Over my soul, sweet Spirit, sweet
for my soul, my joy is complete when I sit at Your feet, sweet
Spirit. May God grant it. Look what is
said here. We'll do Isaiah 32 and then turn
over to Hebrews 6. Behold, a king shall reign in
righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. This is the
verse I want you to see. And a man shall be as a hiding
place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest, as rivers of
water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary
land." So there's a hiding place there, a refuge there. Now over
in Hebrews 6, verse 18, Verse 17, I should read that.
We're in God willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise.
He wants us to abundantly see some things here. And there's
the heirs of promise. It's the people that He has chosen
in Christ. We inherited the promise of salvation
in Christ. The promise of the Holy Spirit. Promise of faith, promise of
justification, forgiveness. But God wants to show us the
immutability of His counsel that it can never change. Impossible
to change. And what He did, He confirmed
it by an oath. And two immutable things He did.
First, it was impossible for God to lie. We might have a strong consolation
since God can't lie and won't lie. and his counsels immutable,
who hath fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before
us, which hold we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure
and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil. Where
the forerunners for us entered, Jesus made the high priest forever
after the order of Melchizedek." Now I talked about who has fled
for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us. I want to
talk about Christ our refuge. Christ our refuge. Paul is describing
here true believers and he said here to have a strong consolation.
Strong consolation, not a weak one, a strong one. And that consolation
is that God cannot lie. and that he made an oath himself.
Since he came to life he made an oath. And those two immutable
things, those things that cannot never be changed, since he set
Christ before us, we have such a strong consolation and we have
fled to Christ as our refuge and that hope that is set before
us in our Lord Jesus Christ. And I'll tell you what it means
if you're greatly comforted. And there are people who have
fled for refuge to lay hold upon this hope set before them. You
see, the same one they have as their hope is the same one they
have as their refuge. The refuge and the hope are the
same. And that's the Lord Jesus Christ and His great, great undertaking
for us, the great salvation He accomplished for us. And we,
as God's people, have fled for Him for two reasons. Let me give
them to you. We flee to Him for two reasons.
First of all, we flee to Him because of the future. Because
of the future. To lay hold upon the hope set
before us. We don't know what the future
holds, so we flee to Him. Whatever may happen, we're just
going to keep coming to Him. We're going to flee to Him. We
flee to Him to lay hold upon the hope set before us. And the
hope that's laid up for us in heaven. Colossians 1.15 says
this, that we have an inheritance in heaven. Reserved in heaven
for us. And that's the hope that's laid
up for us. And in reference to the gospel that's set before
us. So in regards to the future,
we flee to Christ. Flee to that refuge. That hole
that's set before us. Lay hold of it. And then also
we flee and lay hold upon the hope set before us because of
the present. Because of what's going on right
now. We flee to Him every day for refuge. And the reason we
flee to Him every day for refuge is because we have a need to
flee to Him. I have a need to go to Christ.
Don't you have a need to go to Christ? Don't you have a need
to flee to Christ? Don't you have a need to lay
hold upon that hope that's set before you? And the Lord Jesus
Christ is our refuge, and we flee to Him every day. Flee to
Him every day. And that's what He said, for
strong consolation, who have fled. Now when you flee to something,
that means you're in a hurry to get there. You're not dragging
your feet. You have no hesitation. You have
no thought about doing it. You just fled. You fled to it. And what is meant? He said we
have fled for strong consolation who have fled. We as God's people,
Christians, believers, saints, the elect. People in great need
who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before
us. That hope, what is meant by refuge? A refuge is something
people flee to. A place to hide in in times of
trouble. In times of danger. People have,
you know, people build storm shelters, so when the weather
gets real bad, they flee to that storm shelter. And people have
these places in times of trouble or danger, places they go to,
to hide. It's a refuge. And they flee
to this refuge for safety. They flee to it for supply. They flee to it believing that
they will have it when they get there. A refuge. And I'll tell you what, there's
two kinds of refuges that we have. We have personal refuges.
And what I mean by that, there are people in whom we can confide. There are people that we love
and we confide in them, we can trust them, and when we come
to them for shelter, we come to them for refuge sometimes.
We expect shelter from a faithful, trustful friend. We go to somebody
to unburden ourselves, to go to them for some help, for some
comfort, some consolation, and we go to them, they're trustworthy,
they're faithful, and we call them our refuge. And we make
them so. And if anything ails us or anything
bothers us, we want to go to them and unburden us. Jonathan
is this perfect illustration. When Saul was after David, Saul's
son Jonathan was David's refuge. David would go to him and Jonathan
would come out and say, my father is going to do this and you go
there and you hide here and you do that. Jonathan was David's
refuge in his time of trouble when his father, Jonathan's father
was after him. It was his refuge. It was a place
that he could go and have some consolation and flee there for
that. And then there's real, real refuges. And there are things that sometimes
are our refuge. Like in a time of war, back in
the old days, men would get in castles, they'd get in forts.
When I was in Vietnam, we had bunkers, oh my goodness, big
old huge bunkers. You'd get inside those bunkers
and you know, I don't know what, you felt safe. You felt safe. And you'd get in these places
and we'd feel like we'd be safe when we got there. Proverbs says
the rich man's wealth is his strong city. That's his refuge. And Joab, when David was going
to get him, because he came and became friends and helped overthrow,
going to overthrow David, and he fled and laid hold of the
horns of the altar. He thought, nobody will come
in here and get me when I'm led home to the horns of the altar.
That was his refuge. When justice and guilt pursued
him, that way he went and laid hold of the horns of the altar
and laid there. And then there were six cities
of refuge in the Old Testament appointed by God for the manslayer
where he could flee to. And that's what Paul's talking
about here. Look with me over in Numbers 35, just a moment.
Numbers 35. You know there were six cities
of refuge, and God appointed these six cities of refuge. And that's why when Paul says
we've got a consolation, a strong consolation to lay hold upon
the whole set of the forest, which hope, this refuge that
we have. Look here at Numbers 35 and verse 9. And that's what
Paul's doing here in the apostle, in Hebrews 6, alluding to the
cities of refuge. And look what he said in verse
9, And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children
of Israel, and say unto them, When you come over Jordan into
the land of Canaan, then shall you appoint you cities to be
cities of refuge for you, that the slayer may flee there, which
killeth any persons that are unawares, that kill somebody
without any intention, without any malice, with an accident. Something happens and somebody
gets killed by an accident, and they said, and you have these
cities of refuge, and in verse 12, And they shall be unto you
your cities for refuge from the avenger, that the manslayer die
not until he stand before the congregation in judgment. And
of these cities which ye shall have, six cities shall ye have
for refuge. You shall give three cities on
this side of Jordan, and three cities shall you give in the
land of Canaan, which shall be cities of refuge. Now listen
to this, these six cities shall be a refuge both for the children
of Israel, and for the stranger, and the sojourner among them,
that everyone that kills any persons unawares may flee there. And that's what Paul is talking
about here, he said we have fled for refuge to lay hold on the
whole before us. And there's those city of refuge,
they had a place to run, and a place to get in, and a place
to be saved. And as they had their refuge,
they had six cities. They had their refuges to go
to, we have our refuge. Theirs was six cities, ours is
one. The Lord Jesus Christ. We don't
need any more than Him. We don't need six cities. We
don't even need a city. We have the Lord Jesus Christ
to run into and there be saved. And I tell you what, bless His
holy name, I don't need a city, I've got a person. I've got a
person. And let me give you some reasons,
the great need, oh we have such a great need, of a refuge every
day. Every day. And let me give you
four reasons why we need a refuge every day. First reason is because
we're sinners. Because we're sinners. And whether
we know it or not, we contract guilt every day. We contract
guilt every day. Let me show you something over
here in 1 John 1. That's what John meant when he
says, My little children, I write unto you that you sin not. But
if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ
the righteous. You see, we contract guilt every
day. And we know it. And we've got
some place to go. And I'll tell you this. Look
what John said here in verse 7. 1 John 1 verse 7. If we walk in the light, as He
is in the light, we have fellowship one with another. And the blood
of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we say we
have no sin, we deceive ourselves as truth is not in us. If we
confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us. sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness now listen to this if we say
that we have not sinned and what that means is if this says that
we have not sinned in anything and everything we've done that
don't mean that I committed a particular sin that means that sin is involved
with whatever we do that's what that means if any man says we
have not sinned we have sinned As one man said, we have to repent
over our repentance. We have to shed tears over our
tears. We cannot pray without sin. We can't read the Bible without
sin. We cannot come into a place like this and worship God without
having sin. Sin is so part of us, and that's
why he says, if we say that we have not sinned, what do we do?
We make God a liar, and his words are not in us. And his words
are not in us. And this is the situation, if
we didn't have a refuge, and if the Lord Jesus Christ wasn't
our refuge as sinners, God's justice would destroy us, and
if we didn't get to our refuge, if we trusted what I'm saying,
if we trusted any other refuge, If we took hold of the horns
of the altar, or if we went to anybody else, or any place else
other than the Lord Jesus Christ, then God's justice would get
us. That's why He said, get in that
city of refuge, somebody's after you. Get in Christ, sin's after
me. And sin can't come and get me
where Christ is. And I tell you, I know folks
find that hard to understand. But honestly, when it says that
if a man says he has not sinned, that means sin in anything he
does. Sin takes everything we do. We sat in here to worship and
look where your mind goes. Look where your heart goes. Your
mind will just, all of a sudden, you'll be in pain. The next thing
you know, your mind's gone. And after a while, you miss two
or three points and you come back. What was just said? We try to sing. We try to pray.
That's what I'm talking about. That's why we have to have a
refuge. That's why we need a refuge.
Whom in the world can we go to with this condition we're in?
Where can we go to that takes care of our holy things? It says
that the high priest, he made atonement for the sins of the
holy faith. And that means the sins of the
sanctuary. And I'll tell you, bless His
holy name, when no matter what we are and how, we've got a place
to run and hide. We flee to Him. And I'll tell
you the second reason why we have a great need of a refuge
every day. It's because of temptations. Oh, temptations assault us. The
world? Oh, the world. How alluring the
world is. And how awful the flesh is. Oh,
I know that in me that is in my flesh was no good thing. Oh,
the flesh. That's the flesh. Those that
are in the flesh cannot please God. The devil, he goes about
as a roaring lion. If he ain't a roaring lion, he's
an angel of light and transforms himself into an angel of light.
And I tell you what, beloved, He's busy and He uses any means. He uses any means. He used the
apostle Peter against the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Our Lord
Jesus Christ was talking about going to the cross and Satan
used Simon Peter to tell Him not to do it. And oh, beloved,
He by any means, by fair means or foul means, it don't mean
no difference to Him. He'll allure us. Or else He'll
scare us to death one way or another. And the world, the flesh,
the devil, and all that's in us, they set upon us to draw
us away from God to sin. And He uses temptations of one
kind or another, and He's always assaulted. He'll use your mind. He'll use suspicion. He'll use
why somebody talks to you. He'll use something against you
to turn you and cause you to get your mind off of Christ and
turn you away from Christ. And all I tell you, the question
is, where is our refuge at in these temptations? Where do we
go for strength? Where do we go for safety? Do
we run to something in ourselves? Oh, no. No, no, no. Or do we do like David? When
he stood against Goliath, he said, Oh, I come to you in the
name of the Lord, in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't
dare fight the devil. I don't dare fight Goliath. I
don't dare fight Satan. I don't dare fight the world.
I can't even conquer my own flesh. If it wasn't for Christ in me,
there'd be no hope of glory. And that's why I said, where
are we going to flee to? We're going to flee to Christ. And in all troubles, I tell you
the third reason why we flee to Him and need to flee to Him
is troubles, besetting troubles. Oh, besetting troubles. Something
happens all the time and causes us in grievances. We have our own troubles and
then somebody else comes along and then we take their troubles.
Somebody else comes along and we hear about their troubles.
Somebody else comes along and we're burned about their troubles.
And we're like Job, when once somebody comes by and says this
happened, we say, well, well. Somebody comes along and says,
you know what happened to this and you know what happened to
that one, the next thing you know, troubles just absolutely
come and overwhelms. Job says, man that's born of
a woman is a few days and full of troubles. I've got a message
I'm going to preach in a week or two on why does pain exist? Why does pain exist in this world? But troubles beset us. And oh
my, what would it be like to not have a refuge to flee to
that would help us bear it up? Troubles, troubles, troubles.
Troubles, oh my, he says, oh! Our Lord Jesus Christ himself, when
he stood outside Lazarus' tomb, the scripture said he was troubled
in his spirit. One time somebody says, will
my mother and father look after me? Or I have a friend that does
not see me get into water. But you know what the believer
says? He said, I've got a refuge. I've got a refuge. I've got a
better refuge than any you'll ever have. I've got a stronger
refuge, a surer refuge than my mother, than my father, than
my children, than my wife, than the church. I got a much safer
refuge, a better, stronger, more blessed refuge than everybody
else. Because I've got Christ. We've got Christ. We got Him
to flee to. And just if you ain't got troubles
now, you will. You will. And then there's dangers. Here's the fourth reason why
we need to flee to Him for refuge. Dangers. Temptations. in troubles that ain't even got
here yet. Ain't got here yet. But they've made their announcement,
they're coming. You know why? Because God said they would. God said they would. And like
he prayed tonight, Lord if tribulations are needed, that's what you'll
give. If patience is what we need, that's what you'll give.
If you experience what you need, that's what he'll give. Whatever
is needed, that's what he'll give. And you know why he does
it? Where are we going to go? That's why he does it. Where
are we going to go for this? Where is this? There is a man. A man
is a cohort. A man is a hiding place. And
here's that man, the Lord Jesus Christ. Then I'll tell you what,
the fear of what's coming is worse than actually what it is
most of the time. Look over in Matthew 6 with me
just a moment. Matthew 6. You know the fear of what's going
to happen is often worse than they actually are most of the
time. Most of the time. So look what
he said here in Matthew 6.34. Take therefore no thought for the morrow. Oh boy. Dread the morrow. Take no thought for it. Take
no thought for it. For the morrow shall take thought
for the things of itself. When you get up in the morning,
you'll have enough to deal with without dealing with what's going
to happen the day after tomorrow. That's what he's saying. As sufficient
unto the day is the evil for that day. Don't start having
evil on Friday. Start looking how bad Friday's
going to be on Monday morning. And do we ever do that? Do you
ever start thinking how bad it's going to be on Wednesday when
it's just Monday? And that's what he's saying.
Tomorrow have enough evil in it for the day to deal with that
day. Without worrying about Tuesday
and Wednesday. The Lord Jesus is our refuge
for even these troubles that haven't even come. Because we
have this fear in us that what will come, what may happen. And
we still go to Him, that what may yet come. And say, Lord,
I want grace, I want strength, I need a place to hide. I'm coming
to You. For whatever may come, whatever
may happen, that I'll honor You when that comes on. That I'll
have a place to hide. Look in Psalm 112 with me just a moment. David says, what time I'm afraid,
I'm going to trust in You. Look in Psalms 112 with me just
a moment, verse 7. Oh, I'm convinced. Are you convinced?
I mean, the Lord convinced me that I need a refuge and I go
to Christ as my refuge. Look what he said in verse 7. Talking about God's people. He
shall not be afraid of evil tidings. His heart is fixed, trusting
in the Lord. What's going to happen tomorrow?
Don't know. But I've got a place to hide
when the news comes. I've got some place to be. I've
got some place to be. It ain't going to hurt me much. I've got a good place to be.
Good place to be. And let's go back over to this.
Let me say a few things about this. We have a great need of
a refuge because we're sinners. because we're sinners, because
of temptations and troubles, and because of what troubles
may come. And what kind of refuge is our Lord Jesus Christ? What
kind is He? How faithful is He? What kind
of a refuge is our Lord Himself? Well, first of all, I'll tell
you what He is. He's appointed. God appointed him to be our refuge. He's ordained him God on purpose
and appointed him God so that we might flee to him. God sent
him as this refuge, appointed him, ordained him, set him up
to be our refuge for us to have a place to flee to. That's what
he did. There were only six cities appointed
for refuge in Israel. And God appointed them, not Moses.
And God's appointed one refuge for us to go to. He says, you
know where we're going to be accepted at? Only in the beloved.
You know what God made Christ unto us? Wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption. Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself,
He says, you come unto Me. You come to Me. You weak? You come to Me. You heavy laden? You come to Me. And said, you know what I'll
do for you when you come to me? I'll give you rest. And then
when you come unto me and take my yoke on you, said, you know
what else? You'll find rest. He's two rests there, the one
that he gives and the one that you find. And that's why he says,
you come to me. And God raised Him up, sent Him,
appointed Him, anointed Him to meet all of our needs. We need
a priest to offer a sacrifice to God on our behalf. Christ
is our great high priest who offered Himself. We need a priest
to intercede for us. Our Lord Jesus Christ calls our
names before God, bears our names before the Lord Jesus Christ
for God Himself. We need a prophet to teach us
To teach us about God. We need a prophet to teach us
the scriptures. We need a prophet to teach us
about the things of the Word of God. A prophet to teach us
the things of God. The things about ourselves. And
Christ is our prophet. He teaches us. And then we need
a king. To protect us and defend us.
I'll tell you what kings in the scriptures did. Kings, you know
what a king does? First of all, The first thing
he does is he has subjects. And secondly, then he provides
for all them subjects. He has to feed them all, clothe
them all, and protect every single one of them. And is he able to clothe
us? Is he able to feed us? Is he able to protect us? Is
he able to defend us? He's got to defend us against
all of our enemies. And we've got all these enemies.
And He feeds us, He protects us, He closes us, He defends
us. And why does He do that? Because God made Him our refuge. And you get in here, pain don't
bite and get you. Oh, He's an appointed refuge.
Not only that, bless His name, He's an able refuge. All sufficient
refuge. Oh, there's lots of refuges that
people flee to. that won't shield them or shelter
them. God says that there's people
who fled and they fled to Egypt and Egypt was as a broken reason.
Men did things in their broken reason. It's not trustworthy.
Do you all know where Hosea is at? You go to the book of Daniel
and Hosea is right after the book of Daniel. First of the
Minor Prophets. Look in Hosea 5. in Hosea 5. There's people who
have refuges. They're not safe. They're not
real. You know, there's people that
they have a refuge. Rothbard has said this one time,
the safest place to hide from God is to buy a Bible and join
a church. And that's true. You join the
average church and you've got it. God won't bother you. But
that's their refuge. And there's a people that have
their refuge as a refuge of lies. They've been Baptist all their
life and then their whole salvation is in being a Baptist. The whole
salvation is, you know, there's people that the whole salvation,
if you're not in a couple of different denominations, if you're
not in their church, there's no way in the world for you to
be saved. If you're not a Catholic, outside Catholics, you can't
be saved. You get outside the Camelite church, and they say
you can't be saved. If you get in what they call
the landmark Baptist, if you're not in the Baptist church and
a part of the Baptist bride, then you can't, all you can do
is be a friend. You can't even be close to Christ, you can just
be a friend to Christ. That's a sorry refuge, ain't
it? Wouldn't it be an awful refuge to just have, well I'm a member
of the Baptist church, that'd be a horrible refuge. I'm a Calvinist, I'm a 5 point
Calvinist, that's a sorry refuge too. Oh, but there's one refuge in
God appointed, God anointed, God set up, and He is able and
all sufficient, and that's the Lord Jesus Himself. But look
what He said here in Hosea chapter 5 and verse 13. He's talking
about refuges that people have. It's not good. Look what it says,
when Ephraim, Ephraim was Joseph's son, God loved Ephraim and Manasseh. But Ephraim, Joseph's son, when
Ephraim saw his sickness and Judah saw his wound, then when
Ephraim, where did he go? To Assyria, and said to King
Jared, yet he could not heal you, nor cure you of your wound. Man, go where you want to. Ain't
but one place you can go. And that's the Lord Jesus Christ
Himself. But our Lord Jesus, oh what a
refugee He is. Oh, we trust in a person. We look to a person. Talking
about Him able, we know that He's able to keep that which
is committed on Him against that day. He is able to save to the
uttermost them that come unto God by Him. And Jude said this,
that He's able to present us thoughtless. before His glory
at His appearing. And when those lepers came down
off the mountain, they fell before the Lord Jesus Christ and said,
Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst. If Thou wilt, Thou canst. And I tell you, I, Lord, will.
And He can. And I tell you, He can acquit
us from all guilt. I read this to Mary sitting out
on the porch this evening. He can acquit us from guilt.
He can secure us from danger. He can support us when we can't
stand up. He can supply all of our wants
and all of our needs. And He's the only one that can.
And oh, he's a refuge that's able and sufficient. You don't
need no other place to hide. You don't need Christ plus. Christ
is enough. There's a man that's a hiding
place. And I'll tell you something else about him. Not only is he
able and sufficient, he's a refuge that's ever, ever near. The word is nigh thee. Where's
it at? Even in your mouth. That's the word of faith to be
preached. What's that? The Lord Jesus Christ. Huh? Paul says the Lord Jesus Christ
is at hand. And oh, listen. David says the
Lord is a present help, a very present help in a time of trouble.
And I tell you what, when he says he's a very present help,
that means, beloved, he's very present to help her. You don't
have to go after him. You don't have to go on the hunt
of him. You don't have to go knocking
on any doors. You don't have to call the preacher
or somebody else. You can go yourself. He said
the Lord's a present help in the time of trouble. I mean,
just there he is. He's right there all the time.
Our Lord Jesus Christ said, I'm always
with you. I'll be with you to the end.
Heaven loved his own. He loved them to the end. He
ever liveth. He's ever near. Have you ever got up in the middle
of the night and went to Him? Have you ever went to Him? Oh
my! You wake up in the morning and
you get up and you get thinking about things and you go to Him.
What else you gonna do? You're pleading Him. You're hiding
Him. What comfort when guilty, wounded,
tempted, souls in trouble, in danger, know that the refuge
is so near. I don't have to get up and go
anywhere to get to it. It's not like a storm comes,
you know, and you've got to try to get out to the storm shelter
before it gets too bad. You know how far it takes you
to get to this end? You're there. It's like coming
to Christ. The minute you start coming,
you're there. The minute you start coming to
Christ, you've already got there. Ain't that right? And that's
the way our refuge is. It's always there. Always there. And I'll tell you, I love this.
I love this right here. He's a universal refuge. What
do I mean by that? He's for all types of people.
You know, when it said over there in the cities of refuge, he said,
you know, that the only type of people that was allowed in
there, in the city of refuge, was a man who killed another
man and he didn't intend to kill him. It was an accident. And
so if his brothers or uncles or aunt wanted, brothers and
sisters or daddy wanted, you know, a vengeance, he'd run into
that city of refuge and then he'd have a trial. And if it
was really truly something he didn't intend to do, they'd let
him go. But you know it don't say nothing
about thieves, liars, It didn't say anything about
people like that. It didn't say anything about other sins that
you fled to for that. But in this refuge, everybody's... I don't care who you are, where
you are, who you are, and what you've done. He is a refuge. Oh, he's a refuge. God hasn't
excluded anybody. And He certainly hasn't excluded
you. So don't exclude yourself. The
cities of refuge was for strangers, not just Israel. And I tell you
what, He's a refuge in all cases. All cases. You got inward troubles? He's a refuge for there. You
got outward troubles? He's a refuge there. You got
bodily troubles? He's a refuge there. You got
spiritual troubles? He's a refuge there. And the sin, whatever it may
be, His blood and merit can cleanse it all. Let the temptation be
whatever it may be. He has strength to overcome it.
And the danger, whatever it is, He can save us from it. He can
save us from it. And now this, I love this too.
He's an unchangeable refuge. He's an immutable refuge. Hebrews,
look over at Hebrews. You sit here at Hebrews 7, look
at 6, look over at Hebrews 13, just a minute. He's an unchangeable
refuge. You know, the cities of refuge
don't exist anymore. There's not no place for you
to hide here in this world. The cities of refuge are all
gone. They don't exist anymore. But our refuge never changes.
Look what he said in verse 8. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday,
today, and forever. The same. He'll never change.
He's an unchangeable refuge. Our refuge is still what he was,
and still where he was for the first soul that ever fled to
him. He's still right there. He's still right there. David
says, when my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will
take me up. The Lord will take me up. And
He's unchangeable. He can't change. He'll always
be there. We go through all kinds of changes.
But He never does. And let me tell you something
else. He's an open refuge. What do I mean by that? If a
refuge was closed to us, What good would it be? What good would
it be? If you had a refuge and you had
to bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang to get in, and they
wouldn't open up to let you in, and it's the only place you had
to get away, to get hid, to be away from something, and you
couldn't get in there, what good would it do you? But our Lord Jesus Christ, you
don't have to knock. Oh my! He's open! Oh my! If we were as open to
Him as He is to us, our Lord Jesus is the open Savior. He's
a fountain open for uncleanness, is what the Scripture says. His
ears always hears our prayer. His arms are always stretched
to receive us and embrace us. His eye always sees us and His
hand is always open to give to us. Now that's the kind of refuge
we got. And last of all, He's the only refuge. There's
no other. There's no other. He's the only
one. There's no one in heaven, there's
no one in earth. There's none within us, there's
none without us. There's none that we can go to
for justification or acceptance. When we sin, what other way and
who else would atone for our sins? Can a saint or an angel
do anything for us? Can our own righteousness be
our refuge? And that's why Paul said, I can
do anything through Christ who strengthens me, and I'm persuaded
that neither life, nor death, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, shall be
able to separate us, us, from the love of God which is in Christ
Jesus. Nothing. And so that's why I
say, let us flee to our refuge, and the hope that's set before
him. And I know this, if you've never done it, that now's as
good a time as any. If you knew who He is, and who
and what you are, you'd go to Him so fast, and guess what? He'd receive you just as fast
as you went. Oh, thank God for a refuge. Need
a refuge. Need a hiding place. Hiding place
from so many things. More than I can think of, more
than I can enumerate by any means. But oh, what a refuge we have.
What a refuge we have. Our blessed, blessed Savior.
Gracious God in heaven. Thank you, thank you, thank you,
thank you, thank you for your great abundant mercies today.
Lord, you enabled me to stand. You enabled the saints to hear.
You've allowed us to worship for a little while today, and
I thank you for it. Lord, I pray your greatest, richest
blessings upon these people here. There's not a soul in here that hasn't needed a refuge and
who hasn't went to it. But that soul that don't know
you, don't know what it is to have a hiding place from the
justice and wrath of God, from their sin. So Father, for Christ's
sake, open their heart to that, that they might come to Christ
and have that weakness and that burden and that fear and anxieties
and troubles and worries and heartaches and fear of the future,
all those things, they could find rest and peace from. Our Lord, I thank you that we
have this place. We have our blessed Savior to
go to. Oh, I thank you for Him. I bless
you for Him. In our Lord Jesus' name, I bless
you. Amen. Amen.