By REV. JOHN COLQUHOUN, Glendale, Skye. Preached at
Glendale, 19th December, 1954.
“Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great waters, and thy footsteps are not known” (Psalm lxxvii. 19).
WE see from the title of this Psalm that it is a Psalm of Asaph, and there is much of the character of Asaph’s religion to be traced in it. It is very evident that much of what passes for religion, in our day, is not of the same character as the religion of Asaph, for the majority of professors of religion know nothing of the depths and the heights of Asaph’s experience. Nevertheless, the religion of Asaph shows an experience which the Holy Spirit takes notice of, in the Scriptures, as the experience of God’s people. They “do business in great waters.” “They mount up to heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit’s end.” From this we can understand that it is only those who have been savigly dealt with by the Spirit of God who can understand Asaph’s religion.
In this Psalm we find Asaph engaged in a bitter struggle with his own infirmity. Hard questions spring up in his heart as to God’s care for His own, and even enquiring if His anger is stronger than His mercy, by wondering “hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies”? However, we have here a faith which is tried, but yet triumphs, for he remembers the character of God, and what His works are, and thus faith gets the ascendancy. From the words read at this time we may, briefly, notice three things:—(I) The sea and great waters spoken of; (II) That God’s way is there; (III) How this should encourage a child of God.
I. The sea and great waters spoken of.
There seems here an allusion to the Lord’s dealings with the children of Israel at the Red Sea, which seems to be confirmed by the words in the following verse: “Thou leddest thy people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.” We believe, however, that there is a far deeper meaning in the words, and one that embraces the most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing by God, of all His creatures and all their actions. Literally, the sea is uncontrollable by any human device, neither can one search into its depths, and in like manner, the ways and attributes of God are unsearchable.” Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? Deeper than hell: what canst thou know?” (Job xi. 7, 8). “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out” (Rom. xi. 33). God decreed from all eternity, for His own glory, whatsoever comes to pass, so that nothing takes place in time but what He knows and has full control of, though these matters might be, to us, as uncontrollable and as unsearchable as the sea and the great waters. Whatever the circumstances of His creatures, and whatever their station may be in His universe, He guides all their affairs unerringly.
(a)
If we take the affairs of nations, we find many things concerning them which no creature can control. On two occasions some of us remember wars which were world-wide, and during these conflagrations, figuratively, mountains had been carried into the midst of the seas. Thrones, Governments, and Institutions, which were considered as stable as anything in this world, were removed from their foundations, so that no trace remains of them except in the memory, and on the page of written history. So fearful was the struggle, on each occasion, that one would readily conclude that “all the foundations of the earth are out of course.” Yet, it was all under the control of God, and the very fact that it was shown clearly, in these struggles, “that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong,” demonstrated the truth that “the Lord sitteth upon the flood; yea, the Lord sitteth King for ever.” Nations are often visited by pestilence, and these terrible scourges are but manifestations of the decrees of God. David, when in a sore strait, when God gave him his choice of three forms of punishment for his sin, said, “Let us fall now into the hand of the Lord (for his mercies are great) and let me not fall into the hand of man.” “So,” we read, “the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel,” and its ravages were so sudden and so terrible that all had to realise that it was from the Lord. He had complete control of this and all other plagues with which the earth had been visited, or will be visited, for “Before him went the pestilence, and burning coals (or burning diseases) went forth at his feet.” They are all controlled by Him as those with which He plagued Pharaoh and his people in Egypt.
(b)
The Church of God in the world is often represented as being in a sea of trouble. Its history, from the days of Abel, is a long series of persecutions, and this has been so much the case that one of the Scottish martyrs said, that the Church of God never lacked a Pharaoh on the Throne, a Haman in the State, or a Judas in the Church. These trials are likened to a sea and great waters. “The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their waves” (Ps. xciii. 3). When these floods are directed against the Church of God her condition is best expressed in the words of the Psalmist, “The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid” (Ps. xviii. 4). Where is the mere creature who can control these floods of persecution? The believer’s comfort is that “the Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea.” There are also floods of heresies. The Apostle gives a warning that “there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you” (I Cor. xi. 19). These floods have often swept over the Church, and at one time, in connection with the denial of the divinity of Christ, it did so in such a complete manner that only one was found; that is, Athanasius, who stood for the Scriptural teaching that Christ was from eternity the Son of God, and thus the saying arose, “Athanasius against the world, and the world against Athanasius,” yet the Lord sat as King on this flood, so that the doctrine which was so almost universally denied was brought out in bolder relief than ever. These floods of error have often been used by the Lord, not only in order to bring into a clearer light His own witnesses, but also in order to carry away into the wilderness a great deal of worthless profession of religion, thus cleansing His Church from dross and tin.
(c)
God’s purposes in connection with the Plan of Salvation are a deep which no finite mind could fathom, and from certain points of view may be spoken of as a sea and as great waters, where no wisdom of the creature can enable him to see the footsteps of God. Under the Old Testament dispensation God’s revelation of His salvation was given in dark symbols. We find a continual offering up of sacrifices and offerings under the Law, but it was “not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sin.” We have presented to our view a bewildering array of “meats and drinks, and divers washings and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation,” in connection with which the natural man might say, “We fail to find God in these,” yet God was there. His way was in this deep, though sinners did not see His way or His footsteps. When Christ came, the opposition shown to Him could not be understood by men of the world. His coming had been frequently foretold by the Prophets, and they spake of His sufferings and the glory that should follow. What was said of the Messiah was fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth when He came into this world, and yet we read that “He came unto his own and his own received him not.” The common people, who heard Him gladly, were thus confronted with a deep which they could not fathom. They heard His gracious teaching and were convinced by it; they saw His miracles which confirmed and supported His teaching, and had to say, “When Christ cometh, will he do more miracles than these which this man hath done?” In the face of this they were confronted with a mystery, that is, that this glorious Person was despised and rejected by the very people who professed to look for Him, thus evoking the question, “Do the rulers know indeed that this is the very Christ?” None in a state of nature could discern God’s way and His footsteps in this great sea. His rejection and crucifixion put the copestone on the mystery, but to the eye of faith God’s way and His footsteps are to be seen here.
(d)
God’s gracious dealings with the sinner in taking him out of a state of nature into a state of grace is something that is incomprehensible to a sinner until God’s light enables him to see things which none by nature can see. As far as the creature is concerned, uncontrollable as the sea and unfathomable as the great waters are these dealings. The rebellious sinner finds himself in the grasp of a power which he cannot resist. “I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus, Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock uncustomed to the yoke.” This will make him acknowledge that God is in this sea of trouble and perplexity, and cannot see anything else but that it is in order to punish the sinner eternally for his sins. Yet God’s way is in this sea for a totally different purpose. The hard experiences of the believer after he has been delivered from the power of darkness becomes to him indeed a sea of affliction. The Apostle exhorts the Hebrews to “call to remembrance the former days, in which after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions; partly, whilst ye were made a gazing-stock both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly whilst ye became companions of them that were so used” (Heb. x. 32, 33). They are often tossed into a sea of affliction by the temptations of Satan, the hostility of the world, their own unguarded walk, and their neglect of duty, and in this condition unbelief will proclaim loudly that there is no succour for them in God, yea, that God has forsaken and forgotten them, that their religion was not real, and that they may as well give it up. In this condition their experience may be summed up in the words of the Psalmist, “Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me” (Ps. xlii. 7).
(e)
The Lord’s people are a people who often have hard things in Providence, and find themselves embarked on a sea where, for a time, they are not able to see the footsteps of God. There may be a turn of Providence which, when judged by outward appearances, may promise to be fair, and the child of God may promise himself, or herself, many things, and, for a while, may go on, to use a common expression, “building castles in the air,” but when least expected, the wheels of Providence may take a surprising turn, or seem to reverse altogether, leaving the believer, as if cast into the vortex of a whirlpool from which he cannot extricate himself. He will clutch at something to the right of him, and then at something else to the left, and finds them to be nothing but straws which will not hold him up. He expected by discretion and wise management, which are right and lawful in themselves, to give himself a measure of comfort in the world, but all these things fail. He will say with Job, “Therefore I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.” We have an example of this in Jonah, who could say, “For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me.” However, when down in these depths the Lord showed Jonah that His way is in the sea, and His path in the great waters, for Jonah could say immediately afterwards, “I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple.”
(To be continued.)