say, “I never was in such a condition before in my life. Wave upon wave of trouble comes upon me. I have lost one friend and then another. It seems as if business had altogether run away from me. Once I had a flood tide, and now it is an ebb, and my poor ship grates upon the gravel, and I find she has not enough water to float her — what will become of me? And, oh! sir, my enemies have conspired against me in every way to cut me up and destroy me; opposition upon opposition threatens me. My shop must be closed; bankruptcy stares me in the face, and I do not know what is to become of me.” Or else your troubles take another shape, and you feel that you are called to some eminently arduous service for your Lord, and your strength is utterly insignificant compared with the labour before you. If you had great faith it would be as much as you could do to accomplish it; but with your poor little faith you are completely beaten. You cannot see how you can accomplish the matter at all. Now, what is all this but simply looking at secondary causes? You are looking at your trouble, not at the God who sent your trouble; you are looking at yourselves, not at the God who dwells within you, and who has promised to sustain you. Oh soul! it would be enough to make the mightiest heart doubt, if it should look only at things that are seen. He who is nearest to the kingdom of heaven would have cause to droop and die if he had nothing to look at but what eye can see and ear can ear. What wonder then if you are disconsolate, when you have begun to look at the things which always must be enemies to faith?
7. But I would remind you that you have forgotten to look to Christ since you have been in this trouble. Let me ask you, have you not thought less of Christ than you ever did? I will not suppose that you have neglected prayer, or have left your Bible unread; but still, have you had any of those sweet thoughts of Christ which you once had? Have you been able to take all your troubles to him and say — “Lord, you know all things; I trust all in your hands?” Let me ask you, have you considered that Christ is omnipotent, and therefore able to deliver you; that he is faithful, and must deliver you, because he has promised to do so? Have you not kept your eye on his rod, and not on his hand? Have you not looked rather to the crook that stuck you, than to 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
