Fleeing to Jesus for Refuge Jesus Talk Num 35:6, 9-15; Ps 62:1-8; Heb 6:13-20
Introduction
The followers of Jesus live in a society increasingly opposed ideologically to our faith. The most recent and threatening example of this is the legislation in Victoria that seeks to punish, with penalties up to 10 years imprisonment anyone who even prays for someone else seeking a change in sexual orientation. Even though surrounded by increasingly powerful antichrist social forces, we have not yet been honoured by the Lord with true persecution (Acts 5:41; 2 Thess 1:15). We are not, and can never be, “victims”, for in his sacrificial death Jesus was not a victim but a conqueror. “the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.” (John 10:17-18). This is why Paul proclaims, “in all these things [including persecution] we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Rom 8:37). Even the “hard lockdown” of last week has not broken the extraordinary comfort and security we enjoy in Western Australia. What am I getting at? Whereas the saints of old were familiar with the cry “O Lord, make haste to help us.” (Ps 38:22 used in various liturgies), our easy circumstances rob the Church of the energetic fleeing from evil and fleeing to the Lord for refuge that is vital to biblical devotion. This godly running has a rich Old Testament background.
Fleeing for Refuge in the Old Testament
Our first reading tonight (Num 35 cf. Josh 20:1-9) focussed on the 6 “cities of refuge” scattered throughout ancient Israel, to which an accidental killer could flee to escape the “avenger of blood”. These refuges were designed to preserve the purity of the holy land from moral pollution by making sure an innocent person was not murdered. They were the only hope for those under threat of death and had to be to be entered without delay. Once the city elders reckoned the killing was accidental, asylum was absolute. It’s not hard to imagine the strenuousness of an innocent party fleeing for their life to such an assured refuge. Only when the reigning High Priest died could the refugee return freely to his home. (The Australian government needs to be very careful in its handling of refugees, especially those it detains indefinitely offshore, lest its actions cause offence to God. I know some of those people are our brothers and sisters in Christ.)
The language of cities of refuge is picked up when Hebrews speaks of Jesus as our High Priest to whom “we who have fled for refuge” (Heb 6:18,20) and who offers us eternal protection from the divine retribution we so deserve. This New Testament vocabulary continues a long history of spiritual people unashamedly using vigorous language about their need for the protective power of God. “The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe.” (Prov 18:10 cf. Ps 61:3). “(God) only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. 7 On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God. 8 Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.” (Ps 62:6-8). These holy men and women were so emotionally on fire for the Lord because they believed in the wrath of God in a way strange to us.
Fleeing from Wrath on Sin
The angels told Lot and his family to “flee quickly” (Gen 19:22) from Sodom before it was destroyed by fire from heaven. Millennia later the same urgent tone of warning was uttered by John the Baptist to the scribes and Pharisees, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.” (Matt 3:7-8). This level of intense admonition was found in the prophets repeatedly commanding Israel, “Flee from the midst of Babylon…” (Isa 48:20; Jer 50:8, 28; 51:6 cf. Isa 52:11; Jer 51:45; Zechariah 2:6–7). Since these exhortations to urgently flee Babylon and make haste to the shelter of Zion are quoted to the Church in the New Testament (2 Cor 6:17; Rev 18:4) it is clear we are not dealing with merely escaping physical danger but fleeing the threat of moral pollution.
Such intense admonition is picked up by Paul in his love for the people of God. In speaking to the Corinthians, he warns, “Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.” (1 Cor 6:18). And later in the same letter, “flee from idolatry” (1 Cor 10:14 cf. 1 John 5:21). In this context he declares that when in anger God confronted the sex and idol worship of the Baal of Peor by killing 23,000, “these things were an example…written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.” (1 Cor 10:11). When Jesus calls out the church in Pergamum about such sin and speaks of his coming warfare against them “with the sword of my mouth” unless they “repent” (Rev 2:16), we know the Church exists in the same atmosphere of utter seriousness. We all need refuge from the righteous judgements of God which is found in Christ alone.
Jesus the Refuge
Jesus brings the prophesied expectations of coming righteous rule to fulfilment, “Behold, a king will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule in justice. 2 Each will be like a hiding place from the wind, a shelter from the storm, like streams of water in a dry place, like the shade of a great rock in a weary land.” (Isa 32:1-2). We must not think however that Christ is merely an extension of the best in the Old Testament. Moses, who we might say, is the “father of the Law”, “fled” from the wrath of Pharaoh who sought to kill him (Ex 2:15). The mighty Elijah, prophetic father though he was (2 Ki 2:12), was afraid and ran from the murderous intentions of Jezebel (1 Ki 19:2-3). The infant Jesus might have been kept safe from threats by an angelic warning to Joseph to “flee to Egypt” (Matt 2:13), but as an adult Jesus never took a step back from confronting evil. Peter recounts, “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.” (Acts 10:38) John likewise says, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” (1 John 3:8). The Son only ever did what he saw the Father doing, and the Father who is “greater than all” (John 5:19; 10:29) never pulls back from attacking the kingdom of darkness. Whatever the threats to his life, Jesus lived completely secure in the Father’s hand (Luke 4:28-30; John 10:31).
On his way to Jerusalem “some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” 32 And he said to them, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course.” (Luke 13:31-32). This bold S/spirit in the face of danger continued in the early church. When in Acts both the prophet Agabus and the church in Caesarea dramatically urged Paul “not to go up to Jerusalem” he replies, “I am ready not only to be imprisoned but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” Finally, in unison all said, “Let the will of the Lord be done.” (Acts 21:12-14). From following Jesus Paul knew that some types of suffering are a divine necessity (Luke 24:26) so that fleeing is not the will of the Lord. This places us in Gethsemane.
Gethsemane is an agony to Jesus because accepting the will of God to receive the impending cup of wrath (Ps 75:8; Isa 51:17, 22; Jer 25:15; Ezek 23:32-34) is overwhelming, “My soul is very sorrowful, to the point of death.” he says (Mark 14:34 cf. Isa 53:3). Christ needed to pause to gain strength in the presence of the Father and by the power of the Spirit (Mark 14:36; Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6), but unlike all his disciples, he will not flee (Mark 14:50). Jesus moves on to face the judgement of God at the cross. With a heart (Eph 1:18) unclouded by the suppressive power of sin (Rom 1:18) the Son of God knows just how serious the fallen human condition is before a holy God (John 17:11) and that he must embrace the consequences of sin as no mere creature could (Col 1:19; 2:9).
These words about the death of God’s Son are true words, “Only God Himself could bear the wrath of God. Only God’s mercy was capable of bearing the pain to which the creature…in opposition to Him is subject. Only God’s mercy could so feel this pain as to take it into the very heart of His being.” (K. Barth). Instead of us being annihilated by this pain, this pain was annihilated in Christ the Lord for us. An Old Testament event points us to the uniqueness of the cross.
The prophet Isaiah was sent to king Hezekiah with a word from the Lord that he would not recover from a serious illness. In humility Hezekiah weeps before the Lord who then grants him 15 more years of life. Reflecting in prayer of what he learned through his severe bitter affliction Hezekiah says, “O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these is the life of my spirit.” (Isa 38:16). “These things” refer to suffering faced in prayer and the answers of the Lord. One bible commentator (J.A. Motyer) remarks, “The only way to flee from God is to flee to him.” Since you can’t flee to anywhere that God isn’t already present (Ps 139:7-12; Jer 23:23-24) this counsel is certainly right. However, Christ’s substitutionary experience on the cross is the one event in time and eternity which violates this rule. (Experientially that is.)
The dying Jesus certainly absorbed into himself all those rebellious human energies which under divine wrath seek to flee away from the face of God (Rev 6:15-17; 9:6), and he was certainly exposed to the Last Judgement of the great white throne when in the presence of God “heaven and earth” i.e. the whole old creation flees away (Rev 20:11). But Christ himself does not flee away; under the most impossible circumstances he presses in to find his Father (Mark 15:34). Having finally annihilated every force which would flee the hand and heart of God he exclaims in triumph, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” (Luke 23:46 cf. Ps 31:5) and ascends into the refuge of God’s heart in heaven (John 1:18). What all these intense dynamics mean for the life of the Christian and the Church requires some wisdom.
What Not Fleeing
There are in the Gospels exhortations by Jesus to flee warfare (Luke 21:21-23) and persecution (Matt 10:23) but these examples hardly apply to the followers of Jesus in Western lands. The call to flee false shepherds/teachers (John 10:5), to run from sexual immorality and idolatry do however apply to us all (1 Cor :18; 10:14). We are in the apocalyptic frame pictured in Revelation; we are the Church sovereignly fleeing into the wilderness by God’s grace as for protection from the marauding dragon, the devil (Rev 12:6, 9). The wilderness is a symbol for intensifying abiding in Christ (Eph 3:17) so that the power of indwelling sin might be killed in us (Rom 7:17ff; 1 Pet 4:1). In the very next chapter of Revelation the beast is given permission to slaughter Christians to which they must submit without fleeing; “If anyone is to be taken captive, to captivity he goes; if anyone is to be slain with the sword, with the sword must he be slain. Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.” (Rev 13:7, 10).
The difference between the two scenarios, fleeing or not fleeing, is submission to the revealed sovereign will of God (Mark 14:36). To live out the difference between these two situations requires spiritual wisdom and understanding (Rev 13:18; 17:9), a rarity in our times (cf. 1 Sam 3:1). Where in Australia today can you find a local congregation, let alone a denomination, filled by the Spirit with wisdom to flee sin and resist the devil so he flees from us (James 4:7). The key to releasing a holy fleeing for refuge to Christ alone, not to politics or wealth or technology, hinges on God sovereignly revealing his gospel power (Rom 1:16; 1 Thess 1:5).
If divine wrath is already, in part, being poured out on the world around us (John 3:36; Rom 1:18) the Church must know that through the blood of the cross she alone dwells in a wrath free space (1 Thess 1:10 cf. Rom 5:9; Col 1:20). She must know in her heart that in a time of the shaking of the earth (Heb 12:26-28) Christ’s promise is for us, “stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”” (Luke 21:36). To “stand” before the judgement seat of Christ (Matt 25:31-32; Rom 14:10; 2 Cor 5:10) when all created things “flee away” from the presence of God on Judgement Day (Rev 20:11) is a capacity, call and privilege of unsurpassable grace.
The time of pandemic which has come on the whole world (Rev 3:10) has shaken everything from its usual moorings so that the inner thoughts of every heart are being exposed (Rev 2:23). I hear Christians citing various psalms of refuge, like Psalm 46:1, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”, or Psalm 91:4, “He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge”. But in a biblical context which prohibits our self-indulgence I am not hearing, “O man of God, flee these things.” (1 Tim 6:11). This is the tempo the Lord Jesus wants to impart to his Bride today (Rom 13:11-14; 2 Cor 6:1-2).
Conclusion
Only when we see ourselves as having entered the eternal city of refuge in Christ will we be empowered to enable others to likewise escape from divine vengeance (2 Thess 1:8). This is at the heart of the biblical motivation for evangelism/mission. When the Lord pours out a S/spirit of fleeing from evil and fleeing into his Name (Ps 130:2; Dan 9:3, 7; Zech 12:10; Prov 18:3; Acts 4:12), then we will see mission proceed accompanied by healings and deliverances from all sort of humanly impossible circumstances. It is time to flee from the “City of Destruction” (in Pilgrim’s Progress =’s this world) to the city which comes down from heaven (Gal 4:26; Heb 12:22; Rev 21:2). This is a matter of the utmost seriousness. The appeal is urgent, “justice is coming and no one knows how long they have got.”
(https://jesusplusnothing.com/series/post/Jesusourcityofrefuge)).