Refuge-Taking Faith

In Psalm 48:3 we read, “God is known in her palaces for a refuge.” These palaces were those of Mount Zion, “Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth…on the sides of the north, the city of the great King.” Mount Zion was not so beautiful, of course, in the eyes of the Lord’s enemies, who envisioned the collapse of its walls under the weight of a fox and proudly mocked as ambassadors from the great worldly Babylon. Jerusalem was no impenetrable citadel by the standards of the world. Its stability did not lie in the strength of its walls or the valor of the soldiers stationed thereon. However, “God is known in her palaces for a refuge.” Blessed were those days in which God-fearing kings, the most powerful men of the kingdom, were found prostrate within her palaces. We read how one “feared, and set himself to seek the LORD, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah,” while the enemy stood without the walls of Mount Zion. Such petitions of these godly magistrates were heard on high, so that also within those same palaces were declared the words of the Most High by His prophets, “Be not afraid…they have blasphemed Me…I will send a blast upon him...ye shall not need fight in this battle… the battle is not yours, but God’s.” God was known in her palaces for a refuge, for a high place, a secure retreat, a mighty stronghold. While He was so known, no enemy could “come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shields, nor cast a bank against it.”

Yet, God’s Word being timeless, it remains no less true of the New Testament church, called by the Apostle, “Mount Sion,…the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.” God is still “known in her palaces for a refuge.” If we are truly a citizen of that “City of the living God,” this will be our experience. Our soul will know what it means to have fled to the beloved Son of God for refuge, for protection, for safety. Do we know what this is, by personal experience? This is so necessary! Let us examine our own heart; let us lay our heart next to the Word of God, to see if we are not strangers of the leadings of His Spirit, which works refuge-taking faith in the hearts of His fearful people.

If we have ever experienced with the psalmist, that “God is known in her palaces for a refuge,” then we must, in the first place, have been acquainted with spiritual enemies. The battle will have been joined against sin, Satan, and the world, in the day of our new birth, the day of our enlisting. Secondly, we will have experienced our weakness against those enemies. Under attack, a soldier either fights or flees, depending on his views concerning his own strength, versus that of his enemy. Fighting is the first work of the regenerated Church. With much zeal the new heart under-takes the warfare against sin, which has become exceedingly sinful, both within and without. Do we know this life? If not, we have never been made a warrior in the militant Church.

Taking refuge, however, is not an act of one who is fighting, but fleeing. Taking refuge is what those do who despair in battle, who experience for themselves, with great consternation, that they are not able to overcome. These are greatly humiliated and if they would not perish, have no choice but to flee from their enemy.

Bunyan’s Pilgrim would flee but did not know where to flee. He was unacquainted with that refuge pointed out to him by Evangelist. That is the case with every fleeing soul to whom He is not yet revealed by the Holy Spirit. Christ is completely hidden to the eye of their soul, until the day of their extremity arrives under the threatenings of Sinai, when it pleases Him to open His Word and reveal Himself as the only Refuge to whom their soul may flee and find true safety. He looks through the windows, showing Himself through the lattice. He sheds light upon His Word, upon His mercy, upon the freeness of His grace. Their eyes go open and they see the salvation of the Lord, which appears to them with great suitability to their own soul’s desperate case. This Man, this God, this Mediator, this Saviour is the One they need. Oh, how their heart goes out to Him with holy longings and desires. Their soul flees to Him in that moment, taking refuge under the shadow of His wings. Immediately their soul experiences something of the safety and protection to be found in that Refuge. No, it cannot immediately be explained by them, but it is felt. There is a taste of the great relief to be found in Christ by such as they are, who are not able to win the war against sin to deliver themselves from its curse or its dominion. He has conquered this enemy. Hidden in Him, no enemy is able to touch them! They see this; they behold this, with the eye of faith. How refreshing that Refuge appears to their battered and weary soul. By Him the guilt and curse of sin is taken away, and through Him the service of sin will also finally be removed.

Friends, has your soul ever fled unto Christ as the only refuge? This refuge-taking faith is experienced to be a gift of God to His militant Church who despair in the spiritual warfare. Christ becomes precious to their soul, as the only name given under heaven among men by whom they must be saved. Now that they have seen Him, they begin to seek Him, that He may become their refuge, that they may be hidden in Him and that they may receive the blessed assurance and comfort of this. Refuge-taking faith is unknown to all who have never been enlisted in the warfare of the Church, or who still retain their own strength in the battle. However, of the true Mount Zion, who find themselves without might against this great company that cometh against them, neither know what to do, it will continue forever to be declared, “God is known in her palaces for a refuge.”

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