seeming foolhardiness here. But I am frank to say that I like Peter
here very much. I suppose most of the critics would have sat very
still in the boat. I shouldn't wonder if they would not have put a
restraining hand upon Peter. In fact, it would not surprise me if some
of his fellow disciples did not do that very thing. I can imagine that
Andrew might have gripped him and said, "Peter, sit where you are. You
can hardly stay on top of the water now." And Thomas would have said,
"Man, are you mad? Nobody ever walked on the water before." But Peter
said, "By the help of Christ I will." And with the "storm light in his
face" and the spray in his hair and with faith in Christ in his heart
he pushes the boat from under his feet.
There is something great about that. There may be much base alloy in
Peter, but there is something fine in him also. He is to be admired if
he never takes a step. He is worthy of praise if he sinks into the sea
as a piece of lead. At least he has dreamed of doing the supernatural.
At least he has dared in the presence of Christ to undertake what
others were afraid to undertake. He has ventured to stake his life on
the power of Christ to make good His promise. If he fails utterly he
is still worthy of respect. It is better to make a thousand failures
than to be too cowardly to ever undertake anything.
So he steps out upon a stormy sea. It does look a bit mad, doesn't it?
And yet it only looks mad because of our blindness and dullness and
stupid unbelief. What did Peter have under him when he was in the
ship? Upon what were his fellow disciples trusting to keep them from
the bottom of the sea? Just two or three planks, that is all. Upon
what was Peter trusting? He was trusting upon the sure word of God.
When he let himself down from the side of the boat at Christ's
invitation he did not drop into the sea. He dropped into God's arms.
He dropped into the arms of Him who holds every sea in the hollow of
His hand. He dropped into the arms of Him whose power kindled every
sun and flung every world into space. Before Peter can sink he must
break God's arm. And mad as seemed his act Peter was never so safe in
his life. Pile upon him, if you will, all the mountain systems of all
the worlds and he will never sink low enough to wet his sandals if he
keeps his feet planted upon the promise of Christ.
Jesus said, "Come." Peter did the same that you and I may do. He
responded in the affirmative. He said, "Yes, Lord," and made the
venture. And what happened? Let me read it to you. "He walked on the
water to go to Jesus." He did what was humanly impossible. He
accomplished what was absolutely beyond the reach of any human being
except for the power of Christ. He walked. It must have been a
thrilling experience. It was a joy to himself. It was a joy to his
Master. It was a benediction to his fellows. I can see the terror in
their faces give way to wonderment and gladness as they say, "Well,
well, well! He is doing it after all."
Yes, Peter walked. Let us not let any subsequent failure blind us to
this blessed fact. I know that he did not walk far. I know, too, that
that was his own fault. It was not the fault of his Lord. Peter might
have walked the whole distance but for one fatal mistake. He might
have won a complete triumph but for one tragic loss.
What happened to Peter? "He saw the wind boisterous." What does this
mean? It means that Peter ceased giving his attention and his
confidence to Christ. He fixed upon the difficulties. In other words,
he lost his faith. He came to believe in his hindrances more than in
his help. He believed in Christ a great deal, but he believed more in
waves and wind and lightning and thunder. He believed in Jesus, but he
believed more in weakness and death. Looking at the wind he stepped
right off God's promise and it wasn't a second till he was up to his
neck in the raging water.
There was absolutely no failure possible so long as he stood firm upon
the promise of Christ. "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy
laden," Jesus is saying to you that are troubled and sin burdened.
That means that you can come. That means that He is eager for you to
come. And however far you have gone from God and however stiff may be
the tempest that blows about you, if you get this promise under your
feet all the storms that hell can let loose against a human soul will
leave you unshaken. But you must keep a firm stand on the promise.
If you are here with some great yearning in your heart, some special
prayer for usefulness or for deliverance from a peculiar temptation,
lay hold on God's Word and cling to it and you will never be put to
confusion. A saintly old friend of mine told me on one occasion about
praying for his child. And he said he got the assurance that his baby
was going to recover. She was suffering from membranous croup. That
very night he was awakened by the mother and the nurse. And he heard
the mother say to the nurse, "Is she dead?" And he turned and went to
sleep with never a question and never a doubt. He refused to look at
the waves.
Peter got too interested and too absorbed in difficulties. It is so
easy to do that. Peter took counsel of his fears. I have done the
same and you have done the same a thousand times over. We are not
going to be harsh and critical with him. By so doing we would be too
hard upon ourselves. But this I say: It is a great calamity. It is a
great shame. Oh, that we might get upon the higher ground of the
psalmist who said, "Wherefore will we not fear though the earth be
removed and though the mountains be cast into the midst of the sea."
But looking at the boisterous wind and taking counsel of our
fears,--these are not the only things that work our ruin. We might be
persuaded, and often are, to take our eyes off Christ as much by our
advantages as by our disadvantages. Had Peter said within himself,
"The law of gravitation is not so invariable as I thought," or "I am a
much superior man to what I dreamed I was." If Peter had fixed his
confidence in self or in circumstances he would have gone down just the
same. Anything that turns our eyes away from a steadfast gaze of faith
upon Christ spells disaster.
What happened to Peter when he began to look at the boisterous wind?
You know. He began to sink. Peter sinking right in the presence of
Christ,--that is pathetic. He can help nobody now. He could not have
saved his own child if he had been there. Unbelievers seated smugly in
the boat said, "Ah! I thought so. I knew something like that would
happen." I do not know that Peter would ever have noticed the
boisterous wind unless somebody had called his attention to it. I can
imagine Thomas might have shouted to Peter and said, "Look out, Peter.
There comes a tremendous wave." Anyway, Peter is sinking.
Did you ever have that experience? Do you know what it is to feel that
soul sickening sensation that comes to one who is sinking? Do you know
what it means to be losing your grip on God, losing your power in
prayer, losing your grip of things spiritual? Did you ever sink? Are
you sinking to-day? I think I know something of the experience of
Peter. I have an idea that you know something of it.
Young man, away from home for the first time, are you sinking? Little
by little are you giving up your faith? Little by little are you
flinging away the fine ideals that were the strength of your earlier
years? Young woman, are you sinking? Business man, cumbered with many
cares, living your life in the thick of the fight, are you keeping
straight and clean or are you losing your vision? Are you sinking?
What was the matter with Lot in Sodom? He led a sinking life. That
was it and it cost him every one that was dear to him. It will prove
expensive to you. Oh, Christian worker, you will not count as long as
you are living a defeated and failing and sinking life.
But even in his failure Peter has a message for us. In his defeat he
is his own straightforward, sincere and honest self. When Peter
realized that he was sinking he did not try to conceal the matter. He
did not say, "I'll fight it out in my own strength." He threw himself
at once on the infinite strength of Christ. He prayed. That was a
wise thing. That was a big and manly thing. Peter prayed. Have you
forgotten the art?
And listen to that prayer. It was white hot with earnestness. "Lord,
save me." It is short, too. Notice that. When you do not want
anything, when you have no burden, when you are careless and
indifferent and listless, you can get down on your knees and pour out
whole hogsheads of mere words. When you are spiritually asleep and
morally stupid you can utter platitudes in the form of prayer
endlessly. But when the sword of genuine conviction has passed through
your soul, when you are doing business in great waters, then you fling
aside your platitudinous petitions and call out in solemn earnestness
for help.
That prayer was a confession. It was a confession of failure, a
confession of defeat. It was also a confession of need. Some men
would have been too proud to have made it. What a terrible thing is
pride, that damning pride that makes us unwilling to confess our sin
even to God. "For he that covereth his sin shall not prosper." But
"if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
Peter was different. That was his salvation. He blurted out the whole
pitiful story and threw himself on the mercy of Jesus. And what
happened? That which always happens when men thus pray. "Immediately
Jesus stretched forth His hand and caught him." And Peter, who had
walked and had sunk, rose and walked again. And so may you and so may
every single sinking and floundering and failing soul here. All you
need to do is pray as Peter prayed and to believe as Peter believed.
And now, my brethren, do you not agree that we need more of the faith
that made Peter undertake his mad enterprise? Isn't the tragedy of the
Church to-day just this, that the average Christian is not walking by
faith, but by sight? That is the reason we have so little of that high
spirit of daring that marked the early Church. That is the reason that
life for many of us is so dull and prosaic. What we need is faith.
For faith is not a tame and spineless thing that dares nothing. Real
faith dares something, something big and brawny, beyond the human.
Hence it brings into life the thrill of finest romance.
"Come," said Jesus, and Peter gave an instant obedience. May you and I
be as wise. For our Lord is inviting us just as He invited Peter. Are
you thirsty? He says, "Come to me and drink." Are you hungry? He
says, "Come and dine." Are you tired and burdened? He says, "Come and
I will give you rest." Are you eager to be of service? He says,
"Come,--and out of your inner life shall flow rivers of living water."
Brethren, all our needs are met in Him. He is our sufficiency. He is
summoning us even now to venture upon Him. "Will you make the venture?
"Out of my shameful failure and loss,
Jesus, I come, Jesus, I come;
Into the glorious gain of Thy cross,
Jesus, I come to Thee;
Out of the depths of ruin untold,
Into the peace of Thy sheltering fold,
Ever hereafter Thy face to behold,
Jesus, I come to Thee."
IV
LOVE'S LONGING--PAUL
_Philippians 3:10_
"That I may know . . . the fellowship of His sufferings." Weymouth
gives this translation: "I long to share His sufferings." Paul is here
leading us into the very innermost sanctuary of his heart. He is
revealing to us the supreme passion of his life. He is letting us know
what is his one great ambition. "I long," he says. And knowing what a
mighty man he was we lean eagerly forward that we may hear the word
that comes from his lips. For we are keen to know what is the dearest
desire of this brave heart.
And as we listen this is the perplexing word that comes to us: "I long
to share in His sufferings." How startlingly strange that longing is.
We are half ready to wonder if we have heard aright. And when we
realize that we have, we instinctively think of the words of the Roman
governor, Festus: "Paul, thou art beside thyself. Much learning doth
make thee mad." We wonder if Festus was not right after all. Isn't
Paul a bit insane?
"I long to share in His suffering." It sounds like madness to many of
us because it is so foreign to our own deepest desires. Had Paul said,
"I long for a place of honor; I long that my presence should elicit the
applause of the world and call forth the crowns of the world"; had he
said this, we could easily have understood him. Had he expressed a
longing for a place in the hall of fame, had he said, "My one desire is
that the world shall keep sacred my memory," he would have been easily
understood by us. We would have said "This is very natural and very
human." But that is not what he says. This is his strange language:
"I long to share in Christ's sufferings."
Had Paul said that he longed to escape pain and anguish and sorrow we
might also have understood him. Had he said, "I long to escape the
penalty of sin even though I live in sin," many of us could have
appreciated this desire. For there are always those who, while they do
not yearn especially for deliverance from sin, do yearn to be saved
from its penalty. They do not desire to be saved from the sowing of
tares, but they want to be saved from the reaping of the harvest. They
do not pray for deliverance from the broad road, but they desire that
this broad road terminate at the gate of Heaven instead of at the gate
of destruction. Had this man said that he desired to escape hell
everybody could have sympathized with him. But that is not his desire.
What he said was entirely different. "I long," he says, "to share in
the sufferings of Christ; I long to weep as He wept; I long to
sympathize as He sympathized; I long to travel life by His road; I long
to pass through His Gethsemane and to climb His Calvary and to share in
my finite way in His Cross." It is an amazing desire. What is its
secret?
Why could Paul truly say such a word as this? In the first place, he
could not say it because it was natural for him. There had been a time
when he had given utterance to such a statement it would have been
grossly false. When Paul rode out from Jerusalem on his way to
Damascus, for instance, he longed for anything else more than he longed
to share in the sufferings of Christ. It required a marvelous change.
It required an absolute transformation to bring Paul to the place where
he was able to give utterance to this high and heroic sentiment. He
was not possessed of such a longing by nature.
Nor did Paul long to share in the sufferings of Christ because he
looked upon these sufferings as trivial. Few men have ever understood
the sufferings of Christ as did Paul. He had an appreciation of their
intensity and of their bitterness far beyond most other men. He
understood as few have ever understood the physical agonies of the
Cross. Paul was a great physical sufferer himself.
But he knew what we sometimes forget, that infinitely the deepest pain
of Jesus was not physical. Had there been nothing involved in His
crucifixion but physical agony then we are forced to acknowledge that
many of His followers have endured the same kind of pain with a
fortitude to which He was a stranger. His agony was from another
source. He suffered because He was made "to be sin for us, who knew no
sin." He suffered in that "he was wounded for our transgressions and
bruised for our iniquities." It was this fact that wrung from Him that
bitterest of all cries, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
Nor did Paul possess this desire because he longed for pain in itself.
Paul was not a calloused soul. Few men have ever been more sensitive
to pain. He had no more fondness for being shipwrecked than you and I
have. He had no more pleasure in being stoned, in being publicly
whipped, in being thrown into dark dungeons and stenchful prison cells
than you and I have. He no more delighted in being ridiculed and
ostracized than you and I would delight in these things. Paul took no
more pleasure in hunger and cold, in peril and nakedness, in agony and
tears than you and I would take in them.
Yet we find him longing to share in the sufferings of Christ. Why did
he long for this strange privilege? There are two reasons. He longed
to share in Christ's sufferings, first, because he genuinely and
passionately loved Christ. If you have ever at any time truly loved
anybody you will be able to understand this longing of Saint Paul. It
is the nature of love to always seek either to spare or to share the
pain of the loved one.
One of the sweetest stories in our American literature, I think, is
that of "The Wife" told by Washington Irving. You remember it. It has
been re-enacted a thousand times over. A man of wealth has lost his
fortune. He is heart-broken over it, not on his own account but on
account of his wife. She has been tenderly nurtured. He is sure that
poverty will break her heart. But he has to tell her. The lovely home
in the city must be given up. They must move to a cottage in the
country. He enters upon the hard ordeal. It is his Gethsemane. But
to his utter amazement he finds his wife more joyous, more genuinely
happy in the midst of this trying experience than he has ever known her
to be before. What is the secret? She is in love with her husband and
loving him, it is her keenest joy to be able to share his sorrow with
him.
The wife of the southern poet, Sidney Lanier, was just such a one as
Irving's heroine. You will recall what a long hard fight Lanier had
with sickness and poverty and what a tower of strength through it all
was the gentle and tender woman who loved him.
"In the heart of the Hills of Life, I know
Two springs that with unbroken flow
Forever pour their lucent streams
Into my soul's far Lake of Dreams.
Not larger than two eyes, they lie,
Beneath the many-changing sky
And mirror all of life and time,
--Serene and dainty pantomime.
Shot through with lights of stars and dawns,
And shadowed sweet by ferns and fawns,
--Thus heaven and earth together vie
Their shining depth to sanctify.
Always when the large Form of Love
Is hid by storms that rage above,
I gaze in my two springs and see
Love in his very verity.
* * * *
O Love, O Wife, thine eyes are they,
--My springs from out whose shining gray
Issue the sweet celestial streams
That feed my life's bright Lake of Dreams.
Oval and large and passion-pure
And gray and wise and honor-sure;
Soft as a dying violet-breath
Yet calmly unafraid of death.
* * * *
Dear eyes, dear eyes and rare complete--
Being heavenly-sweet and earthly-sweet,
--I marvel that God made you mine,
For when He frowns, 'tis then ye shine!"
Now, what was there in the seeming frown of God to make the eyes of
love shine? It was just this: they were alight with the joy that comes
when love is privileged to share the pain of the beloved.
I heard a grizzled old soldier who was an officer in the Civil War tell
of a raw recruit who came into his regiment. This recruit was awkward
and uncouth and unattractive. He seemed to be little more than an
incarnate blunder. He would stumble and fall down over his own musket.
Naturally he was the butt of many jokes. He was the laughing stock of
all his comrades. But this officer said that he tried to befriend him.
But if the uncouth fellow appreciated his efforts to help him he never
said so. He seemed as awkward in expressing himself as he was in all
other respects.
"One night," said this officer, "we were sleeping without tents and it
was bitter cold. I shivered under my blanket till I went to sleep.
When I waked in the morning, however, I was warm. Then I noticed, to
my astonishment, that I was sleeping under two blankets instead of one.
I looked about me for an explanation. A little way off was this gawky,
green, uncouth soldier striding back and forth with the snow pelting
him in the face. He was waving his thin arms as he walked to keep from
freezing to death. That soldier died a few days later. He died from
the exposure of that night. But a smile was on his face as I sat
beside him." Now, why did the soldier smile? You know. He was
rejoicing that he was able to spare and to share the suffering of his
friend.
"I long to share in His sufferings." That is the language of love. To
one who does not know love it will forever be a mystery. But to the
lover it is easily comprehensible. Any real mother can understand it.
Down in Tennessee a few years ago a mother was out riding with her
little boy. The horse took fright and ran away. The buggy was
wrecked. The mother escaped without injury. But the little lad was so
crippled that he was never able to sit up again.
Now, before this tragic accident the mother of this little wounded boy
had been very active in the life of her Church and community. But with
the coming of this great sorrow she had to give up all outside work.
She gave herself instead night and day to the nursing of her boy. At
times she would hold the little fellow in her arms for almost the whole
night through. At last, after three years, the angel of release came
and the patient sufferer went home. And there were those in the
community who said, "I know that his mother will grieve. Yet his
home-going must be a bit of a relief."
But what said the mother when the minister went to see her? She met
the preacher at the door and as love's sweet rain ran down her face she
did not say anything about being relieved at all. But this is what she
said: "Oh, Brother, my little boy is gone and I can't get to do
anything for him any more." Why, it was the grief of her heart that
the little fellow had gone out beyond the reach of her hand where she
could no longer have the joy of offering herself a living sacrifice
upon the altar of his need. She longed to continually share in his
suffering.
So Paul wanted to share in the sufferings of Christ because he loved
Christ. Then he wanted to share in the sufferings of Christ, in the
second place, because he knew that suffering was involved in being like
Christ. You may suffer and yet be un-Christlike, but no man can be
Christlike and fail to suffer. If you ever, by the grace of God,
become a partaker of the divine nature you must also inevitably become
a partaker of His sufferings.
To be Christlike is to suffer for the very simple reason that Christ
cannot be what He is and fail to suffer in and for a world like ours.
What is the nature of Christ? Christ is like God. Christ is God. "He
that hath seen me hath seen the Father." But what is God? There are
many definitions. There is only one all comprehensive and all
inclusive definition. That is that sentence of pure gold that fell
from the lips of the apostle that leaned upon the bosom of his Lord.
"What is God?" I ask this man who had such a wonderful knowledge of
Him. And he answers, "God is love."
Now since God is love He must suffer. He cannot look upon the lost and
ruined of this world without grief. He cannot behold the tragic
quarrel of man with Himself without taking it to heart. There is
nothing more true nor, in the deepest sense, more reasonable than this
tender sentence: "In all their afflictions He was afflicted." Our
afflictions must afflict Him because "His nature and His name is love."
J. Wilbur Chapman tells how he one night explored the slums of New York
with Sam Hadley. About one o'clock in the morning they separated to go
to their own homes. Dr. Chapman said he had not gone far before he
heard Mr. Hadley saying, "Oh! Oh! Oh!" And he looked back to see his
friend wringing his hands in deepest agony. He hurried to his side
thinking that he had been taken suddenly ill. "What is the matter?" he
asked. And the great mission worker turned his pain-pinched face back
toward the slums out of which they had come and said, "Oh, the sin!
Oh, the heartache! Oh, the wretchedness! It will break my heart. It
has broken my heart."
Now, just as Christ cannot be Christ and not suffer in a world like
ours, so He cannot be Himself and fail to make a sacrificial effort to
save this world. What says the gem of the Gospel? "God so loved the
world that He gave." What was the song that abidingly made Paul's
heart to pulsate with heavenly hallelujahs? Just this: "He loved me
and gave Himself for me." Love grieves. It does more. It serves.
Love beholds the city and weeps over it. But it is not satisfied with
that. It also goes to the Cross for that city over which it weeps.
Sam Hadley wrings his hands in grief over the wretched in New York's
slums, but he does more. He goes to their rescue.
So when Paul said, "I long to share His sufferings" he meant, "I long
to be, in the truest sense, like Him. I long to see the world through
His eyes. I long to feel toward men as Christ feels toward them. I
long to sacrifice for them in my finite way as He sacrificed for them."
And what was the outcome of this longing? There are some ambitions
that God cannot gratify. To do so would only mean our impoverishment
and our ruin. But such is not the case here. God graciously granted
the satisfying of this longing of Saint Paul.