A Shelter and Refuge in the Time of Storm

Reid Tait

Midland SDA Church

January 4, 2014

Resolutions you cannot afford not to keep.

            DAILY PRAYER—1 Timothy 2:1-8

            4.  Who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth

DAILY BIBLE STUDY—Trust the Infallible Scriptures  Romans 10:17  “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God”  Billy Grams says “When you quote  God’s Word, He will use it.  He never will allow it to return void.  When I quote Scripture, I know I am quoting the Word of God.  It is God’s authoritative message to us.  It is an infallible book. Let’s never depart from that.”  God’s word is a rock, an anchor, a Shelter and our refuge in the Time of Storm.

            DAILY WITNESSING—Read 1 Corinthians 15:1-9

World War II homes of shelter and refuge, Eric carried his Shelter (500 miles—he gave a very informative presentation at Pastor Herthel’s home), Application Trail shelters (2160 miles), and Midland (Open Door and House of Mercy).

IS YOUR HOME A SHELTER IN THE TIME OF STORM OR THE CENTER OF THE STORM OR +

IS IT A WAR ZONE OR A SILENT AREA WHERE NO ONE SPEAKS FOR DAYS.

IS THE MIDLAND CHURCH A PLACE TO PICK UP A BULLETIN, AND BE PART OF A SABBATH COUNT?   OR DO WE SIT WITH AND NOT APART FROM THE OTHER WORSHIPPERS, TO LEAN FORWARD A COMMUNITY OF BELIEVERS WHEN THE WORD IS PREACHED—Listening and SEEKING THAT JEWEL THAT GOD HAS PLACED ON THE SPEAKERS LIPS FOR ME.

WHAT MIGHT IT BE LIKE TO BE TOLD—ASSURED EVEN—THAT THE MESSINESS OF OUR LIVES DOES NOT ALTER OUR WORTHINESS TO BE LOVED BY BOTH CHRIST AND HIS PEOPLE?  We have several that have served time and are good Christians. 

DETERMINE, BY TH GRCE OF God, that you will exude warmth when you walk, through the doors this Sabbath; that you will speak words of peace and welcome to the visitors–and  to those who have been acting like visitors for 40 years.  Some people have difficulty being part of the family of God.

“WOULD A LONELY PERSON FEEL LOVED BY ME?  WOULD A SINFUL HEART FIND MY COMPANY SAFE?”

Bill Knott in his Adventist Review Article titled “A Shelter in the Time of Storm” quotes the American humorist Garrison Keillor writes of the grade school year in his semi-mythical hometown of Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, in which an anxious school principal assigned each of the students who lived on an outlying farm to an in town “Storm Home”.    Afraid that children might disappear in the depth and ferocity of a January blizzard, the administrator made certain each had a place of shelter and safety close to the school.

Keillor describes how significant the thought of his “other” home was for him as a child.  He walked by the Kloeckls’ well tended lakeside home, noting its order gardens, imagining the kindliness of the elderly couple who had agreed to take him in should the feared blizzard ever strike.  Unfortunately, “no blizzard came during the school hours that year.  All the snowstorms were convenient evening or weekend ones, and I never got to stay at the Kloeckls, but they were often in my thoughts and they grew large in my imagination.  My Storm Home.”

The humorist has touched the ache in all of us for a place where people choose to love and welcome us—some social unit built on kindness rather than obligation.  For many, as Robert Frost once offered, a biological family home is “the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in.”  But we long for a community, however small, that speaks the language of safety and embrace, even when we’ve blown it big, especially when we’ve got it wrong.  Our hearts cling to the idea that there really is some place where the first words to greet us at the door might be ”Come right on in!” NOT “Why are you here?” or What have you done this time?”  Is your home a place of refuge a shelter in the storms of life.

“The church is God’s fortress, His city of refuge which He holds in a revolted world.  Any betrayal of the church is treachery to Him who has bought mankind with the blood of His only begotten Son.  From the beginning, faithful souls have constituted the church on earth.  In every age the Lord has had His watchmen who have borne a faithful testimony to the generation in which they lived.  These sentinels gave the message of warning; and when they were called to lay off their armor; others took up the work.  God brought those witnesses into covenant relation with Himself, uniting the church on earth with the church in heaven.  He has sent forth His angels to minister to His church, and the gates of hell have not been able to prevail against His people. “ AA p. 11

God choose Israel to reveal His character to men.  God choose you and me to reveal His character to men.  But the people lost sight of their high privileges as God’s representatives.  “The blessings they received brought no blessing to the world.  All their advantages they appropriated for their own glorification.  They shut themselves away from the world in order to escape temptation.  The restrictions that God had placed upon their association with idolaters as a means of preventing—them from conforming to the practices of the heathen, they used to build up a wall of separation between themselves and ll other nations.  They robbed God of the service He required of them, and they robbed their fellow-men of religious guidance and a holy example.” AA p. 14, 15.  Will we robb God of our Witness, His love that He gave to the world through Jesus.  Will we allow Satan to snatch a sole from God because we did not have time to witness or attend a meeting.

What is God’s character that we need to reveal men?  Love!  The challenge to love one another is traditional component of Christian behavior.  Read John 13:34  “A  new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”  We do not walk alone on our path with Christ.  We should consistently care for one another.  Turn to Hebrews 10:23-25 LB “Now we can look forward to the salvation God has promised.   23. There is no longer any room for doubt, and we can tell others that salvation is ours, for there is no question that he will do what he says.

24. In response to all he has done for us, let us outdo each other in being helpful and kind to each other and in doing good.

25. Let us not neglect our church meetings, as some people do, but encourage and warn each other, especially now that the day of his coming back again is drawing near.

“Where God and I Meet” page 143.  “Loving one another does not just happen naturally. “ “Scripture urges us to pay attention to our fellow believers and see how we could incite them to love God and others, and to do good works.  It seems easier to provoke and antagonize others, to irritate and confuse them, than it is to spur them on to Christian love.  If someone does not attend worship anymore, how could he or she ever fulfill Christ’s law of love?”

“Some people may think that they have “good” reasons to stay away from Christian meeting, such as persecution, unloving church members, or hostility from fellow citizens.”  “One can always find reasons to avoid church attendance or other Christian gatherings.  They, however, pale in contrast to the reason for coming—and that is, in order to be blessed by God and be blessing to others.”  Ibid

No matter what happens in the year 2014—Psalm 62:7 “In God is my salvation and my glory; The rock of my strength, and my refuge is in God.”  2 Samuel 22:2 The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer”

In 2014, May our church and our homes be a shelter for those battered by the storms of life.

The sources that I am using for this sermon are the following:  1. The Bible New King James Version (NKJV) and Living Bible (LB), 2.  Christ’s Object Lessons,(COL), 3. “Where God and I Meet”, Martin Probstle, 4. “9 Things We Can All Learn from Billy Graham’s Preaching”, Dennis Phelps, and “A Shelter in the Time of Storm”, Bill Knott