DELIVERED ON SABBATH EVENING, APRIL 8, 1860,
BY THE REV. C. H. SPURGEON,
AT NEW PARK STREET CHAPEL, SOUTHWARK.
“Then David returned to bless his household. And Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David and said, How glorious was the king of Israel today, who uncovered himself today in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovers himself! And David said unto Michal, It was before the Lord, which chose me before your father and before all his house, to appoint me ruler over the people of the Lord, over Israel: therefore will I play before the Lord. And I will yet be more vile than thus and will be base in my own sight: and of the maidservants which you have spoken of, of them shall I be had in honor.” 2 Samuel 6:20-22 .
You will remember the remarkable passage of Sacred History which I related to you this morning, [See Sermon #307] how David sought on one occasion to bring up the Ark of God from Kirjath-Jearim to
Jerusalem; but neglecting God’s Law, they put the Ark upon a cart, instead of carrying it upon the shoulders of the
Levites. And as one mistake very soon leads to another, when the oxen stumbled, Uzzah put forth his hand to steady the
Ark and prevent its falling, and God smote him there for his error and he died. It was an awful moment. The pulse of that
vast assembly beating high with solemn festivity, receives a sudden jerk. The trumpet which erstwhile sent forth its
cheerful blast, with the sacred melody of cornet, of psaltery and of harp—all are hushed in one instant! Dullness and
terror seize the minds of all. They separate to their homes; the Ark is carried into a private house adjoining the residence
of that eminent servant of God, Obed-edom, and there it tarried for the space of three months. David at last recovered his
spirits and a second time, having carefully read over God’s Law concerning the removal of the Ark, he went down to the
house of Obed-edom to carry it away. The priests, this time, lift up the Ark upon their shoulders by means of the golden
staves which passed through golden rings and so uphold the Ark. Finding that they were not smitten, but that they lived
and were able to carry the Ark, David paused and offered seven bullocks and seven rams as a sacrifice to God. Then,
putting off his royal robe, laying aside his grown, he dressed himself like a priest, put on a linen ephod in order that he
might have ease in the exercise which he meant to take and so, in the midst of all the people, like the poorest and meanest
of them, he went before the Ark, and playing with his harp, he danced before the Lord with all his might.
While he was so doing he passed by his own house, and Michal, his wife, looking out, thought it was a strange thing
to see the king wearing so paltry a robe as a linen ephod! She had rather see him arrayed in some goodly Babylonian
garment of fine linen; or she desired to see him clothed with his usual garments, and she despised him in her heart. When
David came in, the first words she uttered were a taunt—“How glorious was the king of Israel today!” Then she
exaggerated what he did—her spleen found vent in sarcasm; she made it out that he had behaved worse than he could
have done. He had simply divested himself of his robes and acted like the rest of the people in playing before God, but she
accused him of immodesty. This was, of course, but a pitiful satire, he having in all things acted blamelessly, though
humbly, like the rest of the people. His reply to her was with unusual tartness. Seldom did he seem to lose his temper for a
moment, but in this case he half did so at any rate. His answer was, “It was before the Lord which chose me before your
father, and before all his house.” Thus significantly and, as it were, ominously, did he remind her of her pedigree. And
because she had slighted her husband when he had acted in God’s service according to the dictates of his heart, the Lord
struck her with a curse—the greatest curse which an Eastern woman could possibly know—a curse, moreover, which
wiped out the last expiring hope of her family pride—she went childless to the day of her death.
Well now, this picture is designed to teach us some wholesome lesson. I want you to look at it. You remember that
old saying of ours—“We should expect some danger near, when we receive too much delight.” When I see David
dancing, I am quite sure there will be a darkening of his heart before long. How happy he looked! His whole countenance
radiant with joy! I think I hear him shouting loudest of that crowd, “Sing unto the Lord; sing Psalms unto Him. Sing
unto Him. Sing unto Him. Call on His holy name!” And then awakening all the strings of his heart to ecstasy, he sings
again, “Sing unto the Lord. Come sing unto Him! Sing Psalms unto His name!” Perhaps he was never in a more holy
excitement; his spirits were all heated; he was in a flow of heavenly joy! Ah, David, there is a sting for you somewhere.
Now there is a calm, but there is a tempest rising—
“More the treacherous calm I dread,
Than tempests rolling overhead.”
This joy is on the threshold of a grief. He blesses the people. After he has ceased from his worship of God, he distributes
to every man a flagon of wine, and a loaf of bread, and a good piece of meat, and they all eat and are merry before their
God. And now David says, “I have blessed the people; I have made them all glad. I will go into my house and I will give
them a blessing there.” But he is met on the threshold by his own wife, and she in the most sarcastic manner sneers at
him—“How glorious was the king of Israel today!” Poor David is angry, heart-broken and sad. His joy is scattered to
the winds for a while; though he puts her off with a rebuke, doubtless the irony went to his soul; the joy of that day was
sorely marred—
“A Christian is seldom long at ease,
When one trouble’s gone, another does him seize.”
So says old John Bunyan; and we may truly say, when we are at the top of a mountain, we are not far from the bottom of
a valley! When we are riding on the top of one wave, it is not long before we shall be in the trough of another! Uphill and
downhill is the way to Heaven! Checkered must be our path; golden shades are interwoven with a black ground. We shall
have joy, but we must have trial; we shall have transport, but we must have trouble in the flesh.
This evening I am just going to discourse a little, first, about David’s trouble; secondly, the vindication of his
conduct, and thirdly, his noble resolution. But my main purpose will be to stir you all up, if you are ever subject to a trial
like his, to make his resolve and ground it upon his reasoning .
I. First, DAVID’S TROUBLE. His trouble was peculiar. It came from a quarter where he ought least to have
expected it—“Oh,” says old master Frampton, “Joab smote Abner under his fifth rib; there is many a man who has been
smitten in his rib, too.” Another says, “It is a strange strategy of Satan to break a man’s head with his own bones, and
yet many a man has encountered such rough usage. They who have been the chief joy of our hearts have often been the
means of causing us the most grievous pain.” Has it not been to many a Christian woman that her husband has been her
greatest enemy in religion and many a Christian man has found the partner of his own bosom the hardest obstacle in the
road to Heaven? I will just give you some pictures such as I know to have occurred and to be occurring every day—they
will suit some of you now present. A man of God has been up to the Lord’s House. There was a great work going on—he
helped that work—but when he went home, as soon as he entered the door, Michal, Saul’s daughter, was there and she
says, “You are mad, you are! You are crazy; you don’t know what to do with your money. You give it away to this and
to that; and you leave your children beggars. You are a fool,” she says, “you are deceived! You have gone mad with your
religion.” The man puts up with it and bares it patiently, though it enters into his very heart and he turns away sorely
troubled. There is another—a woman this time. She went up to the house of her Master’s Brothers and Sisters, and they
made merry there and there was joy in that place! Her heart was carried away with elevated emotions, and on her road
home there is an unspeakable bliss in her soul. As soon as she enters the door, the question is asked, “What brings you
home so late?—why didn’t you just stay out all night? You look very happy; I dare say you have been among those
canting hypocrites, haven’t you?” She says nothing—handles it patiently—but the dart has gone into her heart and she
feels it sorely that when she serves her God with a good conscience, it is thrown in her teeth as if she had done wrong!
There is many a young man who dances before God with all his might when he has heard about the joyous things of
the Covenant of Grace! He has forgotten all his cares, and all his troubles, and he goes back, and perhaps this time it is
his own brother, who when they retire to rest, begins to ridicule him. “Where have you been today? How have you been
spending your Sunday? I dare say you have been hearing So-and-So! What good can he do you? What has he got to tell
you?” And there is a laugh. No names are contemptuous enough; you are called a “fool.” It is supposed that no man in
his senses will be a Christian; to think about eternal things is the highest mark of folly—for one short hour to turn one’s
thoughts away from this poor earth and muse upon eternal things is the mark of madness! Now, we judge the madness on
the other side. As we weigh the levities of this life, and the realities of the life to come in the scales of judgment, the
madness is found in the extreme on the other hand with the despisers and not with ourselves! The children of this world
never did understand the children of the next and they never will. “The light came into the world, and the darkness
comprehended it not.” How could it—how could darkness do anything to light except oppose it? It could not be
expected that they who serve sin should love those who serve righteousness . Oil and water will not mix. Fire and water
will never lie to sleep in the same cradle. And it cannot be expected that that man-child, the Church of God, shall have
peace and be happy in the same house with that old giant, the Church of Satan—the synagogue of the devil! There must
be war and lightning; there must be opposition and conflicts, while there are two natures in the world and two sorts of
men!
This, then, was the trial David had to endure. And I want you to notice how peculiarly sharp this trial must have
been. Natural affections are so interwoven with a thousand ligaments that they cannot be easily broken. They are delicate
as the finest nerves and can never be injured without causing the most dolorous sensation. Surely David must remember
that Michal was the wife of his youth, and there was gladness in his heart on the day he married her, and after all, she had
been a good wife to him in many respects. Such reflections would make her alienation from him all the harder to bear.
“Oh,” he might have said, “she preserved my life once at the risk of her own, when I lay sick in bed and her father, Saul,
had said, ‘Bring him in the bed even as he is, that I may slay him.’ Did she not let me down the wall in a basket and then
lay an image in the bed and stuff the pillar with goat’s hair and deceive her father that so I might escape? Ah, there was
love in that woman’s bosom and how long did she remain faithful while I was hunted like a partridge on the mountains?”
It is true he might call to recollection that in his worst times she had forgotten him, but now she had come back to him
and David sincerely loved her; for you remember that when Abner wanted to make peace with David, his stipulation was,
“Except you bring Michal unto me, I will not see your face,” so that he had a thorough affection for her and she had done
him good. Yet the delight of his heart is become the foe of his spirit! She it is who now laughs at him for what he had
done with a pure desire to serve God, and with a holy joy in doing it. Yes, that is the unkindest cut of all; that goes to the
very quick of a man when the one he loves and the one who is worth all his love, notwithstanding throws in his teeth his
zeal for Christ! Ah, Brothers and Sisters, it is a happy thing when we are enabled to rejoice together in our family
relationships; when husband and wife help each other on the path to Heaven. There can be no happier position than that
of the Christian man or woman who finds, in every holy wish he has for God, a helper! He finds that often she outstrips
him—that when he would do something, she suggests something more—when he would serve his Master, there is a hint
given that more yet might be done and no obstacle put in the way, but every assistance rendered! Happy is that man and
blessed is he! He has received a treasure from God, the like of which could not be bought for diamonds, and much fine
gold could not be exchanged for it. That man is blessed of the Most High! He is Heaven’s favorite and he may rejoice in
the special favor of his God!
But, back to our example of David’s trouble—“You,” she said, “you who are so cautious in everything else, you
seem to have lost your head when you think about your religion.” So she will be sarcastic and shoot words like arrows at
David in such a way that all of them may cause a wound. And now let me say here, that this is more frequently done by
the husband against the wife and still more frequently by the two fellow apprentices or workmen against one another. It
is a curious thing that when men are going to Hell, there is no one to stop them. “Make way, make way! Open the toll
bars there; stand clear, do not let there be a dog in his path! Make way for him!” Is not that the cry of the world? But
here comes a man who wants to go to Heaven—“Block his path up! Throw stones in the way! Block it up; make it as
difficult as ever it can be!” Yes, and good people, too, good people not knowing what they are doing—they are
employed by Satan to impede our path to Heaven! Poor souls, they do not know better. Satan enters into them and sets
them upon us, to see if they cannot in some way or other mar our integrity because we love the whole Gospel and will not
be content to have a part only. Ah, Brothers and Sisters, this is a sore trial, but know that your afflictions are not strange
or unusual; the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren who are in the world.
II. I shall now turn away from the consideration of the trouble, to look at holy David as he meets and encounters it.
We have had David’s trial; now we will have DAVID’S JUSTIFICATION. What did David say in extenuation of what he
had done? He said, “It was before the Lord, which chose me before your father, and before all his house, and appointed
me ruler over the people, over Israel, therefore will I play before the Lord.” David’s justification of his acts was God’s
election of him! Do you not see the Doctrine of Election here? God had chosen him before her father Saul. “Now,” says
David, “inasmuch as by special love and Divine favor I was lifted up from the common people and made a king, I will
stoop down to the common people once again, and I will praise my God as the people do, robed in their vestments,
dancing as they dance, and playing on the harp even as the rest of the joyous crowd are doing.” Gratitude was the key
note of his worship. Let the worldling say of the Christian when he is acting true to his Master, “You are enthusiastic;”
our reply is, “Yes, we are. We may be considered enthusiastic if you judge us by ordinary rules, but we are not to be
judged so; we consider that we have been loved with special love; that God has been pleased to forgive us our sins, to
accept us by His Sovereign Grace, and give us the privileges of His children—
‘Loved by our God, for Him again
With love intense we burn!
Chosen of Him before time began,
We choose Him in return!’
We do not expect ordinary men to do for God what the Christian would. No,” he says—
“Love I much, I’ve more forgiven!
I’m a miracle of Grace.”
If he gives more to the cause of God than other men think of giving, still it seems very little to him, for he says—
“Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a tribute far too small!
Love so amazing so Divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all!”
Michal may say we have acted madly; she would act the same if she felt as we felt. Men of the world may say we act
extravagantly, and go beyond the rule of prudence. They would go beyond the rule of prudence, too, if they had been
partakers of like love and received like favor! The man who feels himself to have been chosen of God from before the
foundation of the world—who has a solid conviction that his sins are all blotted out; that he is God’s own child; that he
is accepted in the Beloved; that his Heaven is secure—I say there is nothing extravagant for that man to do! He will go
and be a missionary to the heathen, cross the seas with his life in his hands, and live in the midst of a heathen population.
Men say, “What for? He calls gain but a miserable pittance to sustain life, after giving up the most flowery prospects. He
must be mad.” Mad no doubt you may account him, if you judge as Michal judged—but if you consider that God has
chosen him and loved him with a special love, it is but reasonable, even less than might have been expected—that such a
man is ready to sacrifice for Christ!
Take another example. Let me cull a picture from the memoir of one in years gone by. He preaches in a Church in
Glasgow; he is just inducted into the Church, preferment lies open before him, he may speedily be made a Bishop if he
likes. He seeks it not! Without miter or benefice he takes to Kennington Common and Moorfields—goes to every stump
and hedge in the country—so that he is Rural Dean of all the commons everywhere and Canon Residentiary nowhere! He
is pelted with rotten eggs; he finds one time that his forehead has been laid open in the midst of a sermon. Why does he do
it? Men say he is fanatical. What did Whitefield need to do this for? What did John Wesley need to go all over the
country for? Why, there is the Rev. Mr. So-and-So, with his 14 weeks vacation and he never preaches at all—good man
he is! “Oh,” say the world, “ and he makes a good thing of it, depend upon it.” That is a common saying, “He makes a
good thing of it.” And when he died, he did make a good thing of it, for he silenced the tongue of slander, leaving
nothing but an imperishable reputation behind! When Mr. Wesley was laboring abundantly, they said, “He is a rich
man.” And they taxed him very heavily for his plate. He said, “You may take my plate at any rate if you like, for all I
have is two silver spoons. I have one in London and one in York, and by the Grace of God, I shall never have any more as
long as there are poor people about.” But the people said, “Depend upon it, they are making a good thing of it. Why
cannot they be still as other people?” The only reason why they could not was just this—that God had chosen them
before the rest of mankind! They felt that they were special objects of Divine favor and they knew their calling—it was
not only to make them blessed, but to make them a blessing! What other men could not do, or would not do, they did—
they could not rest before they did it. They could dance like David before the Ark, degrading the clerical character; they
could bring down the fine dignity of the parson, to stand like a mountebank before the shows of Moorfields, or in the
Spafields’ riding-schools. They could come down on stage boards to preach the Gospel! They were not ashamed to be like