Wrecked, But Not reckless

A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JUNE 9, 1872,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"All hope that we should be sa ved was then taken away." Acts 27:20.

HERE was a case of extreme peril, in which there seemed to be no
possibility whatever of any of the lives of nearly 300 persons being
preserved. In this emergency the Apostle Paul resorted to prayer. We
may avail ourselves of this privilege in the worst pinch. When things
are so black that they cannot be any darker we may still pray. God is
good at a dead lift. Our extremities, as we well know, are always His
opportunities. When we can do nothing to help ourselves, let us pray
and we can get help from God in everything. Or, after we have done the
little we can do, let us leave all with God and resort to Him in
prayer.

This is one case out of many in which prayer has averted peril while
faith has grappled with fear and despair has been routed from the heart
by a calm dependence on the Lord. Thus Paul was enabled by his
supplication to save the lives of all that were in the ship. Do not
think, dear Brothers and Sisters, then, that your prayers in time of
extremity will prove fruitless. God enable you to pray with faith!
Remember there never was a prayer of faith that failed yet! Heaven and
earth shall pass away but this Truth of God shall never cease to be
true, that God is the Hearer of prayer if we will but believe in Him.
He that wavers must not expect to receive an answer, but he that is
confident in his God shall never be confounded.

However, I am going to take the text out of its connection–I need to
use it for different reasons and purposes. We have frequently known men
to be in a condition in which they have said that all hope that they
should be saved was taken away. We are going to speak to such tonight.
Sometimes I have been glad to hear that cry and sometimes I have
deplored it. Sometimes I have heartily sympathized with it. Upon those
three phases of the cry we shall speak.

I. Sometimes, as I have said, when we have heard a man say that all
hope that he shall be saved has been taken away, we have REJOICED TO
HEAR HIM SAY SO. Does that appear to be a cruel statement? It is not
meant to be. Let me explain and then I hope you will understand it.
Multitudes of persons are sailing in what they think to be the good
ship of self-righteousness–they are expecting that they shall get to
Heaven in her. But she never did carry a soul safely into the fair
haven yet and she never will.

Self-righteousness is as rapid a road to ruin as outward sin itself. We
may as certainly destroy ourselves by opposing the righteousness of
Christ as by transgressing the Law of God. Self-righteousness is as
much an insult to God as blasphemy and God will never accept it,
neither shall any soul enter Heaven by it. Now, this vessel manages to
keep on her way against all the good advice of Scripture. Often men
have a soft south wind blowing and things go easy with them, and they
believe that through their own doings they shall assuredly find the
port of Peace. I am glad, therefore, when some terrific tempest
overtakes this vessel and when men's hopes, through their own doings
and their own feelings, are utterly wrecked.

I am glad when the old ship parts timber from timber–when she goes
aground and breaks to pieces and men find safety in some other way–for
whatever seemingly safety they may have today will only delude them. It
must end in destruction and it is therefore a thousand mercies when
they find it out soon enough to get another and a better hope of being
saved rather than this, which will certainly deceive them. I remember
very well when that terrific storm blew on my vessel. It was as good a
vessel as any of you have, although I would be bound to say each of you
would vindicate your own. The sails needed mending and here and there
she needed a little touch of paint, but for all that she was sea-worthy
and fit to be registered "A.1." at Lloyd's, and entered in the first
class–at least so I thought.

And I remember when the storm blew over her and she went to pieces! I
bless God that she went to pieces altogether, for I should have been
kept on board to this very minute if I had not been washed off. I tried
to cling to it to the very last

plank but I was obliged to give it up and look somewhere else for help
and safety. Now, it will happen, sometimes, when God is dealing with a
self-righteous person who is delighting himself with the thought that
he is all right–that he is not a great sinner, that he is a religious
person, that he takes the sacraments, that he says his prayers, that he
is as good as most people, perhaps rather better–and that if he does
not go to Heaven he wonders who will.

I say it will happen to such a man, if God loves him, (if He does not
care about him He will let him go on in his own way till he is
destroyed, but if He has set His eternal love on him it will so
happen)–that a storm will come, perhaps on a sudden, just as the
tempest did to Paul's vessel, and twist him right round and make his
gallant vessel in the storm to be like a thing that has lost its mind
and will not obey the rudder and cannot be quieted and controlled. Oh,
we have seen them, sometimes, when they have woke up on a sudden and
said, "I never knew this! I could not have believed it! I find myself
to be a sinful creature, lost and undone and up to this moment I really
thought I was as right as could be and almost fit for Heaven, and quite
sure of it."

A terrible awakening it has been to some! They have been
bewildered–they have almost lost their reason for a time when they
have seen that the Law of God is spiritual–that it condemns us for
sins of thought as well as sins of action! That it never was meant to
justify us and cannot do so–by it comes the knowledge of sin and
nothing more! When a man has found out that his heart is evil, noxious,
deceitful–that in it there are enmities, murders, filthinesses of all
sorts, that it is a nest of unclean birds, a den of ravenous
beasts–when he has found all that out he says to himself, "If this is
true, where am I? What can I do? Where can I look?" And he drifts
before the pitiless storm and the horrible tempest, all hope of being
saved beginning to fail him.

Yet it is really amazing how self-righteous persons will do their best
to preserve their self-righteousness as long as they can. We have seen
them pull in the boat like these mariners. They had got a boat behind
the vessel. So there are some who have not only good works enough, but
a few to spare. They have had a little righteousness over and above
what they ordinarily required, so that they could boast and rejoice in
it as a kind of security against accident or misadventure. They have
hauled this in very soon under stress of weather and got the boat on
deck for fear of losing it altogether. And then they have set to work
right mightily to run under the lee, if they could, of some favorable
shore as Paul's mariners did. "If we cannot be saved by good works,"
they say, "we will get under the lee of some Church and get ceremonies
to help us out–Baptism, Confirmation, the Lord's Supper–we will just
get into a snug place there so as to escape the storm."

Or else they have thought, "Well, we will make a profession of
religion. We will join with some sort of Christian people, pass through
their rites and take their sacraments and then, perhaps, our vessel
need not go down after all, for, good as we are, with just a little
shelter of profession of religion, we shall be able to weather the
tempest." And when the hurricane has blown them out to sea and they
have found that there is no defense for a soul in all the rites and
rituals, the ordinances and observances of the Churches–that even the
rites which God ordains for a testimony have no atoning efficacy–when
they discover that only the precious blood can cleanse away sin and
even that must be applied through the Holy Spirit by faith to give the
conscience peace–alas, poor souls, their hope of being saved has
become more slender than before!

But they will take to undergird the ship like these sailors did–they
passed hawsers right round the vessel. So people try to gird their
self-righteousness together–they pray more, read the Bible more, go to
a place of worship more often–by any means they will endeavor to keep
together the timbers that the storm had begun to loosen. Oh, I remember
well how I went to a place of worship three times always on the Sunday
thinking that surely I should get some good by it. When I woke in the
morning I began to read religious books! I would have done anything and
everything if I might have found peace through my own doing and
feelings! But the storm blew too severely and the vessel could not be
preserved even by such appliances as these.

And then you will notice that Paul's sailors set to work cutting down
all that might hamper them. They took away the sails and masts and
every superfluous thing, for the wind was strong. Men convicted of sin
do the same. "Oh yes," they cry, "we cannot boast any longer. We must
confess we are sinners! We acknowledge we have transgressed in some
respects, but, Lord, accept our confessions. Receive them and in Your
infinite mercy put away our sin because we have confessed it, because
we have repented of it." They have given up a good deal, you see, but
they still cling to the old ship as long as they can.

She must go to pieces or you cannot get them out of her! So the Lord
sends the wind and the storm again breaks over them, gives them no rest
or respite. Every timber creaks and the old crazy thing is ready to go
to pieces. They go to the Word of God for comfort but, like the
mariners in Paul's story, they get no food–they cannot find anything
that can stay their souls, for there are no promises in God's Word for
people that are self-righteous. There are no consolations in the whole
Bible for those who can save themselves! Plenty of good words for
sinners and good words for those that are righteous in the
righteousness of Christ–but for you good people, you Pharisees, it is
all thunder and lightning from Genesis to Revelation–not a word of
comfort, but all storms and hurricanes for you! And it is a great mercy
when you feel that, too, and get battered and dashed till every timber
is shivered and then you give it up.

We find that the sailors on board the vessel with Paul had not only
been unable to get anything to eat for a long time, but they labored
hard–they tried to pump the vessel. They had been cutting the masts
away and reefing the sails, and doing everything necessary in the
storm. They must have been cold and wet and altogether in confusion.
Meanwhile, neither sun, nor moon, nor stars appeared. They had no
compass as we have now-a-days–they could not tell where they
were–they were all in the dark. And that is just the condition of a
self-righteous soul when the Spirit of God blows with His rough north
wind upon it and it comes to see that, "By the works of the Law there
shall no flesh be justified." It is an awful condition to be in, in
some respects, but it is a most blessed one in others.

Mark this, dear Hearers, I desire nothing for you unconverted persons
so much as to see you thoroughly convinced that there is nothing that
you can do which can save you! My prayer is that your realize there is
no merit whatever in anything that you can do or feel–that you are
lost, utterly and helplessly lost apart from the interposition of
Christ! I desire that you believe that only He can save you–that you
cannot save yourselves, nor help Him to save you! From top to bottom,
He, alone, must be your Savior! I do not need to stir you unconverted
persons to activity at first–the first thing is to slay you! After
that God must make you active.

You must lie dead at Christ's feet and then He will make you alive! You
must confess that you are nothing and then He will be everything to
you! You are simply to be empty and He will come and fill you. I know
you will cry, "Well, I would give up all trust in myself, but I do need
to feel deep convictions." Yes, the fact is that is only another way of
trying to bring something to Christ. "But I must feel," says one. Yes,
you shall feel enough if you come to Christ first, but He does not need
you to bring any feelings to Him. "But my heart is so hard," says one.
Do you expect to soften it yourself? "But I feel so unfit." Do you know
that the only fitness you have got is the fitness of being unfit?

"Oh, but I am so utterly unworthy." Do you think He came to save the
worthy? Do you ever expect to have any worthiness in yourself? Did not
Christ die to save "the ungodly?" Is it not written that He came into
the world to save "sinners?" Now, "the ungodly" and "sinners"–these
are two terms in which I cannot see anything good even if I look them
through and through with a microscope! They are bad, altogether
bad–"ungodly" and "sinners"–yet these are the sort of people Christ
came to save! Oh, that you had Divine Grace to put yourself down in
that number! It is your badness, not your goodness that draws Christ to
you as a Savior!

You had no goodness and therefore that could not bring Him from
Heaven–it was because you were vile that He died for you to make you
clean! It was because you were lost that He came to save you, that you
might be lost no longer! I tell you, Sinner, your righteousness will be
your ruin! But your sin will never ruin you if you will come and lay it
upon Christ by the simple act of dependence upon Him. Oh, for such a
storm as would wreck that vessel which is sailing under the flag of
self-righteousness, that all hope of being so saved might be taken away
from you!

Now, in doctrine and theory, my hearers, at least my regular hearers,
all believe this. But for all that, it will have to become a matter of
experience to you or you will never be saved! It is one thing to say,
"I know I must be empty before Christ can fill me." It's a different
thing to be empty. The stripping room is a place we do not like to go
to–but Christ will never robe us till He strips us. We do not like the
lancet that cuts out the proud flesh, but our good Physician will never
film our soul's sores–He will cut out all that is bad and then will He
make sound work of it. We must be leveled– brought down to the
condition of being utterly undone or otherwise we shall never have the
hand of Christ to come and lift us up into the condition of being saved
by Him!

Thus much upon the first phase. There are times when we like to hear
this cry.

II. But we have heard this same statement at other times when we have
GREATLY DEPLORED IT. "All hope that we should be saved was taken away
from us." I have heard some such lamentation as this from men who had
certainly no

self-righteousness but who had fallen into despair. They had perhaps
committed some very gross sin. Perhaps they had been guilty of stifling
conscience, or, possibly, they had grown careless while hearing the
Word and they had gradually worked themselves into the belief that they
must be lost. I meet with many–not so very many, but still with many–
whose prevalent thought with regard to religion is, "All hope that I
shall ever be saved is taken away from me!"

My dear Friend, are you here tonight? I should like to take you by the
hand and speak very familiarly with you, for I am very sorry to hear
you talk so. And I am sorry for these reasons. First, I am afraid that
you will go and do something very wrong, for when a man gives himself
up in despair, he is like the sere wood that is ready for the fire.
"Because there is no hope," says the man, "I do not care what I do. As
the old proverb has it, 'As well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb.'
I shall be damned anyway and I may as well have my full swing of sin
before I go to Hell."

Ah, despair has been employed by Satan to lead many men into desperate
crimes which they would never have thought of if they had had a hope
left! And therefore I am very much concerned about many of you that
despair, for I do not know what you may do. Some have taken their own
lives. Some have committed gross acts of crime. They have thought
themselves useless and they have flung themselves away. Do not believe
what Satan is telling you! There is hope! The hope that you may be
saved is not altogether gone–no, I will tell you the very reverse
before I have done. I am also exceedingly sorry that you should think
as you do because I fear that now you are very likely to leave off
hearing the Gospel.

I have met with some who said that they would never go any more to the
House of God because it was no good. They had been a great many years
and seen a great many converted, but it had never touched them and
therefore it was no use. They were only adding to their
responsibilities and they should never participate in Grace. I remember
one person whose case I cannot think of without deep sorrow. I think I
said one Sunday that there were some here who had heard me for many
many years and if they never meant to be converted or turn to God, I
almost wished they would make room for somebody else who would. And
there was one who heard that who has never come again and I do not
think he ever will. The word of rebuke that was only meant to startle
the conscience awakened an obstinacy within the soul!

Oh, I hope it won't be so with any of you! I hope you will never say,
"It is no use, and, therefore, I will not come." A dear Sister told me
this afternoon a sweet instance of how useful it may become to
persevere in hearing the Word of God. She says she had prayed a long
time for her landlord who was an old man and very deaf, and not likely
to get good by coming here. She had lent him the sermons and he had
often read them with great attention. And it pleased God, suddenly, to
give him his hearing so that he came here and heard one sermon and
found the Savior and went home to his bed and died. One sermon saved
his soul so that he could rejoice in Christ! Don't give up hearing, I
pray you.

I would sooner you came here and went to sleep than that you should not
come at all, for perhaps when you woke up a saving word might get in
somehow or other–God might put it in and it might be blessed to your
soul. No, don't say, "There is no hope," for, possibly–and this would
be almost as bad–if you say, "There is no hope," you will keep on
coming out of custom, but you won't listen with any attention because
you will feel, "It is no good." I have heard of a boy who was noticed
to lean forward to catch every word of the preacher, and his mother
said to him, "William, what makes you so very attentive?" "Because,"
said the boy, "our minister said that if there was a sentence in the
sermon that was likely to do us good Satan would try so that we should
not hear it, and therefore I need to hear all that is said in the hope
that God may bless me."

I do believe, if you were to hear like that you would get good one of
these days! At any rate, if God does not mean me to speak to you, I
should be very glad if He would do it by somebody else so that you may
get a blessing. But really you must not, you must never give way to
that feeling that there is no hope. And I shall tell you why. First, it
is quite contrary to Scripture. Do you find the passage there that says
there is no hope for you? You say you think God has determined to cast
you away. Where did you find that? Did you read it anywhere within the
pages of this Book? I know you never have read the secret decrees of
God. No one has–not even Gabriel can pry between the folded leaves. Do
not oppose Scripture! Don't go in the teeth of it, for the Scripture
says, "Him that comes unto Me I will in no wise cast out."

Why do you say He will cast you out? "He is able to save to the
uttermost them that come unto God by Him." Why do you say He cannot
save you? He says, "Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest." Do you not labor? Are you not a
laboring man? Are you never heavy laden? Have you no trouble, nothing
that depresses you? Well then, if the description suits you, He bids
you come to Him, and He says, "I will give you rest." Do

you not believe Him? Do you think the Scriptures must all be untrue and
your despairing notion must be the only fact? No, dear Friend, you need
not tantalize yourself with any such idea because it is opposed to all
fact!

There are many here present who were sinners and seekers like you now
are and they have found peace. Now if they have been delivered out of
all their distresses, why should not you? You say, "But I have sinned
too much." I could find somebody that has sinned more, I daresay. And
if I could not, even then you might venture on the promise, "All manner
of sin and of blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men." Do not despair, I
pray you, for that is to insult the great Father who always receives
the prodigals that come back to Him. You say that He cannot save you?
Why you deny His Omnipotence! You say that He will not save you? Why
you distrust His mercy! Nothing makes Him happier than to forgive
sinners! It is a great part of the joy of God in that portion of His
Nature which He reveals to us, to display His Grace towards the
undeserving sons of men.

Moreover, you grieve Jesus Christ when you say there is no hope that
you shall be saved. Do you think His blood cannot cleanse you? What? Is
there some new sin come up that Jesus did not know of? Is there some
fresh transgression which at last has overcome the precious blood? You
know this morning we talked about the battle between sin and love,
[INGRATITUDE OF MAN, #1055] and we showed you how they wrestled
together and how Sin seemed to be all but omnipotent, but Love kept on
and won the day and gave Sin a deadly fall and set its foot upon it.
Never suppose that Christ's love is going to be conquered by your sin!
I will say one thing to you–if you will go to Christ and He rejects
you, I have done with preaching–it is in vain. If you go to Christ and
He rejects you, I will mention it tomorrow–I will promulgate it next
Sunday–that I have been mistaken about Christ and that He does reject
sinners.

I beseech you, put it to the test! Some of us have tried it. I went to
Him with a rope about my neck–I mean I went conscious that I deserved
to be lost. And I thought when brightest hopes elated me that perhaps
He might, after a long while, receive me and I might get a little hope
and perhaps slink into Heaven through some hole or corner. But oh, when
I came to Him, He received me in such a bounteous manner that the like
of it was never known except by those that have tried Him, too! He
forgave my sins without a rebuke! He received me as it were into His
heart and gave me to rejoice in His finished salvation! He is a good
Savior, a precious Savior! Oh, that the Spirit of God would lead
sinners here to go and try Him!

Once again let me admonish you. Don't despair, dear Heart, don't
despair, for you do injury to the Holy Spirit– you dishonor Him if you
do–for there is nothing which the blessed Spirit cannot move out of
your way which is now an impediment. If your heart is like the nether
millstone, He can turn it into wax. If you cannot feel your sin, He can
make you feel. What if you cannot believe? He can give you faith! What
if you are dead? He can give you life! The Holy Spirit is God
Himself–and is anything too hard for the Lord? No, no! You must not go
away and say, "All hope that I shall be saved is taken away from me."
Have you fallen, Sister, for by that name I will call you? Have you
forfeited your good name? Yet all hope that you shall be saved is not
taken away! Jesus Christ receives such as you are and forgives them and
cleanses them and puts them into the family.

Young Man, have you done wrong? Are you afraid of being found out?
Confess the wrong that you have done and make restitution and come to
God, for there is hope for you yet. Backslider, have you come here
tonight? Have you dared to show your face here again? We are glad to
see you, for all hope that you should be saved is not taken away from
us though it may seem to be so to your stricken conscience. Come back,
come back, come and welcome to the Savior's feet and you shall find
mercy! Is there one that has said, "Well, I can believe all this for
others, but not for myself. I am the one out of the catalog. I am the
odd man. There is nothing that can ever deal with me"?

You are the very man I am seeking after! Your hope of being saved has
been wrecked but there is a better hope than the one you have lost!
There is life in a look at the crucified Savior! If you will but come
and throw yourself at the foot of His Cross and let His drops of blood
fall on your soul, you shall be cleansed, yes, you shall be saved
tonight! The Lord God, the Father of mercies, grant to despairing souls
to find peace and life just now.

III. I pass on to the last phase of this cry. At times I have heard the
exclamation, "All hope that we should be saved is taken away," when I
have SYMPATHIZED IN IT–sympathized with those who uttered it because
not once nor twice, but many a time have I felt the same. Children of
God do not always find it smooth sailing to Heaven. Even in the good
boat of Christ-Crucified there are storms. Christ may be in the vessel
but He may be asleep and the ship may be tossed with the tempest.

I shall describe with great brevity what I believe to be with some
Christians a frequent experience. The light of God's Countenance is
taken away from us. We were sitting yesterday at the banquet of wine
with Christ, with His banner of love waving over us and now, today, we
cry, "He has brought me into darkness, not into light! He has turned
against me in His fierce anger! Oh, that I knew where I might find Him
that I might come even to His feet, for, truly, He is turned against me
and He smites me with a heavy hand!"

At such seasons it will happen that our graces will refuse to act. Like
some flowers that shut up their cups when the sun is gone, so will our
love and our faith shut themselves up. They are reflectors–when there
is no light outside they cannot reflect any within. I have known what
it is to search my heart through and through without being able to
discover any spark of love to Jesus Christ in it, yes, and to bring my
soul to the closest investigation, with diligent enquiry asking, "Is
this faith, or is it presumption? Is it really trusting in Christ, or
is it all a fond persuasion of my own, an unwarranted confidence, a
false security?"

At such times you may rest assured that the devil will cast in
suggestions to torment us. He is an old coward–he always strikes the
saints when they are down. I only wish he would meet me on some sunny
day when my faith is strong and Christ is with me–I would give him a
wound or two for himself! But, alas, he comes on us in the dark, when
we have been slipping and tumbling down about in that Valley of
Humiliation where we are afraid of the Valley of the Shadow of Death!
And there he stands right in the way and swears that he will spill our
soul's blood and farther on the road to Heaven we shall never go! And
then, if Satan comes and his tyrannical voice is heard, the dogs that
did lay quiet within our soul begin to howl and the corruptions that we
almost thought dead and buried suddenly lift their hydra heads!

It seems, then, as though the fountains of the great deep were broken
up and a very Noah's flood, a mighty deluge, breaks forth to inundate
even the mountains of our last hope till we seem to have no chance of
escape and the soul is ready to die. Perhaps at this moment we turn to
the Word of God and it seems all a blank. The very promises that used
to cheer us refuse to speak to us! We go where the saints of God go to
hear the Gospel but we find no comfort there. The Word appears to
condemn rather than console us. Perhaps at that very minute we are
assailed with some temporal trouble and when spiritual trouble and
temporal trouble come together and two seas meet–ah, it is hard for
the poor boat to keep above the water at all!

Yet have we known it so. There has been a perplexity about money, or an
anxiety about a sick child, or sore disquietude concerning a dear sick
wife or a dire apprehension that the health of our body, or the
stability of our circumstances is menaced. A strange fever, a wild
deliriousness has seized us. At the same time there has been this
horrible thought, "After all may I not have been deluded?" and Satan
howls out, "Why, of course you were! You are no child of God!" and the
flesh prevails awhile over the spirit and conscience itself becomes a
tormentor and upbraids and accuses us! Then alas for our poor
vessel–it seems as if all hope that we should be saved were utterly
taken away.

Well, but cannot we turn to prayer at such times as that? Yes Brothers
and Sisters, and that is the only thing we can do. And perhaps the only
prayer we can get at then is a groan or a sigh and it is a thousand
mercies that if we cannot pray we can groan, or, if we cannot get to a
groan, we can breathe and our very breath of desire is accepted of God.
When we are so down in the dust, so crushed and broken and bruised that
we could not put half-a-dozen sentences together–and would not dare to
utter even one as children of God–we may still come as sinners and
say, "Lord receive a poor worm of the dust and if I never was Your
child, make me one now. Take me just as I am! I come to You just as I
thought I did before, and sink or swim, I rest my guilty soul on
Christ."

Now why I have introduced this at all is just this. There are many
young Believers who get into such a squall and do not know what to make
of it. They say, "Why, had I been a child of God I could not have
drifted into this frightful tempest." Why do you say so? Did not David
go through it? He said, "All Your waves and Your billows have gone over
me." You must be very little acquainted with the history of the people
of God if you think that they are strangers to these conflicts. There
are some old mariners here that I could call up into the pulpit, if it
were needed, to tell you that they have done business on great waters
many years and they have encountered many storms. You cannot expect to
be upon these seas and not be tossed to and fro sometimes.

The strongest faith that ever was in this world has sometimes faltered.
Even Abraham had times when his faith was exceedingly weak, though,
indeed, at other times it staggered not at the promise through
unbelief. David was a great man in battle but he waxed faint and almost
slain. So you will find the bravest of God's servants have their times
when it

is hard to hold their own–when they would be glad to creep into a
mouse-hole if they could there find themselves a shelter. But this is
the point, dear Brothers and Sisters–no soul that rests in Jesus will
ever be wrecked! You may have the storms and be tossed about, but you
will come to land–be assured of that. The old story tells us of Caesar
in the storm, when he said to the trembling captain, "Fear not! You
carry Caesar and all his fortunes!"

Now Christ is in the same boat with all His people. If one of His
members can perish, He must perish, too. "Strong language!" you say.
Well, it is all in that verse–"Because I live you shall live also."
You know, if you have got a man and you put him in the water, as long
as his head is above the water you cannot drown him. There are his feet
down in the mud–they will not drown, and he cannot drown. There are
his hands in the cold stream–the hands are not drowned, cannot
be–because his head is all safe.

Now look at our glorious Head! See where He is exalted in the highest
heavens, at the right hand of the Father! The devil cannot drown me and
cannot drown you if you are a member of Christ's body, because your
Head is safe! Your Head is safe and you are safe, too! Rest in this,
that your faith may be shaken but it cannot be destroyed if you are
resting upon Christ! Your little temporary foundations that may have
overlain Christ may move, but the rock of Christ Jesus never can! You
remember Mr. James Smith telling a story of a good woman whom he
visited upon her dying bed? He said to her, "Well, my Sister, how are
you? Are your spirits good?" "Yes," she said–

"The Gospel bears my spirit up, A faithful and unchanging God Lays the
foundation of my hope In oaths, and promises, and blood."

"But," said the minister, "don't you feel yourself sinking?" "Sir," she
said with surprise, "What do you mean?" He repeated his question,
"Don't you feel yourself in these times weak and sinking?" She said to
him, "Minister, I would not have believed that you would have put such
a question, but as you have I must answer it. What do you say? Sinking?
Sinking? Did you ever hear of anyone sinking through a rock? If I stood
upon the sand I might sink, but standing upon the Rock, how can I
sink?" Glory be to God in Christ, we are on that Rock and there is no
sinking for us! God bring you all there and to Him shall be the praise
forever and ever! Amen.
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The Ministry Of Gratitude