Where do you flee to? So many
people were saying, you flee to the law. Verse 19, now we
know that what things however the law saith, it saith to them
under the law. What's that mean? That the law
is over you, the avenger of blood is over you. It saith to them
who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped. That's
the purpose of the law, to shut you up. Anyone who thinks that
they can obey one single commandment to God's satisfaction has absolutely
no idea of two things that are really critical in this life.
They have absolutely no idea of the holiness of God, and they
have absolutely no idea of the sinfulness of themselves. It
is a cursed thing to put people under the law in any way at all.
Therefore, by the deeds of the law, the whole world may become
guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the
law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight. For by
the law is the knowledge of sin. But now, but now, we go down
to verse 25. God set him forth, verse 24,
by being justified freely by his grace. All you sinners, you've
come short of the glory of God. What a great description of sin.
Coming short of the glory of God. We're doing it right now,
aren't we? Coming short of the glory of
God. Being justified freely, I love that word, moves without
a cause. There is no cause in us. They
hated him without a cause. There was no cause in the Lord
Jesus Christ for hatred. There is no cause in us for salvation.
We are justified freely by his grace through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus whom God has set forth. this city
of refuge. God set forth his Son to be a
propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness
for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance
of God. To declare, I say at this time,
his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of
him that believeth in Jesus. The cities are appointed by God. The cities are appointed for
sinners to flee to. Outside is death, legally. Inside is life, legally. Those who have fled to the Lord
Jesus Christ for refuge, the law can do them no harm. their safety and their salvation. Payment God cannot twice demand. First at my bleeding surety's
hand, and then again at mine. The city is a refuge on either
side of the Jordan, so you didn't have to cross a river. Didn't
have to worry about the floods. There were three and they were
spread out. reasonably equidistantly on either side so that you could
flee as quickly as possible to the nearest one. And they'll
build on hills, so you could keep them in sight as you're
fleeing. The Lord Jesus Christ is lifted up in the preaching
of the Gospel and he says, and if I, if I be lifted up from
the earth, I'll draw all men unto me. So that's what the preaching
of the We declare the character of God. We declare the salvation
of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's set forth. We want to set
him forth in all the glorious beauties of his character. We
want to set him forth as he's pictured in the Old Testament.
We want to set him forth as he's pictured in the New Testament.
We want to set him forth as God sets him forth. That's what Paul
said to the Galatians. He says Christ Jesus was set
forth crucified. Evidently set forth. We hold up to this dying world. We hold up to sinners the sign
that says refuge. And the refuge is in the Lord
Jesus Christ and him crucified. A city that's on a hill can't
be hid. They were marked. They were on
a hill and they were marked. They were to be kept away. There
had to be a way kept for them. The early church were described
as the way, and we quote Isaiah 35 often, isn't it? Isaiah 35,
and a highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called
the way of holiness. The unclean shall not pass over
it, but it shall be for those wayfaring men, the wayfaring
men, those that wander about and are lost. Wayfaring men,
no fools, it's not for the intelligent. I love that description. Have
you been wayfaring? Have you spent a whole bunch
of your life wayfaring? I've been a wayfarer for a long
time, and I'm fearful that I'm still a wayfarer. Probably worse
now than I was before. A wayfaring man. And we're fools, aren't we? We're
fools to ourselves. We're fools to ourselves. We're
fools. The wayfaring men and the fools
shall not err therein. There is a way, there is a way
that is to be kept clean. So the cities were on a hill,
the cities were clearly marked, the cities were easily accessible,
nothing between. In the preaching of the gospel
we don't want to put anything between the saviour and the souls
of those he saved. It's a way, a simple way. Nothing
between my soul and the Saviour, so that His blessed face may
be seen. Nothing preventing the least
of His favour. Keep the way clear, let nothing
between. I don't want to put your works,
and your righteousness, and your law obedience, and your wisdom,
and your understanding, and your intelligence, and all of your
history. I don't want anything. There's
nothing between us and the Saviour. Wayfaring men and fools go in,
and they shine on. So it's simple, isn't it? The
Gospel is a simple declaration. "'What must I do to be saved?'
cried the Philippian jailer. He said, Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Whosoever shall call on
the name of the Lord shall be saved. See, fleeing people are
calling people. The Gospel preaching is clear
and simple. And there are no obstacles. I
love the task of Abraham when the covenant was cut in Genesis
15, that glorious picture of salvation by the death of another
in Genesis 15, and the carcasses were laid out on the ground.
And Abraham had one job to do, the father of the faithful. You
can read about it in Genesis. He kept the birds, the unclean
birds of the sacrifice. Christ and him crucified, without
there being any blemishes to it, without there being any addition
to it whatsoever. Prepare ye the way of the Lord,
make straight the paths for our God. And if you go back to Joshua
chapter 20 verse 9, this is not just for the Jews. These cities
were not just for the Jews. They were for the Gentiles. It
says, these were the cities appointed for all the children of Israel
and for the stranger, the soldiers in them. Salvation. Salvation reaches way beyond
a particular tribe and nation and tongue. And they will sing,
won't they? They're singing. They're sitting
in heaven. They sang a new song saying,
thou art worthy to take the book and open the seals thereof, for
thou was slain and has redeemed us to God. You've brought us
back. Brought us back to yourself.
You've redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred
and tongue and people and nation. And I'd like you to think with
me on another glorious aspect of what it was to be in the city
of refuge. into the sixth. He'll dwell in
that city until they stand before the congregation for judgment,
until the death of the high priest. So his safety in that city and
his freedom to go from that city is all tied up with the death
of the high priest. in Numbers 35 is called the Anointed
High Priest. You can read about him in Hebrews
chapter 6 and 7. He's a priest after the order
of Melchizedek. He's a priest that has the power
of an everlasting life. You see, in this law, when the
High Priest died, the guilty sinner was freed to go home. When the Lord Jesus Christ died,
we guilty sinners who have fled to him for refuge are free, are
free. And while the high priest lived,
the sinner was safe in the city of refuge, and no harm could
come to him. Isn't that glorious? We have
a high priest who died, and we have a high priest who lives
forever. We have a city of refuge which is safe, isn't it? When
the high priest died, there was safety. When the high priest
lives, there is safety. This is our glorious Lord Jesus
Christ pictured here so beautifully. And only safety was in these
appointed cities. There's no salvation in any other
refuge. You can't go back to Sinai. Elijah
went back to Sinai and God said to him three times, what are
you doing here, Elijah? You're not going to go to heaven from
here. You're going back over to Jordan, Elijah. People flee
back to Sinai, don't they? They flee back to religion. They
flee back to experiences. They flee back to their good
works, they flee back to their morality, they go like the Pharisee
at the temple and say, I thank you God that I'm not like these
other people. There is no salvation outside of this particular city
of refuge. There are in this world other
Jesuses, and there are other Gospels, and there are other
spirits, but there is just one place of refuge. Nothing. Nothing. And every time
you are put under a little tiny bit of pressure, you like me
probably will want to try and think, well what have I done?
Or what can I do to fix it? We continually, we are recovering
Pharisees and we never cease to recover from being recovering
Pharisees. While ever this flesh was here.
It was interesting talking to Owen yesterday because he had
a terrible, he had a close shave with death the other day and
he spoke to you about it, Graham, didn't he? When his blood pressure
was zero and his pulse was zero and a nurse happened to be there
and they set off the alarms and everyone ran from all over the
place and Owen was recounting The story says, I nearly went
home. I nearly went home. I don't know what was happening.
His heart was beating and he had no pulse and no blood pressure. Anyway, the Lord, as Owen says, to provide encouragement for
the children of God while he's here. There's only safety in
the city. You had to flee to the city.
There was no safety in looking at the city. There was no safety
in thinking about the good things about getting there. There's
no safety in saying good things about it. There was no safety
in telling others about it. It's the same picture, isn't
it? The same picture we see again and again throughout the Scriptures,
and we've seen it in Noah's Ark, and we've seen it in this ship
that crosses the Mediterranean Sea. There is just one call from
God. You abide in the ship. You abide
in the ark. You abide in the city. Salvation is in the Lord Jesus
Christ, and everywhere outside of Him is death. Light is in
the Lord Jesus Christ, and everywhere else is darkness. Love is in
Christ. The love of God which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord. Outside is empty. Justice is in Christ. All of
the attributes of God are in Christ. And that's what he says
to those disciples then that night when he said, don't let
your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. You believe in God, believe
also in me. I've gone to prepare a place
for you. And he says a bit later on in John 15, he says, abide
in the vine. Abide in the vine. And abide
in his words. You abide in the vine and you
abide in his words. You trust and rest in the promises
of God. You abide in him because he abides
in you. You're in the city, you're taken into
the city, you're given a place to rest, a place I just want to close by looking
at the names of the six cities, and you'll see in them all glorious
names of the Lord Jesus Christ. I won't have time to look at
them in any detail, but I trust you might be delighted. Kedesh
is the first one. Kedesh means holy. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
Holy One of God, isn't He? In Hebrews 7, that chapter that
we love to look at in terms of the eternal covenant, it says,
He was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sins. He's
the only holy person that's ever lived. And what are we? What are we? Children of God? We're holy people now. It's remarkable. That's what saints are. That's
what it is to be sanctified, to be a saint, is to be declared
holy. That's the task of this great
high priest. To present His people on account of His shed blood
and on account of the sacrifice and the offering He made of Himself
to His Father, He presents His people holy, spotless, unblameable,
unapprovable in His sight. He presents us holy. He's the
Holy One. Shechem means shoulder. It means shoulder. The shoulder
is something with which you carry things, isn't it? If you've got
a heavy load to carry, you carry it upon your shoulder. You probably
are thinking of it as I read some of those verses to you. For unto us, you'll be singing
them in a few weeks time, for unto us a child is born, and
unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his
shoulder. The government of what? He carries the government of
what? Absolutely everything and everyone in all of this unit.
The government shall be upon his shoulder. His name shall
be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father,
Prince of Peace. And as a great high priest, he
carried us, didn't he? He carried the names of all of
his people into the Holy of Holies. The names of all of the elect
children of God were written on the breastplate of the high
priest and they were written on his shoulder and he carried
us in there. He carries his people into heaven. He's the great high priest. He
carries us. He carried our sins. and he carried
them away by his death on Calvary's tree and now he carries us into
the Holy of Holies and we're seated with him in that holy
place in heaven. Hebron means fellowship, means
unity. We have now fellowship with God,
we're fellows We have a unity with him. That's why John spoke in 1 John
3. He writes these things that we
might have fellowship with him and his fellowship is with the
Father. That which we have seen and heard
declare we unto you, that you also may have fellowship with
us and our fellowship. Truly our fellowship is with
the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. And when he has
people in fellowship with him, he takes them to a place called
Beza, the next name of the city. And Beza means an enclosure.
It means a fortified place, a place of safety, a place of security. A garden enclosed is his sister,
is his spouse. And when you're in the fortified
city, when you've been brought by a holy one and carried on
his shoulders into fellowship, into an enclosure, into a fortified
place, what happens there? Ramoth means exalted and joy. joy, rejoice in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And all of that, all of that
is revealed in the preaching of the gospel. It's revealed
and manifested. And that's what the word golden
means. So our great savior is a refuge for his people. He's
a refuge from the storms of this life. He's refuge from the storms
of meeting God. is a refuse from the Avenger
of Blood. And he takes his people into
a city that's called Holy. He carries them there on his
shoulder, and in that place he has fellowship with them, and
he encloses them there, and it's a fortified place. Nothing is
going to harm God's people in him. And there in that place,
they are exalted and joyful. And all of this is but the revelation
and the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ. We've escaped, children of God. We've escaped by fleeing. We've escaped from the avenger
of blood and we fled to the city of refuge, the Lord Jesus Christ. May God bless His Word.