The Sea, a Parable of Human Life
W. R. Huntington, D. D. Jeremiah 49:23 Concerning Damascus. Hamath is confounded, and Arpad: for they have heard evil tidings: they are fainthearted… The ocean is, and always will be, so long as man keeps the faculty of imagination, a mournfully suggestive parable of human life. The restlessness of the sea, its constant alternations of storm and calm, its treachery, for ever deceiving us by false appearances, the atmosphere of mystery that broods over it, all these contribute to make it the natural symbol of man's condition here in this world. Take only one of those characteristics — mysteriousness. David had been visited by this thought also. "Thy judgments," he says, while pondering the strange confusion of good and evil in the world, "are like the great deep." The sea does suggest, with wonderful power, the mysteriousness of God's providence in the affairs of men. "Thy way is in the sea, and Thy path in the great waters, and Thy footsteps are not known." The human mind is by nature prone to the misgiving that fate rather than providence orders the procession of our life. Events, so the temptation whispers, fall out according to an iron law of necessity. There is no loving Father who notes the sparrow's fall, and gives His children their daily bread; neither is there any blessed consummation, any final victory of the good over the evil towards which history may be supposed to move. These hopes are delusive; they rest on no foundation. The only thing of which we are certain is that effect follows upon cause in uniform succession, any given human life being as powerless to quicken, or retard, or alter the movement of this endless chain, as if it were only a tiny bubble molten in the fibre of the iron of one single link. This is what we understand by such words as "destiny," "fate." "necessity," and this is the idea which the sea, looked at as a parable, most easily suggests. You sit upon some rocky promontory and watch the incoming tide. You note how wave after wave dashes itself against the hard face of the cliff, and perishes in the act. You observe that every now and then a larger wave comes in, and seems to make a braver effort; but that also, like its predecessor, falls back and is gone. Meanwhile the general level of the water rises and rises, until a predetermined point is reached, and then, as gradually, the tide recedes, sure to return again as soon as a few hours have past, and to make its mark a little higher, or a little lower, according to rules which the astronomers wrote out long ago, which you might have found all calculated for you in their books before you started on the walk. Surely, if there be anywhere in nature a vivid emblem of the idea of destiny, it is here. And, if anything were needed to heighten the impression which the eye has already carried to the mind, the ear might find it in the monotonous, melancholy music of the breaking waves, a sound which possibly suggested to the mourner among the prophets his pathetic cry, "There is sorrow on the sea." What is the relief for a mind oppressed, weighted down with thoughts like this? "The sea is His, and He made it." "Have faith in God," said our Lord Jesus Christ to His disciples, when they found themselves in perplexity. Have faith in God. He who made the sea is greater than the sea. He who ordained the strangely tangled scheme of providence, is greater than His scheme. He who is responsible for the mystery of human life, holds the key of that mystery in. His hands. Do you ask for proof of this? There is no proof. If there were proof, Christ need not have said, "Have faith in God." Where knowledge leaves off, there faith begins. At the outer boundary of demonstration, belief lifts up her voice and sings. Do you say, Convince me that the idea of destiny is false, and that the idea of providence is true? No, I cannot convince, I can only, by God's help, persuade you; and yet, when once persuaded, you will be as certain as if you had been convinced; for what a man believes with all his heart, he holds as firmly as he does that which he knows with all his mind. "We know," says St. Paul, grandly asserting his faith in a doctrine the opposite of destiny, "that all things work together for good to them that love God." How did he know this? Had it been proved to him by strict processes of reasoning in which his keen intellect had been able to detect no flaw? Was that the ground of the confidence with which he spoke? Far from it. The foundation of his certainty was what he elsewhere calls the "assurance of faith." And who is the teacher of this glad faith? To whom shall we go that we may learn to believe that God is love? I know not, if not to Him who, standing once upon the deck of a tempest-tossed ship, rebuked the wind, and said unto this same sea, "Peace, be still." Did not He, the Redeemer, come into this world, and take our nature upon Him, and suffer death upon the Cross, for the very purpose of freeing men from the bondage of their fears, for the very purpose of breaking up this evil dream of destiny and enfranchising us with the liberty of the sons of God? Has He not made for us, as for Israel of old, a pathway through the dreaded sea, and having overcome the sharpness of death, has He not opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers? Well may He ask, Where is your faith? One who has done so much for us has at least the right to expect that we shall trust Him; having at so great a cost purchased us this freedom, He has at least the right to expect that we shall be thankful for it, and use it as His gift. (W. R. Huntington, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Concerning Damascus. Hamath is confounded, and Arpad: for they have heard evil tidings: they are fainthearted; there is sorrow on the sea; it cannot be quiet. WEB: Of Damascus. Hamath is confounded, and Arpad; for they have heard evil news, they are melted away: there is sorrow on the sea; it can't be quiet.