From J. C. Philpot's Daily Portions
October 10 "From the end of the earth will I cry unto you. When my
heart is overwhelmed; lead me to the rock that is higher than I." Psalm
61:2 There is something in this expression in our text,
"rock," which seems, to my mind, to throw a sweet and blessed light upon
what Jesus is to the poor and needy. The rock must go down to the bottom of
the deep waters, as well as rise out of them, to be a sufficient place of
refuge for the shipwrecked mariner! If the rock did not go to the bottom of
the deep, it would not be firm; it would be but a quicksand. Is not this
agreeable to the Spirit's testimony concerning the humanity of Christ? How
deep that went into all our sorrows, into all our sufferings, into all our
sins, into all our shame! However deep the waters may be, the rock is deeper
than all; however deep the sufferings, sins, and sorrows of the Church may
be, the sufferings and sorrows of "Immanuel, God with us," were infinitely
deeper. But the waves and billows beat in vain against the rock; they cannot
move it from its place. So it is with the rock, Jesus. All the sins,
temptations, sufferings, and sorrows of the elect, with the wrath of God,
and the fury of hell, beat against that rock, but they never moved it from
its place. But this rock is spoken of in our text as "higher than
I." There we have the Godhead. For if Jesus were not God as well as man,
the God-man, what support could he be to the sinking soul? what efficacy
could there be in his atoning blood? what power and glory in his justifying
righteousness? what suitability in him as a Savior to the utterly lost? But
being God as well as man, yes, the God-man, the great and glorious Immanuel,
he could descend in his human nature into the very depths of the fall, and
rise up in his divine nature to the throne of the most High; and thus, like
Jacob's ladder, the bottom of it was upon the earth, but the top exalted to
the clouds. Then will not, must not, this be ever, as the Lord is pleased to
raise it up, the cry of our soul, "Lead me to the rock that is higher than
I?" No salvation anywhere else; no peace anywhere else; no consolation
anywhere else. Buffeted by the waves, and well-near drowned by the billows,
away from that rock; but if led there, brought there, kept there by the
blessed Spirit, finding it a safe and sure standing for eternity. And what
else but such a rock can save our souls, or what else but such a Savior and
such a salvation, without money and without price, can suit such ruined
wretches?