Bible Commentaries

2 Samuel 7:12)—But God never sleeps. He says: "I will put thee to rest, O brave soldier, chivalrous grand heart; I will close thine eyelids, stained with rivers of tears; I bury the universe." But is the universe ended when David sleeps? The universe always begins—never ends. "Thou shalt sleep"—but in 2 Samuel 7:13, "he shall build." We must leave something for the future to do. All things are written down in God's book. Do not be afraid of this doctrine because some people call it Fatalism. Some people have a mischievous faculty of inventing foolish names, and then fall into the snare of being victimised by their own expressions. Fatalism is a stone which the enemy has thrown at God's providence, but God's providence abides the same as if the stone had never been lifted. The end is known from the beginning: there hath no temptation happened unto us that was not foreseen. The devil cannot invent a new temptation. He shot all his arrows in the first encounter, and he has no more to shoot. We understand him, and we can beware of his coming.

Then is Solomon to be a perfect 2 Samuel 7:14-15). There is a great central line of providence and purpose. God is not turned aside by what happens today or to-morrow, in the nature of accidental occurrence. This is the great doctrine of strength and assurance. The Lord reigneth. He moves by a certain definite unchangeable line, with many a variation of outward circumstance and visible ministry: the fear is that we may be deluded by the accidental and the familiar, and mistake the central, eternal purpose of God. God's purpose is to save the world, and save it he will. God's purpose is to have the whole world for his house, and he will not rest until the topstone be brought on with shoutings of "Grace, grace unto it." So David is told that he must not build, but he must still work; so in the eighth chapter—without being unduly critical regarding chronology—in the eighth chapter we find him at work again. And that is God's answer to us in many a reverie. We must not be left too long in the easy homestead; we must be put out in the cold air, and climb the steep hill. Where we cannot build a temple, we may at least destroy a mischief.

In the eighth chapter David accomplishes seven victories. He could not have rested with six; his sense of harmony would have been disturbed again: the victory must be complete: seven is the mystic number; it represents fulness, completeness, fruition, satisfaction. The eighth chapter could not have been written in the New Testament. David's Son never could have re-enacted this chapter. The day of David was a day of war, battle, blood, conflict; the day of Christ is a day of war, but a day of spiritual contest: the instruments are not carnal: the words are gentle, the weapons are arguments, the great thunder-burst is the eloquence of truth, the eloquence of music. But we must not force the ages. This record is in its right place. Every age has its own genius; its own orthodoxy; its own opportunities; and every age has its own interpretation of nature and of grace. Think of the time when there was a false theory of astronomy: what matter? Now it would be doing violence to civilisation; then it marked a point in slow progress. Think of the time of witchcraft: what of it? It meant something more than it seemed to be: it was a longing, a yearning, a struggle after something almost within reach. Think of the time of idolatry, when the heathen were falling down before all manner of vain idols: what of it? Now it would be intolerable; then it was a page in the soul's education. Think of the sermons that have been preached; think of the mistakes committed in many instances on points of criticism; think how their authors if living today would revise, correct, amend, and enlarge them; think how some who were the orthodox of their day would now be ashamed of their own thoughts and productions: what of it? At the time they worked up to their opportunity, they were faithful to their opportunity; now to retain all these mistakes would not be veneration but mischievous superstition. But this must not go on. The book of Samuel could not, blessed be God, have been in the New Testament. The wars of the ancients are not in the spirit of the cross. But Providence is a long story, a serial issue, coming out in daily parts, quite a wonderful book, and should be read straight on from the beginning of the beginning up to the latest sunrise. He who reads so will be no pessimist, but will see that God's eternal purpose stands, and that the holy purpose is to make the whole world a temple, and the whole universe beautiful with holiness.

Prayer

Almighty God, thou art indeed a consuming fire to them that are out of the way, whose hearts are obstinate and whose will has gone wantonly from God. Thou dost fight with fire. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. We come to thee for mercy,—for a gentle rain of mercy, pity, compassion, love. We have done the things we ought not to have done, and all we hold in our hands is a broken law. God be merciful unto us, sinners! Speak to us from the cross: there do thou commune with our hearts, letting us whisper our sin and rather hint at our shame than tell it in plain words. We bless thee for a gospel so many-sided; it is like a thousand doors opening upon the heart of God. The prodigal is welcome: therefore are we here,—not because of our goodness and perfectness, but because our of evil and imperfection. We are here where the cross is and the speaking blood—the sacrifice for the sins of the world: a mystery even greater than our sin, and for the mystery we bless thee. To no argument would we trust, to no wall of words would we come for security and rest, but to an infinite mystery, to that which is above us like a sky, beyond us like the horizon,—something without words, putting all speech to shame and confusion because of its inadequacy to express the infinite compassion of God. Where sin abounds grace doth much more abound. Who can be greater than God? What can be vaster than his love? What can get so deeply into the nature that the all-penetrating blood of Jesus Christ cannot remove it? Wash us, and we shall be clean. Undertake for us when our strength is all gone; when our sorrow is intolerable, do thou find the solace which we need; when we are blind through tears, do thou terminate the weeping by one night's grief, that in the morning we may see a risen sun and a radiant sky. Amen.