Where Is Your Refuge?

Good afternoon, everyone. Happy Sabbath to everyone.

Pull up the right file here. Hopefully everyone's having a good start to the weekend.

Anyone look at the weather forecast yet for the next few days?

We're about to hit that milestone, aren't we? The first snow of the year.

I enjoy snow, actually. I won't rub it in, but I'm looking forward to it. It's a nice change.

If it's going to be dark and gray, we might as well have some nice white snow to brighten things up a bit.

I don't know how many of you saw this particular piece of news lately, but I was going to read a short excerpt from this article from the Times of India, and it's related to something that's been fairly widely reported in a number of different news outlets. And the headline from this article, which dates back to August of this year, is Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and other tech giants to go underground building secret bunkers for world war crises, pandemics, and climate disasters. The article goes on to say Silicon Valley has always been synonymous with innovation, wealth, and futuristic vision. Yet behind the glossy facade of AI breakthroughs and billion-dollar valuations lies an unexpected trend. Tech giants quietly building bunkers.

From open AI CEO Sam Altman, who revealed having a heavily reinforced underground basement, to billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos investing in fortified hideouts, survival planning is becoming the new status symbol. These bunkers are not for science fiction AI apocalypses, but for real world threats. Global conflict, pandemic, cyber warfare, climate disasters, economic instability, civil unrest, and long-term infrastructure failures threatening elite security and continuity. As geopolitical tensions rise and social unrest becomes a growing concern, tech elites are preparing for worst-case scenarios with luxury shelters equipped with renewable energy, air filtration systems, hydroponic farms, and even theaters. What else do you need but to be able to watch Netflix when the world is going down the tubes? This trend reflects a sobering shift. While these leaders are shaping humanity's technological future, they're also investing heavily to ensure their own survival when society's stability is at risk. It goes on to describe a few more of the things that are in some of these bunkers, which include solar power and other off-grid energy sources, advanced air and water filtration systems, hydroponic farms, medical facilities, secure communication centers, and luxury amenities like high-end gyms, swimming pools, and private cinemas. Now, others with more modest means, I think we're all aware from time to time, we'll go and build more modest off-grid refuges.

What does all this mean? Do we need to care about it? Knowing what we do, especially about times of tribulation that are coming, what attention should we give to building refuges? Actually, the Bible spends a lot of time talking about exactly that and gives us pretty exact instructions about building refuges for ourselves. So let's spend some time today reflecting on refuge, what the Bible has to say about it, and how it is that we're supposed to go about building our refuge.

I think we all understand going into this what a refuge is, but just to level set on that, we're talking here about a place of physical shelter or protection. That's how people generally think of refuge. A place to escape in times of danger, distress, or other adverse circumstances. But beyond just physical refuge, can apply more broadly to support systems like family, community, and other things that are needed for psychological or emotional well-being.

Did you ever think about the fact that building a refuge is a dominant theme of the Bible?

Probably not in the context that Mark Zuckerberg and some of these other folks are thinking about it. But actually creating, building, and finding refuge is a theme that is wrapped entirely through the Bible. You can't read more than a few chapters or books without encountering it. Relying on one of my favorite AI tools, here are a few counts across the Bible. I'm not going to vouch for total accuracy, but I think it's inadicatively correct. Direct references to refuge in the Bible. 55 to 60 times in the Old Testament alone. Direct references to the idea of refuge. Other Hebrew words that refer to the same themes, like fortress or dwelling. Another 50 to 60 times just in the Old Testament. And if we look at New Testament, Greek equivalents that refer to refuge will encounter another 30 to 40 references.

So throughout the Bible, this is a theme. It's something I'd encourage all of us to think about and look at a little bit further over the course of time, especially as in society around us, this idea of refuge and what we do in times of trouble might come up more often. So let's take a brief walk as a starting point just through a few of these verses.

I'm not going to put everyone to sleep by reading 50 to 60 verses on refuge, but let's take a quick sampling and just see a few of the things that are said about the topic. Deuteronomy 33 will read verse 27 of Deuteronomy 33. This is from the New Living Translation. Here in Deuteronomy, I think we know the parting words that Moses had inspired by God to the Israelites. We read, So Moses reminding Israel as they were entering the Promised Land, as they were rehearsing all the things that had happened to them over the course of coming out of Egypt, wandering the wilderness and now receiving their inheritance, Moses really driving home the theme that God is their refuge. Let's turn to Psalm 62. Not surprisingly, the Psalms has a lot to say about refuge. One of the things we might remember about David and his history as he was coming up after he'd been anointed the king before he actually took the kingship, he was on the run for quite a period of time. There was one person who was well acquainted with what it took to find refuge, to keep safe when someone was literally hunting them down. In fear of their lives, it was David. And David says actually quite a lot across the Psalms about refuge. Psalm 62, I didn't look, by the way, if this is specifically a Psalm written by David, not all of them were. Psalm 62 verse 7, Psalm 91 is not a tribute to anyone. Specifically, a lot of commentators believe this is actually a Psalm of Moses. Because the Psalm right before it, Psalm 90, which is fairly connected, Psalms 90 through 92, Psalm 90 is indicated as a Psalm of Moses. Regardless of who wrote it, it has a lot to say in very picturesque language about the idea of refuge. Psalm 91 will start in verse 1.

And this really covers the entire gamut of things that can impact us, that can make us feel insecure, that can make us feel pursued and hunted, whether that's physically or whether it's emotionally or psychologically as we're suffering through things, addressed in this Psalm and the fact that God is our refuge through all of these things if we seek Him and we dwell in Him. You might remember as well that the Old Testament talks very literally about cities of refuge. There were six different cities of refuge that were set up under the law that God gave to the children of Israel, and these were set up within their society as a way to ensure due process of law in a society where this idea of blood guilt was something that would be carried out.

So in the ancient Near East, if someone died, the relatives of the person who died, especially if it was somebody who died at the hands of another person, would have the ability to pursue that person who was involved in the death and to kill them as recompense for the death of their relative. In the law that was given to the children of Israel—and you can look it up later, we're not going to turn there—but Numbers 35, Deuteronomy 19, and Joshua 20 are the places where this is addressed.

Numbers 35, Deuteronomy 19, and Joshua 20, there's provision given within the nation of Israel, the physical nation, for six cities of refuge. And what it allowed for would be if somebody was out, an accident happened, something else happened, where somebody died at the hands of another person, the person who was responsible in some way for that death could flee to the city of refuge.

And the relatives of the person who died would not be able to take them from that city and address blood guilt. Instead, there was a whole process of law that took place after that. The individual who was involved in that act would be taken, they would go, and they would go before the elders, and there would be a judgment made, whether this was something, a deliberate act, or whether it was an accident.

If it was a deliberate act, it was murder, then the penalties for murder were carried out. But if it was not a deliberate act, if it was an accident, or what we might call manslaughter in our laws right now, then that person who was involved in the act could live in the city of refuge. And until the high priest that was in office at that point in time died, that person would have to stay within the city of refuge in order to avoid being potentially subject to this blood guilt and being killed by the relatives of the one who had died.

Once the high priest died, that individual was completely freed and could leave, and there was no opportunity for anyone to touch him again. So literal cities of refuge in this case that were set up. If you're interested more in that, our good friend and former pastor, Greg Thomas, gave a sermon about this about three years ago, and would encourage you to look it up on our website.

It goes through those cities of refuge, as well as what their spiritual symbolism is for Jesus Christ as our refuge. Moving into the New Testament, as we're talking again about this theme of refuge that works its way entirely through the Bible, Matthew 11. Let's turn to Matthew 11.

We'll read verses 28 through 30. Because Jesus Christ talked about the fact that he is a refuge for those that he calls, those who have God's Spirit, and come to him. Here we read Matthew 11, starting in verse 28. Come to me, all you who labor and are heavenly laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. In so many words, what Jesus Christ is saying is that he is a refuge for his people. The burdens that we carry, the things that weigh us down, especially the things that weigh us down emotionally, psychologically, he is there to carry that burden for us, to lighten it, to take it from us. Hebrews 6, continuing on, or walk through the Bible in this theme, we'll read verses 17 through 19. Hebrews 6 verses 17 through 19. Here the writer of Hebrews says, This hope we have is an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast.

And it goes on. Some commentators believe this is a direct reference to the idea of fleeing in the Old Testament to a city of refuge, and in the same way as we feel pursued. Pursued by the things of life, pursued by humanity, the carnality, the things that drag us down from our own human ways, we can flee for refuge to God and lay hold on a different promise and a different hope. And that's certainly something that frees us of a lot of burdens, especially as we go through some of the very difficult turns that life can have.

And last scripture, as we work our way through this portion of the message, in terms of following this thread all the way through the Bibles in Revelation, in Revelation 7, we see words written about those who come through the tribulation and turn to God. And again, not surprisingly, this same theme comes through in reference to those people. We'll read here from the New International Version. We'll start in verse 14 of Revelation 7.

Breaking into the thought, and he said, I read that, I think, back to Psalm 91, that image of a bird spreading its wings, a mother bird spreading its wings over its young. I didn't grab a YouTube video of this, but there's lots of them out there if you want to see them, lots of pictures. And it's really amazing when you see these pictures of these birds, different types of birds, and how they'll bring their wings out and they'll fluff the feathers out to make a maximum covering. And they'll sometimes, you know, they'll pivot and they'll put this covering over their young in order to shelter them if there's a predator out there.

Much more effective than another funny video that I saw out there last night as well of a, it was a zookeeper and a bunch of possums. And some of you might have seen it. There's probably a dozen possums lined up in front of her. She must have been feeding them or something.

And she just stood there and then she said, boo! And all these possums fell over, acting dead. I'm sure there's some rich symbolism there. I gotta ask God at some point in time, who came up with the idea of possums playing dead? It's pretty humorous. Anyways.

Sheltered within his presence, we read here in Revelation 7, that idea of the birds. We see in nature how, you know, we don't want to encounter a mother bear when there's a cub roaming around, right? God puts that sheltering nature, and it's something that we can learn from. It's referred to here as one of the attributes of God, the way that he provides refuge and protection. I think it's incredibly powerful when you think of the tenacity of that.

Right? And the focus that, whether it's a mother bear or bird giving shelter with its wings, if we think about that as an attribute of God and the way that God cares for us and the way that he looks out for us.

You think about how animals will sacrifice pretty much anything of themselves in order to protect their young in that way. So, as we think about this, again, the point is this thread of this idea of refuge. I think we all got the idea. No, I didn't find a secret code in the Bible about how to build our underground bunker.

The Bible very much talks about refuge, but in a completely different context than we as human beings naturally think about it. It's the idea of trusting for protection, in this case, trusting God.

People would often, in these ancient times, seek refuge under a powerful king. You know, you think of the story about Jesus Christ when he was born.

There was fear. Mary and Joseph had fear for the life of Jesus Christ. What did they do? They sought refuge. They sought refuge under a different ruler by going to Egypt. The Roman rulers had no jurisdiction. They had no power there because the king or pharaoh, whatever it was, the ruler of Egypt at that time, had sway there. It was not at all unusual in these ancient societies that you would go and you would find shelter and you would become subject to a certain governing power. You would find refuge and protection there. That's the way that we're supposed to be with God. There's this theme as well of rest, of security, of a dwelling place, of a stronghold that comes along with this theme of refuge.

Let's take a turn a bit and talk about some of these more specific qualities of biblical refuge and how it differs from the way that we look at things physically. It's important that we think about what our human reflexive approach is to finding refuge because it's what we're not supposed to do, because we're supposed to find it in God. Now, the obvious thing, and what we let off in this message with the idea of building bunkers and so forth, is how do we find refuge by building something that's strong enough that it can withstand anything that's going to come along? So, billionaire bunkers? Check. People who are prepping and hide food, who maybe have an off-the-grid place to run away from or run away to, where they can survive for some period of time. Someone I worked with who had an interesting comment when we were talking about disaster preparedness, he said his disaster preparedness plan was to have more ammunition than his neighbors. Just saying. Not recommending that, but people take all kinds of different views of how to prepare for things physically. We even look at things like the Tower of Babel in the Old Testament. A number of commentators believe the reason the Tower of Babel was built upwards was it was a reaction after the flood. And that people wanted to make sure that this god couldn't touch them again. And if he was going to send floodwaters, well, they were going to build a tower that was high enough to be above the floodwaters and to survive it. We all know how that ended up at the end of the day. And so, all kinds of things that humans try to do in order to create barriers. We're not going to talk heavily about that. I think that part of it is obvious. We read in the Bible how it says over and over again not to trust in power and in might and physical protection because we trust in God. The second impact or the second reaction that we have in order to find refuge is escape. We hear about the fight-or-flight reflex. Whenever I think of this topic, I think of one of the cats that we've had over the years. A little gray cat, whenever someone would knock at the door or there was a loud noise in the house, you could predict exactly what was going to happen. That cat, as quickly as possible, would scurry up the stairs, go onto our bed, and just start clawing and nosing and doing everything possible to get under the blankets. The first time this happened, we looked for quite a long time for this cat, couldn't find it, finally saw this innocuous lump in the bed. The cat could literally stay in there for 2-3 hours at a time. I've never tried doing that. I don't know how you can breathe under a heavy blanket for 2-3 hours. This cat managed to do it. The way the cat behaved, I think maybe it was a little bit oxygen deprived when it was under there. But that's a different topic.

But we all have a bit of that in us, don't we? A very natural human reaction as well as escape. How often, when something bad happens, we talk about the stages of grief, the stages of dealing with change, and one of those is denial.

Because part of what it is is within our human minds, we have to deal with everything that's coming at us. And at least a natural portion of that stage is that we have to come to terms with the fact that it actually happened. And that's a natural stage of grieving, or dealing with change, or dealing with trauma. It only becomes a problem if you get stuck in those places.

You know, escapism is something I'd like to spend a few minutes talking about, because this is something that's rampant in our society today. Much more so than people going off and building bunkers. It is this idea of escapism. And I'll read a few parts here from an article. This is called Escapism in Psychology, Definition Causes and Implications. It's from a website called neuralaunch.com from September of 2024. One of many articles that's out there about this topic. A couple excerpts here. Escapism, it says, comes in many flavors, each with its own unique psychological profile. There's fantasy escapism, where we lose ourselves in imaginary worlds through books, movies, or our own daydreams.

Then there's substance-based escapism, which involves using alcohol or drugs to alter our mental state. And let's not forget about behavioral escapism, like excessive gaming or social media use, where we immerse ourselves in alternative realities or curated versions of life. Any of that feel familiar? I have to admit, when I look at it, it feels familiar, whether it's things I've observed myself or in others.

But hold on a second. Isn't escapism just a fancy word for running away from our problems?

Not quite, the article says. Here's where things get interesting.

Escapism can be both healthy and unhealthy. Healthy escapism provides a temporary respite, allowing us to recharge and return to our challenges with renewed energy.

It's like taking a mental vacation without leaving your living room. Unhealthy escapism, on the other hand, becomes a persistent avoidance of reality, potentially leading to addiction and other mental health issues. And it goes on to talk about triggers of escapism, which can include stress and anxiety, depression and other mental health disorders, trauma and past experiences, societal pressures and expectations, or boredom. And it's interesting, this is like so many other things where there's a good use and an inappropriate use of different things. Escapism can be one. There's a simple element of just getting away, having a break, recollecting yourself mentally. But when you rely on that and trying to always escape from any form of reality, because you don't want to face it, what it says here is when it becomes unhealthy.

One last excerpt from this article. Long-term excessive escapism can lead to some serious consequences. It's like building a house on quicksand. Eventually things are going to sink.

Addiction is a major concern, whether it's to substances, behaviors, or even emotions. Social isolation can creep in as we spend more time in our escapist pursuits and less time connecting with real people. It's like we're building a fortress to protect ourselves, only to find ourselves locked in. And we'll spend a little bit more time taking apart what it says in this sentence back here about escapist pursuits versus connecting with real people, because that's an element that we'll see as we look at things within the Bible and how God works about the idea that escape is very much, and refuge is very much relational in God's terms. Not escaping from, but relating with, escaping to, and being under the shelter of God and with His people.

Last item here from the article is some potentially dangerous forms of escapism in our society. Many of these will, of course, be familiar. Gaming, social media, conspiracy theories, substance abuse, overeating, compulsive shopping, binge watching. And I'll add one for us Christians, one that I've seen over the course of my years, which is things like prophecy addiction or getting so focused on events going on in the world around us that we use it as an escape to avoid looking at our own selves and our own spiritual condition. So the question I would ask, it's going to look different for all of us as we've gone through different things in our lives, as we struggle with different things currently. How does this topic, this theme of escapism, impact us? What is it for each of us personally that we need to be careful about, where we need to be on guard, not open that door too wide, or consider certain behaviors and things that we do to curtail them and replace them with more constructive and God-focused behaviors? Turn with me, if you will, to Titus 2. This verse really stands for the proposition that we are asked to be engaged in the world around us. And we can turn to a lot of different scriptures. I think we could all probably think of a lot of different scriptures about this, that Christianity, at the end of the day, is very much relational. You know, we read about being lights. We see so much written about relationships and how we relate with other people.

This is one scripture. I'll read this from the New Century version in Titus 2.

Titus 2 will read verses 12 and 13. And this is breaking a little bit into the context of the passage, which is talking about God's grace. And in verse 12, related to that, it teaches us not to live against God, nor to do the evil things the world wants to do. Instead, that grace teaches us to live in the present age, in a wise and right way, in a way that shows that we serve God.

We should live like that while we wait for our great hope and the coming of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. I find that phrase, especially in this translation in the latter part of verse 12, really poignant. That grace teaches us to live in the present age, in a wise and right way, and in a way that shows that we serve God. Something that flies directly in the face of the idea of escapism, where we avoid, where we don't engage, where we walk away. And certainly we know there are sinful behaviors in the world that we are not to be a part of. But broadly speaking, we are to live in the world. We are to continue to be able to relate in a positive and a godly way, like we read here, with those who are in the world. And that's something very important as we consider refuge and what it means and what it doesn't mean. So our challenge is to fight against the unhealthy ways that the world around us seeks refuge, whether that's trying to build physical barriers or store up goods or those types of things, or the ways psychologically that the world around us flees now to addictions and other things that feed that escapism that we need to feel numbed psychologically and get through things in the world that we sometimes just don't understand or don't feel like we can bear. So this looks a little different for each of us as we consider our lives and what it is that we're doing. But what I would ask that we all think about is how is it that we are seeking refuge in our lives? The world brings a lot of different things to us. We stress out over different things that are going on within the world as well. How do we find refuge in those things? And is it in the way that in the way that God would want us to? Let's go back to Psalm 91 and read verses one and two again and think about these a little bit in this context of how it is that God wants us to find refuge. And what I want to focus on here for a moment is the relational aspect of it, relational versus escapism. You know, when we look at the children of Israel, God promised them a lot of things, refuge and rest in the Promised Land. It was within a context, and that context was the covenant that he made with the nation of Israel. He said, you follow me, you rely on me as a God, and I'm going to set you up in this land, and these things are going to happen, and you will have rest, and you will have plenty. So within the context of that covenant relationship, God was going to provide refuge and rest to them. He provides the same thing under the new covenant relationship that we have. It looks a little bit different, but it is the same type of promise. Here in Psalm 91, again, let's focus on the relational side of it. He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High. You know, have you ever had a bad roommate?

Now hopefully those who are married will not say that they have a bad roommate right now.

But the reason I ask that question is because when you live, it's when you live with someone that you really understand what they're all about. You understand the things that drive you nuts. You understand the things that are consistent. You see things, perhaps, that you thought were one way, but are actually a different way. And if everything works right, you accept one another. You find a way to make that a one plus one equals three situation rather than any sort of complex.

But he who dwells, right, this idea of dwelling, there's a lot spoken about in the Bible about God dwelling with us, us dwelling with God. Very strong relational element to dwelling. You know, I think often, as well, of space in offices. I don't know how many of you have worked office jobs over the course of the last 10 years, but it's changed dramatically. You know, it used to be you'd walk into an office, you'd see cubicles, you'd see offices where people just had pictures up everywhere. They were decorated. They had their dog, their kids, their spouse, sports calendars, all sorts of things. You could tell so much about a person when you walked into their office.

And nowadays, in the modern world of, you know, what they call, hoteling, where companies reduce the amount of office space they need by sharing office space, and you sort of book a space to work in when you're going to come in, when you're not there, there's nothing there. If you go into most offices of that sort today, what you'll see is bare walls, a bare desk, really nothing that reflects the person that's there, because they don't really dwell there in that office. They're passing through. They're using it for a day or a few hours when they might need it, and that's it. But they haven't really set up shop there. You know, we read here in Psalm 91, dwelling in the secret place of the Most High, that place that's close to God, that place that's under the shelter of the wings. And the next phrase here talks about abiding under the shadow of the Almighty.

If you're walking down the street with someone and you're in their shadow, unless it's the very beginning or end of the day when the shadows are, you know, 20 feet long, you've got to be really close to that person to dwell in their shadow, don't you? So everything that's being talked about here is closeness, togetherness, relational. And we have to think about that in our relationship with God. You know, if we think about coming before God for a moment as an office, is it a place that we pass through when we need something for a few minutes? And we never really set up shop there.

And when we're gone, you can never tell we were there in the first place.

Or is our relationship with God one that is so comfortable because we brought in everything about ourselves into that relationship? And if you viewed it as a room in your home, or you viewed it as an office, what would it look like? Would it have pictures of your pets on the wall, and your kids over the course of time, and your friends, and people that you encountered that you cared about?

Or would it be bare walls because you just occasionally passed through?

That's how we find refuge, by setting ourselves up by dwelling in that secret place of the Most High, by being there under the shadow of the wings, by being close.

The church also plays a role. If you turn with me to 1 Corinthians 1, I think this is something that we experience here in our congregation, which I think has been just fantastic in this regard as we support one another and help each other and walk with one another in day-to-day life. 1 Corinthians 1, we'll read verses 3 and 4 of 1 Corinthians 1.

Bless be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort. Can we think about refuge, the psychological, the emotional elements of refuge, the comfort? Who comforts us in all our tribulation? Why? That we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

So that same comfort that we receive, that same refuge of dwelling with God, is something we're to pass on to others, absolutely within our families, the next circle out from that, our congregation, the next circle out from that, our neighbors, our community, the others that we come into contact with. All of this relational element of refuge. Not escaping from things, but really setting up home with God in a very deep, close, and abiding way. Let's look then, in this last portion of this message, at a couple examples of God providing refuge. These are only two, and I would encourage you to think of others. There are all kinds of them throughout the Bible. And what I love about these different examples is how different they are than how we would approach things as human beings, sometimes to the point of the absurd. And I think God uses that sort of as a method for us to pay attention and using ways that we would never dream of as human beings. Sometimes it just don't even seem meaningful. Why would God choose to do that? Why would God choose to feed Elijah with ravens? That's a question I'd like to ask sometime.

I mean, why not bluebirds? Why not eagles? Seems like they, you know, could bear a bigger load, maybe. Ravens. Okay, well, that it's very interesting, shows his care. He does it in a way that we would not expect as human beings. And that's one of the beauties of it. But let's look at just two examples, let them speak for themselves as we consider a bit more about what it shows about God as our refuge. Elijah, let's continue on that theme. There's so many different things about Elijah. We're going to pick one tiny element here that I'd like to draw on. Three years of drought were in Israel. I think we remember that. Elijah just kind of shows up on the scene, shows up in front of Ahab and says, hey, Ahab, no rain for three years. Then he walks away, and that's when the ravens start to feed him. That goes on. God comes to him, says, it's going to rain now. You need to go and face off against the priests of Baal. And so they go up on Mount Carmel. They have their big standoff. Miraculous fire comes down from heaven. Elijah kills the priests of Baal. But then it stops. And that finish that Elijah must have been anticipating of Ahab and especially evil Queen Jezebel being overthrown. Didn't happen. And what did Elijah do?

He acted like my cat. He took off to hide. He freaked out. He had an emotional response.

We can try to figure out why, try to examine the psychology of it, but the fact of it is he ran. And God tracked him down. Not a hard thing for God to do as we read in the Psalms, right? Where shall we flee from your presence, O Lord? And 1 Kings 19 is where the story then comes in. In verse 4, Elijah went a day's journey into the wilderness, and he came and he sat down under a broom tree, and he prayed that he might die. He said, it's enough. Lord, just take my life, because I'm no better than my father's. Now again, we can speculate what was going on. Likely what he figured was because there wasn't a complete victory, he was a failure. Maybe he thought he'd done something wrong in the process. Maybe he felt like God had let him down.

But one way or another, he felt like, I won some battles here, but I'm in the same place I was a week ago, which is I'm fleeing for my life and the queen wants to kill me, and she's going to use all the resources she can find to do it. What are we even accomplishing here? So as he lay and slept under a broom tree in verse 5, an angel touched him, didn't send ravens this time, and said to him, arise and eat. And he looked, and thereby his head was a cake baked on coals and a jar of water.

So he ate and drank, and he lay down again. And the angel of the Lord came back the second time and touched him and said, arise and eat, because the journey is too great for you. And so he arose, and he ate and drank, and he went in the strength of that food for 40 days and 40 nights as far as Horeb, the mountain of God. And there he went into a cave, and he spent the night in that place, and behold the word of the Lord came to him, and he said to him, hey Elijah, what are you doing here?

How many days went by? This is what I find really touching about this entire account, and the refuge that God gave to him. How much patience would we have with someone like Elijah if he was operating on our behalf? He decided the outcome that we wanted wasn't right for him.

He threw a fit, and he went off and pouted someplace.

What I find incredibly comforting is God fed him, told him to get some rest, fed him again, told him to get some rest, let 40 more days go by, let him get some more rest, and then what did he say? Hey, Elijah, what's going on?

That care and that thought that he had for him, this wasn't a throwaway situation, this was a relationship. He understood Elijah at a level that we can't understand a fellow human being, and he dealt with him within the context of that relationship. He provided him refuge during that time. He made sure that he was emotionally and psychologically in a place where he could be productive, and then he told him, Elijah, it's time to be productive. It's time to get to work. But he gave him the time that he needed to recover, and he cared for him during that time. This is an example that we can look at in terms of how it is that God provides refuge. And as we go through different times and seasons in our lives, it's one that I'd encourage you to put before God when you pray to him. Talk to God about how he treated Elijah and how you need that kind of care yourself, because sometimes we do. Let's look at Gideon. This is another interesting one, and again, I'll use the word absurd, because God does things that as humans to us just seems absurd sometimes. But in the middle of it is just depth of care and meaning that's incredible. So here, Israel was fighting the Midianites in the time of the Judges, and God calls up Gideon, and he wants to make it clear to the children of Israel that victory is not coming by any power that they have. And if you add up the numbers in the whole account, they start with about 32,000 people fighting men. And do we remember how many they end up with after a series of miracles and different events? 300. So God says, you know, 32,000? Uh-uh. This one's going to be plain and simple to all of you, so there's not a question in your minds that God is the one who delivered you, and he whittles it down to 300. And in Judges 7, verses 19 through 22 is where he gives deliverance. These 300 men, they go into the camp, they shout, they break pots in the middle of the night, they hold trumpets, they blow trumpets, and they hold torches. And the Midianite army is surprised. They're in disarray. They get up and grab their weapons. They basically swing at anything that moves, kill a bunch of each other, and then run. That was a victory. Pretty incredible. If you told anyone, here's how we're going to win, we're going to send an incredibly laughable small number of people into the camp and hold torches and blow trumpets. That'd be like the worst military plan that was ever devised in human history. But this was God's deliverance. But that's actually not what I want to dwell on in this story, because there's another actually very poignant element to this story that starts in verse 9.

Imagine what Gideon was feeling like during this whole thing. He must have known, you know, this is God at work, but he also must have wondered, what in the world are you asking me to do? And this is how God dealt with it. Verse 9. This is Judges 7, verse 9.

It happened on the same night that the Lord said to him, Rise, go down against the camp for I've delivered it into your hand.

But if you're afraid to go down, God tells him, go to the camp with Purah your servant, just the two of you, and hear what they say. And afterward your hands will be strengthened to go down against the camp. So he went down with Purah his servant to the outpost, the armed men who were in the camp. And in verse 12, the Midianites and the Amalekites, all the people of the east were lying in the valley, as numerous as locusts and their camels without number, as the sand by the seashore in multitude. So just making the point of how many of them there were against 300 men that Gideon was going to have. And look what God did for Gideon.

In verse 13, when he had come, there was a man telling a dream to his companions. They were just walking through the camp. And the man said, I've heard a dream. To my surprise, a loaf of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian. It came to a tent and struck it, so it fell and overturned, and the tent collapsed. All right, that's kind of bizarre. Verse 14, his companion answered and said, this is nothing else but the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, a man of Israel. Into his hand, God has delivered Midian and the whole camp. And so it was in verse 15, when Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, he worshipped. He returned to the camp of Israel, and he said, arise, for the Lord has delivered the camp of Midian into your hand. Now, I find this incredibly touching as well, because, you know, he could have easily, God could have gone to Gideon and said, look, you have so little faith. Just suck it up and go do what I told you to do. And that's not what he told Gideon. He had understanding for him. In dealing with him as the refuge of Gideon and the children of Israel, he had understanding, understood where he was, he understood what Gideon was going to need in order to lead this forward, and he was ready to provide it. He was ready to accommodate and care for human weakness in the process of bringing miraculous deliverance. And I think that's something important again, as we look at how is it that God deals as a refuge for all of us. It's such an important quality. It shows, again, how relational it is. God has that relational nature with us. We've all been baptized. We've made a covenant with him. We've agreed to follow him to give up our lives. And he, just like he dealt in these situations, will deal with us as individuals with love and with care. So these are just two examples. My challenge to you is look for, think of, some others and look through them. See how it is that God has acted in other situations as he's acted as the refuge for his people. I'll kind of cede the process with a few that you could think of. One would be Elijah and the widow of Zarephath. You might remember the jar of oil that never emptied. Jesus raising Lazarus, his friend from the dead, and how he dealt with that situation. How God dealt with Jonah, the prophet who took the assignment that God gave him and decided he was going to run the opposite direction.

Look at those stories. See how it is that God dealt with those people. Seek out some additional stories to really understand in a much more deep and emotional way how it is that God deals with us as our refuge when we seek to dwell with him. You know, we all go through times when we wonder if God sees or if he cares. And these stories are powerful messages of just how deeply God understands our human condition and cares for us as he acts as our refuge. You know, we heard in the sermon at how God feels our emotions, how he understands what it is that we're about in our emotions. Let those things resonate. Think about them in the way that you deal with and you relate to God. So in conclusion, how do we go about finding refuge in God in our world today?

Well, I wish I had a fancy and complex answer. Actually, no, I don't wish I had a fancy and complex answer. There isn't one, and that's part of the beauty of it, actually. Let's turn to Mark 4. Mark 4. We'll start in verse 37. This passage contains one of my top 10 favorite phrases in the Bible. We'll get to that shortly. Mark 4, starting in verse 37. This is a story that probably many of us have heard from the time we were children. It's Jesus and the storm.

A great windstorm arose in verse 37, and the waves beat into the boat. It was Jesus and his disciples that were in this boat. I believe it was on the sea of Galilee, and it was already filling with water. It feels like a pretty serious situation. But Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a pillow. Wow, okay. And they awoke him, and they said to him, teacher, do you not care that we're perishing? So think of this. You're in a storm. The person that you rely on is sleeping like a baby in the back and doesn't really seem to care and seems to be completely oblivious to the whole thing going on. And Jesus arose. He rebuked the wind, and he said to the sea, peace be still, and the wind ceased, and there was great calm. He brought them refuge. And he said to them, why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?

And they feared exceedingly, and they said to one another, and this is my favorite phrase, who can this be that even the wind and the sea obey him?

Even the wind and the sea obey him. And you know, that's what's so incredibly powerful about this story. Why could Jesus be asleep in the back of the boat when all this was going on?

Well, it's because he had full control of this situation.

He knew that the wind would stop and the sea would be calm at his command. He didn't have to worry about it. And by extension, he's asking his disciples to have that same faith in him and understand that ability that he had and what he could do for him, for them.

You know, Paul talks about the simplicity that's in Christ. A couple weeks ago, we'd had the blessing of the children, and it boils down to that quote that anyone who comes to me must become as a little child. And that speaks to simplicity and not complexity. And that's something I think we need to think about in a world that keeps throwing more and more complexity at us, keeps trying to convince us that everything is complicated, sometimes tries to allure us with answers to these complicated things without us thinking about it. The longer I go on in my Christian walk, the more to me it just boils down to very simple terms. We have to continually cultivate our faith and our trust in God, feeding it with God's Word and dwelling actively with him.

At the same time, we have to shed the things that cause barriers to that relationship, and erode our faith. I recognize that's very simple to say. It's much harder to do in day-to-day life as all of these things encounter, as we encounter all these different things. But it really does come down to that. Strengthening our faith in him, turning to his Word, understanding him in every way we possibly can, and setting ourselves before him. How we get there is going to look a little bit different for each of us. We all have different things in our backgrounds. We all have different things in our daily lives, but we have to dedicate ourselves to his path. We have to look ourselves in the mirror. We have to understand what is it that I need to do in order to be that much more in the stream of his will, dwelling with him and under the shadow of his wings.

So while some around us build everything from multi-million dollar bunkers, to hideaways in the woods, to emotional and psychological walls to hide behind, and things to escape, let us take the route that we were called to. If we want the true and enduring refuge that all humans ultimately seek, we have to ground ourselves in his Word and seek reconciliation and relationship with him without ceasing. He'll take care of the rest.

Let's wrap up in Psalm 91, verses 1 and 2.

He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in him I will trust.