DAVID SHEPHERD, PSALMIST, KING

[nChrist]

DAVID SHEPHERD, PSALMIST, KING
XXIV.  "YET HAVE I SET MY KING"
F. B. MEYER

Edom. --  Whilst David was engaged in the north, the Edomites invaded Judah, and Abishai was despatched against them. On the west shore of the Dead Sea he encountered them, and slew eighteen thousand in the valley of Salt. The whole land, even to Petra, its rock-bound capital, was slowly reduced to submission; and, with the exception of Hadad, who made his way to Egypt, the royal family was exterminated.

Ammon. -- A friendly overture on the part of David was met with gross insult; and Hanun, apprehending the infliction of condign revenge, formed a vast coalition. The combined forces amounted to thirty-two thousand, with a strong contingent of cavalry and chariots, against which David could only oppose the Hebrew infantry, the use of horses being forbidden by the Mosaic legislation. It was a supreme moment in David's career, and taxed the utmost resources of Joab's generalship. By God's good hand, however, victory was secured; the tide of Israelite invasion swept over the hostile country; Rabbah, the capital city, fell into David's hand; the people were put to work with saws, arrows, and axes, probably preparing the materials for the erection of public works, and perhaps of the temple itself.

These years of war gave birth to some of the grandest of the psalms, amongst which may be numbered, Psalms 2:1-12, Psalms 20:1-9, Psalms 21:1-13, Psalms 60:1-12, Psalms 110:1-7.


1. THE FOE.

The nations rage; the peoples imagine a vain thing; the kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord, and against his anointed. We hear their plottings in their council chambers:

"Let us break their bands asunder,
And cast away their cords from us."

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[nChrist]

DAVID SHEPHERD, PSALMIST, KING
XXIV.  "YET HAVE I SET MY KING"
F. B. MEYER

They trust in chariots and in horses; their kings think that they will be saved by the multitude of their hosts. They inspire fear through the hearts of Israel, so that the land trembles as though God had rent it, and the people drink the wine of staggering and dismay. So tremendous is their assault, so overwhelming their numbers, that all help of man seems vain.

It is thus in every era of the history of God's people, that Satan has stirred up their foes. Right behind the coalitions of men lies the malignity of the fallen spirit, who ever seeks to bruise the heel of the woman's seed. "In the world ye shall have tribulation." "Behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days." "When the dragon saw that he was cast down to the earth, he persecuted the woman."


2. THE ATTITUDE OF FAITH.

Whilst the serried ranks of the foe are in sight, the hero-king is permitted a vision into the unseen and eternal. There is no fear upon the face of God, no change in his determination to set his king upon his holy hill. In fact, it seems that the day of his foe's attack is that in which he receive-a new assurance of sonship, and is bidden to claim the nations for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession. As he anticipates the battle, he hears the chime of the Divine promise above the tumult of his fear:

"Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron;
Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel."

On his leaving the capital, his people pray that the Lord may answer him in the day of trouble, remember his offerings, and send him help from the sanctuary; and he replies,

"I know that the Lord sayeth his anointed;
He will answer him from his holy heaven
With the saving strength of his right hand."

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[nChrist]

DAVID SHEPHERD, PSALMIST, KING
XXIV.  "YET HAVE I SET MY KING"
F. B. MEYER

He knows that through the loving-kindness of the Most High he shall not be moved, but that his right hand will destroy his enemies.

In the ecstasy of his faith he asserts, as he looks eastward, across the Jordan, that Gilead will as certainly own his sway as Ephraim and Manasseh did. Strong in the allegiance of Judah, and her sister tribes, he counts victory already secured. Moab is his washing-basin; Edom like a slave shall carry his shoes; Philistia shall tremble before his war-shout, and even the strong city of Petra shall receive his troops.

In perfect peace he anticipates the result, the Lord will send forth the rod of his strength out of Zion, and strike through kings in the day of his wrath, and make his enemies his footstool, so that in all after-days he may combine the office of priest and king, as Melchizedek did on that same site centuries before.


3. THE WARRIORS OF THE PRIEST-KING.

Catching the contagion of his faith, they triumph in God's salvation, and in his name set up their banners. They believe that God, as a Man of War, is going forth with their hosts, and will tread down their adversaries. They are characterized by the willingness of their service. No mercenaries are pressed into their ranks; they gladly gather around the standard, as the warriors of whom Deborah sang, who willingly offered themselves. They are clad not in mail, but in the fine linen of the priests; "the beauties of holiness," a phrase which suggests that the warfare was conducted by religious men, as an act of worship to God. They are numerous as the dewdrops that bespangle the morning grass, when every blade has its own coronet of jewels, and the light is reflected from a million diamonds (Psalms 110:1-7).

What an exquisite conception of David's ideal for his soldiers, and of the knightly chivalry, of the purity, truth, and righteousness, in which all the soldiers of the Messiah should be arrayed!
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[nChrist]

DAVID SHEPHERD, PSALMIST, KING
XXIV.  "YET HAVE I SET MY KING"
F. B. MEYER

4. THE COMPLETENESS OF THE VICTORY.

The armies of the alien cannot stand the onset of those heaven-accoutred soldiers. Kings of armies flee apace. They are bowed down and fallen in bitter, hopeless defeat. They are made as a fiery furnace in the time of God's anger, and swallowed up in his wrath. Their dead bodies strew the battlefield, and the valleys are choked with slain.

As the triumphant army returns, leaving desolation where their foes had swarmed, they express in song their gratitude to their Almighty Deliverer. Singers and minstrels, Benjamin and Judah, Zebulun and Naphtali, join in the mighty anthem:

"God is unto us a God of deliverances;
And unto Jehovah the Lord belong the issues from death:
O God, Thou art terrible out of thy holy places;
The God el Israel, He giveth strength and power unto his people."

All this has a further reference. In David we have a type of the Messiah. For, of a truth, against the Holy Servant Jesus, whom God has anointed, both the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel have gathered together. Men have refused his sway, and do refuse it; but God hath sworn, and will not repent, that to Him every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess: and it is more sure than that to-morrow's sun will rise that, ere long, great voices shall be heard in heaven, saying, "The kingdoms of the world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ: and He shall reign for ever and ever" (Revelation 11:15-18 ).
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[nChrist]

DAVID SHEPHERD, PSALMIST, KING
XXV.  THE SIN OF HIS LIFE
F. B. MEYER

(2 Samuel 11-19)

"O Father, I have sinned! I have done
The thing I thought I never more should do!
My days were set before me, light all through;
But I have made dark -- alas, too true!-
And drawn dense clouds between me and my Sun."
SEPTIMUS SUTTON.

THE chronicler omits all reference to this terrible blot on David's life. The older record sets down each item without extenuation or excuse. The gain for all penitents would so much outweigh the loss to the credit of the man after God's own heart. These chapters have been trodden by myriads who, having well-nigh lost themselves in the same dark labyrinth of sin, have discovered the glimmer of light by which the soul may pass back into the day. "Thy sins, which are many, are forgiven thee; go in peace."


1. THE CIRCUMSTANCES THAT LED TO DAVID'S SIN.

The warm poetic temperament of the king specially exposed him to a temptation of this sort; but the self-restrained habit of his life would have prevailed, had there not been some slackening of the loin, some failure to trim the lamp.

For seventeen years he had enjoyed an unbroken spell of prosperity; in every war successful, on every great occasion increasing the adulation of his subjects. This was fraught with peril. The rigours of the Alps are less to be dreaded than the heat of the enervating plains of the Campagna.
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[nChrist]

DAVID SHEPHERD, PSALMIST, KING
XXV.  THE SIN OF HIS LIFE
F. B. MEYER

In direct violation of the law of Moses -- which forbade the multiplication of wives on the part of Hebrew kings, "lest their hearts should turn away" -- we are distinctly told that, when established at Jerusalem, David took unto him more concubines and wives; sowing to himself the inevitable harvest of heart-burning, jealousy, quarreling, and crime, of which the harem must always be the prolific source, besides fostering in David himself a habit of sensual indulgence, which predisposed him to the evil solicitation of that evening hour.

He had also yielded to a fit of indolence, unlike the martial spirit of the Lion of Judah; allowing Joab and his brave soldiers to do the fighting around the walls of Rabbah, while he tarried still at Jerusalem. It was a mood to which Uriah administered a stinging rebuke when he refused to go to his own house whilst his comrades and the Ark were encamped on the open field.

One sultry afternoon the king had risen from his afternoon siesta, and was lounging on his palace-roof. In that hour of enervated ease, to adopt Nathan's phrase, a traveller came to him, a truant thought, to satisfy whose hunger he descended into the home of a poor man and took his one ewe lamb, although his own folds were filled with flocks. We will not extenuate his sin by dwelling on Bath-sheba's willing complicity, or on her punctilious ceremonial purification; while she despised her plighted married troth to her absent husband. The Scripture record lays the burden of the sin on the king alone, before whose absolute power Bath-sheba may have felt herself obliged to yield.

One brief spell of passionate indulgence, and then! -- his character blasted irretrievably; his peace vanished; the foundations of his kingdom imperilled; the Lord displeased; and great occasion given to his enemies to blaspheme! Let us beware of our light, unguarded hours. Moments of leisure are more to be dreaded than those of strenuous toil. Middle life -- for David was above fifty years of age -- has no immunity from temptations and perils which beset the young. One false step taken in the declension of spiritual  vigour may ruin a reputation built up by years of religious exercise.

A message came one day to David from his companion in sin that the results could not be hidden. It made his blood run with hot fever. The law of Moses punished adultery with the death of each of the guilty pair. Instant steps must be taken to veil the sin! Uriah must come home! He came, but his coming did not help the matter. He refused to go to his home, though on the first night the king sent him thither a mess of meat straight from his table, and on the second made him drunk. The chivalrous soul of the soldier shrank even from the greeting of his wife whilst the great war was still in process.
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[nChrist]

DAVID SHEPHERD, PSALMIST, KING
XXV.  THE SIN OF HIS LIFE
F. B. MEYER

There was no alternative but that he should die; for dead men tell no tales. If a child was to be born, Uriah's lips, at least, should not be able to disown it. He bore to Joab, all unwitting, the letter which was his own death-warrant. Joab must have laughed to himself when he got it. "This master of mine can sing psalms with the best; but when he wants a piece of dirty work done, he must come to me. He wants to rid himself of Uriah -- I wonder why? Well, I'll help him to it. At any rate, he will not be able to say another word to me about Abner. I shall be able to do almost as I will. He will be in my power henceforth." Uriah was set in the forefront of the hottest battle, and left to die; the significant item of his death being inserted in the bulletin sent to the king from the camp. It was supposed by David that only he and Joab knew of this thing; probably Bath-sheba did not guess the costly method by which her character was being protected. She lamented for her dead husband, as was the wont of a Hebrew matron, congratulating herself meanwhile on the fortunate coincidence; and within seven days was taken into David's house. A great relief this! The child would be born under the cover of lawful wedlock! There was one fatal flaw, however, in the whole arrangement, "The thing that David had done displeased the Lord." David and the world were to hear more of it. But oh, the bitter sorrow, that he who had spoken of walking in his house with a perfect heart, with all his faculty for Divine fellowship, with all the splendid record of his life behind him, should have fallen thus! The psalmist, the king, the man, the lover of God, all trampled in the mire by one dark, wild, passionate outburst. All me! My God, grant that I may finish my course without such a rent, such a blot! Oh to wear the white flower of a blameless life to the end!


2. DELAYED REPENTANCE.

The better the man, the dearer the price he pays for a short season of sinful pleasure. For twelve whole months the royal sinner wrapt his sin in his bosom, pursed his lips, and refused to confess. But in Psalms 32:1-11, he tells us how he felt. His bones waxed old through his roaring all the day long. He was parched with fever heat, as when in Israel for three years there was neither dew nor rain in answer to Elijah's prayer, and every green thing withered in the awful drought of summer. Day and night God's hand lay heavily upon him.
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[nChrist]

DAVID SHEPHERD, PSALMIST, KING
XXV.  THE SIN OF HIS LIFE
F. B. MEYER

When he took Rabbah, he treated the people with ferocious cruelty, as if weary of his own remorse, and expending on others the hardness which he ought to have dealt out to himself. We often excuse ourselves from avenging our own sin, by our harsh behaviour and uncharitable judgments towards others. The same spirit, which always characterizes the sullen, uneasy conscience, flamed out in his sentence on the rich man who had taken the poor man's lamb. The Levitical law in such a case only adjudged fourfold restoration (Exodus 22:1). The king pronounced sentence of death.

Nathan's advent on the scene must have been a positive relief. One day whilst statesmen and soldiers were crowding the outer corridor of the cedar palace, the prophet, by right of old acquaintance, made his way through them, and sought a private audience. He told what seemed to be a real and pathetic story of high-handed wrong; and David's anger was greatly kindled against the man who had perpetrated it. Then, as a flash of lightning on a dark night suddenly reveals to the traveller the precipice, on the void of which he is about to place his foot, the brief awful stunning sentence, "Thou art the man!" revealed David to himself in the mirror of his own judgment, and brought him to his knees. Nathan reminded him of the past, and dwelt specially on the unstinted goodness of God. It was a sunny background, the sombre hues of which made recent events look the darker. "Thou hast despised his word; thou hast slain Uriah; thou hast taken his wife. The child shall die; thy wives shall be treated as thou hast dealt with his; out of thine own house evil shall rise against thee." "I have sinned against the Lord," was David's only answer -- a confession followed by a flood of hot tears -- and instantly his scorched heart found relief. Oh, blessed showers that visit parched souls and parched lands!

When Nathan had gone, he beat out that brief confession into Psalms 51, dedicated to the chief musician, that all the world might use it, setting it to music if they would. The one sin and the many transgressions; the evil done against God, as though even Uriah might not be named in the same breath; the confession of inbred evil; the ache of the broken bones; the consciousness of the unclean heart; the loss of joy; the fear of forfeiting the Holy Spirit; the broken and contrite heart -- thus the surcharged waters of the inner lake broke forth turbid and dark. Ah, those cries for the multitude of God's tender mercies! nothing less could erase the dark legend from the book of remembrance, or rub out the stains from his robe, or make the leprous flesh sweet and whole. To be clean, because purged with hyssop; to be whiter than snow, because washed; to sing aloud once more, because delivered from blood-guiltiness; to be infilled with a steadfast, a willing, and a holy spirit; to be able to point transgressors to the Father's heart -- these were the petitions which that weak, sin-weary heart laid upon the altar of God, sweeter than burnt-offering or fragrant incense.
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[nChrist]

DAVID SHEPHERD, PSALMIST, KING
XXV.  THE SIN OF HIS LIFE
F. B. MEYER

But long before this pathetic prayer was uttered, immediately on his acknowledgement of sin, without the interposition of a moment's interval between his confession and the assurance, Nathan had said, "The Lord hath put away thy sin."

"I acknowledge my sin unto Thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid.
I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord,
And Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin."

Penitent soul! Dare to believe in the instantaneous forgiveness of sins. Thou hast only to utter the confession, to find it interrupted with the outbreak of the Father's love. As soon as the words of penitence leave thy lips, they are met by the hurrying assurances of a love which, whilst it hates sin, has never ceased to yearn over the prodigal.

Sin is dark, dangerous, damnable: but it cannot staunch the love of God; it cannot change the love that is not of yesterday, but dates from eternity itself. The only thing that can really hurt the soul is to keep its confession pent within itself. If only with stuttering, broken utterance it dares to cry, "Be merciful to me, the sinner, for the sake of the Blood that was shed," it instantly becomes white as snow on Alpine peaks; pure as the waters of mid-ocean, which the stain of the great city cannot soil; transparent as the blue ether which is the curtain of the tabernacle of the Most High.
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[nChrist]

DAVID SHEPHERD, PSALMIST, KING
XXVI.  THE STRIPES OF THE CHILDREN OF MEN
F. B. MEYER

(2 Samuel 12-19)

"No action, whether foul or fair,
Is ever done, but it leaves somewhere
A record written by fingers ghostly,
As a blessing or a curse, and mostly
In the greater weakness or greater strength
Of the acts which follow it,"
LONGFELLOW.

SIN may be forgiven, as David's was, and yet a long train of sad consequences ensue. The law of cause and effect will follow on, with its linked chain of disaster: though God's mercy to his erring and repentant children will be shown, in converting the results of their sin into the fires of their purification; in setting alleviation of the tenderest sort against their afflictions; and in finally staying the further outworking of evil. All these facts stand out upon the pages which tell the story of God's Chastisement, Alleviations, and Deliverances.

O soul of man, this is solemn reading for us; it is the inner story of God's dealing with his own. As He dealt with David, He will deal with us. He will forgive, but He may have to use the rod; He may restore to his favour, and yet permit us to drink the bitter waters which our sin has tapped. Be meek, patient, and submissive; thou wilt come forth out of the ordeal a white soul, and men shall learn through thy experiences the goodness and severity of God. Forgiven men may have to reap as they have sown.
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[nChrist]

DAVID SHEPHERD, PSALMIST, KING
XXVI.  THE STRIPES OF THE CHILDREN OF MEN
F. B. MEYER

I. GOD'S CHASTISEMENTS.

Bath-sheba's little child was very sick; it was the child of sin and shame, but the parents hung over it; for seven days the mother watched it, and the father fasted and lay on the earth. He suffered more in seeing the anguish of the babe than if ten times its pain had been inflicted on himself. It cuts to the quick when the innocent suffer for our crimes. On the seventh day the child died.

Two years after, one of his sons treated his sister as David had treated Uriah's wife. They say a man never hears his own voice till it comes back to him from the phonograph. Certainly a man never sees the worst of himself until it re-appears in his child. In Ammon's sin David beheld the features of his own unbridled passions; and in his murder by Absalom two years after, David encountered again his own blood-guiltiness. Absalom's fratricide would never have taken place if David had taken instant measures to punish Ammon. But how could he allot that penalty to his son's impurity which he had evaded for himself? (Leviticus 18:9-29). Nor could he punish Absalom for murder, when he remembered that he, a murderer, had eluded the murderer's fate.

When presently Absalom's rebellion broke out, it received the immediate sanction and adherence of David's most trusty counsellor, whose advice was like the oracle of God. What swept Ahithophel into the ranks of that great conspiracy? The reason is given in the genealogical tables, which show that he was the grandfather of Bath-sheba, and that his son Eliam was the comrade and friend of Uriah.

It is thought by some that at this time David was smitten with some severe form of disease. Psalms 41:1-13 and 55, are supposed to record his sufferings during these dreary years. They tell the tale of his depression, depict the visitors that surrounded his bed, and recount the comments they passed on the sick man.
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[nChrist]

DAVID SHEPHERD, PSALMIST, KING
XXVI.  THE STRIPES OF THE CHILDREN OF MEN
F. B. MEYER

The most disastrous and terrible blow of all was the rebellion of Absalom. His beautiful figure; ready wit; apparent sympathy with the anxieties and disappointments of the people, fretting under the slow administration of the law; his sumptuous expenditure and splendour -- all these had for four years been undermining David's throne, and stealing away the hearts of the people: so that, when he erected his standard at Hebron, and was proclaimed king throughout the land, it was evident that the people had lost their former reverence and love for David -- perhaps the story of his sin had disappointed and alienated them, and they hurried to pay their homage at the shrine of the new prince.

We need not recount the successive steps of those stormy days. The panic-stricken flight of the king, "Arise and let us flee, make speed to depart" the bare-foot ascent of Olivet; the anguish that wept with loud voice; the shameful cursing of Shimei; the apparent treachery of Mephibosheth; the humiliation of David's wives in the sight of that sun which had witnessed his own sin; the gathering of all Israel together unto Absalom in apparent oblivion of the ties which for so many years had bound them to himself.

Such were the strokes of the Father's rod that fell thick and fast upon his child. They appeared to emanate from the malignity and hate of man; but David looked into their very heart, and knew that the cup which they held to his lips had been mixed by heaven, and were not the punishment of a Judge, but the chastisement of a Father.

Outside the story of Christ, there is nothing in the Bible more beautiful than his behaviour as he passed through this tangled growth of thorns. "Carry back the Ark of God," he said to Zadok; "He may bring me again to see both it and his habitation; but if not, behold, here am I, let Him do to me as seemeth good unto Him." And when Shimei, perhaps referring to the recent execution of the sons of Rizpah, and perhaps suggesting that he had been guilty of the death of Ishbosheth, called him a man of blood because of his dealings with Saul's house, David said to Abishai, "The Lord hath permitted him to curse, and who shall say, Wherefore hast thou done so?" Thus, when Judas brought the bitter cup to the lips of Christ, the Master said, "It is the cup my Father hath given Me to drink." Let us never forget the lesson. Pain and sorrow may be devised against us by the malignity of an Ahithophel, a Shimei, or a Judas: but if God permits such things to reach us, by the time that they have passed through the thin wire of his sieve they have become his will for us; and we may look up into his face and know that we are not the sport of chance, or wild misfortune, or human caprice, but are being trained as sons. Without such chastisement we might fear that we were bastards.
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[nChrist]

DAVID SHEPHERD, PSALMIST, KING
XXVI.  THE STRIPES OF THE CHILDREN OF MEN
F. B. MEYER

2. GOD'S ALLEVIATIONS.

They came in many ways. The bitter hour of trial revealed a love on the part of his adherents of which the old king may have become a little oblivious.

Ahithophel's defection cut him to the quick. He tells the story in the psalms we have mentioned. His sensitive nature winced to think that the man of his friendship, in whom he trusted, and who did eat of his bread, had lifted up his heel against him; but then Hushai the Archite came to meet him with every sign of grief, and was willing, as his friend, to plead in the council-chamber of Absalom. Shimei might curse him; but Ittai the stranger, a man of Gath, with all his men, sware allegiance for life or death.

Zadok and Abiathar are there with the Ark, their ancient animosity forgotten in their common sorrow for their master; Ziba meets him with summer fruits, dusters of raisins, and loaves of bread; Shobi, and Machir, and Barzillai make abundant provision for his hungry, weary, and thirsty followers; his people tell him that he must not enter the battle, because his life is priceless, and worth ten thousand of theirs.

It was as though God stooped over that stricken soul, and as the blows of the rod cut long furrows in the sufferer's back, the balm of Gilead was poured into the gaping wounds. Voices spoke more gently; hands touched his more softly; pitiful compassion rained tender assurances about his path; and, better than all, the bright-harnessed angels of God's protection encamped about his path and his lying-down.

Thus he came to sing some of his sweetest songs, and amongst them Psalms 3:1-8, Psalms 4:1-8, Psalms 61:1-8, Psalms 62:1-12, Psalms 63:1-11, Psalms 143:1-12.
The two former are his morning and evening hymns, when his cedar palace was exchanged for the blue canopy of the sky. He knows that he has many adversaries, who say, "There is no help for him in God"; but he reckons that he is well guarded.
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[nChrist]

DAVID SHEPHERD, PSALMIST, KING
XXVI.  THE STRIPES OF THE CHILDREN OF MEN
F. B. MEYER

"Thou, O Lord, art a shield about me,
My glory, and the lifter-up of mine head."

He is not afraid of ten thousands of the people; he lies down in peace to sleep, and awakes in safety, because the Lord sustains him. He knows that the Lord hath set him apart for Himself, and feels that the light of his face will put more gladness into his heart than the treasures of the kingdom which he seemed to have forfeited for ever.

Then, from the drought-smitten land, which they were obliged to traverse, his soul thirsts to see the power and glory of God, as he had seen them in the sanctuary; and already he realizes perfect satisfaction. To long for God is to find Him; to thirst after Him is to feel the ice-cold water flowing over the parched lips. With these came a clear prevision of the issue of the terrible strife:

"The king shall rejoice in God:
Every one that sweareth by Him shall glory:
But the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped."

3. GOD'S DELIVERANCE.

The raw troops that Absalom had so hastily mustered were unable to stand the shock of David's veterans, and fled. Absalom himself was despatched by the ruthless Joab, as he swayed from the arms of the huge terebinth. The pendulum of the people's loyalty swang back to its old allegiance, and they eagerly contended for the honour of bringing the king back. Even the men of Judah, conscious of having forfeited his confidence by so readily following Absalom, repented, and urged him to return. Shimei cringed at his feet. Mephibosheth established his unfaltering loyalty. Barzillai was bound to the royal house for ever by his profuse acknowledgements and the royal offers to Chimham. All seemed ending well.
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[nChrist]

DAVID SHEPHERD, PSALMIST, KING
XXVI.  THE STRIPES OF THE CHILDREN OF MEN
F. B. MEYER

One unfortunate occurrence delayed the peaceful conclusion of the whole matter. The ten tribes were greatly irritated that Judah had made and carried through all the arrangements for the king's return, and gave vent to hot, exasperating words. These the men of Judah answered with equal heat. At an inopportune moment, Sheba sounded the trumpet of sedition, and raised the cry that was destined in the days of Rehoboam again to rend the land, "Every man to his tents, O Israel." The ten tribes immediately seceded, and another formidable revolt yawned at David's feet; and it was only put down by incredible exertions on the part of Joab. The death of Sheba was the last episode in this rebellion which was quelled in blood, and always left a scar and seam in the national life.

Many were the afflictions of God's servant, but out of them all he was delivered. When he had learnt the lesson, the rod was stayed. He had been chastened with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men; but God did not take away his mercy from him as from Saul: his house, his throne, and kingdom, in spite of many conflicting forces, being made sure. Thus always -- the rod, the stripes, the chastisements; but amid all the love of God, carrying out His redemptive purpose, never hasting, never resting, never forgetting, but making all things work together till the evil is eliminated, and the soul purged. Then the after-glow of blessing, the calm ending of the life in a serene sundown.
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