God in Heaven, and Men on the Sea

God in Heaven, and Men on the Sea

(No. 3321)

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1912.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON, ON BEHALF OF THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN
SAILORS' SOCIETY,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"By terrible things in righteousness will You answer us, O God of our
salvation; who are the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of
them that are afar off upon the sea." Psalm 65:5.

PLEASE read the 65th Psalm through. May it do you good, whether as
landsmen you read of the Lord's settling the furrows, or as sailors you
hear of His stilling the noise of the seas. Notice the first two
verses–"Praise waits for You," "O You that hear prayer." Holy men of
old were accustomed to mix praise and prayer together–this is a happy
mixture! We are not tied to one thing. We spread the sails of prayer
and fly the flag of praise. To praise God without praying to Him would
be impossible. To pray to God without praising Him would be ungrateful.
Praise takes in a cargo of gold for the King of kings–and prayer
stokes the fires to make the good ship steam towards the royal city!
Brothers, keep to this throughout all the watches–pray and praise–and
when you need a change, praise and pray/Keep the boat of the soul going
with these two oars–praise and prayer.

Notice, also, in this Psalm, that when the saints of the olden time
offered prayer and praise, they addressed themselves at once to
God–not to saints and angels. David is not satisfied with talking
about God, but he talks to Him, as in our text–"You will answer us, O
God of our salvation." There's nothing like straight sailing–let us go
directly to God. We ought not to think of what our fellow men will say
of our praises. If they are not musical in the ears of men, it matters
little, so long as they are sweet to the Lord our God! When we engage
in publicprayer, it is a pity to be thinking about how our words will
sound in the opinion of our Brothers–let us only think of the Lord to
whom we are speaking. We can't steer two ways at once. If we make for
the Mercy Seat, we need not consider the pews. Let us fix our eyes on
the lighthouse at the mouth of the harbor and leave the church on the
hill, and the windmill over yonder, for other people to look at.
Brothers, look to your Captain and let your mates think what they like!
Let us know our port and steer for it– and let the twin-ship of prayer
and praise never take any course but that which carries our whole heart
straight to Heaven!

I. First, then, dear Friends, let us consider WHAT THE LORD IS TO US.
He is the "God of our salvation."

It is clear from this that we all need salvation. If it were not clear
in this text, we could not doubt it, for the evidence surrounds us on
every side. We have, sadly, sufficient proof of our lost estate. Human
nature is waterlogged and ready to sink–and in God, alone, is our
hope.

The text tells us where salvation is, namely, in God. God is the God of
our salvation. You have neither right ideas of yourself, nor right
ideas of God unless you see that by nature you have need of being saved
from sin–saved by nothing less than a Divine hand! The greatest saint
on earth is still a sinner. Let him have safely sailed on the sea of
life for 60 years, he will be on the rocks before the morning watch
unless the Lord saves him. The most intelligent man and the man of
longest experience, still needs saving. The oldness of a ship does not
increase its seaworthiness. Ask at Lloyd's if a ship is any safer
because it has been afloat more than 60 years. No man that lives is
safe from rocks, quicksands and tempests, or even from foundering at
sea unless the Lord God shall be always the God of his salvation! We
have all need to ask for salvation from the guilt of sin, the power of
sin and the curse of sin. And it should be our great joy that the Lord
graciously condescends to provide all this for us in the Person of the
Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior!

It is this salvation which brings God to us and us to God. I do not
think that very many find God by what they see in Nature. Men see the
works of God, but they do not see God in His works. There is such a
thing, I suppose, as going

"from Nature up to Nature's God," but it is a hard climb for cripples,
like the most of us! To lift your foot even from the top of the highest
mountain to the lowest step of the Throne of God is a tremendous
effort. Human nature does not care for such an upward climb. The ready
way to God, by which tens of thousands have come to Him, is by Jesus
Christ our Savior. No man ever comes to God except by Jesus, who is the
way of salvation. There may be other channels, but this is the only
navigable one. Our boats draw too much water to get to God along the
shallow straits of human learning. We shall be wise to keep to the deep
waters of redeeming love, for by this channel God came to us. The
glorious God came here to earth in the Person of His Son, that He might
reconcile us to Himself and so save us. Where there is depth enough for
God to come to man, there is a fair sea-way for man to come to God!
Remember that the Lord Jesus came for our salvation. "God sent not His
Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him
might be saved." Salvation brought God to us and salvation must bring
us to God, or else we shall be castaways. Blessed forever be our
gracious and glorious God, for in every man that is saved, He is the
God of his salvation in Christ Jesus!

The salvation that we get is entirely from God. If you ever hear of
salvation that does not come from God, depend upon it, it is not
seaworthy, but will turn out to be one of those worm-eaten coffin
ships! I would not trust a dog on board of it. If I were to preach a
merely human salvation to you, it would not be worth your while to
listen to me. "Salvation is of the Lord" is the saying of Jonah, from
the depths of the sea! This salvation began in God's everlasting
purpose, in His sacred Covenant, in His Divine choice of His people. It
is carried out by the life and death of our Savior. It is worked in us
by the Holy Spirit, by whom we are quickened, illuminated, converted
and brought to faith in Jesus. Salvation is of the Lord, from stem to
stern, from truck to keel. There is not a bit of rope on board, nor
even a spar up aloft which is of man's merit or working. Christ is the
A, and He is the Z of the salvation alphabet! He is not only the helper
of our salvation, but the God of it, the Maker of it, the All-in-All of
it! Have any of you a salvation which you have manufactured for
yourselves? Then drop it overboard and row away from it, as fast as you
can, lest it should be a torpedo to work your ruin. The only salvation
that can redeem from Hell is a salvation which comes from Heaven!
Eternal salvation must come from an eternal God. Salvation that makes
you a new creature must be the work of Him who sits upon the Throne of
God and makes all things new!

It is a remarkable thing that in this salvation there is a strange
mixture of the terrible and the gracious. ' 'By terrible things in
righteousness will You answer us, O God of our salvation." In the death
of our Lord Jesus we see the salvation of God–in this the Lord is
terrible against sin, but most tender to the sinner. God did not put up
the sword of His Justice, for He was bound to use it. "Shall not the
Judge of all the earth do right?" To do right He must punish sin. And,
oh, how terrible it is to view our Lord Jesus, the Son of God, bowing
His head to death in the sinner's place and bearing in His own innocent
Person the wrath of God an account of sin! Our children's hymn puts the
Truth of God exactly–

"He saw how wicked men had been, And knew that God must punish sin So,
out of pity, Jesus said He'd bear the punishment instead." In that
verse, out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, the Lord has perfected
praise! It was indeed a display of terrible things in righteousness
when the perfect Son of God was made to sweat great drops of blood and
to be in an agony in Gethsemane. Terrible things in righteousness were
manifest when He was scourged, spit upon and nailed to a tree and made
to die without the comfort of His Father's Presence, crying in anguish,
"My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" Ah, Friends, when the
Father's best Beloved bore those unknown sufferings by which the honor
of the Divine Government was maintained, it was a very terrible day!
Not even the pains of the lost are more terrible for a tender and
devout mind to think upon, than our Lord's being made a curse for us
when He was hanged upon the tree. We seek salvation–the Lord Jehovah
answers us and bids us behold it in the blood of His Only-Begotten
Son–"By terrible things in righteousness will You answer us, O God."

So, also, when God came to deal with us by His Spirit, He mixed the
terror with the Grace. If you have been praying to God to save you,
then if He has answered you, you have had a vision of terrible things.
To see your guilt, your present ruin and your future doom, is to be
made to tremble terribly. When the Lord Jesus Christ comes to our
vessel, walking on the sea, He finds us in an awful storm. The sails
are torn to ribbons, and every timber groans. We see ourselves wrecked
by Nature before we see ourselves saved by Grace! Conviction of sin
does not come to every sinner with the same degree of force, but to
some of us, when we were under the bondage of the Law, neither sun nor
moon appeared, the sea

worked and was tempestuous and all hope that we should be saved was
taken away from us! We reeled to and fro and staggered like drunken
men. We were at our wits' ends–we did not know then that the God of
our salvation has His way in the whirlwind! The Lord comes to us with a
drawn sword before He comes with a silver scepter! He designs to make
us give up self-righteousness and self-confidence–and come and lay
hold on Christ, to be our All-in-All. Men won't take to the lifeboat of
salvation while they think their own craft can be kept afloat. But when
their vessel is settling down at the head, they are glad to see the
lifeboat near!

The God of our salvation has revealed Himself to many of us, not as One
who winks at sin, but as a consuming fire. In these days a God is
preached who is not in the Bible, nor yet on the sea. Our God is not
the new god of proud philosophers, but the God of the olden times! We
know that the true God is just, as well as gracious, and will by no
means allow His Laws to be despised. You that go down to the sea in
ships, you know that the God of the Sea is terrible upon the roaring
billows, when the sea runs mountains high! He is tender, kind and
loving, but oh, how terrible when He puts on His dark robes of tempest!

He sets the heavens on a blaze and His terrible voice is heard above
the roaring of the sea. The elements are in confusion. Deep calls unto
deep, the heavens clasp hands with the ocean and the largest vessel
seems like a cockle-shell, soon to sink and no more to be seen! He is a
dreadful God, this God of ours! There is none like He in power and
justice. Well may the seraphim cry, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God
Almighty!" This makes us feel that He can smite with iron hands when
once He comes forth to deal with sin. Behold the Red Sea! See how the
adversaries of Jehovah sank to the bottom as a stone! He is terrible
out of His holy places. He is the God of Heaven, but a pit is dug for
the wicked. The Lord makes His saved ones to know Him as He is–not as
He is made out to be by those who would seem to be wiser than the
Scriptures!

I trust that many of you can say of the Lord, "He is the God of my
salvation. Jehovah, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. The God
and Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is my hope and my joy."
He is glorious in holiness and terrible in righteousness–and I love
Him all the more because He hates iniquity and will not endure evil!

The difficulty with most men is that they will not have God to be their
Savior–they want to save themselves. Every man thinks he can be his
own pilot to the port of Glory. But what can we do? What merit, what
wisdom? What strength have we? We are proud fools and deceive
ourselves! I have heard a story of a main on board a vessel which was
coming home from the other side of the world. He was very conceited and
interfered with everything. Every now and then a captain does get such
a man on board. He was always grumbling and making trouble. The ship
met with rough weather and this meddlesome gentleman picked up the
notion that things were in a very bad way and the ship might go down.
He was getting into everybody's way and so the captain, calling him to
one side, told him that it was highly important that he should keep
very quiet for the next hour or two and that he should hold fast a
certain rope to which he pointed out to him. Nobody could tell what
might depend on his holding on to that rope and saying nothing to
anybody! Our noisy friend felt himself to be a person of consequence,
put his feet down, set his teeth together and in a very determined
manner stuck to his rope! If anybody came along, instead of talking, as
he was used to do, he held his tongue. Just as you must not speak to
the man at the wheel, so he felt that no one was allowed to speak to
him. Did not the safety of the ship depend upon his being quiet and
holding tightly to that rope? He kept his post with due gravity till
the wind dropped– and then he did not say much–for his sense of merit
made him modest. He waited patiently for the passengers to present him
with a piece of plate for having saved the ship. He felt, at any rate,
that deep gratitude was due to him for his wonderful exertions. It was
about the most difficult thing he had ever done in his life, for he had
held his tongue for hours and thus made a martyr of himself to save
them all! As nobody thanked him, he began to hint at the importance of
the service he had rendered. But they did not seem to see it, for, you
know, people will not always see a thing that is very plain. At last he
stated his case more fully and became so exacting that the captain had
to tell him that he had only given him that bit of rope to hold just to
keep him quiet and that, really, he had not contributed, in the least
degree, to the safety of the vessel! That is just what I feel inclined
by do with certain vastly important persons who think they can do
wonders in the things of God! If you will keep from boasting and stand
out of the Lord's way, that is as much as I hope for from you. And if
the Lord leads you to trust yourself in Jesus' hands, then all will be
safe enough! With God to save us, what is there for us to do but to
trust and not to be afraid?

II. I have set forth what God is to us. Now let us see WHAT GOD WILL DO
FOR US. Don't doubt it, the Lord has an open ear to hear His people's
prayers.

He will answer us. This shows that we must all pray. Every believing
man in the world must pray! And we shall never get into such a state of
Grace that we have no need to pray.

But what do we pray for? Well, according to the text, one of the most
important things is to pray against sin.' 'Iniquities prevail against
me: as for our transgressions, You shall purge them away." Do we not
need to pray daily for cleansing? This must be the prayer of the man
who is seeking the Lord for the first time. Does the leak of sin gain
upon you? Are the pirates of temptation all around you so that you
cannot get away from them? Are you compelled to say, "Iniquities
prevail against me"? Cry to the Lord Jesus to come to the rescue! A
word from Him will stop the leak and drive the demons back when they
are boarding you. Pray to Him at once!

Do I address a backslider? Did you once acknowledge the name of Christ?
Have you taken down the old flag? Are you now trading under other
colors? Are you sorry it is so? Do iniquities prevail against you? Ah,
then come to the Lord again! Ask Him to come and take possession of
you. The pirates are coming board, now, and you cannot get rid of them,
but as for your iniquities, He can purge them away." He can sweep the
deck of them!

If you have long been a Christian and have not backslidden, you will
have, as you grow in Grace, more and more a sense of the sin that
dwells in you. You will be crying out every day, "Lord, keep me, for I
shall perish utterly, even now, after all my experience, unless You
preserve me from my inbred sin and the temptations of the world, the
flesh, and the devil." Cry to God tonight in that fashion. Ask to be
steered clear of all evil and to be presented faultless. When we are
close in shore we need a pilot more than ever. We shall be wrecked in
the river's mouth unless the Lord preserves us! Iniquities will prevail
unless Omnipotent Grace prevails. In this direction we shall always
need to cry mightily unto the Preserver of men.

We also pray for nearer fellowship with God. Just let me read you the
next words. "Blessed is the man whom You choose and cause to approach
unto You." Lord, help me to approach You, so as to know Your love and
love You in return. Let us go on reading the record–"That He may dwell
in your courts." Lord, help me to be one of Your court and always to
live in Your Presence.

"We shall be satisfied with the goodness of Your house, even of Your
holy Temple." Do you not long for that satisfaction? Is there not in
your hearts, my beloved Brothers, a great desire to get nearer to God
and to abide in His house?

Oh, to have a continual enjoyment of the favor of God! May the love of
God be shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit! Blessed be the
name of the Lord our God! He will hear and answer that prayer! As He
will help you to conquer sin, so will He also help you to grow in
Divine Grace. There is no reason why we should not be far happier and
far holier than we are. If we are straitened at all, we are not
straitened in God, but in ourselves. It is not that there is no wind,
but we do not spread enough sail. If you do not enter into the deep
things of God with understanding, and if you do not enjoy them with
delight, you must blame yourselves. You have not, because you ask not,
or because you ask amiss. If a man will not take the tide while it
flows, it will be his own fault if the ebb bears him away from the
harbor. If we pray, God will answer.

But, remember, if we pray to be delivered from sin, and to be brought
nearer to the Lord, He may answer us by terrible things in
righteousness. I would like to whisper these words in the ears of all
praying men. Often you know not what you ask and, perhaps, if you
really knew how God would answer you, you would not pray as you now do!
You were praying the other day that God would sanctify you–and now you
see more of the workings of evil in your nature than ever before!
Crosses and losses have come upon you thick and threefold! Temptations
and evil thoughts have beset you more fiercely than ever and you are
saying, "Lord, is this the answer to my prayer?" Yes, by terrible
things in righteousness He is answering you! The sheep desires to be
brought near to the shepherd and the shepherd sends his black dog to
fetch it home. Our trials and troubles, afflictions and adversities,
are among the best medicines of our Great Physician. A trial has been
love's reply to earnest desire. God's wisdom often chooses to give us a
head wind to prevent our rushing upon sunken rocks.

Dear Friends, God will answer you surely, though He answers you
strangely.' He answers roughly, but rightly. The help of no other can
suffice you, but if you cry to God you shall find His strength to be
all-sufficient, both for crushing sin and for growth in Grace. See what
the Lord has been doing for the earth during the last few weeks of
spring! Only a few weeks ago we went out of doors and saw nothing but
the earth wrapped in a winding-sheet of snow, or, perhaps, the dull,
black ground soaking in rain. Where were the myriads of leaves that now
clothe the trees? And where the kingcups

and daisies which bedeck the meadows and make them bright as cloth of
gold? Where was all this wealth of flowers? Where all this music of
song birds? God came! He breathed in pity on the frozen brooks and
loosed the waters from their icy chains. He unbound the iron bonds of
winter. He made the world look up and laugh with flowers. Brothers, He
will do the same with us! Though this may be the winter of our soul's
grief and it may be necessary that we should endure it for a little
while longer, yet He will answer us– and after an interval of terrible
storm He will bless us with rest and joy!

III. The third point is this–WHAT THE LORD IS TO "THE ENDS OF THE
EARTH." He is "the confidence of the ends of the earth." All men have a
confidence and they are wise who place all their confidence in God!

Who are "the ends of the earth"? They may be those who live in the
extremes of climate–the dwellers at the poles and at the equator.
These are so tried by cold and by heat that one would think they would
hardly live in such regions if they did not confide in God. Those who
live at the ends of the earth are farthest off God is worthy to be the
confidence of those who are farthest off from His Church, from His
Gospel, from hope, from anything that is good and from God, Himself.
This sermon may, one of these days, reach somebody who will say to
himself, "I think that I am the farthest off from God of anybody that
ever lived. I have been guilty of cursing and swearing and I have
committed all manner of vice and so I have gone as far away from God
and the very name of religion as it is possible for a man to go."
Friend, our God is worthy to be your confidence, even yours! You are
permitted to put your trust in Him and find salvation in Him, even in
His Son, Jesus Christ, who cries "Look unto Me, and be you saved, all
the ends of the earth."

The ends of the earth may mean, also, those that are least known. Are
there not men scattered abroad of whom nobody knows anything? They do
not, themselves, know who their father and mother were and nobody cares
to acknowledge them. Nobody calls them brother, or knows where they
came from. They wish to be forgotten. They would not like to have their
stories told. Their character is such that they can get on better
without it than with it. Well but, Jesus Christ is worthy to be the
confidence of those who are least known. They are known to Him! He
knows their past and their present! Oh, that sinners who are far off in
that way, and least known, would come and put their trust in Him!

The ends of the earth are the parts that are least thought of We dart a
thought towards France with its Exhibition. We think of Germany and its
vast army. We think of the United States and the many there of our kith
and kin. These lie within the pale of our thought and consideration,
but who cares for Dahomey or Nova, Zembla? Of the ends of the earth no
one thinks! Do I speak to one who has been saying, "No man cares for my
soul"? Do they quite pass you by? Are you like a man on a raft who has
seen many a vessel go by, but cannot manage to make anyone see him and
come to his rescue? Put your trust in the Lord, you who are derelict
and drifting fast to destruction, for, "He is the confidence of all the
ends of the earth." Looking to God when you have no one else to look
to, you will find in Him a true helper!

The ends of the earth may also mean the most tried. Where the cold is
most severe, or where the dog-star burns most furiously, there we have
the ends of the earth. And you who are most poor or most sick, or who
have least of ability and talent–you are those who should make God
your confidence, for He delights to be the strength of the weak, the
fullness of the empty! God's Grace is the hospital for sick souls–come
and enter it! He lifts the poor from the dunghill to set him among
princes. Driven to your wits' end, brought down to life's dregs, take
the Lord for your confidence and it shall be well with you!

"The ends of the earth." Well, they are the hardest to reach. We have
around us men and women who are as hard to get at as the North Pole. We
do not know how to speak to them so that they will understand us, for
they are so ignorant. We would, if we could, do them good, but they are
so depraved that we are half afraid that they will do us harm! It may
be they are so proud and conceited that we can hardly get a good word
in edge ways with them. Sailors, you must have met with fellows to whom
you give a wide berth. You never felt inclined to take them on board.
These ships are too far gone to be towed into harbor and you clear out,
lest when they sink you should be sucked down with them! Yet the Lord
is ready to help even these! Those whom no man can pity and no man can
help, God can love and save! A mortal arm is too short to reach these
shipwrecked souls. Cast away on an iron-bound coast, there is no hope
for them but in the Lord of Salvation–but in Him they may trust, for,
"He is the confidence of the ends of the earth." Ho, my comrades, when
you are at your worst, God is still at His best! When you are all
misery, He is all mercy! When you are at "the ends of the earth," you
may be at the beginnings of Heaven!

IV. I shall not weary you, I trust, for I have come to the last point,
which is this–WHAT IS GOD TO SEAFARING MEN? What should He be to
sailors? He is the confidence of all them that are "afar off upon the
sea."

In the life of a seafaring man we have a picture of thee voyage of
faith. Hundreds of years ago, when men went to sea at all, their boats
kept always within sight of shore. Your Greek or Roman mariner might be
quite a master of his galley, but he could not bear to lose sight of a
headland which he knew, for he had no compass and knew little or
nothing of astronomical observations. Here and there a lighthouse might
be placed, but it would be regarded as a wonder. But at this day a ship
may not sight land for a month and yet its position on the chart will
be as certain as your position in the pew! The vessel will be steered
entirely by observations of the heavenly bodies and by chart and
compass–and yet at the end of thirty days it will reach a point which
was never within sight and reach it as accurately as if it had been
running on a tram rail instead of sailing over the pathless ocean! Its
way is as certain as if it had traversed a railway from port to port!
Such is the life of a Christian–the life of faith. We see not
spiritual things, but yet we steer for them with absolute certainty! We
ought not to wish to see, for, "We walk by faith, not by sight." We
take our bearings by the things in the heavens. We are guided by the
Word of God, which is our chart, and by the witness of the blessed
Spirit within, which is our compass! We see Him who is invisible and we
seek a Heaven full of "things not seen as yet." Glory be to God, we
shall reach the harbor as sure as a bullet goes to the mark! We are
making direct tracks for the Kingdom of God! We fly to Heaven by a bee
line even when we cannot see our way! Don't shift a point, Brothers. As
the Captain of your salvation has set the helm, so let it remain.
Trusting in God, we shall come to our desired haven in due time and
shall not miss our way! We need not fear shipwreck, for He that taught
us to sail the spiritual sea will guide us safely till we come to the
Glory Land!

Those that are "afar off upon the sea" are on an unstable element, but
God is their confidence. They are never quiet, the boat is always
rocking or rolling from side to side. On the sea they have no
continuing city. Is it not so with us? We also dwell upon an unstable
element. We talk of the solid earth, but it is only so in contrast with
the waves. All things beneath the moon are changing. When I went to my
annual resting place in Mentone, after the earthquake, I felt a delight
in realizing that everything around me was unsubstantial. I looked at
the churches and the houses which had tumbled down, and I said to
myself, "Now I feel how unstable the earth is." I went up and down
stairs, wondering that the house did not move–regarding it all as
likely to give way. Some such impression would be good for us all to
carry daily about with us. We live in a world which passes away! This
life is made up of shadows–substance lies elsewhere! The things which
are seen are temporal. You have dreamed yourselves into the belief that
you live in a solid, substantial world, but it is only a dream, for the
world passes away! The elements which make up our life are no more to
be depended upon than the waters of the sea! What is our life but a
vapor? What does it depend upon, but air?–the breath of our nostrils!
Remember, you may die at any moment. Death may board you before the
next watch. Oh, to live like a man at sea! He has loosed his hold from
all things and feels himself committed to an unstable element upon
whose calm condition he cannot depend, for at any moment a storm may
bear him away. The godly sailor's confidence is in God. In God he has a
foundation that cannot be moved! God is the mariner's terra firma and
He is ours! All else is fickle, but God is Immutable!

Next, they that are upon the sea are liable to great dangers. They
cannot tell at any time that there may not come up from the North a
howling blast, or from the South a tremendous cyclone. When above them
all is clear blue, save "a cloud the size of a man's hand," they know
that within an hour the Heaven may gather blackness and the sea, which
now sleeps in calm, may rage in fury. A sailor's life makes him see the
dangers which surround him, but you and I know that we also live in a
world where tempests of trial may be upon us in a moment. When I go
home after a time of spiritual enjoyment and feel supremely happy, I
say to myself, "I may expect trying news. I cannot be long at ease." In
fact, one gets in this world to be afraid of too profound a calm, lest
at the back of it should lurk a terrible tempest. Our sign is "The
Checkers," and close to the white square lies the black. At sea we may
reckon upon all sorts of weathers–we must, therefore, keep the boat
trim and never neglect to set the helm and keep the watch wide awake.
The sailor must keep his eyes open, for rocks and quicksands lies
below, and hurricanes and cyclones lurk above. If he is a Christian,
his confidence is in his God and his watchfulness is towards the world.
O true Believer, let your confidence be in God, whether on sea, or
shore! Say, "O God, my heart is fixed; my heart is fixed. I will sing
and give praise." What if there should be the devil, himself, let loose
upon us, as upon Job of old? Let us still trust in the Lord! When God
gives the devil rope enough, he will soon be down upon us, but
Brothers, we need not fear him, for Christ is the Master of the devil
and He can pull him

up short when he comes rushing out to attack us! Let us not be afraid.
He that is the Confidence of them that are afar off upon the sea shall
be our Confidence in a world of storms!

But the men on the sea also are familiar with trouble. It is not only
liability to storm, but the storm does break over them. I speak to many
who have weathered no end of tempests. In your voyages across the
mighty deep, you have found it no child's play to be tossed up and down
like a ball in the hand of the storm. You have even been floating on
the angry waves, clinging to a hen-coop, or lashed to the rigging. I do
not envy you your trying experience but, spiritually, we drink from the
same cup, for we, too, have had our rough passages and have been
well-near cast away!

You do not want to see any more of such nights as you can remember,
when sea and sky were blended in dread confusion–neither do I wish to
see those months in which to me, also, the winds were contrary–what a
mercy in such seasons to have confidence in God! What is to be done if
this fails us? But while God is with us it does not matter whether we
live or die. We shall be with the Lord if we die, and if we live, the
Lord will be with us!

Beloved Friends, those that go down to the sea in ships soon find out
their own weakness. A man looks like a man when he is on shore, or in
command of a fine boat sailing along merrily before the wind, but in a
great storm what a poor creature a man is! There he goes–yonder wave
has swept him from the deck as if he were a spar. You hear one
plaintive cry and it is all over with him. The hungry deep thinks
nothing of so small a mouthful! The wind still howls and the waves
dance with a horrid glee. If not thus drowned, the strong man is often
rendered useless as to helping others. He cannot stir, for he could not
keep his footing. He needs to be lashed to the rigging or he will be
washed away. The bravest, the wisest, the strongest man is just nothing
at all in the day of storm. Then the man almost envies the seabird that
is tossed "up and down, up and down, from the base of the wave to the
billow's crown" because it is always safe and comes up from the spray
as fresh as ever! Dear Friends, you and I are often brought into
conditions in which we fear that we are not worth half as much as the
sea-swallows. We have no strength left at all–we are less than nothing
and vanity. Oh, then, let God be our Confidence!

I exhort all Believers here to have more confidence in God than in all
besides. Believe in the Lord a thousand fathoms deep. You will never
believe too much nor too well of God. If friends forsake, if all means
of comfort fail, let your confidence be so thoroughly in God that such
things make no difference to you! It is a grand thing to get off the
stocks and really float on the main sea. It is glorious to have an
anchor in the skies and to hold to that, alone, when everything else is
dragging and the earth itself is dissolved! A sailor is often brought
to where, if God does not help him, he will be swallowed up–and you
and I are always in the same condition. God is our All and we rest in
Him, but apart from Him we are eternally wrecked!

God bless you, my shipmates! We are not yet come to the Pacific
Seas–we are still rounding the Cape of Storms, but another name for it
is the Cape of Good Hope! With God for our confidence we are not
afraid. We shall all meet around the flagship of our Great Captain in
the Fair Havens above. We are lying in these roads tonight very near
each other, but may never cross each other's track again on this life's
voyage. Meet me in the Islands of the Blessed, in the Land of the
Hereafter, where the sun shall go no more down forever! The Lord Jesus
steer you there! Amen.