Sivut kuvina
PDF
ePub

10

DAVID'S EXPERIENCE CHARACTERISTIC OF THE CHRISTIAN'S.

REV. J. SANDFORD, A.M.

LONG ACRE EPISCOPAL CHAPEL, DECEMBER 21, 1334.

"And Saul saw and knew that the Lord was with David, and that Michal, Saul's daughter, loved him. And Saul was yet the more afraid of David; and Saul became David's enemy continually. Then the princes of the Philistines went forth: and it came to pass, after they went forth, that David behaved himself more wisely than all the servants of Saul; so that his name was much set by."-1 SAMUEL, xviii. 28-30.

IN God's dealings with David, we behold a lively and instructive picture of his procedure with the Church and with individuals. We see also the benefit to be derived from David's history, if we do not always recognize in him, not merely a type of the blessed Redeemer, but also a portrait of the disciple, and the diversified experience by which he is disciplined for the coming glory. And I should not have invited your attention to this portion of inspired truth, had I not hoped that it might be made subservient to your spiritual improvement, by furnishing the Christian with comfort and instruction suitable to his individual case. Might I solicit you again to bear me in my ministrations on your hearts before God; and pray that wisdom may be given to me to extract from this and every other subject, the divine food which may refresh you and do you good.

Now we have seen David in circumstances of obscurity and seclusion, and afterwards introduced into the meridian of a court, and honoured by the applauses of admiring thousands. We have seen him return from the glory, and the pomp, and the fashion of the palace, to his father's humble roof, and to his lowly avocation. Then we have noticed him when he has left his home for the public stage, and, by one loyal and courageous enterprise, is lifted above the possibility of future oblivion. Yesterday he was an obscure shepherd, whose presence on the field of battle was resented as presumptuous; to-day he is the triumphant conqueror of Goliath, placed over all the men of war, and celebrated by the songs and the dances of the daughters of Israel. Still it was the same spirit of faith in God, which distinguished him in these different positions, and preserved him in his rapid elevation to greatness. It was because God was with him that he was qualified for the duties, and secured from the temptations through which he passed: so that he knew how either to abound or to be abased; and was carried victorious through his conflict with the giant, as he had been with the lion and the bear; and kept as sincere and as without offence amidst the enticements of the court as he had been in the less seductive scenes of Bethlehem. And we shall find, that the same gracious eye continued to watch over him; that the Lord did not forsake for a moment the work of his own hand; but

that he still ordered the events of David's life for the furtherance of his gracious purposes towards him.

Now henceforward David was a personage of notoriety and distinction; he goes out and he comes in before the people. A return to privacy is for ever denied him, and the anxieties and the responsibilities of a public man devolve upon him till the day of his death. The consequences of his triumph over the Philistine champion, and the eager haste of Jonathan to array him in a dress more suitable to his acquired fame, is emblematical of his altered circumstances. His shepherd's dress and his shepherd's employment are laid aside for others ; he puts away the sling and the stone, and he walks forth from the tent of Saul a caparisoned warrior, in the habiliments of his sworn brother Jonathan, even to the sword, and the bow, and the girdle. Poor David; we are disposed to pity you for you shall never know again the light-hearted and buoyant gladness of your younger days. When you doffed your shepherd's dress, you abandoned the safeguard of your peace: the dignities of office must be purchased with the usual sacrifices; and you will never tread with so light a step amidst the labyrinths of the court, as you once did upon the free sod of your native hills; or sleep so softly upon the carved bed of state, as on the rustic pallet of your father's cot, or beneath the canopy of the starry sky. You could then commit yourself to rest, secure, though the door was unlatched, or when the wild beasts prowled around your bed: but now the eye of love must keep sentinel to save you from the assassin's knife.

We shall say a word upon David's success, upon David's trial, upon David's good conduct, and David's consolation. And we shall find that in all these particulars David's history is characteristic of the ordinary experience of the Christian.

Now we have seen David's signal victory over the gigantic enemy, whom he encountered in the strength of God, and in simple reliance upon the divine aid. And we can conceive the gratulations that were poured upon him as he went to Jerusalem, bearing the gory head of the Philistine as a trophy of his victory, and depositing, in the house of the Lord, the sword of his antagonist, as a memorial of his gratitude. It was a proud day when David received the thanks of the king, and of all the captains of his armed hosts; and when the women came to greet him with singing and dancing; and when Jonathan, the king's son, welcomed him as a brother; and when the soft looks of Michal, Saul's daughter, told him she loved him. His young heart must have beat tumultuously when he felt himself the admiration of every eye, and heard his name rend the sky in the shouts of the applauding multitude, and the songs of the women that came to meet him "with tabrets, and with joy, and with instruments of music." But O, my brethren, it was a more perilous moment that for David, than when his colossal antagonist came towards him, and he had nothing but his rustic dress to guard his breast from the sword and the spear; for he had often fought with the arm of flesh, but now he had to wrestle with an enemy that must have begun to stir in his own bosom. Doubtless he had some vainglorious thoughts, and there would be a temptation to lean on his own strength, and to give the glory less exclusively to God. When he found himself caressed by the great, and applauded by the people, and though an inexperienced soldier,

lifted at once to a high military command, there would be a peculiar danger, lest his heart being lifted up within him in the sunshine of popularity, he should forget the lessons he had learnt in obscurity. His successes had been so signal, that there was great need of affliction: and we shall see that God furnished these, and took care that there should be trials to sift David, lest he should be exalted above measure.

But to apply this portion of David's experience to the Christian. How often, my brethren, has the Lord suffered the young disciple to achieve spiritual exploits which have surprised himself and others. His enemies vanish before him; his strength and his zeal are the admiration of all, and he is ready to assume to himself every task which would seem to dismay a less trustful and sanguine spirit. He mounts upon eagle's wings; he runs, and is not weary; he is looked upon as a prodigy of religious attainment. Now at such a moment he is apt to make small allowances for the infirmities of others; and is apt to imagine, he alone is left to support God's truth, and to fight his battle. He is very sedulous in his religious duties, and he reaps the corresponding fruitfulness. He waits on God, and he renews his youthful strength; and if it were not for coming trials and coming mortifications, he would esteem himself a giant in the ways of God. Alas! "he mistakes," as it has been finely said, “the virgin honey for his daily food."

Now it might have been so with the stripling David; and therefore God, in mercy, seasons his cup with adversity, and so appoints, that the commencement of his grace was the beginning also of his trouble. No sooner is David hailed with the acclamations of his countrymen, than Saul turned to be his deadly enemy. His popularity brings with it the jealousy and the enmity of him who is monarch in Israel. "And the women," it is said, "answered one another as they played, and said, Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands. And Saul was very wroth, and the saying displeased him; and he said, They have ascribed unto David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but thousands and what can he have more but the kingdom? And Saul eyed David from that day forward." The proofs of his enmity soon appeared; and on the next day after this diabolical passion had taken possession of the monarch's breast, as David, unspoiled by his elevation, and still anxious to confer pleasure, played with his hand as at other times, Saul cast his javelin; for he said, I will smite David even to the wall with it. And David avoided out of his presence twice."

66

Now what a contrast we have here, my brethren, between him with whom the Lord was, and him from whom the Lord was departed! The one is in the exercise of social charity, seeking to minister relief and solace, and blending song and hand in the praise of God; the other actuated by a murderous hate, and aiming at the life of the benefactor, whose only fault was his increasing favour with God and man. Still God seems to have possessed David with that majesty of manner which awed the jealous monarch: just as the eye of man has been known to fascinate and tame the maniac or the wild beast: and though Saul hated the son of Jesse, yet he also feared him. The sight of him at last became a torment, and he removed him from him, and made him a captain over a thousand; probably assigning him some post where he would be exposed to

continual skirmishing with the enemy. But Saul's malice only augments David's popularity, since it brought him more into contact with his countrymen, as he went in and out before them in his command. "And David," it is said, "behaved himself wisely in all his ways; and the Lord was with him. Wherefore when Saul saw that he behaved himself very wisely, and he was afraid of him. But all Israel and Judah loved David, because he went out and came in before them." Therefore Saul endeavoured, by interesting David's affection in behalf of his daughter, and promising to give her hand as a reward for victories over the Philistines, to excite David to some feat of daring which might cost him his life. Again, when the time came that she should have been given to him and she was given to another, he sought to provoke him to some attempt that might be construed into rebellion. When this failed, he offered his younger daughter to David, on condition that he slew one hundred of the Philistines; for he "thought to make David fall by the hand of the Philistines." But David having more than accomplished his engagement, and presented the foreskins of two hundred of their enemies whom he had slain in battle, the king was compelled to stand by his compact, and Michal became David's wife.

Thus we see, my brethren, that David's elevation brought with it a host of troubles; that his life was attempted; that he was placed in trying circumstances; that he was exposed to the weapons of the Philistines; and, on one occasion, to the treachery of false friends: yet that God suffered his servant to be thus afflicted; he brought him through his trials, and overruled these for his good. He fitted him to reign by teaching him to serve: he refined his spirit, and kept it low, like the weaned child: he kept under the mischief that might be in David's heart by the pressure of outward anxieties; he does it by withholding that unmixed prosperity which is never good to human interest: he taught him to cease from created things, and to seek his shelter and delight in God. Had there been no obstruction to David's happiness; had all things smiled on him; and, in addition to the favour of his countrymen and the friendship of Jonathan, and the love of Michal, had he enjoyed the countenance and favour of the king, where would have been the exercise of faith? and how many and overwhelming would have been the temptations to which his virtue would have been exposed! And therefore it was in love that the Lord suffered him to be harassed and disappointed, and taught him that this was not his rest, for it was polluted.

Now, my beloved brethren, it is thus that God deals with all his children, to whom it is his good pleasure eventually to give the kingdom. No sooner do they become his beloved ones by covenant, than the yoke of the oppressor is broken upon their shoulders: then God begins that preparatory process, which is to school them for their future inheritance. He keeps them in the chartered way of obedience by hedging up their path on either side. He designs further, by suffering them to encounter difficulties, to exhibit their own weakness, and teach them to lean on strength not their own. He suffers trouble to arise, that they may be driven into closer communion with himself. He causes them at once to prove his faithfulness, and to learn obedience by what they suffered.

Now it is appointed, my brethren, that through much tribulation we should all enter the kingdom of God; that the road to heaven should be rough; that we should find this world a wilderness. Believe it, my beloved, all the saints of

God have found it so. Not one of that radiant throng that stand before the throne of God in light, with palms in their hands, praising God, but have been refined by affliction; for "whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." The appointment is not an arbitrary one; but it is designed in tender love. The Christian will find no heaven in this wilderness world; nor shall he ever be suffered to set up his tents as one that is at ease in Zion on this side eternity.

66

Perhaps there are some persons here before me, who consider their own cases peculiar ; who are in affliction, and who say, Surely none was ever so distressed as I am ;" and who, when they compare their apparent griefs with the apparent lot of others, are almost tempted to murmur at the contrast. My beloved, if such persons could examine the secrets of another's breast, if they knew their neighbour's griefs and anxieties as well as their own, they might find that the balance is in their own favour; that there is a grief as well as a joy in the breast of every sincere child of God, with which a stranger doth not intermeddle. But they whom God loves will be made to feel themselves, and to confess themselves pilgrims here, that they may desire a better country, that is a heavenly. But even without this insight into the general appointment, which provides that thorns and thistles should spring up in our road, the child of God may surely recognize in his own case the benefit he derives from trials and afflictions, and will admit, that without these, his evil passions would have gained ground, and his graces never would have been ripened.

But to consider, shortly, David's conduct. If he had borne himself dutifully and meekly at home, and bravely in the field of battle, he demeaned himself with equal excellence in the distinguished duties to which he had been so suddenly called: no impropriety of speech or conduct betrayed allusion to his recently acquired honours; unlike a novice, he was not lifted up with pride, so as to fall into the condemnation of the devil. It was a proof of God's grace in David's heart, that he was able to bear all the honours that flowed in upon him of a sudden, without being lifted up above measure. "They that fly so fast," observes Matthew Henry, "had need of good heads and good hearts. It is harder to know how to abound, than how to be abased." But "David," it is said, "went out whithersoever Saul sent him, and behaved himself wisely and Saul set him over the men of war, and he was accepted in the sight of all the people, and also in the sight of Saul's servants." A striking proof this of David's blameless and honest conduct, that he delighted not only those whom he commanded, and the people in general, but even had a good word from the royal courtiers, who were, of all others, most likely to have envied his success, and therefore to have spoken disparagingly of him. And then, again, we read that he was removed by Saul's jealousy to another station; "but David behaved himself wisely, and all Israel and Judah loved David." Why? Because the Lord was with him, and his profiting appeared unto all men. Had David been abandoned to himself, or had he quenched the Spirit by a careless and disobedient walk, he had been like Saul, of whom we read that at first he shunned the royal dignity, and concealed himself to avoid it; but afterwards he was so carnalized and corrupted by royalty, that he was willing to secure its continuance at the price of all imaginable sacrifices. But of David's holy and consistent

« EdellinenJatka »