Deuteronomy 33:27 The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms: and he shall thrust out the enemy from before you… I. THE PRESENT BLESSING. 1. God is His people's shelter. (1) Even when they are under the yoke. Even some of those who are never converted, have sense enough to feel at times that the service of Satan is a hard one, yielding but little pleasure, and involving awful risks. Some men cannot long go on making bricks without straw, without being more or less conscious that they are in the house of bondage. (2) When captivity is led captive, God becomes the refuge of His people from their sins. (3) He is also their refuge in times of want. (4) When their enemies rage. (5) When their falls into sin had cursed the people of God, and provoked the Most High, so that He sent fiery serpents among them, even then the Eternal God was their refuge. When we are conscious that sin has brought us into any mischief or sorrow, we are apt to fed — "I must not go to God with this, because it is clearly the natural and inevitable result of my sin, it is a rod of my own making." Yes, but we may go even with that, for if the Lord should send the fiery serpents, still, you must fly into the arms of that very God who has sent the serpents to bite you; for it is He, and He alone, who can lift up the brazen serpent before your tearful eye, and give yon life through looking thereon. 2. God is our mansion, our dwelling, our abiding place. (1) At home one feels safe. So, when we get to our God, not bolts of brass nor gates of iron could guard God's people so well as that wall of fire which Jehovah is to all His chosen. (2) At home we take our rest. When I get to my God, no servile work have I to do, no hewing of wood and drawing of water, like a Gibeonite, in God's house; but here! am, His servant, happy in His service, and finding sweet rest in what I do for Him. (3) At home we let our hearts loose. We feel at ease. So is it when we are with our God. I dare tell Him what I dare not tell anyone else; there is no secret of my heart which I would not pour into His ear; there is no wish that might be deemed foolish or ambitious by others, which I would not communicate to Him; for surely if "the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him," the secrets of them that fear Him ought to be, and must be, with their Lord. (4) It is at home, if anywhere, that a man is thoroughly happy and delighted. He takes his soul's best solace there; his eyes sparkle most at his own fireside; whatever the man may be abroad, with all his cares and his troubles, he looks to getting home, as going to the place of his delight. So I trust it is with us and our God. (5) It is for home that a man works and labours. 3. God is our support, and our support just when we begin to sink. (1) At certain seasons the Christian sinks very low in humiliation. But the great atonement is still under all. (2) The Christian sometimes sinks very deep in sore trial from without. Loss of property. Bereavement. You cannot sink so low in distress and affliction, but what the covenant grace of an ever-faithful God will be still lower. (3) Possibly you are sinking very deep down, under trouble from within. You have felt such vexations of spirit as you never thought you could have known; you have waged such a conflict as you never dreamed of; the fountains of the great deep have been broken up; and, as a deluge, sin threatens to cover your spirit, and drown all the life in your heart. You cannot even there be brought so low as Christ was, for what did He say — "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"(4) This also I may give you by way of comfort, in any weary labours in which you may be engaged. (5) At last, when death comes, the promise shall still hold good. II. THE FUTURE. 1. Here is a Divine work. Before yon get to your difficulties, your God will have removed them. 2. A Divine word. Whatever sins we have, there is only one thing to be done with them, and that is, to "destroy them." ( C. H. Spurgeon.) Parallel Verses KJV: The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms: and he shall thrust out the enemy from before thee; and shall say, Destroy them. |
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