Fathomless

“THT JUDGMENTS ARE A GREAT DEEP.” — Psalm XXXVl.

Consider the word “judgment” in whatever light yon please, this sentence is true. There is much of mystery connected with the terrible calamities which afflict the earth, devastate nations, destroy cities, and sweep away the relics of the past. There is much of mystery about the judgments of God upon the wicked in this life — how they prosper for awhile and are suddenly cut down; how they wax fat like oxen, and then are taken away to the shambles. The judgments of God regarding the wicked in the world to como are also “a great deep,” not to be spoken of with levity. A Bolemn subject is that of the future punishment of the ungodly- -” a great deep,” a deep where some, I am afi’aid, speculate so deeply that the risk they run is imminent — they may drown themselves in perdition.

But I prefer to-night to take the text as it may refer 1 o GocVs dealings loith his own people. He deals with them in judgment — not, I think, penally; he does not in their persons vindicate the inflexible justice of the law by the terrible vengeance he inflicts on the transgressor, as he will dea, with the wicked at the last dread assize. I mean not that. I rather interpret it of the salutary discipline and painful chastisements of God’s hand which are called “judgments,” in Scripture. They do not come by chance, uor upon us at all as a matter of sovereignty merely, but they are sent ia wisdom, because God judges them to be necessary. They are weighed out to us with discretion; awarded us by pru* dence. It is a Sweet name, I think, for affliction — not that I look ujjon affliction as a judgment upon rae for sin, which I cannot do now that I have seen sin punished in Christ; but I look at my afflictions as being sent to me according to the all-wise judgment of a kind Father, not at all without consideration, but always according to his infinite wisdom and prudence, dealt out in measure and at proper times, according to the infinite judgment and wisdom of God. In a word, they are called “judgments,” not because they are judicial, but because they are judicious.

Now, these dealings of God wdth his servants, always wnse and prudent, are frequently like great deeps. I shall simply this evening work out three or four thoughts which arise out of that metaphor.

I. The dealings of God ttith his people ake often

UNFATHOMABLE.

We cannot discover the foundation, or cause and spring of them. Some of God’s servants who are earnestly desirous to provide things honest in the sight of all men, though they are industrious and energetic, and use proper prudence, d<» not find themselves able to prosper in trade. They are thwarted in all their purposes. Thei-e seems to be a kind of fatality connected with all their enterprises. If they do but touch a business or a bargain which will turn into gold with the traffic of others, it melts under their hand into dross. Now, it is not always that this can be explained. “Thy judgments are a great deep” — a matter to be perceived as a fact, but not to be explained by reasoning.

Sometimes in a family a dear child is born and is a great comfort to its parents. It seems, indeed, to be sent in love, to heal some old wound, and to make the house happy, and then just as suddenly as it came, it is removed. Why? A-h! hero, again, is another deep which a mother’s anxious heart would like to fathom, but which is not for her to explore. It is a great deep.

Children will be spared to us, and just when they are ripening to manhood and womanhood, and we hoj)e to see tlieni settled and established in life, it happens — as it happened to one of our beloved friends in this church this afternoon — iliat we have to stand at the open grave and say, “Earth to earth, dust to dust,” Why God takes away the holy and the good, the amiable and the lovely, when they appear to beino.st useful, we cannot understand. It is a great deep.

Oftentimes, too, it happens that when a man is surrounded by his family, and all his household are dependent upon his exertions, with a business just beginning to prosper, while he bids fair to live for many years, he is cut down as in a moment; his wife is left a widow; his children are orphans. He seems to be taken away at the very worst time, just when he coi’ld least he spared. The anxious wife may say to herself, “Why is this?” but she can only say in return, “I cannot comprehend it; it is a great deep.”

I might thus go on recounting instances, but they have transpired before us all in our lifetime, and if they have not occurred to us yet they certainly will. Trials and troubles will come upon us quite beyond our measuring-line. We shall have to do business in deep waters where no plummet can by possibility find a bottom. “Thy judgments are a great deep.”

But why does the Lord send us cm affliction which ice cannot understand? I answer, -Cecawse he is the Lord. Your child. must not expect to understand all his father does, because his father is a man of ripened intellect and understanding, and the child is but a child. You, dear brother, however experienced you may be, are but a child, and compared with the Divine mind, what intelligence have j’ou? How can you expect, therefoi’c, that God shall always act upon a rule which yon shall be able to understand? He is God, and therefore it bccomcth us ofttiraes to be dumb, to sit in silonce and to feel and. know it mi’istbe right, though we equally know we cannot see how it is so.

God sendeth us trials of this sort /or the exercise of our graces. Now is there room for faith. When thou canst trace liini thou canst not trust him. If thou canst understand all that he does, there is room then for thy judgment *athor than for thy faith and for thy reliance on his judgment. But when thou canst not understand it submit thyself to him, say, “I know that God is good; though he slay me yet Mill I trust in him: though I walk in darkness and see no ligllt, yet shall not an nnbelieving word cross these lips, for he is good, and must be good, become of me what may,” Oh! then it is that faith is faith indeed, he faith that brings glory to God and strength to thy soul. Here is room, too, for humility. Knowledge pufFeth up, but the feeling that every thing is beyond our knowledge, that we are nonplussed, and cannot understand the sense of ignorance and incapacity to understand the dealings of God, brings to us humility, and we sit down at the foot of Jehovah’s throne. Beloved, I think there is hardly a grace which the Christian has which is not much helped by the deeps of God’s judgments. Certainly love has frequently been developed to a high degree in this way, for the soul at last comes to say, “No, I will not ask the reason; I will not desire the reason; I do so love him; let his will stand for a reason; that shall be enough for me; it is the Lord; let him do what seemeth him good.” We love not those whom we are always bringing to book and questioning about all they do, but when love cometh to perfection it aduiiroth all, it believeth all to be right and to be perfect. And so, when love cometh to perfection with reference to the most perfect God, then it is that CA’cry thing that is done is endorsed without examination; every thing, even though it be shrouded in darkness, is without a question believed in. It must be right, for thou, Lord, hast done it.

Many otlicr reasons why God calls his people thus to feel his judgments, occur to me; one I may give, then I will leaver this point. We have sins which we cannot fathom deal brethi-en, and it is little marvel therefore if we have also chastisements which we cannot fathom. There are depths of depravity within our hearts that call for other dneps, as deep calleth unto deep, and there are consequences ol sin within us which we are not able to reach, consequences that are following us in secret, and damaging us in very vital points. It needs that the medicine should be of a searching kind to follow the disease into the recesses of our soul, where understanding cannot pry. Some of those deep judgments are like secret, potent, subtle medicines, searching out certain secret devils that have found their way into the caverns of our spirit, and hidden themselves thwe. Perhaps an affliction which I can understand is meant to direct my attention to some known sin; but it may be that the trial which I cannot understand, is dealing deadly blows against a mortal ill which, if not thus destroyed, might have been solemnly prejudicial to my own spirit.

I leave that thought with you — expect that God’s judgments will sometimes be unfathomable.

II. In the next place — God’s judgments are a great deep: theist they are safe sailing.

Ships ncA’er strike on rocks out in the great deeps. Children, perhaps, may fancy that a shallow sea is the safest, but an old jailor knows better. While he is off the Irish coast the captain has to keep a good look out, but lrhile he is crossing the Atlantic he is in far less danger. There he has plenty of sea-room, and there is no fear of quicksands or of shoals. When the sailor enters the Thames he encounters first one sand bank and then another, and he is in danger, but out i n the deep water, where he finds no bottom, he is but little afraid. So, mark you, in the judgments of God. VNHaen he is dealing out affliction to us it is the safest possible sailing that a Christian can have. “What,” says one, •’ trial safe? “Yes, very safe. The safest part of a Chris* tain’s life is the time of his trial. “What, when a man is down do you say he is safe?” Yes, for then he need fear no fall; when he is low he need fear no pride; when he is humbled under God’s hand then he is less likely to he carried away with every wind of temptation. Smooth water on the way to heaven is always a sign that the soul should keep wide awake, for danger is near. One comes at last to feel a solemn dread creeping over one in times of prosperity. “Thou shalt fear and tremble because of all the good that God shall make to pass before thee,” fearing not so much lest the good should depart as lest we should make an ill use of it, and should have a canker of sloth, or self-confidence, or worldliness growing up in our spii-its. We have seen many professed Christians make shipwreck, in some few instances it has been attributable to overwhelming sorrow, but in ten cases to the one it has been attributable to prosperity. Men grow rich, and of course they do not attend the little chapel they once went to; they must go where the fashionable world worships. Men grow rich, and straightway they cannot keep to that road of self-denial which once they so gladly trod. The world has made their hearts hungry as the wolf, and they rage for more. They have much, and ■^hey lust for more. An insatiable ambition has come over tlvem, and they fall, and great is the sorrow which thei; all brings to the church; great the mischief which it does to the people of God. But a man in trouble — did you ever notice a real child of God in trial? How he prays! He cannot live now without prayer; he has a burden to carry to his God, and he goes to the mercy-seat again and again. Notice him under depression of spirits. IIow he reads his Bible now. He does not care now for that lighter literature which beguiled many an hour before. He wants the solid promise, the strong meat of the kingdom of God. Do you notice now how he hears? That man does not care a fig ibr your flowers and your fine bits of rhetoric; ho wants the Word; he wants the naked doctrine; ho wants

Christ; lie cannot be fed on Avhiras and fancies now. He cares a great deal less about theological speculation and ecclesiastical authority; he wants to know something about eternal love, everlasting faithfulness, and the dealings of the Lord of Hosts with the souls of his people; he pines to hear of the covenant, and of the suretyship engagements of Christ. Ah! this is the man who walks tenderly m the world. He holds the world with a very loose hand. He expects to be often in the way, and hopes to be up out of the way, for the world has lost its attraction for him. I say. again, God’s judgments are a great deep, but they are safe sailing, and under the guidance and presence of the Holy Spirit they are not only safe but they are advantageous. I greatly question whether v>”e ever do grow in purity much except when we are in the furnace. We ought so to do. The joys of this life with which God blesses U3 ought to make us increase in grace and gratitude, ought to be a sufficient motive for the very highest form of consecration, but as a rule we are only driven to Christ by a storm — the most of us, I mean. There are blessed and favored exceptions, but mosi of us need the rod, must have it, and do not seem to learn obedience except through the chastening of the Lord.

Here I leave that second thought.

in. Thirdly, God’s judgments are a great deep, but

THEY COXCEAL GREAT TEEASURE.

Down in those awful depths who knows what there may be? Pearls lie deep there — masses of precious things that would make the miser’s eye gleam like a star. There are the wrecks of old Spanish galleons lost these centuries ago, and there they lie huge mines of wealth, far down “where Bca-monsters whelp and stable.” And so with the deep judgments of God. What wisdom is concealed there, and what treasures of love and faithfulness, and what David calls •’ very tenderness,” “for in very tenderness,” saith he, “hast thou afflicted nie.” There is as much wisdom in the deep f.38 FATHOMLESS.

afflictions of Gods saints, as in the creation of the woiltl God smites his people artistically. There is never a random blow. There is a marvellous degree of skill in the chastening of the Lord. Hence we are told not to despise it, which, in the strongest meaning of it, means that we are to honor it. We honor the chastisements of our parents, but infinitely more the chastisements of God. “For they verily chastened us for a few days after their own pleasure, but he for our profit,” and he alone knows the way of chastening us for profit.

Now, brethren, I said there were treasures concealed in the great deeps which we cannot yet reach, and so in the great deeps in which God makes us to do business there are great treasures that we cannot come upon at present. We do not, perhaps, as yet, receive, or even perceive any present and immediate benefit from our afilictions. There may be no immediate benefit; the benefit may be far hence and to come. The chastening of our youth may be intended for the ripening of our age. “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.” The aflfliction of to-day may have no reference to the circumstances of to-day, but to the circumstances of fifty years ahead. I do not know that yonder blade required the rain on such a day, but God was looking not to February as such, but to February in its relation to July, when the harvest should be reaped. He considered the blade not merely as a blade, and in its present necessity, but as it would be in the full corn in the ear. There are certain marks that an artist makes upon the block that you cannot see the reason of as yet, and they spoil the apparent likeness of the marble to the image which you know he wishes to produce, but then those lines are to be worked out by and by. They are scratches now, but they will be lines of beauty soon when he comes to conclude them. So, a trial may even lame us for present service, damage us — I will even go to the length of saying — for years to come, and make us go groaning and broken-heart ed, so as to be of comparatively little service to the Cliuvch, and of veiy little joy to ourselves. But then afterwards — “afterwards,” as Paul puts it — it beareth the peaceable fruits of righteousness, in those that are exercised thereby. Why will you not let the Lord have time? Why will you be in a hurry? Why will you stand at his elbow and perpetnally say, “Explain this to-day, and show me the motive and reason of this at the present hour “? A thousand years in his sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night. The mighty God takes mighty time in which to work out his grand results; therefore be content to let the treasures lie at the bottom of the deep for a while. But then faith may see them. Faith can make the deep translucent till it sees the treasure lying there; and she assures you it is yours, and though you may not at this hour be able to be at it, yet you shall have it, “for all things are yours.” Every tiling that is stored up in the great deep of the eternal purpose, or in the deep of the manifest judgment, every thing belongs to you, O believer. Therefore rejoice in it, and let it lie there till such a time as God may choose to raise it for your spiritual enrichment.

IV. God’s judgments are a great deep; tiiex they work

MUCH GOOD.

The great deep, though ignorance thinks it to be all waste, a salt and barren wilderness, is fraught with the greatest blessings to this round world. If, to-morrow, there should be “no more sea,” although that may one day be a blessing, it would not be so to-day, but the gi-eatest of all curses. It is from the sea that there arises the perpetual mist which, floating by-and by in mid-air, at last descends in plenteous showers on hill and vale to fertilize the land. The sea is the great heart of the earth — I might say the circulating blood of the world. We must have it; it must be in motion; its tidfS, like a great pulse, must be felt, or the world’s vitality would cease. There is no waste in thf

Bca; it IS all wanted; there is not a drop too much of it. So with our afflictions which are thy judgments, O God 1 They are necessary to our life, to our soul’s health, to our spiritual vigor, “By all these,” said one of old, “do men live, and in all these is the life of my spirit.” Uprising from my trouble is the constant mist which is afterwards transformed into sacred dew, which moistens my life, ‘It is good for me that I have been afflicted,” said David. “Amen!” say all the afflicted ones, A thousand sick beds shall bear witness to the blessedness of the trial. A thousand losses and crosses borne by the faithful, now aid the sweetness of the harmony of everlasting hymns in the land of the blessed. “Oh! blessed cross,” said one; “I fear lest I should come to love thee too much; ’tis so good to be afflicted!” May God grant to. us that at all times instead of trying to fathom the deep, we may understand that it is useful to us, and be content.

V. Lastly: if God’s judgments are a great deep, then

THEY BECOME A HIGHWAY OF COMMUXION WITH HISISELF,

We thought at one time that the deep separated different peoples; that nations were kept asunder by the sea; but lo! the sea is to-day the great highway of the world. The rapid shi])s cross it with their white sails, or with their palpitating engines they flash across the waves. The sea is the world’s great canal — a mighty channel of communication. And so, brethren, our afflictions — which we thought in our ignorance would separate us from our God — are the highway by which we may come nearer to’ God tliau wo otherwise could. “They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business on the great waters, these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep.” You that keep close in shore and have but small trials, you are not likely to know much of his W’:nders in the deep; but if you are made to put out far to sea, where deep calleth unto deep and the noise of God’s waterspouts astounds the spiritual manner, then it is that you shall see God’s -wondei-s — wonders of faitlifuluess, wonders of power, wonders of wisdom, wonders of love. You shall see them, and you shall rejoice t« see them. These troubles shall be as fiery chariots to bear you up to God. Your afflictions, wave upon wave, shall wash your soul, like a tempest-tossed bark, nearer to the haven. Oh! but this is a blessed thing when God’s judgments bring us nearer to him! Old Quarles has a quaint idea when he represents God as swinging a flail in judgment, and he says if you would get away from it you must get close to his hands, and then you are out of the reach of the swing of the blow. Get close up to God, and he will not smite; get near to God and the trial ceases.

Trials are often weights to keep men down, but you have seen many a machine in which one weight going down lifts another weight up, and there is a way by faith of adjusting the consecrated pullies so that the very weight of your affliction may lift you up nearer to God. The bird with a string and a stone to its feet cannot fly, and yet there is a way that God has of making his birds fly even when they are tied to the ground. They never mounted till they had something to pull them down; never ascended till they were compelled to descend. They found the gates of heaven not up there, but down there. The lower they sank in Bclf-estimation, the nearer they came to the everlasting God who is the foundation of all things.

Thus, brethren, I have brought you to the last thought, may the Holy Spirit bring you to make it your own. May God’s deep judgments lead you to deeper communion.

Dear child of God, thou that art in trouble to-night, the voice of that trouble is to thee — get nearer to God; get nearer to God. God has favored you, favored you with an extraordhiary means of growth in grace. To use Rutherford’s simile, he has put you down in the -wine-cellar in the dark. Now begin to tap the wines on the lees well-refined Now get at the choice treasures of darkness. He has brought yon on to a sandy desert; now seek the treasures that are hid in the sand. Believe that the deepest afflictions are neighbors always to the highest joys, and that the greatest possible privileges lie close by the darkest trials. If the bitterer youi sorrow, the louder your song at the lat?t, there is a reason for that, and that reason faith may discover and experience live upon.

May God bless the tried ones among you. But there are some here who are in trial and have no God to go to. Poor souls! Poor souls! Poverty, and no God! Sickness, and no God! A life of toil, and no heaven! A slavery of penury on earth, and then driven for ever away from God’s presence! Oh! how pitiable! how pitiable! Pity yourselves, and remember that it need not always be so. You may have a heaven, you may have present bliss. Here is the Gospel — “He that believeth and is baptized shall be Baved.” Oh! ray hearer, if thou canst but trust him who bled upon the cross, thou shalt have comfort for thy present trouble; thou shalt have pardon for thy past, present, and future sin. The Lord bless each one of you, for Christ’s eake. Ameu.