HH, Sir Godfrey Gregg D.Div                                                                                   

“ He clave the rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink as out of the great depths.” Psalm 78:15

All Nature Depends on God’s Goodness

Think, then, for a moment of the world of nature as it unfolds itself in all its beauty around us. There is not a bird or beast, there is not a tree or flower, but is ministered to in the way our text describes. I take the tiniest weed that roots among the stones–the flower in the crannied wall of which the poet speaks–and I ask, What does it need to live; what does it need that it may flower and fruit? The answer is that it needs a little warmth; it needs an occasional moistening with rain.

Therefore, brethren, if the flower needs warmth and a little water to be beautiful, how much more does the believer needs to be pure in heart with clean hands. As believers we sing “Lord lift me up and let me stand.” or “plant my feet on higher ground.” but what does that mean to us or how can we apply it to our very existence.

Now in a certain measure that is true, but you can never stop there in this mysterious universe. At the back of the warmth which it needs, there is the sun; and at the back of every raindrop, there is sky and ocean. And it takes the sun and sea and the white cloud of heaven to satisfy that tiniest weed among the stones, which may come to its delicate beauty only to be unregarded and perhaps crushed by a passing foot.

Try to explain the light that a rose needs, and you are carried into the depths of solar energy. Look at the raindrop on the hedge–has it not been drawn “out of the boundless deep”? And so there is not a rose in any garden nor a leaf that unfolds itself on any tree that is not ever whispering to the hearing ear, “He gave me drink as out of the great depths.”

Again, think of our senses for a moment–think of our sight and hearing, for example. One of the plainest facts about our senses is the different way they translate what they receive.

To one man a rose is just a rose and no more. To another, in the smallest flower, there are thoughts that often lie too deep for tears. And it is not the eye alone that differentiates, it is the life that is hidden deep behind the eye; He giveth them drink as out of the great depths.

Two men may listen to a piece of music, and one, as he listens, is profoundly stirred by it. There seems to pass before him, as he listens, visions of what is high and fair and beautiful. And he hears the calling of his brightest hopes and the cry of regret for all his wasted years and the stooping over him again of faces that he has loved long since and lost awhile. All this is kindled in some hearts by music–this burning of hope and haunting of regret; yet play that very piece before another, and it is sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Is not the ear of a dead person perfect? Is not every membrane and convolution there? Yet call to it or whisper to it passionately, and will it play its part and carry the news of love? Yesterday there would have been a smile of recognition; there is not a flicker of response today.

So at the back of every sense, we have there is a depth that can never be fathomed. All that a man is, look through his eyes. All that his soul is, listen through his ears. If the eye could speak or if the ear could speak, would they not echo the language of the text, “He gave us drink as out of the great depths?”

TO BE CONTINUED ……….