Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3562
“And Peter answered Him and said, Lord, if it is You, bid me come unto You on the water. And He said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried, saying Lord, save me!” Matthew 14:28-31.
A FEW reflections will be sure to cross the mind of any thoughtful reader of this narrative.
I. THE MIXED CHARACTER OF THE BELIEVER’S EXPERIENCE is here very palpably suggested to us. Peter was undoubtedly a bold believer in Jesus Christ. He addresses his Master devoutly, calling Him, “Lord”—a name of reverence, the use of which evidences the change that had been worked in his character, and the obedient spirit it had produced. But the misgivings implied in that, “if—“if it is You”—savors rather of unbelief! And yet we find this hesitancy immediately followed by an expression of such strong confidence that we marvel at the request he uttered, “Bidme come to You on the water.”Then cheered by the Lord’s prompt answer, “Come,” we find him showing his courage by descending from the vessel, setting foot on the sea and actually walking on the water! Thus did he participate in the wonder which Christ worked and share in the miracle of subduing the elements. His valor, however, soon evaporates. For, “when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid.” The faith that buoyed him up gave place to a fear that bowed him down. He who was walking on the liquid wave, one instant, is sinking beneath the surge the next! The gallant cry, “Bid me come to You on the water,” is quickly exchanged for the grievous wail, “Lord, save me!” So great his pluck, so dire his panic! And is this a common experience? Are all God’s people thus subject to changes—alternating between calm trust and cowardly fear? Can they be neither one thing or the other—neither altogether believing or totally unbelieving? We think it is even so. We will not say how much frailty of the creature is mixed up with fealty to Christ in the best of men, nor how far the Grace of God may protect us from the guilt of double-dealing in the conduct of our lives. But we do mournfully confess that in our own experience, the good and the evil contend for the mastery and, sometimes, it seems but the turning of a hair which shall vanquish! Fully assured, though, we are that the new life which has been implanted in us will ultimately gain the victory, but not less fully conscious are we that disasters and defeats are constantly occurring on our path to triumph.
Our trophies are never won without troubles. He that knows anything, it seems to me, of what it is to live by faith, will find throughout his earthly career a continual conflict. He may never fall so low as to doubt his interest in Christ, yet he may sometimes wet his couch with tears and wonder if God has forgotten to be gracious. He may be enabled to hold on his way for years without a slur on his character, yet will he often have to engage in such terrible struggles against inbred sin—and to endure such sore pressure from troubles without—that he is compelled to cry out, “O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” One day you may be on Tabor’s summit witnessing your Master’s Transfiguration, and another day you may be in the Valley of Humiliation, groaning in spirit, diminished and brought low through oppression, affliction and sorrow! One day you may be as strong as a giant and all things seem possible to you—and another day you may be as weak as a baby and weep for the joys that are fled! You may one day “surname yourself by the name of Israel” and another day call yourself, “the worm Jacob,” fearing lest you should be trodden down by the common ills of life and utterly crushed! Our way to Heaven is uphill and downhill. Our life is made of checkered materials—it is not all of one fabric. Sometimes full of hope, we bound forward with elastic step—soon the sun ceases to shine, the big raindrops fall, the vapors rise and we sit down with folded arms and fixed eyes, wearing a sad, leaden cast! As in our experience, so in our nature, good and evil meet, but cannot blend—they areat constant variance. I mention this well-known fact because it may serve to comfort some of the younger sort who but of late have begun to go on pilgrimage. They fancied that since they were born-again, and enlisted in Christ’s army, they would never afterward have to fight with sin within—though, perhaps, they might be tempted—their soul would never give any consent to it. They boasted when they put on the harness, as though they had taken it off. They sowed today and they expected to reap their harvest tomorrow! They had scarcely got loose from the shore, yet they expected to soon reach the port. When the vessel is a little buffeted and heaved to and fro by contrary winds, they cannot understand it! Beloved, it is so with all of us! Those saints of God who appear to you to be favored with perpetual sunshine could tell you quite another tale. Some whom God highly honors in public, He often deeply humbles in private. He has a way of taking His children behind the door and making them see some of the abominations within them, while at the same time He is giving them to see the beauties of Christ and enabling them to feed on Him. Do not think that yours is an extreme case because your spiritual life is one of much contest with sin. So far from being extreme, I believe it is but a specimen of the way in which the Lord deals with all His beloved ones.
There I leave that first observation. Peter is at one moment confident, another instant he is dismayed. At one moment he is treading the waves like a miracle worker, and the next instant he is sinking like an ordinary being! And so it is with us—sometimes aloft, and soon crying out of the depths, “Lord, save me!”
And for our second reflection, we observe that—