[BBC List] Christ A Refuge From The Tempest

[Mike Abendroth]

Christ A Refuge From The Tempest


By Edward Griffin

 

HYPERLINK "http://www.puritansermons.com/pdf/griffin10.pdf"PDF 

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.—Isaiah 32:2

 

This prediction, which was uttered in the days of Ahaz, is thought to have
had primary reference to Hezekiah, and to the relief from wicked magistrates
which would be experienced in his reign. But in the opinion of the best
commentators it had ultimate reference to the Lord Jesus Christ.

In the person of our Redeemer, who is very man as well as God, it is
fulfilled that "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."

In a serene day when no wind is up, when no rain is falling, a man may see
by the way-side a shelving rock and may pass by it without emotion.

Not so the weary traveler who is fleeing before the rising storm or the
beating tempest. In a season of rain or in a land of waters, one may pass by
a river with little interest. Not so a traveler in the Arabian deserts,
surrounded with burning sands, fainting with heat and parched with thirst.
The sight of a stream of water, and especially of "rivers of water," in such
a place, would transport him. In a country covered with wood or pinched with
cold, a huge rock might offer its shade unwelcome; but amidst the parched
wastes of Arabia, where the weary traveler, exposed all day to the intense
heat of a vertical sun, sees not a tree nor a shrub, but only one boundless
waste of burning sand,—there a cool retreat beneath the shade of an
over-hanging cliff,—there "the shadow of a great rock in a weary land,"
would be most welcome.

These observations suggest a principal reason why the Saviour of the world,
whose very name ought to be music to every human ear, is treated with such
cruel indifference by the greater part of mankind. It is because they do not
feel their guilt and misery and need of a Saviour. They are blind to the
infinite majesty and holiness and loveliness of God, and to the immense
obligations by which they are bound to him; and therefore they do not see
the infinite guilt of rebelling against all his commands, all his mercies,
all his glories and interests; and therefore they are not pressed down under
a sense of their awful condemnation and ruin. Hell is not laid open before
them as their proper punishment. They do not stand amazed at the patience
which has kept them out of it so long. They do not see themselves to be
utterly ruined, and utterly helpless and hopeless without a Saviour. And
therefore his precious Gospel, which ought to fill the world with wonder
arid delight, with gratitude and praise, is cast aside as an idle tale, and
the name of Jesus is treated with the most dreadful indifference.

But let a man be thoroughly convicted of sin; let him see himself covered
with pollution from the head to the foot; let him stand in sight of the
eternal judgment, and apprehend that divine justice has no choice but to
crush him into everlasting torment; let him see himself just about to
receive the descending wrath of God with the weight of a thousand worlds— in
that awful moment let him obtain a glimpse of Jesus, who came to " save his
people from their sins;" let him lift his trembling eye to a God reconciled
in Christ and smiling upon him— I ask that man, "What" now "think" you "of
Christ?" O, says he,—but language fails. A sacred reverence settles upon his
countenance; his uplifted eye speaks unutterable things. I see it glisten,—I
see it weep. O, says he.—His hands are clinched and forcibly raised to his
breast. The opening of the last judgment could not add solemnity to a single
feature. O the height and the depth, the length and the breadth of the love
of Christ! Where has this glorious mystery lain hid that I have never seen
it before? To such an eye how precious does the Saviour appear as the great
medium through which the love of God has come down to men,—as the Word by
which all the wonders of the eternal Mind are expressed,—as the great
Prophet who has brought down all the instructions that have blessed the
world from the days of Eden,—as the Priest whose atonement and intercession
have astonished heaven and earth,—as the King who has governed the world
from the beginning, and has always protected and provided for his people,
and has all their interests in his hands, and all the treasures of the
universe to impart. To one who is indifferent to the blessedness of
communion with God and of conformity to him, there appears no form or
comeliness in Christ why he should desire him. But to one who feels an
insatiable eagerness to rise from this dark world to a knowledge of all the
grand and interesting things which are taking place in the kingdom of
God,—who longs to be united to all holy beings, and to share in their
immortal friendship and blessedness and honors,—who has no desire so great
as to be good and conformed to the God he loves; to such a one Jesus must
appear exceedingly precious as the one appointed to open the universe to
view, to pour all its light upon the eye, and to exalt the soul to all its
purity, to all its dignity, to all its happiness.

To an anxious and afflicted soul the Saviour appears peculiarly interesting
in the light in which he is exhibited in the text. In the charming
simplicity of eastern figure, he is presented "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." Here are three separate
figures, very striking to an eastern ear, which admit of distinct
illustrations.

"A hiding place from the wind and a covert from the tempest." This is but
one figure— for the latter clause, as is common in eastern poetry, is only
the echo of the former— presenting a hiding place and covert from the windy
storm and tempest. Jesus is found to be the best hiding place and covert
from the winds and tempests of affliction. A poor disconsolate soul, after
it has been chased through the world by the frowns of pursuing
fortune,—after it has been hunted from place to place, and not suffered to
rest in any corner of creation,—will find in Christ that protection and
repose which all other places denied it. The weather-beaten wretch, after
bearing the storms of this inclement world thro ugh the long night of
affliction, may find in him a shelter under which he may hear the tempest
howl without, and feel it not.

Jesus is the best hiding place and covert from the tempest of an agitated
conscience. When the lightning of conviction flashes upon the soul, and
guilt with its thundering voice spreads its dark folds over the mind, no
where but in Jesus can be found a covert from the bursting storm. To what
other refuge can a sinner fly when the horrid nature of his rebellion is
laid open before him? At what time his ingratitude to the God that made,
redeemed and preserves him appears; at what time he is terrified and
confounded by the frequent repetition of his sins and the obstinacy of his
corruptions; at what time guilt, superadded to guilt, rolls its dark wreaths
over the soul, like clouds that "return after the rain," no where but in
Jesus can he find a refuge from the gathering tempest. The blood of Christ,
sprinkling his conscience from dead works, has a wonderful power to relieve
from the pangs of conscious guilt. It is the most sovereign balm to a
wounded spirit. "Give me Jesus or I die," cries the agonized soul. "None but
Christ, none but Christ. Take away that cloud that I may see him, and I
shall live." What other refuge can a soul find that is racked with guilt?
Let him go to his wealth, his honors, his pleasures; they are all unsavory
ashes in the mouth of a man dying with hunger. Let him go to philosophy, it
is a stranger to his case, and knows nothing either of his griefs or his
wants. Let him go to speculative divinity, it is no physician, but only a
corpse laid by the side of a dying man. Let him go to the courts of the
Lord,—let him go to his Bible, to his knees, and all without Christ are
nothing. Let him go to God, and God out of Christ "is a consuming fire." But
let him only come in sight of Jesus, and get near enough to "touch" if it be
but" the hem of his garment," and all his pains are instantly relieved,—the
fire in his conscience is quenched, and he is as much at ease as though he
never felt a pain.

Jesus is also the best covert from the tempest of fear when it agitates the
soul. There is a material difference between conscious guilt and the
apprehension of punishment, although, like light and heat, they generally go
together. I see a sinner convulsed with the fear of a judgment to come. With
an eye wildly rolling and marked with horror, I hear him cry, "Who" can
dwell with—devouring fire? "Who" can inhabit" everlasting burnings?" His
anxious eye looks above and beneath and searches creation through, but not a
ray of hope can it find,—nothing but clouds and darkness and tempests. At
length it falls on Jesus. Instantly the heavens are calm; the sound of the
distant storm dies upon his soothed ear, and every care is still.

Jesus is the only hiding-place from the tempest of divine wrath. A rock of
adamant he stood, and suffered this storm to spend its force on him; while
his people, enclosed "in him," lay hid from the beating tempest. The storm
is past, and now their faith looks abroad and sees an unclouded sky, and all
nature smiling in fresher beauties than though no storm had been. To finish
the illustration of this figure, Jesus is the only hiding-place from the
storms and tempests which forever beat upon the regions of the damned. Not
to them is he a covert. They rejected the canopy of his grace when he would
willingly have spread it over them; and now he is nothing to them. But to
his own dear people, he will forever be a covert from the hail which will
eternally lash the howling millions of the damned.

It is time to make a transition the next figure. "As rivers of water in a
dry place." The most obvious idea on the face of this figure is, that Jesus
conveys satisfaction and refreshment to those who can find them no where
else. There is a thirst for happiness in the soul of man, but there is a
drought in all things but in God,—and for human souls, a drought in all
things but in the God that shines "in the face of Jesus Christ." Such is the
constitution of things, that no man can find satisfaction but in the Christ
of God. Nor will any ever find it there but those who despair of finding it
any where else. But "when the poor and needy seek water and there is none,
and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of
Israel will not forsake them: I will open rivers in high places, and
fountains in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of
water, and the dry land springs of water." When one has ranged creation
through in search of happiness; has sought it in the field and in the city,
in the haunts of business and in the circles of pleasure,—and has met with
nothing but disappointment and rebuffs; when he has wandered restless from
scene to scene, from employment to employment, perhaps from country to
country; when, a pilgrim in the deserts of life, he finds himself "in a dry
and thirsty land where no water is," and faints to think that happiness is
no where to be found; then the Gospel meets him and thus accosts him—
Wherefore seekest thou "the living among the dead?" It is not here. Return
from thine idle pursuit. There is but one point whence refreshment can come.
Lift thine eyes to the Saviour of sinners. He lifts his eyes; he lifts his
heart; and finds "waters breaking out" in the wilderness—and streams in the
desert." Ah, says he, this is where I should have come before. It would have
saved me many sore disappointments and many years of anguish.

When one is plucked and crushed by the hand of adversity,—has found nothing
but grief and perplexity in his connexion with the world,—carries the aching
wounds where friends that have been torn away once grew to his heart,—mourns
alone without father or mother, without brother or sister, without wife or
child,—unpitied by the crowd of strangers that gaze upon him and pass him
by,—while his tattered garments remind him of better days ;-I hasten to the
turf where he sits weeping, and gently, (lest I should alarm the ear of
grief,) say to him, Hath no man pitied thee? Ah, says he, I am "in a dry and
thirsty land where no water is;" no satisfaction or refreshment for a wretch
crushed beneath misfortune. From my soul I pity you, but do not despair. Let
me lead you to the mourner's Friend. I bring him to Jesus: and when I see
the balm applied to his wounds, and the countenance of the sufferer
beginning to brighten, I bow and take my leave, and return to my house with
delicious sensations that an infidel never knew.

Here is another pressed under a sense of heavy guilt. He also is in a land
where no water is. He has sought on all sides for relief, but sought in
vain. His thirst is for reconciliation with God. In quest of this he has
applied to external reformation, to outward duties, to the means of grace.
He has sought the counsel of ministers and christians, and has tried to
repose on the good opinions of others. He has made the desperate attempt to
rest on universalism, and even on infidelity; but all to no purpose. The
fever of his mind remains. His thirst for pardon and peace is unabated; but
no where can he find any thing to allay it, till at last he approaches the
Gospel. He hears it say, "If any man thirst let him come unto me and drink."
His attention is strongly arrested. He examines the passage. It is the voice
of the Saviour himself. He ultimately seizes the invitation and goes to him:
and his astonished soul finds this way of salvation exactly suited to his
wants. He finds within "him a well of water springing up into everlasting
life."

The last figure employed, though appropriate and striking, conveys no
meaning materially different from the other two. The idea is that of rest in
a cool and refreshing plac e. "As the shadow of a great rock in a weary
land." The figure represents a traveler in one of the eastern deserts, burnt
with intense heat, worn out with toil, fainting for water, for shade. His
resolution and strength fail. He abandons the hope of ever reaching the end
of the desert; when all at once he discovers before him a high impending
rock, under the cavity of whose side he finds a refreshing shelter from the
scorching sun and burning sand. Such a retreat does our dear Redeemer afford
to those who are fainting under the labors and discouragements of this
wearisome life. This vale of tears may well be called a weary land. There
are many in it who are ready to faint under the load of affliction, and can
say with Job, "My soul is weary of my life." Many are weary of sin,—wearied
out with a long course of painful struggles with the world, the flesh, and
the devil,—are often discouraged with the greatness of the contest, and sink
under the apprehension that they shall never get through with safety. These
evils press them so hard that they often sigh for the grave where the weary
are at rest. But a nearer and more delightful retreat is to be found in him
who says, "The Lord hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should
know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary." "I have satiated
the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul." When his
Church wandered forty years in the Arabian wilderness, among burning sands,
without a shelter or a shade, he covered them by day with a pillar of cloud.
What this was intended to signify, appears from the application made of it
by the prophet— "The Lord shall create upon every dwelling place of Mount
Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud and a smoke by day, and the shining
of a flaming fire by night; for upon all the glory shall be a defense. And
there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the day time from the heat, and
for a place of refuge, and for a covert from the storm and from the rain."

At what time a poor fainting soul, weary of affliction, weary of sin, weary
of temptation, casts itself under the shadow of this rock, he feels a
sensation of relief which nothing else can bring and which none can fully
describe.

My brethren, what everlasting thanks do we owe to God for providing such a
refuge from the beating tempest,—such rivers of refreshment in a dry and
thirsty land. What could the weather-beaten pilgrim, what could the faint
and weary traveler do without them in such a world as this? How greatly does
this view tend to endear the Saviour to us. 'What new motives rush upon the
mind to abide in him, that we may every hour enjoy a "hiding place from the
wind and a covert from the tempest,"—that we may constantly lie at the
fountain of living waters, and feel the permanent shadow of a great rock in
a weary land. Why do the people of God find so little relief from the
distresses of life and the troubles of conscience, but because they abide no
more in their everlasting refuge?

How surprising it is that in a world where a covert from the tempest is so
much needed, it is so much neglected, and that even by those who have often
found it a shelter when every other refuge failed. Would it not be strange
to see a person ready to die with heat and thirst by the very side of a
cooling fountain, and by the shade of an overhanging rock? Yet a still
greater wonder is witnessed here.

May not these sweet and heavenly truths be allowed to "light up a smile in
the aspect of woe?" Will not mourners in Zion come to this refuge and dry up
their tears? Were you confined to these stormy regions without a shelter,
you might well beat your breasts like one distracted. But now what need? I
am speaking to those who know the truth of what I say. You have often found
refuge here, and seen the agitations of the tempest composed, and all the
fury of the storm appeased. The same shelter is ever at hand and is always
offered to you; and at what time you are afraid you may always find in
Christ a sure retreat. What occasion have you then for these desponding
griefs? What abundant reason have you to "rejoice evermore." And while we
thus enjoy the blessed fruits of a Saviour's dying love, let our souls arise
and praise him; let a thousand tender recollections rise up in our hearts;
let us renewedly devote ourselves to his service, resolving to live to his
glory and to die with an eye fixed upon his cross. Amen.

 

 

Charis, 
  
Mike Abendroth 
  
"Make us choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, and never to
be contented with half truth when whole truth can be won.  Endow us with
courage that is born of loyalty to all that is noble and worthy, that scorns
to compromise with vice and injustice and knows no fear when right and truth
are in jeopardy."

 - West Point Military Academy Cadet Prayer 

 

HYPERLINK "http://www.bbcchurch.org"www.bbcchurch.org 
  

 


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