Look Up!

"O Brothers and Sisters, if you can say, “I will trust and not be afraid,” how bold you will be! You will go forward in duty. You will go forward in service. You will go forward in the confession of Christ before men, not asking whether men like it or dislike it, for while you trust in God you will not be afraid of men! I daresay you have heard the story of a certain boy who went to sea. On his first voyage, the captain said to him, “Can you climb?” He answered, “Oh, yes!” He thought he could climb, for he had been up an old tree at home after a raven’s nest. So, after a time, the captain told him to climb the mast to attend to something up aloft. As the ship plunged into the trough of the sea and then rose, again, to the crest of the waves, and the poor boy felt
the mast swaying to and fro as the tree in the garden had never done, he began to feel very strange and he feared that he would fall.

The good captain, who was watching him and who thought it very likely that he would fall, shouted out to him, “Boy, look up! Look up!” He did look up and that saved him! He had been growing dizzy and would have fallen if he had continued looking at the waves—and then he would have been killed. But when he looked up, everything above was all right. The sun does not reel to and fro! So looking up, the lad forgot his fears, performed his duty and descended in safety. You will find that the best thing for you to do, also, my dear Brothers and Sisters, is to look up! When you have been looking down and all around you, and you have begun to tremble and to fear that you will fall, look up, look up! Say, “I will trust and not be afraid”—and that looking up will make you bold in your Master’s service!"


C.H. Spurgeon Mr. Moody's Text sermon #2541