Here is the continuation of the last post exploring the parallels between the “Cities of Refuge” in the Old Testament and Jesus, our refuge, today.

4. The cities of refuge were stocked with food and other necessities, and likewise, the Lord provides us with everything we need.

These cities were fully stocked and fully prepared to take care of the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of those who ran to them. Surely the person who ran to these cities for refuge would be hungry and thirsty, they would be frantic and scared, and surely they would be in need of spiritual counsel and prayer. And these cities were fully prepared to handle any need that these people had.

In the same way that these cities were stocked and prepared to meet the needs of those seeking refuge, so too is the Lord, our refuge.  Francis Schaeffer says: Jesus’ death in space-time history is completely adequate to meet our need for refuge from true moral guilt which we have.  It is final because of who He is. We are safe and free from the penalty and power of death in Christ.

And not only is He able to meet our spiritual need for a Savior, but He also is able to take care of our physical, mental, and emotional needs as well. Philippians 4:19  And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

God owns it all, He controls it all, and He is ready and willing to provide for His children everything they need through Christ. In Matthew 7:11, Jesus says: If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! The cities of refuge had everything desperate people needed, and so too does our Lord.  He is able and willing to give us everything we need.

5. If a person did not flee to the cities of refuge, there was no help for him.  Likewise, if we do not run to the Lord, there is no help for us.

Run to the Lord and be safe.  Run to anything else.  Put your trust in anything or anyone else for refuge, and you will not be safe. This is really stating the obvious, but we really need to be reminded of this again and again.

If you were in desperate need of help and protection back then, and you saw a sign that said “REFUGE,” it would only make sense to run as fast as you can to the city of refuge. The signs are everywhere for us today.  They say “REFUGE,” and they’re all pointed to the Lord.

Here is the continuation of the last post exploring the parallels between the “Cities of Refuge” in the Old Testament and Jesus, our refuge, today.

2. The gates of these cities were always open, and likewise, the door to the strong tower of the Lord is always open as well.

The research of Francis Schaeffer on these cities of refuge reveals that the gates to the 6 cities of refuge were never locked.  City gates back then were always locked – at least at night while most of the city slept.  It was too dangerous not to lock the gates because enemies seemed to always be nearby, but the gates of the cities of refuge were never locked.  People who were in desperate need of help, protection, and refuge could always get in – no matter what time of day or night.

So too is it with the Lord, our refuge.  Psalm 121:4 says: Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. There is no need to wake the Lord when you need Him because He neither slumbers nor does He sleep.  His door is always open, and He’s ready to receive you when you run to Him.

3. The cities of refuge were open to everyone, and likewise, the Lord calls for everyone to come to Him.

Joshua 20:9 says: These were the cities designated for all the people of Israel and for the stranger sojourning among them. God made it very clear to Israel that these cities of refuge were to be for ANYONE and EVERYONE.  Those receiving needy people at the city gates were not to ask for any identification or card of nationality of the one running to it for help.  They were to let every single person that came to them for help inside the city.

In the same way – in the Lord’s mind – there is no discrimination and no separation of persons.  In Galatians 3:28, Paul described for us how Jesus sees things when he wrote: There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

In Matthew 11:28, Jesus says, Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. In the eyes of Jesus, our refuge, there is no difference between any of us.  He welcomes anyone and everyone to Him, and He calls everyone who comes to Him (regardless of their race, sex, nationality, financial situation, upbringing, or what they’ve done or not done) His “children.”

The Lord is our refuge. The Lord is our rescuer. No matter what we’ve done. No matter if we’ve done it multiple times. No matter what we face. God is our refuge and strength. He’s our ever-present help in time of trouble.

In Joshua 20, we get a clear picture of the great lengths that the Lord goes to be our refuge. The Lord instructed Israel to establish “Cities of Refuge” as they settled the Promised Land. These were six cities strategically located throughout Canaan that people could go to if they needed protection and shelter.  Mainly, these cities were places of refuge for people who accidentally killed someone. If someone accidentally killed another person while hunting or while working the land, they could run to one of these six cities of refuge and be protected from the revenge of a family member of the one who was killed.

Back then, if someone killed someone else, justice was not carried out by the government; it was carried out by family members of the one who was killed. Therefore, in order to escape the revenge of a family member for an accidental killing, people would literally run to one of these cities of refuge and escape being killed themselves.  The Lord had Israel establish these cities not just for their own good, but also to offer them and us a beautiful picture of who the Lord is for us: our refuge, our rescuer, our redeemer.

In the coming days, I’ll show you a few of the wonderful parallels between the “Cities of Refuge” back then and the refuge the Lord provides for us today.  Here’s the first parallel…

1. The cities were easy to get to, and so too is the Lord.

In Joshua 20:7-8, we get a description of where these cities of refuge were located. Each city was strategically located throughout the Promised Land and was never further than a 1-2 day journey away from any location in the land.  There was a law back then saying that the roads leading to these cities had to be repaired each spring after the rains and bad weather of winter had passed.  These roads were populated with many bridges so that the one running for refuge didn’t have to run down and back up ravines.  And at every crossroad, there were large signs strategically placed that pointed to the nearest city of refuge.  The signs said “REFUGE” in huge letters.

The people of Israel made it as easy as possible for those in need of refuge to find the refuge they needed. In the same way, the Lord has made it as easy as possible for those in need of refuge to get to Him today.

Are you in need of refuge?  Are you in need of help?  The road to the Lord – our strong tower, our city of refuge – is smooth and in great shape!  There are bridges everywhere, and we don’t have to worry about crossing over huge ravines to get to Him.  In Matthew 11:28, the Lord says, Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

All eight of us packed into our seven passenger van on Friday afternoon and began the 1425 mile trek from New Mexico to Ohio.  Good thing the eighth person is still in the womb or we would have been really packed in!  With 5 of the 8 of us being licensed drivers, our goal from the start was to drive the 24 hours straight through…and that’s what we did.

About 6 hours into our journey, the adventure began.  My new son-in-law, Aarron, was driving the evening shift through Texas, and I was in the passenger seat.  I told all of the drivers that they could go as fast as they want but that they are each responsible for paying for any tickets they receive.   Aarron was going fast, but I didn’t know how fast…until the Texas State Patrol officer pulled us over. 

The officer came up to my window and asked me where we were from.  I told him that we were from New Mexico and making our way to Ohio for a wedding reception for my newly married daughter.  It was dark, so he flashed his flashlight through the van.  I’m sure he was confused as he went from face-to-face.  A black driver, a white red-headed passenger, then black, white, black, white, white.  He told Aarron that he was going 83 in a 65 mph zone. 

The officer took Aarron’s driver’s license and my van’s paperwork and headed back to his car.  Michelle was the first person to break the silence in the van when she asked Aarron, “You don’t have any outstanding warrants, do you?”  We’ve asked Aarron a thousand questions over the last year, but we’d never asked him that one.  It seemed like an appropriate time to ask, and thankfully, he said no.

About 5 minutes later, the officer came back to my window and asked me, “Which ones just got married?”  I pointed to Aarron in the driver’s seat, and my daughter, Emily, behind him.  He looked Aaron in the eye and said, “Consider this the best wedding gift of all,” and handed him his license with only a warning. 

83 in a 65 mph zone will get you billy-clubbed in some states, but evidently not in Texas…at least not that night.  We all let out a huge sigh of relief, laughed, and made fun of Aarron the rest of the way.

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

A 70-year-old man who lost eight teeth, suffered a cut on his upper lip that required 40 stitches and had his hearing aid crushed into the inner canal of his ear during a road rage attack last year astonished Baton Rouge state court officials on Tuesday with an act of forgiveness.

Steve Bonfanti told the court he would set aside the $41,000 in restitution that District Judge Richard Anderson ordered from the mother of his two attackers for the education of her two young grandchildren.

Anderson, who said he had never witnessed such an extraordinary move in his court, sent Baton Rouge brothers Johnny Mutrie, 26, and Eric Mutrie, 19, to prison and put their mother, Rhonda Mutrie, 54, on probation for their roles in the violent beating of Bonfanti.

At about 5 p.m. on Sept. 10, 2008, Bonfanti was driving home.  Johnny Mutrie, who was driving behind Bonfanti, started blowing his horn, making obscene hand gestures and passed Bonfanti, according to the warrant. Johnny Mutrie then stopped and Eric Mutrie started a confrontation with Bonfanti leading to the brutal beating.

Bonfanti, who did not ask for restitution, pledged the funds for the education of Johnny Mutrie’s two young daughters.

Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven. - Matthew 18:21-22

Last Thursday and Friday, I took Jesse and Peter (the guys on staff at my church) and attended the Summit at the Albuquerque satellite location.  We were inspired, challenged, and encouraged in our leadership by leaders like Bill Hybels (founder and pastor of Willow Creek), David Gergen (CNN’s senior political analyst), Bono (lead singer of U2 and humanitarian), Tony Blair (former Prime Minister of England), Wess Stafford (President and CEO of Compassion International) and others.

One of the sessions was lead by Tim Keller, the Founder and Senior Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, NY, which has been named one of the Top 25 Most Influential Churches in America as it not only ministers to 6,000 New Yorkers every week but also has planted more than 100 churches as well.  Tim is in his 60’s but his congregation is made up mostly of 25-40 year olds, many of whom were once very skeptical of the Christian faith.

In his session, he addressed the epidemic of spiritual deadness in American churches, gave the symptoms of it, and offered a couple of prescriptions for it.  This was all based on his study and preaching on the parable of the prodigal son found in the Gospels and spelled out in his book, The Prodigal God.  Since this epidemic exists in so many churches, I thought I would share some of his insights with you.

How to tell if you’ve fallen prey to spiritual deadness:

1. You express strong and lasting anger when things go wrong. Anger is a natural response to pain and injustice, but if you stay angry and refuse to let things go, you’re well on your way to spiritual deadness.

2. You viciously counter-attack others or you experience devastation when you’re criticized. This shows that you’re not trusting the Lord to sort things out and deal with the one who has offended you.

3. Your prayers are petitionary only. There’s no intimacy and enjoyment of God. A person who is spiritually dead – if he does pray – only asks things of God and doesn’t worship and enjoy Him.

4. You’re constantly loathing people. Because you’re not content in the Lord and enjoying His provisions for you, you are constantly looking at others with envy, coveteousness, and loathing.

5. You can’t forgive others. A spiritually dead person is completely out of touch with how much he’s been forgiven by the Lord, and so he feels superior to others and is unable to forgive others.

If you recognize that you may be spirutally dead, here are some things you must do:

1. You must experience a new level of repentance. This is not just an acknowledgment of your wrong-doing, but it’s engaging in the act of making an all-out effort to turn from the wrong-doing.  It involves doing whatever it takes to leave the sinful behavior or attitude behind in order to run the opposite way toward the Lord.

2. You must experience a new level of rejoicing. This is what the prodigal son experienced.  He returned to His Father and finally understood what it cost to bring him back into the home.  Half of the estate was gone.  Therefore, the robe and the ring that the Father gave him actually belonged to the elder brother.  This is why the elder brother was so upset about the party and the gift-giving.  The money to finance all of this came from his half of the estate!

The lesson for us is this: A Father needs the resources of an elder brother in order to bring a wayward son back. The prodigal son’s elder brother was resistant to using his resources to bring his younger brother back, but in Christ, we have a loving elder brother!   We have a robe because Jesus hung naked on the cross. We have a festival cup because Jesus drank the cup of judgment and wrath.  Jesus was willing to give up a portion of His inheritance in order to welcome us (the prodigals) back into the Father’s Kingdom!  And in this, we can (and must) experience a new level of rejoicing!

Psalm 132 deals with a covenant that God made with King David, which led me to spend much of my time last week looking at the different covenants that God has made with His people throughout history.

Bible scholar Wayne Grudem summarizes what a covenant is with respect to covenants made between God and man.  He says: A covenant is an unchangeable, divinely imposed legal agreement between God and man that stipulates the conditions of their relationship.

So, for instance: In Genesis 9, God made a covenant with Noah that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth. The sign of this covenant is the rainbow, and the terms are unchangeable.

Through the cross of Christ, God – once and for all – made a covenant of love and redemption with His people.  In Christ, He showed us His undying love and unchangeable grace and mercy, and this is how we can know for sure that God’s not mad at us.  Here’s what I learned last week about the unending love and mercy of God as displayed through His covenants with us.

1. God’s covenants show a voluntary and unconditional love and commitment to His people.

God has chosen to covenant voluntarily. No one is making Him do it. He has chosen to establish this relationship with us on His own.  The covenants of God are based solely on who He is…not on who we are. God established these covenants as a demonstration of His love, mercy, grace, and kindness.

2. God has never and will never break His covenants with His people no matter what they do or don’t do. Never!

God does makes it clear that He will lovingly discipline us if we are disobedient (Heb. 12; Rev. 3), but it’s also very clear that He will never reject us or withdraw His loving commitment from us.  In Isaiah 49:15, the Lord asks: Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. God’s love and devotion to us is unconditional, and it will never change.

Psalm 132:11 says, The Lord swore to David a sure oath from which he will not turn back. The Israelites sang this psalm as they ascended to Mt. Zion as a reminder that the God they served is a covenant-making and covenant-keeping God, and this is something that we need to be reminded of over and over again.

God’s not mad at us!  As a matter of fact, the exact opposite is true.  Nothing we do will ever separate us from the love, mercy, and kindness of God.

Have you received the free gift of salvation that He offers?  If not, what’s holding you back?  Accept the free gift of salvation through Jesus…and then live free! Free because of the covenant that God has made with you. Free because you know that nothing will ever separate you from Him again!

As a Christian, when you experience a painful providence like an illness or a rebellious child or a broken marriage or a financial hardship or persecution, do you ever wonder if God is punishing you for some sin you committed?

If you do, there is some very good news from the letter to the Hebrews. The original readers of this letter had been experiencing persecution and affliction for some time. They were tired, discouraged, and confused—why was God allowing such hardships? And some were doubting.

So after some doctrinal clarifications and some firm exhortations and a few sober warnings (so they could examine if their faith was real) the author of the letter brought home a very important point.

He wanted his readers to remember that the difficulty and pain they were experiencing was not God’s punishment for their sins or weak faith. Chapters 7-10 beautifully explain that Jesus’ sacrifice for sin was once for all believers for all time (10:14). No sacrifice of any kind for sin was ever needed again (10:18).

He followed that up in chapter 11 with example after example of how the life of faith has always been difficult for saints. And then he wrote the tender encouragement and exhortation of chapter 12 where he quoted Proverbs 3:11-12:

My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,and chastises every son whom he receives.

“It is for discipline that you endure. God is treating you as sons,” he said. These saints were not to interpret their painful experiences as God’s angry punishment for their sins. That angry punishment was completely spent on Jesus—once for all—on the cross.

Rather, this was the message they were to understand from their hardships: God loves you! He has fatherly affection for you. He cares deeply for you. He is taking great pains so that you will share his holiness (12:10) because he wants you to be as happy as possible and enjoy the peaceful fruit of righteousness (12:11).

This is why as a father, whenever I discipline my children, I always try to make it clear to them that I am not paying them back for their sins. That’s why I don’t use the term “punishment.” I don’t want them to misunderstand and think I am giving them what they deserve. That’s God’s job. And if they trust in Jesus, all their punishment was taken care of on the cross.

Instead, I always use the terms “discipline” or “correction” and explain that I love them and my intention, even though the discipline is painful, is to correct and train them. I want them to know that their father loves them, cares for them deeply, and is taking great pains to point them toward the way of joy.

It is crucial that we remember that everything God feels toward us as Christians is gracious. When God disciplines us it is a precious form of his favor. It’s what a loving father does. He is not giving us what we deserve because he “canceled the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands…nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:14). Instead, he is training us in righteousness. Because he loves us so very much.

Couldn’t have said it better myself. Christian, God is not mad at you!