The Spurgeon Series 1859 & 1860. Charles H. Spurgeon

the heart that moved that crook? Oh, remember, that you can never find joy and peace while you are looking at the things that are seen, the secondary causes of your trouble; your only hope, your only refuge and joy must be to look to him who dwells within the veil. Peter sunk when he looked at outward providences, so must you. He would never have ceased to walk the wave, he would never have begun to sink, if he had only looked to Christ, nor will you if you will look to him alone.

      8. And here let me now begin to argue with such of you as are the people of God, who are in severe trouble lest Christ should leave you to sink. Let me forbid your fears by a few words of consolation. You are now in Peter’s condition; you are like Peter; you are Christ’s servant. Christ is a good Master. You have never heard that he permitted one of his servants to be drowned when going on his errands. Will he not take care of his own? Shall it be said at last that one of Christ’s disciples perished while he was in obedience to Christ? I say he would be a bad Master if he should send you on an errand that would involve your destruction. Peter, when he was in the water, was in the place where his Master had called him to be, and you in your trouble now, are not only Christ’s servant, but you are where Christ has chosen to put you. Your afflictions, remember, come neither from the east nor from the west, neither does your trouble grow out of the ground. All your suffering is sent to you by your God. The medicine which you now drink is made in heaven. Every grain of this bitterness which now fills your mouth was measured by the heavenly physician. There is not an ounce more trouble in your cup, than God chose to put there. Your burden was weighed by God before you were called to bear it. The Lord who gave you the mercy has taken it away; the same God who has blessed you with joy is he who has now ploughed you with grief. You are in the place where God put you. Ask yourself this question then: — “Can it be possible that Christ would put his own servant into a perilous condition and then leave him there?” I have heard of fiends, in fables, tempting men into the sea to drown them; but is Christ a siren? {a} Will he entice his people on to the rocks? Will he tempt them into a place where he shall destroy them? God forbid. If Christ calls you into the fire, he will bring you out of it; and if he bids you walk the sea, he will enable you to tread it in safety. Do not doubt soul; if you had come there by yourself, then you might fear, but since Christ put you there, he will bring you out again. Let this be the pillar of your confidence — you are his servant, he will not leave you; you are in the place where he put you, he cannot permit you to perish. Look away, then, from the trouble that surrounds you, to your Master, and to his hand that has planned all these things.

      9. Remember too, who it is who has placed you where you are. It is no harsh tyrant who has led you into trouble. It is no austere unloving heart who has bidden you pass through this difficulty to gratify a capricious whim. Ah, no; he who troubles you is Christ. Remember his bleeding hand; and can you think that the hand which dropped with gore can ever hang down when it should be stretched out for your deliverance? Think of the eye that wept over you on the cross; and can the eye that wept for you be blind when you are in grief? Think of the heart that was opened for you; and shall the heart that bled its life away to rescue you from death, be hard and stolid when you are overwhelmed in sorrow? It is Christ who stands on that billow in the midst of the tempest with you. He is suffering as well as you are. Peter is not the only one walking on the sea; his Master is there with him too. And so is Jesus with you today; with you in your troubles, suffering, with you as he suffered for you. Shall he leave you, he who bought you, he who is married to you, he who has led you thus far, has helped you so far, he who loves you better than he loves himself, shall he forsake you? Oh turn your eyes from the rough billow; listen no longer to the howling tempest, turn your eyes to him your loving Lord, your faithful friend, and fix your trust on him, who even now in the midst of the tempest, cries, “It is I, do not be afraid.”

      10. One other reflection will I offer to such of you as are now in severe trouble on account of temporal matters, and it is this — Christ has helped you so far. Should this not console you? Ah, Peter, how could you fear that you should sink? It was miracle enough that you did not sink at first. What power is it that has held you up until now? Certainly not your own. You would have fallen at once to the bottom of the sea, oh man, if God had not been your helper; if Jesus had not made you buoyant, Peter, you would soon have been a floating carcass. He who helped you then to walk as long as you could walk, surely he is able to help you all the way until he shall grasp your hand in Paradise to glorify you with himself. Let any Christian look back to his past life, and he will be astonished that he is what he is and where he is. The whole Christian life is a series of miracles, wonders linked into wonders, in one perpetual chain. Marvel, believer, that you have been upheld until now; and cannot he who has kept you to this day preserve you to the end? What is that roaring wave that threatens to overwhelm you — what is it? Why you have endured greater waves than these in the past. What is that howling blast? Why, he has saved you when the wind was howling worse than that. He who helped you in six troubles will not forsake you in this. He who has delivered you out of the paw of the lion and out of the paw of the bear, he will not, he cannot forsake you now.

      11. In all this, I have laboured to turn your eyes from what you are seeing to what you cannot see, but in which you must believe. Oh! if I might only be successful, though my words are feeble, yet mighty should be the consolation which should flow from them.

      12. A minister of Christ, who was always in the habit of visiting those whom he knew to be eminent for piety, in order that he might learn from them, called upon an aged Christian who had been distinguished for his holiness. To his great surprise, however, when he sat down by his bedside, the aged man said, “Ah! I have lost my way. I thought at one time that I was a child of God, now I find that I have been a stumblingblock to others; for these forty years I have deceived the church and deceived myself, and now I discover that I am a lost soul.” The minister very wisely said to him, “Ah! then I suppose you like the song of the drunkard, and you are very fond of the amusements of the world and delight in profanity and sin?” “Ah! no,” he said, “I cannot bear them, I could not endure to sin against God.” “Oh then,” said the minister, “then it is not at all likely that God will lock you up in hell with men that you cannot bear here. If now you hate sin, depend on it God will not shut you up for ever with sinners. But, my brother,” said the minister “tell me what has brought you into such a distressed state of mind?” “Oh sir,” he said, “it was looking away from the God of providence, to myself. I had managed to save about one hundred pounds, and I have been lying here ill now this last six months, and I was thinking that my one hundred pounds would soon be spent, and then what should I do? I think I shall have to go to the workhouse, I have no friend to take care of me, and I have been thinking about that one hundred pounds of mine. I knew it would soon be gone, and then, then, how could the Lord provide for me? I never had either doubt or fear until I began to think about temporal matters. There was a time when I could leave all that with God. If I had not had one hundred pounds, I would have felt quite sure he would provide for me; but I begin to think now that I cannot provide for myself. The moment I think of that, my heart is darkened.” The minister then led him away from all trust in an arm of flesh, and told him his dependence for bread and water was not on his one hundred pounds, but on the God who is the possessor of heaven and earth — that as for his bread being given him and his water being sure, God would take care of that, for in so doing he would only be fulfilling his promise. The poor man was enabled in the matter of providence to cast himself entirely upon God, and then his doubts and fears subsided, and once more he began to walk the sea of trouble, and did not sink. Oh believer, if you take your business into your own hands, you will soon be in trouble. The old Puritan said, “He who carves for himself will soon cut his fingers,” and I believe it. There never was a man who began to take his own matters out of God’s hand that was not glad enough to give them back again. He who runs before the cloud of providence runs on a fool’s errand. If we leave all our matters, temporal as well as spiritual, in the hand of God, we shall lack no good thing; and what is better still, we shall have no care, no trouble, no thought; we shall cast all our burden upon him for he cares for us. There is no need for two to care, for God to care and the creature too. If the Creator cares for us, then the creature may sing all day long with joy and gladness: —

      Mortals cease from toil and sorrow,

      God