Ultimate Security: Finding a Refuge in Difficult Times (10 page)

I trust that as you read this, you will give heed to these words. If you have never taken the opportunity offered earlier to commit yourself to Christ the eternal Rock, I pray that you will resolve not to continue another day without Christ, without hope, and without God. (Please refer to the prayer of salvation in the early part of chapter 3 or at the end of chapter 11.)

For the soul committed to the Lord, there is a refuge, and there is hope, even in the valley of the shadow of death.

The Basis of Our Hope: Union with Christ

Having considered the contrast in this life between the person who is related to Christ and the person who is not related to Christ, I want to take that picture a little further. Let’s look now at the contrast at death between the individual who is united to Christ by faith, and the individual who is separated from Christ. In 1 Thessalonians, Paul was writing to Christian believers who had only recently come to the Lord. He was explaining the appropriate Christian response to the death of a fellow believer. Such a death is a sorrowful occasion, he said, but it brings a kind of sorrow that is totally different from the sorrow of this world.

Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. (1 Thessalonians 4:13)

Notice that
“the rest of men”
who are not united to Christ have no hope in death. On the other hand, speaking about believers who have died, Paul used a phrase commonly found in the New Testament in such a context. Rather than saying that they had “died,” he said that they had
“
[fallen]
asleep.”
Then he went on to explain the basis for our hope:

We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. (1 Thessalonians 4:14)

Notice also the vital phrase
“in him.”
In that relationship to Christ, they have fallen asleep—but they are united by faith to the One who Himself died and rose again from the dead. This union guarantees them a similar resurrection in God’s appointed hour. Paul then explains what lies ahead for those in Christ:

According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:15–18)

These are words of encouragement for all of us who are united with Christ. We are not to grieve as others do who have no hope. If our loved one dies in Christ, we will miss him, and there will be very real pain in our heart, but it will not be a hopeless pain. We have the assurance that when Jesus returns, we will meet our loved one again, and together we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore, we are able to encourage one another with this hope.

Two Vivid Memories

In regard to this topic of hope, I want to relate two vivid scenes that I witnessed in Africa. The first took place at the pyramids at Giza in Egypt. As I was looking at the pyramids, a Muslim funeral happened to be taking place at a cemetery just about a quarter of a mile away. A large group of women, all clothed in black, were making the most terrible wailing noise of absolutely hopeless grief. The sound of their grief pierced my heart. At first, I silently prayed,
God, thank You that You’ve delivered us from that hopelessness at death.
Then, in the next moment, a cry went up out of my heart for the millions of people who do not know this hope at death.

The second scene took place earlier, in East Africa, where I was the principal of a training college for African teachers. One of our female students, named Agneta, had acquired typhoid fever and was in a coma. I went with my first wife, Lydia, to visit her in the hospital. Because Agneta was in a coma, she was unable to respond. I prayed silently,
Lord, let her come out of that coma long enough for me to ask her the one vital question.
Almost immediately, she opened her eyes and looked up at me. I asked her, “Agneta, do you know for sure that your soul is safe in the Lord’s keeping?” She looked me full in the eyes and said, “Yes.” Then she lapsed back into the coma. Even though I had no further communication with her before she went into eternity, I knew all I needed to know. I knew that she was related to Jesus with that bond that can never be broken in time or eternity.

Our Eternal Hope

As we close this chapter, let us read these beautiful words from Proverbs:

The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day. (Proverbs 4:18)

Once you have put your foot on that path of righteousness through a commitment to the Lord, the path will grow brighter with each step you take. At the end of that path, the full brightness of noonday will be your personal reunion with the Lord when you step out of time into eternity.

When you have made it through that long, dark valley of the shadow of death, you will be in the full brightness and radiance of the Lord’s presence forever.
This is the reality of eternal hope.

15

HOPE AS A REFUGE
AND AN ANCHOR

In this chapter, as we continue with the theme of hope, we will look at two helpful pictures. True, enduring hope is a rare commodity in this world. It is so precious that it will serve us well to dwell on this topic more fully.

Hope as a Refuge

As a preacher, I have certain favorite themes, and
hope
is clearly one of them. Two beautiful pictures of hope are found in the New Testament, both of them in Hebrews 6. The first picture is that of hope as a refuge:

Men swear by someone greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument. Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. (Hebrews 6:16–18)

The writer of Hebrews assures us that our confidence in God—you might even say our security in Him—is based on two absolutely sure and unchanging foundations: First, God’s Word; and, second, God’s oath. Actually, it was not necessary for God to do more than give us His Word. But He was so concerned that we would have total assurance that He gave us His Word and then confirmed it with His oath.
“So that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged.”

When the writer said,
“We who have fled to take hold of the hope…”
he was drawing on a picture from the Old Testament. Under the old covenant, if a man was being pursued by
“an avenger of blood”
who wanted to take his life, there were
“cities of refuge”
to which he could flee and where he would be secure if he was innocent of murder or had killed someone accidentally. (See, for example, Numbers 35:14–25.) In addition, if someone fled to the altar of God and caught hold of the horns of the altar, it was not generally permissible to drag him away from that place until he was assured of a fair trial. (See 1 Kings 1:50–51.)

The writer of Hebrews compared fleeing for refuge to catch hold of the horns of the altar with our hope in God’s unchanging Word and oath. When we catch hold of those “horns” and hold on to them, there is nothing that can drag us away from them. We may be pursued by our guilt, our insecurities, our fear of the future, or our fear of sickness, but if we can make it to the altar of hope and catch hold of those horns, we are safe. God’s unchanging Word is the place of true and permanent security.

The concept of “fleeing to take hold of the hope” suggests urgency. It implies that the pressures are mounting, and the opposing forces are gathering against us, and we must be swift. It is urgent for us to make it to the altar before those forces sweep us away, depriving us of the opportunity God has given us.

When pressures come, I believe it is a matter of urgency for us to put our faith and our hope without reservation in the faithfulness of God and His commitment to us through Jesus Christ. It is essential that we lay hold of the security of God’s Word before some calamity sweeps over us, and we are no longer able to reach out and grasp the horns of that altar of hope. Our hope in God’s Word is a true refuge.

Hope as an Anchor

The writer of Hebrews gives us a second picture of hope that immediately follows the first:

We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain [“veil” nasb, nkjv, kjv], where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek. (Hebrews 6:19–20)

This second picture of hope is that of an
“anchor for the soul.”
This anchor is
“firm and secure”
because it passes out of time through the veil that separates time and eternity. Because it reaches into the eternal realm, it is no longer subject to the pressures and changes of this temporal world. It is securely linked to the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It has been deeply and securely fastened to the Rock that never moves—Christ, the Rock of Ages.

The above passage of Scripture was one that God gave me at a time in my own experience when I desperately needed to understand the nature of hope. I have an analytical mind, and when I first read this passage, I reasoned it out in a particular way. Let me share those insights with you, because I believe they will help you.

I said to myself,
So, hope is the anchor.
That truth immediately gave me a picture of a boat that is secured by its anchor.

Then I asked,
Why does a boat need an anchor?
My answer was,
Because a boat, by its very nature, floats in a totally unstable, insecure, impermanent element—water.
You cannot grasp or lay hold of water; it just runs through your hand. There is no security there.

To achieve security in the insecure element of water, a boat must pass its anchor through the unstable element so that the anchor can grasp something stable—such as a rock or the sea bed itself.

When this picture was clear in my mind, God began to speak to me:
Your life is like that boat. You’re on a sea. You’re in the world in a situation that’s totally unstable. There’s nothing permanent—nothing you can lay hold of. There’s nothing you can grasp that will give you security. If you want true and enduring security, you must do the same as a boat. You must pass the anchor of hope through the realm of time and into the realm of eternity. Only in the eternal, unchanging realm of God—His presence, His Word, the very person and nature and work of Jesus Christ—is there permanence and security.

When I received that message from the Lord, I made a transaction with Him that changed my outlook on things. I passed my anchor right out of time and into eternity. I fastened it on the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. In so doing, I gained a new hope, a new peace, and a new security that have been mine ever since.

Do you desire to do the same, right now? Do you recognize your need, in the midst of all the instabilities you face, to have your anchor solidly fixed on the person and work of Jesus Christ?

If that is your desire, take a moment now to make the same transaction by means of a simple prayer and declaration:

Lord Jesus, I pass the anchor of hope for my life out of time and into Your eternal realm. I fasten the anchor of my life to the eternal work of Jesus Christ. And, by so doing, I receive Your eternal hope in my life from this point onward. Amen.

16

“THE SECRET PLACE”

In considering this theme of security, thus far we have looked primarily at the eternal, unseen realm as our only ultimate source of true and lasting security. Let us now turn our attention to various aspects of security in this present life—security during times of trouble, financial security, and emotional security. We will not only consider the various ways in which God provides these types of security, but we will also learn the conditions we must meet in order to qualify for His security in each area of our lives.

Security During Times of Trouble

First, we will look at what God’s Word promises about finding security in times of trouble.
In this section, I will not be speaking merely from theory but on the basis of my personal experiences. I will use these experiences as practical examples for you.

A beautiful and powerful Scripture passage that promises total security in conditions such as war, famine, pestilence, and other such circumstances is found in Psalm 91. This passage has been called “God’s Atomic Bomb Shelter.” Many Bible commentators attribute Psalm 91 to Moses, while others attribute it to David. Whoever the author was, either Moses or David could have written these words from personal experience of their own times of distress:

He who dwells in the shelter [“secret place” nkjv, kjv] of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” Surely he will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked. If you make the Most High your dwelling—even the Lord, who is my refuge—then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent. (Psalm 91:1–10)