Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3122
“And David said, There is none like that; give it to me.” 1 Samuel 21:9.
PERHAPS you remember the circumstances under which these words were spoken. David had been warned by Jonathan that Saul sought his life and, therefore, he left the court in a hurry and fled. He appears to have gone in such haste that he did not take proper provision with him—he did not even take his sword. Coming to Nob, where the priests dwelt, he received the sacred bread which had been offered to God as the showbread and he and the men with him ate thereof. And when he asked Ahimelech if he could furnish him with a weapon, he said there was no sword there save one, “the sword of Goliath, the Philistine, whom you slew in the valley of Elah. Behold, it is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod: if you will take that, take it: for there is no other save that here.” And David said, “There is none like that; give it to me.”
I am not going to spiritualize my text. I want to do nothing unfair. Let me use it as a slogan. You will all allow that apt words may be employed at sundry times and in divers manners. I will simply say that as a general principle, the conviction of excellence leads us to desire possession. “There is none like that,” is the conviction of excellence. “Give it to me”—there is the desire to possess. I shall illustrate this Truth of God in spiritual things upon some six or seven matters.
I. Speak of “the sword of the Spirit, which is THE WORD OF GOD,” and you may well say, “there is none like that.”
It is incomparable in its Authorship. We are persuaded that He who Inspired the Scriptures is none other than He who made the heavens and the earth, the God who cannot lie. All other books are but human at the best—let the authors be ever so refined—they cannot pretend to write as God writes. “There is none like that” for Authorship.
Nor is there any like it for style. You may read the Word of God through a hundred times, but you will like it best the hundredth time, for its stores are inexhaustible and its variety is charming. The style of any one man wearies you with its monotony till you need a change, but the spiritual mind never was and never could be wearied with the style of the Scriptures. It is sometimes simple, at other times majestic—here you have profound mystery and there the homeliest proverbs. It is all through, however, so full of holiness and of Divinity, that there is none like it for style.
And certainly there is none like it for matter. What other book contains such a Revelation as this concerning Christ, God, time, life, death, eternity, Heaven, Hell? There is more matter, often, in a single page of Scripture than there is in a whole volume of human writing! And that matter is so true, so necessary for us to know and withal so comfortable, so rich, so blessed, that when we have searched the Word and gained a knowledge of God’s testimonies, we can say with regard to the matter of it, “There is none like that.”
As for the effect of God’s Word in quickening the soul, in fetching back the wanderer, in giving peace to the troubled conscience, in cheering the Christian, in anchoring his spirit in time of storm, “there is none like that.” Whether you consider the Author, the style, the matter, or the effect—in all points the Word of God stands first and foremost.
The conclusion, therefore, that I draw is, “Give it to me.” Oh, give it to me that I may read it constantly night and day! Give it to me, that I may understand it, prying into its secrets! Give it to me! O Holy Spirit, re-write your Book upon the fleshy tablets of my heart! Give it to me, that I may call it mine, grasping it with the hands of faith! Give it to me, that I may feed upon it with the lips of love, that I may receive it into my experience! Give it to me, that I may carry it out with faith in the actions of my life! There are some who are bent on taking away the Word of God. Well, if they
discard it, “Give it to me.” There are some who want to put it up on the shelf, as a thing that has seen its best days. They suppose the old sword is rusty and worn out, but we can say, “There is none like that; give it to me!”
II. I shall have no time to enlarge upon this subject, so I must give you much in little. Therefore I pass on to another instance of the conviction of excellence with regard to THE SALVATION WHICH IS PROVIDED IN CHRIST JESUS.
All of you who are acquainted with the salvation that is in Christ will confess that “there is none like that.” Beginning with that which always must lie at the root of all Gospel, the precious blood of Jesus—where can there be found anything like that? The blood of the Son of God, shed in so remarkable a manner, with sufferings so extraordinary, having about it a voice so loud which “speaks better things than that of Abel.” The blood which, when sprinkled upon us, enables us to boldly enter into that which is within the veil. The blood which, when sprinkled upon our door posts, preserves us from the destroying angel. The blood in which, if we are washed, leaves us whiter than snow, so that “neither spot nor wrinkle” can remain on those who have received the Atonement of our Lord—there is no blood like that! Search the world round and you will find that there is no truth so consolatory as the Truth of God of the Substitution of Christ and His suffering, “the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.”