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The word sanctuary at first meant anything separated and set apart for a holy purpose; later it came to designate a place used exclusively for sacred services; and then we find it used to express one chief end of a sacred place — an asylum — a place of refuge to which the guilty may fly and be safe.

I. MAN'S REFUGE. No creature so much needs the shelter and defence of a safe hiding place as man. His sources of danger are more than can be numbered. Beset with foes, he is in constant need of shelter, and often cries out for deliverance. What so welcome to him as a refuge! Physically regarded, as possessed of a body over which disease and death reign, how often does he sigh for some asylum, which may furnish a defence against these invaders of life! How is he to escape the feeling of terrible desertion and unimaginable dangers, how help crying out for some refuge from "the fightings without, the fears within," and the foes on every side? And, looking still deeper, when we see that he is the subject of a disease deceitful above every other — a disease which pertains to his whole nature — an "incurable wickedness," and when we hear him cry out in anguish of soul, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver into from this body of sin and death," — who does not rejoice at the very idea of refuge? How hard it is not to complain against God, and to demand "wherefore He has made man in vain!" How still harder to believe that there is a refuge for man which has been set up from the beginning! But in all times of deepest trouble, when human helpers fail and the hour of extremity comes, the strange thing is that the universal instincts of man's nature do lead him to look for help, and though he passes away apparently unhelped, he does so looking for help. You may have stood among a crowd, upon the shore, watching some vessel tossed on the tempestuous billows which threatened to overwhelm her. until at length a mighty wave washed over her and swept her clean of every living soul. And as that sea overwhelmed her there arose from the breast of everyone of the gazing crowd, "God help them!" Was that prayer an unconscious self-delusion in that moment of agony, or is there help for man in all times of his need? Or you may have listened to a judge passing the awful sentence which doomed a fellow creature to death — and whilst telling him there was no longer mercy or hope for him on earth, pointing to heaven and assuring him of hope and help in God. Was that judge dishonouring his judicial robes, and deceiving that poor wretch by this solemn mockery of pretended mercy, or is there an open door of hope in heaven for the poor outcasts from earth? And we have all read of the poor thief upon the Cross, turning, whilst paying the last penalty of the law with his life, in penitence to the Saviour and praying, "Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom"; and we know the gracious answer he received, "This day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise." Was our Lord deceived in this promise, or did He knowingly deceive the miserable victim of crime in the moment of his extremity? Oh no — there is help for the helpless, help for the hell-deserving, shelter for the defenceless, a refuge for the outcasts. "The just God," who is also a "Saviour" — oh, how I love that combination — hath said, "Look unto Me and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth; for I am God and there is none else."

II. MAN'S REFUGE IS A SANCTUARY. A place which is only a refuge furnishes but a temporary shelter. To the shipwrecked, a naked rock jutting out of the sea would be a glad refuge from the devouring waves; but it would not be a refuge long. But a refuge, which is also a sanctuary, a Divine house, affords not only shelter, but rest, repose, and satisfaction for all we need or can desire. The house of God may well be a home for man. And he who enters such a refuge soon discovers that it will be to him all his desire.

III. MAN'S REFUGE IS NOT ONLY SACRED, BUT ROYAL. "A glorious high throne is the place of our sanctuary." The house of God, "the dwelling place of the Most High" is also the seat and source of all rule, authority, and power. "Under the shadow of the Almighty," man finds a sure defence for the whole breadth of his nature, in the midst of every possible circumstance, throughout the whole course of his history. The security and defence vouchsafed to him are of the highest character, and inseparable from the nature of the throne, which has become his refuge. The sanctuary-refuge-throne is holy, and the holiness of the throne is its defence and security. The power of the throne is the defence of man's refuge. But the throne, which has become man's refuge, is not merely a symbol of power, but also of power surrounded with becoming glory. There is "the pomp which surrounds a throne." The throne gathers up and crowns every excellency.

IV. THIS SANCTUARY-REFUGE-THRONE IS SPOKEN OF AS AN EXALTED THRONE. It is high enough to embrace not merely man's individual nature, in all its integrity of body, soul, and sprat, but the whole race — the earliest sons in all the height and might of their experience, together with the latest born in the feebleness of beginning life. And not merely the race of man, for, under its exalted height is gathered together, in one unity of blessed life, all the elect, from the archangel before the throne to the weakest and meanest of the sons of men.

V. THIS EXALTED THRONE IS GLORIOUS IN THE HISTORY OF ITS EXALTATION. Its exaltation has not been by might but by right. Righteousness has been pleased and the law magnified throughout the holy pathway of ascent from a humble refuge to the glorious high throne. In becoming a refuge for the destitute, the abandoned, the lost, the throne has revealed the charms of the holy order and eternal righteousness by which triumphant conquests are made over every form of disorder and wickedness. Fugitives from the consequences of violated law, as they enter the refuge become obedient to law; the wicked become righteous; the sinful are made holy.

VI. IT HAS BEEN SET UP FROM THE BEGINNING. The provision for the requirements of man's fallen nature was no afterthought but a forethought. The refuge was ever latent in the unbroken depths of the throne, and, for the revelation of its fundamental glory, needed to be opened up. The history of man unfolds the eternal purpose, and will be no mean history when complete. It was the joy of the Eternal Wisdom, whose "delights were with the sons of men" "ere ever the earth was"; it will be His joy when the earth is no more. The discords of human history lie between two harmonies, the one in which they have no place, the other in which they have been resolved. In man's nature is struck the keynote of those pre-established harmonies, the melody of which is being written out in his history as a fitting song with which to celebrate the close of his earthly career, and the reconciliation of all things.

VII. THE PERSONALITY OF THIS REFUGE. An impersonal refuge could never afford shelter and defence for man against his personal foes. Moreover, the impersonal could never afford rest to, nor become a home for man. Man needs man, a human security, a human joy, a human home, a warm maternal bosom on which to rest; not even God as God, but God as man. Is there such a person? One who is a refuge for man and a sanctuary for God? One who is also a throne, a throne exalted by a glorious history, and yet set up from the beginning? Oh joy of all joys, that God has revealed to us One possessed of all these attributes! We make our first acquaintance with Christ as a refuge. We seek in Him deliverance, shelter, and safety. Having made the experience of Him as a refuge, we begin to find He is more than a refuge, that He is a Divine house, a blessed home, a home in the house of God. Then, as we enlarge our acquaintance with our home, we find it a house of many mansions, opening up out of each other height above height, until a very throne is displayed to us — the throne of God, rising out of the refuge for man — and that the refuge is lost in the throne. And then as we gaze upon the throne which has hidden the refuge in its glory, the humanity in the Divinity, we begin to discover the refuge again in its deeper depth, something human in the depths of the Divine, and that it gives its own lustre to the central glory of the throne. And we perceive that this eternal humanity in the depths of Deity which gives a lustre to the eternal glory is the humanity which is the Alpha and Omega of man's earthly history. And seeing this we refuse to it all dates and proclaim it to have been ever from of old, and that it "became" the eternal Son in the bosom of the Father, nay, "behoved Him to be in all things made like unto His brethren that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people"; nay, more, that it "must needs have been" that He might "enter into His glory"! Hallelujah! God has made Himself one with us in our necessities that we may partake of His glory.

(J. Pulsford, D. D.)

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KJV: A glorious high throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary.

WEB: A glorious throne, [set] on high from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary.