Part 19 (1/2)
Such is the Spirit's testimony to this faithful man While David ay, Mephibosheth was a ht to be now, during the period of his Master's absence Fellowshi+p with an absent Lord ih separation to the Christian character The question is not at all what a Christian est the true course to be adopted by all those who are looking for the king's return What a truly divine spring of action does the absence of Jesus furnish!+ ”If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above” Ask the spiritual ht enjoy? His answer is, _Jesus is absent_ This is the highest motive
We do not want the rules of a cold and barren forulate our ways; but ant a more fervent affection for the person of Christ, and a more lively desire for His speedy return We, like Mephibosheth, have experienced the kindness of God--precious kindness!
We have been taken up fro the princes of God's people Should we not, therefore, love our Master?
should we not desire to see His face? should we not regulate our present conduct by constant reference to Him? Would that ere more like Mephibosheth But we are all too well disposed to minister to our odious nature--too ready to walk in the unchecked enjoys of this life--its riches, its honors, its coancies, and the s without forfeiting our title to the naes of Christians Vain, detestable selfishness! Selfishness, which shall be put to the blush in the day of Christ's appearing
Had Ziba's account of Mephibosheth been true, how could the latter have replied to David when he said, ”Wherefore wentest thou not with , my servant deceived me; for thy servant said, I will saddle ; because thy servant is la; but el of God; do, therefore, what is good in thine eyes For all of ; yet didst thou set thy servant aht, therefore, have I yet to cry any rity of heart Unaffected devotedness must develop itself The contrast between Ziba and Mephibosheth is truly striking The for for the inheritance; the latter only desired to be near the king Hence, when David said, ”Why speakest thou any more of thy matters? I have said, Thou and Ziba divide the land,” Mephibosheth at once proved the direction in which his thoughts and desires were flowing; ”Yea,” said he, ”_let hiain in peace unto his own house” His heart was engaged about David, not about the ” with Ziba? How could he divide the land with such an one? Ih for him To be near to him was better far than all the inheritance of the house of Saul ”Let hi so filled, so satisfied the heart of Mephibosheth, that he could, without any difficulty, give up all that for which Ziba had so diligently acted the deceiver and the slanderer
Just so will it be with those who love the name and person of the Son of God The prospect of His loved appearing will deaden their affections for the things of this world With them it will not be a question of lawfulness or unlawfulness: such terms are far too cold for an affectionate heart The very fact of their looking out for the , will, of necessity, turn their hearts away fro intently at any special object necessarily turns one away fro else If Christians realized more the power of our blessed hope, how they would walk above and apart from the world
The enemy is well aware of this, and hence he has labored hard to reduce this hope to the level of speculative doctrine--a peculiar tenet, possessing little or no practical power to attract the heart
That section of inspiration, too, which specially unfolds the events connected with the co in allect The book of Revelation has, until very recently, been regarded as a book of such profound and inextricable mystery, that few, if any, could approach it And even since the attention of Christians has been more particularly directed to its study, he has introduced and built up such conflicting syste interpretations, that sih scared away froment, to be inseparably connected with rand re of Jesus_ Those who are waiting for that will not dispute much about the mode of it Indeed, we may set it down as a fixed principle, that in proportion as affection becomes dead, will the spirit of controversy prevail
All this is very sily illustrated in the narrative of Mephibosheth He felt that he owed everything to David; that he had been saved fronity Hence, when David's place was occupied by a usurper, Mephibosheth's whole appearance andstate of things; he was estranged frohed for the return of him whose kindness had made him all he was His interests, his destinies, his hopes, were all bound up with David, and nothing but his return could make him happy
Oh, that it were thus with us, my beloved Christian reader! Would that we really entered rims, in thewhen our beloved King shall be brought back, amid the affectionate acclamations of His people, when the usurper shall be hurled from his throne, and every enelorious Immanuel The Absaloms, the Ahithophels, the shi+meis, shall find their proper place; and, on the other hand, all who, like Mephibosheth, have mourned the absent David, shall have all the desires of their longing hearts abundantly satisfied ”How long, O Lord?” May this be our cry, as we eagerly look for the earliest sound of His chariot wheels The way is long, rough, and painful; the night dark and depressing; but the word is, ”Be patient, brethren” ”He that shall come will come, and will not tarry Now the just shall live by faith; but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him”
Into the further details of Absalom's conspiracy I do not now h a father's heart rieve and a father's tears flow for him Moreover, his history reat prophetic character, who, as Daniel infordom by flatteries” This, however, and many other points full of interest, I shall leave the reader to deduce fro the Lord to , in this day of darkness and confusion Never was there a tiive the opinions and judge notions and baseless theories are abroad, and the simple mind knows not whither to turn
Blessed be God, His word is before us in all its lucid simplicity, and in it we have the eternal fountain of truth, the ied; all, therefore, that we need is a le, thy whole body shall be full of light”
CHAPTER IX
THE SONG AND LAST WORDS
The 22d chapter of 2 Sa, and is parallel with the 18th psalm It is the utterance of the Spirit of Christ in David, connected with His triuy of the power of God (Ephes i 19) In it, as the inspired heading teaches us, David presents his praise to God for deliverance from the hand of all his enemies, and the hand of Saul particularly He thankfully recounts the glorious actings of God on his behalf, yet in such language as at once leads us from David and all his conflicts, to that terrible conflict which raged around the grave of Jesus, when all the powers of darkness were ranged, in fierce array, against God Tremendous was the scene! Never before, and never since, was such a battle fought, or such a victory gained, whether we look at the contending powers, or the consequences resulting Heaven on the one side, and hell on the other Such were the contending powers And as to the consequences resulting, who shall recount thelory of God and of His Christ, in the first place; the salvation of the Church; the restoration and blessing of Israel's tribes; and the full deliverance of creation's wide domain from the lordshi+p of Satan, the curse of God, and the thraldom of corruption Such were sole of the great enerave of Christ; violent were the efforts of the strongtaken, and his house fro spoiled, but all in vain; Jesus triumphed ”When the waves of death compassed me, the floods of unGodly men made me afraid; the sorrows of hell compassed me about; the snares of death prevented me; in my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried to my God: and He did hear my voice out of His temple, and my cry did enter into His ears” Here was apparent weakness, but real power The apparently vanquished one became the victor ”Jesus was crucified in weakness, but He liveth by the power of God” Having shed His blood as the victim for sin, He left Himself in the hands of the Father, who, by the eternal Spirit, brought Hiain from the dead He resisted not, but suffered Himself to be trampled upon, and thus crushed the power of the eneency, nailed Hirave, and set a seal upon Hiht not rise; but He came up out of the horrible pit, and out of thespoiled principalities and powers” He went down into the very heart of the eneht make a show of him openly
From vers 8-20, we have the interference of Jehovah on the part of His righteous servant, set forth in language subliery used by the inspired Psalmist is of the most solemn and impressive character, ”The earth shook and trembled; the fountains of heaven moved and shook, because He roth He bowed the heavens also, and came down; and darkness was under His feet And He rode upon a cherub and did fly; and He was seen upon the wings of the wind And He made darkness pavilions round about Him, dark waters and thick clouds of the skies The Lord thundered froh uttered His voice And He sent out arrows, and scattered the, and discomfited them And the channels of the sea appeared, the foundations of the world were discovered, at the rebuking of the Lord, at the blast of the breath of His nostrils He sent frouage is here! Where shall we find anything to equal it? The wrath of the Omnipotent, the thunder of His power, the convulsion of creation's entire fraly set forward here, outstrip all hurave of Christ was the centre round which the battle raged in all its fierceness, for there lay the Prince of life
Satan did his utht all the power of hell to bear, all ”the power of darkness,” but he could not hold his captive, because all the claims of justice had been met The Lord Jesus triumphed over Satan, death, and hell, in strict conforhteousness This is the sinner's joy, the sinner's peace It would avail nothing to be told that God over all, blessed for ever, had vanquished Satan, a creature of His own creation But to be told that He, as man's representative, as the sinner's substitute, as the Church's surety, gained the victory, this, when believed, gives the soul ineffable peace; and this is just what the gospel tells us--this is the e which it conveys to the sinner's ear The apostle tells us that ”He (Christ) was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification” Having taken upon Hiht of them, resurrection was necessary as the divine proof of His accoospel, presents Hiht hand in the heavens, and thus dispels from the believer's heart every doubt, every fear, every hesitation ”The Lord is risen indeed”; and His precious blood is new and living wine
The great argument of the apostle in 1 Cor xv is based upon this subject The forgiveness of sins is proved by the resurrection of Christ ”If Christ be not raised, ye are yet in your sins” And, as a consequence, if Christ be raised, ye are _not_ in your sins Hence resurrection and forgiveness stand or fall together Recognize Christ risen, and you recognize sin forgiven ”But now,” says the triumphant reasoner, ”is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept” This settles all The moment you take your eye off a risen Christ, you lose the full, deep, divine, peace-giving sense of the forgiveness of sins The richest fund of experience--the widest range of intelligence will not do as a ground of confidence
Nothing, in short, but JESUS RISEN
Froround of Jehovah's interference on behalf of His servant These verses prove that in this entire song we have a greater than David David could not say, ”The Lord rewardedto the cleanness of my hands hath He recompensed me For I have kept the ways of the Lord, and have not wickedly departed froments were before me; and as for His statutes, I did not depart froht before Him, and have kept myself from mine iniquity Therefore the Lord hath reco to e from that of the 51st psalm, on which we have already dwelt There it is, ”Haveto the e for a fallen sinner, as David felt hihteousness, which was as filthy rags; and as to his recompense, he felt that the lake of fire was all that he could, in justice, clairound of what he was