[0:00] I want to read before you the 27th verse of the spiritual image, 33rd of the Deuteronomy.
[0:12] The words are, the eternal God is my refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms, and he will thrust out the enemy from the fallen and will say, destroy.
[0:35] This chapter is the prophetic blessing uttered by Moses, the man of God, who left the truth of Israel before his death.
[0:52] And the words that we have read at the basis of our remarks point to the time when they decide that the Canaanites dispossessed out of their land, and they, Israel, become the possessive of the same.
[1:13] And one reason why God would dispossess the Canaanites of their land was because of their idolatry, with the filthy, precious sins that always tend to sins of idolatry.
[1:30] So that God was just and right in turning them out of their land on the ground of their people. It is a blessing where with Moses, lest the truth of Israel.
[1:48] Moses could do no more than prophesied the offering. It is not in you nor need, friends, to bless another, communitously.
[2:00] If by blessing we just mean we can well to one another, and it will bear that construction, well, of course, that we can do, and, too, we do it well to one another, and see if we can't do it well to one another.
[2:21] But to communicate blessing, which affects something that's not in your hands nor mind, that, like all else, comes from God.
[2:35] And is God lacking behind Moses? Shall Moses express the wish to bless Israel? And the God of Moses and the God of Israel lack the hour?
[2:48] Oh, no. Israel goes by Bethlehem's name, in the verse before my text, in the name of Jeshurun, that is now to light under the God of Jeshurun.
[3:06] Jeshurun stands as a collective term for the whole of the people of Israel. And yet, strange thing, yet I'm mad if you brought it, in the 32nd chapter, what do you read of Jeshurun there?
[3:26] We read this, But Jeshurun waxed fat and tipped. What about that now? Have you ever waxed fat and tipped?
[3:39] If you have, and you're the first one to ask, Thou art grown thick, Thou art covered with fat nests. And what did Israel or Jeshurun do then? There he forth took God which made him a lifeless scheme of the wrath of his salvation.
[3:56] And after that you would think that we should read this, And like the esteem of the wrath of his salvation.
[4:07] That's where we make mistakes. And what if after that you would think that we should read that God instead of blessing them cursed them, would you? That's where we make mistakes.
[4:19] We're always judging after our own apprehension. God judges after his, and he did infertile difference in our own.
[4:30] God blessed Israel notwithstanding their passions. By their passions they're tearing down, they're turning to idolatry.
[4:41] They waxed fat by reason of God's territory. And that never did anybody any drooling, unless the blessing of God goes for you.
[4:52] There's a hard thing to say, but I think it is correct. As sure as ever, if anyone gets on in the world as we call it, if he or she is a child of God that is, and they do get on in the world, in the accumulation of wealth, or gain a position or what not, they're in a dangerous spot.
[5:19] They really are. Their prosperity made for a time, and plundered, to leave their hearts away from the God that has brought them to where they are, and is sure as ever that he serves.
[5:36] For God knows how the few of us are dead. I don't say that he had a weak stick hanging up to thrash them with, but if he does thrash them with his rod, he's not in anger, but in his dear covenant love.
[5:54] Their waxing fat, and rebelling because of their prosperity, he will know how to handle, and he will handle it.
[6:05] But even they shall find in the sheep's horse that it's been the right way, the best way, the faintest way, the happiest way, for even God's apparent cross carrying with them the kitties, the togums, of his Father in love, for whom he loves, and the rest of the world.
[6:28] He says, well, this is Israel, then Jeshurun, a kind of a pet name, we may say, that God gave to his people.
[6:40] Now, concerning them, my text tells us, is their refuge. The term God is thy refuge.
[6:54] You know, all I can think about in the universe since we met this morning is, if only God exists to me, I want nothing more.
[7:05] Nothing more. I can't mention a thing of what is covered in these beautiful words. if God is my refuge, there's nothing I want.
[7:20] There can't be anything I want. Nothing more. I may imagine that there's a lot of things I want, and if life gets through, I may get up to that same business, but in reality, God being the refuge of a poor sinner covers everything, body, soul, time, eternity, home, work, business, everything is covered by it.
[7:56] And a second thought that we've been with the information there, and it is this, can God be my refuge? How can he be? Ah, Nicodemus asked that question, didn't he?
[8:12] How can these things, that we can laugh at Nicodemus, saying that question, when he was told he would be born again, he couldn't make head and a tail off.
[8:27] And there's a lot of things you and I can't make head and a tail off, really and truly. How can God be my refuge? When I read, as we read here, there is none like unto God of Jeshua, who rise up in the heavens, in thy health, and in his excellency on the sky, who can turn heaven from the sky, the stars in their courses to fight against Cicero, who can reign and have reign, hailstones from heaven, to vindicate his name and to help his people.
[9:06] Can he do this for me? Will he do it for me? How? And of course, you and I, that is if you're anything like me, we begin to look at ourselves, and quite frankly and honestly, what can you see in yourself but?
[9:28] A bundle of innocence, a bundle of perversies, in the very day you've been born. Can God be the refuge of such a man?
[9:39] And you draw a very illogical conclusion, to say no. Why not? Why not?
[9:50] If it is by works, then he can't be your refuge nor mine. If it's the worth of the individual, no, we should have.
[10:03] But if it's grace that you've been singing about, then there's the answer. Grace can do it. Grace has done it.
[10:14] Grace will do it. Grace, what a big word. I don't know what it means. Have an idea.
[10:25] It's a very small idea. Indeed. Grace, the freedom of the heart of God, without any outside interference on the part of the preacher, moving him to a good will and a blessed corruption.
[10:42] Grace, favor, when it's marked. And grace, powerful, before the eyes of him, who looks at the text in this life, who, looking at himself, finds he's a miserable danger in every point, and asks, how can God be my refuge?
[11:06] Grace, the power of the army, and grace, and the power of the army, whenever. He is the refuge.
[11:18] And in verse 26, He is true of God, who say, there is none like Him, and there is no refuge. Like Him, of course not.
[11:30] There is none like under the God of Gentile, and there is none like our refuge. None whatever. He is the eternal God.
[11:44] Before me there was no God, and after me there shall be no God, he said in the high-high promises. What a majestic squeak. Looking at all the idols and God that Israel had made and worshiped, he brushed them all aside and said, none shall be born me, none shall be after me.
[12:07] I alone am the only, eternal God, from the foundation of the world before him. And when the world ceases to be on, through the cycles of eternity for evermore, there will be no other God but me.
[12:27] This God is our man. There is none other like Him. Strange part of it is that this is the God that He has sinned against.
[12:40] And yet He has provided that in Him which is the refuge. And what is that that makes the refuge? Well, very briefly I illustrated as God illustrates it.
[12:57] You will remember of course the six cities that were appointed by God through Moses and the Lord, before Israel came into the promised land. Three cities this side of the Jordan, three cities the other side.
[13:11] And they were to be cities of repentance. And the man slayer, under which is anyone accidentally, not with malice a poor Lord, with no even intention, slew his brother.
[13:25] And the man slayer, who was duty-bound to take up the guttles and pursue the man slayer, when he pursued this accidental murder, the murder of a fleet of one of these cities.
[13:40] And there he could abide. And nobody could turn him out or give him over to the man in bed. That is to say, he could stay there until the death of the High Priest.
[13:57] That's right. And on the death of the High Priest, then that man could go out. Nobody could touch him.
[14:09] The death of the High Priest was the medium by which he was exempted from the sin and guilt he had contracted.
[14:20] Priest asked this, How can the Most High God be my refuge? That he called his son, has paid the debt I owe, that he's in his phone, I know.
[14:40] But I don't feel or dweb much into it. Not as I was lying. What was the debt I owe? Two parts.
[14:52] Can we look at it? Can we look at? There's first the part of obedience. That was the debt I owe to God. I should have obeyed him.
[15:05] I ought to have obeyed him. I was made the strength to obey him. He gave me a perfect nature, a mind, a will, and affection.
[15:18] Every faculty of my soul that was originally made by him, was made perfectly in order that he couldn't assure of obeying God without aid.
[15:32] I haven't done it. I cannot now do it. No, but the fact that I cannot, does not lessen me of the obligated to do it, because my inability to do it has sprung from my poverty alone.
[15:49] Having lost the ability through my sins, does not render me the less liable to the command of God to do it.
[16:00] But I can't do it now. God has provided the alone remedy, hurting that his Son obeyed the Lord.
[16:12] Don't forget that, dear friend. It will be a cheat and pure faith when he gets assorted by the enemy at times, when he gets pointing out to you, and he can do it.
[16:25] There's no question about that. You say, but you just go here. Look at this. You fail there, and you fail there, and you'll go back for years, and he'll trace your road after you've come, and the different positions in life in which you've been, and he can point them out.
[16:45] You fail there. You didn't do what you should have done then, and so on and on, and you're really intrigued. You'll get something to be spared, unless you have this that I'm trying to point out to you.
[17:02] Christ is in the middle. Christ is in the middle. He accepted my obligation to obey. In every detail, he was the sinner's friend, and not the least in this.
[17:16] He obeyed. And if you can but look at that to begin with, his obedience is against all your disobedience, and let me add, multiply your disobedience in a thousand times.
[17:33] Go on and on. Make them a million times worse than they are. And if you can get that word, in any wise lesson, the virtue of the weight of the obedience of him, of whom the apostle says, by the obedience of one, many were made right.
[17:56] So, Christ's obedience becomes the refuge in God, who is here.
[18:07] The second part of that. And that is this, that having regard to my liability to obey, what is the position I disobey?
[18:22] The position is to pay the penalty. The law of the fixed, what the penalty will be. And the law of God has fixed it, solemnly fixed it, the way of sin, is death.
[18:39] Not only the death of the body, death he heard, a separate God forever and ever. I dare you know, most of you need, and this is a subject, heart be touched upon.
[18:55] Nowadays, people are so good, so good, they don't want it, they don't need it, they won't believe it. But I say, death will be an eye opener, it will pour things, it will be an eye opener, if they die like that.
[19:15] To open one's eyes, face to face, with the righteous judge, who will say now, pay what you owe me, look at your liabilities, and he will point them out, I have nothing for which to come.
[19:33] And if he should say, that dreadful words, I know it, if he were to say, depart from me, he chose his unbelief.
[19:47] What becomes of all modernism then in religion? What becomes of all that is put forth today as a cure for every evening?
[20:01] Nothing. Ah, this is it. Christ paid the penalty. And this is the inner meaning of the reason of his atoning death.
[20:15] It was to glorify God, to magnify his law and injustice in the remission of sin. It was to give God the opportunity, I use that term very, very regularly, for the sake of a better.
[20:33] It gave God the opportunity to pardon illiquidity and block out all trespasses against his law, righteously and honourably. As far as one can see, it couldn't be done in any other time.
[20:49] And so, by obedience rendered, and by suffering the penalty due to the disobedience, it becomes the refuge of the Lord.
[21:00] And so, thou hast been our dwelling place, Lord, in all generations, from one generation to another, as I think it might be rendered.
[21:14] So, God in Christ, as in the refuge of the Lord. From Adam onward, this has been it. This has been it. The Old Testament believer, he looked on God in Christ, the Christ that was to come, and the atonement.
[21:29] And they entered heaven, if I may say so, on credit, on the strength of what the Redeemer would do in the foolish of time. And he's come, and he's done it. And New Testament believers join heart and hand with the Old Testament believer, and they say, where you look, we look.
[21:47] And the New Testament believers join heart and hand with the Old Testament believer, and they say, where you look, we look. You look at God in Christ, we look at the same.
[21:59] He was your refuge. He's taken you home, and the same God in Christ will take us home. Lord, from one generation to another, thou hast been the dwelling place, the home, the happy days of thy people.
[22:15] Now stand on the throne, and the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit, you're not able to buy these people. It's nice to have a home.
[22:27] You don't have to buy this one. It's the only one I know of, you don't have to buy. There's no rent to pay for this. There's no rent to pay for this. There's no rent to pay for this.
[22:39] No income on this at all. Grace built it. Grace provides it. Grace invites to it. And Grace keeps open door in this beautiful house.
[22:51] And all the suffering of it. Adore the grace of his. And there's just one more word here.
[23:03] And that is, in one psalm, the psalm it says, I flee unto thee to hide me. That is nice. You have to come down to that after all.
[23:17] We can talk and write a issue about God being a refuge, but have I got him? That's the point. Is he mine? That's the point.
[23:29] Has my heart sent to him? Have he took me in? That's the point that people say what they will. You can't live and die on a kind of a wholesale revision.
[23:43] You must have a personal and individual one. And that's what we want. I, said the psalmist, my soul, Flee's unto thee to hide me.
[23:59] Are some of you, and that I hope it will, strike up memories, when you were first put on this road, the sense of danger, quickly in your heart.
[24:13] You may have been found a child. I was reading quite recently out of a very old reader, nearly a hundred years old, and it was a story of a little girl, thirteen years and eight, only.
[24:31] She eventually died, up dead. Oh, the pitiful cry. Oh, that child. That the Lord looked upon.
[24:43] Take her in. Opened the door of his mercy. And etc. And those around her didn't want to encourage her on any rotten ground.
[24:55] They wanted to be good, with his right and father. But they tried to encourage her. No, she said. He's not finished.
[25:07] He won't take the meeting. You know you call that bloody, a child like a sympathy about him. I know there are some high bound folks, who would love such a thing.
[25:20] I don't. No. I'd rather cry over it, in happy fellowship with him. Ah. They said to her, well, if you can, when the end comes, do let us know if you are happy.
[25:37] But she kept on. All over to the end, she couldn't think that he would take her in. They'd get better he would. But now she did campaign.
[25:50] And they asked her, was she happy? And as best she could. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
[26:01] Repeated. To the end. He told me. Ah, well, I, let me say again, I know plenty of high bound swords, who would spit that out.
[26:12] But I dare, and don't want, I've blessed God, for the record honey. Can't you touch your heart? What if we are older?
[26:23] What are we like now? Don't we often feel that he won't take us in? I do. We ask, he should, but we fear whether he will, and why, on the same ground as that poor girl.
[26:40] Well, sinners, scared, frightened. Well, in a way, it's a good thing it does, because we don't want to look at sin like they would do.
[26:51] But after all that is said and done, the grace of God is more than abundant. Well now, do you remember your early years?
[27:03] When exercise sprang up, the satisfaction with yourself, and with the world, your company that you then had, the objection you had to the word of God, the habit of God, you wouldn't look the way they were on, didn't want them, hateful, but now, ah, you have longed to see, the case is, oh, to be one of the people, God.
[27:29] You may have had Godly Father, Godly Mother, and you know it, whose memory comes, I'll be blessed to you, not really, if their religion was right, and it took them to heaven, if you believe it did. Were you, and were the man, these thoughts work, and a good thing they do work, and who will tell you, but what?
[27:46] They will work for good too. God round it. Well, in any case, here is the refuge, and it has been this, from generation to generation.
[27:58] Of course, it will take in another aspect of the matter, that is a refuge against all ages, and the love of God, and the love of God, and the love of God, and the love of God, and the love of God, that is a refuge against all external troubles, that I have dealt with the other, first and chief, that's the most important.
[28:26] For what? It's sin to be done. Ah, Jesus. There's probably about any other jobs, comparatively speaking.
[28:37] We often reverse that order, and our little petty-boggling trouble of a day by day and hour, we put them up as if they're everything, or if I couldn't get out of it.
[28:51] When you be one step nearer, eternal security, not the difference, if sin becomes unsure, death has no sting beside.
[29:06] The Lord gave sin, the Lord gave sin, his daddy's power, but Christ by surely died. The dear soul, I can say that.
[29:18] I don't care how young or how old, it doesn't matter a scratch, the one that can say that, the one that can be done. So they've got more impression than that. Now, underneath, are the everlasting arms.
[29:37] Those everlasting arms. Support here, comfort here, strength here, patient continues in well-doing here.
[29:50] How can I jump along? How can I stand up a day long? You may say, so well, they've everlasting arms together. You don't always feel them.
[30:02] No. You know, really and truly, why you don't feel them young guys? You don't think I'm going a bit funny, right?
[30:15] Well, I'll tell you, it's because you are down low, underneath, right at the bottom, are the everlasting arms. And you've got to go down, to feel them, I know we don't know.
[30:29] We might keep up. Of course you do, that's natural. No, I've got the hero, it's when you are down and out, and have a lot of scrap, so anything to rest upon.
[30:40] We'll be able to do it. You know, I've got the hero, it's when you are down and out, and have a lot of scrap, and you are, when you are like the people, the everlasting arms, of the Divine Father, are there, to support you.
[31:00] And my word is armed, can bear the weight. Yes, compared to this being, there's nothing within, to help you.
[31:11] You've only got to scan the different cases in the Bible, of his people, of his people, that have been in extraordinary deep knees, but they've always come out.
[31:22] And why? He was there. He was there. Let not thy heart respond and say, how should I stand the trumpet?
[31:37] I remember that verse, the whole of that hymn, in the year 1931, in a place in Bedkishere, from the never-preparedness, while I remember it, I was down, and out.
[31:55] And about everything I've been through, was just years back in, I couldn't bear that, hear anybody talk. All that one could do, was to find a comfort, such as it was, in Jesus.
[32:11] And that's it. Beautiful, yes. Did I have no trouble yet, people? No, I said, that's true.
[32:24] And as the hymn went on talking to me, I kept talking back to it, and if I may say so, you'll understand me, I seem to talk myself out of the hole in which I've sung.
[32:37] Yet it wasn't me. There was a sweetness, a power, a blessedness in there, the voice of God, speaking to me.
[32:48] And, well, we live to prove, as we always do live to prove, that He's better than our fears, and our imaginations, and that He does work, a way of escape, out of the difficulties.
[33:05] Blessed be God for that, underneath all. Some of you may have, I don't know why I'm talking like this, you know, we never know what we are, in a way, saying, for what purpose I mean.
[33:19] God may have some wise purpose. It may come out years to come. I hope it will, if not before. Some of you may have a path, that is beyond the ordinary, the thread.
[33:35] You've not written another precisely like yours, and you may have some justification for saying, that yours is a solidly exceptional case.
[33:46] Well, well, it may be so, but you've got an exceptional God, don't forget that, will you? You've got one who can turn the world upside down, and inside out for a moment, and He would do that even if He did.
[33:59] In order to help one of His people, out of the horrible pit in which they are, underneath are the everlasting arms, and what else?
[34:14] And He shall thrust out the enemy from before thee. Then, I'm just beginning referring to the Canaanites. We've got some enemies, but without touching the outside enemies, we've got enough to look at those inside.
[34:33] What can you do with the devil? I know he's laughed at, jokes are cracked about him still, and in the religious world in particular, he's become a non-entity altogether, for the greater part.
[34:47] So be it. But He's not dead. And He hasn't taken a long haul of a guy. He is still the adversary of His people, as I believe.
[35:00] He acts adversely to them many a time, when they have no idea that it is He doing it. They may put it down to other causes.
[35:13] They may have a part in the business. But I believe it's Satan, working through varied causes, he may demon through varied people, on purpose to give you and me plenty of trouble, plenty of anxiety.
[35:30] And what can you do to stop? Can you thrust the deadly laps? You can't.
[35:41] It's so often you know alluded to about Luther. Throwing the ink pot at the devil, scaring him out of his stomach.
[35:53] Well, that might be alright with Luther. Nobody don't act, but he's thrown the ink pot or anything else at him. He's not going for that.
[36:04] But if God says, leave off, that's alright. If the Lord refutes thee, Satan, then peace may follow.
[36:17] Well, that's what He says here, that He will say, He will thrust out the enemy from before thee, whatever those enemies are. Thrust them out, and they won't go out with a gentle push.
[36:32] No velvet glove from God will do it. No sin and sanctum and unbelief, and the attraction to the world, and our self in its simple form.
[36:44] All these. Get all the enemies you like together, that oppose the soul, and nothing but God's options can turn them out.
[36:57] For He will. He'll thrust them out, and He shall say, destroy them. The enemy. That was spoken to Israel to extirpate the pain in us.
[37:11] But God will destroy the enemy. Ah, it's a wonderful thing. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
[37:24] Death which causes the dissolution of the body, and the separation of body and soul, and that forever, in a certain sense.
[37:39] Let He never again for the soul be united to the body as He is in His present state. Ah, but what will happen to the body of the child of God?
[37:52] I'll tell you. It will be closed with immortality. We read in Timothy about God, who only hath immortality.
[38:07] Well, He only hath it in the sense of, no one ever gave it to Him, for the none else beside He. He hath it unerived.
[38:18] It's immutable, therefore, and essential to Him, to be a God of immortality. A God of deathless death.
[38:30] A God that never dies, cannot die. I am alive and vivid forevermore. And our bodies in the resurrection, Lord, will be like that.
[38:45] Clothed with immortality. Deathless death will be the body. Never die again. Oh, I say that will be a destruction of death, will you?
[38:59] O death, I will be thy destruction. O grave, I will be thy flame. Rejoice not only against me.
[39:10] Know that there is no place for that. While we have, well, the meaning of the text, eternal God in thy refuge, and under thee, our human life.
[39:27] May he bless his word, we give out the truth.