This article is from chapter 32 of Portraits of Christ (Crown & Covenant), releasing this summer.

“National calamity!” What images do these words bring to your mind? For the prophet Isaiah, it meant an incompetent national government and economic meltdown. It meant war, invasion, and occupation by a brutal enemy. It meant massive civilian casualties, orphaned children, and endless lines of shuffling refugees with nowhere to run: an entire population gripped with panic.

Now, to such an afflicted people, what does the word “shelter” convey? Surely, it conveys relief and a hiding place from the pursuer, a place of safety you can run to where you and your family can finally be at rest and fear the enemy no more. Isaiah lived through some of the most turbulent years of the kingdom of Judah; he witnessed the terror of the Assyrian invasion, the burning of the cities and villages of Judah, and subsequent siege of Jerusalem. But against this terrifying backdrop, God gave him a message of hope: the provision of shelter from the violent storm not only of a national and political kind, but of a spiritual kind.

While you may not live to see such national calamity in your day, it is almost certain that you will see (or have seen) personal calamity. All of us live under the calamity of sin—a human calamity so profound that all the storms of life have their origins in this great fount of all human misery. And it is this great calamity and its fallout that God has done something about. He has provided a shelter, and that shelter is a person:

Behold, a king will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule with justice. A man will be as a hiding place from the wind, and a [shelter, ESV] from the tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. (Isa. 32:1–2)

Here is another glorious portrait of our Lord Jesus Christ: He is our “shelter from the tempest.”

A Shelter Foretold

In order to fully appreciate the beauty of this portrait of Christ as our shelter, we first need to get to grips with the storm from which His people need to be sheltered. This is found in Isaiah 31. Israel is facing a major national crisis; the storm clouds of war are gathering on her northern borders. The restless Assyrian Empire under King Sennacherib—a nation still recognized today as one of the most brutal military regimes of history and specialists in torture and butchery—is amassing its armies.

By chapter 31, the northern kingdom of Israel has already fallen, and Judah is the next target. God’s people in Judah, ruled by King Hezekiah, give in to their fears and do something foolish, which is recorded in verse 1:

Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many, and in horsemen because they are very strong, but who do not look to the Holy One of Israel, nor seek the Lord!

Hezekiah makes a critical mistake: he seeks shelter from Egypt, forming an alliance with her and trusting in horses, chariots, and horsemen instead of the Lord (compare with Deut. 17:16). No wonder God scoffs in Isaiah 31:3: “The Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses are flesh, and not spirit.”

But in Isaiah 31:4–9, God lays out His far better plan: “The Lord of hosts will come down to fight for Mount Zion and for its hill. Like birds flying about, so will the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem. Defending, He will also deliver it; passing over, He will preserve it.” God foretells a coming day of power when He Himself, and not the puny Egyptian army, will defend Israel. And when He does so, He will “pass over” them, just as He “passed over” them in Egypt.¹ In other words, deliverance for God’s people will be in the form of atonement for their sins, which will coincide with the destruction (described in graphic detail in the rest of chapter) of their arch-enemy, Assyria.

And that brings us to this portrait of Christ in Isaiah 32:1–2. Following this great victory, God will establish King Hezekiah’s rule in Jerusalem, and he and his princes will govern with justice. A new era of safety will be ushered in; Assyria will never again trouble Judah. Instead of the storm, there will be shelter.

This brief overview of Isaiah 31 reminds us that, in times of calamity in our lives, be they national or personal, God expects us to patiently believe His promises and not to take matters into our own hands. “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us” (2 Peter 3:9). That is the way it was for Israel. God foretold that shelter was going to come.

A Shelter Fulfilled

Isaiah has foretold a day when God will shelter His people and destroy their enemy: “In that day every man shall throw away his idols” (Isa. 31:7). But this begs the question, “In what day?” When would the shelter foretold be a shelter fulfilled? As with all Old Testament prophecy, we see different layers of fulfillment: a more immediate fulfillment and a more distant messianic fulfillment.

The immediate fulfillment.

In 701 BC, the inevitable finally happened: the dreaded Assyrian army under King Sennacherib invaded Judah, and, just as Isaiah had predicted, Egypt was powerless to help (compare with Isa. 36:18–20). Having crushed the Egyptian army, Sennacherib captured no fewer than 46 walled cities in Judah² and finally came and besieged Jerusalem itself. It seemed as if it was all over for God’s people. Where was this “shelter from the tempest” he had foretold? A few chapters later, in Isaiah 36–37, we find the answer. Hezekiah finally calls on the Lord, and the Lord miraculously overthrows the enemy:

Then the Angel of the Lord went out, and killed in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses—all dead. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went away, returned home, and remained at Nineveh. (37:36)

Thus God fulfilled His Word: He showed up Egypt as a worthless help, He jealously guarded His own people, and He did it without any help from human armies (Isa. 31:3–4, 8–9). And after this truly astonishing act of deliverance, Hezekiah went on to have one of the most glorious reigns of all the Old Testament kings who sat on David’s throne, “reign[ing] in righteousness, and princes will rule with justice” (Isa. 32:1).³ So a shelter foretold became a shelter fulfilled for that generation. But there is also a more glorious fulfillment we must consider.

The messianic fulfillment.

The rescue of Jerusalem is not the only “day” of power that God wants us to see here. The mighty deliverance of Israel from Assyria is an Old Testament picture of your deliverance from sin and Satan by Jesus Christ. This is seen through a closer look at Isaiah 32:1–2. The Hebrew literally reads in verse 1, “Behold, according to righteousness there will reign a King”;⁴ and in verse 2, “The man (or this man) will be as a hiding place from the wind, a shelter from the tempest.”⁵ The ESV and NIV translations of verse 2 unfortunately obscure the fact that a particular man is in view. The prophet is saying that David’s heir Hezekiah foreshadows the perfect King Jesus, who will “reign in righteousness” (compare with Isa. 9:6–7 and 11:1–4) and be for His redeemed people “a hiding place from the wind, and a shelter from the tempest.”

When we read the words of Isaiah through the lens of the New Testament, we find the gospel written large. It is a short prophetic step from the Angel of the Lord’s supernatural act of redemption from Assyria in the Old Testament, to Christ’s mightier act of spiritual redemption in the New Testament, in which our sins are “passed over” (Isa. 31:5). You, God’s people, are oppressed by an evil enemy that is far too powerful for you, who would enslave you. But God, because of His covenant love, unilaterally descends to bring salvation to you: in the words of verse 4, “The Lord of hosts will come down to fight for Mount Zion and for its hill.” God’s Son—who appeared as the Angel of the Lord to crush the Assyrians outside the gates of Jerusalem (Isa. 37:36)—has now come down in human flesh to rescue His Church and crush our great enemy Satan on the cross, so that God might “pass over” your sins and that He might reign as King in righteousness.⁶

Are you trusting in Christ our shelter? Have you been sheltered from the wrath of God? Has He passed over your sins? If not, will you cry out to Him as Israel did and find salvation, or are you perhaps still betting on the help of your “Egyptians”—that is, your own earthly alliances and securities: your possessions, friends, or good works—instead of the Lord? But if you have been passed over, what then? Then Christ is still your shelter from the storms of life until you join Him in glory. That is the thrust of Isaiah 32:2, which contains much by way of practical application.

A Shelter for You

Explaining how the Old Testament should be read by Christians, the Apostle Peter writes, “Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully.…To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you” (1 Pet. 1:10, 12). Our text in Isaiah was written not only for the original hearers, who lived under the rule of Hezekiah, but for you and me, who presently live under the rule of Jesus Christ. Specifically, it shows why you still need shelter and how Christ is a shelter for you.

Why you still need shelter.

Christ does not turn the tide of the war and then leave His soldiers to fend for themselves on the battlefield. You may have been definitively saved from sin and Satan at the cross, but until you come to heaven, you must expect these enemies to harass your every step there. Yes, Satan is defeated and awaits his final sentence, but in the meantime, “he is filled with great wrath, because he knows his time is short” (Rev. 12:12). Yes, you died to sin with Christ, but until you put off this mortal body, your sinful nature, the “law of sin,” “wars” within your members (Rom. 6:10–11; 7:23). Yes, Christ has “overcome the world,” but this world in which you live is at enmity with your King. So we are told, “Do not marvel, my brethren, if the world hates you” (1 John 3:13).

Isaiah describes this fact vividly when he writes, “A man will be as a hiding place from the wind, and a [shelter] from the tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land” (32:2). These common biblical metaphors (usually found in the Psalms) vividly describe the afflictions you regularly face as a subject of the King and why you still need Christ as your shelter. As Thomas Boston explains,

The world is spiritually to Christ’s subjects, the people of God, a “weary land,” that is, a “thirsty land,” a scorching country, a stormy place, with many inconveniences, which make travelers weary and faint. It is a wilderness, wherein there is no water, which makes people weary, and long for shelter and refreshment.⁷

So as you trek like the Israelites in the wilderness, thirsty travelers in a thirsty land, you walk through “dry places,” singing with David, “O God, You are my God; early will I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water” (Ps. 63:1). And yet, to make matters worse, you must also endure “winds” and “tempests”—yet more common biblical metaphors for trials we face as Christians. The weather forecast for the committed Christian is stormy: “chance of precipitation, 100 percent.” These storms may take the form of outward trials—physical afflictions, bereavement, economic troubles, strife in personal relationships, even the effects of war, like Israel experienced. Or they often take the form of inward trials, such as struggles with sinful habits, temptation, a wounded conscience, or a sense of distance from God. “Winds, tempests, dry places, a weary land”—this is your lot as a subject of the King, and this is why you still need Him as your shelter.

How Christ is your shelter.

Christ’s once-for-all deliverance from “the Great Assyrian Storm” does not immunize you from further storms in life, but it does guarantee you will have a shelter in them. For each trial Isaiah mentions, he shows how Christ is a shelter from the storm for you. So what storms are you facing? You may not have 185,000 Assyrian warriors at your doorstep, but you do have days where you feel surrounded by enemies. Are you struggling with temptations that threaten to engulf you? Are you filled with a sense of guilt over your many failings? The 19th Century revival preacher Edward Griffin reminds you, “When the lightning of conviction flashes upon the soul, and guilt with its thundering voice spreads its dark folds over the mind, nowhere but in Jesus can be found a covert from the bursting storm.”⁸ And that is because He has withstood every temptation and borne the tempest of God’s wrath in your place on the cross: “reckon yourself therefore as dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ” (Rom. 6:11).

What afflictions are you suffering in your body, your family, your material well-being? Christ is a shelter from these storms too: “You have been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm” (Isa. 25:4).

But what about the times when you find yourself spiritually in “a dry place and a weary land”? Here too, Jesus will be for you “a river of water” and “the shadow of a great rock,” respectively (Isa. 32:2). The metaphor changes, but this is another vital element of Christ’s work as shelter. A shelter is a place of refreshment in a long and arduous journey, which, as we have seen, is through a wilderness. If you visit the Grand Canyon, there are many trails you can take down into that desert oven. And for each of them, the printed tour guides warn you how many bottles of water you will need to take with you in order to complete the journey safely. They also strongly recommend completing most of your trek in the early morning or evening, because that is when you are more likely to find shadows from the escarpment to shelter you from the blazing sun. Likewise, in your Christian journey, you can easily grow faint and “weary in well doing”: tired from endless battles against sin or exhausted from long nights of watching in prayer (2 Thess. 3:13 KJV). At such times, Jesus supplies not just a feeling of rest, but He is our rest; He supplies you with Himself.

The Hebrew word translated “rivers of water” refers not so much to a welcome oasis or a spring in the desert, but to an irrigation system built to supply copious water directly to its needed recipients. Each plant in the vineyard is thus guaranteed its own supply of water by channels that direct the life-giving water to its roots. Instead of shriveling up under the blazing sun, the plant grows and produces fruit in an otherwise forbidding environment. Likewise, for His vineyard the Church, your Master has provided “channels of water” that direct His life-sustaining grace to you: the means of grace. It is not the channels themselves that refresh and water the thirsty plants, but rather the water that is conveyed through them.⁹ In the same way, you must make use of the Word, sacraments, and prayer. You must do so not because you automatically receive grace in partici­pating in the Lord’s supper or the discipline of daily Bible reading. Rather, you must take hold of these ordinary means because through them you commune with Christ, are refreshed by Christ, and receive Christ as your shelter, so that the desert may bloom and flourish with the fruits of the Spirit.

In your day of calamity, will you run to the many inadequate shelters this world offers? Or will you instead flee to Christ? He alone is a competent shelter for you because He has faced all the “winds, tempests, dry places and weary land” on your behalf. For just as Isaiah foretold, He “came down to fight for Mt. Zion and for its hill,” taking your flesh and blood, and exposing Himself to the ferocious blast of God’s wrath, so that you too might have shelter.

Gordon J. Keddie pastored RP congregations in Scotland, Pennsylvania, and Indiana prior to his retirement. He is the author of Prayers of the Bible (2017) and many other books. David Whitla is professor of church history and director of the Theological Foundations for Youth program at the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pa. He is the author of numerous essays, articles, and reviews, and served as pastor of Southside (Indianapolis, Ind.) RPC.

Notes