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1. "There stood by me this night the angel of God" (ver. 2). An angel at night seems to be a double blessing because of the surrounding darkness. There are innumerable instances in which the angels have come in the night season. Some of our earliest recollections are of angels wrestling with us, when we could see no light in the nightly sky. Yet it takes a courageous man to say, in a materialistic age, that an angel has spoken to him. He will be called mad. But when we come to think of it, that will not make him mad. Madness is a relative term. There is a madness of insensibility, of unpardonable stupidity amongst the appealing and exciting sublimities of things.

2. Paul says of God, "whose I am, and whom I serve." So the revelation was not made to a fanatic, but to a servant. Thus we come down into cold reason.

(1) "Whose I am" But all men are God's; the centurion and the sailors were God's — where is the specialty of the claim? We are twice God's; we are "born again" — born to some higher life and wider ownership. "Whom I serve." Now we come lower down still into the region of what is termed reason and fact. Did Paul serve God? Let his life answer.

3. The all-including thought arising out of this consideration is, that God's revelations are made, not to genius, but to character; not to the greatest intellects, but to the tenderest and purest hearts. "To this man will I look" — God never changes the point of vision — a broken-hearted, humble, contrite soul. In other words, "the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him." "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God." We should know more if we loved more; we should be greater theologians if we were better Christians. When our eyes are shut in prayer, the vision of our soul is opened that we may behold the sublimest realities of truth. If you would grow in knowledge, you must first grow in grace.

4. Then mark a wonderful characteristic of Paul, in that he pledges God. This is not a salvation that is to be worked out in the dim and unknown future. With a valour — singularly characteristic of himself, he pledges, in all its immeasurable infiniteness, the power of God to do this thing. How he will be covered with confusion presently if it be not so! A great mystery is this, that the child may pledge the Father to work out certain issues. As to detail, we know nothing; but as to broad, substantial issue, we know everything. "Say unto the wicked man, Thou shalt surely die." "Say unto the righteous, It shall be well with thee."

5. What a wondrous picture of life then follows! We seem to have been in those very circumstances. Have we not seen how great providences are affected by human action? "Except these abide in the ship, you cannot be saved." This is a continual wonder to us, that life should go upon such little hinges; that the small wheels should, in their place, be just as important as the large one. We sometimes come into such close quarters with God that great issues depend upon shutting the door, looking out of the window, keeping the eyes open, speaking one word. Thus are little things lifted up into importance, and details made part of the worship of life. There is nothing unimportant to Omniscience: the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

6. What a wonderful confirmation is given to the truth that the world is saved because of its good men. "God hath given thee all them that sail with thee." At a certain point the soldiers' counsel was to kill the prisoners. But the centurion, willing to save Paul, kept the soldiers from their purpose. So the prisoners were twice saved on Paul's account. The centurion did the very thing that God did, without knowing it. We are ruled by strange emotions; thoughts, impulses suddenly seize us, and we do things for the sake of others which we would not have done but for the presence of these personalities; and thus we show — ruined, shattered, lost, as we are — that at first we were made in the image and likeness of the Creator.

7. Why this value set upon life? Why do not men give up life? No home, no friend, no fire in the grate, and yet they hug the life that is reduced to agony. "They lightened the ship, and cast out the wheat into the sea." When it comes to a contest between life and wheat, the wheat must go; and in the end we read "some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship" — nothing saved; everything lost but life. What is the meaning of this? Why not lighten the ship by throwing out the men? Do not treat the question as trivial. Learn from it the dignity of life; the Divine origin of life; the possible destinies of life. And whilst these great problems are at once agitating and comforting the mind, you may see some explanation of the coming of the Son of Man into the world. He came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them. I seem to understand that when I study the value which has been put upon life by men under all circumstances. Why struggle with the deep? Why not give in? What is the meaning of it all but that we did not come up out of the dust, but that our spirit is from the Living God? It is the witness of God in the soul.

(J. Parker, D. D.)

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KJV: For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve,

WEB: For there stood by me this night an angel, belonging to the God whose I am and whom I serve,