believed in Jesus, but he
believed more in weakness and death. Looking at the wind he stepped
right off God's promise and it wasn't a second till he was up to his
neck in the raging water.

There was absolutely no failure possible so long as he stood firm upon
the promise of Christ. "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy
laden," Jesus is saying to you that are troubled and sin burdened.
That means that you can come. That means that He is eager for you to
come. And however far you have gone from God and however stiff may be
the tempest that blows about you, if you get this promise under your
feet all the storms that hell can let loose against a human soul will
leave you unshaken. But you must keep a firm stand on the promise.

If you are here with some great yearning in your heart, some special
prayer for usefulness or for deliverance from a peculiar temptation,
lay hold on God's Word and cling to it and you will never be put to
confusion. A saintly old friend of mine told me on one occasion about
praying for his child. And he said he got the assurance that his baby
was going to recover. She was suffering from membranous croup. That
very night he was awakened by the mother and the nurse. And he heard
the mother say to the nurse, "Is she dead?" And he turned and went to
sleep with never a question and never a doubt. He refused to look at
the waves.

Peter got too interested and too absorbed in difficulties. It is so
easy to do that. Peter took counsel of his fears. I have done the
same and you have done the same a thousand times over. We are not
going to be harsh and critical with him. By so doing we would be too
hard upon ourselves. But this I say: It is a great calamity. It is a
great shame. Oh, that we might get upon the higher ground of the
psalmist who said, "Wherefore will we not fear though the earth be
removed and though the mountains be cast into the midst of the sea."

But looking at the boisterous wind and taking counsel of our
fears,--these are not the only things that work our ruin. We might be
persuaded, and often are, to take our eyes off Christ as much by our
advantages as by our disadvantages. Had Peter said within himself,
"The law of gravitation is not so invariable as I thought," or "I am a
much superior man to what I dreamed I was." If Peter had fixed his
confidence in self or in circumstances he would have gone down just the
same. Anything that turns our eyes away