Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 491
Proverbs 18:10.
STRONG towers were a greater security in a bygone age than they are now. Then when troops of marauders invaded the land, strong castles were set upon the various hilltops, and the inhabitants gathered up their little wealth and fled there at once. Castles were looked upon as being very difficult places to attack. And ancient troops would rather fight a hundred battles than endure a single siege. Towns which would be taken by modern artillery in twelve hours held out for twelve years against the most potent forces of the ancient times.
He that possessed a castle was lord of all the region round about, and made their inhabitants either his clients who sought his protection, or his dependents whom he ruled at will. He who owned a strong tower felt, however potent might be his adversary, his walls and bulwarks would be his sure salvation. Generous rulers provided strongholds for their people—mountain fastnesses where the peasantry might be sheltered from marauders.
Transfer your thoughts to a thousand years ago, and picture a people, who after plowing and sowing, have gathered in their harvest. But when they are about to make merry with the harvest festival, a startling signal banishes their joy. A trumpet is blown from yonder mountain, the bell answers it from the village tower. Hordes of ferocious robbers are approaching, their corn will be devoured by strangers! Burying their corn and furniture, and gathering up the little portable wealth they have, they hasten with all their might to their tower of defense which stands on yonder ridge.
The gates are shut. The drawbridge is pulled up. The iron grating is let down. The warders are on the battlements, and the inhabitants within feel that they are safe. The enemy will rifle their deserted farms, and search for hidden treasure, and finding that the inhabitants are quite beyond their reach, they will betake themselves to some other place. Such is the figure which is in the text. “The name of the Lord is a strong tower: the righteous run into it and are safe.”
I. Of course we all know that by the name of God is meant the Character of the Most High, so that our first lesson is that THE CHARACTER OF GOD FURNISHES THE RIGHTEOUS WITH ABUNDANT SECURITY.
The Character of God is the refuge of the Christian, in opposition to other refuges which godless men have chosen. Solomon suggestively puts the following words in the next verse—“The rich man’s wealth is his strong city, and as an high wall in his own conceit.” The rich man feels that his wealth may afford him comfort. Should he be attacked in law, his wealth can procure him an advocate. Should he be insulted in the streets, the dignity of a full purse will avenge him. Should he be sick, he can hire the best physicians. Should he need ministers to his pleasures, or helpers of his infirmities, they will be at his call.
Should famine stalk through the land, it will avoid his door. Should war itself break forth, he can purchase an escape from the sword, for his wealth is his strong tower in contradistinction to this, the righteous man finds in his God all that the wealthy man finds in his substance and a vast deal more. “The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore will I trust in Him.” God is our treasure. He is to us better than the heaviest purse, or the most magnificent income. Broad acres yield not such peace as a well attested interest in the love and faithfulness of our heavenly Father. Provinces under our sway could not bring to us greater revenues than we possess in Him who makes us heirs of all things by Christ Jesus.
Other men who trust not in their wealth, nevertheless make their own names a strong tower. To say the truth, a man’s good name is no mean defense against the attacks of his fellow men. To wrap one’s self about in the garment of integrity is to defy the chill blast of calumny and to be mailed against the arrows of slander. If we can appeal to God and say, “Lord, You know that in this thing I am not wicked”—then let the mouth of the liar pour forth his slanders, let him scatter his venom where he may—we bear an antidote within before which his poison yields its power.
But this is only true in a very limited sense. Death soon proves to men that their own good name can afford them no consolation, and under conviction of sin a good repute is no shelter. When conscience is awake, when the judgment is unbiased, when we come to know something of the law of God and of the justice of His Character, we soon discover that self-righteousness is no hiding place for us. It is nothing but a crumbling battlement which will fall on the neck of him that hides behind it—a pasteboard fortification yielding to the first shock of the law—a refuge of lies to be beaten down with the great hailstones of eternal vengeance—such is the righteousness of man.