FALSE REFUGES
Isaiah 28:18. Your covenant with death shall be disannulled.
Like the sinners spoken of in this chapter, most sinful men say in effect, “We have made a covenant with death,” &c. (Isaiah 28:15).
I. That he may escape the dreaded consequences of sin, the troubled sinner seeks a refuge. He flees—
1. From the voice of reason. The presence of a reasoning power in man is incompatible with the practice of sin. This is seen in the fact that when sinners can be brought to think, they at once admit themselves to be wrong. The moment a man commences to think about sin, that moment he becomes aware that it will not bear thinking about. It is because a sinful life is an unthinking life that God’s invitations to sinners are invitations to reason (chap. Isaiah 1:18; Psalms 50:22).
2. From an accusing conscience. The authority of conscience is supreme, and no man can sin without feeling its sting. To escape remorse, which is conscience at work, men seek a refuge.
3. From an offended God. Sin is offensive to God’s holiness; for being pure, He must hate impurity. Because sinners are conscious that they have rendered themselves obnoxious to God, they seek a refuge.
4. From a broken law. In obedience to law there is safety, right, and happiness; while in disregarding law there is nothing but disaster. And from the consequences of the broken law—the broken law of God written on the heart, proclaimed in Nature, revealed in the Bible—the sinner tries to hide.
5. From an endless future. This more than anything else terrifies sinners and drives them to seek shelter.
II. Sinners, blindly infatuated, seek a refuge in wrong objects. They make a covenant with death and an agreement with hell. The terms “death” and “hell” stand for the whole class of false securities in which men seek shelter by making a covenant and agreement with them.
1. Unbelief is one of the more modern refuges of sin. When men can blot out of the universe the idea of God, quench the sense of moral responsibility, remove the belief in immortality, persuade themselves that there is no other world, that death is an eternal sleep, that heaven is only an air-castle, and hell a mere chimera, they may then indulge in evil to their hearts’ content.
2. Superstition is another. Not in open unbelief, but under the cover of a false religion others seek to shelter. Unable to shake off belief in God and in a spiritual world, they search for some system which will at once allow a profession of religion and a practice of wickedness. Nor are such systems wanting, nor are they without disciples. Romanism offers indulgences for gold and pardons for pence, and thus provides a refuge for the stronger in pocket than in brain.
3. Annihilation is another. According to some, such is the awfulness of the thought of extinction of being, that men revolt from it. Establish it that when sinners die they cease to live, and what better refuge for sin is possible, and what other is needed? Sinful men will soon say, “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.”
4. Excess is another. When the previous ones have failed to give comfort, the sinner rushes madly into excess. The drunkard seeks in increased intemperance to drown the sorrow his indulgence has occasioned.
5. Indifference is the last. This is the only comfort some men can find in their career of evil. But indifference is impossible without a denial of human responsibility. Sad indeed must the condition of human nature be when brought to this.
III. The refuges so confidently trusted in are utterly insecure.
1. Because they are incompatible with the real need of man. Only that can be conducive to man’s safety which meets man’s need. No human need is met by infidelity, or by superstition, or by annihilation, or by indulgence, or by indifference. Any one of these, tested by this argument drawn from human necessities, will be found a refuge of lies.
2. Because they are at variance with human instincts. Instinctively men believe in a Divine existence, in moral accountability, and in immortality.
3. Because they contradict human experience. They have all been tried, and as often as they have been tried they have been found false.
4. Because they are opposed to the teaching of revelation, both natural and Biblical. Nature proclaims loudly against all sin-sought refuges. The teaching of Nature and the Bible is that man is incompetent to provide for his own security, and that God only, in the exercise of His Divine prerogative, can provide for sinners the security they need.
IV. By Divine appointment the refuges so madly sought shall be totally destroyed. “Your covenant with death shall be disannulled.”
1. By consequence of their inherent character. They are “refuges of lies,” and necessarily all refuges built on lies must perish.
2. By necessity of strict justice. “Judgment will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet” (Isaiah 28:17).
3. By the exertion of Almighty power. “And the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding-place.”
CONCLUSION.—God has mercifully provided a true refuge. He only cuts off the false that He may exhibit the true. “Behold, I lay in Sion for a foundation a stone,” &c. (Isaiah 28:16).—William Brooks: Study and the Pulpit, New Series, vol. 1 pp. 413–416.