Immense boons have come to nations by kings like David, prophets like Samuel, deliverers like Gideon, lawgivers like Moses.

But what are all good men put together compared with THE MAN, Christ Jesus?

We are now to view him as our shield against ten thousand ills: the hiding place and covert of his people.

l. Mysterious hurricanes within, which cause the most dreadful confusion of mind. Winds, whose direction is uncertain, shaking everything, creating unrest and distraction. Frequently no definite cause can be assigned for them; the cause may be constitutional, or physical, or circumstantial.

2. Overwhelming tempests of spiritual distress on account of sin, wrong desire, conscious declension, unbelief, etc.

3. Fierce blasts of temptation, insinuation, suggestion, denunciation, etc., from Satan.

4. Wild attacks from human enemies, who taunt, slander, threaten, etc. David was wont to use this refuge. He says, "I flee unto thee to hide me" (Ps. 143:9).

5. Trying gales of temporal losses, bereavements, and other afflictions.

6. Above all, the storm of divine anger when we have grieved the Holy Spirit, and lost communion with God.

None of these winds and tempests are we able to bear: our only safety lies in getting out of them by finding a shelter where God has provided it (Isa. 25:4; 26:20; Ps. 32:7).

• Sympathizing with us, and


• Bringing God near to us.

2. As more than man, ruling every tempest, covering every feeble traveler, as within the cleft of a rock.
3. As Substitutionary Man, interposing, breasting the storm for us, hiding us by being weather-beaten himself.
4. As Representative Man, more than conqueror, and glorified.

• In him we are delivered from divine wrath.


• In him we are covered from Satan's blasts.


• In him we dwell above trial by happy fellowship with him.


• In him we are victors over death.

5. As Ever-living Man: we live because he lives, and thus we defy the tempest of death (John 14:19).
6. As Interceding Man. He says, "I have prayed for thee," when Satan is seeking to destroy any one of us (Luke 22:32).
7. As the Coming Man. We dread no political catastrophes, or social disruptions, for "he must reign." The end is secured: "Behold, he cometh with clouds" (Rev. 1:7).

1. Let him stand before us, interposing between us and the punishment of sin. Hide behind him by faith.
2. Let him daily cover us from all evil, as our Shield and Protector (Ps.119:114).
3. Let us enter info him more and more fully, that we may be more hidden, that he may be more known to us, and that we may have a fuller sense of security.

He is a capacious hiding-place: "Yet there is room." As in Adullam all David's army could hide, so is Jesus able to receive hosts of sinners.

He is an inviting shelter, because he is Man, and therefore has compassion towards men, and a joy in their salvation.

Well do I remember being caught in the mistral at Hyeres, when it blew with unusual fury; it not only drove clouds of dust with terrible force, but boughs of trees, and all sorts of light material were propelled with tremendous force. One wondered that a tree remained upright, or a fence in its place. What a joy it was to hide behind a solid wall, and under its shelter to run along till we were safe within doors! Then we knew in some measure the value of a hiding-place from the wind. But what is that to a cyclone, which tears down houses, and lifts ships upon the dry land? Friends who have lived abroad have startled us with their descriptions of what wind can be, and they have made us cease to wonder that a hiding-place should be greatly prized by dwellers in eastern lands.

I creep under my Lord's wings in the great shower, and the waters cannot reach me. Let fools laugh the fools' laughter, and scorn Christ, and bid the weeping captives in Babylon to sing them one of the songs of Zion. We may sing, even in our winter's storm, in the expectation of a summer's sun at the turn of the year. No created powers in hell, or out of hell, can mar our Lord's work, or spoil our song of joy. Let us then, be glad and rejoice in the salvation of our Lord, for faith had never yet cause to have tearful eyes, or a saddened brow, or to droop or die. — Samuel Rutherford

A shelter is nothing if we stand in front of it. The main thought with many a would-be Christian is his own works, feelings, and attainments: this is to stand on the windy side of the wall by putting self before Jesus. Our safety lies in getting behind Christ, and letting him stand in the wind's eye. We must be altogether hidden, or Christ cannot be our hiding place.

Foolish religionists hear about the hiding place, but never get into it. How great is the folly of such conduct! It makes Jesus to be of no value or effect. What is a roof to a man who lies in the open, or a boat to one who sinks in the sea? Even the Man Christ Jesus, though ordained of God to be a covert from the tempest, can cover none but those who are in him. Come then, poor sinner, enter where you may; hide in him who was evidently meant to hide you, for he was ordained to be a hiding place, and must be used as such, or the very aim of his life and death would be missed.

• His incarnation, in which he assumed our nature.


• His life on earth, in which he honored our nature.


• His death, by which he redeemed our nature.


• His resurrection, by which he upraised our nature.

Consider the Word made flesh, and you have before you "rivers of water?" "It pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell?"

Though manhood seems to be a dry place, a salt and barren land, yet in the case of this Man it yields rivers of water, numberless streams, abounding with refreshment.

l. He came into the dry place of a fallen, ruined, rebellious world.
2. He comes to men personally, notwithstanding their being without strength, without righteousness, without desire, without life.
3. He flows within us in rivers of grace, though the old nature continues to be a dry and parched land.
4. He continues the inflowing of his grace till he perfects us, and this he does though decay of nature, failure, and fickleness prove us to be as a dry place.

1. He is the more quickly discovered; as rivers would be in a desert.
2. He is the more highly valued; as water in a torrid climate.
3. He is the more largely used; as streams in a burning wilderness.
4. He is the more surely known to be the gift of God's grace. How else came he to be in so dry a place? Those who are most devoid of merit are the more clear as to God's grace.
5. He is the more gratefully extolled. Men sing of rivers which Flow through dreary wastes.

He is rivers of water in a dry place. The dry place is his sphere of action. Nature's want is the platform for the display of grace.

1. This is implied in our Lord's offices. A Savior for sinners. A Priest who can have compassion on the ignorant, etc.
2. This is remembered in his great qualifications. Rivers, because the place is so dry. Full of grace and truth, because we are so sinful and false. Mighty to save, because we are so lost, etc.
3. This is manifested by the persons to whom he comes. Not many great or mighty are chosen. "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." He calls "the chief of sinners." In every case the rivers of love flow into a dry place.
4. This is clear from the object which he aimed at, namely, the glory of God, and the making known of the riches of his grace. This can be best accomplished by working salvation where there is no apparent likelihood of it, or, in other words, causing rivers to water dry places.

Come to Jesus, though your nature be dry, and your case hopeless. Come, for there are rivers of grace in him. Come, for they flow at your feet, "in a dry place."

Come, if you have come before, and are just now in a backsliding condition. The Lord Jesus is still the same; the rivers of mercy in him can never be dried up.

Christ never seems empty to any but those who are full of themselves. He is dry to those who overflow with personal fullness, but he floods with his grace all who are dried up as to all self-reliance.

Men that have dry land spare no cost, refuse no pains, to bring rivulets of waters through it, that it may be moistened. It will, they know, in a little time, quit all their cost, and recompense all their labor. Oh, that men would be as careful that their dry hearts might be watered! — Ralph Robinson

The claims of Jesus Christ upon our gratitude and devotion are such that we gladly borrow language from any that may help us to utter his praise. Thus Dr. Marsh adopted Pope's lines, altering only the last words:

With what joy do travelers through the Bayuda desert come within sight of the Nile! While toiling over the burning sand they have dreamed of rivers, and the mirage mocks them with the image of their day dream. The fiction enchants them because the fact would be so delightful What must it be actually to drink of the stream after terrible hours of thirst? Hindus worship their rivers as gods, so precious do they conceive them to be. Do you wonder that the gratitude of the ignorant should take such a form? What would their hot country be without them? What would our hearts, our lives, our present, our future, be without Christ? What would be the outlook of the age — what the prospect of our nation — what the destiny, of the world, without the Lord Jesus?

What we want in Christ, we always find in him. When we want nothing, we find nothing. When we want little, we find little. When we want much, we find much. But when we want everything, and get reduced to complete nakedness and beggary, we find in Christ God's complete treasure-house, out of which come gold and jewels to enrich us, and garments to clothe us in the richness and righteousness of the Lord. — Sears

He records his experience for the glory of God, for his own refreshment, and for our encouragement.

1. He had been in peace. Probably this had brought with it a dangerous state, in which the mind became carnally secure, self-contented, stagnant, slumbering, careless, worldly.
2. He underwent a change. It was sudden and surprising — "Behold." It broke up all his peace, and took the place of it.
3. His new state was one of emphatic sorrow — "Bitterness." "Great bitterness." In bodily condition and in mental emotion he tasted the wormwood and the gall. Read previous verses, and see how he mourned.
4. It wrought his health. "So wilt thou recover me" (verse 16).

• It led him to repentance for the past. He speaks of "my sins."


• It brought him to his knees in prayer.


• It revealed his inward decline, and weakness of grace.


• It made him put away his defilements.


• It deepened his faith in God. "The Lord was ready to Save me" (verse 20).

If any are now drinking the bitter cup, let them be of good cheer, for there is a cup of salvation in God's hand.

• The Lord delivers the soul from the pit of hell, of sin, of despair, of temptation, of death. He alone can do this.

• Love suggested and ordained it.


• Love actually performed it by its own hands. "In love to my soul thou hast loved it from the pit."


• Love breaks the heart, and binds it up.


• Love sets us free, and then holds us captive.


• We are by love loved out of sorrow, rebellion, despondency, coldness, and weakness. Acknowledge this heartily.


• Measure this love by your demerit, your danger, your present complete safety, and by the greatness of the Deliverer, and what the delivery cost him.


• Treasure this love, and sing of it all the days of your life.

1. This was the cause of his restored peace. He was burdened while sin remained, but when that was gone, peace returned.
2. This removed the whole burden. "Sins"; "my sins"; "all my sins:"
3. This involved effort on God's part. "Thou hast cast?' We remember the more than herculean labors of Jesus, who has hurled our load into the bottomless deep.
4. This is wonderfully described. "Behind thy back"; this is:

• The place of desertion. God has gone from our sin never to return to it. He has left it for ever, and it will never cross his path again, for he never moves backward.


• The place of forgetfulness: he will not remember it any more.


• The place of nonentity: nothing is behind the back of God.

Therefore we will tell others our story, as Hezekiah has told us his. Let us seek out one or more who will hear us with attention.

Thomas Bilney, the martyr, after his submission to the Papacy, being brought again to repentance, was, as Latimer reports, for a time inconsolable. "His friends dared not suffer him to be alone day or night. They comforted him as they could, but no comforts would serve; and as for the comfortable places of Scripture, to bring them to him was as though a man should run him through the heart with a sword?"

Now friend, give me your answer: Is it best to see sin and guilt now, while you may see a Savior also; or to see sin arid a judge hereafter, but no Savior? Sin you shall see, as we say, in spite of your teeth, will you, nil you. Oh, then, let me see sin and guilt now; Oh, now, with a sweet Savior, that I may have this woeful sight past when I come to die. — Giles Firmin

"Thou hast cast," etc. These last words are a borrowed speech, taken from the manner of men, who are wont to cast behind their backs such things as they have no mind to see, regard, or remember. A gracious soul hath always his sins before his face: "I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me"; and therefore no wonder if the Lord cast them behind his back. A father soon forgets and casts behind his back those faults that the child remembers and hath always before his eyes, so cloth the Father of spirits. — Thomas Brooks

I have read somewhere of a great divine (I think it was ficolampadius), who being recovered from a great sickness, said,"I have learned! under this sickness to know sin and God" Did he not know these before? Doubtless he could preach good sermons concerning God and sin; but the Spirit, it seems, in that sickness, taught him these otherwise than he knew them before. — Giles Firmin

Some of the pits referred to in the Bible were prisons; one such I saw at Athens, and another at Rome. To these there were no openings except a hole at the top, which served for both door and window. The bottoms of these pits were necessarily in a filthy and revolting state, and sometimes deep in mud. Isaiah speaks of "the pit of corruptionS' or putrefaction and filth. — John Gadsby

Dr. Watts, from his early infancy to his dying day, scarcely ever knew what health was; but however surprising it may appear, he looked on the affliction as the greatest blessing of his life. The reason he assigned for it was, that, being naturally of a warm temper, and an ambitious disposition, these visitations of divine providence weaned his affections from the world, and brought every passion into subjection to Christ. This he often mentioned to his dear friend, Sir Thomas Abney, in whose house he lived many years. — John Whitecross