Christ, and His Little Ships
Tesus is often presented to us as the Captain of our salvation. The weapons of our warfare are furnished from his armory. But in one striking scene he appears as our Admiral, conducting his fleet, through storm and darkness and peril, to the desired haven. The scene is described by the evangelist Mark, and it illustrates several points of spiritual experience most admirably.
At the close of one of his busiest days of labor, our Lord finds himself on the eastern shore of Lake Gennesareth. He says to his followers: “Let us cross over unto the other side.” This is substantially the invitation to every unconverted soul. For there are two “sides’1 in life — a wrong side and a right side: a side on which Satan reigns, and a “Lord’s side,” where his Word is a light unto the footsteps. On one side lies guilt, and over it hangs the cloud of condemnation. No man can be on both sides, if he try ever so hard. Woe be unto him if his professions place him on the Lord’s side, while his affections and his conduct are on the side of the enemy.
When Jesus commands a soul to follow him, he furnishes not only the test of faith, but the touchstone of character. These two all - comprehensive words —” follow me “— were Christ’s most common formula to those yet outside of the kingdom. They were at once his awakening appeal, his direction to the inquiring heart, and his “confession of faith” and rule of daily conduct. True religion is simply following Christ. The more closely our modern churches conform their standards of doctrine to this brief, vital coretruth, the more orthodox will they become and the less will they be rent into factions and distracted with schisms. The true “Evangelical Alliance “will always crystallize around Christ’s person as the one only leader, and Christ’s cross as the one only ground of salvation. No one can follow Christ and Satan at the same, moment. No one can follow Christ until he breaks with his old habits and cuts loose from his besetting sins. Here comes the pinch. The young ruler never would have gone away sorrowful if Jesus had allowed him to compromise, by holding on to this world’s treasures and securing everlasting treasures also. Jesus demanded that he should cut loose from his selfishness and go over unto the “other side.” Christ draws sharp lines and allows no neutralities. I do not read of any place in Heaven for neutrals.
On that evening by the lake-shore the company had to decide at once whether they would remain in Gennesareth or embark with Jesus for the other side. Observe that he does not send his disciples off alone. He foresaw danger ahead and goes with them. Never yet has our loving Lord commanded a sinner to forsake his life of sin, or a believer to embark in any enterprise of benevolence, or venture on a mission for the right, however perilous or storm-provoking, without the assurance “I am with you always.” Where we can not take Christ with us we should never venture. This is the unfailing test as to the rightfulness of our business pursuits and our social amusements.
Mark tells us that Jesus was not left to cross the lake alone. There “were with him also other little ships.” Mere fishing-boats, of course; but each one had its passengers. Christ is the Admiral in command; and the vessels must keep within hail of him, as well as of each other. Their safety does not depend on the size of the boat; but on the seamanship and the divine protection of the Commander. It was not a fleet of colossal war-galleys that the Saviour convoyed that night; but a flotilla of fishing-smacks. I may be voyaging to eternity in a little boat; but, however humble be the craft, it contains my immortal hopes. Only here and there is a great galley to be seen, with its banks of oars. But the tiniest skiff that bears a child’s soul, or is freighted with the humblest disciple’s little all, is just as surely under our Commander’s eye as if it were a royal argosy. We are safe even in a little boat when Jesus keeps watch over it. Many a seventy-four, manned with self- righteousness, has foundered in the deep; but Heaven’s harbor will be covered with little boats that our Commander has piloted home through storm and darkness.
That was a night of tempest and panic through which Christ brought his flotilla to the other side. He never promises smooth water to his followers. Nor is his Church a vast assemblage of tow-boats, pulled along by the sheer power of the Divine Will. Each Christian has his own oar of personal responsibility to pull, and his own rudder of conscience to steer with, and must “work his passage “as a free agent. A hard pull had the oarsmen in the little boats on that memorable night-voyage over Galilee. The fierce waves combed over even into the vessel that carried the Captain of our salvation. To test the faith of his crew to the utmost, he lies down to slumber on the stern-beam of the boat. Poor, frightened creatures! How like you and me they acted when they gave up all for lost, and screamed in the Master’s ear: “Lord! Lord! carest thou not that we perish? “Every little boat in the fleet may have had some trembling hands on board during that midnight hurricane. Here snaps an oar, and there a tremendous sea lurches over the gunwale. Peter and John must have recalled that stormy night often when they were passing through their tempestuous experiences in after years. Brother! you and I will recall dark hours of trial over surging seas and through head-winds of opposition after we get home to glory. More than one will look back, and see how close he ran to the rocks, and what hair-breadth escapes he made when he “struck a light’7 with the tinder and steel of prayer. I expect to meet some mariners up yonder who were half-drowned pretty often, and had their sea-biscuit well soaked in the brine.
Nay, more. We doubt whether the fleet on Galilee would have weathered through that tempest if Jesus had not been in the midst of them. Their extremity was his opportunity. The Owner of the winds had the power to subdue them. Never does Satan raise a tempest which Jesus can not quell. How sublimely goes that voice of might out through the howlings of the hurricane! “Peace! be still!’7 In an instant the howl hushes to a whisper and the maddened billows die down into a calm. Oh! my soul! why art thou so often disquieted within thee? How is it that thou hast so little faith? Wilt thou never learn that Jesus has even the least of his little boats always under his watchful eye, and all the winds and the waves obey him?
The other side is reached at last. And not a single vessel that sets out with Jesus and keeps near to Jesus perishes in the storm. The morning light shines sweetly on dripping 66 POINTED PAPERS.
sail and moored mariner in the celestial harbor. So he bringeth us to our desired haven. Beautiful were the words of that dying Christian who overheard some one say. in low tones, by her bedside: “She can not live long. She is sinking fast.”
“No, no,’7 exclaimed the departing soul, “I am not sinking! I am going into the harbor, and Jesus is with me! “To the voyagers even on the least of all his” little ships “will our Divine Commander say: “Where I am, there shall ye be also.77