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).
(Continued from page 19.)
II. We come now to notice the glorious truth contained in our text, That God’s way is in the sea and in the great waters.
(a) God’s way in the sea and in the great waters is the unfolding of these purposes which He purposed from all eternity. We read that His counsels are “of old,” and they shall be unfolded in God’s own time, for “the counsel of the Lord standeth for ever, and the thoughts of his heart to all generations.” As far as His people are concerned, there was in His counsel a love that is infinite and eternal, and that love was exercised in this world towards His people, collectively, as we read, “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. v. 8), and towards each individual of them, as we read, “The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee” (Jer. xxxi. 3).
These counsels are “faithfulness and truth.” Balaam, though a false prophet, expresses the faithfulness and truth of God’s counsels when he says, “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?” (Num. xxiii. 19). When the Apostle was referring to Him as “God that cannot lie” (Tit. i. 2), he was basing his statement on God’s revelation of Himself, “Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure” (Isaiah xlvi. 9, 10).
(b) No event takes place without His knowledge and permission, for, to use the language of the Shorter Catechism, “for His own glory, He hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.” He has foreordained, from all eternity, that a definite, though countless number, of Adam’s ruined race should be saved, by the means which He has appointed and placed at their disposal, and that He should have the glory of His grace in their salvation, while He shall have the glory of His Justice in the condemnation of such as have not been foreordained to life. Those who have been foreordained to life may have many a raging sea to pass through in this world, but, yet, our text assures us that His way is in the sea and his path in the great waters. The eye of sense does not see the way and the footsteps of God under these conditions, but the true Christian walks by faith and not by sight, and while the eye of sense says, “Thy footsteps are not known,” the eye of faith discerns that God’s way is in the sea, and gives an account of what it sees of God’s way in the sea. “Thou rulest the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, thou stilltest them. Thou hast broken Rahab (Egypt) in pieces, as one that is slain; thou hast scattered thine enemies with thy strong arm” (Ps. lxxxix. 9, 10). Thus He is glorified in the destruction of His and His people’s enemies.
He permits, in accordance with His foreordination, things to come to pass, among nations, in the Church, and in the lives of individuals, which are not easy for flesh and blood, and which are hard for grace itself, yea, which will require special grace to bear them. This will lead, even the Lord’s people, at times, to misread the providences of God. We have a notable example of this in the case of Jacob when his cry was, “Me have ye bereaved of my children; Joseph is not, and Simeon is not; and ye will take Benjamin away: all these things are against me.” Were these things against him? No. The godly man was trying to read the providences of God with the eye of sense, and he could see nothing but a vast, overwhelming sea, in which he failed to see God’s way, though it was there all the time.
Very often the Lord permits these trying things in providence in order to prevent greater evils. From another point of view let us take another glance at Jacob’s misery, and see how the cause of it prevented a greater evil. Humanly speaking, if Joseph had not been sold as a slave, sent down to Egypt, and gone through all the vicissitudes through which he went there, there would have been no provision made for the seven years of famine. Many of the people of Egypt would have been swept away by the famine and Jacob and his whole tribe might have been utterly exterminated, but this was not God’s purpose. Through the posterity of Jacob the Seed was to come in whom all the families of the earth were to be blessed, and, therefore, Jacob and his posterity would have to be preserved, and God, from all eternity, appointed the means for that end. Their extermination would have been a greater evil than all that Joseph suffered in Egypt, or that Jacob suffered of mental anguish as a consequence. This wide field, of God permitting evil in order to prevent a greater evil, and turning the evil to good, provides very instructive teaching, and shows the way and the footsteps of God in the darkest providences.
(c) It is a way of Justice. Thus we see that God’s way, in the darkest and most inscrutable of His providential dealings with His creatures, is perfectly in accordance with His character. “The Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works.” When He gives His own “to drink wine of astonishment,” feeds them with “bread of sorrows,” causes men to ride over their heads, and brings them “through fire and through water,” He does nothing but what is just, and they themselves will acknowledge that it was their sins which occasioned these things, yea, further, they will say, “He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.” In all His dealings with them they see how true the language of the Psalmist is, “Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face” (Ps. lxxix. 14).
This way, which is in the sea, is also a way of mercy, and that mercy, strictly in accordance with Justice. Justice could never allow mercy to flow forth to hell-deserving sinners without complete satisfaction. The Saviour cried on the Cross, “It is finished,” and then gave up the ghost. What is it that was finished? Much could be said on that cry as it relates to the Plan of Salvation as a whole, but for our immediate purpose it can be said that all that the Son of God engaged to do with respect to the Justice of God, was finished. He atoned for the sins of His people, paid with His own blood, their debt to the uttermost farthing, and nailed the account to His Cross. By this He opened mercy’s way to poor sinners, so that, when He graciously invites the weary and heavy-laden to come to Him, His mercy mysteriously flows out to them so that they are enabled to see that they are weary and heavy laden, and they are made willing and able to embrace this rest.
III. Let us now notice how the fact that the Lord’s way is in the sea and His paths in the great waters ought to encourage His own.
(a) In this there is matter for encouragement, for it shows that God has not forsaken the earth. We have times without number provoked Him by our sins, and every one of these sins deserve His wrath and curse both in this life and in that which is to come, but He has not dealt with us according to our sins. He leads and directs us by His providences, and when these providences are so contrary to our desires, and to our conception of how things should be, we fret and we are apt to find fault with God. Thus we show how we ignore the fact that God is the God of providence, and that we ought to seek that He would lead us.
We ought to be encouraged by the fact that His way is in the sea, for when He plunges His own into trials and afflictions, He, by these very trials and afflictions, causes them to have a close walk with Himself, for the path of affliction which they frequently tread in this world is a path which is side by side with His way which is in the sea. By this we see that He has no delight in the death of sinners, but that, by putting them in the way of affliction, He reveals that His delight is in their salvation, and that judgment is His strange work, for by affliction He cleanses them and makes them fit for heaven. In all this His Word and Providence are in complete harmony and both proclaim, “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?”
(b) The fact that God is near His people in these great afflictions is of great encouragement to them. It is true that when a child is in affliction his parents appear more anxious for his welfare than for the rest of their family. This does not show that their love to the other members has abated, but the afflictions of a child draws forth pity in the parents, and so it is with God. “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.” He will not permit them to be tried above what they are able to bear, but with the temptation will make a way of escape. In the way in which they are led Satan may lay snares for their feet, and they may often be “much discouraged because of the way.” He is not only near them in present afflictions but He has promised to be near them always. He has said, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,” and therefore, in all their afflictions they can say with boldness, “The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.” He has also said, “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour.”
(c) There is encouragement for the Lord’s people in the fact that their Lord Himself walked in this way of affliction before them. “In all their affliction he was afflicted.” Are they tempted? So was He, for forty days and forty nights in the wilderness, and the temptations were well suited to the circumstances. Are they poor? So was He, for it was true of Him, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” Do they feel themselves forsaken of God? So was He, but in their case it is only in appearance, while in His case it was the reality of that forsaking which made Him cry, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Because of these things, along with much more, His people can say, “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”
(d) We must be careful that we will not endeavour to run in front of the providence of God. It is always, as Thomas Boston puts it, “safer to follow the leadings of providence.” If we run ahead of God’s providence, we are sure to make mistakes, and to be found in places where we should not be found. Not only so but we shall have the painful experience of being brought back and forced to follow God’s providence, and follow His leadings in them. It is thus that He deals with His own in all ages, for we read, “And He led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation.” It is impossible for them, however, to see that way when they are in the midst of the raging of the sea, and in the flowing of the great waters, but the Lord brings “the blind by a way that they knew not.” They are enabled, however, to see it when they look back, and, therefore, it is profitable for them to look back upon their lives at times. They are counselled, like the children of Israel, to do so. “Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep His commandments, or no.”