The true people of God are often called to pass through many trials and afflictions in this world. The Lord in His providence brings them from time to time into deep waters, in order that they may be tested and tried, and to make His mighty power known to them in His delivering them out of those deep waters into which He has brought them. Some of the Lord’s people, no doubt, know more in their experience of what it is to be brought into deep waters, yet all His people will in some measure experience such trials. In these deep waters His people may be ready to write hard things against themselves, yes, and hard things against God, yet the Lord will ultimately bring them out of those deep waters and cause them to glorify His great Name for the wonders of His grace and His redeeming love.
Sometimes it is through the world that the children of God are brought into deep waters. The powerful ensnaring influences of the world can be so brought to bear upon them that they are brought into deep waters by them. So too, the reproach and mockery and persecution with which the world lying in the wicked one assaults them brings them into deep waters in their experience. Peter found in His experience that entering into the high priest’s palace was something other than he had thought it to be, and very quickly he was in deep waters. Often have the children of God in this world to bear the taunts of the wicked saying to them in their trouble, Where is thy God now gone? This can bring them into deep waters in their soul especially when the Lord is hiding His countenance from them.
At other times it is through the temptations of the wicked one that they are brought into deep waters. The subtlety of Satan is such that he can lay snares for the feet of the godly when they least expect it. He has the wisdom of the serpent in knowing how, when and where to attack the child of God. His aim is to come upon them unawares so that he may entangle them in his net. How successful he has been in his efforts, the many falls of the children of God in the world testify to. How often have they been brought, and how often are they still being brought into great deeps. Is it any wonder then that at times they are ready to cry out, I shall fall by the hand of Saul one day? This great Saul, this arch-enemy of the people of God cannot be overcome by the strength of man’s arm, and even when the soul seeks to overcome him in the strength of divine grace, into what deep waters the soul may be brought before it obtains the victory.
Sometimes the people of God are brought into great deeps by reason of the corruption that they find within their own hearts. In the old nature there is the seed of every evil and hurtful lust. These seek to raise their heads and in so doing bring the soul into great deeps. The flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. The old nature at one time appears to be dominant, at another time the new. But the conflict is real and deep and of long duration. Unless subdued by divine grace these lusts shall rise up and break out. The living soul must therefore ever be in conflict with them. On one occasion it may be one particular lust, on another occasion some other lust. Yet the warfare goes on and when it wages hottest the soul is in deep waters.
Not only are individual believers brought into deep waters but the Church collectively as well. The Church of God in the world is exposed to attacks from within and without and its very existence in the midst of so many foes is a standing miracle. She is often brought into deep waters and appears ready to be swallowed up, such is the hatefulness of her enemies to her. The believing people of God are painfully aware of it when the Church is in deep waters and they long and pray for her deliverance from her enemies and have encouragement from the Word of God to believe that He will bring her out of these deep waters. As is true of the children of God individually that they come out each one of them from the deep waters more sanctified than when they went into them, praising the Name of the Lord, as Jonah did, so the Church of God comes forth from the deep waters more separated unto His service.
The question must arise as to how the true children of God and the Church of God are to be borne up when they come into deep waters. The answer must be in their looking to the One who was borne up in the midst of deep waters and who went into these deep waters for them. The experience of the divine Redeemer in this exceeds in its nature and extent any of the deep waters into which His people or His church is brought. His experience was unique in the nature and depths of it. The language of His soul was:
Save me, O God, because the floods
do so environ me,
That ev’n unto my very soul
come in the waters be.
I downward in deep mire do sink,
where standing there is none:
I am into deep waters come,
where floods have over me gone.
It was these same deep waters which wrung from Him the cry of dereliction:
My God, my God, why hast Thou me
forsaken? Why so far
Art Thou from helping me, and from
my words, that roaring are?
Into what deep waters the Lord of life and glory was brought when as the great Sin-bearer He took upon Him the load of His people’s transgressions. Into greater depths He could not go, for there were none greater. Into whatever deep waters His people are brought these are not to be compared to His sufferings. He was the Surety-Substitute of His people and as such had to meet all the demands of law and justice and this He did fully. The law can never say of Him that its requirements were never met, nor can justice say that its demands were never satisfied. He magnified the law and made it honourable. Justice had at last to say concerning the sufferings of Him who went down into the deep waters of Calvary’s Cross, It is enough. I am satisfied, infinitely and eternally satisfied with the price that has been paid. It was then that Christ lifted up His head and said: It is finished. The cup that the Father hath given me, I have drunk to the bitter dregs. On the foundation which Christ has laid in His death, His people are never to perish, no, not even when they have to say with Jonah: “The waters compassed me about, even to my soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever.” With him they will have to say: “Yet has Thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God.”