"God of my life, to You I call,
Afflicted at Your feet I fall,
When the great water-floods prevail,
Leave not my trembling heart to fail!"
"There is but a step from the third heavens to the thorn in
the flesh."—Winslow.
"Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all
your waves and breakers have swept over me. By day the Lord directs his love,
at night his song is with me—a prayer to the God of my life." Psalm 42:7-8
The storm-struggle in the soul of the Psalmist is now at
its height. In the previous verse, he had penetrated through the mists of
unbelief that were surrounding him, and rested his eye on the Mizar hills of
the Divine faithfulness in a brighter past. But the sunshine-glimpse was
momentary. It has again passed away. His sky is anew darkened—rain-clouds
sweep the horizon—"Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls."
Amid the environing floods be exclaims, "All your waves and your billows
have gone over me!"
The figure is a bold and striking one. Some have thought it
has reference to the sudden rush of water-torrents from the heights of Lebanon
and Hermon—that it was suggested by the roaring cataracts at his feet—Jordan
with its swollen and winding rapids—the faithful picture of the deep-worn
channels in his own spirit—fretted and furrowed with the rush of overwhelming
sorrow.
But the word rendered "deep," is, in the original
Hebrew, more applicable to the floods of the ocean than to the rapids
of a river; and the image, in this sense, is bolder and more expressive still.
Billow calls on billow to sweep over the soul of the sufferer. They lift their
crested heads, and with hoarse voice summon one another to the assault. "Let
us be confederate!" say they. "Let us rouse the spirit of the storm! Let the
windows of heaven be opened! Let the fountains of the great deep be broken up,
that we may shake this man's confidence in his God, and plunder faith of her
expected triumph! You angry tempests, driving sleet and battering hail! come
and aid us. You forked lightnings, gleaming swords of the sky! leap from your
cloudy scabbards. Old ocean! be stirred from your lowest depths. Let every
wave be fretted to madness, that with one united effort we may effect his
distruction and leave him a wreck on the waters!"
They obey the summons. Already chafed and buffeted, they
return with fresh violence to the shock. Affliction on affliction, temptation
on temptation, roll on this lonely, surf-beaten cliff. Outward
calamities—inward troubles; his subjects in revolt—his friends treacherous;
his own son and favorite child heading the insurrection; he himself an exile,
haunted with the thought of past sins that were now exacting terrible
retribution—and worse than all temporal calamities, the countenance of his God
averted. Affliction seemed as if it could go no further—"ALL your waves and
your billows have gone over me!"
We believe there are periods in the history of most of
God's people corresponding to the dreadful experience recorded in this verse.
Few there are who cannot point to some sad and memorable epochs alike in their
natural and spiritual being—some solemn and critical crisis-hours, in which
they have been subjected to special and peculiar trials—encompassed with the
thunders and lightnings of Sinai—the trumpet sounding long and loud: or, to
revert to the simile of the Psalm, when the moorings of life have been torn
away, and they have been left to drift, on a starless, tempestuous ocean.
Often, as with David, there may at such times be a combination of
trials—sickness—bereavement—loss of worldly substance—estrangement of
friends—blighting of fair hopes. Then, following on these, and worse than all,
hard thoughts of God. We see the wicked around prospering, vice apparently
pampered—virtue apparently trodden under foot—many passing through life
without an ache or trial—their homes unrifled—their hearts unwounded—their
every plan prospering—fortune smiling benignantly at every turn; while we seem
to have been a target for the arrows of misfortune—tempted with Jeremiah to
say, "I am THE man who has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath."
(Lam. 3:1.)
And doubting a God of providence, the next step is
to doubt a God of grace. We begin to question our interest in the
covenant—to wonder whether, after all, our hopes of heaven have been a
delusion and a lie. God's mercy we imagine to be "gone forever." He seems as
if He would be "favorable no more." There is no comfort in prayer—no
brightness in the promises; the Bible is a sealed book—the heavens have become
as brass and the earth as iron! Oh, so long as we had merely external
trials, we could brave and buffet the surrounding floods. So long as we had
the Divine smile, like the rainbow in the cloud, resting upon us, we could
gaze in calmness on the blackest sky—yes, rejoice in trial, as only unfolding
to us more of the preciousness of the Savior. But when we have the cloud
without the rainbow—when outer trials come to a soul in spiritual
unrest and trouble—when we harbor the suspicion that the only Being who
could befriend in such an hour has Himself hidden His face—when we have
neither this world nor the next to comfort us—smitten hopes for time and
despairing hopes for eternity!—this is the woe of woes—the "horror of great
darkness"—"deep calls unto deep." We can say, with a more terrible
emphasis far than the smitten patriarch, "I AM bereaved!"
The Psalmist had now reached this extremity. It is the
turning point of his present experience. He has two alternatives before
him—either to allow unbelief to triumph, to distrust God, abandon the
conflict, and sink as lead in the surging waters; or to gather up once more
his spiritual resources, breast the waves, and manfully buffet the storm.
It is with him now, as with a sinking disciple in a future
age—when the storm is loudest and the midnight is darkest, the voice and
footsteps of his God are heard on the waves: "And about the fourth watch of
the night, Jesus came to the disciples, walking on the sea." "This poor
man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles!"
(Psalm 34:6.)
And what is the first gleam of comfort which crests these
topmost waves? It is discerning the hand and appointment of God in all his
afflictions! He speaks of "Your waves and Your billows."
These floods do not riot and revel at the bidding of chance. "The Lord sits
upon the water-floods.'' (Psalm 29:10.) While, in one sense, it aggravated
his trials to think of them as Divine chastisements—the expressions of the
Divine displeasure at sin—yet how unspeakable the consolation that every
billow rolled at the summons of Omnipotence. "The floods," he can say,
"have lifted up, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up
their waves. The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yes,
than the mighty waves of the sea." (Psalm 93:3, 4.) "O Lord our God,
who is a strong Lord like unto you? You rule the raging of the sea: when the
waves thereof arise, you still them." (Psalm 89:8, 9.)
But he could go further than this. He could triumph in the
assurance of God's returning favor—that behind these troubled elements there
was seated a Being of unchanging faithfulness and love. Already the lowering
mist was beginning to clear off the mountains, and the eye of faith to observe
sunny patches of golden light gleaming in the hollows. Soon he knew the whole
landscape would be flooded with glory. The sailor does not discredit the
existence of the beacon or lighthouse, or alter the direction of his vessel,
because the fog prevents these being seen. No rather, he strains his eyes more
keenly through the murky curtain, in hopes of hailing their guidance. When a
cloud or clouds are passing over the sun's disc, and hiding it from view, the
sunflower does not, on account of the momentary intervention, hang its head,
or cease to turn in the direction of the great luminary. It keeps still gazing
upwards with wistful eye, as if knowing that the clouds will soon roll past,
and that it will before long again be bathed in the grateful beams! So it was
with David. He felt that the countenance of his God, though hidden, was not
eclipsed. This pining flower on the mountains of Gilead does not droop in the
anguish of unbelief, when "the Sun of his soul" is for the moment obscured. He
knew that there would yet arise "light in the darkness." Amid the roll of the
billows—the moaning of the blast—he listens to celestial music. Its keynote is
"the loving-kindness" of his God. While the heavens are still
black, and the tempest raging, he lifts the voice of faith above the war of
the storm, and thus sings: "Yet the Lord will command his loving-kindness
in the day-time, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer
unto the God of my life!"
"YET the Lord!" The believer, even in his deepest and
darkest season of trouble, has always this alternative word—"YET the
Lord will!" I am sunk in sore trial—"Yet the Lord" will be faithful
to His promises! I have been bereaved of those near and dear to me—"Yet
the Lord" will be to me a name better than that of son or daughter! I have
been laid for long years on this couch of suffering—"Yet the Lord" has
converted this lonely sick-chamber into the vestibule of heaven. I have been
tossed and harassed with countless spiritual temptations—"Yet the Lord"
will not allow these temptations to go further than I am able to bear. I am
soon to walk through the dark valley—"Yet" will "I fear no evil, for
You are with me!"
The Psalmist's assurance of deliverance was indeed the test
of no meager faith. We know well, how apt we are to be influenced and affected
by present circumstances. When all is bright, and genial, and prosperous—amid
a happy home and kind friends—in the midst of robust health and flourishing
worldly schemes, the buoyant heart is full of elasticity. The joy without,
imparts an inner sunshine. A man is happy and hopeful in spite of himself. But
if all at once he is plunged into a vortex of trouble, if clouds gather and
thicken around—the mind not only becomes the prey of its own trials, but it
populates the future with numberless imaginary evils, and its very remaining
joys and blessings become tinged and sicklied over with the predominating
sadness! It could as little be expected, on natural principles, that the heart
could in such circumstances be hopeful and rejoicing, as to expect that the
outer landscape of nature would glow and sparkle with beauty, if the clouds of
heaven obscured the great fountain of light.
But faith, strong in God's word, can triumph over natural
obstacles. It did so in the case of this afflicted exile. He remembered how
his God had given past deliverances, even when he least expected them—"They
looked unto Him and were lightened" (Psalm 34:5.) [literally, "their
countenances were made bright."] He feels assured that the same
loving-kindness will be "commanded" still. He sees God's covenant faithfulness
resting calmly and beautifully, like the rainbow-tints in the spray of the
cataract! "Who is among you that fears the Lord, that obeys the voice of
his servant, that walks in darkness, and has no light? let him trust in the
name of the Lord, and stay upon his God." (Isa. 50:10.)
This experience we have been considering is that of
Christ's people only. But there is an experience sadder still: that of those
who are living "without God," and therefore "without hope"—the billows
heaving, and yet they knowing not of them—"deep calling to deep," yet they
ignorant alike of their guilt and danger! There is nothing more sad or
touching in the midst of a storm—when the vessel is reeling on the waves, and
little expectation of safety is left—than to see, amid the settled gloom of
despair, the little child playing on the deck, all unaware of what is
impending—or, at a time of heart-rending bereavement, when every face of the
household is muffled in sadness and suffused with tears, to hear the joyous
laugh and playful prattle of unconscious infancy. Ah! of how many is this the
position with regard to eternity—living heedless of their danger—the waves of
destruction ready to close over them! Sadder far, surely, is their
case, than all the troubles and trials of God's most afflicted people.
Their waves and billows are crested with hope—"songs in the night" come
floating along the darkened surges; but the future to the others has no
ray of hope, no midnight star, no divine song! There is a time
coming when, in a more dreadful sense, the cry will be heard, "Deep calls unto
deep: all Your waves and Your billows have gone over me!" But there will be no
after-strain—no joyous anthem of anticipated deliverance—"Yet the Lord will
command His loving-kindness!" In vain will the cry ascend, "My heart is
overwhelmed: lead me to the Rock that is higher than I."
But, blessed be God, that cry may ascend now—that
Rock may be fled to as a shelter now. Sinner! these waves swept over
the Rock of Ages, that they might not sweep over you! Sheltered in these
crevices, you will be eternally safe. Not one blast of the storm, not one drop
of the rain-shower of vengeance, can overtake you. When the billows of
wrath—the deluge of fire—shall roll over this earth, safe in these everlasting
clefts, you may utter the challenge, "Who shall separate me from the love
of Christ?"