MOUNTAINS OF REFUGE

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 20, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 29.

MOUNTAINS OF REFUGE.

In times of great calamities the people have instinctively sought refuge in the mountains or upon the high places. When the waters of the Deluge were washing out the sin of a polluted world, the people, spurning the true refuge, sought refuge upon the mountain tops. When the descendants of Noah let go their hold on God and turned themselves to their own selfish service and the pleasures of sense, they must have a tower of refuge. Forsaking the refuge already prepared, they would make a refuge of their own, and thus prevent the destruction of their lives by another visitation from God. They thus seemed to think themselves able to protect themselves against any judgment God might see fit to bring upon them as a punishment for their iniquity. Such is the foolishness of human vanity and selfishness. When hostile armies invaded a land, it was a common thing for the inhabitants to flee to the most inaccessible mountains to escape death or deportation to another country.

Popocatepetl, the Greatest of Mexico's Volcanic Mountains.

BECAUSE of this the people came to look upon the mountains as protectors, deliverers, and places of refuge. To the heathen mind this came, finally, to have a religious significance, and they placed the polluting symbols of their idolatrous worship upon the hills and mountains. Whenever the Israelitish nation was ruled by wicked, sensual kings, this heathen idea was carried out throughout the realm, and the people went after Baal and Ashteroth whose altars were on the high places. When a king came upon the throne who feared and served the true God, the hill groves of idolatry were hewn down, the mountain altars were overthrown, the people learned righteousness, and learned to seek the true place of refuge.

Now, in the time of the approach of earth’s greatest calamity, the people are preparing for themselves places of refuge—towers of their own construction—or are fleeing to refuge hills created by their own philosophies. The antediluvians fled to their hills of refuge; but the waters of judgment lapped the highest crags and went over them, to silence forever their ribald mirth and stop forever the profanity of their career. The dwellers on the plains of Shinar built their tower to protect themselves from the consequences of their sins; but the lightnings of the Lord demolished their tower and scattered them with the tongue of confusion to the four corners of the earth. The ancient mountains of refuge have become things of terror, trembling with the suppressed power of execution, or belching out death in fiery missiles or poisonous hurricane. Vain are all such attempts to find deliverance in a way or a place that God has not prepared.

TO-DAY many are spurning the work of the Redeemer in their behalf, and are turning their eyes inward to find within themselves the tower of their strength and salvation, the high mountain of their deliverance. Others are living upon a perverted interpretation of God’s requirements, trusting more in their own powers to make a convenient way of salvation than in the one only way already provided by the Lord Himself. Others are trusting in “good works,” or in self-asserted “holiness” or “sanctification,” without regard to the distinct requirements of God’s great, perpetual, unchangeable law; others in their wealth or station; and others there are who make no pretense of seeking a refuge or trusting in anything whatsoever. But the day is coming, and that soon, which will “try every man’s work of what sort it is,” every man’s refuge of what material it has been builded.

In that great day when long-patient justice begins to perform its great and impartial work, every man will look first to that in which he has been trusting. Those who have been trusting implicitly in God and the way He has prepared will look up and lift up their heads, because their redemption draweth nigh. They will say: “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us; this is Jehovah; we have waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.” Isa. 25:9. The class that has at that time been trusting in Him as a refuge, in His Word as a guide, in His law as an expression of His will, will be the only class that will have any spirit of gladness, any desire for rejoicing. Of the refuge of that

other class, represented by the ancient enemy of God’s people, Moab, the Word says: “The high fortress of thy walls hath He brought down, laid low, and brought to the ground, even to the dust.” In that great day the mountains will furnish no refuge; for “the heaven was removed as a scroll when it is rolled up; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the princes, and the chief captains, and the rich, and the strong, and every bondman and freeman, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains; and they say to the mountains and the rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of Their wrath is come; and who is able to stand?” Rev. 6: 14-17. But the mountains will refuse to hide them, tho they flee to the topmost pinnacle. The Lord says through Isaiah: “The day of the Lord of hosts shall be . . . upon all the high mountains” (ch. 2: 13-14); “The mountains shall be melted with their blood, . . . and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll” (ch. 34: 3, 4); “Thou shalt thresh the mountains” (ch. 41: 15).

BUT in that most searching and trying time the Lord’s promise to His people is, as to His people anciently, when entering the typical land of promise: “The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” And through the Psalmist He tells us: “Jehovah also will be a high tower for the oppressed, a high tower in times of trouble;” “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will we not fear, tho the earth do change, and the mountains be shaken into the heart of the seas.” So let us say with David: “My soul taketh refuge in Thee; yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I take refuge, until these calamities be overpast.” That is the true refuge, the only refuge there is worthy a moment’s thought. In the great day of earth’s greatest tribulation, so fast approaching, they who have chosen that mountain of refuge, that high tower of strength, will have no need of fear. The everlasting arms are underneath; the protecting wings are over and around; and they are safe.