THE KING’S BUSINESS
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tone yet: “ Wherefore didst thou doubt? Thou art bringing no glory to Me. Thou art belying all thine one profession.” Wherefore this com motion, and fear, and alarm in Chris tian breasts in this tabernacle this night? Wherefore? Let us look into Christ’s face, and answer that ques tion. There was no answer to it. Peter was dumb; and we are dumb. Gh! soul o f mine, what ails thee? What frightens thee ? When wilt thou be still and know that He is God, and that thou art always within earshot and arm’s length of the eter nal One ? It is a stinging question. We begin well. What has come over us since? I am speaking to some of us who have been long in the faith. It is a good long time now, my brother since you began discipleship. You ought to be cover ing yourselves with honors and de grees by this time, and where are you ? Young believers who look at you are utterly misled. Young be lievers who look at you, instead of getting the idea that the life of faith through grace must be a steady and continual walking above the waves, the heavings and tossings of this earthly scene, are led to believe that, although at the first the Christian profession may have about it a won derful elevation and a wonderful overcoming power, still as you go on and on it means getting down to midleg, and then getting down to the waist, and at last barely able to keep your head above water. Is not that what they are apt to gather from us ? v|-that it is ' not a path that shines more and more unto the perfect day; but that the path of the justified, the way of the believer, is a path that gets heavier, and more and more toilsome, as the time is prolonged. That does infinite harm. Let us hastily put ourselves right. Where fore didst thou doubt? I have no
The Lord Reproves Peter’s Doubt “ And immediately Jesus stretched forth His hand, and caught him, and said to him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” It takes a great deal to translate what Christ put in a composite Greek word, “ O thou of little faith”— oligopiste ( “ little-faith one” ). “ Wherefore didst thou doubt?” It is not “Wherefore didst thou start?” but “Wherefore didst thou doubt?” And after all, when we think of it calmly and quietly today, why did he doubt ? When the . Lord takes him by the hand and lifts him up, and plants him on what for the time is a sea of glass beside Himself, He vir tually says, “ Peter, Peter, where were you wits? Why, man, some time ago you did leave, that same boat. Of course, then it was upon shore, but you left that same boat suddenly. You turned you back on it and turned to Me. On that afternoon when I said, ‘Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men,’ you immediately arose and left your boat. It was just the same thing that you were going to do this morning. Spiritually it was precisely the same. O thou of little faith, why shouldst thou leave the boat on the land to come to Me, and not see that it was precisely the same thing to leave it on sea and come to Me? Since you left it on the land to come to Me, have I al lowed you to perish? Your boat was your support then,' humanly speaking. You gave it up. You kicked it from below you. Did I allow you to sink? Have you come to rags, and wretch edness and poverty since you gave up your fishingboat ? Answer M e : Wherefore didst thou doubt ? It brings no credit to Me, Peter, and brings still less to thyself, to begin so well and end in this fashion.” And the same sting is in the Master’s
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