'The righteous runneth into it and is safe,' says my text. You may get
into the illusory one very easily. Imagination will take you there.
There is no difficulty at all about that. And yet the way by which a
man makes this world his defence may teach you a lesson as to how you
can make God your defence. How _does_ a man make this world his
defence? By trusting to it. He that says to the fine gold, 'Thou art
my confidence,' has made it his fortress--and that is how you will
make God your fortress--by trusting to _Him_. The very same
emotion, the very same act of mind, heart, and will, may be turned
either upwards or downwards, as you can turn the beam from a lantern
which way you please. Direct it earthwards, and you 'trust in the
uncertainty of riches.' Flash it heavenwards, and you 'trust in the
living God.'
And that same lesson is taught by the words of our text, 'The
righteous runneth into it.' I do not dwell upon the word 'righteous.'
That is the Old Testament point of view, which could not conceive it
possible that any man could have deep and close communion with God,
except on condition of a pure character. I will not speak of that at
present, but point to the picturesque metaphor, which will tell us a
great deal more about what faith is than many a philosophical
dissertation. Many a man who would be perplexed by a theologian's talk
will understand this: 'The righteous runneth into the name of the
Lord.'
The metaphor brings out the idea of eager haste in betaking oneself to
the shelter, as when an invading army comes into a country, and the
unarmed peasants take their portable belongings and their cattle, and
catch up their children in their arms, and set their wives upon their
mules, and make all haste to some fortified place; or as when the
manslayer in Israel fled to the city of refuge, or as when Lot hurried
for his life out of Sodom. There would be no dawdling then; but with
every muscle strained, men would run into the stronghold, counting
every minute a year till they were inside its walls, and heard the
heavy door close between them and the pursuer. No matter how rough the
road, or how overpowering the heat--no time to stop to gather flowers,
or even diamonds on the road, when a moment's delay might mean the
enemy's sword in your heart!
Now that metaphor is frequently used to express the resolved and swift
act by which, recognising in Jesus Christ, who declares the name of
the Lord, our hiding-place, we shelter ourselves in Him, and rest
secure. One of the picturesque words by which the Old Testament
expresses 'trust' means literally 'to flee to a refuge.' The Old
Testament _trust_ is the New Testament _faith_, even as the
Old Testament '_Name of the Lord_' answers to the New Testament
'_Name of Jesus_.' And so we run into this sure hiding-place and
strong fortress of the name of the Lord, when we betake ourselves to
Jesus and put our trust in Him as our defence.
Such a faith--the trust of mind, heart, and will--laying hold of the
name of the Lord, makes us 'righteous,' and so capable of 'dwelling
with the devouring fire' of God's perfect purity. The Old Testament
point of view was righteousness, in order to abiding in God. The New
Testament begins, as it were, at an earlier stage in the religious
life, and tells us how to get the righteousness, without which, it
holds as strongly as the Old Testament, 'no man shall see the Lord.'
It shows us that our faith, by which we run into that fortress, fits
us to enter the fortress, because it makes us partakers of Christ's
purity.
So my earnest question to you all is--Have you 'fled for refuge to lay
hold' on that Saviour in whom God has set His name? Like Lot out of
Sodom, like the manslayer to the city of refuge, like the unwarlike
peasants to the baron's tower, before the border thieves, have you
gone thither for shelter from all the sorrows and guilt and dangers
that are marching terrible against you? Can you take up as yours the
old grand words of exuberant trust in which the Psalmist heaps
together the names of the Lord, as if walking about the city of his
defence, and telling the towers thereof, 'The Lord is my rock, and my
fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust;
my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower'? If you
have, then 'because you have made the Lord your refuge, there shall no
evil befall you.'
III. So we have, lastly, what comes of sheltering in these two
refuges.
As to the former of them, I said at the beginning of these remarks
that the words 'is safe' were more accurately as well as picturesquely
rendered by 'is set aloft.' They remind us of the psalm which has many
points of resemblance with this text, and which gives the very same
thought when it says, 'I will set him on high, because he hath known
My name.' The fugitive is taken within the safe walls of the strong
tower, and is set up high on the battlements, looking down upon the
baffled pursuers, and far beyond the reach of their arrows. To stand
upon that tower lifts a man above the region where temptations fly,
above the region where sorrow strikes; lifts him above sin and guilt
and condemnation and fear, and calumny and slander, and sickness, and
separation and loneliness and death; 'and all the ills that flesh is
heir to.'
Or, as one of the old Puritan commentators has it: 'The tower is so
deep that no pioneer can undermine it, so thick that no cannon can
breach it, so high that no ladder can scale it.' 'The righteous
runneth into it,' and is perched up there; and can look down like Lear
from his cliff, and all the troubles that afflict the lower levels
shall 'show scarce so gross as beetles' from the height where he
stands, safe and high, hidden in the name of the Lord.
I say little about the other side. Brethren! the world in any of its
forms, the good things of this life in any shape, whether that of
money or any other, can do a great deal for us. They can keep a great
many inconveniences from us, they can keep a great many cares and
pains and sorrows from us. I was going to say, to carry out the
metaphor, they can keep the rifle-bullets from us. But, ah! when the
big siege-guns get into position and begin to play; when the great
trials that every life must have, sooner or later, come to open fire
at us, then the defence that anything in this outer world can give
comes rattling about our ears very quickly. It is like the pasteboard
helmet which looked as good as if it had been steel, and did admirably
as long as no sword struck it.
There is only one thing that will keep us peaceful and unharmed, and
that is to trust our poor shelterless lives and sinful souls to the
Saviour who has died for us. In Him we find the hiding-place, in which
secure, as beneath the shadow of a great rock, dreaded evils will pass
us by, as impotent to hurt as savages before a castle fortified by
modern skill. All the bitterness of outward calamities will be taken
from them before they reach us. Their arrows will still wound, but He
will have wiped the poison off before He lets them be shot at us. The
force of temptation will be weakened, for if we live near Him we shall
have other tastes and desires. The bony fingers of the skeleton Death,
who drags men from all other homes, will not dislodge us from our
fortress-dwelling. Hid in Him we shall neither fear going down to the
grave, nor coming up from it, nor judgment, nor eternity. Then, I
beseech you, make no delay. Escape! flee for your life! A growing host
of evil marches swift against you. Take Christ for your defence and
cry to Him,
'Lo! from sin and grief and shame,
Hide me, Jesus! in Thy name.'