The Rule of Grace

The Rule of Grace

(No. 3061)

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1907.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
AUGUST 17, 1873.

"Man/ lepers were in Israel in tie time of Elisha the Prophet; and none
of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian." Luke 4:27.

OUR Savior never sought popularity. His ministry was so attractive that
thousands thronged to hear Him, glad to catch the accents of His
instructive tongue, but He never for a moment sought to preach
flesh-pleasing truths, neither did He keep back any Doctrine by which
it might be feared that His hearers would be disgusted. On this
occasion He was speaking to His own townsmen. The young Man who had
left the place for a while and who, during His absence, had acquired
great fame as a Teacher and Miracle-Worker, had come home and there
was, naturally, much curiosity to hear Him. They supposed that He would
make the town where He had been brought up, to be the chief place of
His benedictions. They were His fellow townsmen, so surely they had
some claim upon Him! But our Lord, knowing right well that if they
really understood His teaching, they would not be pleased with it–and
knowing that the blessings He came to bring were not such as they
desired–at once dealt honestly with them and told them that Elisha did
not heal the lepers in his own country, but one was healed who came
from a foreign land. And He led them to infer that very likely He would
do His greatest deeds of healing elsewhere than at Nazareth, that God
might be pleased to bestow the richest supplies of His Grace upon
heathens–upon Syrians–and not upon those who seemed to suppose that
they had some right or claim to it. Our Lord, in fact, preached to
these people the great Doctrine of Divine Sovereignty, the humbling
Doctrine of Divine Election of which Paul wrote to the Romans, "He said
to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have
compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him
that wills, nor of him

that runs, but of God that shows mercy." [See Sermon #442, Volume
8–GOD'S WILL AND MAN'S WILL.] That was the main point of our Savior's
discourse and His fellow townsmen could not endure it, as many since
have not been able to endure it–and seeking to end such hateful
teaching by murdering the Teacher, they hurried Him from the synagogue
to the top of the precipice whereon their city stood, that they might
hurl Him down and destroy Him!

I learn, from this incident in our Lord's life, that it is not the
preacher's business to seek to please his congregation. If he labors
for that end, he will in all probability not attain it. But if he
should succeed in gaining it, what a miserable success it would be! He
must lose the favor of his Master if he should once aim at securing the
favor of his fellow men. We therefore ought to preach many Truths of
God which will irritate our hearers! We ought to declare to them the
doctrines which are for their present and eternal welfare, however
distasteful they may be to their carnal reason and natura1
inclinations. As the physician must give bitter medicine to his
patients if he would cure them of their diseases, so must the preacher,
who is truly sent of God, proclaim unpalatable Truths of God to his
hearers and he must preach the more often upon those very bitter Truths
because men are so unwilling to receive them. That part of the Gospel
which they will readily embrace without any persuasion need not be
preached as often–but that part which they will kick at and resist
must be enforced again and again, if perhaps at last their judgment
should be convinced of its truth and their heart won for its reception!

By the Holy Spirit's help, I am going to preach to the unconverted with
the earnest desire and hope that they will remain unconverted no
longer. And my subject is the healing of Naaman the Syrian. There are
two points in it that are

especially worth noting. The first is the sovereignty of Divine Grace
which was manifest in it. And the second is the unvarying rules by
which that Grace works.

I. First then, let us consider THE SOVEREIGNTY OF DIVINE GRACE which
was so clearly manifested in the healing of Naaman the Syrian.

And I will observe at the outset that the experience of Naaman equally
teaches the freeness of Divine Grace. If our Savior had selected this
case as an instance, not of the sovereignty, but of the freeness of
Divine Grace, it would have been equally appropriate. Two Truths of God
which sometimes appear to be in opposition will often prove, if they
are examined more closely, to be nestling side by side with one
another. Suppose our Savior had put the case of Naaman thus–"Every
person who was a leper who applied to Elisha to be healed was healed,
and though one of them came from a foreign country and was a
heathen–and a determined enemy of Israel–he was not rejected, for
whoever came to the Prophet was accepted and received the blessing."
That would have been a Truth of God and a most blessed Truth, too, and
a Truth which we delight to preach and which we do preach incessantly.
And that Truth does not clash with the other Truth of God of which our
text speaks–that out of all the lepers who were in Israel in the days
of Elisha, none were cleansed save this one stranger from the alien
land of Syria! The universality of Divine Grace is easily reconciled
with the sovereignty of it! Perhaps we cannot reconcile it so that
others can see the reconciliation, but we have felt the reconciliation
in our own hearts and in our own experience. And for my part it would
be as stern a difficulty to see that there is anything irreconcilable
between the two Doctrines as it seems to be to others to see how the
two Doctrines can possibly agree! I cannot, for the life of me, detect
where they clash, just as some others cannot see how they agree. I do
unfeignedly believe that Christ will in no wise cast out anyone who
comes to Him and I dare to say that to every man and woman of the human
race–but I also believe just as firmly that no one comes unto Christ
except those whom the Father draws to Him–and that all whom the Father
has given to Christ shall surely come to Him. [See Sermons #1762,
Volume 30–high

DOCTRINE AND BROAD DOCTRINE and #2386, Volume 40–THE DRAWINGS OF
DIVINE LOVE.] Both these statements are true and, therefore, both of
them are to be believed and we may rest assured that they both agree
with one another!

But our Savior, on this occasion, though He often preached upon the
freeness of Divine Grace, was pleased to preach upon the sovereignty of
it, for it was the sovereignty of Grace that saved Naaman. He was a
heathen, a worshipper of the idol god, Rimmon, yet when he obeyed the
Prophet's command, he received the healing he asked for, yes, and more
than that, he received the salvation of his soul, too! In addition to
being a heathen, this man was a sworn enemy of Israel. He had often led
the bands of Syria to plunder the people of God and yet, for all that,
eternal mercy looked with complacency upon him and determined not only
that his leprosy should be healed but that he should be a perpetual
monument of the Sovereign Grace of God! He also lived far away from the
abode of Elisha and in those days, the difficulty of travelling such a
distance was exceedingly great–and yet, for all that, the Grace of God
which passed by the lepers who were living near the Prophet's home,
went far afield and found this Syrian soldier–and it is even so to
this day! There are those who have lived ungodly, dishonest,
unrighteous, unchaste lives whom God, nevertheless, saves by His
Almighty Grace! There are even those who have been enemies of the
Gospel, deniers and despisers of it and some who have been persecutors
of God's people who have, like Saul of Tarsus, breathed out threats and
slaughter against the disciples of the Lord and who have hated the
things of God with their whole heart, yet, like Saul of Tarsus, these
men have been overcome by the Omnipotence of Eternal Love and they have
been saved by the Sovereign Grace of God. Some of these people have
like Naaman been far off from the means of Grace. They have seldom
attended the House of Prayer. They have been disregarders of God's holy
Sabbath and yet, strange to say, the first time they went to the House
of God, they found the blessing! They have been sought for by Go, and
found according to His Sovereign Grace. 'Tis wonderful, but 'tis true,
and nobody can long be pastor of such a Church as this without
observing that it is often the most unlikely persons who are saved.
Those who seem to you not likely even to be influenced by Divine Truth,
are the very people who yield to it! Many whom you have set down as
quite incorrigible have been renewed by Sovereign Grace. Why it is so,
is not for us to know–we can only say, "Even so, Father: for so it
seemed good in Your sight."

This sovereignty of Grace, in the case of Naaman, seems all the more
remarkable when we think of the many others who were passed over while
he was healed. We would have thought surely, if Elisha can cure lepers,
he will begin with those in Israel of whom our Lord tells us that there
were many. But he does not begin with them–what he does is done for
Naaman the Syrian! We think, surely, if he can cure lepers, he will
cure those who are observers of the Ceremonial

Law, but he does no such thing–he brings healing to this heathen
foreign soldier! At the present day, in every congregation, there are
persons who have been brought up in an atmosphere of godliness. The
first sound they ever heard was the voice of praise and prayer and they
have lived in such surroundings all their lives–yet they are not
converted. They have been at the House of God almost as often as the
doors have been open–yet they are not saved. And they are respectable
people, too. They are of excellent morals, very good in many ways and
yet, for all that–while publicans and harlots, strangers and
foreigners, occasional hearers and the like have actually been
converted and are rejoicing in the blessings of full salvation–these
people still remain in the leprosy of their natural depravity and
sin–impenitent, unbelieving, unconverted, unpardoned!

How is this and why is it? It is not for us to give any reasons except
the one reason that lies upon the surface, which is this–that God will
have all men know that there is no one who has any right to salvation!
That we are all lost and condemned to begin with and that if He does
save any of us at all, it must be upon the resting of His free,
Sovereign Mercy and cannot be upon the ground of our own merits and
works. Suppose that it were a rule of the Kingdom of God that all the
children of pious parents should be converted? There would be many who
would say, "My mother was a godly woman, my father was a Christian–and
that is all that is required." But it is not so. You are a lost sinner
whatever your mother may have been! And you must repent and be
converted just as truly as if you had been the child of the worst drab
of the streets. Even though you may have descended from a long line of
saints, you are a sinner and must be pardoned through the Infinite
Mercy of God quite as much as the child of the man who was hanged for
committing murder! You must be saved on the same principles as the
vilest of the vile, must be saved and, to make men see this, God often
passes by the children of the godly and calls the children of the
godless into the Kingdom of His Grace. If everybody who went to the
House of God was entitled to the blessings of salvation, many would
say, "We attend such-and-such a place of worship and that is sufficient
to ensure us a place in the Kingdom of Heaven!" So you seat-holders
would conclude that there was no need for you to be anxious and that
one of these days you would be sure to get the blessing.

But, my dear Hearers, how many have gone to Hell from seats in places
of worship! How many regular hearers of the Word are also regular
unbelievers who will one day be banished from God's Presence with a
deeper woe upon them because they knew their duty, yet did it not–they
heard the Truth of God yet did not heed it! And the Lord makes this to
be known among men by often calling, by His Grace, those who attend our
services, as it were, by accident and by making the Word preached to be
the savor of life unto life to them–while those who regularly hear it,
yet do not receive it, prove it to be the savor of death unto death to
them! And, then, if all respectable people were saved, or those only
were saved who were respectable, we would have this pretty thing which
is nowadays called, "respectability," seeking to make God its debtor
and to cause the Most High to bow down before the respectability of
men!

Let a woman but turn aside from the path of virtue. Let a man be but
once convicted of a crime and how our self-righteous hands are held up
against them! We are so pure, so good, so free from sin that we can
afford to say with the hypocrite of old, "Stand by yourself, come not
near me, for I am holier than you." We do not wonder that the Lord said
concerning such people, "These are a smoke in My nose, a fire that
burns all the day." How the thrice-holy Jehovah must loathe those who
hypocritically pretend to be pure when their heart is full of
rottenness and uncleanness! Many a man may appear not to be leprous,
but the fatal disease is upon him all the while–and only waiting for
an opportunity to show itself as it will do before long! Oh how God
hates the wicked cant of this self-righteous world! And therefore He
comes and looks for sinners, for real sinners, for those who admit that
they have gone astray from His ways like lost sheep–and He leaves
those who think themselves good, those who are in their own esteem,
righteous. And He says to them, "According to your belief, you do not
need a Savior. Therefore go your way and perish in your sin. But as for
those poor lost ones whom you judge to be so full of sin that there is
a double necessity for them to be pardoned and saved, it is for just
such sinners as these that Jesus died! He came not to call the
righteous, but sinners to repentance."

I have heard of a great man who was once taken to see the French galley
slaves. And he had given to him the authority to set free any man whom
he found at the galleys to whom he cared to give his liberty. He went
to one man and found that he was committed for ten years and he asked
him about his crime. He said that he thought he had been treated very
unfairly. He didn't know that he had done much amiss. Perhaps he had,
once or twice, taken a little that was not his, but the temptation to
which he had yielded was very strong and he had done so much good in
other ways that he really thought he was very harshly treated in being
sent to the galleys. So the gentleman passed him by–he was too good a
man to receive a free pardon. There was another who said that he was
perfectly innocent. He even swore that he was as innocent as a new-born
babe of every accusation that had been brought against him. The
gentleman also passed him by, for he, too, was too good to be freely
forgiven. Then he came to another who said that he might have tripped
perhaps, but much more was made of it than was true and there were
liars in court and perjury had been committed by a great many of the
witnesses against him. And he knew a great many men who were twice as
bad as he was, yet they were at liberty while he was there in chains.
That man was not the one to be pardoned. At last the visitor came to a
poor fellow who said to him, "I have a long sentence to serve, but I
fully deserve even more than that sentence. I wonder that I was not
condemned to death, for had they proceeded to extremities, they might
have proved me guilty of murder. So I look upon my sentence as much
lighter than I really deserve to suffer." Then he who had received the
authority to pardon whom he pleased, said, "I pardon you, for,
according to your own confession, you appear to be the only man in the
whole place who is really receiving justice and, therefore, I will show
you mercy, so you may go your way as a free man." In like manner, the
Lord Jesus Christ is always ready to bestow His mercy upon those who
confess that they deserve the heaviest sentence of His justice. But as
long as we kick against that, we cannot expect Him to look upon us in
love.

II. Now I think I have spoken sufficiently upon the Sovereignty of
Grace, so I want to enlist your earnest attention to another part of
the subject as I try to show you that in the case of Naaman, Sovereign
Grace followed THE

UNVARYING RULES OF GRACE.

God is a Sovereign and may therefore save whom He wills. And He may
also save them howHe wills. Yet when He is about to save a man, He does
not depart from His usual method of working, but saves him according to
the way in which He is accustomed to save.

Let me call your attention, first, to the fact that although Naaman was
to be healed, and although Divine Sovereignty ordained the healing, it
was necessary that he should first hear the good news of the
possibility of healing. The ordinary way in which a sinner is saved is
this, "Faith comes by hearing." It is as simple as possible. We hear
the message and we believe it. So Naaman must first hear about the
possibility of his being healed–but how is he to hear? Where is the
preacher who will wend his way to Syria and tell him about the Lord's
Prophet in Samaria? There is no need for any preacher to go on that
long journey–a little maid is taken captive and she conveys the
necessary message! That is all that is required. It was through a
suitable messenger that Naaman was healed and blessed, so let none of
us ever get into our heads the idea that God will save His own and,
therefore, there is no need for us to go out to seek them, or to preach
to them when we have found them! He will not save them apart from His
own way–which way is that the preacher shall be sent and the person to
be blessed shall hear the Gospel–and when he hears it, he shall be
constrained to believe it. Hence we who are preachers must continue to
preach the Word and you who are unsaved hearers, must make a point of
endeavoring to hear the Gospel message, for that is both your privilege
and your duty. God's own message to you is, "Incline your ears and come
unto Me. Hear and your soul shall live." Therefore give your most
earnest attention to the gracious message of mercy which God sends to
you by His servants!

Next, when Naaman has heard that there is healing to be had in Israel,
he must give heed to the message and make a long journey in order to
reach the Lord's Prophet. He would not have been healed if he had sat
down and said, "I have heard about this possibility of being healed of
my leprosy, but I shall take no trouble to see whether it is true or
not." Oh, no! He does not talk like that, but he gives orders for the
horses and camels to be brought out and the talents of silver, and the
pieces of gold, and the changes of raiment that he will need for use as
presents. And he departs for that far country where he hopes to receive
the blessing that he desires. And, sinners, if you really wish to be
saved, you must remember that God will save you through your
attentively listening to the Gospel message that He sends to you and
compelling your spirits to do what that message bids you do. God does
not convert sinners while they are asleep! The Gospel is not absorbed
by men as water is absorbed by a sponge, by a kind of insensible
action. The Truth of God comes to the mind of the hearer and he is
impressed by it. And being impressed by it, he lays it to heart and
gives his whole soul to its comprehension and reception. And if you
would be converted, you must get the Truth into your very soul. You
must not play with it, you must not toy with it, you must not trifle
with it–but you must be in earnest about the matter–you must, as the
Apostle says, "Lay hold on eternal life." There must be an agonizing
and a wrestling that you may enter into the full appropriation and
possession of the Truth of God which is proclaimed in your hearing!

When Naaman had come to the Prophet Elisha, he was not healed merely
because he had heard the little maid's message, or because he had heard
it with such a measure of attention that he had given earnest heed to
it. But it was also imperative upon him that he should obey the command
he received. ' 'Go," said the Prophet, "and wash in Jordan seven
times." Naaman was ordained to be healed, yet he never would have been
healed without the washing that Elisha commanded! And there is no
sinner, be the purposes of God what they may, who will ever get his
sins forgiven except by washing in the precious blood of Jesus! It
matters not who you may be–unless you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
you cannot have eternal life! Do not suppose, dear Hearers, that there
is some secret decree of God that will override this– there is no such
decree! The Truth of God with which you have to do is this, "He that
believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believes not shall
be damned." If you do not believe in Jesus, there is no hope for you!
There remains, neither in God, nor in anyone else, any hope for you!
The way of salvation is set before you and it is quite as simple as
Elisha's command to Naaman to wash seven times in Jordan. The Gospel is
that Jesus Christ suffered in the place of all sinners who trust Him as
their Savior, that He endured what they ought to have endured and made
atonement to God for all the sins that they would ever commit. And if
you thus trust Him, you are saved. The simple act of relying upon Jesus
as your Substitute and Savior puts away your guilt and sin forever!

But if you say, "This plan of salvation is too simple to be safe! I
thought that there would be some imposing ceremony to be performed. I
fancied that there would be certain mysterious feelings to be
experienced!" If you talk like this, you cannot be healed. It is the
Eternal Purpose of God that we shall be saved through faith in Jesus
Christ and if there is no faith in Jesus Christ, that is a proof that
there is no Divine Purpose to heal that soul! But where there is the
Divine Purpose to heal, it is evidenced, sooner or later, by a
submissive yielding to the ordained way of salvation and simple trust
in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Notice once more, Naaman was not healed until he was humbled. It was
God's purpose to heal him. He had been set apart by Sovereign Grace to
be healed, yet he had to be humbled before the blessing could come to
him. While his pride was so great, he could not be healed. Why should
he wash in the Jordan? Were not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus,
quite as good as the Jordan? Why should he wash there? Is he not high
in the esteem of his master, the king of Syria? Why should he stoop to
this indignity? He will not do anything of the kind! But if he will
not, be he who he may, he cannot be healed. Though he is such great
man, there is no healing for him without humbling–and it is so with
those who would be cured of the leprosy of sin! There is no hope of
Heaven for you unless you are humbled. As long as you have a rag of
your righteousness that you trust in, you cannot have the robe of
Christ's righteousness to cover you. If you glory in what you have, and
what you are, you are not the kind of man whom God delights to save!
You must lie low at the feet of Jesus! You must plead for forgiveness
like a poor guilty sinner! You must cry, "Jesus save me, or I die!" or
else through the gate of Heaven you are too big to pass for, "strait is
the gate and narrow is the way," and no self-righteousness can go in
there.

"But," says one, "I have always been a regular attendant at a place of
worship. I have always paid twenty shillings in the pound. I give a
guinea to the hospital and I believe myself to be, on the whole, a most
excellent person." I do not suppose that anybody will say just that,
but I mean that great many will think it. And I want all such people to
plainly understand that until they get all this horrible boasting out
of their soul, they will no more go to Heaven than the devil himself
will! But if any man here confesses that he is a mass of iniquity–that
even his best works have something bad in them, that his praying has to
be wept over and his tears of repentance have to be washed to get the
filth out of them–if there is a sinner here, real black or scarlet
sinner, he or she is the one who is freely invited to come and put his
trust in Jesus, for it is "a faithful saying, and worthy of all
acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,"
even the very chief! Pride must come down, self-righteousness must die
and the sinner must glorify the Grace of God by admitting that he has
no merit of his own–or he cannot be saved.

What shall we say, then, to these things? Just this. Let us all go
together to the Throne of God where we have offended and let us confess
that none of us have any claims upon Him. Let each of us say to Him,
"My Lord, if You should destroy me, I must confess that I deserve it.
If You should save my brother, who is equally guilty, and not save me,
I dare not complain, for You have the right to exercise Your mercy
wherever and however You will. I shall receive the sentence that is
just even if I am banished from Your Presence forever." Submit to the
Lord as the burgesses of Calais came to the conquering king with ropes
about their necks! That is the proper costume for a sinner to wear
before God. Say, "Lord, I deserve, to die. I deserve to perish. I
deserve to be destroyed. I will have no quibbles with You about my
sentence, for how can a worm dispute with the Almighty? Who am I that I
should reply against my Maker?"

When you have taken that position, rely upon the freeness of Divine
Grace. Grasp, as with a death-clutch, this great fact and say, "Lord,
You forgive sinners for Your own name's sake. You cannot find anything
in us that is good, anything that can move You to pity. But oh, by Your
mercy and Your love, let men see what a gracious God You are! For Your
great name's sake, have mercy upon us and save us!" And you can plead
that Jesus said, "Him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out." And
that He has bid His servants say, "Whoever shall call upon the name of
the Lord shall be saved." "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the
unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and He
will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly
pardon." Plead with Him that He has said, "Come now, and let us reason
together…Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as
snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Go and
plead in that way, and trust yourself upon the Truth revealed in the
Word of God. Try it and prove it, and see whether God really means what
He says. Say to Him–

"You have promised to forgive

All who in Your Son believe.

Lord, I know You cannot lie–

Give me Christ, or else I die!"

I will not say to you–Go and risk it, for there is no risk. I will not
say to you–Go and venture, for it is no venture. Go and say to the
Lord, "O Lord, if I must perish, I will perish trusting in Your mercy
through the precious blood of Jesus, Your dear Son! 'Other refuge have
I none.' I cast aside all my former confidences and all my boasting and
come as the worst sinner must come, for I feel that in some respects I
am the worst sinner who ever came to You. I come as an utterly lost,
undone, bankrupt sinner and I look to the atoning Sacrifice of Jesus
for all that, I need." Then if you perish like that, I am quite willing
to perish with you! And I will stand at the bar of God with you on the
same terms, for if you are lost, I must be lost too! I solemnly avow
that I have no hope in anything I have ever done. I have preached the
Gospel these many years, but I have not preached one sermon that I can
look upon with any confidence so far as to depend upon it as a merit in
the sight of God! After we are saved, we may do something in the way of
almsgiving and other things to show our gratitude to God, but they are
worse than useless if we begin to boast of them as a reason forour
salvation. My song is–

"I the chief of sinners am, But Jesus died for me."

I know He did and I hope many of you can say the same thing. We are in
the same boat and if we go down, God will have to go down, too, for it
would stain His honor for anyone to be lost trusting in Jesus. But we
shall never go down if we are trusting in Him! We shall stand when the
great floods are out and the heavens are pouring forth their deluge of
devouring rain! We shall stand, for we are built upon a rock if we are
trusting in the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ! God grant that
we may all be found there and His shall be the praise forever and ever.
Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM107:23-82.

Verses 23, 24. They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business
in great waters; these see the works of the LORD, and His wonders in
the deep. The Jews were never given to navigation. To "go down to the
sea in ships," seemed a very extraordinary thing to them. They looked
upon it as a going down, as it were, into a dreadful abyss. We who are
more accustomed to going to sea than they were, talk of "the high
seas," but they spoke of going "down to the sea." They never went to
sea except on business. King Solomon had no pleasure yacht. There was
never one of that ancient race who cared to trust himself upon the sea
except as a matter of sheer necessity–and those who did so were looked
upon with wonder by their land-loving friends. "They that go down to
the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works
of the Lord"–that is, His greatest works, both in the sea and on it.
They know what storms are and they see what Omnipotence can do–and
they come back to tell of the wonders of God upon the mighty deep. This
verse may be read spiritually as well as literally. God calls some of
His servants, as it were, to go down to the sea in ships. They are
tried with poverty, with personal sickness, with temptation, with
inward conflicts, with fierce persecutions. And God

never calls them to these trials out of mere caprice, there is always a
reason for it. They go down to the sea in ships to "do business in
great waters." There is something to be gained from their trials and
something to be learned from them. They "do business in great waters"
and "these see the works of the Lord." Others hear about them and
believe what they are told concerning them. But these see them. They
see what God has done in their case–how He sustains, how He delivers,
how He sanctifies trials and overrules them for His own Glory and His
people's good. "These see the works of the Lord." And they also see the
wonders of the economy of Grace. They are made to experience the
heights and depths, the lengths and breadths of that love which passes
knowledge. They see "His wonders in the deep." You and I need not
desire to have trouble, as though we put out to sea for our own
pleasure, but if God calls us to sail upon a sea of troubles, if He
sends us there upon His business, we may depend upon it that He means
that business to end to our profit and His Glory.

25-27.–For He commands, and raises the stormy wind, which lifts up the
waves. They mount up to the heavens. They go down again to the depths.
Their sou1 is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and
stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end. Here we learn
something of what sailors see and of what tried Christians experience.
These great storms arise by God's command–not as many say, nowadays,
"by the laws of nature." The wind, which had been quiet, heard God's
voice and raises itself up, like a wild beast from its lair–"He
commands, and raises the stormy wind." And no sooner does the great
wind begin to blow than the white crests of the waves are seen, and the
white horses fly before the blast which lifts up the waves on high.
Then the ship, however staunch it is, seems to have no greater power of
resistance than a frail sea bird. And it is tossed up and down, up and
down, from the trough of the sea to the billows' crown–"They mount up
to the Heaven, they go down again to the depths." And their very soul
begins to melt. Brave men as they are, it only needs a sufficient
amount of storm to make their hearts turn to water and their spirits
dissolve into the turbulent element that is all round them! "Their soul
is melted because of trouble." Then they cannot keep their
balance–"they reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man." What
is worse, they cannot control their thoughts–they "are at their wit's
end." What can they do in such a case as that? There is an end to all
human wit and wisdom when the great storms are out upon the sea. You
who have ever had deep spiritual trials know the analogy of all this.
There may come times–there have come times to some of us–when, at the
command of God, or by Divine Permission, there has been a fierce blast
of temptation or a fiery trial–and then all that was peaceful around
us before, suddenly turns into a whirlpool of tempestuous billows and
we are tossed to and fro at the mercy of the winds and the waves.
Sometimes we ascend in presumption and then we go down into the very
depths of despair. At one moment we are joyous with hope and a moment
later we seem ready to give up all hope–our courage fails us and our
soul dissolves within us. If you have never known this experience, I
pray that you never may know it, but some of us have had stormy times
when we have seemed to have no foothold, when we have reeled to and fro
like drunken men–when the best faith we have had has been little
better than staggering! Still, it is better to stagger on the promise
than to stagger at it–and we did still stand though we staggered and
we were at our wit's end. We could not see what to do, we could not
tell what to do and we could not have done it if we had known what to
do! We were brought to such an extremity that we seemed to have neither
wit nor wisdom left.

28. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He brings them
out of their distresses. This shows that although they were at their
wit's end, they had wit enough or wisdom enough to pray! Their souls
were melted, so they let them run out in prayer. It is a good thing to
get the soul melted, for then it will flow out like water before the
Lord. Note that these sailors cried to God when there was no one else
to whom they could cry–"Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble."
Learn from this sentence that when your soul is melted because of
trouble, you can still pray. When you reel to and fro and stagger like
a drunken man, you can still pray–and when you are at your wit's
end–you can still pray! Prayer is never out of season! It is a fruit
of Grace that is acceptable to God in autumn and in winter, in spring
and in summer. As long as you live and even when the worst comes to the
worst, cry mightily unto God, for He will surely hear you. Was it not
so with us when we were in spiritual trouble and could do nothing else
but cry unto the Lord? It was a poor prayer that we offered, but it was
a real prayer that we presented when we cried unto God. Mark how quick
God is to hear such prayer as this–"Then they cry unto the Lord in
their trouble, and He brings them out of their distresses." He brought
them into them and, therefore, He brought them out of them. It was God
who took Jacob into Egypt and, therefore, though it took 400 years to
bring Israel out of Egypt, God brought them out at last. He kills and
He makes alive. He wounds and He heals. Rest in this Truth of God as a
matter of absolute certainty!

29. He makes thee storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. At
the first, God made everything out of nothing, so He can easily make a
calm out of a storm. And He can make the storm a calm for you whenever
He pleases to do so. Your troubled feelings, your tossing to and fro
may soon subside into "the peace of God, which passes all
understanding," which "shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ
Jesus."

30. Then are they glad because they are quiet; so He brings them unto
their desired haven. And there is no music that is sweeter to the
mariner's ears than the rattle of the chain as the anchor grips the
bottom of the harbor and the ship rests from all her tossing. The Lord
will give you Grace, my Brother, my Sister, to let down your
anchor–or, rather, to throw it up "into that within the veil," for
that is the way that your anchor goes–and then you shall be glad
because you will be quiet. I believe that there is often a greater,
fuller, deeper joy in being quiet than there is in making a noise.
There are times when it is good to praise the Lord with the
high-sounding cymbals and with the harp of a solemn sound. But, in the
deepest joy of all, we are still before God and praise is silent before
God in Zion.

31. Oh that men would praise the LORD for His goodness, and for His
wonderful works to the children of men! Should they not do so? Those
who have survived the storms at sea, or the still greater storms within
their own souls should surely take care to praise the Lord. If we know
how to pray, we also ought to know how to praise. Prayer and praise
ought to form the two covers of the book of our life–and our life is
not well bound unless these are the two covers to it–with a good stiff
back of faith to bind the two covers firmly together and to hold every
leaf in its proper place.

32. Let them exalt Him also in the congregation of the people, and
praise Him in the assembly of the elders. Let them not only praise the
Lord in private, but let them also sound out their song of gratitude to
God where the graybeards are gathered together! And let the men of
experience, the officers of the Church, the leaders of the Lord's
people, help them in the expression of their gratitude.