2 Samuel 19

Acting Ferry-Boat

There went over a ferry-boat to bring over the king's household. 2 Samuel 19:18.

Our text this morning is something which is mentioned only once in the Bible a ferry-boat. This ferry-boat comes into one of the stories about King David. At the time of the story David was an old man and he had just been passing through a very trying experience. His son Absalom had plotted against him. He had tried to get himself made king in his father's stead. The plot had so far succeeded that David had had to flee from Jerusalem with his household and those who were faithful to him. He had crossed the Jordan, and there his men and Absalom's men had fought a fierce battle in which Absalom was slain and his followers were defeated.

But King David had not hurried back to Jerusalem to punish the rebels. He had waited on the other side of Jordan till his people repented and sent him a message entreating him to return to rule over them. Then it was that, when David reached the river Jordan on his return journey, he found waiting to welcome him the leading men of the tribe of Judah, also a man called Ziba who had been a servant of King Saul. This man had with him his fifteen sons and twenty servants, and the story says that they went through Jordan that is, forded the river to meet the king, and that “there went over” also “a ferry-boat to bring over the king's household” the women and children who had gone with him into exile.

Now great scholars who have studied the Hebrew language, in which this story was first written, tell us that they are not quite sure that the word translated “ferry-boat” means a ferry-boat. They say that “ferry-boat” may mean “ford” and that we should read that Ziba and his fifteen sons and his twenty servants dashed through Jordan in the presence of the king, and kept crossing and re-crossing the ford to carry over the king's household.

But, after all, the change does not make much difference to the story, for, if Ziba and his sons and servants carried over the women and children belonging to the king, what were they but human ferryboats? They took passengers safely across the river, and if that is not what a ferry-boat is for, tell me what you think it is for.

As it happens, I hope the text does refer to human ferry-boats, for that is what I want to ask you to be today human ferry-boats. There are all kinds of ferry-boats, as you know. There are those which are rowed with oars; there are those like a punt which are worked by a pole; there are those which are pulled across with the aid of an overhead wire; and there are those which have sails. There are also the funny little paddle steamers which ferry you across the larger rivers, and the fine big steam boats which take you over an estuary like the Mersey. But nature's ferry-boat, and the earliest ferry-boat known, is just some strong kind person who carries a weaker or smaller person across a river.

But, you say, how am I to act as a human ferryboat? To begin with there is no river near my home, or, if there is, it is too wide and deep to ford, and I am too small to carry anybody across.

Well, you see, I was talking in parables. I did not mean a real live river; I meant the rivers which we all have to cross in life, the things that we have to get to the other side of somehow things that we feel it is impossible for us to get over. They are the difficulties and dangers which we come to sooner or later in the journey of life. It is well for us if, when we do come to them, we meet there a kind human ferry-boat to help us over and land us safely on the other side.

I think that I don't need to explain the difficulties, to you. They begin when we are very small indeed. They begin with things such as grammar we can't understand and sums that won't come out right; and as we grow older they go on to bigger things such as business worries and household cares. For all of them there is no better aid than the helping hand of a friend, a kind human ferry-boat.

The dangers are not so easy to describe or so easy to get over as the difficulties. Let us see if a story will help. There is a tale told of a famous Swiss scientist called Louis Agassiz. When he was a boy he lived on the border of one of the beautiful Swiss lakes, and this lake used to freeze over in winter. Louis had a small brother much younger than himself, and he and his brother set off one day across the frozen lake to meet their father. Their mother was watching the two boys from the window, and to her horror she noticed that they had come to a crack in the ice. It was not wide only about a foot or so and the ice on each side of it was quite thick, but the mother was afraid that the little fellow would try to step across, would miss his footing, and plunge into the dark waters beneath.

But she need not have feared. When the boys reached the crack, what do you think happened? Louis got down on the ice on his hands and knees. He stretched himself cautiously across the crack, and his little brother walked safely over on a human bridge.

Children, there are places in life more dangerous than the Jordan river, more dangerous than the ice crack on the Swiss lake. When you see anyone doing what is dishonorable, or mean, or cowardly, or cruel, he is in one of those dangerous places; and he needs your help even more than if he were merely in difficulties. Are you going to turn your back on him, then, and let him drown? Or are you going to do your very utmost, the very best you know, to get him out of that danger? Are you going to be content only when you see him safe on the other side?

If you want a good reason why you should act ferry-boat, here it is. Christ went about acting ferryboat all His days on earth. He was ever helping people out of difficulties, out of dangers. He was ever doing good.