Bible Commentaries

Nothing But Miracles

Psalm 66:6

That is really all I can say; if I were to add anything to that I would be adding prose to poetry, and poor, bald, rough paint to the finest colours used by finest artists. When will people believe that the text is the sermon? In this case we have sermon and text in one most surely. "They went through the flood on foot." Believe it, and you are a Christian; deny it, and you leave the Church, turn your back on the Psalm 66:12

There are many lessons in that verse. They are filled up with the truth of the leadership of God. But I want to take one simple thought and send it out. It is the apparent contradictions of our life. For fire and water: are they not very opposite. Life, then, has need of opposites, and life advances through its contradictions.

I. Think of life's common experiences first. I take it there is no one here but has known the music and the light of joy. And then come sorrow and suffering and loss, and gloom for the sunshine and weeping for the laughter. And here is the flat opposite of joy. And if God was in that, how can He be in this, unless our Leader contradicts Himself? But the strange thing about Jesus Christ is this, that He has saved us by being a man of sorrow, yet He was always speaking of His joy. And the strange thing about the Christian Gospel is, that joy is its keynote, joy is its glad refrain; and yet it comes to me, to you, and whispers, My son, My daughter, take up thy cross and bear it. Is the Gospel in opposition to the Gospel? Nay friend, not that: a house divided against itself is doomed. But it is through the strange antagonisms of the heart, and all the teaching of a diverse guidance that we are brought at last to our wealthy place.

II. But passing from these common experiences of life, I note that we cannot open our New Testament but the same element of contradiction meets us. I think, for example, of that great word of Jesus, "Come unto Me, and I will give you rest". Now what is the very opposite of rest? The very opposite of rest is struggle. And yet I cannot open my New Testament but I find that the follower of Christ is called to war. "Fight the good fight of faith," says the Apostle. I cannot explain these contradictions, but I live through them and they bear me on. For somehow I have never peace except I struggle, and I cannot struggle if I am not at peace.

III. Now come a little deeper into the realm of thought. There is one truth that is a little in abeyance nowadays: I mean the truth of the sovereignty of God. We dwell so lovingly upon God's fatherhood that we are almost in danger of forgetting His sovereignty. Now tell me in absolute opposition to that foreordained will—what stands? You answer in a moment—the free will of man. If I am free to will as I believe, and not the helpless creature of necessity, what comes of the pre-determining will of God? Am I to give up my moral freedom? Heaven guard me, never! And am I to cast the sovereignty of God to be swirled and scattered by the winds of heaven? Nay, God forbid, life were a poor thing then. But I am to remember that I am going through fire and water, that God may bring me to a wealthy place.

—G. H. Morrison, Flood-Tide, p159.

References.—LXVI:12.—H. L. Thompson, The Church of St. Mary the Virgin, p121. LXVI:16.—C. J. Vaughan, Harrow Sermons (1Series), p388. LXVI:18.—E. J. Boyce, Parochial Sermons, p18. LXVI:20.—Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p145. LXVI.—International Critical Commentary, vol. ii. p86.

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