Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3431
“The king, himself, also passed over the Brook Kidron.” 2 Samuel 15:23.
THE Brook Kidron was an insignificant, but usually a most foul and filthy ditch outside the walls of Jerusalem. If it were not, as some have called it, the open town sewer, yet there are reasons for believing that at least the filth of the Temple ran into it. The scourings of the sacrificial places went by an under-channel into this brook and we have one or two instances in Holy Writ where, when houses were purged and cleansed, the filth was thrown into the Brook Kidron. The passing, therefore, over that foul and black brook becomes the symbol of a time of deep sorrow and acute distress. The king, himself, then, passed over the Brook Kidron. The royal road lies over the place of sorrow. The way, even for kings, is by the brook of grief and shame. Let us think over that thought for a while.
I. This Was True of King David
David was one of the best of kings—certainly in the long list of his successors we meet with none who did such service to his country as did David, the once shepherd boy. It was through him, in his youth, that the country was saved from being enslaved by Philistia, and oftentimes in later years that stout heart and brave arm led in the van against the enemies of the Israel of God. He was the patriot king. If his country became a happy one, it was through his valor that it became so. And yet, good as he was, his subjects disowned and turned against him! And, in fear of them, “the king, himself, also passed over the Brook Kidron.” It is an ungrateful world we live in. Those who serve it best will find that at times it gives no rewards, or only gives them grudgingly—and afterwards forgets the good the man has done, because for some moment the tide of popular feeling may set against him. “Cursed is he that trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm.” If you live to your fellow men, even with the largest desires within you, yet if you forget to live also to your God, your cup will be full of wormwood, and your teeth will be broken with the gravel of disappointment.
David was also one of the most tender of fathers. He was never exacting with his children. I do not say he was one of the best of fathers, for correction was much neglected in his house. But he was a tender father and he had denied to Absalom nothing. And yet this renegade, this ungrateful, this unnatural son, was the very one from whom the sting must come. Marvel not if they who owe their lives to you should seek your life! Marvel not if those who once nestled in your bosoms should wound you to the quick with their unkindness. You must not build upon the love of even the dearest you know. Your God is faithful and the Well-Beloved never changes, but all others can, and may, and sometimes do! ‘Twas a dark Brook Kidron which David passed over when his favorite son, Absalom, was in hot pursuit of him—the great king, the good monarch, the tender father—was not exempt from this!
Despite the one great stain upon his character in the matter of Bathsheba, David was one of the best and most devout of men. I am sure the older one grows, the more one loves his Psalms, and what a history of the man you have there! It is a mercy for us that he was not a better man than he was, or else he could not have written Psalms suitable to such poor creatures as we are. I think I saw the other day in a window, concerning a certain statesman whom I love to honor, that he would be a better statesman if he were a worse man. I think not so, but still David, if he had been a better man, would have been a worse Psalmist, for even the faults of his character, inasmuch as they bring him down to our poor level, qualify him to write according to the feelings of our hearts and the emotions of our spirits. But he was a grand man, that David. He had the soldier’s fault and he fell into the soldier’s sin, but he also had the soldier’s generous spirit and the soldier’s self-sacrificing nobility of heart. He was through and through, a man. In him there was no guile. He hated deception, and he loved his God with all his heart! And yet, for all that, he must pass over the Brook Kidron. Hated by his subjects, despised by his darling child, with all the robes of royalty put aside, barefooted and with sackcloth on his head, Jerusalem’s best and greatest king makes his way into the wilderness!
I gather from this that there is no extent of sorrow which is not possible to an heir of Heaven, and more yet, that there is no degree of shame, of calumny and of reproach, which may not gather around the best of men. The king, himself, also passed over Kidron and you know what happened when he passed over. The faithful soldiers wept as they saw that royal head dishonored, and those bright eyes that had flashed death upon his foes in the day of battle, now red with weeping. But what did Shimei do? He cursed him and threw dust upon him, and said, “Go up, you bloody man!” And what did Ahithophel do? He forsook him—seceded to the winning side and plotted the death of his former friend, even King David, himself, with whom he had so often eaten bread and walked to the House of God in company! And what said they all over the nation concerning David, but that God had forsaken him and, therefore, theymight forsake and attack him, for the David of former days was not the same David now. His God had left him and the crown was given to his son. Ah, my Brothers and Sisters, we know not what we may come to! We do not know what depths of grief we may yet have to fathom, nor into what deep mire we may yet sink. There is no saying. The best of men may have the worst of characters! The brightest stars may be swallowed up in a night! The moon, in her brightness, may be hidden by the clouds. And the sun, itself, beneath the wings of tempest, may be concealed. Shall we, when we see our Christian Brothers and Sisters assailed, forsake them? Shall we join in the common clamor against them? We shall if we are not good men and true, but if we are such as God would have us be, we shall stand up for God’s David as Ittai and his bodyguard did in the day of battle. We shall say, “These are the servants of the Most High God! Persecute them as you may. Cast the dust of slander upon them. Call them fanatics, enthusiasts, disturbers of the peace, and turners of the world upside down—we cast in our lot with them—for better or for worse, we take their Master and themselves, and across their Kidron will we go with them, believing that the day shall come when it shall be thought worth men’s while to come back with them after another sort.”