Morning, May 31
Go To Evening Reading
“The king also himself passed over the brook Kidron.”
2 Samuel 15:23
David passed that gloomy brook when flying with his mourning company
from his traitor son. The man after God’s own heart was not exempt from trouble, nay, his life was full of
it. He was both the Lord’s Anointed, and the Lord’s Afflicted. Why then should we expect to escape? At sorrow’s gates the noblest of our race have waited with ashes on their heads;
wherefore then should we complain as though some strange thing had
happened unto us?
The King of kings himself was not favoured with a more cheerful or royal
road. He passed over the filthy ditch of Kidron, through which the
filth of Jerusalem flowed. God had one Son without sin, but not a
single child without the rod. It is a great joy to believe that Jesus
has been tempted in all points like as we are. What is our Kidron
this morning? Is it a faithless friend, a sad bereavement, a slanderous
reproach, a dark foreboding? The King has passed over all these. Is
it bodily pain, poverty, persecution, or contempt? Over each of these
Kidrons the King has gone before us. “In all our afflictions he was afflicted.” The idea of strangeness in our trials must be banished at once and
forever, for he who is the Head of all saints, knows by experience
the grief which we think so peculiar. All the citizens of Zion must
be free of the Honourable Company of Mourners, of which the Prince
Immanuel is Head and Captain.
Notwithstanding the abasement of David, he yet returned in triumph
to his city, and David’s Lord arose victorious from the grave; let us then be of good courage,
for we also shall win the day. We shall yet with joy draw water out
of the wells of salvation, though now for a season we have to pass
by the noxious streams of sin and sorrow. Courage, soldiers of the
Cross, the King himself triumphed after going over Kidron, and so
shall you.