2 Samuel 2:32

REFLECTIONS

BEHOLD Reader! in the instance of David in this chapter, that the death of one enemy only makes way for the appearance of another. If Saul be dead, Saul hath a son still to persecute and harass the life of David. If the Lord in mercy delivers his people from this or that trial; others shall succeed. They that will live godly in Christ Jesus must, and shall, suffer persecution. It is, as our adored Redeemer told his disciples, and all have found it, through much tribulation we must enter the kingdom. Though David was elected by God himself to the kingdom, yet long conflicts he must go through before he gets even a prospect of obtaining it: and when all opposition in the death of Saul seemed for the time to have died away: yet new Sauls arose to oppose. Yes! depend upon it, Reader, the chosen of God will never in this world be without the opposition and malice of the enemy. It is and must be so. Nay indeed, it forms one of the very evidences of their character. Let you and I therefore mark this down in large letters, for our every day's memorandum; and let those sweet words of Christ not only reconcile our hearts, but cause them to rejoice in the blessed testimony. If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen ye out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Blessed Jesus! May I have these sweet marks, and carry about with me these precious assurances of thy love, to help my mind on to a continually rejoicing in thee and thy great salvation.

But let me not dismiss this Chapter before that I have taken from it another delightful lesson. Did David bring up with him, when the Lord appointed him to go up to Hebron to his kingdom, did he bring up with him all that appertained to him, and leave nothing behind? And shall not my soul rejoice in the blessed certainty, that my David, even the Lord Jesus Christ, my king and my God, will bring up to that kingdom he is gone to take possession of in eternal glory, all his followers? Is Jesus now in the Hebron of Hebrons, in the heaven of heavens; and will he be satisfied there, while any of his household are left below? Shall there indeed an hoof be left behind in the spiritual Egypt, in the Ziklag country of the Philistines? No, thou dear Redeemer, thou saidst thyself before thy departure, that thou didst only go before to take possession of it in thy people's name. Thou art gone to receive a kingdom, and wilt return. Oh! for faith in lively exercise to believe the record which God hath given of his dear Son. Shortly thou wilt come to take me home to thyself, that where thou art there may I be also. Never, never my soul, lose sight of these sweet words of my Jesus; but let their animating assurance have a living influence upon all thy words, and thoughts, and actions. Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that whey may behold my glory which thou hast given me. That they all may be one as thou Father art in me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in us. I, in them and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in me, and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me.