Sermons on 2 Samuel 23:5

"Although my house is not so with God; yet He has made with me an everlasting Covenant, orderedin all things and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire, although He makes it not to grow." 2 Samuel 23:5. NO GOLD but pure gold can stand the fire. And if a man's religion has been a pretentious sham, it is very likely to tumble to pieces under the rough hand of death. There have been a few hypocrites who have been able to brazen it out, even in the last solemn article, but these must always be the few. David, at any rate, was never the man who would play the hypocrite in the last extremity of death. You can see how true, how deep, how thorough his faith in God must have been, for his dying bed was by no means an enviable one. His dying pillow was stuffed with sharp thorns. His was a life which, although it had much of Divine Grace about it, yet had much of sinful nature, too. He was dying as we might not wish to die in some respects, but his faith triumphed as we may well desire that our faith may triumph, whatever the outward circumstances of our life or death may be! We shall go at once, and without further preface, to consider our text and notice in turn the Psalmist-King's grave lament. And then, blessed compensation, his glorious comfort. First, then, we shill ponder, and may the Holy Spirit make it greatly to profit everyone of us— …

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"And can He have taught me to trust in His name, And thus far have brought me, to put me to shame?" "Is it so that He has taught me long after the sweetness of His Grace and yet will He deny it to me? Does the Lord tantalize men in this way? I could have been happy enough in my poor ignorant way as a sinner, but now that I have been made to taste of higher and sweeter things, I shall be doubly wretched if I may not enjoy them! If He makes men hunger and thirst, and then does not feed them, He is not a God of love." But He isa God of love and, therefore, He cannot treat His servants so! You remember Luther used to say that when he saw that God was in his quarrel, he always felt safe. "Your honor is at stake," he would say, "and it is no business of Luther's—it is God's business when God's Gospel is concerned." Every Divine Attribute is pledged as a guarantee that every Divine Promise shall be kept! Here faith may gather strength, and rest assured that the Covenant is sure in every jot and tittle! If one child of God who has put his trust in Jesus should perish, the everlasting Covenant of Grace would have failed, for this is a part of its stipulations, "From all your filthiness, and from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit …

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Jacob, in leaving his father's house, however, received a great blessing in which he is typical of all Israelites— namely, the manifested Covenant made with himself personally. He slept with a stone for his pillow, the hedges for his curtains, the heavens for his canopy—and as he slept, he dreamed that he saw a ladder, the foot thereof stood on the earth, but the top reached to Heaven. And at the top of it was the God of the Covenant who made a Covenant with His servant which He established and made fast forever. Beloved, if you are of God's Israel, you have had some insight into the Covenant of Grace—you have seen it in the Person of Jesus Christ whose Humanity, like the ladder's foot, stands here on earth, but whose Deity, like the ladder's top, is lost amidst the blaze of God! You have seen, by the eyes of faith, the God who makes and keeps the promise in the Person of Jesus Christ, speaking to you and saying, "Certainly I will be with you, and I will bless you." You must have had some such Revelation of God in Christ Jesus, or else I would have to question whether you are one of the Israelites at all—for they who know the Lord, know Him as their Covenant God and know him as David did when he said, "Although my house is not so with God, yet He has made with me an Everlasting Covenant, ordered in all things, and sure." To complete our little outline of Jacob's history in which all the Israelites must follow him, I introduce you to Jacob at the brook of Jabbok. It was there that Jacob became Israel—the supplanter became a prevailing prince! Oh, it was a noble sight which the stars alone saw, when Jacob grasped the Angel! Bold hands, that of mortal that can grasp the Angel of God! And oh, it was nobler still when, having grasped Him, he was not content with using hands alone in that blessed struggle, but came to use feet and knees, and every bone and nerve and muscle! It was a matchless wrestling, then, when the Angel would have thrown the man, but the man would gladly throw the Angel! He played the man, indeed, then, when he said unto God, "I will not let You go except You bless me." "I will not." O God, can Your creature thus address You? Yes, when You have given us faith enough to utter such a word as that, You have given us full permission to speak even as we will unto You and, each one of us to say, "I will not let You go except You bless me." …

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handful for some poor Ruth to glean! When your soul is faint, catch at a promise, believe it and say unto the Lord, "Do as You have said," and your spirit shall speedily revive. Remember, next, His Covenant. What a grand word that word, "Covenant," is to the man who understands it! God has entered into Covenant with His Son, who represents us, His people. He has said, "As I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be angry with you, nor rebuke you. For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but My kindness shall not depart from you, neither shall the Covenant of My peace be removed." Truly, we may say with good old David, "Although my house is not so with God, yet He has made with me an Everlasting Covenant, ordered in all things, and sure." When everything else gives way, cling in the power of the Holy Spirit to Covenant mercies and Covenant engagements, and your spirit shall be at peace— "With David's Lord, and ours, A Covenant once was made Whose bonds are firm and sure, Whose glories shall never fade! …

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But what provision is this? Why, dear Brothers and Sisters, there are different provisions according to different needs! Sometimes the child of God under trial has a wonderful sense of Divine Love. ' 'Oh, how He loves me," he says. There comes stroke after stroke—husband dies, child is buried, the property is wasted—yet the dear child says, "I cannot weep or repine, for I feel God loves me. I know not how it is, but I feel it so fresh and strong upon my soul and I have such a wonderful impression of that dear love of His, that it quite overcomes my sorrows and takes the edge off my grief." And, let me say, there is nothing that under trial can support a soul so well as the love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit, which is given unto us! To know that my Father sees it all and orders all in love—in special love to me—oh, this makes the back strong enough to bear a very world of trouble and yet not to be wearied! At other times God's servants have been fed on a joyous view of the Covenant of Grace. I have known some who in their trouble have come to understand the deep doctrines of the Word of God as they never understood them before and could then say with David, "Although my house is not so with God, yet has He made with me an Everlasting Covenant, ordered in all things and sure." And as they look to the provisions of that Covenant, to the sureness of the Covenant, to the blessings of the Covenant, to the everlasting nature of the Covenant, their souls have been so ravished and transported with joy that they could beat poverty, or pain, or whatever form of roughness their heavenly Joseph might choose to put upon them! …

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It is so in great things. He set the bounds of the nations according to the number of the children of Israel. When you read God's Word, Egypt comes upon the stage—Assyria, Babylon, Greece and Rome. Yet what are they but a sort of background? They come and they go, for all their secular grandeur, as mere accessories. The central figure is always the Election of Grace—the people of God—for the rest, they are merely the plowmen and the vinedressers for the Lord's own people. Sometimes these nations are nursing fathers. At other times they are sharp rods. Whichever they may be, they are mere instruments. The Bible speaks of them as so much scaffolding for the building of the living temple in which the mercy of God shall be displayed! Whenever you read, or hear people talk about prophecy, you may depend upon it that Inspiration has not been given to tell of Louis Napoleon, or any other earthly Sovereign. It is not the history of Prussia, Russia, or France that the heavenly Apocalypse unveils. The whole Book is written for His people—it gives us the history of the Church—but it does not give us the history of anything else! The way to read the Book, if you do read it, is with this central thought in your minds—that God has not revealed to us anything concerning Assyria, Babylon, Greece, or Rome for their own sakes—but He has referred to them because they happen to have a connection with the history of His Church. That is all, for He has chosen Jacob to Himself and Israel to be His peculiar treasure. My Brothers and Sisters, I believe that when kings and potentates meet in the cabinet chamber and consult together according to their ambition, a Counselor whom they never see pulls the strings and they are only His puppets. And even when armies meet in battle array, when the world seems shaken to and fro with revolutions and the most stable thrones quiver as though they were but vessels out at sea, there is a secret Force working in all. The end and drift of these momentous actions is the bringing out of the chosen race—the salvation of the blood-bought company and the glory of God in the redeeming of the world unto Himself! When you read the newspaper, read it to see how your heavenly Father is managing the world for the good of His own children! All else—be it the disposal of a throne, the settlement of a political question, or the winning of a boat race—all else, I say, are minor things compared with the interests of the Election of Grace! All things are revolving and cooperating for good. They are working together for good to them that love God, and are the called according to the purpose of His Grace. By them He will make manifest throughout the ages unto the angels and the principalities, His manifold wisdom! …

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He will show them His Covenant. What a soft, sweet, encouraging assurance this Covenant gives us! To see God in Covenant is to find Grace in His eyes. To serve a Covenant God is perfect freedom and exquisite delight. God out of Christ is a consuming fire. Luther was known to say, "I will have nothing to do with an absolute God." The fear with which we think of God is all terror, dread and fright—in which we exceedingly tremble and quake until He unveils Himself in this mellow light of the Covenant of peace! For what could the vision do but scare me to destruction? But God, in the Covenant of His dear Son, is the hope, the desire, the delight of everyone that is godly—and their fear is not that of horror, but that of homage! What, then, does God teach His people His Covenant? Much every way. He shows them that His Covenant is everlasting. It was made in Christ before the world began. It abides steadfast and will forever remain unchangeable. So sure is it, that every blessing it provides is unconditional and irrevocable, being entailed upon all those who have an interest in its gracious provisions! He teaches them the fullness of this Covenant, that it contains all that is necessary for the life that now is, and for that which is to come. He teaches them the freeness of this Covenant—that it was made with them in Christ Jesus, not because of their good works, but because of the abounding of His Grace towards them. He teaches them that this Covenant is not the result of their tears or vows, their penitence or prayer, but that it is the causeof all these—ordered in all things and sure, it comprises all that their needs could lack, and all that their hearts could crave—it is all their salvation and all their desire! The Lord then shows His people that this Covenant was made on their behalf. Ah, there is the beauty of it! …

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