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I. THE DEALINGS OF GOD WITH HIS PEOPLE ARE OFTEN UNFATHOMABLE. But why does the Lord send us an affliction which we cannot understand?

1. Because He is the Lord. He is God, and therefore it becometh us ofttimes to sit in silence, and feel it must be right, though we equally know we cannot see how it is so.

2. God sendeth us trials of this sort for the exercise of our graces. Now is there room for faith. When thou canst trace Him thou canst not trust Him. Here is room, too, for humility. The feeling that everything is beyond our knowledge brings to us humility, and we sit down at the foot of Jehovah's throne. I think there is hardly a grace which is not much helped by the deeps of God's judgments. Certainly love has frequently been developed to a high degree in this way, for the soul at last comes to say, "No, I will not desire the reason; I do so love Him; let His will stand for a reason; that shall he enough for me; it is the Lord; let Him do what seemeth Him good."

3. We have sins which we cannot fathom, and it is little marvel, therefore, if we have also chastisements which we cannot fathom.

II. GOD'S JUDGMENTS ARE A GREAT DEEP: THEN THEY ARE SAFE SAILING. Ships never strike on rocks in the great deeps. When the sailor begins to come up the Thames, then it is that there is first one sandbank and then another, and he is in danger; but out in the deep water, where he finds no bottom, he is but little afraid. So in the judgments of God. When He is dealing out affliction to us, it is the safest possible sailing that a Christian can have. For then he need fear no fall; when he is low, he need fear no pride; when he is humbled under God's hand, then he is less likely to be carried away with every wind of temptation. God's judgments are a great deep, but they are safe sailing, and under the guidance and presence of the Holy Spirit they are not only safe, but they are advantageous. I greatly question whether we ever do grow in grace much except when we are in the furnace.

III. GOD'S JUDGMENTS ARE A GREAT DEEP, BUT THEY CONCEAL GREAT TREASURE. Down in those great depths who knows what there may be? Pearls lie deep there. And so with the deep judgments of God. What wisdom is concealed there, and what treasures of love and faithfulness, and what David calls "very tenderness," "for in very tenderness," saith he, "hast Thou afflicted me." We do not, perhaps, as yet, receive, or even perceive the present and immediate benefit of some of our afflictions. There may be no immediate benefit; the benefit may be for hence and to come. The chastening of our youth may be intended for the ripening of our age. I do not know that that blade required the rain on such a day, but God was looking not to February as such, but to February in its relation to July, when the harvest should be reaped. He considered the blade not merely as a blade, and in its present necessity, but as it would be in the full corn in the ear.

IV. GOD'S JUDGMENTS ARE A GREAT DEEP: THEN THEY WORK MUCH GOOD. The great deep, though ignorance thinks it to be all waste, a salt and barren wilderness, is one of the greatest blessings to this round world. If, to-morrow, there should be "no more sea," it would be the greatest of all curses. It is from the sea that there arises the perpetual mist which, floating by and by in mid-air, at last descends in plenteous showers on hill and vale to fertilize the land. The sea is the great heart of the world — I might say the circulating blood of the world. There is no waste in the sea; it is all wanted. It must be there; there is not a drop of it too much. So with our afflictions which are Thy judgments, O God! They are necessary to our life, to our soul's health, to our spiritual vigour. "It is good for me that I have been afflicted," said David.

V. IF GOD'S JUDGMENTS ARE A GREAT DEEP, THEN THEY BECOME A HIGHWAY OF COMMUNION WITH HIMSELF. We thought at one time that the deep separated different peoples; that nations were kept asunder by the sea; but lo! the sea is to-day the great highway of the world. The rapid ships cross it with their white sails, or with their palpitating engines they soon flash across the waves. And so our afflictions — which we thought in our ignorance would separate us from our God — are the highway by which we may come nearer to God than we otherwise could. They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business on the great waters, these see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep. You that keep close in shore and have but small trials, you are not likely to know much of His wonders in the deep.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

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KJV: Thy mercy, O LORD, is in the heavens; and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.

WEB: Your loving kindness, Yahweh, is in the heavens. Your faithfulness reaches to the skies.