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2 Samuel
Chapter Three
2 Samuel 3
Chapter Contents
David's power increases His family. (1-6) Abner revolts
to David. (7-21) Joab kills Abner David mourns for him. (22-39)
Commentary on 2 Samuel 3:1-6
(Read 2 Samuel 3:1-6)
The length of this war tried the faith and patience of
David, and made his settlement at last the more welcome. The contest between
grace and corruption in the hearts of believers, may fitly be compared to this
warfare. There is a long war between them, the flesh lusting against the
spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; but as the work of holiness is
carried on, corruption, like the house of Saul, grows weaker and weaker; while
grace, like the house of David, grows stronger and stronger.
Commentary on 2 Samuel 3:7-21
(Read 2 Samuel 3:7-21)
Many, like Abner, are not above committing base crimes,
who are too proud to bear reproof, or even the suspicion of being guilty. While
men go on in sin, and apparently without concern, they are often conscious that
they are fighting against God. Many mean to serve their own purposes; and will
betray those who trust them, when they can get any advantage. Yet the Lord
serves his own designs, even by those who are thus actuated by revenge,
ambition, or lust; but as they intend not to honour him, in the end they will
be thrown aside with contempt. There was real generosity both to Michal and to
the memory of Saul, in David's receiving the former, remembering probably how
once he owed his life to her affection, and knowing that she was separated from
him partly by her father's authority. Let no man set his heart on that which he
is not entitled to. If any disagreement has separated husband and wife, as they
expect the blessing of God, let them be reconciled, and live together in love.
Commentary on 2 Samuel 3:22-39
(Read 2 Samuel 3:22-39)
Judgments are prepared for such scorners as Abner; but
Joab, in what he did, acted wickedly. David laid Abner's murder deeply to
heart, and in many ways expressed his detestation of it. The guilt of blood
brings a curse upon families: if men do not avenge it, God will. It is a sad
thing to die like a fool, as they do that any way shorten their own days, and
those who make no provision for another world. Who would be fond of power, when
a man may have the name of it, and must be accountable for it, yet is hampered
in the use of it? David ought to have done his duty, and then trusted God with
the issue. Carnal policy spared Joab. The Son of David may long delay, but
never fails to punish impenitent sinners. He who now reigns upon the throne of
David, has a kingdom of a nobler kind. Whatever He doeth, is noticed by all his
willing people, and is pleasing to them.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on 2 Samuel》
2 Samuel 3
Verse 1
[1] Now
there was long war between the house of Saul and the house of David: but David
waxed stronger and stronger, and the house of Saul waxed weaker and weaker.
Long war —
For five years longer: for it is probable, Isbosheth was made king presently
upon Saul's death; and the other tribes did not submit to David before seven
years were expired.
Verse 3
[3] And his second, Chileab, of Abigail the wife of Nabal the Carmelite; and
the third, Absalom the son of Maacah the daughter of Talmai king of Geshur;
Geshur — A
part of Syria, northward from the land of Israel. Her he married, as it may
seem, in policy, that he might have a powerful friend and ally to assist him
against Ishbosheth's party in the north, whilst himself opposed him in the
southern parts. But he paid dear for making piety give place to policy, as the
history of Absolom sheweth.
Verse 5
[5] And
the sixth, Ithream, by Eglah David's wife. These were born to David in Hebron.
Eglah —
This is added, either because she was of obscure parentage, and was known by no
other title but her relation to David: or, because this was his first and most
proper wife, best known by her other name of Michal, who, though she had no
child by David after she scoffed at him for dancing before the ark, chap. 6:23, yet might have one before that time. And
she might be named the last, because she was given away from David, and married
to another man. Six sons in seven years. Some have had as numerous an
offspring, and with much more honour and comfort, by one wife. And we know not
that any of the six were famous: but three were very infamous.
Verse 6
[6] And
it came to pass, while there was war between the house of Saul and the house of
David, that Abner made himself strong for the house of Saul.
Strong — He
used all his endeavours to support Saul's house: which is mentioned, to shew
the reason of his deep resentment of the following aspersion.
Verse 12
[12] And Abner sent messengers to David on his behalf, saying, Whose is the
land? saying also, Make thy league with me, and, behold, my hand shall be with
thee, to bring about all Israel unto thee.
Messengers —
Who in his name might treat with David concerning his reconciliation with him.
Thus God over-rules the passions of wicked men, to accomplish his own wise and
holy purposes. And who then dare contend with that God who makes even his
enemies to do his work, and destroy themselves? Whose, etc. - To whom doth this
whole land belong, but to thee? Is it not thine by Divine right?
Verse 14
[14] And
David sent messengers to Ishbosheth Saul's son, saying, Deliver me my wife
Michal, which I espoused to me for an hundred foreskins of the Philistines.
Ishbosheth —
Whose consent was necessary, both to take her away from her present husband,
and to persuade her to return to David. Hereby also David opened to him a door
of hope for his reconciliation, lest being desperate he should hinder Abner in his
present design.
My wife —
Who, though she was taken from me by force, and constrained to marry another,
yet is my rightful wife. David demands her, both for the affection he still
retained to her, and upon a political consideration that she might strengthen
his title to the kingdom.
Verse 19
[19] And
Abner also spake in the ears of Benjamin: and Abner went also to speak in the
ears of David in Hebron all that seemed good to Israel, and that seemed good to
the whole house of Benjamin.
Benjamin — To
these he particularly applies himself, because they might be thought most kind
to Saul and his house, and most loath to let the kingdom go out of their own
tribe; and therefore it was necessary that he should use all his art and power
with them, to persuade them to a compliance with his design; and besides, they
were a valiant tribe, and bordering upon Judah, and situate between them and
the other tribes; and therefore the winning of them, would be of mighty
concernment to bring in all the rest.
Verse 22
[22] And,
behold, the servants of David and Joab came from pursuing a troop, and brought
in a great spoil with them: but Abner was not with David in Hebron; for he had
sent him away, and he was gone in peace.
A troop — Of
robbers, or Philistines, who taking advantage of the discord between the houses
of Saul and David, made inroads into Judah.
Verse 29
[29] Let
it rest on the head of Joab, and on all his father's house; and let there not
fail from the house of Joab one that hath an issue, or that is a leper, or that
leaneth on a staff, or that falleth on the sword, or that lacketh bread.
Let it, … —
But would not a resolute punishment of the murderer himself have become David
better, than this passionate imprecation on his posterity?
Verse 30
[30] So
Joab and Abishai his brother slew Abner, because he had slain their brother
Asahel at Gibeon in the battle.
Abishai —
For though Joab only committed the murder, yet Abishai was guilty of it,
because it was done with his consent, and counsel, and approbation.
In battle —
Which he did for his own necessary defence; and therefore it was no
justification of this treacherous murder.
Verse 31
[31] And
David said to Joab, and to all the people that were with him, Rend your
clothes, and gird you with sackcloth, and mourn before Abner. And king David
himself followed the bier.
Joab —
Him he especially obliged to it, to bring him to repentance for his sin, and to
expose him to public shame.
Followed —
That is, attending upon his corps, and paying him that respect which was due to
his quality. Though this was against the usage of kings, and might seem below
David's dignity; yet it was now expedient to vindicate himself from all
suspicion of concurrence in this action.
Verse 33
[33] And
the king lamented over Abner, and said, Died Abner as a fool dieth?
As a fool —
That is, as a wicked man. Was he cut off by the hand of justice for his crimes?
Nothing less; but by Joab's malice and treachery. It is a sad thing to die as a
fool dieth, as they do that any way shorten their own days: and indeed all they
that make no provision for another world.
Verse 34
[34] Thy
hands were not bound, nor thy feet put into fetters: as a man falleth before
wicked men, so fellest thou. And all the people wept again over him.
Not bound —
Thou didst not tamely yield up thyself to Joab, to be bound hand and foot at
his pleasure. Joab did not overcome thee in an equal combat, nor durst he
attempt thee in that way, as a general or soldier of any worth would have done.
Wicked men — By
the hands of froward, or perverse, or crooked men, by hypocrisy and
perfidiousness, whereby the vilest coward may kill the most valiant person.
Verse 36
[36] And
all the people took notice of it, and it pleased them: as whatsoever the king
did pleased all the people.
Pleased them —
They were satisfied concerning David's integrity.
Verse 38
[38] And
the king said unto his servants, Know ye not that there is a prince and a great
man fallen this day in Israel?
Know ye not, … —
But how little, how mean are they made by death, who were the terror of the
mighty in the land of the living.
Verse 39
[39] And
I am this day weak, though anointed king; and these men the sons of Zeruiah be
too hard for me: the LORD shall reward the doer of evil according to his
wickedness.
Weak — In
the infancy of my kingdom, not well settled in it. The metaphor is taken from a
young and tender child or plant.
These men —
Joab and Abishai, the sons of thy sister Zeruiah.
Too hard —
That is, too powerful. They have so great a command over all the soldiers, and
so great favour with the people, that I cannot punish them without apparent
hazard to my person and kingdom; especially, now when all the tribes, except
Judah, are in a state of opposition against me. But although this might give
some colour to the delay of their punishment, yet it was a fault that he did
not do it within some reasonable time, both because this indulgence proceeded
from a distrust of God's power and faithfulness; as if God could not make good
his promise to him, against Joab and all his confederates; and because it was
contrary to God's law, which severally requires the punishment of willful
murderers. It was therefore carnal wicked policy, yea cruel pity that spared
him. If the law had had its course against Joab, it is probable the murder of
Ishbosheth, Ammon, and others, had been prevented. So truly was he in these,
and some other respects, a bloody man, which may be observed to the glory of
the Divine grace, in his forgiveness and conversion.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on 2
Samuel》
03 Chapter 3
Verses 1-21
Now there was long war between the house of Saul and the house of
David.
Progress and termination of the civil war
What grief tales of distress are folded up in these brief words,
“There was long war!” Probably it was only irregular war, without much
bloodshed; the war of
skirmish and surprise, not of pitched battles, or protracted sieges, or
desperate assaults; but many a pillaged town, and many a homestead laid in
ashes, and many a heart crushed to despair or maddened to fury, and many a deep
and deadly curse, and many a fiendish vow of vengeance, would everywhere follow
the track of war. And it was war of the most distressing and demoralising
kind--not foreign but civil. Great national wars are usually attended by one
counteracting benefit--they soften the keenness of private quarrels. But when
parties in the same nation arc fighting with each other, as the tribes of
Israel now were, private quarrels, instead of being healed, are only
exasperated to greater bitterness.
1. Before the remarkable
change of policy on the part of Abner that led to the termination of the war is
recorded, a glimpse is given us of the domestic life of King David (2 Samuel 3:2-5); and whether it be by
design or not, there immediately follows (2 Samuel 3:6-11) a specimen and
illustration of the kind of evils to which that mode of life was liable to give
rise. Though polygamy was not allowed to David, it certainly was winked at; it
was not imputed to him as guilt; it ‘was not treated as an act of rebellion
against God’s law. But, on the other hand, this toleration of polygamy did not
and could not prevent the evils to which, from its very nature, it gives rise.
There could be no unity in David’s family, none of that delightful feeling of
oneness, which gives such a
charm to the home. In his own breast, that sense of delicacy, that feeling of
chastity, which has such a purifying influence in a family, could scarcely
flourish. And further, as the absence of delicacy must have been characteristic
of David, so was it also of his children; the unbridled passions of some of his
sons gave rise to the most dismal tragedies; and left blots on their name that
even time could never wash out.
2. It is immediately after
this glimpse of David’s domestic life that we come upon a sample of the kind of
evils to which that mode of life commonly gives rise. Saul, too, had his harem;
and it seems to have
been a rule of succession in the East, that the harem went with the throne;
hence to take possession of the one was regarded as setting up a claim to the
other. When, therefore, Ishbosheth heard that Abner had taken one of his
father’s concubines he seems to have regarded that circumstance as a proof that
Abner was setting up a claim to the kingdom for himself. Mistaking the
semblance of power for the reality--forgetting that Ishbosheth had but the one,
and Abner the other, Ishbosheth denounced the conduct of Abner with great
bluntness and rudeness; and gave him such mortal offence that Abner abruptly
and peremptorily assured him that he would not strike another blow in his
service, but would at once go over to David. The loss of Abner was to
Ishbosheth the loss of all. His cause had for some time been a losing one; it
was now quite destroyed.
3. The next step in the
narrative brings us to Abner’s proposal to David, to make a league with him for
the undisputed possession of the throne. As a preliminary to any further
arrangements, David insisted, first of all, that his wife Michael, the daughter
of Saul, should be restored to him. Some have pronounced this a harsh
condition, especially considering that Michal was now living as the wife of
another person, who appears to have been much attached to her, and most
unwilling to surrender her. It is undoubted, however, that Michal was not the
wife of Phaltiel, but the wife of David; Phaltiel must have known that she was
another man’s wife when he received her; and it is misplaced compassion to be sorry for a man
when called to surrender what he never had a right to take. It may be asked,
however, what could have been David’s motive for demanding back Michal, when he
had so many wives without her? It might be enough to say in reply that Michal was his wedded wife,
and that it would have been disgraceful to David, when he could prevent it, to
allow his wife to live in adultery with another. Of all David’s wives, Michal,
as the daughter of a king like Saul, was the first in worldly rank; David, therefore,
wished to recover her; probably also, he thought, that by having her again for
his wife there would be a bond of union between the two royal families of the
kingdom that might draw the people together, and save the further shedding of
blood. Another consideration appears also to have influenced him. In demanding
back Michal he makes special mention of the dowry he had given for her--a hundred
foreskins of the Philistines. In mentioning this he probably desired to revive
among the people the remembrance of his ancient services and exploits against
these inveterate enemies of his country and religion. His recent alliance with
the Philistines had brought him into suspicion; he wished to remind his people,
therefore, of his ancient bearing towards these enemies, and to encourage the
expectation of similar deeds of successful warfare.
4. When the preliminaries
between Abner and David were settled Abner appears to have exerted himself with
real sincerity and zeal in behalf of David. Most probably he was not sorry for
the occasion of his breach with Ishbosheth; David’s was obviously the rising
star; probably tie was watching an opportunity to transfer his allegiance from
the one to the other. Abner now became as zealous for David as formerly he had
been for Ishbosheth; and in holding communication with the elders of Israel and
of Benjamin, and urging them very strongly to submit to David, he did him a
service which no other living man could then have rendered. The tender heart of
the shepherd king was doubtless inexpressibly grieved at the continuance of the
war; he would have welcomed with unbounded delight any honourable arrangement
that would have prevented further bloodshed; and when Abner was seen using his
great influence with the leaders of the tribes in the cause of peace, he must
have appeared to David like a very angel of God. When, therefore, at the most
critical moment in these negotiations, the impetuous and vindictive Joab thrust
his sword through Abner’s heart--when, to the revolting ferocity of the deed
itself, and its glaring outrage on the laws of hospitality, he added the crime
of placing in jeopardy a most delicate national negotiation, and exasperating
those whom it was most desired to conciliate, David’s mortification must have
been unbounded. (W. G. Blaikie, M. A.)
Perpetual war
I. Warring interests.
1. Saul’s interests were
natural--they were carnal--they were worldly--they were selfish. David’s
interests, on the contrary, were Of God--they were spiritual--they were under
God’s sovereign direction--they were Divine. Just such is the distinction between
the Church of God and the world. What is the result? Why, just warring,
jarring, contending interests; for one is in the interest of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and the other in the interest of the devil. Saul’s house, the carnal,
selfish, worldly multitude are all under the influence of the Prince of Darkness,
the prince of the power of the air, who rules in the hearts of the children of
disobedience; they are all under the sway of their carnal inclinations and
affections, and the men of the world ought not to be offended for being told by
us what their own consciences must admit to be the fact. On the contrary, the
army of David associates with the beloved soldiers of the cross; they are the
ransomed of the Lord; they take this blessed book as their guide; the word of
command of the Captain of their salvation is imperative, and they call on high
for grace, implicity to regard and obey it. The result is that Satan’s
interests arc bolstered up by the former, and real Christianity is maintained
by the latter.
2. Let us now take another
view of the difference which subsists between the house of Saul and the house
of David--I mean an experimental view. And what will you say when I declare
unto you that there are both the house of Saul and the house of David in your
own hearts--that there are both the house of Saul and the house of David
inhabiting this body of flesh and blood--that there are all the vile
corruptions and carnal inclinations of the house of Saul; but, blessed be God,
there are also
the especial graces, and the spiritual implantations of the house of David--an
old and new nature--a propensity to every evil, as was the case with Saul, but
a panting after every good, as was the case with David.
3. Observe, they are so
contrary, so opposed to each other, that they are altogether irreconcilable,
and it is quite in vain, therefore, to attempt a reconciliation. He that is
born after the flesh will persecute him that is born after the Spirit. What
fellowship can light have with darkness? What communion can Christ have with
Belial? What oneness, or intimacy, can subsist between him who is a believer
and him who is an infidel?
II. The advancing power of the
conquering side. “David waxed stronger and stronger, and the house of Saul
waxed weaker and weaker.”
1. The first feature of
David’s prosperity lay in this, that his fame and his prowess were advancing and increasing,
and his power extending. So with our glorious Lord, David’s antitype; His
kingdom is growing and extending, prospering and thriving, His name is exalted,
and shall be exalted, and all His household.
2. But what constituted
David’s waxing stronger and stronger in the most conspicuous point of view, was
the accessions which were constantly being made to his kingdom, and all of
which were so many instances, not merely of the increase of his own strength,
but of the diminution of the kingdom and power of Saul. The very way in which
oar glorious David advances. All the accessions that are made to His kingdom
are lawful captives delivered from the terrible power of darkness and
translated into His own kingdom.
3. The next point is the
warring interests between the two houses that occupy our poor nature. Is it in
your power honestly to say that within the circle of your experience the house
of David is waxing stronger and stronger, and the house of Saul waxing weaker
and weaker? I want the graces growing in strength. I want to have faith like
Abraham’s. I want to give glory to God and believe against apparent
impossibilities. I want love to be growing like John’s, so that no place will
do for me but the bosom of Jesus; I want hope to be victorious, strong and
firm, entering within the veil, sure and steadfast. I want humility to lay me
at the feet of Christ, and keep axe there. I want the zeal of the house of my
beloved Lord to eat me up, and I want the meekness and patience of my Lord to
make me quite immoveable to all the provocations of the wicked world through
which I am passing. Oh! if the graces of Jesus were thus exercised. If the new
man were always thus enthroned. If the new man were always seated uppermost,
always thus favoured with supplies of grace from above, how old Adam would
groan! How he would be nailed up! How he would be mortified!
II. The results of the
warfare. You know how it resulted with David: it resulted in the entire
destruction of the house of Saul, in imperishable honours worn by himself and
his household, his throne set above all the kingdoms of the earth, and a
glorious lasting peace settled and secured. So shall it be with our glorious
Christ and His household. All the honours which the covenant of grace provides,
which the promises of the word unfold and exhibit, and which the grace of the
Spirit can put on and wear, and which must after all return and redound to
Jesus’ precious name, are claimed and appropriated by the followers of the
Lamb, the household of David.
1. Moreover, there is a
peculiar circumstance in relation to this warfare and its results--that is that
with all this fighting, and skirmishing, and wounding, never one soul is killed
or destroyed.
2. The throne of our David
must become noted for its fame, and be exalted above all others. It must be so
established as to reign over all dominions, and put down every authority that
opposes it, for it is written that He must reign until He has put all His
enemies under His feet. Then comes the glorious consummation, eternal peace. (J.
Irons.)
A long war
I. There was war. David
ascended the throne of Judah, but not to enjoy peace, as he might have
presupposed. The descendants of Saul opposed his election, though ratified by
heaven; usurped the throne, and maintained personally, or by their
representative and chief agent, Abner, unceasing and bitter opposition to his
government. Is it not thus with the Christian, after his decided confirmation
in the faith? When we are in Christ, or rather Christ is in us, by virtue of
our spiritual elevation, then it is that the enmity between our fallen nature
and the true will of God betrays itself in vehement activity.
2. The war was long. With
David the literal conflict endured but seven years and six months, till the
last opponent of his rightful sway was removed. With every spiritual child of
God the war must
endure from conversion to death, while one fragment of this infected mortality
cleaves to another in animation--so thoroughly, so desperately has the
opposition of Satan to God’s rule preoccupied and possessed our natural being.
3. Further, it is mentioned
that “the house of David waxed stronger and stronger.” It must be so with the
Christian. The condition of the believer is a growing one: he is perfectly born
in Christ at once, but his powers and faculties are matured in action, and his
progress is decided. (C. M. Fleury, A. M.)
Verse
10
To translate the kingdom from the house of Saul.
The translation of life
The kingdom was to pass from the house of Saul to the house of
David, and David was to be king “over Israel and over Judah, from Dan even to
Beersheba.” The thought is that kingdoms of an earthly kind change hands, and
therefore they are to be regarded as belonging to things temporary and mutable,
and not to things eternal and unchangeable. What hast thou that thou hast not
received? By long use men come to entertain the idea of sole proprietorship,
and thus the sense of monopoly increases. Our children are not ours, they are
God’s; our lives are not our own, they belong to the Creator; we have no,
thing, except in the sense of stewardship and in the sense of involving
responsibility for the use we make of it. It is well that men can only reign
for a certain time; it, would be well if royalty could change its point of
origin, so that human vanity might be checked and human ambition might be
baffled in many a course. We are not to think of earthly kingdoms alone as
meaning political sovereignities; we are to think of personal influence,
institutional functions, and all arrangements made to meet the necessity of the
present day; all these things must be changed in order to be purified; the
direction may be altered in order that attention may be wakened; those who
imagine themselves secure for ever must be shaken out of their security, that
they may learn that there is no permanence but in God. The Lord reigneth. All
men reign under Him, and are subject to His will. They only are happy who use
the world as not abusing it, and who hold it with so light a hand that at any
moment they can lay it down again. (J. Parker, D. D.)
God in history
Someone has pithily said: “There are three kinds of histories.
There is that which makes the king the centre of the story. The tale is mainly
one of wars and their causes. It speaks glowingly of the king’s victories, and
explains away his defeats. It has been dubbed, ‘The Drum and Trumpet History.’
Then there is that which traces the growth of the people--their morals,
customs, politics, and religion. This is the ‘Bread and Success’ history. But,
last of all, there is the history like that of the chosen nation, where the
guide and ruler is God. This is true history, for it reckons in the mightiest
fact and force of all. It is the ‘Sane and Sublime History,’ and no other is
worth the name.”
Verse
18
Now then do it.
Now then do it
I. Remind undecided persons
of former impulses.
1. The character and
frequency of those impulses have varied greatly in different individuals.
2. These impulses have been
usual in you at certain times, and these find a parallel in the case of Israel.
These Israelites, perhaps, in their hearts sought for David to be king
when they saw the joy upon the face of David’s men. His troopers often had
spoil to share, and they always spake well of their captain, and whenever a
David’s man was seen anywhere about Judah or Israel, the people said, “Those
warriors have a goodly heritage in being under such a noble leader,” and they
wished they had such a king themselves. I do not doubt but sometimes when you
hear Christ preached in all His sweetness, your mouths begin to water after
him. “Is he so good, is he so pleasant? Oh, that we knew Him!” And when you see
Christians so happy, and especially when you see them in times of trouble so
cheerful and joyous under all their trials, I know you have had an inward wish
that you knew their secret and could share their peace.
3. These seekings after David
were sometimes with the Israelites vivid and strong; and so, too, impulses with
undecided people are occasionally very powerful.
4. Nothing has come of all
the seekings of your youth and your after days.
II. Recommend decided action.
“Ye sought for David in times past to be king over you, now then do it.”
1. Note the business on
hand--it is that Jesus should be king over you.
2. Next notice that if Christ
is to be your king, it must be by your own act and deed. So saith the text
concerning king David “Now then do it.”
3. And here is the point, if
Jesus is to reign the old king must go down. It is of no use trying to have
Ishbosheth and David on the throne at the same time. It is impossible to serve
sin and to serve Christ. Dream not of believing to-morrow or next year, nor
even in half-an-hour’s time; but cast your guilty soul on Christ at once. Now
then do it.
II. Reason with strong
arguments. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
“To-day”
John Ruskin took for his great life-motto the simple word
“To-day.” He had it engraved on his watch, and before him in his library, so
that he could always see it as he sat at his desk, the text, “Work, while it is
yet called to-day.” To-day let us repent, believe, love, pray, toil, so that
to-day we may bring the kingdom to pass, by doing His will as it is done in heaven.
(H. O. Mackey.)
Now
Perhaps there is now a “shy, solitary serious thought,” in your
heart about becoming a Christian. If you let it alone, it may fly away like a
bird through a cage-door left open, and may never come back. Or else a crowd of
business cares and plans, or perhaps a host of social invitations will flock
in, and the good thought be smothered to death. You have smothered just such
blessed thoughts before. The thought in your heart is to become a Christian
now, and the great bells ring out, “Now is the accepted time: behold, now is
the day of salvation.” No soul was ever yet saved, and no good deed was ever
done to-morrow. Be careful lest tomorrow shall find you beyond the world of
probation! (Theodore L. Cuyler, D. D.)
The duty lying nearest
Soon after the death of Carlyle two friends met. “And so Carlyle
is dead,” said one. “Yes,” said the other, “he is gone; but he did me a very
good turn once.” “How was that?” asked the first speaker. “Did you ever see him
or hear him?” “No,” came the answer, “I never saw him nor heard him. But when I
was beginning life, almost through my apprenticeship, I lost all interest in
everything and everyone. I felt as if I had no duty of importance to discharge;
that it did not matter whether I lived or not; that the world would do as well
without me as with me. This condition continued more than a year. I should have
been glad to die. One gloomy night, feeling that I could stand my darkness no
longer, I went into a library, and lifting a book I found lying upon a table, I
opened it. It was ‘Sartor Resartus,’ by Thomas Carlyle. My eye fell upon one
sentence, marked in italics, ‘Do the duty which lies nearest to thee, which
thou knowest to be a duty! The second duty will already have become clearer.’
That sentence,” continued the speaker, “was a flash of lightning striking into
my dark soul. It gave me a new glimpse of human existence. It made a changed
man of me. Carlyle, under God, saved me. He put content and purpose and
power-into my life.”
Verses 22-39
Verse 33
Died
Abner as a fool dieth?
The fool’s
death
There
are two or three different renderings of our text. Some take it thus--“Died
Abner as a wicked man?” And then the answer is, “No, he did not. He fell by the
foul hand of deliberate and deceitful murder.” Others render the text--“Shall
Abner die like a fool?” That is, “Shall he be unpitied? Shall his fall” be
unsung? Shall his murder be unrevenged?” There is a good deal to show for this
rendering; because David, directly afterward, pronounces an awful imprecation
on the house of Joab. But the third rendering, which we prefer, and which we
shall take, is the one which we have here in our text: “Died Abner as a fool
dieth?” ‘That is, “Can it be true that such a man as Abner, with all his mental
power and all his martial prowess--can it be true that Abner, of all men, died
like a fool?” The next verse, you will see, explains the reference. His hands
free, his feet, unfettered, and yet Abner the warrior falls down before the
spear of Joab. “Died Abner as a fool dieth?” I think we may generally take for
granted that in young manhood there is always a love of honest dealing. In
fact, if any one who calls himself a man objects to plain, straightforward
dealing, the sooner he changes his name the better. Surely no young man in his
senses here will differ from us in the statement that no matter how successful
a man may be in many aspects, yet his life is an utter failure if at the end he
dies a fool’s death. We recognize the fact that die we must. And I take it
that, a true young man would far sooner face a fact like this, and would far sooner
hear the preacher boldly deal with it, than attempt the foolish task of
escaping an unpleasant subject by not referring to it. What was the mark of
folly about Abner’s death?
I. His strange simplicity and wonderful credulity. I do marvel at
Abner--certainly David did--that he, of all men, should have been so easily
“gulled,” for we know no other word that so exactly conveys the thought of our
mind. Abner had been continually by the king’s side. He must have known,
therefore, that the art of political speaking is to conceal your thoughts, and
that nature only gives courtiers’ tongues to shroud by language the intentions
of the heart. Strange that a man like Abner, who had passed through such a
school as two courts, should have so readily believed the message which Joab
sent him. Now, is it not marvellous how unsuspicious men are of sin’s designs?
They are shrewd enough in other things. I have no doubt that many of you are
sharp, keen, acute men of business. Your books will testify that you do not
make very many bad debts. You can see through a man as quickly as most; yet how
strange it is that often those who are shrewdest in other things are most
deluded as to the nature of sin’s designs! As Homer describes in his Odyssey,
there are the sirens on the rocks, who sing so sweetly that, if a Ulysses is to
be kept from running his craft right on their rugged brows, the men must lash
him to the mast and ply their oars with desperate earnestness, for the music of
the sirens makes a deadly calm, and leaves no breath of air to fill the sails
and take the vessel from her danger. And so sin seems to sing like an
enchantress; and the shrewdest and the cleverest men are irresistibly, almost
imperceptibly, drawn toward it; and they who would see through a deception of another
sort in a moment seem, like Abner, utterly blinded in this respect, What Satan
raves to accomplish is to be revenged on God through God’s creatures. Is it
likely, then, that such a Joab as this can have any good intent when he says to
thee by some sin, “Come, let us talk quietly in the gate?” And yet how
willingly a man will turn aside with any sin! “A man is both ruined and saved
through faith.” I confess that when first I heard that statement I was rather
startled. I did not at first see its force, and I said, “Stay! There is a
mistake. You mean that a man is saved through faith and is ruined by unbelief.”
The answer I received was: “That is true; so also is it that a man is either
saved or lost by faith. If the faith be in God, through Christ, then that faith
saves; but, on the other hand, if it is the faith which a man places in the
representations made by Satan and sin, that faith damns him.” It was our first
parents’ faith in the words of the serpent that spread ruin over God’s new-made
world. And so I doubt not that there are many here concerning whom it may be
said, as it was of Abner: “Shall that man die as the fool dieth? So keen in
everything else, shall he be credulous enough to be led by so simple a snare as
that set by the enemy?” Yet so is it.
II. Now note the next thing in his folly--his unusual advantages. I
think David specially thought of these when he burst out into the cry, “Died
Abner as a fool died?” You glean this from the 34th verse, “Thy hands were not
bound, nor thy feet put into fetters.” Abner was a prisoner to nobody but
himself. No cord bound those mighty arms of his; no iron fetters were upon his
feet; and yet he might us well have been born without hands or feet for all the
good they were to him. Hands unused, feet unemployed, he stands still like a
fool to be killed. Oh! is it not so with many? I ask you, have not your
advantages been unused? Let me ask thee, if thou weft to die and be lost
wouldst thou not have to acknowledge that, in this respect, thou hast certainly
played the fool, for thy, hands are not bound nor thy feet in fetters? You are
not bound with ignorance. It may be that there are some of you here who know
the story of the gospel as well as the preacher. It may be that there are
others of you here who could stand on this platform and run through all the
main doctrines of the Word. What, and will you, with all this knowledge of the
truth, yet die as the fool dieth--with unfettered feet and hands at liberty? I
know not your history, but it would be a strange thing if there are not
hundreds here who have been armed by holy precept. Your Bible may be at the
bottom of your box now, just as it was thrown in three years ago, when you left
your home in the country. Not a few of you have been armed by noble examples. Have
you not had a holy, noble, heavenly example in her who gave you birth, and who,
perhaps, is at this moment before the throne? Then let me ask you, why die as a
fool? It your hands be not bound, and you know the difference between right and
wrong, if you have been armed by holy precept, and if you have been blessed
with a heavenly example, why shall it ever be said of you, “Died Abner as a
fool dieth?” As Caesar Borgia lay dying fast he looked up, and, with clenched
hands, muttered through his teeth the words, “I have provided for everything
throughout life except death.” And, doubtless, there are many here who can”
take up Caesar Borgia’s words as describing their own mad folly. Then, I ask
you, if you die without hope, may it not be said as a requiem over you, “Died
Abner as a fool dieth?”
III. Now note, next, that his very position made the folly of his death
the greater. Oh, Abner, if you had refused to speak to Joab outside the city
gates and insisted on entering them first, even Joab would not have dared to
violate the sanctity of that citadel. Thou wouldst have been safe. I may be
mistaken, but I think I am not. As far as my own feelings are concerned, the
nearer a person is to safety when he dies the sadder is his death. It is sad
enough for the sailor to go down in mid-Atlantic, when there are only the winds
to howl his requiem, and when no eye looks down upon his struggles but that of
the seagull whirling round and round upon the wings of the hurricane. It is sad
enough to sink down with only the shriek of the sea-bird in your ear; but, I
think, it is sadder far to go down just outside the harbour’s mouth, with a
thousand eyes upon you and a thousand hands ready to help if they can. Sad
enough for the traveller in the desert, parched with thirst and pinched with
hunger, to lay him down in the burning dust to die, with only the vulture
hovering over him in air which quivers with intensity of heat. But when we read
some time back of one being literally starved to death in the great metropolis,
when there were wealth all round, food in abundance and a thousand persons
ready to vie with each other as to who should go to his rescue first, it seemed
to me the climax of horror to die in the midst of plenty. “Died Abner as a fool
dieth”--credulous, with advantages unused, and on the very threshold of safety?
God save us from such folly. Shall yonder Abner, who has been the child of
prayer for thirty years, die a fool’s death? Said a godly mother to a son who
used to worship in this place, and is at the present time at the other end of
the world, “Ah, my boy, if ever you get into perdition, it will be over ten
thousand mother’s prayers that she places in front of you as barriers.” It may
be that there are some here who, though most deeply sunk in sin, yet know full
well that there is no night nor morning but the cry goes up to heaven, “Lord,
save my boy!” And shall Abner, the child of so many prayers, die the fool’s
death? (A. G. Brown.)
Verse 34
Thy hands were not bound,
nor thy feet put into fetters.
The moral of affliction
I. What
there is in the text expressive of afflictive scenes.
1. Let
us observe, that the text contains the speech, which was made at the grave of a
very respectable person.
2. The
next thing observable in the text, is the manner of describing a death, that
was brought about by the most execrable villany.
3. The
text concludes with assuring us, that the concern for such a death, of such a
person, was deep and universal.
II. What
useful lessons such a scene of affliction hath a more peculiar tendency to
inculcate upon us.
1. It
should more deeply convince us, that sin is the worst and greatest of all
evils.
2. This
scene of affliction may lead us to reflect on the vanity, which attends human
life, even in its most prosperous state. Let Ira, on this occasion, thankfully
acknowledge our obligations to Divine Providence, for the continuance of our
lives and comforts. (B. Fawcett, M. A.)
Verse
36
Whatsoever the king did pleased all the people.
“The king can do no wrong”
I. First, then, wherever it
is the case that whatsoever the king doeth pleases all the people, this is the
outflow of love; and as it is the case with our King, that whatsoever He does
pleases all His people, we can truly say that this is the outflow of our love
to Him.
1. True love banishes suspicion. No dark suspicions come across the
soul that is once enamoured of the Lord Jesus Christ.
2. It also inspires implicit confidence. We are willing to let His
will be like the apocalyptic book, sealed with seven seals if necessary, and we
unhesitatingly say, “Let His will be done.”
3. Love also suggests unquestioning reverence.
4. It creates sympathetic feeling. When our nature gets to be like
His nature--oh, what a blessed consummation that is!--when our wishes and His
wishes travel the same road, though not with equal footsteps; when that which
He aims at is that which we aim at after our poor fashion; when we can say that
it is more delight to us that He should be delighted than that we should be
delighted ourselves, and that it is a greater honour to us to see Him honoured
than it would be to be honoured ourselves; when we sink ourselves in Him, even
as two divided streams at last dissolve into one--as I have seen a tiny silver
brook come clown to Father Thames, and pour its whole self into him, so as to
be no longer anything but part of the great river--so, when our soul yields
itself up in perfect love to Christ, to think His thoughts, and live and move
in Him so that it is no longer we who live but Christ Who liveth in us; oh,
then it is that whatsoever the King doeth pleaseth all His people! When the
believer comes to be what He should be in the fulness of his love, his will is
lost in the will of Christ, his very life is hidden away with Christ in God,
and then he realises how true it is that whatsoever the King doeth pleaseth all
His people.
II. The love that manifests
itself thus is the consequence of knowledge. Human love is blind; but the love
which is wrought in us by the Spirit of God is as full of eyes as are the great
wheels of Divine Providence. There is the best of reasons why everything that
Jesus does should please all His people, because everything He does is right,
and we shall feel this in proportion as we combine knowledge with love, or our
love is based on knowledge.
1. We know the character of Christ.
2. We know something of His designs, and we know that He designs the
glory of the Father through the salvation of those the Father gave him.
3. We know something of His modes of operation. We have learned that
it is His habit often to disguise Himself; His way is in the sea, and His path
in the great waters, and His footsteps are not known except to those who are
familiar with Him.
4. We know something of our Lord’s rights, and therefore we can never
venture to interfere with His actions.
III. This is the secret of
rest: “Whatsoever the king
did pleased all the people.” To know that the King has done it, and to see His
Divine hand in anything, is more than half the battle which ends in sweet
content. When you have seen God’s hand, then say, “I would not have it
otherwise than it is.” I know several persons who are always in trouble and
unhappy because there is a dispute between them and God. I remember one to whom
I solemnly spoke, years ago, and not long after he passed away. I went to see
his dying child, the only one he had left, and he said to me, “Do not talk to
my daughter about death, do not mention it to her.” “Well, then,” I said, “if I
may not mention death, I will not go upstairs.” The father said to me, “God
could not take that child away.” He had lost several before, and he said that,
if his daughter died, he should call God a tyrant, and I know not what. At last
I stood before him, and I said, “You are making for yourself a rod that is much
heavier than God Himself lays upon you. I fear that you will yourself die if
you act in this way.” As he could not be brought to reason, and kicked and
rebelled against God’s dealings with him, I was not surprised to learn that,
soon after his child died, he himself also died. It does not do to quarrel with
God; let the potsherds of the earth strive with other potsherds if they will,
but woe to him who contendeth with his Maker! Instead of that, bow before him,
not only because you must, but because you delight to acknowledge him as your
Lord.
IV. “Lastly, this will be a
lesson in obedience.
1. Whatever service the King requires of you will please you.
2. Oftentimes, we are permitted to work hard, and yet to meet with
great discouragement. It was a pretty remark I read, the other day, of a
Christian man who said, “I used to have many disappointments, until I changed
one letter of the word, and chopped it into two, so that instead of
‘disappointments,’ I read it ‘His appointments.’” That was a wonderful change,
for “disappointments” break your heart, but “His appointments” you accept right
cheerily. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Verse 38
Know are not that there is
a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel?
A great man
As we review the history
of the world, we see it dividing itself into three stages. In the first stage,
power is magnified, force is deified, the great man is represented as a sort of
Hercules, with his lion skin and club, in a world of insects. In that era
Nimrod is the hero of the world’s heart. Then strength received the homage of
men. In the second stage, power is pushed back a step or two, and intellect
comes to the front. The great man is the intellectual man, the man of letters,
the man who swayed his sceptre over the dominion of thought. In that era Homer
is the favoured idol before whom the populace delights to bow. Then genius
received the homage of men. Bug Christianity inaugurated a new era. It pointed
the world not to a Nimrod or a Homer, but to a “Child”; not to power or genius,
but to goodness. The great man of the future will be a good man. The day is
fast coming when a good man like William Guthrie or Norman Macleod shall be
more honoured and esteemed than the hero of a hundred battles, or the mightiest
unsanctified genius that has flashed its lurid light across the centuries.
There is an old proverb which says: “Some men are born great, some men achieve
greatness, but others have greatness thrust upon them.” Sir Titus Salt, of
Saltaire, and Crow Nest, near Halifax, was one of those who achieved greatness.
He was not born great, nor had he greatness thrust upon him, bug he achieved
it. A man of iron will, he made everything with which he had to do bend to it.
1 True goodness alone is true greatness. Greatness no longer depends upon
rentals--the world is too rich. Greatness no longer depends upon pedigree--the
world is too knowing. Nothing is great now but the personal.
“Howe’er it be, it seems to me
‘Tis only noble to be good;
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.”
No amount of material
wealth, no portion of worldly grandeur, no height of intellectual superiority
can invest the soul of a bad man with one spark of true dignity and glory. Miss
salvation, and I care not what you are--I care not what wealth you have--I care
not whom you call father;--miss salvation, and you are in a wretchedly low
estate. But be saved--be born again--have faith in God--love to Christ, and you
are at once elevated. You are rich, noble, highborn, because God-born. You have
a patent of nobility from the skies. You belong to the moral aristocracy of the
universe. You are a member of God’s House of Lords. (W. Francis.)
Greatness
When I speak of greatness
I do not refer to the greatness which depends upon worldly fortune or
favour--the dignities and distinctions which are the product of a royal
smile--the mere accidentals of rank and riches--the greatness that glitters in
the gay saloon, and is encompassed by the flatteries of courteous and
captivated satellites. I refer to the greatness which consists in the
possession of a grand, cultivated disciplined intellect--in the resolution to
do, and doing, what Other men have shunned. Cousin makes a distinction between
the man and the great man, He says “There are two parts in a great man--the
part of the great man and the part of the man; the first belongs to history,
the second should be abandoned to memoirs and biography. History should be a
classic drama--it should bring together all the details and individual traits
into a unity; it should place in clear light the idea which a great man
represents. The philosophy of history does not know individuals; it omits, it
ignores the purely individual and biographical side of man, for this very
simple reason--that this is not what humanity has seen in him; that it has not
adored him nor followed him on account of this, but notwithstanding this. The
fundamental rule of the philosophy of history in regard to great men is to do
as humanity does, to judge them by what they have done--by what they have
wished to do; to neglect the description of weaknesses inherent in their
individuality, and which have perished with it, and to fasten itself upon the
great things which they have done, which have served humanity, and which still
endure in the memory of men; in short, to search out and establish what
constitutes them historical personages, what has given them power and
glory--namely, the idea which they represent, and their intimate relation with
the spirit of their times and of their nation.”
I. Achieve
greatness. It is possible for you each to attain a position of usefulness and
honour, such as at present you do not dream of reaching. Do not suppose that
all the great and good men have sprung from the ranks of the leisured
aristocracy. As a rule the foremost men in all branches have risen from the
industrial classes. AEsop was a slave. Homer a beggar. Demosthenes was the son
of a curler. Virgil was the son of a baker. Socrates was a statuary. Raffaelle
was the son of a peasant. Luther the son of a miner. The Scotch poet, Ferguson,
the son of a humble labourer. Burns was a farm rustic. Ben Jonson was a
bricklayer. Blackstone was the son of a draper. Butler was the son of a farmer.
Stephenson was a collier. Faraday a bookbinder. Arkwright a barber. Davy a
druggist. Milton a schoolmaster. Caxton, Willis, Horace Greely, Dickens,
Douglas Jerrold and Benjamin Franklin were all printers. Morrison, the great
Chinese scholar and missionary, was a bootmaker. Carlyle was the son of a
stonemason. Benjamin Disraeli, who became a peer of the realm, and made his
Queen an Empress, was a solicitor’s clerk. Such lives remind you that energy,
perseverance, and integrity in the use of your God-given abilities may place
you in the foremost rank of those who are benefactors of your race. Up! Up! select
the calling which is congenial to your taste, which is honourable before men,
and approved of God, and then be resolute, undaunted, persevering! If now and
again defeated, remember that, though cast down, you are not utterly destroyed.
There is, however, a nobler greatness yet--a greatness of the soul--a greatness
that springs from relationship to and frequent communion with the King of
kings; a greatness which is displayed in growing conformity to the likeness of
Christ and increasing usefulness in His vineyard; a greatness much more to be
desired than a mighty intellect, social grandeur, or worldly fame.
II. Retain
greatness, It is often easier to rise than to keep the place procured. Many a
time an army has stormed and carried a citadel which it was powerless to hold.
So not infrequently men have stepped up to vantage ground from which by some
lamentable moral declination, or culpable negligence, they have most
ingloriously slipped. We have read of many men who have risen to a position of
honour and influence, from which sunny altitude they have fallen for ever, like
a bright exhalation in the evening.” You think of Saul the son of Kish, chosen
of God, anointed by Samuel, and made the first king of Israel; and you remember
how he disobeyed the Lord, was defeated in battle, craved death at the hand of
a fellow-man, and then, by his own deed, terminated his career. You think of
Wolsey, the son of a butcher, rising to be Cardinal and Lord-Chancellor, then
stripped of his dignities and arrested for treason. Hear his words, as our
great dramatic poet has given them:--
“Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness!
. . . I have ventured
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders
This many summers, in a sea of glory;
But far beyond my depth, my high-blown pride
At length broke under me, and now has left me,
Weary and old with service, to the mercy
Of a rude stream, that must for ever hide me.”
Look at Thomas Cromwell,
the son of a blacksmith at Putney, rising to be Earl of Essex and Lord High
Chamberlain, yet arrested for treason, committed to the Tower for seven weeks,
and then conducted to the scaffold and beheaded. Look at Robert Devereux, Earl
of Essex, becoming the special favourite of Queen Elizabeth, falling into
disgrace and imprudence which led to his being arraigned for trial at Westminster,
conveyed to the Tower, and a week afterwards beheaded. In each of these cases
we may use the text, and say, “A great man has fallen.” But theirs was a fall
into shame, loss, sorrow, and irretrievable ruin. Theirs was a moral fall, a
fall in social esteem, a fall in national honour. If we have realised any of
our fond hopes, achieved any of our cherished plans, let us not be unduly
elated or incautious. Let not the man who girdeth himself with the robes of
official dignity boast himself as he who putteth them off. There is a
legitimate fear that all who have risen, or are rising, will do well to foster.
There is a holy fear of falling which the noblest, the purest, and the most
perfect cannot afford to disdain. It is that which is recommended by the
inspired writers in the words, “Happy is the man that feareth always, but he
that hardeneth his heart shall fall into mischief.” “Let us, therefore, fear,
lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest any of you should seem
to come short of it.” Happy is the man who perseveres to the end, and is
faithful unto death.
III. The great die.
(J. H. Hitchens, D. D.)
The warrior’s grave
1. Our first lesson has reference to the dealings of God’s
Providence, and is one of encouragement. We are not sufficiently accustomed to
recognize the hand of Providence in the ordinary arrangements of Society, and
are too prone to think and act as though we regarded the affairs of nations as
lying, if not beyond the range of Divine power, at least beyond the pale of
Divine sympathy and interest. Yet to an observant and pious mind, there can be
few studies more interesting than to trace the indications of the presence of
God amid all the affairs of men, and to educe that testimony which all history
bears to his goodness, his wisdom, and his power. How manifest does this appear
in the history of the Jewish people. God designed them to occupy a special
position and to do an important work, and all his dispensations towards them
were designed to discipline and prepare them for that work. And it is scarcely
too much to infer from the eminence to which our country has been raised, and
the influence which she wields, that there is a special mission entrusted to
her--that it is from her, directly or indirectly, that the instrumentality is
to go forth by which the universal conquests of the cross are to be achieved,
and that all God’s dispensations towards her have been designed to fit her for
this glorious enterprize. Again and again has God raised up the men suited for
the peculiar crisis through which she has been called to pass--an Alfred, a
Cromwell, a William of Orange, and: a Wellington--men, each of whom was fitted
for his times and for his work. But we have partially profited by the lesson thus
conveyed, if our only sentiment be one of gratitude for the past. All the
experience of Divine goodness in the past is calculated to awaken our hope and
give us strong confidence for the future. Surely we are warranted, nay, we are
bound to trust in Him who has thus abundantly blessed us in past times, and to
cherish the assurance that, as in the past, so in the future He will raise men
eminently qualified for any periods of peculiar peril and difficulty which may
await the church and the world. It teaches us that this world is not abandoned
to the sport of conflicting elements and agencies, to be the mere plaything of
chance, or the creature of a blind and irresistible destiny, but that there is
a God who watches over its course, controls all the influences by which it is
affected, draws good out of that which might seem to be only evil, overrules
the counsels of its potentates and princes, and makes everything tend to the
furtherance of His own glory and the promotion of human happiness.
2. Our second lesson is one of anticipation and hope. There is no
brighter feature in the prophetic predictions relative to the coming Millennium
of Messiah’s reign, than that in which it is represented as a period of
universal peace. But how is this great change to be affected? Rationalism will
not do it. Philanthropy wilt not do it. Art cannot do it. Commerce will not do
it. But the great work to which none of these influences is equal, the Gospel
of Christ will accomplish. That Gospel is destined to achieve universal power,
and one glorious result of its victory will be to bind men of all countries,
climes and colours, in one holy chain of friendship and love, which nothing
shall be able to disturb or dissolve.
3. Our third lesson is one of example.
There are three great Qualities
which the Christian soldier should aim to copy.
1. And first, vigilance. Thou art in the presence of a foe who is
ever wakeful and ever active--who will not fail to improve every opportunity
which thy negligence, ignorance, or slumber may present, to secure the victory
and accomplish thy destruction--who never sounds a trumpet of truce, but to
deceive the unwary soul, and to lure it on to its eternal ruin.
2. A second conspicuous and notable quality is determination to
conquer. In the carnal warfare, every precaution may prove unavailing, every
effort useless--the resources of genius and the daring of valour may be called
into requisition in vain, and after man has done all, he may find that the race
is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong. But it cannot be so in
the spiritual struggles. Here victory is promised to thee by One whose word
cannot be false, and whose power cannot prove insufficient to accomplish the
great designs of His love. Thine, then, must be the holy resolve to conquer in
this war--thy course must be ever onward--up-ward--heavenward--continually
winning fresh laurels and rearing new trophies--overcoming every varied form of
temptation and sin, until the last enemy be vanquished, and the weapons of
warfare exchanged for the meeds of victory.
3. Unbending loyalty. Christian! let this loyalty be thine. Be thou
true and faithful and devoted to that God to whose service thou hast
consecrated thyself.
4. Our last lesson is one of warning as to the vanity of human glory.
“Vanity of vanities all is vanity.” And so must it be with you. Whatever your
course, in its extent or in its character--be it long protracted, or speedily
closed--be it brightened with continual joys, or darkened with successive
griefs--the end of all must be in death. This sentence is universal--from this
issue there is no escape--and you, who are striving most earnestly after the
things of the present world, must know that you cannot retain them, for the day
comes when you must die. (J. G. Rogers, B. A.)
Grief at the loss of a
great statesman
When Mirabeau, the great
French statesman, died the Assembly voted that he should be buried in the
Pantheon. On the day of his funeral an immense multitude gathered together. The
streets were filled by a huge procession, which followed his remains to the
grave. A lady, who was greatly annoyed by the dust, complained of the
municipality for neglecting to water the boulevards. “Madam,” said a poor
fishwoman who was standing beside her, “they reckoned on our tears!” It was a
wonderful token of the affection in which this strange and violent man was
held. (H. Aspden.)
The death of a great man
Canning exclaimed, after
the death of Edmund Burke: “There is but one event, but it is the event of the
world--Burke is dead.”
Verse 39
I am this day weak, though anointed king.
Balancings in life
David utters the words which hint at something concerning the
balancings in life.
I. Some
disappointment is sure to follow upon the attainment of our hopes and to
intermingle with our joys. Men struggle for riches all life long, and when they
have gained them, oft have no power of enjoyment left. The argosy of food is
just coming into port, but somehow is caught by the tide, driven behind the
pier, and wrecked on the rugged rocks outside. The topmost step of the throne
is reached, the sceptre grasped, the crown placed on the head, when the thorn
is felt pressing into the tender brow and the paean of joy is toned by the
minor note of sorrow. This is not the invariable experience, but general. One
might say that the exceptions establish the rule.
II. These
balancings in life are intended by the author of all life. God has not promised
that ease shall always follow on effort, nor full peace come immediately a
victory is won. It is of the Divine appointment that those who have wealth,
powers, or high position shall often have also strong jealousies, bitter
annoyances, severe domestic troubles, great losses, unfulfilled expectations,
and harsh regrets over unrealized ideas. That man of genteel manners and calm
exterior has a very Vesuvius in his breast. You see not the throes that disturb
his soul. So poverty and weakness, sickness and solitude, as well as strength and
riches, have their balancings. Power can grow out of privation, and strength
out of suffering, while ennui may be the offspring of pleasurable ease
and satiety of constant satisfaction. All happiness has its alloy and all
sorrow its surcease. This is by Divine arrangement. These thoughts should teach
us--
1. To find all our joy and strength in God.
2. To be thankful for any balancings that may develop being and life.
3. To see to it that we so live that no painful counterbalancing may
follow upon this life in the future; to be careful lest the very greatness of
the glory and richness of the reward should only make us feel how meagre was
our earth-life and unpardonable our spiritual coldness.
4. That we should never let despondency seize us, remembering these
balancings in life.
5. Many are weak and know it not. They are anointed heirs of God,
kings and priests, but through sin they are weak every day. David knew what he
had lost when Abner was taken; but many so live that they ignore the loss they
suffer by their wilful ignorance of Christ, through whom alone any can be
really strong and kingly in spirit. (Frederick Hastinas.)
Man’s weakness and God’s anointing
I. We hay be
anointed, and yet weak. Every believer is an anointed king. He was really
anointed in the covenant of election before the world was. When Jesus Christ
was set up from everlasting, His people were really set up in Him. Every child
of God also was actually anointed when Jesus Christ ascended up on high, and
led captivity captive and received gifts for men. But in our souls, our
anointing time comes in that hour when, being called by grace and washed from
sin, we begin to reign over sin, self, the world, death, and hell, by virtue of
our union with Christ. Every believer is a king to-day. And yet it is quite
possible that he may be groaning out, “I am weak;” for weakness and Divine
Anointing may stand together. God’s children are often very weak in faith: they
stagger at the promise through unbelief. It is not always in their power to
“set to their seal that God is true.” Christians have ebbs of faith as well as
floods; they have winters as well as summers; they have times of drought, and
years of famine. The weakness of a Christian’s faith may also affect all his
other graces. It must do so; for when faith is strong, every other grace is
strong; when that is weak, all things else decline. It may be to-day that your
hope has become very dim; you are in bondage through fear of death, and see not
the mansions in the skies. You have forgotten that you are in Christ, and now
you no more look for His appearing. Your hope declines, and all your comfort
dies.
1. Let me remark that David at this special time felt his weakness,
more particularly because he was in a new position. He has come into a new place--nations
are at his feet--men bow before him; it is a new position, and he says, “I am
this day weak, though anointed king.” Whenever you make a change in life;
whenever God calls you to another set of duties, you will surely find out what
perhaps you do not now believe--that you are weak, though anointed king.
2. Here, too, David had come into new temptation. The arrows had been
shot at him before, from one direction alone, now the storm caeses on one side,
and begins on the other. If men knew that the storm would always ,come to one
side of the house they would repair and strengthen it, and then they would not
fear the blast; but if on a sudden it whirled round and took the other corner,
how would they be prepared for that? Where there is the honey of royalty, there
will surely be the wasps of temptations. High places and God’s praise do seldom
well agree; a full cup is not easily carried without spilling, and he that
stands on a pinnacle needs a clear head and much grace.
3. And then further, David had now come into new duties. It was his
duty to have taken Joab and have made him suffer the full penalty of the law
for having killed Abner. A king must defend the oppressed and avenge the
murdered, but David fails to perform
the new duty, for he feels that he is too weak.
II. It was but
little wonderful that David’s kingdom was weak, for it was but newly gained;
and it is but little marvel if we also are very weak in the beginning of our
spiritual life. When a king has had time to set himself down upon his throne,
and to sweep away before him this party and that, either by politics or by the
power of the sword, and so to put down every rival, then his throne becomes
confirmed. Young Christian, it is no wonder that you are weak, when the good
work has only lately begun with you. See the lambs in the fold: it is well that
they have been shorn in
good weather, for what would become of the shorn lamb in the untempered wind?
Shall we suppose that the young sapling shall stand as firmly as the oak with
its gnarled roots and its hoary branches, which have been twisted together by many a storm? What!
Shall a babe fight a battle? Shall a new-born infant go forth to war? Do you
wonder because the new creature is weak? Wonder rather at its power, than at
its weakness.
III. David was weak
only in the flesh, and that the Christian truly is only weak there. Why was
David weak? “Because,” said he, “the sons of Zeruiah are too hard for me. I
cannot subdue them; I cannot keep them under; I cannot manage any kingdom
whilst such turbulent spirits as these interfere and intermeddle with
everything.”
IV. It is where the
flesh is strong that we are weak. Why was not David strong? Why, because of the
sons of Zeruiah, yet these sons of Zeruiah were his greatest strength. What could
he have done without Joab and Abishai--Joab the man who smote the garrison of
Jebus, and Abishai who slew three hundred men in single-handed fight. What
could he do without these? These were David’s mighty men, those who always led
the van, and with a tremendous shout dashed among the Philistines, and
scattered the uncircumcised. So it is with us. Whatever is our strength in the
flesh is sure to be our weakness in the spirit. Remember that your sons of
Zeruiah will be hard to manage. I believe the strength of God, s ministers
generally lies in the points where they are the weakest, and their weakness
usually lies in their strength. That is to say, natural strength will be toned
down by a spiritual weakness, and a natural weakness will be exalted and be
made the vehicle and channel for spiritual strength. It has often been so. The
very physical appearance of Paul, his personal presence which was said to be
weak and contemptible, becomes to him the subject of glorying. He glories in
his infirmity, for it is the means of giving honour to God. “This is strange
logic,” says one. It is; God’s logic is strange. Gideon fears the Midianites
because of the slender number of his soldiers, but the Lord says, “the people
are yet too many for me.” The king of Judah on another occasion hires for
himself with so many hundred thousand talents a number of mercenary troops from
the king of Israel. “Now,” says he, “I shall win the battle”; but before the
battle begins the prophet bids him send these men back. God can do better
without means than he can with means that are audacious enough to think
themselves necessary. The Lord will always throw the sword away from his hand
when that sword begins to boast itself. Assyria is his axe to cut down the
cedars, but if you set down any good thing you have ever done to yourself, God
will bring you down.
V. Our weakness
shall not prevent our reigning by-and-by. David’s kingdom did not shake, even
when his heart failed him; and it would have stood just as fast if he had
knocked away Joab and Abishai, who seemed to be the props that supported it. It
was David’s business to believe that come what may God’s purpose must stand,
and God will do all His pleasure. It is just the same with you, Christian,
to-day. However weak you may be, and whatever means may have failed you,
remember God hath said it--you shall be saved; He has promised that you shall
be glorified with Christ; and so you must be, come fair, come foul. (C H.
Spurgeon.)
Strong yet weak
I. Much of our
weakness arises from want of faith in the lovingkindness of God. Now, many of
us think that unless we have money and health and friends, God does not trouble
about us. And this want of faith in His love and care makes us weak in every
step of life. Instead of being cheerful, we are full of anxiety, and instead of
being joyous as a lark we mope like a chained dog that has no dinner.
1. Let us have sincere faith in God.
2. Hold on to faith in another world. Let no man wrest that faith
from you.
3. Hold on to this faith, and it will make you strong to bear
burdens, to resist temptations, to endure sufferings, and to die in peace.
II. Another thing
that weakens us is when we permit ourselves to be soured in temper because of
defeat or opposition in life. We ought to feel ashamed of ourselves when we complain
of our surroundings. Be cheerful in heart, trusting God. Don’t be soured by the
so-called “evils” of life; but sing joyfully as you go along.
III. Another cause
of our weakness is that while some of us put off the devil’s regimentals, we
omit to put on Christian armour. The Lord Jesus tells of a man who cleansed his
house. He turned out the big devils and made his house beautiful. After awhile, one Of the devils
returned, and seeing the house garnished but empty--not filled with angels in
place of the devils--he entered and brought with him ten Other devils worse
than himself. It is so, alas I with many professors. They turn out the big,
ugly devils, but they forget to take in the angels. If your heart be empty of a
great and powerful love for God and mankind, sin will enter in, and show itself
very soon in your life. (W. Birch.)
Folly of being powerless
If an electric car stands motionless on the tracks, it is nothing
against the power of electricity. If an invalid has no appetite, and cannot go
out of doors at night, it is no argument against things good to eat and the joy
of starlit air. If a man does not know a flower by name nor a poem by heart, it
is no indictment of the beauty of a rose or the charm of some poem. If we bear
the name of Christ, but give no other sign of Him, if we go through the forms
of godliness but live powerless lives, it is a thousand reproaches to us. To be
powerless when Christ has all power, and we can have all we want, is an
arraignment to which we can make no answer that is not self-incriminating. (Christian
Weekly.)
The limits of human supremacy
To his confidential servants David speaks his whole mind freely.
He feels that some apology is needed for leaving the authors of this heinous
crime unpunished. As an excuse for doing so he pleads his youth and weakness.
Though he had been anointed king, his kingdom’ was as yet far from being
securely established, he could not dispense with his warlike nephews’ help. He
dared not order the execution of his best general. Probably the army would have
interfered to prevent it. But he protests against their hardness and cruelty,
and declares that Joab will not escape the Divine judgment for his crime. “It
was one of those movements in which a king, even with the best intentions, must
feel to his own heavy cost the weakness of everything human and the limits of
human supremacy.” Ewald’s Hist. of Israel. (A. F. Kirkpatrick, M. A.)
The assassin spared
“It is worse than a crime,” says an astute politician, “it is a
blunder.” And though it was a clear enough crime in David to pass by Joab’s
murder of Abner, it came out afterwards to be a most terrible blunder. All
David’s after life might well have been different but for that blunder. There
might have been no “matter of Uriah,” and no rebellion of Absalom, and none of
the other miseries that so desolated David’s house, had he not committed this
fatal blunder of letting Joab live. David knew his duty quite well. “The Lord
shall reward the doer of evil according to his wickedness,” David proclaimed
over Abner’s mangled body. Yes; but David held the sword for no other purpose
than to be the Lord’s right hand in rewarding all the evil that was done in
Israel in his day. But, then, Joab was the most powerful and the most necessary
man in Israel, and Abner had no friends, and David contented himself with
pronouncing an eloquent requiem over Abner, and leaving his murderer to go free
in all his offices and all his honours. Joab was deep enough to understand
quite well why his life was spared. He knew quite well that it was fear and not
love that had moved David to let him live. It was a diplomatic act of David to
spare Joab, but David was playing with a far deeper diplomatist than himself.
Very soon we shall see this respited assassin ordering David about and
dictating to him till we shall pity David as well as blame him. Joab’s impunity
speedily shot up into an increased contempt for David, till secret contempt
became open insolence, and open insolence open and unavenged rebellion. Was it
not a blunder?
“In
the corrupted currents of this world,
Offence’s
gilded hand may shove by justice,
And
oft ‘tis seen, the wicked prize itself
Buys
out the law: but ‘tis not so above;
There
is no shuffling, there the action lies
In
his true nature; and we ourselves compell’d,
Even
to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To
give in evidence.”
(Alex. Whyte, D. D.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》