There are three conditions of soul: some think they are sinking and are not; some are sinking and do not know; some are sinking and do know it know it truly and miserably.
I. Let me gather up the steps towards the sinking. An emotional state, with abrupt and strong reactions; a self-exaltation; a breaking out under a good and religious aspect of an old infirmity and sin; a disproportion between the act and the frame of mind in which the act was done; neglect of ordinary means with not sufficient calculation of difficulties; a devious eye; a want of concentration; a regard to circumstances more than to the Power which wields them; a certain inward separation from God; a human measurement; a descent to a fear unnecessary, dishonouring fear; depression; a sense of perishing; beginning to sink.
II. Let us see the escape. In his humiliation and fear and emptiness, the eye of St. Peter, which had wandered in the pride of his first confident marching, went back to Christ. It was the mark that he was a child of God still. It was the mark in the judgment-hall; it was the mark now; it is the mark everywhere. You who feel that you have sunk and are sinking, go back again, and let Jesus be to you, and you be to Jesus, as it once was. Those declining steps and sinking affections want the Saviour more than ever, and He is the Saviour still. The same eye is towards you, as loving, as gentle, as affectionate and kind. Return away from every wind that blows and every wave that beats away from the gulfs that yawn, and the depths that will swallow you up away from your own guilty self look to Jesus.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,9th series, p. 154.
References: Matthew 14:30. Spurgeon, Evening by Evening,p. 14.Matthew 14:31. Ibid.,vol. v., No. 246, vol. xxxi., No. 1,856; A. P. Peabody, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xii., p. 174; Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Gospels and Acts,p. 41.Matthew 14:36. J. Keble, Sermons for Saints' Days,p. 382.