New Park Street Pulpit · Sermon No. 147
Delivered on Sabbath Morning, May 31, 1857, New Park Street Chapel, Southwark.
“When thou hearest the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees, that then thou shall bestir thyself: for then shall the Lord go out before thee, to smite the host of the Philistines.”—2 Samuel 5:24.
DAVID HAD just fought the Philistines in this very valley, and gained a signal victory, so that he said, “the Lord hath broken forth upon mine enemies before me as the breach of waters.” The Philistines had come up in great hosts, and had brought their gods with them, that like Israel, when the ark of the Lord was brought into their midst, they might feel quite sure of victory. However, by the help of God David easily put them to rout, burned their images in the fire, and obtained a glorious victory over them. Note, however, that when they came a second time against David, David did not go up to fight them, without enquiring of the Lord. Once he had been victorious; he might have said, as many of us have said, in fact, in other cases—“I shall be victorious again; I may rest quite sure that if I have triumphed once I shall triumph yet again. Wherefore should I go and seek at the Lord’s hands?” Not so, now David. He had gained one victory by the strength of the Lord; he would not venture upon another, until he had ensured the same. He went and asked the sacred oracle, “Shall I go up against them?” and when he was informed that he was not immediately to march against them, but to encamp so as to surprise them at the mulberry-trees, he did not demur a single moment to the mandate of God; and when he was bidden to wait until he should hear the sound in the tops of the mulberry-trees before he went to fight, he was not in an ill haste to rush to battle at once, but he tarried until the mulberry-trees began to sing at the top by reason of the wind that rushed along the leaves. He would wait until God’s sign was given; he said, “I will not lift my spear nor my hand till God hath bidden me do it, lest I should go to war at my own charges, and lose all I have obtained.”
My brethren, let us learn from David to take no steps without God. The last time you moved, or went into another business, or changed your situation in life, you asked God’s help, and then did it, and you were blessed in the doing of it. You have been up to this time a successful man, you have always sought God, but do not think that the stream of providence necessarily runs in a continuous current; remember, you may to-morrow without seeking God’s advice venture upon a step which you will regret but once, and that will be until you die. You have been wise hitherto, it may be because you have trusted in the Lord with all your heart, and have not leaned to your own understanding; you have said like David, “Let us enquire of the Lord,” and like Jehoshaphat, who said to Ahab,” “I will not go up until I have enquired of the Lord;” and you have not to ask priests of Baal, but you have said, “Is there not here one, prophet of the Lord, that I may enquire at his hands?” Now, keep on in the same way: do not, I beseech you, go before the cloud. If Providence tarries, tarry till Providence comes, never go before it. He goes on a fool’s errand who goes before God but he walks in a blessed path who sees the footsteps of Providence, and reads the map of Scripture, and so discovers, “This is the way wherein I am to walk.” This may be imputed to some one here; I thought I would begin with it, for it may be I have some young man here who is about unadvisedly to take a step which may be his ruin, temporarily; I beseech him, if he loves the Lord—I speak to none but those who are already Christians,—I beseech him not to venture until he has sought counsel of God, and unless he has a firm conviction that he is doing it not merely for his own advantage but to help him in serving his God the better. Unless he can be sure that he has God’s approval of his steps let me—by the mistake that many have made, by the mischief that he will do himself unless he listens to me,—let me beseech him to stop, and not take so much as one half a step, or lift his foot, until he has sought of God, and has had the answer, “Go up against them.”
Thus I have introduced the text: but now I would refer to it in another way altogether. David was not to go to battle, until he heard a sound of a rustling in the tons of the mulberry trees. There was a calm, perhaps; and God’s order to David was, “You are not to begin to fight until the wind begins rustling through the tops of the mulberry trees;” or as the Rabbis have it, and it is a very pretty conceit if it be true, the footsteps of angels walking along the tops of the mulberry trees make them rustle; that was the sign for them to fight, when God’s cherubim were going with them, when they should come, who can walk through the clouds and fly through the air, led by the great Captain himself, walking along the mulberry trees, and so make a rustle by their celestial footsteps. How true that may be, I cannot tell; my remark IS only this—that there are certain signs which ought to be indications to us of certain duties. I shall use the verse in this way. First, there are certain special duties, which are not duties to everybody, but only to some people. If we wish to know whether we are to perform these duties, we must seek signs concerning them, and not go and rush into a duty to which we are not called, unless we get a sign, even as David got the rustling among the mulberry leaves. And then I should use it, in the second place, thus, there are certain duties which are common to all of us; but when we see some sign of God’s Holy Spirit being in motion, or some other signs, these are seasons when we ought to be more than ever active, and more than ever earnest in the service of our Master.