Chapter 8
Chapter 8
THE LORD OUR DWELLING PLACE
"Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations*'—Psalm 90:1.
The comfort or discomfort of our outward lives depends more upon the dwelling place of our bodies than upon almost any other material thing.
Likewise, the comfort or discomfort of our inward life depends upon the dwelling place of our souls.
Our dwelling place is the place where we live and not the place we merely visit.
It is our home.
All the interests of our earthly lives are bound up in our homes. We do all we can to make them attractive and comfortable.
But our souls need a comfortable dwelling place even more than our bodies. Inward comfort is of far greater importance than outward comfort.
Where the soul is full of peace and joy, outward surroundings are of comparatively little importance.
Wandering Souls It is vital that we find out where our souls are living. The Lord declares that He has been our dwelling place in all generations. Now the question is, ''Are we living in our dwelling place?"
The psalmist says of the children of Israel, 'They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way; they found no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them" (Psalm 107:45).
There are many wandering souls in the Church whom this description of the Israelites would fit exactly. All their Christian lives they have been wandering in a spiritual wilderness and have found no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their souls have fainted in them. All the while, the door to the dwelling place of God has been standing wide open. The Father Himself invites them to come in and live there forever.
Our Lord urges this invitation upon us. "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.
I am the vine, ye are the branches; He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in
you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you" (John 15:4-7).
Our souls are made for God. He is our natural home, and we can never be at rest anywhere else.
**My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God" (Psalm 84:2). We always hunger and faint for the courts of the Lord, as long as we fail to make our home there.
A Rock And A Refuge How can we describe our divine dwelling place?
David describes it when he says, 'The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower"
(Psalm 18:1).
We see that our dwelling place is also our fortress, our high tower, our rock, and our refuge.
We all know what a fortress is.
It is a place of safety, where everything that is weak and helpless can be hidden from the enemy. We are told that God, who is our dwelling place, is also our fortress. If we live in our dwelling place, we will be perfectly safe from every assault by any enemy.
**For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock"
(Psalm 27:5).
**He that dwelleth in the secret place of the
Most High, shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty" (Psalm 91:1).
*Thou Shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man: thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues"
(Psalm 31:20).
In the secret of God's tabernacle no enemy can * 'pride of man" and the find us and no troubles can reach us. The * 'strife of tongues" find no entrance into the pavilion of God. The secret of His presence is a more secure refuge than a thousand Rocks of Gibraltar.
I do not mean that no trials will come. They may come in abundance, but they cannot penetrate the sanctuary of the soul. We may dwell in perfect peace even in the midst of life's fiercest storms.
But alas! how few of us know this. We speak David's language, but to us it is only a figure of speech. We say the things he said in the conventional, pious tone that is considered proper when speaking of religious matters.
**Oh yes, the Lord is my dwelling place.
I have committed myself and all my interests to His care as every Christian ought to do."
Then one's normal conversation is resumed ''But then I cannot forget that I am a poor, goodfor-nothing sort of person.
I have no strength to conquer my temptations. I can hardly expect that I can be kept in the perfect security David speaks of."
Next follows a story of all sorts of fear and anxieties, exactly as if the dwelling place of God had never been heard of.
It is as if the soul was wandering alone and unprotected in a world of trouble and danger.
A Picture Of The Fortress There is a Psalm that I call the ''Dwelling Place Of God."
It is the Ninety-first Psalm, and it gives us a wonderful description of what this dwelling place is. **He that dwelleth 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 will I trust"
(Psalm 91:1-2).
Our idea of a fortress is generally of a hard, granite building where one would be safe but, at the same time, sadly uncomfortable. There are other types of fortresses, however, that are soft, tender, and full of comfort. This Psalm describes them—'*He shall cover thee with his feathers"
(Psalm 91:4). Just as the toother hen covers her helpless little chickens in the fortress of her warm and brooding wings, so our God protects us in the fortress of His tender love.
The fortress of a mother's heart, whether it is of a human mother or a hen mother or a tiger mother, is the most impregnable fortress the world knows, and yet the most tender. It is this sort of a fortress that the Lord is. ''Under his wings shalt thou trust"
(Psalm 91:4); "He shall carry them in his bosom"
(Isaiah 40:11); ^'Underneath are the everlasting arms" (Deuteronomy 33:27).
Wings, bosom, arms! What blessed fortresses are these! How safe is everything that is enfolded by them.
Nature is full of such fortresses.
Listen to a description of the tiger mother. ''When her children are born, some power teaches the tiger to be gentle. A spirit she cannot resist, the spirit of her
Creator, enters her savage heart.
It is a tiger's impulse to resent an injury. Pluck her by the hair, smite her on the flank, she will leap upon and rend you. But to resent an injury is not her strongest impulse.
"Watch those impotent kitten creatures playing with her. They are so weak, a careless movement of her giant paw will destroy them; but she makes no careless movement. They have caused her a hundredfold the pain your blow produced; yet she does not render evil for evil. These puny mites of helpless impotence, she strokes with love's light in her eyes.
"She licks the shapeless forms of her tormenters. As they plunge at her, love transforms each groan of her anguish into a whinny of delight.
She moves her massive head in a way which shows that He, who bade you turn the other cheek, created her. When strong enough to rise, the terrible creature goes forth to sacrifice herself for her own. She will starve that they may thrive.
She is terrible for her little ones, as God is terrible for His."
We have all seen these mother fortresses hundreds of times and have called them Godlike. One would think that the sight would have made us fly to our refuge in the dwelling place of God and leave outside all fear! But the trouble is, we refuse to believe that the Bible offfers any such good news.
In eflfect we say, 'The Lord's arms are not as dependable as the strong, loving arms of the weakest earthly mother; the Lord's bosom is not as tender as the tiger's bosom; the Lord's wings are not as brooding as the wings of the little mother hen."
We know that all these beautiful, earthly fortresses are made and fashioned by Him, but we cannot believe that He is equal to them. To have Him for our fortress does not mean to us anything half so safe or half so tender as having a mother for our fortress. And so, mothers are trusted, and God is not!
The Safest levelling Yet, how safe the psalmist declares this divine dwelling place to be! '*Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor the arrow that flieth by day; nor the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.
Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling" (Psalm
91:5-10).
All the terrors and all the plagues that have made our lives so uncomfortable and even so wretched, are provided for here. We will be delivered from all of them if we make the Lord our habitation.
This does not mean that we will have no outward trials. Plagues in abundance may attack your body and possessions, but these are not your inner self. Nothing can come near the interior you while you are dwelling in God.
A large part of the pain of life comes from the haunting fear of evil. Our lives are full of suppositions. Suppose this should happen, or suppose that should happen; what could we do and how could we bear it?
But if we are living in the high tower of the dwelling place of God, all these suppositions will drop out of our lives. We will be jfilled with peace because no threats of evil can penetrate the high tower of God. Even when walking through the valley of the shadow of death, the psalmist could say, *'I will fear no evil" (Psalm 23:4).
If we are dwelling in God, we can say so, too.
But you may ask how you are to get into this divine dwelling place. The answer is simply this:
move in.
If an apartment is rented for us by a friend, and we were told the lease and all the necessary papers were duly attested and signed, we would not ask how we could get into it—we would just pack up and move in.
God says that He is our dwelling place. The Bible contains all the necessary papers, duly attested and signed. Our Lord invites us, even commands us to enter in and live there. In effect.
He says, **I am your dwelling place, and you must move in."
You may ask, ''But how can I move in?" You must do it by faith. God has said that He is your dwelling place. Now you must say it, too.
*'I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust " (Psalm 91:2).
Faith reads the Word of God and believes that it is true. Christ says, ''Abide." We must answer, "I will abide." Thus we make Him our habitation by faith. He is our habitation already as far as He is concerned. But we must accept Him for our dwelling place by continually asserting that He is.
We must make the eternal truth that the Lord is our dwelling place become present fact by the affirmation of our faith. We need to put on the thoughts and actions that would naturally result from having moved into the tabernacle of God.
What To Leave Behind One of the first things we have to do is give up all worry and anxiety forever.
It is unthinkable
that worry and anxiety could enter the dwelling place of God; therefore, when we enter there, we must leave these undesirable possessions behind.
We talk about obeying the commands of the Lord and make a great effort in our outward observances and duties. All the while, we ignore the commands for our spiritual life, which are a thousand times more important.
'*Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid" 0ohn 14:27) is one of our Lord's commands that is almost universally disobeyed.
I wonder whether our disobedience of any other command is so grievous to His heart.
I know that I would be far more grieved if my child mistrusted me and felt her interests were unsafe in my care, than if in a moment of temptation she disobeyed me.
I am convinced that none of us have understood how deeply it wounds the loving heart of our Lord when He finds that His people do not feel safe in His care.
We know this by our own experience. Suppose one of our friends gives us something valuable to keep for them while they are out of town. We give them every assurance that we would keep it safe.
Then suppose that they go away and worry over it, as we worry about the things we commit to God.
What if they express to others the same anxieties about it that we express about the things we have put into God's care?
How would we feel about it? Would we not be deeply hurt and wounded; and would we not
finally be inclined to hand the thing back into our friend's own care and say, **Since it is very plain that you do not trust me, you had better take care of your things yourself."
It is amazing that God's own children can dare to be anxious after they have committed a matter to Him. It is such a slander on His trustworthiness.
Unbelievers also see it in this way and think that to have the Lord for your dwelling place does not evidently amount to much after all.
Otherwise, those who profess to be living there would not be so troubled.
Absolute Security He who cares for the sparrows and numbers the hairs of our head cannot possibly fail us. He is an impregnable fortress into which no evil can enter, and no enemy can penetrate. The moment I have committed anything into this divine dwelling place is the moment that all fear and anxiety should cease. While I keep anything in my own care, I should fear and tremble, for it is indeed unsafe; but in God's care, no security could be more absolute.
The writer of Proverbs says, **The name of the Lord is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe"
(Proverbs 18:10). The only requirement therefore is to run into this strong tower and stay there forever.
It would be the height of foolishness when the enemy was surrounding us on every side to stand outside of a
fortress and cry out for safety. If I want to be safe, I must go inside.
*'Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem," said our Lord, **thou that killest the prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would
I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not" (Matthew 23:37).
If the little chick wants to be safe, it must run into the fortress of its mother's wings.
A great many people stay outside of God's dwelling place because they feel that they are too unworthy and too weak to dare to go in. What would we think of the little chick that sees the hawk coming and hears the mother calling and sees her outspread wings, but remains outside, trembling with fright? Suppose it said, '*Oh, I am such a poor, weak, foolish, helpless little chicken that I am afraid I am not worthy to go under my mother's wings."
If the mother hen could speak, she would say, **You poor, foolish, little thing, it is just because you are weak and helpless and good-for-nothing that I want you under my wings.
If you were a great big, strong rooster, able to take care of yourself, I would not want you at all."
Visitor Or Resident?
But we must not only run into our dwelling place. The psalmist says, **I will abide in thy tabernacle for ever:
I will trust in the covert of thy
wings"
(Psalm 61:4). Abiding in His tabernacle forever is sometimes very hard. It is comparitively easy to take a step of faith; but it is far more difficult to live daily in God's fortress by faith. A great many people run into God's fortress on Sunday and come out of it again as soon as Monday morning dawns. Some even run into it when they kneel down to say their prayers at night and come out of it five minutes later when they get into bed. Of course, this is the height of nonsense.
One cannot imagine any sensible refugee running into a fortress one day, and the next day running out among the enemy again. We would think such a person had lost all their senses. But is it not even more foolish when it comes to our spiritual lives? Are our enemies any less active on Monday than they are on Sunday? Are we any better able to cope with them when we are in bed than when we were kneeling in prayer?
Do we want to only visit the dwelling place of God, or do we want to live there? Do we want to trust in the shelter of His wings today and tomorrow be exposed to the buffetings of our enemies outside? No one would deliberately choose the latter, but far too many drift into it. Our abiding in Christ is a matter of faith, but we fail to realize this. We think our earnest wrestlings or our strenuous eflforts are a large part of the matter; and, when these slacken, our faith weakens.
The Importance Of Faith If there is one thing that is certain, it is that the whole Christian life is to be lived by faith. Without faith it is impossible to please God.
It is utterly foolish to assume that any amount of fervency or earnestness or anything of our own invention can take its place.
It is useless to waste our time and energy over things that amount to nothing.
We must put all our will power and all our energy into our faith. We must ''set our faces like a flint"
(Isaiah 50:7) to move into the dwelling place of God. We will abide there steadfastly, despite any temptations to doubt or despair.
''He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty." Abiding and trusting mean exactly the same thing. While I trust the Lord, I am abiding in Him. If I trust Him steadfastly, I am abiding in Him steadfastly.
If I trust Him occasionally, I am running into Him and running out again.
I used to think there was some mystery about abiding in Christ, but I see now that abiding only means trusting Him fiiUy. When you understand this, it becomes the simplest matter in the world.
We sometimes say, speaking of two human beings, that they "live in each other's hearts." By this we mean that perfect love and confidence exist between them and that doubts of one another are
impossible. If my trust in the fortress of the Lord is absolute, I am abiding in that fortress.
The practical thing to do since God is our Fortress and our High Tower is to surrender by faith to put ourselves and all our interests into this divine dwelling place. Then we must dismiss all care or anxiety from our minds. Since the Lord is our dwelling place, nothing can possibly come to any harm that is committed to His care.
As long as we believe this, our aiGFairs remain in His hands. The moment we begin to doubt, we take our aflFairs into our own hands, and they are no longer in the divine fortress. Things cannot be in two places at once. If they are in our own care, they cannot be in God's care. And if they are in God's care, they cannot be in our own.
This is as clear as daylight, and yet, for the lack of a little common sense, people often get mixed up over it. They put their aiBfairs into God's fortress, and at the same time put them into their own fortress as well. Then they wonder why they are not taken care of. This is all foolishness.
Either trust the Lord completely or else trust yourself completely; but do not try to mix the two trusts, for they will not mix.
It often helps to put your trust into words. Say aloud, *'God is my dwelling place, and I am going to abide in Him forever.
It is all settled; I am in this divine habitation, and I am safe here.
I am not going to move out again."
You must meet all assaults of doubt and discouragement with the simple assertion that you are in the fortress. You can affirm that you know you will not be defeated, for no one ever trusted in the Lord and was overcome. You must declare that, let other people do as they may, you are going to abide in your divine dwelling place forever. And then, having taken this stand, you must refuse to reconsider the matter.
It is all settled. There is nothing more to be said about it.
I do not mean that we are to lie in bed and let things go.
I am talking about the inward aspect of our affairs, not the outward. Outwardly we may have to be full of active carefulness.
But the inward base of a soul must have hidden itself and all its interests in the dwelling place of God. That is what is meant by ''careful for nothing" in the beautiful Bible sense of having no anxious thoughts. Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus" (Phillippians 4:6-7).
To be without care inwardly is the surest foundation for a successful Christian life. The soul that is hidden in the dwelling place of God is the soul that will be able to bear triumphantly earth's greatest trials and to conquer its strongest foes.
Bring The Whole Family When we move into a new house, we not only move in ourselves, but we take with us all our belongings. Above all, we talce our family. No one would be so foolish as to leave anything they cared for or anyone they loved outside. There are, however, some of God's children who move into the dwelling place of God themselves. By their lack of faith, they leave those they love best outside.
It is often their children who are so abandoned.
We would be horrified at a father who, in a time of danger, fled into a fortress for safety but left his children outside. Yet, hundreds of Christians do this very thing. Every anxious thought we have about our children proves that we have not really taken them with us into the dwelling place of God.
If we trust God for our own lives, we must trust Him for our loved ones also, especially for our children. God is more their Father than their earthly father could ever be. If they are dear to us, they are far more dear to Him. We cannot do anything better than to trust them to His care. The worst thing we could do is to try to keep them in our own care.
I knew a Christian mother who trusted peacefully for her own salvation, but she was tormented with anxiety about her sons who seemed entirely indiflferent to all religious subjects. One evening she heard about the possibility of putting those we
love into the fortress of God by faith and leaving them there. Like a flash of heavenly light, she saw the inconsistency of hiding herself in God's fortress and leaving her beloved sons outside. At once her faith took them into the fortress with her, and she abandoned them to the care of God. So fully and completely did she do this that all her anxiety vanished and perfect peace dawned upon her soul.
She told me she felt that her sons were God's sons now. He loved them far better than she could and would care for them far more wisely and eflFectively. She held herself in readiness to do for them whatever the Lord might suggest. But she felt that He was the One who would know what was best, and she was content to leave the matter in His hands.
She went home from that meeting and called her sons into her room and told them what had happened. ''You know my dear boys," she said, ''how anxious and troubled I have been about you and how continually I have preached to you and,
I am afraid, have often worried you. But now I have learned to trust, and I have put you by faith into the fortress of God.
I have left you in His care.
I am sure that He will care for you far better than your poor mother ever could, and He will save you in His own way. My anxieties are over."
I did not see her again for a year; but when I did, she came up to me with a beaming face. With tears of joy filling her eyes, she said, "Rejoice with me, dear friend, that I learned how to put my boys into
the fortress of God. They have been safe there ever since, and all of them are good Christian boys today."
The conclusion is simply this: we must make up our minds to move into our dwelling place in God.
In addition, we must take with us all our possessions, and above all, those we love. We must lose sight of everything that is outside of Him, except as we see it through His eyes. We will then see our trials as blessings and our enemies as disguised friends. We will be calm and at rest in the face of all the worries of life.
**And my people shall dwell in peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places"
(Isaiah 32:18).