THE DEEPER THE EXERCISE, THE GREATER THE DELIVERANCE

^[p. 259] THE DEEPER THE EXERCISE, THE GREATER THE DELIVERANCE

There is an exercise of soul known only in the din and conflict of the battlefield. No one goes up high who has not gone down deep. “Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord” (Psalm 130: 1). The deliverance then is as great as the depths were great. “They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep” (Psalm 107: 23, 24). It is no easy time with them. “They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit’s end” (verse 27). But you will remark that when they are delivered, they have really gained more than those delivered from other trials, for it is said, “Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven” (verse 30). They are glad and their voyage is over.

I think saints are too little exercised before Go about things that press on them. There is often a way of sliding over them after the manner of men, if there be any natural courage. If not, the mind and heart become embittered, everything is looked at through this dark haze, and everything done is unsatisfactory. One must either fall into one of these two states, or meet the trial fully and distinctly with God. It gives one’s soul tone and strength to have waited on God, until there is the assurance as to His undertaking about it - such a sense of this that you would fear to ask Him again on the subject, lest you call in question the assurance of His seeing to it, which He had given you, and which is unmistakable.

It is not a promise that He will do exactly what you have expressed in words; but the assurance, as I might say to my child, ‘I will see to it’. This exercise, once known, will never be forgotten; it remains in illustrated letters on the soul, and no time can ever erase them. And what is better, there is a knowledge ^[p. 260] of God as the source of help and strength, which not only imparts a quietness in every trouble, but surrounds the soul as with an atmosphere, in which it grows into the likeness of Christ, and is enabled to “prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12: 2).

Hence it is, “Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word” (Psalm 119: 67). In fact our journey to heaven is through an avenue of monuments of this kind - Ebenezers on both sides of us; so that there ought to be thanksgivings for the past, and girded loins for what is to come.