only. But there is an experience sadder still: that of those who are
living "without God," and therefore "without hope;"--the billows
heaving, and yet they knowing not of them;--"deep calling to deep,"
yet they ignorant alike of their guilt and danger! There is nothing
more sad or touching in the midst of a storm,--when the vessel is
reeling on the waves, and little expectation of safety is left,--than
to see, amidst the settled gloom of despair, the little child playing
on the deck, all unaware of what is impending;--or, at a time of
heart-rending bereavement, when every face of the household is muffled
in sadness and suffused with tears, to hear the joyous laugh and
playful prattle of unconscious infancy. Ah! of how many is this the
position with regard to eternity;--living heedless of their
danger--the waves of destruction ready to close over them! Sadder far,
surely, is _their_ case, than all the troubles and trials of God's
most afflicted people. _Their_ waves and billows are crested with
hope--"songs in the night" come floating along the darkened surges;
but the future to the others has _no_ ray of hope, _no_ midnight star,
_no_ divine song! There is a time coming when, in a more awful sense,
the cry will be heard, "Deep calleth unto deep: all Thy waves and Thy
billows have gone over me!" But there will be no after-strain--no
joyous anthem of anticipated deliverance--"Yet the Lord will command
His loving-kindness!" In vain will the cry ascend, "My heart is
overwhelmed: lead me to the Rock that is higher than I."
But, blessed be God, that cry may ascend _now_--that Rock may be fled
to as a shelter _now_. Sinner! these waves swept over the Rock of
Ages, that they might not sweep over you! Sheltered in these crevices,
you will be eternally safe. Not one blast of the storm, not one drop
of the rain-shower of vengeance, can overtake you. When the billows of
wrath--the deluge of fire--shall roll over this earth, safe in these
everlasting clefts, you may utter the challenge, "_Who shall separate
me from the love of Christ?_"
X.
Lessons.
"When darkness long has veil'd my mind,
And smiling day once more appears,
Then, my Redeemer, then I find,
The folly of my doubts and fears:
Straight I upbraid my wandering heart,
And blush that I should ever be
Thus prone to act so base a part
Or harbour one hard thought of Thee!"
"Here deep calls to deep. Yet in the midst of those deeps faith is not
drowned. You see it lifts its head above water."--_Bishop Hall._
"We perceive the Psalmist full of perplexed thought, and that betwixt
strong desires and griefs, and yet in the midst of them intermixing
strains of hope with his sad complaints.... What is the whole thread
of our life but a chequered twist, black and white, of delights and
dangers interwoven? And the happiest passing of it is, constantly to
enjoy and to observe the experiences of God's goodness, and to praise
Him for them."--_Archbishop Leighton_, 1649.
"Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of the water-spouts: all thy
waves and thy billows are gone over me. Yet the Lord will command his
loving-kindness in the day-time, and in the night his song shall be
with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life."--_Verses 7, 8._
X.
LESSONS.
In the previous chapter we spoke of the two verses which form the
turning-point in the Psalm,--the climax of the conflict therein so
strikingly described between belief and unbelief. We referred to the
boldness and expressiveness of the figure: the troubles of the
believer, like the billows of the ocean calling on one another to
unite their strength that they might effect his overthrow, but faith
rising triumphant above them all. At times, when all human comfort
gives way, God himself appears. "_The voice of the Lord is upon the
waters._"[78] _He_ not only "commands His loving-kindness in the
day-time," but "_in_ THE NIGHT _His song is with us_." Our heavenly
Parent comes in earth's darkest, most tempestuous hours, sits by our
side, sings His night-song--His own lullaby--"PEACE, BE STILL!" "_So
giveth He His beloved sleep!_"[79] God's "songs" sound always
sweetest "_by night_"--the deep, dark night of affliction. The
nightingale's notes are nothing by day--they would be lost in the
chorus of other birds; but when these have retired to their nests, she
prolongs her tuneful descant, and serenades, with her warblings, the
silent earth. The world can only give _its_ song _by day_. It can
speak only in the sunshine of prosperity. But "God our Maker giveth
_songs in the night_!"[80] His promises, like the nightingale, sound
most joyously, and, like the glow-worm, shine most brightly, in _the
dark_!
[78] Psalm xxix. 3.
[79] Psalm cxxvii. 2.
[80] Job xxxv. 10.
Let us pause ere proceeding with the sequel of the Psalm, and ponder
the great lesson to be derived from this experience of David.
It is, _to_ TRUST GOD _in the darkest, gloomiest night of earthly
trial_! To wait His own time, and to say, when the billows are
highest, "_Yet the Lord will_"--
This is one great end and design of trial, to exercise the grace of
_patience_. There is nothing God loves better than _a waiting soul_.
"_The Lord is good to them that wait for Him._"[81] "_I waited_
_patiently_," says David, in another Psalm, (or, as it is literally,
"I waited, waited,") "_for the Lord_, and He inclined unto me, and
heard my cry."[82] "_I know thy works_," says Jesus, speaking of old,
in the language of commendation, to His church at Ephesus: "_how thou
hast_ BORNE, _and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured,
and hast not_ FAINTED."[83] How often has our way _appeared_ to be
hedged up with thorns,--as if there were no possibility of egress! In
sailing among some of our own Highland lakes and inland seas, where
the mountains, in a thousand fantastic forms, rise abrupt from the
shore, we frequently seem to be landlocked, and able to get no
farther. Yet the vessel pursues its serpentine course; and as we
double the first jutting promontory, the lake again expands; the same
waters appear beyond, gleaming like a mirror of molten gold. We find
what we imagined to be an impassable barrier, is only a strait,
opening into new combinations of mountain majesty and beauty. So is it
in the Voyage of life. Often, in its fitful turnings and windings, do
we seem to be arrested in our way;--"Hill Difficulties" rising before
us, and appearing to impede our vessel's course;--but as faith steers
onwards, impediments vanish, new vistas and experiences of
loving-kindness open up. Where we expected to be stopped by walls of
frowning rock and barren mountains, lo! limpid waves are seen laving
the shore, and joyful cascades are heard singing their way to the
silver strand!
[81] Lam iii. 45.
[82] Psalm xl. 1.
[83] Rev. ii. 3.
And not only does God thus "command His loving-kindness" in
disappointing our fears, but "in the night His song shall be with us."
He will turn the very midnights of our sorrow into occasions of
grateful praise! Yes! if not now, we shall come yet to see the "needs
be" of every trial. We have only a partial view here of God's
dealings--His half-completed, half-developed plan; but all will stand
out in fair and graceful proportions in the great finished Temple of
Eternity!
Go, in the reign of Israel's greatest King, to the heights of the
forest of Lebanon. See that noble Cedar, the pride of its compeers, an
old wrestler with the northern blasts of Palestine! Summer loves to
smile upon it--night spangles its feathery foliage with
dew-drops--the birds nestle on its branches--the wild deer slumber
under its shadow--the weary pilgrim, or wandering shepherd, repose
under its curtaining boughs from the mid-day heat or from the furious
storm; but all at once it is marked out to fall,--the old denizen of
that primeval forest is doomed to succumb to the woodman's stroke! As
we see the unsparing axe making its first gash on its gnarled
trunk--then the noble limbs stripped of their branches--and at last
the proud "Tree of God" coming with a crash to the ground; we exclaim
against the wanton destruction--the demolition of this noblest of
pillars in the temple of nature,--and we are tempted to cry with the
prophet, as if inviting the sympathy of every lowlier stem--invoking
inanimate things to resent the affront--"_Howl, fir-tree, for the
cedar has fallen!_" But wait a little!--follow that gigantic trunk as
the workmen of Hiram launch it down the mountain side,--thence conveyed
in monster rafts along the blue waters of the Mediterranean,--and last
of all, behold it set a glorious polished beam in the Temple of
God;--and then, as you see its destination,--gazing down on the very
Holy of Holies, set in the diadem of the Great King;--say, can you
grudge that the crown of Lebanon was despoiled, in order that this
jewel might have so noble a setting? That cedar stood as a stately
beam and pillar in _nature's_ temple, but the glory of the latter
house was greater than the glory of the former. How many of our souls
are like these cedars of God! His axes of trial have stripped and
bared them,--we see no reason for dealings so dark and mysterious; but
He has a noble end and object in view--to set them as everlasting
pillars and rafters in His heavenly temple, to make them "a crown of
glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of our
God!"
Or take another illustration. Go to one of our graving-docks, where
the weather-beaten vessel has been weeks or months in the carpenter's
hands. Her started timbers are replaced, her shattered keel renewed,
the temporary props and scaffoldings have been removed, and with her
gay streamers afloat, and her crew on deck, she stands ready and
equipped for sea. What is needed? Nothing but the opening of the
sluices, to reunite her to her old watery element. She lies a
helpless, decrepit thing, till these dock-gates be opened, and the
buoyant waves rush to clasp her anew in their embrace. It is done!
But at first all is noise, and wrath, and tumult. These gurgling
waters, discoloured with mud and sediment, convert the noble granite
basin into an inky, turgid whirlpool. Ere long, however, the strife
ceases; the great wooden wall raises itself like a child that has been
awoke in its cradle by the voice of the storm--the waters gradually
calm and subside;--higher and still higher is the vessel lifted, till,
amid the cheers of the crew, she passes by the opened gates, and, with
every sail spread to the breeze, is off to new voyages in her
ocean-home.
Child of trial! "vessel of mercy!" your God sees meet at times to
bring you into the graving-dock, that He may put His tools upon you,
and refit and prepare you for the great voyage of immortality. When He
opens the sluices of trial, you may see no mercy in His dealings. It
may be "deep calling to deep"--the roar and heaving of antagonist
waters; they may at first, too, stir up nothing but the dregs and
sediment of sin,--expose the muddy pools, the deep corruptions of the
heart. But be still! He will yet vindicate the rectitude and wisdom of
His own procedure. Ere long, these surging waves will settle
peacefully around you, the shadows of heaven reflected in their glassy
surface; and better still, strengthened and renovated by that season
of trial, you will go forth from the Graver's hands more ready to
brave the billows, grapple with the tempest, and reach at last the
haven where you would be!
It is _hard discipline_--the undowny pillow, the trench-work and
midnight vigils--which makes the better soldier. The type of strength
in the kingdom of inanimate nature is not the sickly plant of the
hot-house, or the tree or bush choked in the dark jungle; but the pine
rocked by Alpine or Norwegian tempests, or the oak mooring its roots
in the rifted rock! David would neither have been the King nor the
Saint he was, but for the caves of Adullam and Engedi, the rocks of
the wild goats, the forest exile of Hermon and Gilead. He had to thank
_affliction_ for his best spiritual graces. The redeemed in glory are
ready to tell the same. "We would never have been here but for these
storms of 'great tribulation.' But for the loss of that child--that
worldly calamity--that protracted sickness--that cutting
disappointment--that wounding of my heart's affection--that
annihilation of earthly pride and ambition--that 'deep calling to
deep'--I would not now have been wearing this crown!" Trials have been
well compared to the winds God employs to fill our sails and fetch us
home to the harbour of everlasting peace![84]
[84] See "Life Thoughts." The author has been more than once
indebted, in this volume, to this suggestive little book.
* * * * *
One word of caution ere we close this chapter. From all we have
said--of "deeps" and "floods," storms and water-spouts, and midnight
darkness--are any to leave these pages with the feeling that Religion
is a gloomy, repulsive thing;--that the believer's life is one of
darkness and despair;--that better far is the world's gaiety and
folly--the merry laugh of its light-hearted votaries--than a life of
sadness like this? Mistake us not! We repeat what we have already
said. The experience we have been now considering is, in many
respects, peculiar; one of those dark passages which stand alone in
the diary of the spiritual life. _Religion gloomy!_ Who says so? Shall
we take St Paul as our oracle? What is his testimony? In all his
letters he tries to crowd as much as he can into little space. In one
of these, he has room for only two injunctions. But instead of giving
two that are different, he prefers to repeat the _one_. It is the
emphatic tautology, "_Rejoice in the Lord alway: and_ AGAIN _I say_,
REJOICE."[85] Or shall we seek a different tribunal? Go gather
together all the philosophers of antiquity--Plato, Socrates,
Aristotle. Bring together the wise men of Greece--the philosophers of
Alexandria--the sages of Rome. Ask if their combined and collected
wisdom ever solved the doubts of one awakened soul, as have done these
leaves of this Holy Book? Which of them ever dried the tear of
widowhood as these? Which of them ever smoothed the cheek of the
fatherless as these? Which of them ever lighted the torch of hope and
peace at the dying bed as these, and flashed upon the departing soul
visions of unearthly joy? O pagan darkness! where was _thy_ song in
the night? In the region and shadow of death, where did _thy_ light
arise?
[85] Phil. iv. 4.
But WE have a "more sure word of prophecy, to which we do well to take
heed, as unto a light shining in a dark place." The Christian is
_the_ man who alone can wear the sunny countenance. The peace of God,
keeping the heart within, cannot fail to be mirrored in the look and
life without! And if (as often is the case) he has his appointed
seasons of trial--the sea of life swept with storms of great
tribulation--it is with him as with yonder ocean. To the eye of the
young voyager, gazing on its mountain billows, it would seem as if its
lowest caverns were stirred, and the world were rocking to its
foundations; while, after all, it is only a surface-heaving! There are
deeps, unfathomed deeps, of calm rest and peace, down in that ocean's
undisturbed recesses.
Believer in Jesus! with all thy trials, thou art a happy man. Go on
thy way rejoicing. Tribulation may fret and ruffle the calm of thy
outer life, but nothing can touch the deeps of thy nobler being.
Troubles may rise, and "terrors may frown," and "days of darkness" may
fall around thee, but "_Thou wilt keep him, O God_, IN PERFECT PEACE
_whose mind is stayed on_ THEE!"
XI.
Faith and Prayer.
"Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee!"
"The soul of man serves the purpose, as it were, of a workshop to
Satan, in which to forge a thousand methods of despair. And therefore
it is not without reason that David, after a severe conflict with
himself, has recourse to prayer, and calls upon God as the witness of
his sorrow."--_Calvin on the Psalms._
"I will say unto God my rock, Why has thou forgotten me? why go I
mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? As with a sword in my
bones, mine enemies reproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where
is thy God?"--_Verses 9, 10._
XI.
FAITH AND PRAYER.
Touching was that scene which occurred three thousand years ago on the
borders of Palestine: aged Naomi, in returning to the land of her own
kindred from her sojurn in Moab, pausing to take a last farewell of
her two loving daughters-in-law! One of these refuses to part from
her. Strong may be the inducement to Ruth to return to the home of her
childhood, and, above all, to the spot where hallowed dust reposes
(the buried treasure of her young affections). But ties stronger than
death link her soul to the one who had shared for ten years her joys
and sorrows. With impassioned tears, she announces her determination!
Her resolve may entail upon her manifold sacrifices. She may be going
to an alien people--to a home of penury--to bleak and barren wilds,
compared with her own fertile vales. But she is ready for any toil,
any self-denial, if only permitted to retain the companionship of
that living, loving heart, which had been to her all that earthly
tenderness could be.
Such, if we may compare an earthly with a heavenly affection, were the
feelings of the banished King of Judah, at this time towards his God.
All the temptations that have been assailing him have not repressed
the ardour of his faith, or diminished the fervour of his love.
Unbelief had done its best to sever the holy bond which linked him to
his Heavenly Friend; but, like the tender-hearted Moabitess from whom
he sprung, he will submit to any privation rather than be parted from
Him whose favour is life. "Entreat me not to leave Thee," is the
spirit at least of his fervid aspiration; "nor to return from
following after Thee. Where Thou goest I will go, and where Thou
dwellest I will dwell; and death itself shall not separate between
Thee and me." As Peter, in a future age, rushed to the feet of that
Saviour he had again and again wounded, so these many waters (the
"deep calling to deep") cannot quench the Psalmist's love, nor many
floods drown it. The voice of malignant taunt and scorn, "Where is now
thy God?" might have driven others to despair; but it only rouses him
up, in the midnight of his struggle, to the exercise of new spiritual
graces. "I shall not," he seems to say, "surrender my holy trust; I
know the graciousness of the God with whom I have to deal. Nothing
will tempt me to abandon my interest in the covenant. I shall take a
new weapon from the Divine armoury; with it I shall seek to decide the
conflict. No gibes of the scoffer, no rebellious son, no crafty
Ahithophel, can rob me of the privilege of PRAYER." "_I will say unto
God my Rock, Why hast Thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of
the oppression of the enemy?_"
It is, then, a combined exercise of _faith_, and _prayer_, on the part
of David, we are now called to consider. Out of weakness he is made
strong, waxes valiant in fight, and turns to flight the armies of the
aliens.
Let us advert to each in their order.
FAITH regards God here under a twofold aspect.
1. _It looks to Him as an_ IMMUTABLE GOD.
Amid the fitfulness of his own feelings, this was the Psalmist's
consolation--"_God my_ ROCK!" What a source of comfort is there here
in the _immutability_ of Jehovah. All else around us is unstable.
External nature bears on every page of its volume the traces of
mutation. Earth has the folds already on its vesture--the wrinkles of
age on its brow. The ocean murmurs of change, as its billows chafe on
altered landmarks. Human friendships and human associations are all
fluctuating. So are our habits, and tastes, and employments. The old
man looking back from some hoary pinnacle on the past, almost
questions his personal identity; and these emptied chairs!--these
faces, once glowing at our firesides, now greeting our gaze only in
mute and silent portraits on the wall! "Here we have no continuing
city," is the oracle of all time.
"_But_ THOU _art the same, and Thy years shall have no end._"[86]
"Heaven and earth may pass away," but there is no change, and _can_ be
none, in an all-perfect God! "The wheel turns round, but the axle is
immutable." The clouds which obscure the sun do not descend from
heaven--they are exhaled from earth. It is the soul's own darkening
vapours, generated by unbelief and sin, which at times taint and
obscure the moral atmosphere. Behind every such murky haze He shines
brightly as ever. "_Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the
everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth,
fainteth not, neither is weary?_"[87] "Young sailors," says
Rutherford, "imagine the shore and land moving, while it is they
themselves all the while. So we often think that God is changing, when
the change is all with ourselves!"
[86] Psalm cii. 27.
[87] Isaiah x. 28.
2. _Faith regards this immutable God as a God in covenant._
"MY _Rock_!" Believer! you have the same immovable ground of
confidence! Look to YOUR God in Christ, who has made with you "_an
everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure_!" He, "_willing
more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of
His counsel, confirmed it by an oath: that by two immutable things, in
which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong
consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set_
_before us_."[88] The torch may flicker in your hand, the flame may be
the sport of every passing gust of temptation and trial, but He who
lighted it will not suffer it to be quenched. "_Simon, Simon, Satan
hath desired to have thee, that he may sift thee as wheat: but I have
prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not._"[89] The Great Adversary
may attempt to rob you of your peace, but that peace is imperishably
secured. He must first destroy THE ROCK, before he can touch one
trembling soul that has fled there for refuge! He must first uncrown
Christ, before he can touch one jewel in the purchased diadems of His
people! Your life is "hid with Christ in God;" because He lives, "ye
shall live also!" God himself must become mutable, and cease _to be
God_, ere your eternal safety can be imperilled or impaired. "If we
perish," says Luther, "Christ perisheth with us."
[88] Heb. vi. 17, 18.
[89] Luke xxii. 31.
* * * * *
Let us turn now to the Psalmist's PRAYER.
If _Faith_ be called the eye, _Prayer_ may be called the wings of the
soul. No sooner does Faith descry God his "ROCK," than forthwith
Prayer spreads out her pinions for flight. In the close of the
preceding verse, (when in the extremity of his agony,) David had
announced his determination to betake himself to supplication--"_In
the night His song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my
life._" He follows up his resolution now with material for petition.
He puts on record a solemn and beautiful liturgy--"_I will say unto
God my Rock, Why hast Thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of
the oppression of the enemy? As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies
reproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?_"
How wonderfully does God thus overrule His darkest dispensations for
the exercise and discipline of His people's spiritual graces! In their
overflowing prosperity they are apt to forget Him. He sends them
afflictions. Trial elicits faith--faith drives to prayer--prayer
obtains the spiritual blessing! It was the sense of want and
wretchedness which drove the prodigal to cry, "Father, I have sinned!"
It was the "buffeting" thorn which sent Paul thrice to his knees in
the agony of supplication, and brought down on his soul a rich
heritage of spiritual blessing. It was these surging waves--the "deep
calling to deep"--which elicited the cry from this sinking castaway,
"_My heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the_ ROCK _that is higher than
I!_" "BEHOLD HE PRAYETH!" That announcement seems in a moment to turn
the tide of battle, and change the storm into a calm. Well has a
Christian poet written:--
"Frail art thou, O man, as a bubble on the breaker;
Weak, and govern'd by externals, like a poor bird caught in the storm:
Yet thy momentary breath can still the raging waters;
Thy hand can touch a lever that may move the world."