2 Samuel 23:4-5, “And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain. 5 Although my house be not so with God; yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire, although he make it not to grow.” 

The chapter from which the above verses are taken begins with the touching expression, “These be the last words of David.”  This expression contains the experience of an old servant of God who had many ups and downs in his life.  It is the old traveller looking back on his journeys.

First, it contains David’s humbling confession.  He looks forward with a prophetic eye to the future coming of the Messiah, the promised Saviour, the seed of Abraham, and the seed of David.  He looks forward to the advent of a glorious kingdom in which there shall be no wickedness, and righteousness shall be the universal character of all the subjects.  He says that the light of that kingdom shall be “as the light of the morning when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds.”  

But then he turns to his own family and sorrowfully says, “My house is not so with God.”  It is not perfect, it is not free from sin, and it has blots and blemishes of many kinds.  It must cost us many tears.  Poor David might well say this.  If ever there was a man whose house was full of trials, and whose life was full of sorrows, that man was David.  Trials from the envy of his own brethren, trials from the unjust persecution of Salu, trials from his own servants, such as Joab and Ahithophel, trials from a wife, even that Michal who once loved him so much, trials from his children, such as Absalom, Amnon, and Adonijah, trials from his own subjects, who at one time forgot all he had done, and drove him out of Jerusalem by rebellion, trials of all kinds, wave upon wave, were continually breaking on David to the very end of his days.  

Second, the covenant was the source of David’s present comfort in life.  He says, “Though my house is not as I could wish, and is the cause of much sorrow, God has made with me an everlasting covenant, order in all things, and sure.”  And then he adds, “this is all my salvation, and all my desire.”  

Now the word, “covenant,” is a deep and mysterious thing, when applied to anything that God does.  Who can fully understand a covenant made by the Eternal God?  It is something far above us and out of sight.  It is a phrase by which He is graciously pleased to accommodate Himself to our poor, weak faculties, but at the best we can only grasp a little of it.  The covenant of God to which David refers as his comfort must mean that everlasting agreement or counsel between the Three persons of the Blessed Trinity which has existed from all eternity for the benefit of all the living members of Christ.  Of this covenant, the Second person of the Trinity is the Mediator (Hebrews 12:24).  Through Him all the blessings and privileges of the covenant are conveyed to every one of His believing members.  When the Bible speaks of God making a covenant with man, as in the words of David, it means with man in Christ as a member and part of the Son.  Christ, in one word, is the Surety of the covenant and through Him believers receive its benefits.  This is the great covenant which David had in view.  

Third, David’s hope for the future was the Messiah to come.  That hope, beyond doubt, was the glorious advent of the Messiah at the end of the world and the setting up of a kingdom of righteousness at the final restitution of all things.  

David was not ignorant of the coming of the Messiah to suffer, for he speaks of it in Psalm 22.  But he saw far behind it the coming of the Messiah to reign, and his eager faith overleaped the interval between the two Advents.  The figures and comparisons which David uses in speaking of the advent and future kingdom of the Messiah are singularly beautiful and admirably fitted to exhibit the benefits which it will bring to the Church and the earth.  The Second Advent of Christ shall be “as the light of the morning when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain.”  These words deserve a lot of thoughts.  Who can look around him and consider the state of the world in which we live and not be obliged to confess that clouds and darkness are now on every side?  “The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain” (Romans 8:22).  The devil is the prince of this world, and the kingdom of God has not yet come.  These are clouds indeed, which often hide the sun from our eyes.  

What will end this state of things?  Is creation to go on groaning and travailing for ever after this fashion?  The Second Advent of Christ supplies an answer to these questions.  The Lord Jesus Christ has not yet finished His work on behalf of man.  He will come again one day to set up a glorious kingdom, in which the consequences of sin shall have no place at all.  It is a kingdom in which there shall be no pain and no disease, in which “the inhabitant shall no more say, I am sick” (Isaiah 33:24).  It is a kingdom in which there shall be no partings, no moves, no changes, and no good-byes.  It is a kingdom in which there shall be no quarrels, no losses, no crosses, no disappointments, no wicked children, no bad servants, no faithless friends.  Where is the Christian heart that does not long for this state of things to begin?  We ought to take up the last prayer in the book of Revelation, and often cry, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus.”  

We may consider the following three thoughts.  (1) Let us take all our troubles and sorrows to the Lord Jesus Christ.  He who died on the cross to purchase forgiveness for our sins, is sitting at the right hand of God, with a heart full of love and sympathy. He can be “touched with the feeling of our infirmities” (Hebrews 4:15).  (2) Let us never forget the everlasting covenant to which old David clung to the end of his days.  It is still in full force.  It is the property of every believer in Jesus, just as much as it was the property of the son of Jesse.  (3) Let us never forget that one of the best of remedies and most soothing medicines is to try to do good to others and to be useful.  Selfish feeding on our own troubles and lazy poring over our sorrows are one secret of the melancholy misery in which many spend their lives.  If we trust in Jesus Christ’s blood, let us remember His example.  He ever “went about doing good” (Acts 10:38).  Let us try to be like Him.

Lovingly,
Pastor Ki

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