2856. Our Hiding-Place

No. 2856-49:529. A Sermon Delivered On Lord’s Day Evening, November 11, 1877, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

A Sermon Published On Thursday, November 5, 1903.

(When the Tabernacle was thrown open to all comers.)

And a man shall be as a hiding-place from the wind, and a refuge from the tempest. {Isa 32:2}

 For other sermons on this text:
   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1243, “Rivers of Water in a Dry Place” 1234}
   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2856, “Our Hiding Place” 2857}
   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3031, “Shadow of a Great Rock, The” 3032}

1. One who is really worthy to be called “a man” is a rare creature. There are great numbers of human beings, who come under the generic name “men,” who do not possess those noble, manly characteristics which would entitle us truly to speak of any one of them as “a man.” When God gives “a man” to any nation, it is a grand gift. There are many names in history which remind us how much blessing may be conferred on a nation, and on an age, by the raising up of one man.

2. It is possible that, in the first case, my text refers to Hezekiah the king of Judah. The Assyrians had invaded the land, and the army and the nation were powerless to defend their territory. It seemed as though the homes of the people must be utterly destroyed by fire, and that the inhabitants must be either slain by the sword or carried away into captivity. But there was one man, named Hezekiah, who, though he did not have a great army, had great faith in the power of prayer to God; so he took Rabshakeh’s blasphemous letter, and spread it before the Lord in earnest supplication. He sent word to another true man, the prophet Isaiah, asking him also to lift up his prayer to God; and the prophet sent to the king the cheering news that the Assyrian monarch would not be able to enter Jerusalem, but should be driven back to his own city of Nineveh, and should be slain by the sword in his own land. Hezekiah and Isaiah were, for Judea, a hiding-place from the wind, and a refuge from the tempest, in that time of stress and storm.

3. Nor is it only in sacred history that we find illustrations of such an experience as my text describes. I might remind you of some of our kings and other great men who have been a hiding-place and a refuge for our own land in the day of danger and of distress. The name of Alfred the Great will always shine brightly in our national history; and, much later, there was “a man” who wore no regal crown, but who was the greatest and best of all the kings. Oliver Cromwell was a real hiding-place and refuge for this land in the days when the crowned king was unworthy to rule. In him, God raised up “a man” who risked everything in defence of the liberties which we still enjoy. What a hiding-place from the wind, and what a refuge from the tempest he was to the little company of persecuted saints in the valleys of Piedmont! The Duke of Savoy had determined to extirpate the Protestants; but Cromwell heard of his cruelties, and resolved that he would do all that he could to rescue them from their persecutor’s power. He sent for the French ambassador, and told him to let his master know that he must have those persecutions stopped immediately. His majesty replied that Savoy did not belong to him, and that he could not interfere with the Duke. “Nevertheless,” replied Cromwell, “if you tell the Duke that you will go to war with him if he does not cease persecuting the Protestants, he will soon stop his butcheries. If you will not do that, I will go to war with you; for, in the name of the Lord of hosts, I will defend his persecuted people.” Of course, such a brave message as that speedily took effect. Oh, that, in every age, in every land, whenever and wherever there is oppression or persecution to be rebuked, and tyranny to be overthrown, God may always find “a man” who shall come boldly to the forefront, and speak and act for truth and righteousness, and so become “a hiding-place from the wind, and a refuge from the tempest,” for the people whom he has the honour to protect in such a time as that! I have no more to say on that view of our subject except to pray God to make us all manly in that sense, so that all of us may through his grace, take our proper place in the battle for the right and the true against the wrong and the false.

4. I have, however, to speak of another Man, to whom this text more especially refers. It is the Messiah, — the Man Christ Jesus, the Mediator between God and men, — God’s greatest gift to men, — the Nazarene, Jesus Christ of the house of David, who is the true hiding-place from the wind, and refuge from the tempest, for all who take shelter in him. If my lips are divinely helped to extol him, and if your hearts are divinely taught to rejoice in him, we shall all be blessed. In speaking about my text, I want to show you, first, that this life is very liable to storms; secondly, that from all these storms, the Man Christ Jesus is our hiding-place; and that, thirdly, our wisdom is to shelter in that hiding-place.

5. I. First, then, THIS LIFE IS LIABLE TO MANY STORMS.

6. He who counts on a calm from his cradle to his grave counts altogether amiss. You may set sail on a sea as smooth as glass; but I do not doubt that, before your voyage is completed, you will often have to reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and be at your wits’ end, by reason of the fury of the storm.

7. We are subject to great mental storms. No man can be a true thinker without finding his mind occasionally storm-tossed. A rushing mighty wind of doubt seems to come sweeping down from the mountains of speculation, driving everything before it. Anchors begin to drag, and firmly moored beliefs are driven headlong towards the rocks of destruction. We have known what it is, sometimes, to have such a terrible cyclone of doubt and questioning raging around us that we have hardly felt our own existence to be a fact, and have had grave questions concerning our own inner consciousness. When we have these stormy winds and tempests howling within the little world of our souls, we appreciate the promise of the text: “A man shall be as a hiding-place from the wind, and a refuge from the tempest.”

8. At other times, the stormy winds take another form, namely, that of outward trial and trouble. “Man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward.” Doubtless, there is a skeleton in every house, — some reason for sorrow in every family. A man may have a flourishing business, but there may come serious losses; or he may have the flush of health on his cheek, and may suddenly begin to lose his vigour. The little ones around him, who are his joy, may sicken, and he may have to follow his loved ones to the grave. The wife of his youth may be taken away from him, or the friend of his middle age may suddenly be struck down. The world is full of what we sometimes call accidents, though we know that they are providences, — providences of a sad and mournful character for us. God will not let us, who are his songbirds, build our nests here. He will send a rough wind through the forest, which will make the bough, on which we try to build, rock to and fro in the storm until we are obliged to take to our wings again, for there is no resting-place for us on any of the trees in this world. Many of you know only too well that there are rough winds of outward trial and trouble I do not doubt that many a stormy blast has swept across your heart, in your families, or in your lives, or in your estates; in one way or another, you have realized your need of “a hiding-place from the wind, and a refuge from the tempest.”

9. Then there is a wind, which sometimes blows on men, — a penetrating, searching, cutting wind, which may bring good with it, but which, at the time it is blowing, is a truly terrible wind to endure, — I mean that of spiritual distress on account of discovered sin, when, looking into your soul, you have seen what you could not have believed was there. Sins and iniquities, which had long hidden their heads, have suddenly appeared before you, and you have been almost swept off your feet as by a tornado. I remember when that wind blew through and through my soul. I could get no comfort by day or by night; my transgressions haunted and hunted me. I had not been worse than other young men, nor as bad as many whom I knew; but I seemed so to myself. It appeared to me as if I had become the very chief of sinners, and the most surely condemned of all who ever lived. Remembering the experience I then passed through, I can truly say that I know of no pain, that can be felt by the body which is comparable to the terrible pangs of conscience when the searching breath of the Eternal Spirit goes through the soul, and withers up all the beauty of our own righteousness, and spoils all the supposed attractiveness of our own good works. That is a wind which I trust we all have felt, or shall yet feel; but, still, while it blows, it is dreadful to endure.

10. There is another wind which follows after this, and of which this is the prelude unless infinite grace shall intervene, that is, the awful wind of the infinite wrath of God. When that mighty blast begins to blow on men, it makes their beauty to consume like the moth. When they first realize that “God is angry with the wicked every day,” they tremble in his presence; but what will their terror be when that wind is let loose on them in all its fury? When God’s right arm shall be bared for war, and thunders shall clothe his cloudy chariot, and he shall come out armed with sword and buckler to confront his foes, saying “I will rid myself of my adversaries,” who shall be able to stand before him? Good Mr. Whitfield used to cry, “Oh, the wrath to come! The wrath to come!” And, truly, I do not know what he could have said about it except to utter the exclamation, and to leave it there, for that wrath to come must surpass all human language or imagination. Sometimes, it blows on men before they leave the body; they begin to be caught by the eternal whirlwind before they have quite gotten clear of the shores of time and mortal life; and some of them have let us know, by their terrible terror as they have died, a little of what that awful blast must mean to those who are swept away by it.

11. I will mention only one other wind, and that is one to which the best of men, as well as the worst, are exposed; namely, the sudden and mysterious temptations of the devil. He knows how to take us unawares; and he finds, in our natural depravity, an ally, so that when he comes, and knocks at the door of our heart, the sin that is within arises, and opens to him; and then he comes in, and terrible is his entrance into the soul. I have known a young man, who appeared to be upright and honest, suddenly lured into an act of theft by the temptation of the evil one. I have seen those who have been, apparently, pure in mind and heart, and who, at any rate in their youth, dreaded every thought of immorality, suddenly cast down into the very depths of filthiness by a strong Satanic temptation which has assailed them. There is no man living who can truly say, “I am secure against the devil’s assaults.” You may resolve as you please, but Satan is older and more cunning than you are; and he knows your weak points, and how he can most easily cast you down. He is the prince of the power of the air, and he can bring with him such a wind as shall strike the four corners of the human house at once, and level it to the ground. Woe to the man who is tempted by the devil, in such a way as that, unless he has a hiding-place to shelter himself in the stormy and dark day!

12. I hope I have said enough on this point; if I go on in this strain, you will think that my sermon is like the roll of the prophet, written within and without with lamentations and woe.

13. II. Now, in the second place, blessed be God that I can tell you that, FROM ALL THESE STORMS, THE MAN CHRIST JESUS IS OUR HIDING PLACE. I have to try to set him before you by the help of his Holy Spirit: “A man shall be as a hiding-place from the wind, and a refuge from the tempest.” It is to him we sing, —

    The tempest’s awful voice was heard;
       Oh Christ, it broke on thee!
    Thy open bosom was my ward,
       It braved the storm for me.
    Thy form was scarred, thy visage marred;
       Now cloudless peace for me.

14. “A man” — yet one who is more than a man, — a man of whom it is written, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” It is the Man Christ Jesus who is, nevertheless, to be adored as “God over all, blessed for ever,” reigning, as he now does, in the highest heavens, crowned with glory and honour. I invite all of you, who are afraid of the storms of doubt, or trial, or temptation, or of the wrath of God, to put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, because, being God, he is omnipotent; and, therefore, nothing can be too hard for him. Once enclosed within his hand, where is the power that can reach you there, or pluck you from there? If your shield shall be the Almighty One himself, then you are secure from all hurt or harm.

15. Yet, as the text says, “man shall be as a hiding-place from the wind, and a refuge from the tempest,” I remark that Christ is truly a man. Oh, how often, in the thought of Christ’s real humanity, has my soul found a hiding-place from all kinds of storms! “God” — the word is great! “God” — the idea is sublime! The great Eternal Jehovah, who made the heavens and the earth, and who bears them up by his unaided power, who rides on the stormy sky, and puts a bit into the mouth of the raging tempest, — how shall I, a poor worm of the dust, draw near to such a God us this? The answer quickly comes, “He has been pleased to reveal himself in the Man Christ Jesus.” “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them.” God condescended to take on himself the nature of man; there he lies in the manger, — the Infinite, yet an infant, — omnipotent, yet swaddled by a woman, and hanging as though helpless at her breast. Let Bethlehem always tell the matchless mystery of godliness, God revealed in human flesh. Why should I dread to appear before God, now that, in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ, there is a link between my manhood and his deity? The awful gulf, that sin had made, is bridged, and now I perceive how near God comes down to man, and how closely he lifts up man to himself. Jesus Christ was truly man. With the exception of being free from sin, he was in no respect different from ourselves; and at this moment, though he occupies the very throne of God in glory, his sympathies run towards us.

    He knows what sore temptations mean,
       For he has felt the same.

He is ready to help us, for his delights are still with the sons of men. He became a man because he loved men. God has such affection for our race that he has married our nature to himself. Oh, what joy there ought to be in our hearts because of this! Whenever the thought of the greatness, and the holiness, and the terrible majesty of God, oppresses any one of us, let him say, with good Dr. Watts, —

    Till God in human flesh I see,
       My thoughts no comfort find;
    The holy, just, and sacred Three
       Are terrors to my mind.
    But if Emmanuel’s face appear,
       My hope, my joy begins;
    His name forbids my slavish fear,
       His grace removes my sins.

The very fact that God has become incarnate, makes him to be a hiding-place from the wind, and a refuge from the tempest.

16. Further, Christ is the substitutionary Man, for he stood forward as the Man to die instead of guilty men. Have you not often heard this life called a state of probation? That is a most incorrect term, for our probationary period passed away long ago. There was a man, — the first of men, Adam, — and the whole human race was put on probation in him. If he had obeyed his Maker’s command, all his seed would have lived by virtue of his obedience; but since he disobeyed, his entire race has suffered. He could not pass the test given to him, for he ate the forbidden fruit, and so fell from his high estate; and, in his fall, you, and I, and all mankind fell down. We fell in another, we had nothing to do with the matter, for it all happened thousands of years before we were born. Some have questioned the justice of this arrangement. If you have done so, please lay aside all such questions, for this is the door of hope for you. Because our fall was caused by another, there remained the possibility, on the same plan of representation and substitution, of our being lifted up by Another, and saved by Another. So, in the fulness of time there came a second Man, the Lord from heaven, and stood in our place. Did he obey the law? For thirty years and more, he was on his trial, but he never failed. “In him was no sin.” But man was under condemnation because of his guilt, will Jesus Christ, as the great Substitute for sinners, bear on himself the punishment due to human guilt? He could not have borne it if he had not been God as well as man; being the God-man, he said that he would bear sin’s penalty, that all who would put their trust in him might for ever go free. It was an amazing sight, when, on that awful night in dark Gethsemane, he began to bear his people’s guilt, and so was made to sweat as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground, while his soul was extremely sorrowful, even to death.

17. I hope you all know the sad yet glad story; I expect most of you have often heard it, — how Jesus bore that tremendous load of our guilt on his own shoulders, though his back was bleeding from Pilate’s cruel scourging, — how he bore it though they nailed his hands and feet to the accursed tree, — how he bore it though the sun refused to look on him, and travelled on in tenfold night, — how he bore it though Jehovah himself forsook him while he was bearing our sins in his own body on the tree, so that he was compelled to cry, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” He bore that terrible burden right to the end; and on the cross he cried, “It is finished,” before he gave up the ghost. This is the Man who is the hiding-place from the storm, and the refuge from the tempest, — the substitutionary Man, — the surety Man, — who stood in the room, and place, and stead of guilty man, — the just Man bearing, instead of the unjust man, the deserved wrath of God. If you, my dear friends, will only put your trust in him, you will find him to be indeed a blessed refuge from the storm that is now threatening you. How can God’s wrath touch you if Christ has borne it all in your place? A hiding-place shelters a man because it bears the full force of the storm, while he is protected from its fury. Because Christ died for us, therefore we, who take shelter in him, shall not die. Our debt is paid, justice is satisfied, mercy triumphs, and we go free. This is the Man, — the substitutionary Man, — who is “as a hiding-place from the wind, and a refuge from the tempest,” for all who put their trust in him.

18. That is not all, however, for this substitutionary Man remains the representative Man; and if you are believers in him, he represents you in everything. He died, but he also rose again; what a shelter from all tempestuous thoughts of death there is in that glorious truth! For, —

    As the Lord our Saviour rose,
       So all his followers must.

The wind howls sadly out there among the tombs in the cemetery; one would scarcely choose to spend a night there alone among the dead; but even that mournful wind, when it is heard by the ear of faith, has music in it. That ancient message is yet to be fulfilled, “Your dead men shall live, they shall arise together with my dead body.” This is what Christ says to us, so we need not stand by the pious dead, and weep as those without hope; but we may already begin to anticipate the dawning of that glorious morning when, at the summons of the descending Saviour, “the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord.”

19. Jesus, therefore, as our Representative, is a hiding-place to us from all the winds which would come to us by the way of the sepulchre. We are not afraid to die, for Jesus lives; and he said to his disciples, “Because I live, you shall live also.” He has also gone up into heaven; in his glorified body, he ascended up on high, there to appear in the presence of God for us. So, whenever you have any dread about the future, remember that you will be where he is. If you are a believer in him, you must ascend to heaven even as he has done; and since he sits on his throne, even so shall you, and since he is perfected in glory, even so you must be. Between the Man Christ Jesus and all believers in him, there is such unity that, wherever he is, his people must also be there. This is what he rightfully demands on their behalf, by virtue of his atoning sacrifice: “Father, I will that they also, whom you have given to me, be with me where I am; so that they may behold my glory, which you have given me: for you loved me before the foundation of the world.” If you hide behind this rampart of stupendous rock, — this mighty mound of divine consolation, — it does not matter what winds may rage, or what storms may roar, you may rest in security and serenity behind the great representative Man who is “as a hiding-place from the wind, and a refuge from the tempest.”

20. We also have to bless the name of our Lord Jesus that he is the ever-living Man, who is, at all times, a shelter from the wind for those who trust in him. Our earthly friends may die, but we shall never lose our best Friend. All merely human comforters will fail us sooner or later, but he will always remain true and steadfast for all who rely on him.

    “He lives, the great Redeemer lives,” —

so his cause is always safe, and our safety is always secured in him. Hide yourself, therefore, in the ever-living Man; for, there, you need not fear any change that the rolling ages may bring.

21. Blessed be the name of Jesus, he is also the interceding Man; for at this very moment, he is pleading for his people before his Father’s throne. We cannot see him, yet, sometimes, when our faith is in lively exercise, we can almost behold him, and can all but hear him presenting his almighty pleas on behalf of all those who have entrusted their case into his hands. Oh beloved, —

    In every dark distressful hour,
       When sin and Satan join their power,
    Let this dear hope repel the dart,
       That Jesus bears us on his heart.

If no one else remembers us, he does; and he spreads his wounded hands in powerful, prevalent intercession on our behalf; and our comfort is that “He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God by him, since he lives for ever to make intercession for them.”

22. It is true that he is a man, but he is a man clothed with infinite power. So think no longer of the Christ as “despised and rejected by men: a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief”; for he is finished with all that. He has ascended from his cross to his throne.

    The highest place that heaven affords
       Is his, is his by right,
    The King of kings, and Lord of lords,
       And heaven’s eternal light.

Do not look at crucifixes, or any such representations of Christ; for he, in whom you trust is neither on the cross nor in the tomb for he is risen. “Come, see the place where the Lord lay”; but do not forget to look up to the place where he now sits; for “this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; from that time waiting until his enemies are made his footstool.” Before he ascended, he said to his disciples, “All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Go therefore, and teach (or, make disciples of) all nations, baptizing them (those who are made disciples) in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” We serve the Christ whom all his creatures must obey; angels fly at his bidding, and demons tremble at his frown. He allows the kings of the earth to sway their mimic sceptres for a time, but all the while he is King of kings, and Lord of lords. For our Lord Jesus Christ, we claim a universal monarchy. He sits enthroned on the circle of the heavens, and the nations of the earth are only like grasshoppers before him.

    Sweet majesty and awful love
       Sit smiling on his brow,
    And all the glorious ranks above
       At humble distance bow.
    This is the Man, th’ exalted Man,
       Whom we unseen adore;
    But when our eyes behold his face,
       Our hearts shall love him more.

23. I close my description of this amazing Man by reminding you that he is the coming Man. It is only a little while, and he who shall come will come. The great drama of this world’s history draws towards its close. We do not know when it will end, for it is not for us “to know the times or the seasons, which the Father has put in his own power”; but there comes to us, as a clear, ringing message out of the deep mystery of the future, the voice of our Saviour, saying, “Surely I come quickly,” to which our glad response is, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” I cannot foretell to what a state of anarchy or of despotism this world may yet come; I cannot forecast the ultimate issues of great wars and conflicts between various nations; but the saints of God shall always have a hiding-place from every stormy wind that shall ever blow. “The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God.” “He comes to judge the earth: he shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with his truth.” There shall come a day when that ancient prophecy shall be fulfilled, “He shall live, and the gold of Sheba shall be given to him: prayer also shall be made for him continually, and he shall be praised daily.” There shall yet some a halcyon period when they shall hang the useless helmet high, and study war no more; but the silver trumpet of the blessed jubilee shall sound aloud for Christ, the great Prince of peace shall then have returned to reign, and his unsuffering kingdom shall know no end. This is the world’s hope, that the people’s Christ, the Man chosen out of the people, the Lover of mankind, the great Philanthropist, the Divine Man, shall come and reign among his loyal subjects, and be to them “as a hiding-place from the wind, and a refuge from the tempest.”

24. To sum it all up, beloved, I do not know what your storms, inwardly or outwardly, may be, or what may be your special dread or terror; but if you hide away in the Man Christ Jesus, you will find that he will afford you shelter from every trouble that can possibly befall you.

25. III. So I close my discourse by saying to you, SINCE THE LORD JESUS CHRIST IS SUCH A HIDING PLACE AS THIS, LET US RUN TO HIM FOR SHELTER.

26. First, let us stand behind him whenever we approach to God. I can imagine someone saying, “I want to pray, but I am afraid to appear before the Lord; for, if his eyes of fire shall look at me, they may utterly consume me. What shall I do?” Why, stand behind his Son, and say to him, —

    Him, and then the sinner see,
    Look through Jesus’ wounds on me.

Do not come to God yourself directly, but come to him through Jesus Christ the Mediator and Intercessor. Then, his wrath cannot reach you, for Christ your hiding-place will stand between you the offender and the God whom you have offended. This seems to me to be very simple; if there are any here who have never acted like this, I entreat the Lord to lead them to do so now. Come, poor soul, you know that you cannot keep the law, and that you cannot bear the punishment due to sin; well, then, will you not trust the Lord Jesus Christ to stand in your place, and to suffer instead of you? If you do, all is done that is necessary. You are in the shelter, so the wind cannot blow on you.

27. Even when you have done that, there are still the storms of this life to be met, so get behind Christ by following him in the path of duty. If you never go anywhere but where Christ leads the way, you need not be afraid of storms, for they will beat on him more than on you. When I was quite a young man, I was greatly reviled for preaching the gospel; and, sometimes, my heart would sink a little under the cruel slanders that many uttered; but I often used to go upstairs to my room, and after a time of sweet fellowship with my Lord, I would come down singing, —

    If on my face for thy dear name,
       Shame and reproaches be,
    All hail reproach, and welcome shame,
       If thou remember me.

Whenever there is a cross to be carried by any of Christ’s followers, he always bears the heavy end on his own shoulders. He always takes the bleak side of the hill himself, and his disciples may be well content to follow when they have so good a Master to lead the way. Indeed, beloved, whenever any of the troubles of life come on you, get near to Jesus, and shelter behind him. When John the Baptist was put to death, his disciples took up his body, and went and told Jesus. That was the best thing they could have done. When the little baby dies, dear mother, take up his body, and go and tell Jesus. When you are unemployed, working man, and the supply of food is short in the home, go and tell Jesus. He will sympathize with you, for he also was hungry. And when others of the trials of life come on any of you, do not hesitate concerning what you will do; but, if you have hidden behind him on account of sin, go and hide in him on account of sorrow; for this Man shall always be a hiding-place from every stormy wind that blows if you only know how to go and trust in him.

28. Come to my Lord Jesus Christ, my dear fellow men, because he is an effective hiding-place. Many of us have tried him, and proved that he is all that I have said. There have been millions upon millions of his saints, in all ages, who have cast on him their entire life burden, and he has never failed to relieve any one of them yet. I have stood by the bedside of many dying Christians; but, to this moment, I have never heard one of them say that Christ had played him false. There are hosts of biographies of Christians published; did you ever find, in any of them, a single example in which a believer in Christ found himself deserted and forsaken by his Saviour? No, but, on the contrary, the testimonies are heaped up far beyond any evidence that could ever be demanded in a court of law; and they prove, beyond all question, that Christ helps his children in all their emergencies, and delivers them in every time of trouble. I appeal to any of you who have had godly parents. What your father tried, and your mother tried, young man, I ask you to try. Where your gracious grandmother rested all her hope, — and you know that, poor simple woman as she was, she died triumphantly, — do not be so unwise as to refuse to rest your hope. I like things that have been tried and proved; the newfangled notions of this modern age may do for lackadaisical gentlemen who seem scarcely to know whether they have a soul to lose; but I know that I have one, and I cannot afford to risk it on speculations and novelties. That gospel, which has saved the saints for nearly two thousand years, is good enough for me; so I trust myself in this ancient hiding-place of God’s people, — the refuge which they have found to be safe in all generations; and I invite all of you, by a simple act of faith in Jesus Christ, to do the same.

29. “But,” says someone, “there are so many sinners in the world; if they were all to come at once into this hiding-place, would there be room for them?” Oh, yes! for, just as the caverns of Engedi could hold all David’s men, and Saul’s men, too, and yet they scarcely came near each other, so, in the secret caverns of almighty love, in the person of the Man Christ Jesus, there is room enough and to spare for all the sinners who ever lived on the face of the earth. It will never be truly said, “The salvation of God is worn out; the pasture has been fed on by too many sheep, so it is all gone; the great supper has been all consumed because there were too many guests.” Never, never shall this happen. There is room in Christ Jesus for every soul that shall ever come to him. May God help you all to come at once!

    Come, sinner, to the gospel feast;
       Oh, come without delay!
    For there is room in Jesus’ breast
       For all who will obey.

30. Lastly, this is an available hiding-place. I think I read, some time ago, about a ship, caught in a storm, which might not have been lost except that the port it was trying to reach could only be entered at high tide. Since the tide was low, the poor vessel had to stay outside, to be dashed to pieces within sight of the harbour. My Lord’s love is never like that harbour; it is always at flood-tide. Now, poor weather-beaten vessel, almost ready to go down, steer straight for the harbour mouth between the two red lights. There is water enough for you, though you may be so deeply laden a sinner that you seem to draw a thousand fathoms. The infinite love of Jesus Christ is bottomless, so there is room enough in it for you, and millions more. Steer for it at once by simply saying, “I will believe in Jesus; I will take him to be my Substitute and Representative; the appointed Man who died instead of me.” If you come to him like this, you shall certainly find that he will accept you. Your salvation will not depend on who or what you are, but only on your hiding-place. Here is a sinner, almost as big as Giant Goliath, going into this hiding-place, but it completely shields him from the stormy blast. Here is a little tot, is the hiding-place safe for such a tiny child as he is? Yes, it is quite as safe for him as for the giant if he only goes into it. You, who know that you have been big sinners, if you get into this hiding-place, will be secure; and you, who feel yourselves very weak and insignificant, — you young children who may be here, — if you come to Christ, and trust him, you will be just as safe as the oldest saints.

    Only trust him, only trust him,
       Only trust him now;
    He will save you, he will save you,
       He will save you now.

31. That is the way into this hiding-place, — trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Depend on Christ for the pardon for your sin, and for everything you need for time and for eternity, and you shall find him to shield you from every storm henceforth and for ever. May the Lord bless you all, for Jesus Christ’s sake! Amen.

“The Sword and the Trowel” for November contains another of C. H. Spurgeon’s Communion Addresses at Mentone, with a facsimile of the Notes used by him on the occasion; Pastor Thomas Spurgeon’s “In Memoriam” article concerning his mother; “A Cry from Macedonia,” with a specially-drawn cartoon; the concluding portion of Pasteur R. Saillens’ allegory, Anhelia, the Sunless Isle; “Our Helper, God!” the substance of a Thursday evening address by Thomas Spurgeon; The Hidden life of a Faithful Minister, by the late Levi Palmer; Curiosities of Church Life, by H. T. Spufford; Facts and Figures for Temperance Workers; portrait and sketch of Mr. J. S. Harrison; and an article, with portrait, on Mr. W. R. Lane’s Mission at the Tabernacle; with much other interesting matter.

Price, 3d.; post free, 4d.

Passmore and Alabaster, Paternoster Buildings, London; and from all Booksellers.