David went out to meet them, and answered them, If you be come peaceably to me to help me, my heart shall be knit to you; but if [you be come] to betray me to my adversaries, seeing there is no wrong in my hands, the God of our fathers look thereon, and rebuke it.
I want to run a parallel between the case of David and that of our Lord Jesus Christ. At the present moment our Lord Jesus, the Son of David, is still in the hold. Among the men of this world He is not yet enthroned: their hearts go after another prince, and as yet the kingdom has not come to the Son of David. I know that He reigns in heaven, and that He is in very deed King of kings and Lord of lords; but before the eyes of the mass of men He is still despised and rejected. His people, as yet, are but a feeble folk, and often hard put to it; while His kingdom is ridiculed, His claims are derided, and His yoke is scorned. The doctrines which He preached are tossed to and fro like a ball; and men at the present time are glorying in science or tradition, in reason or in speculation; yea, they speak as if human wisdom would soon wipe out the very name of Christianity. It is not so in truth before God; but it is so in appearance before men. This is an age of blasphemy and of rebuke for our Lord the King. Brave are they who will stand to Christ in this, the day of His exile. They shall be right royally rewarded who will now take up His cause, and will go forth to Him without the camp, bearing His reproach. He is the man for the Lord Jesus who can now run the gauntlet of miles of scoffers, and be willing to be called a fool, a madman, or an idiot for His name's sake. Blessed are they who are not ashamed this day to bear the name of Christ written out large; and to confess that, after the way which men call “orthodoxy,” so worship they the Lord God of their fathers. The philosophic Christian may escape if he will drown the Christian in the philosopher; but this is not to stand out square for Christ. It does our heart good nowadays to meet with a few brethren who are not ashamed still to believe in the merit of the Redeemer's precious blood, and in the power of His Spirit to regenerate. We feel at home when we drop in with a few who believe in prayer, and expect the Lord to interpose on the behalf of His people. I say, blessed are they who, like these men of Benjamin and Judah, are willing to go to the King in the hold, and take up His cause though it be at a low ebb, and stand up for Him when the many are ready to trample Him down, and are ridiculing His work and His cause. For my own part, I never loved my Lord better than now that He is defamed; and His truth is all the dearer to me because it is flouted by the worldly-wise.
