Consider, again, another wonderful proof of God’s goodness in what we call the Tides of the sea. God has made the waters so, that they can never stand still—the sea is always moving. Twice a day it rises, and twice a day it sinks and ebbs again all along the shore. It
would take too long to explain why this is—but it is enough to say, that it must be so, from the way in which God has made the earth and the water. So that it did not come from accident. God planned and intended it all when He made the sea at first. His all-foreseeing love settled it all. Now of what use are these tides? They keep the sea from rotting, by keeping it in a perpetual stir. And the sea, as it ebbs and flows, draws the air after it, and so keeps the air continually moving and blowing, therefore continually fresh, and continually carrying in it rich food for plants from one country to another. There are other reasons why the winds blow, which I have not time to mention now; but they all go to prove the same thing.—How wisely and well the Psalmist said, “Praise the Lord upon earth ye rivers and all deeps. Fire and hail, snow and vapour, wind and storm, fulfilling His word” (Ps. cxlviii.).
Another use of the sea, again, is the vast quantity of food which it gives. Labouring men who live inland have no notion of the wonderful fruitfulness of those seemingly barren wastes of water, or how many millions of human beings live mostly on fish. When we consider those great banks of Newfoundland, where fish enough perhaps to feed all England are caught every season, and sent over the whole world; our own herring fisheries, where thousands of millions of fish are caught yearly—and all the treasures of food and the creeping things innumerable, both small and great beasts, of which the Psalmist speaks; when we consider all this, we shall begin to bless God for the sea, as much as for the land.
“There go the ships,” too, says the Psalmist, in this
104th Psalm, “and there goeth that leviathan, whom Thou hast made to take his pastime therein.” This leviathan is no doubt the whale—the largest of all living things—often a hundred feet long, and as thick as a house. And yet even of him, the monster of all monsters, does God’s Word stand true, that He has put all things under man’s feet, that all things are in subjection to man—the fish of the sea, and whatsoever walketh through the paths of the sea. For even the great whale cannot stand before the cunning of man—God has taught man the means of killing even it, and turning it to his own use. The whalebone which we use, the oil which we burn in lamps, comes from the bodies of those enormous creatures which wander in the far seas like floating houses, ten thousand miles away.
But again, it is promised in the Bible, that in the new heavens and new earth there shall be no more sea. When the sea has done its work, God will have done with it—and then there will be no more division between nation and nation—no more long dangerous voyages from one country to another.
And strange to say—the sea is even now at work bringing about this very thing—destroying itself—filling itself up. Day by day the sea eats away its own shore, and banks, and carries down their remains to make its own bed shallower and shallower, till shoals and new lands arise where there was deep sea before. So that if the world lasts long enough, the sea by its own laws will be filled up, and dry land appear everywhere.
The bottom of the sea is full, too, of countless millions of strange insects—and yet even in these strange insects there is use; for not only do they give food to countless millions of fishes, but after a time they turn into stone,
and form fruitful soil. There are now in many parts of the world great beds of rock and earth, many feet thick, and miles long, made up entirely out of the skeletons and shells of little insects which lived at the bottom of the sea thousands of years ago.
Are not these things wonderful? Well, then, remember who made these wonders? who keeps them working? Your Father—and the Son of God, and the Spirit of God. The Son of God—ay, think of Him—He by whom all things were made—He by whom all things consist—He to whom all power is given in heaven and earth. He came down and died on the cross for you. He calls to you to come and serve Him loyally and gratefully—dare you refuse Him—The Maker and King of this glorious world? He died for you. He loves you. He condescends to beseech you to come to Him that you may have life. Alas! what can you expect if you will not come to Him? How will you escape if you turn your back on your Maker, and despise your own Creator when He stoops to entreat you? Oh folly—Oh madness—Oh utter shame and ruin!