Or (2) we may regard it as a certain and terrible fact in our _own_ history. And it is thus that we should regard it. It is _we_ who are to stand before the great White Throne. A realisation of this fact will powerfully affect our feelings and our conduct; we shall (1) acknowledge, at the least, that _we need a refuge._ And we shall be prepared (2) _thankfully to avail ourselves of the refuge which God in His mercy has provided for us._ With yet greater fulness and definiteness of meaning God's messengers can repeat the prophet's counsel, "Enter into the rock, &c." The sinner's refuge is the Son of God, "the Rock of our salvation." Our refuge from God as our Judge is God Himself as our Saviour. It is as such that He now reveals Himself to us. "Behold _now_ is the day of salvation;" but the day of judgment is at hand! Ere it burst upon us, let us flee unto "the Rock of Israel" (ch. xxx. 29) crying to Him, with penitent confession of our sins, "Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee." FOOTNOTES: [1] "The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up, their sin is hid" (Hosea xiii. 12). Not that his sin was hid from God, but his sin is hid; that is, it is recorded, it is laid up against a day of reckoning. That this is the meaning, is clear by the foregoing words, his iniquity is bound up; as the clerk of the assizes binds up the indictments of malefactors in a bundle, and, at the assizes, brings out the indictments, and reads them in court, so God binds up men's sins in a bundle; and, at the day of judgment, this bundle shall be opened, and all their sins brought to light before men and angels.--_Watson,_ 1696. THE GREAT DETHRONEMENT. ii. 18. _And the idols He shall utterly abolish._