"HE WALKED ON THE WATER, TO GO TO JESUS"
“HE WALKED ON THE WATER, TO GO TO JESUS”
To know the right way and to have power to walk in it is the greatest favour in a scene of danger and difficulty. Before the flood, man in the flesh was proved to be unfit for God; and after it, when he was set up again upon the earth on more favourable terms, the saint, in the person of Noah, failed to control himself; and man in general used the new favours of God to be independent of Him, as the tower of Babel testified, and they worshipped demons. The earth had thus become in the eyes of God a moral swamp, and hence the call of Abram defined the path now necessary for the saint in it. This path was the path of faith. The eye must turn away from all visible things and must wait entirely on God. Abram was called to break from all natural associations. He could retain his own, all belonging to his own house; but he is called to break with all the rest, and this break included three classes, namely, his country, his kindred, and his father’s house. The break was a very sweeping one, but no less could be enjoined if the moral state of man on the earth be taken into account. If every new favour which God had given man on earth only proved man’s incompetence to be trusted with favours in it — nay, that it had been used by man to supplant God altogether — what other course could be prescribed but one of complete break with the order of things here? and then nothing could afford guidance but that which was not of earth at all, even the word of God. The importance of this new path will not be apprehended unless there [p. 363] be a true sense of how man had perverted all the favours which God had given him on the earth, and had used them for his own self-exaltation. These favours were not effectual in leading the heart of man to God, but the reverse; and hence a new path is introduced, and the great characteristic of it is faith in God; not in anything given or visible, but in the word of God Abram “went out, not knowing whither he went”. He became a pilgrim and a stranger on the earth, because he had no guidance but by the word of God. To appreciate this new path, it is necessary to bear in mind what the earth had become in the eyes of God, and again what unerring guidance God in His mercy vouchsafed to every one dependent on Him. Dependence becomes the great characteristic instead of independence; and henceforth these two forces, like rival streams, course the earth, until one culminates in the new Jerusalem for glory, and the other in Babylon for doom and judgment. From the call of Abram onward, faith, or counting on God as He had revealed Himself, determined the guidance of the saint; whether to walk in the land as Abraham, or to return to it as Jacob, faith ensured it; and be it deliverance from Egypt, or succour in the wilderness, there was but one way to secure either, and that was faith. In the wilderness, where there was nothing from the earth, there especially the supplies from above were daily assured; both the cloud and the manna thus intimating that there would be no separation between guidance as to the path and support in it, when there was nothing to be found on the earth.
The forty years in the wilderness teach us pre-eminently the greatness and blessedness of the path, because where there was really nothing, everything was supplied by God independently of the earth, and hence it is said that it is there we should learn that “man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live”. Now this is the passage which our Lord quotes when entering on His public ministry, as describing what would guide Him in His course here. He begins by showing to Satan in Luke 4 that nothing here will divert Him from the word of God, that He has nothing to guide Him here but the word of God. To get relief from personal suffering, even though it be righteous suffering, will be no guide to Him. To prove the care of God will be no guide to Him. To receive all the world and the glory of it will not induce Him to go outside the word of God.
We shall find that it is always in one or other of these things — for each may be taken as head of a class — that we are drawn away from the path of faith and the guidance of the word. Jesus is the “author and finisher of ... faith”; and there is something supremely imposing to see Him, the Creator and Upholder of all things, counselled and guided by the word of God, and thus walking in the power of God unmoved by anything here. He looked to God for everything and not to His own creation. Thus the five loaves were enough for the five thousand, and the fish supplied the piece of money to pay for Himself and for Peter. He silenced and expelled evil spirits by His word. He hushed the wind and calmed the sea. He was never balked by anything, but was ever the dependent Man, with power and guidance to act on every occasion. He passed unhurt through the enraged crowd, and yet He had not where to lay His head. His counsel and His strength were from God. He showed how a man of faith could master every opposition and never expect anything from man. He was always superior to things here, and for God, whether it was in relation to things affecting Himself or others. He expected nothing from the earth, but derived everything from God, and therefore was ever for God. This was His path before His rejection. Consequent on His rejection, as He foreshadows in Matthew 14, He goes [p. 365] into the wilderness, there feeds the poor of the flock — which He does to this hour — and then walks on the water; no longer calming the sea and rebuking the wind as He had previously done, but showing how He would be superior to them, that while He would allow them to take their course, yet He would be superior to all power here. As we read, “far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come”, Ephesians 1: 21.
The path of faith in which every saint all the way down had been guided, blessed, and tested, was now perfected by the Son of man who is in heaven. And now that the greatest favour from heaven has been refused on earth, faith only acquires a new force and value; and as the eye rests on Him, one is not only perfectly guided, but endowed with power to overcome every adverse force. Jesus exalted, “gone into heaven ... angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him”, was to be the magnet not only to attract and to guide, but also to determine the measure of power for us while walking through this hostile scene. Peter inaugurated the new path when “he walked on the water, to go to Jesus”. It is now with the eye on the ascended Man and deriving power from Him that we surmount every opposition here. “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son”.
Every conscientious person values guidance, and power also to walk according to it; but while every one desires it, very few find it, because they are seeking to learn it from something on the earth, where even providence cannot be a guide, because the mere checking of evil, which is the order of God’s present dealing with the world, cannot indicate how He would direct things if they were all in order, any more than what is prescribed for a maniac would indicate the course proper for a man in sound health.
[p. 366] In seeking guidance now, the simple object must be to reach the spot where the Lord is at the moment. “Peter ... walked on the water”, which was superhuman, “to go to Jesus”. If the heart be simple in seeking Jesus, with the eye only on Him, every difficulty will be surmounted, however great the waves, or however boisterous the winds, and nothing less will be expected. Guidance is generally sought in order that one might find an easy path without trial or sorrow, and prayers are made to this end. The path of faith now leads to Jesus, and as the eye is on Him, His power worketh in us mightily, and is confirmed in us as the difficulties are surmounted. The heavenly Man who was rejected by the earthly man is the One who imparts power to every faithful heart to walk on to Himself, superior to every opposition here. Nay, He uses the obstacles as only opportunities to prove to us that we can do all things through Him who gives us power. In the path of faith obstacles come first, necessarily so, because the enemy is in power here, and afterwards is the victory over him; the evening before the morning, the fence before the flat, the conflict before the peace. There must be the walking on the water, the superhuman power, before reaching the spot where the Lord is, where fellowship with Him is enjoyed. If I look for the removal of obstacles in order to be assured of guidance, I have lost sight of the exalted and ascended Man, and have no sense of how the whole tide and force of everything here is against Him. When we reach a desired end without obstacles, as one would reach any spot through a gap in a fence, the act brings us no increase of power, and if trouble arises afterwards there is an easy surrender of the ground gained.
In order then to ensure guidance, the first thing to be ascertained is whether the Lord is there — that is, that He assures the heart that He is there; this being settled, the next thing is that though every obstacle remains, yet there will be power given to rise over them.
[p. 367] In the wilderness, wherever the cloud rested there the manna was. As soon as they were assured of the cloud, they could reckon confidently on the manna. So now, wherever the Lord is simply presented to your heart, you may be assured that He will sustain you in order that you may be in association with Himself.
There are two marks of guidance in this time. The first is, that it is the Lord I seek to reach in the spot where He is; and the second, that I am ready to walk on the water and encounter what is contrary and impossible to nature in order to reach Him. The latter proves the sincerity of the former. Paul is led to Philippi and there endures every kind of trial, but afterwards reaches the desired end. He had to walk on the water in order to reach it.
When the eye is simply on the ascended and rejected Man, the point where He would be at a given moment is never reached but through difficulty, which is so above one’s own power naturally that it would be as death to attempt it; and the course is literally that of a man walking on the water, but still surmounting, and finally reaching safely to where He is.
But it will be said, Are not obstacles removed, or how could one ever reach anything? The obstacles are overcome when you are undaunted by them, when you have accepted them as opportunities for the power of Christ, and not as insuperable barriers. It was thus with the three wise men in Daniel 3, who were not afraid to face the fire. The obstacles were not removed, but when they accepted them they were superior to them. The fire had no power against them, although they were exposed to it. Thus the very obstacles which Satan throws in the way, as those he stirred up against Paul at Philippi in Acts 16, only make the power of God the more manifest. A wife or a child in a godless family, though dutiful and subject, finds plenty of obstacles; but the true way, the path of faith, is to learn how Jesus would act there; and having learnt [p. 368] this, to fear no obstacle; and it will be found that if there be faithfulness, the fire has lost its heat, and as the devil flees when he is resisted, so are irritating oppositions suspended, because they are found to be ineffectual in checking the course of faith. The walls of Jericho fall down, not in order that one may enter in and indulge oneself like another Achan, but that one may be more simply the friend of God, drawing the Rahabs out of it into the heavenly ground.
May we be so filled with the Holy Spirit that we may look steadfastly into heaven, and see the glory of God and Jesus, and thus be able to walk superior to every power here for Him who loved us and gave Himself for us.