Isaiah 32

Christ Our Hiding-Place

And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. Isaiah 32:2.

Thinking of the text, and wondering what I should say to you about it, a picture came before me. It was that of a jutting rock by the side of a fishing stream. Several boy fishers sat in the shelter of it, eating the “piece” their mothers had provided for their midday meal, for it was a stormy day. The wind blew and the rain lashed, but what did that matter? It blew and lashed on the rock, and the boys were as dry and as happy as could be.

An ancient prophet had the nation to which he belonged very much on his heart. He knew its sins, and the thought of how punishment never fails to follow sin oppressed him. He saw his people well- nigh overwhelmed by the judgments of God. But one day a picture came to him. The sand of the desert was being driven by the wind across a river valley, or oasis. Vegetation seemed all but choked out: the little plants when they had made an attempt to grow had been quickly covered up. But at one part of the oasis stood a great rock. On its sheltered side everything was beautifully green; there was almost a garden. The rock had arrested the drift of sand. You could have sat there and imagined yourself far away from the dry and thirsty desert. The thought of that rock brought hope to Isaiah. When he wrote down his vision, it was to tell of a man who would yet arrest the drift of sin and be a shelter to those who wanted to get away from it,

I think Isaiah must have been very human, very like ourselves. Don't you often feel that you want to have some friend who would help you to be good, and to whom you could tell everything? Every boy, every girl here knows the good intentions that, in the hour of temptation, get covered up as were the little plants in the desert. Don't we all want somebody to whom we can go for protection when we feel we have done wrong? Of course we do; we always want sympathy.

For us, that rock in the desert of which Isaiah wrote has come to mean Jesus Christ. How often you children have sung that old hymn and probably given no thought to what it meant.

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,

Let me hide myself in Thee.

Even Isaiah did not quite realize the grandeur of his own vision; it remained for the good men and women who lived long afterwards to do that. But many a one since Isaiah's day has said of Christ, “He has been a rock to me.”

There is an expression one occasionally hears “So-and-so leads a very sheltered life.” That means that in their own homes some people are so cared for that “roughing it,” as we sometimes say, has no meaning for them. But there is a better kind of sheltered life. There are men who never seem to get troubled; they care not a whit what the world says about them. They have a good conscience; they feel they have the friendship of Jesus Christ. They are sheltered. What does it mean?

Suppose you are invited to a big party, you go; but there are so many people in the room that you feel quite lost. They all seem strange to you whether they speak to you or not. Later, however, someone whom you have always thought of as a great friend appears. As you get near him, or walk about with him, it is as if it did not matter how many people were round you. As he talks, all the confusion of the crowd seems to disappear. You are absorbed in having him beside you.

So it may be with you and Jesus Christ if you trust Him. You may be one with Him. Your life may be hid with Him. What a friendship to have! As you keep company with Jesus by speaking by praying to Him, you will begin to feel as if He understood you and sympathized with you better than even your father or your mother or your dearest friend. Day by day you will fly to Him in temptation, you will run to Him in sorrow, you will go to Him in joy. You will know that in the shelter of His loving presence you are perfectly safe and happy, and that there “all is well.” (The texts of the other sermons in this series are Genesis 3:8; Isaiah 45:15.)