God Our Refuge, or Our Ruin.
viii. 14. And He shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling, &c.
In God “we live, and move, and have our being.” We cannot be independent of, or indifferent to, Him, as we can in regard to some of our fellow-men. There can be no neutrality between Him and us. We must be obedient or disobedient to Him, and therefore we must find in Him our refuge or our ruin—our helper or our destroyer. That this vast truth may be received in our minds, let us take it somewhat in detail.
I. We have to do with God in Nature. It is His world we live in; and all its substances and forces are things which He hath made, and intends to be used according to His plans. Nay, He acts in them,[1] and in them He is willing to be our ally, but not our slave. We cannot use Him to carry into effect our whims and fancies, as the old magicians were said to use the genii supposed to be under their control. God is of one mind, He changeth not; what is called “the uniformity of the laws of nature” is one manifestation of His unchangeableness; and that unchangeableness is most merciful (H. E. I. 3156, 3157, 3173–3177). If we fall in with His laws of nature, all nature is on our side; wind and tide then combine to bear us into our desired haven; but if we will not do so, the very stones of the field will be in league against us (Job v. 23; H. E. I. 3172, 4612).[2] E.g., gravitation. If a builder comply with the demands of this great law, it will give stability to his structure; but if not, from the very moment they are departed from, it will begin to pull down the hut or the palace he has builded. So with all the other substances and forces by which we are surrounded; they are for us or against us: there is no neutrality possible.
II. We have to do with God in Providence. Not only are we in this world, but whether we like or not, we are under His government. He has laid down laws for our guidance, as communities and as individuals. These laws are vast and comprehensive; they cover every realm of activity and relationship of life; it is impossible for us to find ourselves in any place or circumstances in which some of them are not in force. If we obey them, they will be our helpers; if we disobey them, they will be our destroyers: obey one, and all others stand ready to befriend us; disobey one, and more manifestly all others become hostile to us. Illustrate—1. Communities. The law of frugality. The law of freedom of exchange. The supreme law for every nation is, that God shall be acknowledged as the supreme ruler, His will done, His protection sought and trusted in. It was this law that Ahaz and his people were setting at defiance (chap. vii.), and God forewarned them that He would not stand idly by and see it broken (chap. vii. 17–20). If any nation commit itself to a godless policy, it may achieve a transient triumph thereby (ver. 6), but disaster is inevitable (ver. 7). It may be delayed, but it is only that it may come in more awful form. United States of America: their maintenance of slavery when England abolished it, and their civil war. 2. Individuals. The comprehensive law (Matt. vii. 12): if a man obey it, the very constitution of society fights for him; if he disobey it, that same constitution fights against him. From God, as the God of Providence, we cannot escape; we must have to do with Him as friend or foe. Those men who deliberately put Him out of their thoughts and plans find it so: just when they seem to themselves to be triumphing in their godless courses, they stumble against Him unawares. They are snared and taken in the great retributive laws of His universe.
III. We have to do with God in Redemption. In Christ, God is revealed, and therefore we are not to be surprised when we see this great Old Testament truth conspicuously illustrated in Him. In the New Testament we are distinctly taught that neutrality in regard to Christ is impossible (Matt. xii. 30; 2 Cor. ii. 16; Matt. xxii. 37–44). Not to accept His salvation, is to reject it; not to submit to His authority, is to rebel against it. We cannot choose whether we will have to do with Christ or not! All that we can decide is the nature of the relationship that shall subsist between us. We can make Him our sanctuary, and then all blessing is ours; or we can refuse to do this, and then He becomes to us a stumbling-block and a snare. Not as the result of any vindictive action on His part, but as the inevitable result of the working of our own nature and of the constitution of the universe. 1. The phrase, “Gospel-hardened,” represents a terrible reality (H. E. I. 2439–2442). 2. By our rejection of Christ, and consequent rebellion against His authority, we put ourselves on the side of those powers of evil which He is pledged to destroy, and then His very Almightiness, which would have insured our salvation, becomes our ruin, just as the very same force of wind and wave, which would carry a vessel rightly steered into the desired haven, hurls it when wrongly steered as a miserable wreck on the rocks outside.
Thus, in all the realms of life, we must have God with us or against us; and if God be against us, we have cause to lament that He is God—a being whom we cannot resist, from whom we cannot escape. Therefore, 1. Let us recognise what the realities of our position are. Let us not go on to eternal ruin through ignorance or heedlessness. 2. Let us make God our “sanctuary.” We may do this. He invites us to do it. Having done it, everything in Him that otherwise would terrify us will be to us a cause of joy (Rom. v. 11).
FOOTNOTES:
[1] “He this flowery carpet made
Made this earth on which we tread,
God refreshes in the air,
Covers with the clothes we wear,
Feeds us with the food we eat,
Cheers us by His light and heat,
Makes His sun on us to shine:
All our blessings are divine!”—C. Wesley.
[2] Man, as the minister and interpreter of nature, does and understands as much as his observations on the order of nature, either with regard to things or the mind, permit him, and neither knows, nor is capable of more. . . . Nature is only subdued by submission.—Bacon.