IX. REFUGES OF LIES

“The hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies”—Isaiah xxviii. 17.

We have seen in a former address that every man needs a refuge from four things—from the accusations of his own conscience, from the power of sin within, from the power of Satan, and from the wrath to come. Almost every man has a refuge, that is, he has something in which he has put his trust to comfort him. The difficulty with most men is not so much that they have not a refuge, as that they have a false refuge, a refuge that will fail them in the hour of crisis and need; what our text characterizes as a “refuge of lies.” It was just so in Isaiah’s time; the men of Israel knew there was a coming day of judgment, and that they needed a hiding place from that coming judgment of God, and they made lies their refuge, and Isaiah—God’s messenger—proclaimed, “the hail shall sweep away your false refuge, the refuge of lies,” and I come to you with the same message, you men and women that have a refuge, but a false one. “The hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies.”