Ninth, The Rock of Castello was only a safe retreat so long as those who fled for refuge remained within its cave. The enemy were continually on the watch, and to venture out, would be to perish! Jesus, the “Rock of Ages,” thus speaks to you, “Abide in me!” “Out of me, ye can do nothing.” It is only “the Righteous who runneth into Him that is safe! To abide in Jesus is to be secure from every danger, to leave Him is destruction!”
Tenth, The Rock of Castello had to be fled to in the first moment of danger. The only safety of the persecuted was in instant flight. On the first tidings of the enemy, houses, and lands, and vineyards, and all they possessed, had to be left, and, “forgetting the the things that were behind, they pressed forward” to their Rock! Jesus tells you, dear children, your only safety consists in immediate flight to Himself, the Rock of Ages! Delay may be fatal! The storm-blast is gathering, the sky is darkening, there is the distant muttering of the thunder. The enemy is on the march—Satan is watching—Death is approaching. Already he may have strung his arrow. “Flee to the stronghold, ye prisoners of Hope,—
TO-DAY.”
Oh! forbid that this should be your history now, and your history through eternity (How awful are the words!)—
“They lightly esteemed the Rock of their Salvation!”
Reader!—Have you fled to this Living “Rock of Ages?”—Have you made it your prayer,
“Jesus! Refuge of my Soul!
Let me to Thy bosom fly?”
And in that bosom, and that refuge, are you hiding yourself until all Earth's “calamities be overpast?” The deeper you hide yourself in the clefts of the smitten Rock, the safer you are. Oh! do you ever pause and think that there is a day coming, when this Valley of Tears “and all the works that are therein, shall be burned up?” When “God shall arise in the glory of His Majesty, to shake terribly the Earth.” When every mountain peak shall be black with tempest—and the whole valley shall be a sheet of living fire! Then (as I saw on the evening I entered this Alpine valley), there shall be but One Rock seen rising far above the mist, and thunderings, and lightnings, and tempest! JESUS CHRIST, the Rock of Ages! the Sinner's Refuge! and the Sinner's Friend! Many voices shall be heard beneath in the valley, calling upon other Rocks, but it will be to hide them from the “wrath of the Lamb!” The loose fragments of stone thrown down from the Rock of Castello crushed hundreds: “On whomsoever This Stone shall fall, it will grind them to powder!”
Oh, when the voice of the Great Judge shall resound through the dens and caves of the Earth with the Question,—“Sinner, where are thou?”—How blessed if you shall be able, from your safe shelter, to reply, “Here am I, Lord! I heard Thy voice, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself!” Hid yourself! where? Hid myself in