Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1259
“There go the ships.” Psalm 104:26.
I was walking, the other day, by the side of the sea, looking out upon the English Channel. It so happened that there was a bad wind for the vessels going down the Channel and they were lying in great numbers between the shore and the Goodwins. I should think I counted more than a hundred, all waiting for a change of wind. All of a sudden the wind shifted to a more favorable quarter and it was interesting to see with what rapidity all sails were spread and the vessels began to disappear like birds on the wing. It was a sight such as one might not often see, but worth traveling a hundred miles to gaze upon, to see them all sail like a gallant squadron and disappear southward on their voyages. “There go the ships,” was the exclamation that naturally rose to one’s lips.
The Psalmist thought it worth his while to pen the fact which he, too, had noticed, though it is very questionable whether David had ever seen anything like the number of vessels which pass our coasts. Certainly he had seen none to be compared with them for tonnage. The first lesson which may be learned from the ships and the sea is this—every part of the earth is made with some design. The land, of course, yields “grass for the cattle and herb for the service of man.” But what about the broad acres of the sea? We cannot sow them, nor turn them into pasture. The reaper fills not his arms from the briny furrows! They give neither seed for the sower nor bread for the eater, neither do herds of cattle cover them as they do the thousand hills of earth.
Remorselessly swallowing up all that is cast upon it, the thankless ocean makes no return of fruit or flower. Is not the larger part of the world given up to waste? “No,” says David, and so say we—“There go the ships.” The sea benefits man by occasioning navigation and yielding, besides, an enormous harvest of fishes of many kinds. Besides which, as the blood is necessary for the body, so it is necessary for this world that there should be upon its surface a vast mass of water in perpetual motion. That measureless gathering together of the waters is an amazing instance of Divine Wisdom in its existence, its perpetual ebb and flow and even in its form and quantity. In the ocean there is not a drop of water too much nor a drop too little! There is not a single mile of sea more than there ought to be, nor less than there should be.
An exact balance and proportion is maintained and we little know how the blooming of the tiny flower or the flourishing of the majestic cedar would be affected were the balance disturbed. Between the tiny drop of dew upon each blade of grass and the boundless main there is a relation and proportion such as only an infinite mind could have arranged. Remember, also, that the ocean’s freshness tends to promote life and health among the sons of men. It is good that there is sea, or the land might devour its inhabitants by sickness. God has made nothing in vain. Ignorance gazes on the stormy deep and judges it to be a vast disorder, the mother of confusion and the nurse of storms. But better knowledge teaches us what Revelation had before proclaimed, namely, that in wisdom has the Lord made all things.
But does not the ocean grievously separate lovers and friends? Many a wife thinks of her husband on the far-off Pacific. Many a mother casts an anxious thought towards her sailor boy. And both are half inclined to think it is a mistake to place so vast a portion of the globe as a cruel dividing gulf between loving hearts. Others evidently thought so in years gone by, for among the figurative excellencies of the new earth we are told that there shall be no more sea. But what a mistake it is to think that the sea is a divider—it is the great uniter of the races of men—for, “there go the ships.” It is the highway of nations by which they reach each other far more readily than they could have done had no sea existed and arid deserts or towering mountains had intervened.
This is one instance in which we do not understand God’s designs, for we judge them upon the surface. As the sea apparently divides, but really unites nations, so often in Providence things look one way, but go another. We say, “All these things are against me,” when all things are working together for our good! We judge that to be a curse which, in the deep intent of God, is a rich blessing! And we write that down as among the ills of life which, in God’s esteem, is
reckoned to be among its choicest mercies. Judge not according to the sight of the eyes, or the changeful feelings of the heart! But unstaggeringly believe in the Infallible Goodness of our great Father in Heaven!
As the child mistakes God’s design in the sea, so will you also mistake His designs in Providence if you set up yourself as the measurer of the infinite—
“Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust Him for His Grace. Behind a frowning Providence He hides a smiling face.”