Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 624
Delivered on Wednesday Evening, March 29, 1865, by C. H. Spurgeon, at Upton Chapel
“The eternal God is your refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms: and He shall thrust out the enemy from before you. And shall say, Destroy them.” Deuteronomy 33:27.
THERE is a great satisfaction in having such a text as this, for even if the preacher should not be able to say anything to edification, yet the text itself is rich food for the saints and may fully satisfy their hunger. Let but a child of God really digest such a royal dainty as this and he shall be as well fed as was Elijah when, waking up, found food under the juniper tree, in the strength of which he might go for forty days. This one verse may, by the Holy Spirit, be made sufficiently nourishing to sustain a Believer from that place where he now is, to the gates of Glory. “The eternal God is your refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms.”
It is fabled that the swan sings but once and that just before it dies. So Moses, who had been all his life a Prophet, now closes his career a poet and dies singing! He praises God, setting Him above all gods and defying all men to find one like unto Him. “Who is like unto the God of Jeshurun?” Not satisfied with this, he also exalts in the highest degree all the people who have God to be their portion. “Happy are you, O Israel. Who is like unto you?” I may say that my text is a combination of the two—he is here extolling God, the everlasting and eternal God who is our refuge—and he is here admiring the privilege of Believers who have such a God to rest upon.
While we are speaking, therefore, this evening, if you are not profited by our words, yet your hearts may be blessed if you praise God for His great goodness towards you. And may you also feel melted with holy joy at the blessed privileges which belong to you as the people of God—in having such a God who is so good to you. The text naturally divides itself into two parts—the present and the future. In the present we have the eternal God to be our refuge. In the future it is written that He shall thrust out the enemy from before us and shall say, “Destroy them.”
I. Beginning then, with the first part of the text, THE PRESENT BLESSING appeals to me to give us three distinct thoughts. God is our shelter. “The eternal God is your refuge.” But the word, “refuge,” according to many of the best translators, may be read, “mansion,” or “abiding place.” So here comes a second thought—that God is our abode. Then the next sentence gives us the third thought, “And underneath are the everlasting arms,” so that God is our support, as well as our shelter and our abode.
1. We will begin our meditation, in the Spirit’s power, by considering God as our shelter. The children of Israel, while they were in Egypt and in the wilderness, were a type of God’s visible Church on earth. Moses was speaking primarily of them, but secondarily, of all the chosen ones of God in every age. Now, as God was the shelter of His ancient people Israel, so is He the refuge of His saints through all time. And first, He was eminently their shelter when they were under bondage and the yoke was heavy. When they had to make bricks without straw and the taskmasters oppressed them, then the people cried unto the Lord and God heard their cry and sent unto them His servant Moses.
So also there often comes to men a time when they begin to feel the oppression of Satan. I believe that many ungodly men feel the slavery of their position. Even some of those who are never converted have sense enough to feel at times that the service of Satan is a hard one, yielding but little pleasure and involving awful risks. Some men cannot go long making bricks without straw without being more or less conscious that they are in the house of bondage. These, who are not God’s people, under the pressure of mind consequent upon a partial discovery of their state, turn to some form of pleasure or self-righteousness in order to forget their burden and yoke.
But God’s elect people, moved by a higher power, are led to cry unto their God. It is one of the first signs of a chosen soul—that it seems to know, as if by heavenly instinct—where its true refuge is. Dear Brothers and Sisters, you remember that although you knew but little of Christ—and in doctrinal matters you were very dark, though you did not understand, perhaps, even your own need—yet there was a something in you that made you pray and realize that only at the Mercy Seat could you find your refuge.
Before you were a Christian, before you could say—“Christ is mine”—your bedside was the witness to many flowing tears when your aching heart poured itself out before God, perhaps in strains like these—“O God, I need something. I do not know what it is I need, but I feel a heaviness of spirit. My mind is burdened and I feel that You only can unburden me. I know that I am a sinner! Oh, that You would forgive me! I hardly understand the plan of salvation, but one thing I know—I want to be saved! I would arise and go unto my Father—my heart pants to make Your bosom my refuge.”