The Lord’s Way In The Sea

A Paper Written By Mr. William Crowther, Of Gomersal, In The Time Of His Affliction.

”Thy way is in the sea, and Thy path in the great waters, and Thy footsteps are not known.”—Psalm 77:19

This was a discovery experimentally made and feelingly expressed by David in a time of great trouble. This trouble was very complicated. We learn from the second verse of the Psalm it was bodily and painful; from the fourth, that it was accompanied by sleepless nights; from the third, that it was soul trouble, and overwhelmed his spirit; and from other verses, that it brought him to the border of despair, and led him to ask, “Will the Lord cast off for ever? and will He be favourable no more?” and other similar questions. By-and-bye he further discovered that making such petulant inquiries was an infirmity of his, and he found his mind drawn from such doleful repinings to a contemplation of God’s sovereignty, in the past and the present, in the sanctuary and in the world, in the heavens and in the earth, on the land and in the sea; and in relation to the latter, uses the words: “Thy way is in the sea, and Thy path in the great waters, and Thy footsteps are not known.” The sea is often referred to by David, not only as a figure, but on account of its own magnitude and its terrors. He speaks of it in Psalm 104 as “this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts,” as a part of God’s “manifold works, all of which are made in wisdom, and full of His riches,” in which “go the ships, and leviathan plays therein;” and all the inhabitants of which “wait on God for their meat,” and are “filled with good by the gifts of His hand,” or “die when He taketh away their breath.” In the 107th he describes those who “go down to the sea in ships and do business in the great waters,” as seeing “the works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep. For He commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to heaven, they go down to the depths; their soul is melted because of trouble,” &c. Elsewhere again, he says, “The floods have lifted up, O Lord, 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, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea;” which, however much they may upheave and overwhelm the mightiest things of the world, can never disturb the stability of the “the throne of God, which is established of old from everlasting.” In many other ways does he refer to the sea as reflecting or expressing majesty, glory, power, wisdom, and other attributes of its Divine Author and Ruler.

When he said of God, “Thy way is in the sea,” he had, no doubt, in his mind’s eye the hazard and uncertainty of sea voyaging, of which much less was understood in his day than is the case now. Two things alone then guided the mariner on his perilous way: the one being the sight of land, beyond the sight of which he only ventured where it was unavoidable to do so; and the other was the situation of the heavenly bodies, without the guidance of which he soon became entirely in ignorance as to the direction in which he was progressing, and he might, if no sun or stars were visible, be as likely to steer further from, as towards, his desired haven. David felt himself, spiritually, at sea; no land in sight at which he might obtain information, and no sun by day or stars by night by which to steer his course. He knew not what to do, nor how to extricate himself from his painful difficulties, but was led to exclaim and to find relief in the fact, “Thy way, O God, is in the sea.” David, a poor, feeble creature, tossed about hither and thither, with no peace to body or mind, driven to his wit’s end, and at a loss to imagine what may be next, or what may become of him in the end, finds relief in the fact that God knows not only the sea itself, but also all that is upon it and all that is within it. “The sea is His, and He made it;” He “giveth to the sea its bounds and saith, Thus far shalt thou go and no further;” “He maketh the waves thereof roar;” and He “stilleth the voice of the tempest;” the “depths of the sea,” and the “uttermost parts of the sea,” are within His government and control; so that, however irregular, destructive, or terrible its ragings may seem, they still are under His regulation and have a destined purpose to fulfil, beyond which they cannot for one moment continue, nor for one iota extend.

Paul’s description of the perils by sea experienced by him on his way to Rome, is often realised both in a temporal and a spiritual sense: “When neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away.” David was at this time spiritually feeling very much in the state described. No “Sun of Righteousness” shone on him, but darkness enveloped his soul; no secondary light in the way of stars served as his guide, and no small tempest lay on him from within and without, and all hope of salvation was taken away, except as his life was (without his privity) given to Christ, as that of those accompanying Paul in the ship was given to him, by the will of God, whilst they were asleep.

The sea has great significance and force as a figure, in which sense it is often used in the Scripture. One figure which it represents is “multitudes, and nations, and peoples, and tongues;” and it was a consolation to David, as it is to all God’s people in like circumstances, to know and feel that “God has His way in this sea,” and whatever confusion, conflict, misgovernment, anarchy, or devastation may arise or exist among the nations of the earth, they are all before God as “the drop of a bucket, or the dust of a balance,” and He doeth among them and by them whatsoever He will,” none being able to stay His hand from working, or say onto Him, What doest Thou?” Nation rises against nation to gratify their lust of power or vengeance, but they are each of small or of great power, according as He may please, and when He will, He “puts His hook in their nose, and His bridle in their mouth, and turns them back by the way by which they came.” There, as in the literal sea, so among the people and kingdoms of the earth the Most High raises or quells a storm at His pleasure, placing at the bead for the time whomsoever He will, exalting one and putting down another.

The sea is especially referred to as a figure of wicked men, who are said to be “like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.” God has His way in and among them, so that they can only do “what His hand and counsel hath determined before to be done.” Though “the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing, the kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed,” God laughs at their plans and “has them in derision,” making them instruments to bring about the very things they seek to prevent, and working by them purposes of which they are totally ignorant, and making them the “axe wherewith He heweth and the rod wherewith He smlteth whom He will.”

Sometimes the enemies seek to come upon His people “like a flood,” hoping at once to overwhelm or destroy them; but their purpose is defeated by the “Spirit of the Lord who lifteth up a standard against them,” and in the words of David the people join to say, “When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell; and though a host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear.” Such was often David’s experience, as see Psalms 94 and 109, and many other Psalms in which he refers to the wicked as rushing upon him like the troubled sea, and to the hand and name of the Lord as delivering him from them. So confident was David in God’s delivering power, and in His recompensing their wickedness upon the head of his enemies, that when He had the opportunity of avenging himself upon Saul, he declined to do so, and said, “As the Lord liveth, the Lord shall smite him; or his day shall come to die; or he shall descend into battle and perish. The Lord forbid that I should stretch forth mine hand against the Lord’s anointed;” God has “His way in the sea,” and the knowledge of this fact was a stay to David’s mind and feelings when the “floods of ungodly men made him afraid.”

The sea may be regarded as a figure of conflicting events and circumstances, and seems to have been so regarded by David when he said, “Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of Thy waterspouts; all Thy waves and Thy billows are gone over me.” And again, ”Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and Thou hast afflicted me with all Thy waves.” Trouble upon trouble, sorrow upon sorrow, appeared from time to time to be his lot, and strong figures and comparisons were requisite to express the feelings of his troubled soul, when “the troubles of his heart were enlarged.” In all these senses it was a comfort and a stay to the Psalmist’s mind, as it is fit it should be to ours in all our difficulties, to know that the “way of the Lord is in the sea,” and that, accordingly, He knows, in the perfection or His omniscience, every part and peculiarity of it, controls each storm, tempest, or calm, in His omnipotence, and regulates as to time, extent, and effect every wind that blows, every tide that swells, and every damage that arises from its varied upheavings and restlessness.

“His way is in it.” It is His own property which He surveys and protects, or upon which He goes forth for safety or destruction, upon which He walks and appears to His children in times of alarm or danger, saying, “It is I, be not afraid;” and for them makes the storm a calm, and brings them in safety to their desired haven. He thus, at times, shows them His way, and fills them with joy when they see that “He commandeth even the winds and the waves, and they obey Him.”

All the Lord’s people are spiritual seamen, and their various troubles and exercises are like the storms and tempests of the deep, through which their way to the rest that remains for them lies. They often tremble as they see the winds and the waves, and cry, as Peter did when he walked on the water, “Lord, save, or I perish;” and, like him, they prove how near the Lord is to them, and how ready to save when they cry. Were it otherwise, and we were left to find our trackless way alone, it is quite certain that “concerning faith, we should all make shipwreck;” but it is our mercy to know that “not one shall perish” in this voyage, although the way of each is diverse from others, and is a path which the “vulture’s eye hath not seen,” and for which none can give definite directions to another. God alone directs the way of these seafaring men, and it is a “way that they know not;” but the more and the longer they are in it, the more do they find that God is their sole and all-sufficient Guide and Preserver, without whose constant aid and direction they are sure to be swallowed up by the perils of the deep, but with which their experience is:—

“They may on the main of temptation be tossed, 

Their sorrows may swell as the sea,

But none of the ransomed shall ever be lost, 

The righteous shall hold on his way.”

Perilous though their voyage be, the arrival at home is secure, because “God’s way is in the sea,” and there is no part of it which He knows not, and where He is not, and where His presence does not ensure the safety of all “who launch into the deep” at His command, and under His teachings. Fear not, then, ye spiritual seamen; God, even your God, is beforehand with you; He has ordained that ye shall, in various ways, experience the dangers of the deep, but He also will be there with you and prove to you that you are safe by, and with, Him.

The statement that “God’s way is in the sea,” did not express the whole of the experimental discovery that David had made in the time of great and trying affliction, for he adds, “and Thy path in the great waters.” A difference is to be understood between a way and a path. A way may be a road, or a course, for a ship at sea, or for horses or carriages on land, whilst a path generally has reference to a road for pedestrians, and relates to movements of a more minute, though equally important, character to the parties concerned. One may go on his journey by sea or by land, and may adopt one kind of conveyance or another, large or small, swift or slow, as may seem eligible; but he who goes on a path is ordinarily understood as walking, and as being a pilgrim slowly working his way on foot to his destination. Not only are the Lord’s people seamen, but they are also landsmen, footmen, or pilgrims, and in this capacity see much of the Lord’s ways and wonders, as well as in going down to the deep. There is no place nor way in which God’s people can be found but God is there, and in one form or another makes Himself known unto them, as knowing, appointing, and regulating all connected with their coming, abiding, or advancing.

When David said, “Thy path is in great waters,” it does not appear as if he intended merely to repeat in another form the same thing over again, although such mode of repetition is not uncommon in the Scriptures. But he seems to refer to another form of Christian exercise and trial, in which it is customary for God to meet with, and make Himself and His power known unto His people. Whilst the “sea” expresses the wide expanse of ocean, the “great waters” may be understood as having reference to rivers, floods, or clouds, where “great waters” may be understood, sometimes as pent up, and at others as rushing with impetuous force. The idea of their being pent up is conveyed to us in God’s creation mandate and its results: “And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament.” We have the idea of impetuous and rushing waters in the “opening of the windows of heaven and breaking up of the fountains of the great deep,” at the Deluge, or in the vision of Ezekiel (chap. 47) of the waters that issued from the house of the Lord and became a great river. Or we may understand the mountain torrent or the inundating and impetuous river to be referred to.

Now there are many senses in which God’s people experience the force of great rivers, or waters, and have to bless God that He has a path there too, and has appeared for their support or rescue when otherwise they must have been overwhelmed by the floods. The course of this world is a great water along which the whole human family are borne unconsciously and nuresistingly until they are quickened into new life and consciousness; carried along by the stream they are being hurried on to perdition, and are in what is called, “the broad road, that leads to destruction.” When they truly see their danger, they see at the same time their incapacity to deliver themselves from it, and become alarmed at their apparently inevitable fate, and cry out in every direction for help and rescue. Borne along by the ever-flowing stream, they seem doomed to destruction, till an unseen, and at the time an unknown, power arrests their progress, and enables them to make some stand against the unrelenting flood, the fury and force of which they now feel more than ever as it presses against them as if with renewed determination to carry them with it in its headlong course. As they stand at bay, as if on the point of yielding from inability to hold on, they find themselves compelled to make an effort to move, not with, but against, the stream; and as they make the effort, on the one hand, they despair of success for want of power to withstand such a flood; and on the other, are tempted to give up the attempt, and be content to be as others are, and to go where others go. In this struggle human power fails, and human resolutions break down, so that all must submit to be carried along by the stream, unless Divine power intervene to give strength to the weak, and power to the faint. Every one who is not borne along by the course of this world ceases to be so simply by the exercise of Divine interference and direction; and whether they stand still, or move against the force of the stream, they do so only by the effect of imparted strength, and through that twofold agency that gives first the will, and then the power for a conflict in which “by strength no man shall prevail.” The experience of spiritual life includes a perpetual struggle against the stream of the course of the world, from which there can be no respite, for “they are not of the world, even as Christ is not of the world, and therefore the world hates them;” and the  “friendship of the world is enmity with God.” God’s path in these great waters is against the current, and by His presence, strength, and grace, all His children are enabled to bear up against, to contend with, and to triumph over, the course of this world, and although it is a constant conflict, “they overcome the world by faith,” and are not “conformed to it, but transformed from it by the renewing of their mind.”

Another “great water,” and their experience of, and passage through it, is thus described by God’s Word through Isaiah to Israel: “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee;” and David seems to allude to the same when he said, “Thou broughtest us into the net; Thou laidst affliction upon our loins. Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads: we went through fire and through water, but Thou broughtest us into a wealthy place.” Here are three kinds of exercise referred to—namely, temptation, or “being brought into the net;” bodily affliction, or “affliction laid upon the loins;” and persecution, or ”men riding over the head,” through all of which, more or less, all God’s children pass, and from which they are rescued and delivered by Him whose ”path is in the great waters,” and of whom they have often to say, with David, “He sent from above, He took me, He drew me out of many waters.” God Himself speaks comfortingly to His people by reminding them His name is “the Lord, which maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters;” and Christ, among His legacies to His disciples, said, “In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer: I have overcome the world.” It is often the case that “the floods of ungodly men make the child of God afraid,” but although they fear the power of their persecuting enmity, the preventing mercy of God thwarts the designs of the foe, and causes them to fall into the pits they have digged, whilst His feeble children escape, and are constrained to rejoice that the enemy is not suffered to triumph over them.

“God’s path is in every great water” into which His people may be brought, and they are sure to find Him there, and to prove Him to be a compassionate, sustaining, preserving, and delivering God. Whoever has had most experience of difficulties and of great and sore troubles, has also through them had the greatest knowledge of God’s readiness to save, and are ever disposed to ascribe all praise to Him and none to themselves. God’s path is sometimes with the stream for a time—that is, when He uses it for His own praise, for He “turns king’s hearts like rivers of water whithersoever He pleases;” He also “calls the man that executeth His counsel from a far country,” and appoints “to carry out His purpose the man who does not know Him;” prospers his way so long as it pleases Him, then casts him aside as he seeks to accomplish what is in his own heart. Thus God “makes the wrath of man to praise Him, and the remainder thereof He restrains;” and as He does this His short-sighted children often think He is making the ungodly to prosper, and stumble at what they do not understand, as if they thought their God was turned to be their enemy. God’s path is often against the stream, and consists in defeating the plans of men, and in bringing good out of apparent evil, such as the “peaceable fruits of righteousness” out of the “exercise of grievous afflictions.” We may say the rule is that God’s path is in opposition to the ways, and views, and projects of the world, and as He finds His people in great waters, He gives them strength inconceivable to stand against enemies mightier and stronger than they, that instead of being borne along by the force of the mighty stream, they both stand and make head against it, and they become “as Mount Zion, which cannot be moved,” and whilst many watch and expect them to stumble and fall, or to be carried away along the course of the world, they mysteriously continue to show the requisite power to maintain their ground, and seem as immoveable as rocks in the midst of the roaring water.

God’s path is sometimes across the stream, and thereby shows His faithfulness in “not suffering His people to be tempted above that they are able, but in every temptation makes a way for their escape that they may be able to bear it.” If this current seem ready to bear them along in its course, or if they seem almost overwhelmed by its irresistible force, and on the point to perish, He draws them out of the waters, and makes them cross the stream, as Israel crossed Jordan, without further damage or spoil.

David’s practical discovery that “God’s way is in the sea, and His path in the great waters,” was accompanied by a further discovery of a somewhat different kind. The two first were positive, the third was negative. In other words, the two first stated facts that had become to him matters of knowledge, the third was a statement and confession of ignorance—“Thy footsteps are not known.” There is often as much to unlearn as to learn in the varied things through which we pass. Not only do we come to know things that we previously knew not, but we come to find our ignorance in many things which we supposed we knew. A knowledge of our ignorance is often more valuable than any positive acquirements. It is, as a rule, the case that the more we are conscious of our ignorance, the greater our true knowledge is; and he who does not grow in a sense of his insufficiency, grows not at all in a right way. So, as David learned that “God’s way is in the sea, and His path in the great waters,” he also was taught that “God’s footsteps are not known.” The great results of God’s overruling power are recognised by His people, and yet the details of His work are not known. We often know what the end of God’s work is to be, when we know nothing of the modes by which it is to be brought about. Peter was told, when be understood not the meaning of the Lord’s immediate action towards him: “What thou knowest not now, thou shalt know hereafter.” Like him, we know not the object of God’s present acts, or their connection with, or contribution to, the ultimate and well-known ends. We may tell of God’s way, and may speak of God’s path, but His footsteps, or the details of His movements in providence, we are incapable of understanding or speaking of correctly. The knowledge of this ignorance is valuable knowledge, as it prevents our speaking presumptuously of the immediate tendency and object of God’s acts, and also restrains as from imputing motives to the Most High, as if He were actuated by human objects, or influenced by fluctuations of love or anger! Many who in their presumption think they can understand and explain God’s footsteps, take upon them to say that such and such visitations, national, local, or personal, are in retribution for such and such sins and offences, and thus represent God as if provoked to act under the dictates of a petty vindictiveness, in His ways towards men. They who know most of God are least ready to assume the place of interpreters of His immediate footsteps, and most conscious of their incapacity to do so. Many timorous and ignorant souls cause themselves much needless distress by supposing God is angry if He afflict or thwart them, and that they are to find out the cause, and in some way make an amendment by which He may be induced to withdraw His rod; whereas, it is often the case that what they suppose to be in anger is truly in love, and what they think is vindictive is simply preventive. To attribute motives to God’s individual acts is wholly a mistake of which all the Lord’s people do well to be aware, for it is both dishonouring to God, and destructive of comfort to ourselves. It at the same time shows a practical ignorance of those principles of Divine action which are disclosed in the Gospel, and arise out of the provisions of that ”everlasting covenant which is ordered in all things and sure.” Designing men and crafty priests often use this system of imputing motives to the Most High in His immediate acts, as a means of power over the minds and consciences of men, by which they hold them in a species of timid subjection, and more readily bring them under the influence of their superstitious and lying dominion; but such duplicity deserves exposure and contempt as a mere cunning deceit. Wherever such shallow pretences are assumed, it is not to be wondered at if infidelity and rationalism laugh it to scorn, and are encouraged by it to assert their own reliability; and in truth it may be said the rationalist has a more correct idea of the acts of the Great Eternal than such leaders of the blind display. Some of Job’s friends were disposed to attribute his great affliction to some “cause” in himself, to some “secret thing with him,” but he more properly explained the Divine object when he said: “He performeth the thing that is appointed for me, and many such things are with Him.”

In concluding this paper we may say, Whenever God’s people are brought into a “sea” of suffering, sorrow, and trouble, they may rely upon it, God will find them, and they will find Him, there, for “His way is in the sea,” and we learn His way by being brought there. And whenever they are made to feel the force of the swelling river of the course of this world, or other similar impetuous streams, there they will find “God has a path,” and with the stream, or against the stream, or across the stream, He will sustain and make a way of escape and safety. But whenever they think to trace His footsteps in His individual acts of providence or attribute motives of love or hatred to those acts, they are meddling with a subject that “is too wonderful for them, so high, that they cannot attain unto it.” But this they are told on the highest authority, “All the Lord’s ways are mercy and truth to them that fear Him.’’ And, “all things work together for good to them that love God, and are the called according to His purpose.”