WATERS TO SWIM IN

Ezekiel 47:5
Water in which one must swim . . .

The text does not speak about waters to float in, though this is essential. Many people never get beyond that floating period, and they conclude that they are safe and all is well because they fancy their heads are above water; whereas the man who is really taught of God goes on from the floating to the swimming. Now swimming is an active exercise. The man progresses as he strikes out. He makes headway. He dives and rises: he turns to the right, he swims to the left, he pursues his course, he goes whithersoever he wills. Now, the holy word of God and the gospel are ‘waters to swim in’. Many of you only know what it is to float. You are resting in the truth of God for your salvation, but making no advance in heavenly things. Beloved, let us learn to swim in those waters; I mean, let us learn to trust God in active exertions for the promotion of his kingdom, to trust him in endeavors to do good. How blessedly our friend George Muller of Bristol swims! What a master swimmer he is! He has had his feet off the bottom many years, and as he swims he draws along behind him some 2,500 orphan children, whom, by God’s grace, he is saving from the floods of sin and bringing, we trust, safe to shore. Dear brother, dear sister, could you not swim too? ‘Oh, but I have no money.’ You want to walk, I see. ‘But I have very slender gifts compared with what I need.’ Cannot the Lord give you gifts and graces? Will you not trust him? Dear brother, are you called to serve God in a very difficult sphere of labor? Cannot you go on? ‘I have nobody to help me.’ Oh, I see you are all for walking on the bottom. Brethren, it is ‘waters to swim in’. Cannot you swim without any help except the help of the All in all?

C. H. Spurgeon and Terence Peter Crosby, 365 Days with Spurgeon (Volume 1) (Day One Publications, 1998)
Scripture for opening text taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.