Stand by the seashore when the tide is coming up. There rolled up a big wave. Just mark the place in the sand. For the next few minutes there is no wave that comes up so high as that—no, some waves that suck back the rest and you might even think the sea was retiring! Is there, therefore, no
progress made? Why, Friend, you will see in a moment, if you will but wait! Another great wave will come sweeping up, far outstripping the one that we marked just now. And when you shall come back in an hour's time and the sea has come to the fullness of its strength, you will see
that the receding of any one individual wave is no mark of its retrogression. You have but to mark the whole sea and take time in which to examine it and then you discover there has been progress and that progress has been effected by alternate advance and retreat.
Along the coast of Essex the sea is greatly encroaching upon the land and every time we go to some of the watering places, we perceive that the cliff has fallen, hundreds or thousands of tons have been carried away. And yet if you are there at a tide which has gone far out, you will often think,
"Why, surely the land is gaining on the sea! I never walked out so far as this before. I never saw these rocks exposed and dry before." Well, it is a strangely low tide. But at the same time ask the old fisherman who has lived there all his days and he will tell you that his mother
was married out in a Church which stood where that ship is floating, far out to sea and that all the intervening soil has been washed away!
He recollects when this place, which is now a footpath on the cliffs brink, was a quarter of a mile inland—and then you understand that though on any one occasion the land may apparently have gained, yet, on the whole, there has been a progress in the sea. And so it is with spiritual life.
There are times when it seems as if sin had gained upon you and you were going back in spiritual things. There is cause for alarm, but not despair! There is a cause for watchfulness, but not for terror—go to the Lord and pray to Him to send a mightier wave of His Irresistible
Grace—that your soul may be filled with all the fullness of God.
The day is often gloomy at eleven o'clock, but that is no proof that you are not getting towards noon. Many a cold wind howls over the days of March and April, colder than there might have been at Christmas—but that is no proof that you are not getting on to summer. There may come a frosty
night in May, nipping the flowers, but that is no proof that the frost is all coming back again. So you may feel within yourself such things as cause you to bow your head in sorrow and to cry out to God in grief! But even these things shall but speed you on your way towards your
desired haven. The battle will certainly end right.
Just anticipate for a moment the glory of the victory! You shall be free from sin one day! You shall be perfect, even as your Father who is in Heaven is perfect! You shall wave the palm branch, and wave it the more joyously because you had to contend with flesh and blood and with spiritual
wickedness! You shall join the eternal song and it shall roll up to the Throne of God all the more gloriously because you have—
"To wrestle hard as we do now, With sins and doubts and fears." Come, anticipate that triumph and pluck up courage! Go forth, all you servants of God, as Barak went against Sisera, and the day shall come when your foes shall be swept away! That river of death shall do for your enemies what the
Kishon did for Jabin—it shall sweep them away forever! Standing by the Red Sea of the atoning sacrifice, you shall sing unto the Lord who has triumphed gloriously and cast the horse and the rider into the depths of the sea.
I have preached, this morning, especially for the comfort of those who are thus exercised and who are saying, "If it is so, why am I thus?" You will now see that instead of having cause for distress in all these conflicts, you have only a reason to come to Christ again. Come to Jesus again! Look up
to Him once more and take Him today to be your Savior and your All. Put your case into His hands! Trust Him and you shall be more than conquerors through Him who loved you. Trust Him! Trust Him now and we will meet in Heaven at last to sing His praises forever! Amen.