Holding On with the Teeth

‘’’’He who is spoken of in the story first holds the boat with his right hand and that being cut off, he takes hold with his left hand, mid when that is cut off, he fastens o?i with his teeth. So when one help is cut off, and the7i a7iother, yet faith doth fasten upo7i God as lo7ig as it hath his word tofaste7i 07i. When God makes b7-each after breach, the7i to depe7id up07i him is faith 17ideedy Well may we maintain our hold upon our God come what may; for who else is fit to be our soul’s holdfast? With us it must be Christ or nothing, for other refuge there is none. Trying times make us desperately resolved to trust in the Lord at all hazards. A sense of sin snatches away one promise, and another; and then we betake ourselves to such words of grace as were expressly given to the most unworthy: there we resolve to perish, if perish we must. Our grasp at such times does not embrace much of the truth, but it is intense, and takes fast hold on what it has reached. We cannot, we will not, let go the Saviour. Like Joab, we will die at the horns of the altar, if we must die. He who, like the man in the story, has lost both his hands and yet holds by his teeth, is safe enough: God will never leave such a man to drown. Let us refuse to despair, or even to despond; since there is no just cause for distress while we can truly say, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.”