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‘Beginning to sink.’
Mat_14:30
I. Beginning to sink.—It is the picture of thousands. It is only a little while ago that you were walking with a sense of security; you felt everything sure underneath you. What has made it that now you seem to have hold upon nothing? Promises the securest have lost their power, and the World yields to you no strength. But to all this there is a secret key,—Christ is not to you now what He once was. You used to feel an imparted strength and joy every time you opened your Bible, and when you prayed, and when you came to Holy Communion,—but it is gone,—why? Simply, you are not looking at Christ steadily, only, expectingly, trustingly, as when you first set out. The consequence is evident. What was below you, is now over you—what was your servant, is becoming your master—what you trampled under foot, is gaining ascendancy over you every day.
II. Saved.—Let us see the escape. In his humiliation, and fear, and emptiness, the eye of St. Peter, which had wandered in the pride of his first confident marching,—went back to Christ. It was the mark that he was a child of God still. You, who feel that you have sunk, and are sinking, just go back again, and let Jesus be to you, and you be to Jesus, as it once was. Look to Jesus, and as you look, tell your fear and confess your shame. ‘Lord, save me, I perish.’ There may be a gentle reproof on His lips, but there will be a strength in that arm such as you never felt before.
III. Restored.—Restored to the communion of the then Church, which, perhaps, he had too lightly thought of, and in the presence and the shadow of Jesus, Whom he had first mistaken and then slighted, all was safe and Peter was at peace.
Many, many are the sainted ones now, who could say, ‘I date my mountings to my fallings,—I never half knew what Christ was, or what myself was, till I fell,—and when I began to sink, then did I indeed begin to rise.’
—
The Rev. James Vaughan.
Illustration‘It is usual in some swimming schools to teach beginners by sending them into the water with a belt around their waist, to which is attached a rope, which again is connected with an over-reaching arm of wood. As the learner gains confidence the rope is slackened, and he is left to support himself by his own efforts. The master stands by, watching the boy’s struggles, ready to note any sign of real danger. When danger is seen, the rope is again tightened—at the right moment, not before—and the boy is taken out of the water. Jesus knows how long to withhold help and when to bring it. He came to the struggling disciples in the fourth watch of the night.’