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I. Let us contemplate THE SINNER "HIDING HIMSELF." For is not this flight and concealment of Adam among the trees of the garden like a symbolical representation of what sinners have been doing ever since? — have they not all been endeavouring to escape from God, and to lead a separated and independent life? They have been fleeing from Divine Presence, and hiding themselves amid any trees that would keep that Presence far enough away.

1. One of the most common retreats of the sinner is that of complete thoughtlessness. What countless thousands of human beings have fled to this retreat; and how easily and naturally does a man take part and place with "all the nations that forget God!" We have said complete thoughtlessness; but it is not complete. If it were, there would be no conscious hiding, no more flight; the forest would then be so deep and dense that no Divine voice would be heard at all, and no Divine visitation of any kind felt or feared. But it is not so. Now and again a gleam of light will come piercing through. Now and again a voice from the Unseen Presence will summon the fugitive back.

2. The occupations of life furnish another retreat for man when fleeing from God. Man works that he may be hidden. He works hard that he may hide himself deep. The city is a great forest, in which are innumerable fugitives from God, and sometimes the busiest are fleeing the fastest; the most conspicuous to us may be the farthest away from Him. Work is right — the allotment of God, the best discipline for man. Trade is right — the dispenser of comforts and conveniences, the instrument of progress and civilization; and from these things actual benefits unnumbered do unceasingly flow; and yet there can be little doubt that the case is as we say. These right things are used at least for this wrong end — as a screen, a subterfuge, a deep retreat from the voice and the presence of the Lord.

3. The moralities of life form another retreat for souls hiding from God. Some men are deeply hidden there, and it is hard to find them; harder still to dislodge them. This does not appear to be an ignominious retreat; a man seems to retire (if, indeed, he may be said to retire at all) with honour. Speak to him of spiritual deficiency, he will answer with unfeigned wonder, "In what?" And if you say again, "In the keeping of the commandments," he will give you the answer that has been given thousands and thousands of times since the young man gave it to Jesus, "All these things have I kept from my youth up. Not perfectly, not as an angel keeps them, but as well as they are usually kept among men; and what lack I yet?" So fair is the house in which the man takes shelter. So green is the leafage of the trees amid which he hides. He does not profess to be even "afraid," as Adam was. He hears the Voice, and does not tremble. Why, then, should it be said that he is hiding? Because in deep truth he is. He is attending to rules, but not adopting soul principles of life. He is yielding an outward and mechanical compliance to laws, but be has not the spirit of them in his heart.

4. The forms and observances of religion constitute sometimes a hiding place for souls. Men come to God's house to hide from Him. They put on "the form of godliness, but deny its power." They have a name to live, but continue dead. They seem to draw near, but in reality "are yet a great way off." They figure to themselves an imaginary God, who will be propitiated and pleased by an outward and mechanical service — by the exterior decencies of the Christian life — when all the while they are escaping from the true God, whose continual demand is, "My son, give Me thine heart." Ah, the deceitfulness of the human heart! that men should come to God to flee from Him! Yet so it is, and therefore let a man examine himself, whether he be in the faith or merely in the form; whether he have a good hope through grace, or a hope that will make him ashamed, whether he be in the very Presence reconciled, trustful, and loving, or yet estranged, deceiving himself, and fleeing from the only true Shelter. For we may depend upon it that in all these ways men do fly from God. And God seeks them, for He knows they are lost. He pursues them, not in wrath, but in mercy; not to drive them away into distance, condemnation, despair; but to bring them out from every false refuge and home to Himself, the everlasting and unchanging shelter of all the good.

II. And many do turn and flee to Him to hide them. Adam is the type of the flying sinner. David is the type of THE FLEEING SAINT (Psalm 143:9). Here we have the very heart and soul of conversion, "I flee unto Thee." The man who says this has been turned, or he is turning.

1. "I flee unto Thee to hide me" from the terrors of the law. He alone can hide us from these terrors. But He can. In His presence we are lifted, as it were, above the thunders of the mountain; we see its lightnings play beneath our feet. He who finds his hiding place with God in Christ does not flee from justice; he goes to meet it. In God, the saint's refuge justice also has eternal home; and purity, over which no shadow can ever pass; and law — everlasting, unchanging law — so that the trusting soul goes to meet all these and to be in alliance with all these.

2. "I flee unto Thee to hide me" from the hostility and the hatred of men. This was a flight that David often took, and, in fact, this is the fleeing mentioned in the text. "Deliver me, O Lord, from mine enemies. I flee unto Thee to bide me." Believer, if you have David's faith you have David's Refuge. The Name of the Lord is an high tower, into which all the righteous run and are safe.

3. "I flee unto Thee to hide me" from the trials and calamities of life. A storm comes to a ship in mid-voyage. She is driven far out of her course, and is glad at last to find shelter in some friendly port. But there would soon have been shipwreck in the fair weather. The sunken rock, the unknown current, the treacherous sand, were just before the ship. The storm was her salvation. It carried her roughly but safely to the harbour. And such is affliction to many a soul. It comes to quench the sunshine, to pour the pitiless rain, to raise the stormy wind and drive the soul away to port and refuge, away to harbour and home within the circle of Divine tranquillity — in the deep calm of the everlasting Presence.

4. "I flee unto Thee to hide me" from the fear and from the tyranny of death. This is the very last flight of the godly soul. It has surmounted or gone through every evil now but one: "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is Death."

(A. Raleigh, D. D.)

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KJV: And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?

WEB: Yahweh God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?"