Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 563
Delivered on Sunday Morning,, April 3rd, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
“Absalom sent for Joab, to have sent him to the king; but he would not come to him; and when he sent again, the second time, he would not come. Therefore he said unto his servants, See, Joab’s field is near mine, and he hath barley there: Go and set it on fire. And Absalom’s servants set the field on fire. Then Joab arose, and came to Absalom unto his house, and said unto him, Wherefore have thy servants set my field on fire?”—2 Samuel 14:29-31.
YOU REMEMBER the historical narrative. Absalom had fled from Jerusalem under fear of David’s anger. He was after a time permitted to return; but he was not admitted into the presence of the king. Earnestly desiring to be restored to his former posts of honor and favor, he besought Joab to come to him, intending to request him to act as mediator. Joab, having lost much of his liking for the young prince, refused to come; and, though he was sent for repeatedly, he declined to attend at his desire. Absalom therefore thought of a most wicked, but most effective plan of bringing Joab into his company. He bade his servants set Joab’s field of barley on fire. This brought Joab down in high wrath to ask the question, “Wherefore have thy servants set my field on fire?” This was all that Absalom wanted; he wished an interview, and he was not scrupulous as to the method by which he obtained it. The burning of the barley-field brought Joab into his presence, and Absalom’s ends were accomplished.
Omitting the sin of the deed, we have here a picture of what is often done by our gracious God, with the wisest and best design. Often he sendeth for us, not for his profit, but for ours. He would have us come near to him and receive a blessing at his hands; but we are foolish and cold-hearted and wicked, and we will not come. He, knowing that we will not come by any other means, sendeth a serious trial: he sets our barley-field on fire; which he has a right to do, seeing our barley-fields are far more his than they are ours. In Absalom’s case it was wrong; in God’s case he has a right to do as he wills with his own. He takes away from us our most choice delight, upon which we have set our heart, and then we inquire at his hands, “Wherefore contendest thou with me? Why am I thus smitten with thy rod? What have I done to provoke thee to anger?” And thus we are brought into the presence of God, and we receive blessings of infinitely more value than those temporary mercies which the Lord had taken from us. You will see, then, how I intend to use my text this morning. As the pastor of so large a church as this, I am constantly brought into contact with all sorts of human sorrow. Frequently it is poverty,—poverty too which is not brought on by idleness or vice, but real poverty and most distressing and afflicting poverty too, because it visits those who have fought well the battle of life, and have struggled hard for years, and yet in their old age scarce know where bread shall come from, except that they rest upon the promise—“Thy bread shall be given thee, and thy water shall be sure.” Messengers come to me sometimes as fast as they came to Job, bearing sad tidings concerning one and another of you. There comes one—“I entreat your prayers for me, sir: God has been pleased to take away my wife with a stroke; she now lies in the cold grave.” Another cries, “O sir, my wife is sore sick, and the physician saith that there is but little hope: pray for her, that she may be strengthened in the hour of her departure; and for me, that I may be enabled to kiss the Master’s rod.” Then comes another—“My son is afflicted; he is to undergo a painful operation: pray that the surgeon’s knife may not be his death, but that he may be enabled to bear up under it.” And when I have sympathized with a company of sad complaints like these, another set of messengers will be waiting at the door. How few families are long without severe trials! hardly a person escapes for any long season without tribulation. With impartial hand sorrow knocks at the door of the palace and the cottage. Why all this? The Lord, we know, “Doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men” for naught; why can it be that he employs so many frowning servants, and sendeth out so often his usher of the black rod? Wherefore can it be? Perhaps I may be able to give the fitting answer to this very proper inquiry, and it may be that I may be as serviceable to the afflicted as the jailer was to Paul and Silas when he washed their stripes.
I shall use my text, first of all, in reference to believers; and then, with regard to the unconverted. Oh for help from above!
I. First of all, brethren, let us use the text WITH REFERENCE TO BELIEVERS IN CHRIST.
My beloved brethren and sisters in Jesus Christ, we cannot expect to avoid tribulation. If other men’s barley-fields are not burned, ours will be. If the Father uses the rod nowhere else, he will surely make his true children smart. As Paul saith, and as our hymnster hath rhymed it—