New Park Street Pulpit · Sermon No. 334
Delivered on Sabbath Morning, September 9, 1860, by the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon, at Exeter Hall, Strand
“I am this day weak, though anointed king; and these men, the sons of Zeruiah, are too hard for me.” 2 Samuel 3:39.
You will remember that David was secretly anointed king over Israel by Samuel, but he waited many a weary year before the crown actually rested upon his head. For a long time he was an exile from the very country of which he was afterwards to be the sovereign. He was hunted about by the remorseless cruelty of Saul till he became like a partridge upon the mountains, and the feet of the wild roe were not more used to flight than those of David. A band of men gradually gathered round him, over whom he became the captain, and he lived the life of an adventurer, the leader of heroic soldiers, who at once protected their country from its foreign foes, and sheltered its disaffected subjects. At last Saul fell in battle upon Mount Gilboa, and Jonathan, the heir-at-law to the throne, also fell upon that dewless mountain. David was assured of the death of Saul by the fact that the head of the king was brought to him by an Amalekite, whose crime he punished with death, though the rogue hoped to have been rewarded with abundance of treasure.
David’s own kinsmen at once recognized him as the leader of their clan and he, in Hebron, began to reign over Judah and the south of the country. But the mass of the nation had not yielded to him and Abner, the commander-in-chief of Saul’s standing army, fearful lest he might lose his influence, and be supplanted by Joab, who naturally would become commander-in-chief under David, set up Ishbosheth as the successor of Saul. And so there became two kingdoms; David was the acknowledged head of the one, and Ishbosheth, the master of the larger part of the territory. Abner was playing king-maker and he soon showed that he felt his power and meant to use it. Having engaged in a quarrel with Ishbosheth, on account of Abner’s desire to take to wife a concubine of Saul, he at once resented the interference of Ishbosheth, and determined to put down the king whom he himself had put up. He came to David, therefore, and made terms with him, upon which he would give up to him the kingdom, and Ishbosheth would cease to be his rival. Joab hears of this, and not wishing to be supplanted, and perhaps seriously believing that Abner was not honest, follows after him, entices him back, and just outside the walls of Hebron, a City of Refuge, slays him in cold blood—a most dastardly and treacherous murder! David had nothing to do with it; he did his best to exonerate himself from it, and pronounced an awful curse upon Joab, the murderer, and upon all his posterity. He had not, however, the manly courage to summon Joab to the bar as a murderer. David was afraid of him; the man had all the army at his back—and instead of being, as in his youthful days, fearless of man, David became for a while a time-server and permitted the guilty to escape. He prepared a glorious funeral for Abner, and made Joab walk as mourner in the train, accompanied by his king, who sang a poetic and mournful dirge over the bleeding corpse. Then David said to his courtiers and friends, “I am this day weak, though anointed king; and these men, the sons of Zeruiah, are too hard for me. The men who have been my bravest comrades and stood by me in the darkest hour, have been too hard for me. They have compelled me to submit to an action which my soul detests; they are criminals whom I cannot punish. The sons of Zeruiah are too hard for me.”
It was necessary to state these historical particulars in order to set my text in its context, and now I wish to show how this passage in sacred history is but the transcript of what has occurred many and many a time in the history and experience of all the people of God.
I. The first remark I shall make will be this. We may 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. When He was proclaimed King, and when His Father promised glorious honors to Him as the result of what He would do, His people were really constituted a royal priesthood in the Person of their Representative and Covenant Head. Every child of God also was actually anointed when Jesus Christ ascended up on high and led captivity captive and received gifts for men. When Jesus took His seat at the right hand of the Eternal Father, amidst the songs of angels and the shouts of cherubim, all His elect in Him did virtually take their thrones. “For He has raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” But in our souls, our anointing time comes in that hour when, being called by Divine 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 today! It may be that he does not wear his crown, and lives beneath his dignity; yet he is a king by Divine right. He is of a kingly, no, of a Divine race—he is sprung from the loins of the King of kings, and he is soon to enter upon his full dominion—for when Jesus shall appear, then being like He is, he shall reign with Him forever and ever!