Preached at Inkai (Shangani Reserve), 1st June, 1952.
By Mr. A. MACPHERSON.
“And a man shall be a hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” (Isaiah, 32 and 2.)
COMING along the road from Zenka I noticed as I passed the airstrip, that the white cloth sleeve which shows the airmen which way the wind is blowing was hanging limply down, indicating that there was little or no wind. This is a calm day, but there are other days when the wind blows very strongly and you have seen it do damage to the roofs of houses and other things. At the same time we seldom experience in this country those wild storms which last for hours or days at a time and cause great damage to property or even loss of life. The wind has great power, and when it does blow in such a manner, wise people take shelter in some safe place. There is also another sort of wind which is even more dangerous and which is of the same type as the small whirlwind which passed the school just before the service began. You noticed how it swept along, whirling round and round and lifting high into the air all sorts of light objects such as loose grasses and fallen leaves, and even such big things as withered mealie leaves. In other parts of the world, notably America, such whirlwinds assume monster proportions, and beginning far out in the ocean rush towards the land and do untold damage to whatever towns and villages they pass through. These tornadoes, as they are called, are greatly dreaded and people who live in these parts of America where they are common build underground rooms to their houses, where they can shelter when warning of the approaching storm is given; there they are safe even when their houses above ground are being torn to pieces by the furious whirlwind.
So you see there is meaning in the mention of a hiding place from the wind, such as we have in our text. The wind is capable of destroying men’s lives, and men are compelled to seek hiding places at such times, but whoever heard of a man being a safe and suitable hiding-place? Yet our text does say that a man shall be a hiding-place from the wind, and even from the tempest. This Book of Isaiah is full of these figurative references. The great prophet made good use of the realm of nature to picture forth the person and work of the glorious Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the One who is here described as a hiding-place. He is the same who is described in the previous verse as a King reigning in righteousness. We feel no surprise that God should often be described in Scripture as a shield and shelter for His people; and any surprise we may feel at the thought of a man performing these services should disappear when we remember that this is no mere man that is spoken of, but He who from eternity has been the equal of God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, and who, even when He in love to poor sinners became man, is described as the brightness of God’s glory and the express image of his person.
It is then the Divine Redeemer who is a hiding-place for sinful men, and that from even greater storms than the whirlwind. Do any of you know what it is to see and dread the approaching storm of God’s wrath? Normally we live our lives in this world trying to keep at arms’ length all fearful thoughts of God; and too often we succeed. Why, when there is a Gospel service in Inkai to-day do so many people remain at home? One reason, I may tell you, is that they are afraid of coming face to face with God’s claims upon them and His calls to them to repent and forsake their sins, and receive Christ’s great salvation. Men by nature want to have nothing to do with these things. Their consciousness may give warning of judgment to come. An occasional contact with the same truth revealed in the Word of God may bring a clear view of the black storm clouds piling up on the horizon of their lives but they turn their backs on these warnings and try to ignore them. Is not such conduct like that of a man who sees the tornado approaching yet walks before it heedlessly until with a roar it catches him up and tosses him around, finally casting his poor body lifeless back to the ground.
There are others also, perhaps some of you here, who have become accustomed to storm warnings from the preachers in this place, but because it has not yet broken upon you, you continue on sinful and Christ-resisting courses. You have, of course, never taken these warnings seriously, and let me tell you, you never will until either you are caught up in the storm of God’s judgment—which God forbid—or the Holy Spirit brings a sense of that impending judgment into your souls. My dear friends, you will have no doubts about the need of a hiding-place if and when the Holy Spirit shows you how your sins have been against the holy and majestic being who made you, and not merely against your fellows. When there is brought before you a sense of God’s indignation, when you see how His justice cannot tolerate such breakings of His law as you have engaged in, and worse still, such rejections of His great salvation as you have persisted in, some of you for years, I tell you what God’s Word tells you, that you ought to be afraid, for “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God.” This applies to you all, to everyone present who has not yet received the forgiveness of sins through Christ. There are hanging over you black clouds of judgment. They speak of the approaching storm of wrath which will break over your defenceless souls unless you seek shelter and safety in the one place where it is to be found.
“A man shall be a hiding place.” Have you not seen a hen in a summer thunder shower gather her chickens to her and under her outspread wings, and then afterwards, how the chickens would emerge, dry and unscathed from beneath their soaked and bedraggled mother? Did not the Saviour speak of salvation to sinners of Jerusalem in just such terms, so expressive of the compassionate longing of His infinite heart? “How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” What is it that we see in the awful happenings at Calvary but the blessed Redeemer stretched out between earth and heaven, covering with His broken and bleeding body the multitude of His redeemed ones? Earth never saw such a storm as that which broke in fury over the Man who was God’s Fellow. The sins of His people were there laid to His charge, and He who had no sin was dealt with as if He had committed them all. The death which would have inevitably overtaken each one, gathered around that lone figure on the cross, and beat Him and tore at Him and well-nigh swallowed Him up. But justice was there dealing not with a mere man, but with the Infinite One, with God in human nature, a man indeed but still God and judgment at last came to an end. Death came to an end, swallowed up in victory. The last wave of the storm rushed over Him and He again lifted up His head, crying triumphantly, “I will declare Thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the congregation will I praise Thee, and all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn unto the Lord and all kindreds of the nations shall worship before Thee.”
Thus, my friends, is this Man Christ Jesus a hiding-place from the storm of God’s wrath. He offers Himself as such to you and to me. To the ends of the earth, to you in Africa here also, the glad news of this safe hiding-place is come—and will you wilfully remain outside? All power is given to Christ not only to save poor sinners from God’s wrath and curse, but to keep them safely under the protection of His work and intercession, and it is no momentary or temporary deliverance that He offers, but safety to all eternity. Will you not come, ye fearful ones? Why stand ye outside in the gathering storm?
Having, in the first place, spoken of the manner in which Christ the MAN is a safe hiding-place for those in fear of God’s judgment upon sin, we now come secondly to consider how He is “as rivers of water in a dry place.” There is a craving in men’s souls for what will satisfy them and give peace and happiness; and fallen man seeks to satisfy that craving with earthly things. If we were beasts merely, like the oxen and goats out there, such things would satisfy us, but we are not beasts entirely, although we often act like them. We demand more than food and drink and clothing and shelter and sensual enjoyment. We may take our fill of these things and remain still unsatisfied.
I have met old men among you who professed to be quite uninterested in the Christian religion. I remember one such whom we spoke to as he sat outside his hut in the evening watching the children bringing home the cattle. “This religion of yours is alright for the children,” he said. “I have no objection to your teaching them, but as for me, I am too old to change my ways.” One would have thought from this that he was content with things as they were but he wasn’t. The rest of his conversation was taken up with complaints about his poor health. His limbs were weak and his joints ached. His eyes were dim, he was hard of hearing and his few remaining teeth and poor digestion allowed him little pleasure in eating. He thought and spoke longingly of the days of his healthy manhood but all that was gone. He had taken all that he could out of life in the circumstances in which he was placed but he was still dissatisfied. Thirsting all his life for living water and yet to his very last days rejecting the great river of the water of life and taking such drops of comfort as he could from the broken cisterns of this world. Young friends, I specially ask you if you will not learn from such cases as his? Why waste time seeking satisfaction of soul in wealth, pleasure, places of honour and power among your fellows, or in learning and worldly wisdom, or in the outward form of religion. These even if attained to in great measure will profit you nothing. There is only one thing that will satiate the deep craving of your soul and that is a true spiritual association and communion with Christ.
Having found Him you will go no further, for your soul will have returned into its quiet rest in Him who made it for His glory. The Christian is happiest when he feels most of the presence of the Saviour and he would not exchange that for anything in the world. That largely accounts for the contented attitude of the true believer. He is satisfied with whatever the Lord will give him of this world’s good and when he basks in the light of God’s countenance, he is gladder than any of the wealthy among men.
Be it noted also that this provision for the satisfaction of thirsty longing souls is unlimited, as denoted by the term “rivers of water.” If you go to the river for water to drink, it makes no difference to its level whether you dip in your bucket, once or one hundred times. Those big tanks which you have at some of your boreholes in this reserve hold a huge quantity of water and if you were allowed one for your own use entirely you might think that you would never exhaust its contents. But before many weeks had passed, you would see that the water level was falling and the time would come when it would all be finished. Not so a river. Your big tank could be filled over and over again from the river and still the water would come in abundance. Well, friends, the soul-satisfying water of life springs from the infinite and eternal love of God to sinners and how can it be anything else but limitless? Thus a man shall be “as rivers of water in a dry place.”
Now in the third and last place, Christ affords rest and refreshment to the weary. The man Christ Jesus is “as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” In this country, although at times it is so hot and dry yet there are so many trees that we need never lack shade in which to rest awhile. There are, however, other countries even more hot and dry and barren, and the only shade which travellers may find is given by huge rocks which lift themselves above the ground. Such great rocks are apt representations of the Saviour. Steadfast and unbroken they stand through the ages, a permanent shade for weary travellers of our race. Oh, what weariness the burden of sin’s guilt will produce in a sinner! Christ it is, as we have seen in the first head, who gives rest from that burden when He shows us it taken away by His own atoning death. He not only does this but also by His Spirit begins the great work of sanctification, that is, the cleansing of our souls, of minds, affections and wills. God’s people like Paul often cry out in weariness, “O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” and it is Christ who answers that weary cry by giving them an increased knowledge of and hatred of sin and love of and desires after holiness, and always they may get rest of soul from the various truths which give the assurance that He shall yet “present them faultless before His Father with exceeding joy.”
The Saviour also gives rest to those weary of persecution. This is the lot of many of the Lord’s people, indeed it will be strange if anyone makes a sound profession of Christ without persecution arising. Yourselves know well how the good man who used to live and work among you, was treated by some of the heathen people of this place on account of his religion and such feeling and behaviour does cause a great weariness in the soul of the believer.
Again, bodily afflictions such as some have, cause them to feel very tired. To be quite blind and to have to be led about all the time, to be frequently sick with fever as some are, to be hungry and in want of even the necessities of life, to wonder how to provide for your children; all these things cause real faintness of heart and weariness of spirit, but Christ can by His own blessed presence and comfort give refreshment and fresh courage. There are other sources of soul weariness, such as the opposition of Satan, but suffice it to say that for them all, Christ provides shade like unto “a great rock in a weary land.”
It is time to stop now, and I would only appeal to you all who have never discovered what great things Christ can do for you, to make trial for yourselves. The only requisite or condition is that you should feel your need of His sheltering power, His soul-satisfying love and His blessed rest and refreshment. May the Holy Spirit so work in you a consciousness of your great need that you would come to Him and find what great rest He gives.
Note.—It will be understood that the above sermon was preached through an interpreter, and was worded and phrased more simply, but the substance was as above.