Chapter XIV · The Upper Room — J. C. Ryle
— 2 Sam. 23:4-51
“He shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun rises, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springeth out of the earth by clear shining after rain. Although my house be not so with God; yet He hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire, although He make it not to grow.”—2 Sam. 23:4-5.
THE text which heads this page is taken from a chapter which ought to be very interesting to every Christian. It begins with the touching expression, “These be the last words of David.”
Whether that means, “these are the last words which David ever spoke by inspiration as a Psalmist,” or “these are among the last sayings of David before his death,” signifies little. In either point of view, the phrase suggests many thoughts.
It contains the experience of an old servant of God who had many ups and downs in his life. It is the old soldier remembering his campaigns. It is the old traveller looking back on his journeys.
I. Let us first consider David’s humbling cotillion.
He looks forward with a prophetic eye to the future coming of the Messiah, the promised Saviour, the seed of Abraham, and the seed of David. He looks forward to the Advent of a glorious kingdom in which there shall be no wickedness, and righteousness shall be the universal character of all the subjects. He looks forward to the final gathering of a perfect family in which there shall be no unsound members, no defects, no sin, no sorrow, no deaths, no tears. And he says, the light of that kingdom shall be “as the light of the morning when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds.”
But then he turns to his own family, and sorrowfully says, ” My house is not so with God.” It is not perfect, it is not free from sin, and it has blots and blemishes of many kinds. It has cost me many tears. It is not so as I could wish, and so as I have vainly tried to make it.
Poor David might well say this! If ever there was a man whose house was full of trials, and whose life was full of sorrows, that man was David. Trials from the envy of his own brethren,—trials from the unjust persecution of Saul, retrials from his own servants, such as Joab and Ahithophel, — trials from a wife, even that Michal who once loved him so much,—trials from his children, such as Absalom, Amnon, and Adonijah,—trials from his own subjects, who at one time forgot all he had done, and drove him out of Jerusalem by rebellion,—trials of all kinds, wave upon wave, were continually breaking on David to the very end of his days. Some of the worst of these trials, no doubt, were the just consequences of his own sins, and the wise chastisement of a loving Father. But we must have hard hearts if we do not feel that David was indeed “a man of sorrows.”
But is not this the experience of many of God’s noblest saints and dearest children? What careful reader of the Bible can fail to see that Adam, and Noah, and Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Joseph, and Moses, and Samuel, were all men of many sorrows, and that those sorrows chiefly arose out of their own homes?
The plain truth is, that home trials are one of the many means by which God sanctifies and purifies His believing people. By them He keeps us humble. By them He draws us to Himself. By them He sends us to our Bibles. By them He teaches us to pray. By them He shows us our need of Christ. By them He weans us from the world. By them He prepares us for “a city which hath foundations,” in which there will be no disappointments, no tears, and no sin. It is no special mark of God’s favour when Christians have no trials. They are spiritual medicines, which poor fallen human nature absolutely needs. King Solomon’s course was one of unbroken peace and prosperity. But it may well be doubted whether this was good for his soul.
Before we leave this part of our subject, let us learn some practical lessons.
(a) Let us learn that parents cannot give grace to their children, or masters to their servants. We may use all means, but we cannot command success. We may teach, but we cannot convert. We may show those around us the bread and water of life, but we cannot make them eat and drink it. We may point out the way to eternal life, but we cannot make others walk in it. “It is the Spirit that quickeneth.” Life is that one thing which the cleverest man of science cannot create or impart. It comes “not of blood, nor of the will of man” (John 1:13). To give life is the grand prerogative of God.