Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3321
Delivered by C. H. Spurgeon, on Behalf of the British and Foreign Sailors’ Society
“By terrible things in righteousness will You answer us, O God of our salvation; who are the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of them that are afar off upon the sea.” Psalm 65:5.
PLEASE read the 65th Psalm through. May it do you good, whether as landsmen you read of the Lord’s settling the furrows, or as sailors you hear of His stilling the noise of the seas. Notice the first two verses—“Praise waits for You,” “O You that hear prayer.” Holy men of old were accustomed to mix praise and prayer together—this is a happy mixture! We are not tied to one thing. We spread the sails of prayer and fly the flag of praise. To praise God without praying to Him would be impossible. To pray to God without praising Him would be ungrateful. Praise takes in a cargo of gold for the King of kings—and prayer stokes the fires to make the good ship steam towards the royal city! Brothers, keep to this throughout all the watches—pray and praise—and when you need a change, praise and pray/Keep the boat of the soul going with these two oars—praise and prayer.
Notice, also, in this Psalm, that when the saints of the olden time offered prayer and praise, they addressed themselves at once to God—not to saints and angels. David is not satisfied with talking about God, but he talks to Him, as in our text—“You will answer us, O God of our salvation.” There’s nothing like straight sailing—let us go directly to God. We ought not to think of what our fellow men will say of our praises. If they are not musical in the ears of men, it matters little, so long as they are sweet to the Lord our God! When we engage in publicprayer, it is a pity to be thinking about how our words will sound in the opinion of our Brothers—let us only think of the Lord to whom we are speaking. We can’t steer two ways at once. If we make for the Mercy Seat, we need not consider the pews. Let us fix our eyes on the lighthouse at the mouth of the harbor and leave the church on the hill, and the windmill over yonder, for other people to look at. Brothers, look to your Captain and let your mates think what they like! Let us know our port and steer for it— and let the twin-ship of prayer and praise never take any course but that which carries our whole heart straight to Heaven!
I. First, then, dear Friends, let us consider WHAT THE LORD IS TO US. He is the “God of our salvation.”
It is clear from this that we all need salvation. If it were not clear in this text, we could not doubt it, for the evidence surrounds us on every side. We have, sadly, sufficient proof of our lost estate. Human nature is waterlogged and ready to sink—and in God, alone, is our hope.
The text tells us where salvation is, namely, in God. God is the God of our salvation. You have neither right ideas of yourself, nor right ideas of God unless you see that by nature you have need of being saved from sin—saved by nothing less than a Divine hand! The greatest saint on earth is still a sinner. Let him have safely sailed on the sea of life for 60 years, he will be on the rocks before the morning watch unless the Lord saves him. The most intelligent man and the man of longest experience, still needs saving. The oldness of a ship does not increase its seaworthiness. Ask at Lloyd’s if a ship is any safer because it has been afloat more than 60 years. No man that lives is safe from rocks, quicksands and tempests, or even from foundering at sea unless the Lord God shall be always the God of his salvation! We have all need to ask for salvation from the guilt of sin, the power of sin and the curse of sin. And it should be our great joy that the Lord graciously condescends to provide all this for us in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior!
It is this salvation which brings God to us and us to God. I do not think that very many find God by what they see in Nature. Men see the works of God, but they do not see God in His works. There is such a thing, I suppose, as going
“from Nature up to Nature’s God,” but it is a hard climb for cripples, like the most of us! To lift your foot even from the top of the highest mountain to the lowest step of the Throne of God is a tremendous effort. Human nature does not care for such an upward climb. The ready way to God, by which tens of thousands have come to Him, is by Jesus Christ our Savior. No man ever comes to God except by Jesus, who is the way of salvation. There may be other channels, but this is the only navigable one. Our boats draw too much water to get to God along the shallow straits of human learning. We shall be wise to keep to the deep waters of redeeming love, for by this channel God came to us. The glorious God came here to earth in the Person of His Son, that He might reconcile us to Himself and so save us. Where there is depth enough for God to come to man, there is a fair sea-way for man to come to God! Remember that the Lord Jesus came for our salvation. “God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved.” Salvation brought God to us and salvation must bring us to God, or else we shall be castaways. Blessed forever be our gracious and glorious God, for in every man that is saved, He is the God of his salvation in Christ Jesus!