Loyal to the Core

“And Ittai answered the king, and said, As the Lord liveth, and as my lord the king liveth, surely in what place my lord the king shall be, whether in death or life, even there also will thy servant be.” — 2 Samuel xv. 21.

Although the courage of David appears to have failed him when he fled from his son Absalom, yet certain other noble characteristics came out in brilliant relief, and, among the rest, his large-heartedness and his thoughtfulness for others. A man in such a desperate condition as he was must have earnestly coveted many friends and have been anxious to retain them all, but yet he would not exact their services if they were too costly to themselves, and so he said to Ittai, who appears to have been a Philistine — a proselyte to Israel, who had lately come to join himself to David — “Wherefore goest thou also with us? Thou hast newly come to me, and should I make thee wander with me in my sorrows? Return to thy place and abide with the new king, for thou art a stranger and an exile. May every blessing be upon thee. May mercy and truth be with thee.” He did not send him away because he doubted him, but because he felt that he had no claim to the great sacrifices which Ittai might have to make in attending his chequered fortunes. “I do not know what may become of me,” he seems to say, “but I do not want to drag you down with myself. Should my cause become desperate, I have no wish to involve you in it, and therefore with the best of motives I wish you farewell.” I admire this generosity of spirit. Some men have great expectations: they live upon their friends, and yet complain that charity is cold. These people expect more from their friends than they ought to give. A man’s best friends on earth ought to be his own strong arms. Loafers are parasitical plants, they have no root of their own, but like the mistletoe they strike root into some other tree, and Buck the very soul out of it for their own nourishment. Sad that men ghould ever degrade themselves to such despicable meanness! While you can help yourselves, do so, and while you have a right to expect help in times of dire necessity, do not be everlastingly expecting everybody else to be waiting upon you. Feel as David did towards Ittai — that you would by no means wish for services to which you have no

No. 1,512. 16 cLiim. Independence of spirit used to be characteristic of Englishmen. hope it will always continue to be so; and especially among children of God.

On the other hand, look at Ittai, perfectly free to go, but in order to end the controversy once for all, and to make David know that he does not mean to leave him, he takes a solemn oath before Jehovah his God, and he doubles it by swearing by the life of David that he will never leave him; in life, in death, he will be with him. He has cast in his lot with him for better and for worse, and he means to be faithful to the end. Old Master Trapp says, “All faithful friends went on a pilgrimage years ago, and none of them have ever come back.” I scarcely credit that, but I am afraid that friends quite so ftiithful as Ittai are as scarce as two moons in the sky at once, and you might travel over the edge of the world before you found them. I think, however, that one reason why faithful Ittais have become so scarce may be because lai’gehearted Davids are so rare. When you tell a man that you expect a good deal of him, he does not see it. Why should you look for so much? He is not your debtor. You have closed at once the valves of his generosity. But when you tell him honestly that you do not expect more than is right, and that j’ou do not wish to be a tax upon him, when he sees that you consult his welfare more than your own, that is the very reason why he feels attached to you, and counts it a pleasure to serve such a generous-hearted man. You will generally find that when two people fall out there are faults on both sides: if generous spirits be few, it may be because faithful friends are rare, and if faithful fiiends are scarce it may be because generous spirits are scarce too. Be it ours as Christians to live to serve rather than to be served, remembering that we are the followers of a blaster who said, “The Son of man came not to be ministfred unto, but to minister.” We are not to exp. ct others io serve us, but our life is to be spent in endeavouring to serve them.

I am going to use Ittai’s language for a further purpose. If Ittai, charmed with David’s person and character, though a foreigner and a stranger, felt that he could enlist beneath his banner for life — yea, and declared that he would do so there and then — how much more may you and I, if we know what Christ has done for us, and who he is and what he deserves at our hands, at this good hour plight our troth to him and vow, “As the Lord liveth, surely in whatsoever place my Lord and Saviour shall be, whether in death or life, even there also shall his servant be.”

And so I shall begin by noticing first in what form this declaration was made, that we may learn from it how to make the same declaration.

I. In WHAT FORM AND MAlyNER WAS THIS DECLARATION MADE?

It was made, first, at a time when David’ s fortunes were at their lowest ebb, and consequently it was made unselfishly, without the slightest idea of gain fi-om it. David was now forsaken of everybody. His faithful body-guard was all that he had on earth to depend upon, and then it was that Ittai cast in his lot with David. Now, beloved, it is very easy to follow religion when she goes abroad in her silver slippers, but the true man follows her when she is in rags, and goes through the mire and the slough. To take up with Christ when everybody cries up hia name is what a hypocrite would do, but to take up with Christ when they are shouting, “Away with him! away with him!” is another matter. There are times in which the simple faith of Christ is at a great discount. At one time imposing ceremonies are all the rage, and everybody loves decorated worship, and the pure simplicity of the gospel is overloaded and encumbered with meretricious ornaments; it is such a season that we must stand out for God’s more simple plan, and reject the symbolism which verges on idolatry and hides the simplicity of the gospel.

At another time the gospel is assailed by learned criticisms and by insinuations against the authenticity and inspiration of the books of Scripture, while fundamental doctrines are undermined one by one, and he who keeps to the old faith is said to be behind the age, and so on. But happy is that man who takes up with Christ, and with the gospel, and with the truth when it is in its worst estate, crying, “If this he foolery, I am a fool, for where Christ is there will I be; I love him better at bis worst than others at their best, and even if he be dead and buried in a sepulchre I will go with Mary and with Magdalene and sit over against the sepulchre and watch until he rise again, for rise again he will; but whether he live or die, where he is there shall his servant be.” Ho, then, brave spirits, will ye enlist for Christ when his banner is tattered? Will you enlist under him when his armour is stained with blood? Will you rally to him even when they report him shun? Happy shall ye be! You’’ loyalty shall be proven to your own eternal glory. Ye are soldiers such as he loves to honour.

Ittai gave himself up wholly to David ichen he was hut newly come to him. David says, “Whereas thou camest but yesterday, should I this day make thee go up and down with us?” But Ittai does not care whether he came yesterday or twenty yenrs ago, but he declares, “Surely in what place my lord the king shall be, whether in death or life, even there also will thy servant be.” It is best to begin the Christian life with thorough consecration. Have any of you professed to be Christians, and have you never given yourselves entirely to Christ? It is time that you began again. This should be one of the earliest forms of our worship of our Master — this total resignation of ourselves to him. According to his word, the first announcement of our faith should be by baptism, and the meaning of baptism, or immersion in water, is death, biii’ial. and resurrection. As far as this point is concerned, the avowal is just this: “I am henceforth dead to all but Christ, whose servant I now am. Henceforth let no man trouble me, for 1 bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. The watermark is on me from head to foot. I have been buried with him in baptism unto death to show that henceforth I belong to him.” Now, whether you have been baptized or not I leave to yourselves, but in any case this must be true — that henceforth you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. Aa soon as ever Christ is yours you ought to be Christ’s. “I am my Beloveds” should be linked with “My Beloved is mine,” in the dawn of the day in which you yield to the Lord.

Again, Ittai surrendered himself to David in fhe most voluntary manner. No one persuaded Ittai to do this; in fact, David seems to have persuaded him the other way. David tested and tried him, but he voluntarily out of the fulness of his heart said, “Where, my lord, the king, is, there also shall his servant be.” Now, dear young people, if you believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is yours, give yourselves up to him by a distinct act and deed. Feel that one grand impulse without needing pressure or argument, — “The love of Christ constraineth me”: but do not wait to have your duty urged upon you, for the more free the dedication the more acceptable it will be. I am told that there is no wine so delicious as that which flows from the grape at the first gentle pressure. The longer you squeeze the harsher is the juice. We do not like that service which is pressed out of a man: and certainly the Lord of love will not accept forced labour. No; let your willinghood show itself. Say —

“Take myself, and I will be
Ever, only, all for thee.”

My heart pants after the service of her Lord. With the same spontaneity which Ittai displayed make a solemn consecration of yourselves to David’s Lord.

I used a word then which suggests another point, namely, that Ittai did this very solemnly. He took an oath which we Christians may not do, and may not wish to do, but still we should make the surrender with quite as much solemnity. In Dr. Doddridge’s “Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul” there is a very solemn form of consecration, which he recommends young men to sign when they give themselves to Christ. I cannot say that I can recommend it, though I practised it, for I fear that there is something of legality about it, and that it may bring the soul into bondage. I have known some write out a deed of dedication to Christ and sign it with their blood. I will neither commend nor censure, but I will say that a complete dedication must be made in some manner, and that it should be done deliberately and with grave thought. You have been bought with a price, and you should, therefore, in a distinct manner own your Lord’s property in you, and transfer to him the title-deeds of your body, spirit, and soul.

And this, I think, Ittai did publicly. At any rate, he so acted that everybody saw him when David said, “Go over,” and he marched in front — the first man to pass the brook. Oh yes, dear friend, you must publicly own yourself a Christian. If you are a Christian you must not try to sneak to heaven round the back alleys, but march up the narrow way like a man and like your Master. He was never ashamed of you, though he might have been: how can you be ashamed of him when there is nothing in him to be ashamed of? Some Christians seem to think that they shall lead an easier life if they never make a profession. Like a rat behind the wainscot they come out after candlelight and gQt a crumb, and then slip back again. I would not lead such a life. Surely, there is nothing to be ashamed of. A Christian — let ns glory in the name! A believer in the Lord Jesus Christ — let them write it on our door plates, if they will. Why should we blush at that? “But,” says one, “I would rather be a very quiet one.” I will now place a torpedo under this cowardly quietness. What saith the Lord Jesus? ♦’ Whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven; but he that shall confess me before men, him

LOYAL TO THE CORE. -gwfll I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.” Take up your cross and follow him, for “with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation,” When our Master ascended up on high he told us to preach the gospel to every creature; and how did he put it? “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” There must be, therefore, the believing and the acknowledgment of believing. “But cannot I be saved as a believer if I do not openly confess Christ?” Dear friend, you have no business to tamper with your Master’s command, and then say, “Will he not graciously forgive this omission?” Do not neglect one of the two commands, but obey all his will. If you have the spirit of Ittai you will Bay, ‘■ Wheresoever my lord the king is, there also shall thy servant be.”

I leave the matter with the consciences of those who may be like Nicodemus, coming to Jesus by night, or who may be like Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple, but secretly, for fear of the Jews. May they come out and own their Master, believing that then he will own them.

II. Secondly, what did this declaration involve? As to Ittai, what did it involve?

First, that he was henceforth to be David’s servant. Of course, as his soldier, he was to fight for him, and to do his bidding. What sayest thou, man? Canst thou lift thy hand to Christ and say, “Henceforth I will live as thy servant, not doing my own will, but thy will. Thy command is henceforth my rule “? Canst thou say that? If not, do not mock him, but stand back. May the Holy Ghost give thee grace thus to begin, thus to persevere, and thus to end.

It involved, next, for Ittai that he was to do his utmost for David’s cause, not to be his servant in name, but his soldier, ready for scars and wounds and death, if need be, on the king’s behalf. That is what Ittai meant as, in rough soldier-tones, he took the solemn oath that it should be so. Now, if thou wouldst be Christ’s disciple, determine henceforth by his grace that thou wilt defend his cause; that if there be rough fighting thou wilt be in it; and if there be a forlorn hope needed thou wilt lead it, and go through floods and flames if thy Master’s cause shall call thee. Blessed is the man who will follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth, giving himself wholly up to his Lord to serve him with all his heart.

But Ittai in his promise declared that he tvould give a personal attend’ ance upon the person of his master. That was, indeed, the pith of it. “In what place my lord, the king, shall be, even there also will thy servant be.” Brethren, let us make the same resolve in our hearts, that wherever Christ is, there we will be. Where is Christ? In heaven. We will be there by-and-by. Where is he here, spiritually? Answer: in his church. The church is a body of faithful men; and where these are met together, there is Jesus in the midst of them. Very well, then, we will join the church, for wherever our Lord, the King, is, there also shall his servants be. When the list of the redeemed is read we will be found in the register, for our Lord’s name is there.

Where else did Jesus go? In the commencement of his ministry he descended into the waters of baptism. Let us follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. At the close of his ministry he brake bread, and said,

1S6 MRTEOPOLITAN TABERNACLE PUTiPIT.

♦’This do ye in remembrance of me.” Be often at hxs table, for if there is a place on the earth where he manifests himself to his children it is where bread is broken in his name. Let me now tell a secret. Some of you may have heard it before, but you have forgotten it. Here it is — my Lord is generally here at prayer-meetings on Monday nights, and, indeed, whenever his people come together for prayer, there he is. So I will read you my text, and see whether you will come up to it — “Surely in what place my Lord the King shall be, whether it be in a prayer-meeting or at a sermon, even there also will thy servant be.” If you love your Lord, you know where his haunts are; take care that you follow hard after him there.

Where is the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, brethren, he is wherever the truth is, and I pray God that he may raise up a race of men and women in England who are determined to be wherever the truth of God is. We have a host of molluscous creatures about who will always be where the congregation is the most respectable: respectability being measured by clothes and cash. Time was in the church of God when they most esteemed the most pious men; has it come to this that gold takes precedence of grace? Our fathers considered whether a ministry was sound, but now the question is — Is the man clever? Words are preferred to truth, and oratory takes the lead of the gospel. Shame on such an age. 0 you who have not altogether sold your birthrights, I charge you keep out of this wretched declension.

The man who loves Christ thoroughly will say, “Wheresoever the Lord the King is, there also shall his servant be, if it be with half a dozen poor Baptists or Methodists, or among the most despised people in the town.” I charge you, beloved, in whatever town or country your lot is cast, be true to your colours, and never forsake your principles. Wherever the truth is, there go, and where there is anything contrary to truth, do not go, for there your Master is not to be found.

What next? Well, our Master is to be found wherever there is anything to be done for the good of our fellow-men. The Lord Jesus Christ is to be found wherever there is work to be done in seeking after his lost sheep. Some people say that they have very little communion with Christ, and when I look at them, I do not wonder. Two persona cannot walk together if they will not walk at the same pace. Now, my Lord walks an earnest pace whenever he goes through the world, for the King’s business requires haste; and if his disciples crawl after a snail’s fashion they will lose his company. If some of our groaning brethren would go to the Sunday-school, and there begin to look after the little children, they would meet with their Lord who used to say, “Suffer the little children to come unto me.” If others were to get together a little meeting, and teach the ignorant, they would there find him who had compassion on the ignorant and on those that are out of the way. Our Master is where there are fetters to be broken, burdens to be removed, and hearts to be comforted, and if you wish to keep with him you must aid in such service.

Where is our Master? Well, he is always on the side of truth and right. And, 0, you Christian people, mind that in everything — politics, business, and everything — you keep to that which is. right, not to that which is popular. Do not bow the knee to that which for 9 i little day may be cried up, but stand fast ia that which is consistent with rectitude, with humanity, with the cause and honour of God, and with the freedom and progress of men. It can never be wise to do wrong. It can never be fooHsh to be right. It can never be according to the mind of Christ to tyrannize and to oppress. Keep you ever to whatsoever things are pure and lovely and of good report, and you will so far keep with Christ. Temperance, purity, justice — these are favourites with him; do your best to advance them for his sake.

Above all, remember how Jesus loved secret prayer, and if you resolve to keep with him you must be much at the throne of grace.

I will not detain you over each of these points, but simply say that Ittai’s declaration meant also this — that he intended to share David’s condition. If David was great, Ittai would rejoice. If David was exiled, Ittai would attend his wanderings. Our point must be to resolve in God’s strength to keep to Christ in all weathers and in all companies, and that whether in life or death. Ah that word “death” makes it sweet, because then we reap the blessed result of having lived with Christ. We shall go upstairs for the last time and bid good-bye to all, and then we shall feel that in death he is still with us as in life we have been with him. Though our good works can never be a ground of confidence when we are dying, yet if the Lord enables us to follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth, and so to lead a decided, positive, downright, upright Christian life, our death pillow will not be stuffed with thorns of regret, but we shall have to bless God that we bore a faithful witness as far as we were able to do so. In such a case we shall not when we are dying wish to go back again to rectify the mistakes and insincerities of our lives. No, beloved, it will be very, very sweet to be alone with Jesus in death. He will make all our bed in our sickness; he will make our dying pillow soft, and our soul shall vanish, kissed away by his dear lips, and we shall be with him for ever and for eler. Of those that are nearest to him it is said, “These are they that follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. They shall walk with him in white, for they are worthy.”

1 conclude with thi.e observation. Will our Lord Jesus Christ accept at our hands to-night such a consecrating word? If Ave are trusting in him for salvation will he permit us to say that we wall keep with him as long as we live?

We reply, he will not permit us to say it in our own strength. There was a young man who said, “Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest,” but Christ gave him a cool reception: and there was an older man who said, “Though all men shall forsake thee yet will not I,” and in reply his Master prayed for him that his faith should not fail. Now, you must not promise as Peter did, or you will make a greater failure. But, beloved, this self-devotion is what Christ expects of us if we are his disciples. He will not have us love father or mother more than him; we must be ready to give up all for his sake. This is not only what our Master expects from us, but what he deserves from us.

“Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all,”

This, also, is what the Lord will help us to do, for he will give ua grace if we will but seek it at his hands: and this it is which he will graciously reward, and has already rewarded, in that choice word of his in the twelfth of John, where he says of his disciples in the twenty-sixth verse, “If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.” Oh, to be honoured of God in eternity when he shall say, “Stand back, angels; make way, seraphim and cherubim; here comes a man that suffered for the sake of my dear Son. Here comes one that was not ashamed of my Only-begotten when his face was smeared with the spittle. Here comes one that stood in the pillory with Jesus, and was called ill names for his sake. Stand back, ye angels, these have greater honour than you.” Surely the angels of heaven as they traverse the streets of gold and meet the martyrs will ask them about their sufferings, and say, “You are more favoured than we, for you have had the privilege of suflPering and dying for the Lord.” 0 brothers and sisters, snatch at the privilege of living for Jesus; conse-, crate yourselves this day unto him; live from this hour forward, not to j enrich yourselves, nor to gain honour and esteem, but for Jesus, for ‘Jesus alone. Oh, if I could set him before you here; if I could cause him to stand on this platform just as he came from Gethsemane with his bloody sweat about him, or as he came down from the cross with wounds so bright with glory and so fresh with bleeding out our redemption, I think I should hear you say, each one of you, “Lord Jesus, we are thine, and in what place thou shalt be, whether in death or life, even there also will thy servants be.” So may the Lord help us by his most gracious Spirit who hath wrought all our works in us, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Portions of Scripture read before Sermon — 2 Samuel xr.
13 — 23; Matthew x. 24 — 33.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book” — 670, 658, 666.

“DAVID’S SPOIL/*

Intended foe Reading on Lord’s-day, April 15th, 1888,
delivered by
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

“This is David’s spoil.” — 1 Samuel xxx. 20.

“Wb have aforetime gathered spoil for ourselves out of David’s behaviour in the hour of his sorrow at Ziklag, and we will now turn to the other side of this leaf in his history, and receive instruction from the time of his victory. But we must not do this till we have refreshed our memories with the story of his conduct under distress. When he came to the city he found it burned with fire, the propeity of himself and his comrades carried away, and, what was worse, all their wives, and their sons, and their daughters, gone into captivity. In the madness of their grief the people turned upon their leader, as if he had led them into this calamity. He was the only calm person among them, for he “encouraged himself in the Lord his God.” With due deliberation he waited upon the Lord, and consulted the oracle through the appointed priest, and then, under divine guidance, he pursued the banditti, took them at unawares, recovered all his people’s goods, and captured a large booty which the Amalekites had collected elsewhere. David, who had been the chief object of the people’s mutiny, and the leader of the successful pursuit of the robbers, most properly received a special portion of the spoil, and concerning it the words of our text were spoken, “This is David’s spoil.”

We shall now look into this victorious act on the part of David with the view of finding spiritual teaching in it. David may be regarded as a very special type of our Lord Jesus Christ. Among the personal types David holds a leading place, for in so many points he is the prophetic foreshadowing of the great and glorious Son of David. Whenever David acts as the man after God’s own heart, he is the picture and emblem of the One who is still more after God’s own heart, even the Christ of God. David, under divine guidance, pursued the Amalekites, who had come as thieves to smite and to burn, and carry away captive. The marauders were overtaken and slaughtered, and a great spoil was the result. David recovered all that the Amalekites had No. 2,017. yj taten. “And there was nothing lacking to them, neither small nor great, neither sons nor daughters, neither spoil, nor anything that they had taken to them: David recovered all.” We are told several times over in the chapter that nothing was lacking: “David recovered all.” When our Lord Jesus wrought out our redemption, he recovered all, and left nothing in the enemy’s hand. All glory to his name! But over and above, David took great store of cattle, and jewels, and gold, and silver, and so forth, which belonged to the Amalekites, and out of this a bountiful portion was taken which was set apart as David’s spoil. David’s men, in the moment of their despair, had spoken of stoning him; but now, in the morning of their victory, with general acchimations, they determine that David shall have, as his portion of the spoil, all the cattle which belong to the Amalekites themselves; and so, driving these in front, as they return to Ziklag, they say, “This is David’s spoil.” I think I hear them, as they drive the bullocks and the sheep before them, shouting right lustily, “This is David’s spoil.”

Now, using David as the type of Christ, I want, if I can, to set all Daviii’s men — all Christ’s men — shouting with all their hearts, “This is Jesus’ spoil!” He it is of whom Jehovah saith, “I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong.” He has a grand reward as the result of the great battle of his life and death. We will even now award to him the spoil, and cry, “This is David’s spoil”; feeling, all the while, as the Psalmist did, when he said, “Thou art more glorious and excellent than the mountains of prey.”

I. We begin with the first observation that, practically, all the spoil of that day was David’s spoil, and in truth, all the good that we ENjoy comes to us through our Lord Jesus. He has been given as a Leader and a Commamler to the people, and every victory they win is due to him, and to him alone. Without him we can do nothing, and without him we can obtain nothing. All that we once posses-ed by nature, and under the law, the spoiler has taken away. By our own efforts we can never regain what we have lost; only through our great Leader can we be restored and made happy. We ascribe unto Jesus all our gains, even as David’s men honoured their captain.

For, first. David’s men defeated the Amalekites, and took their spoil, lmt it was for David’s sake that God gave success to the band. God’s eye rested upon his chosen servant, the Lord’s anointed, and it was not for the warriors’ own sakes, but for David’s sake, that God guided them to the hosts of Amalek, and gave them like driven stubble to their sword. How much more true it is to us that every blessing, every pardoning mercy, every delivering mercy, is given to us through him who is our shield and God’s anointed! It is for the sake of Jesus that we are pardoned, justified, accepted, preserved, sanctified. Only through this channel does the mercy of God come to us. The Lord God saith, “Not for your sakes do I this, 0 house of Israel! Be ashamed and confounded for your own ways”; and we, in response to that, can answer, *’Not unto us, not unto us, but unto the name of the Well-beloved be praise, and honour, and glory, for ever and ever 1 “Since everything comes to us because of Christ Jesus, we may say of every covenant mercy, “This is David’s spoil.” On this blessing, and on that favour, jea, on them all, we see the mark of the cross. These are all fruits of our Redeemer’s passion, the purchase of his blood. Again we say with gratitude, “This is David’s spoil.”

Moreover, David’s men gained the victory over Amahk because of Dnvids leadership. If he had not been there to lead them to the fight, in the moment of their despair they would have lost all heart, and would have remained amidst the burning walls of Ziklag a discomfited company. But David encouraged himself in the Lord, and so encouraged all his desponding followers. Drawing his sword, and marching in front, he put spirit into them: they all followed with eager step because their gallant leader so courageously led the way. This is exactly our case, beloved, only we are even more indebted to our Lord Jesus than these men were to David. The Lord Jesus Christ has been here among us, and has fought our battle for us, and recovered all that we had lost by Adam’s fall and by our own sin. It is written of him, “He shall not fail nor be discouraged.” You know how he set his face like a flint, how stout-hearted he was to accomplish the work of our redemption, and how he ceased not till he could cry victoriously, “It is finished.”

“Our glorious Leader claims our praise
For his own pattern given.”

Following at his feet we, too, fight with sin. Treading in his footsteps we, too, overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil. Have you never heard him say, “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world “? And you, dear brothers and sisters, whatever victories you win, whatever spoils you divide, will own that it is through Jesus that you have conquered. They said of Waterloo that it was a soldiers’ battle, and the victory was due to the men; but ours is our Commander’s battle, and every victory won by us is due to the great Captain of our salvation. Let the crown be set upon his head, even on the battle-field, and let us say of every sin that we have overcome, every evil habit that we have destroyed, “This is David’s spoil.” We had never won this victory if Jesus had not led us: we have it for his sake. We have it under his leadership. Without exception, all the saints on earth and in heaven confess this to be true.

“I ask them whence their victory came?
They, with united breath,
Ascribe their conquest to the Lamb,
Their triumph to his death.

They mark’d the footsteps that he trod,
His zeal inspired their breast,
‘And, following their incarnate God,

Possess the promised rest.”

‘I will not eay more upon this point, but only ask you to remember that by nature we had all lost everything. We lost the garden with all its Paradisiacal joys; lost this world, the very earth bringing forth thorns and thistles to us; lost life, lost hope, lost peace, lost the favour of God. But Jesus has recovered all. All that the first Adam lost the Becond Adam has restored. David recovered all, and Jesus has recovered all. We ourselves were lost; but Jesus has brought us back from the hand of the enemy. He has given us ourselves, if I may use such an expression, and now we who were dead are alive again, fche lost are found. Once, every faculty of ours was being used for our own destruction, but now, sanctified by the grace of God, all is being used for God’s glory, and for our own ripening and perfecting. Jesus has recovered us for ourselves and for our God: the prey has been taken from the mighty, and the lawful captive has been delivered.

Yes, and our Lord Jesus has recovered for us the future as well as the past. Our outlook was grim and dark indeed till Jesus came; but oh, how bright it is now that he has completed his glorious work! Death is no more the dreaded grave of all our hopes. Hell exists no longer for believers. Heaven, whose gates were closed, is now set wide open to every soul that belie veth. We have recovered life and immortal bliss. We are snatched like brands from the burning, and made to shine like lamps of the palace of the great King. We are set up to be for ever trophies of the conquering power of Jesus, our glorious David. Look at all the saints in heaven in their serried ranks, and say of them all, “This is David’s spoil,” Look at the blood-bought church of God on earth — the ten thousands that are already washed in his blood, and following at his feet — we may say of all this ransomed flouk, “This is David’s spoil.” Each one of us, looking at himself, and all his past, and all his future, may say, “This, too, is David’s spoil.” Christ has done it, done it all, and unto his name let the whole host shout the victory.

I feel as if I could stop the sermon, and ask you to sing, but it will be better if I content myself with repeating the hymn —

“Rejoice, ye shining worlds on high,
Behold the King of glory nigh!
He comes adorned with victory.
He made our foes before him flee.

Ye heavenly gates, jour leaves display,
To make the Lord the Saviour way!
Laden with spoils from earth and hell,
The Conqueror comes with God to dwell. j

“Raised from the dead, he goes before;
He ofiens heaven’s eternal door:
To give his saints a blest abode,
Near their Redeemer and their God.”

II. But the most interesting part of our subject is this: all the booty was practically David’s spoil, but there was apart of it which was not recovered, but was a clear gain. They recovered all they had lost, and over and above there was a surplus of spoil from the defeated foe. Now, in the great battle of Christ on our behalf, he has not only given us back what we lost, but he has given us what Adam in his perfection never had. And I want you to dwell upon that, because this part of it is peculiarly our Lord’s spoil. Those good things which wb now

POSSESS, OVER AND ABOVE WHAT WE LOST BY SIN, COME TO US BY THE

Lord Jesus. Now that the Son of God has come into the field, he ia not content with restoration, he turns the loss into a gain, the fall into a greater rising.

And first, dear friends, think: In Christ Jesus human nature is lifted up where it never could have ieen before. Man was made in his innocence to occupy a very lofty place. “Thou madest him to have dominion over all the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under hia feet.” Man would have enjoyed that dominion had he never fallen, but he never could have obtained what he has now gained, for ‘* we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour.” And we see in Jesus human nature joined in mysterious union with the Godhead. I never know how to speak about this miracle of the divine incarnation. “We are men and women, poor creatures at our very best; yet in Christ Jesus our dignity is perfectly amazing. Angels excel in strength and beauty, but no angel was ever joined to the Godhead as manhood is now united to God. The nearest being to God is a man. The noblest existence — how shall I word it? — the noblest of all beings is God, and the God-man Christ Jesus, in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, is with him upon his throne. It is a wondrous honour this — that manhood should be taken into intimate connection, yea, absolute union with God 1 For listen: through Jesus Christ we are this day made the sons of God, which angels never were. “Unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son?” But he has said this to us. Christ took not up angels, but he took up the seed of Abraham, and he has made the believing seed of Abraham to be the sons of God. Listen again: “And if children, then heirs; heirs of God.” God’s heirs! What a word is this! How simple, but how sublime! I know how to say it, but not how to expound it! It does not want explanation, and yet its depths are fathomless. Every believer is God’s heir — the heir of God. Could this have been, had there been no fall and no redemption? Children and heirs are more than was ever spoken of in Eden. Ay, listen yet again. Now we are one with God in Christ Jesus; for it is written concerning our Lord, “We are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.” Close as the marriage-union is, yet Paul declared, when he spake of it, “This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.” Unfallen manhood was never declared to be one with the Son of God, and yet through the covenant of grace this is our position. We are joined by vital, real, conjugal union to Jesus Christ the Son of the Highest, very God of very God; and this is an elevation so transcendent that I feel bowed down beneath the weight of glory which is revealed in us. The most glorious being next to God is man, A sinner most shameful once, but now in Christ a child accepted and honoured 1 What can I say of this but “This is David’s spoil”? This is what Jesus brought us. It came to us by no other way or method. Neither do we know in what way or method it could have been given to us, but by the will of God through our Lord Jesus Christ. It is given to us through Jesus Christ, our elder Brother and our covenant Head, and unto him let the glory of it be ascribed world without end.

Another blessing which was not ours before the fall, and therefore never was lost, but comes to us as a surplusage, is the fact that we ar» redeemed. You sang just now that verse,

“Never did angels taste above
Kedeeming grace and dying love.”

It is clear that you could never have ktiowu free grace and dying love if Jesus had not come to redeem you. Unfallen intelligent spirits will say in eternity, “Do you see those beings bowing nearest to the eternal throne? Do you see those well-beloved creatures? Who are they? “Spirits that have lived in other worlds will come crowding up to the great metropolis, and will say one to another,” Who are those courtiers — those that dwell nearest to God? Who are they? “And one spirit will say to another,” They are beings whom God not only made as he made us, but whom the eternal Son of God redeemed by blood.” And one shining one will say to his fellow, “What is that? Tell me that strange story.” Then will his companion delight to say, “They were saved because the Son of God took their nature, and in that nature died.” “Wonderful! Wonderful! “his friend will answer,” How could it be? Was there suffering for them, and pain for them, and bloody sweat for them, and death for them on the part of the ever-blessed Son of God? “The answer” It was even so,” will be news full of astonishment even to the best instructed celestial mind. Spirits will look at us with wonder, and say, “What strange beings are these? Others are the work of God’s hands, but these are the fruit of the travail of his soul. On others we see the marks of divine skill and power, but here we see the tokens of a divine sacrifice — a divine bloodfchedding.” Truly, we may say of our redemption, “This is David’s spoil.” That you and I should be such wonders as we must be in being redeemed beings, is indeed something given to us by Jesus over and above what Adam lost; and througbuut eternity all ttie sacred brotherhood of the redeemed by blood will be princes in the courts of God — the aristocracy of heaven, for “he hath made us kings and priests unto God.”

We shall be creatures who have known sin, and have been recovered from its pollution. There will be no fear of uur being exalted with pride, or drawn away by ambition as the now-apostate angels were; for we shall constantly remember what sin did for us, and how grievous was our fault. We shall for ever remember the price at which we were redeemed; and we shall have ties upon us that will bind us to an undeviating loyalty to him who exalted us to so glorious a condition. It seems to me wonderful beyond expression: the more I consider, the more I am astonished. A spirit that has never fallen cannot be trusted in the same way as one that has fallen and has been delivered, and has been new-created, and blood-washed, and has been gifted with an abiding and eternal character. Such a being shall never fall, because for ever held by cords of love eternal, and bonds of gratitude infinitely strong, which will never let it waver in holy service. It is a work worthy of a God to create such beings as we shall be, since we shall be securely bound to voluntary holiness; and our wills, though always free, shall be immutably luyal to our Lord. As the twice-born, we shall be the noblest of God’s works; we shall be the first-fruits of his creatures; we shall be accounted as the royal treasure of Jehovah. Then shall we sit with Christ upon his throne, and reign with him for ever, “This is David’s spoil.”

We receive blessings wiknown to beings who have never fallen. I sometimes murmur to myself — and sweet music it has been aa I have quietly murmured it — we aie the elect of God. Election is a privilege most high and precious, what can exceed it in delight? This also is David’s spoil. We are also redeemed from amonj; men: the redemption of the soul is precious. “This is David’s spoil.” We are covenanted ones, with whom God has entered into bonds of promise, swearing by an oath to keep his word: this, too, is David’s spoil. Where had you ever heard of redemption, election, covenant, and such-like words, if it had not been for the blessed Christ of God, who hath redeemed us by his blood? Sing ye, then, who have received back your lost inheritance: and sing more sweetly still, ye who have been blessed with all spiritual blessings, in the heavenlies according as the Father hath chosen you in Christ Jesus. Sing ye aloud unto his 1 holy name; and say of your special privileges, “This is David’s spoil.” Again, to my mind it is a very blessed fact tdat you and I will partake of a privilege which would have been certainly unnecessary to Adam, and could not by Adam have been known, and that is, the privilege of resurrection. We shall die unless the Lord should suddenly appear. I would not have yon, brothers and sisters, look upon the prospect of death with any sort of dread. I know that death is associated with pain; but nothing can be more absurd. There is no pain in death: pain belongs to life; death, even naturally, puts an end to pain. But death to the believer is undressing as his Lord undressedputting off garments of which, I trow, we need not be so very fond, for they do fit us ill; and oftentimes, when our spirit is willing, it is hampered by these garments of clay, for the flesh is weak. Some look with intense delight to the prospect of the Saviour’s coming, as a means of escape from death. 1 confess 1 have Imt slender sympathy with them. If 1 might have my choice, I would prefer, of the two, to die. Let it be as the Lord wills; but there is a point ot fellowship with Christ in death which they will miss who shall not sleep; and it seems to me to have some sweetness in it to follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth, even though he descend unto the sepulchre. “Where should the dying members rest but with their dying Head? “That grave of our blessed Lord, if I he had not meant us to enter it, would have been left an empty tene- 1 ment when he came away; but when he came out of it, he left it; furnished for those that should come after him. See there the grave-J clothes folded up for us to use! The bed is prepared for our slumber. The napkin is laid by itself, because it is not for the sleeper, but for those who have lost his company. Those who remain behind may dry their eyes with the napkin, but the grave-clothes are reserved for others who will occupy the royal bed-cliamber. When great men removed in the olden time, their servants took away the arras or hangings of their chambers; but if those hangings remained, it was for the convenience of guests who were invited to occupy my lord’s rooms. See, then, our Lord expects us to lie in his royal bed-chamber, for he has left the hangings behind him! To the retiring-room of the tomb we shall go in due time. And why should we be grieved to go? For we shall come forth again: we shall rise from the dead. “Thy brother fihall rise again,” was Mary’s consolation from the Master’s lips. It ia yours. We are not going to a prison, but to a bath, wherein the body, uke Esther, shall be purified to behold the King. It is our joy to be sure that “as the Lord our Saviour rose, so all his followers must.’-’’ We do not know much about the resurrection of the body, and therefore we

will not attempt to describe it; but surely it will be a delightful thing to be able to dwell for ever in a body that has been in the grave, and has had fulfilled in it the sentence, “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,” but which has been raised again by that same power which raised our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. We shall inhabit a body which shall no more see corruption, nor be subject to weakness, or pain, or decay, but shall be like the glorified person of our Lord. Oh, there is sweetness in the thought that we shall in this for ever have fellowship with our risen Lord! Children of the resurrection, dread not death! Your faces are turned to the sun. Press forward to the light eternal, and fear not to pass through the death-shadow: it is no more than a shadow. If you cannot leap over the grave, you can pass through it. It shall be your joy to rise when the morning breaketh, and to be satisfied; for you shall wake up in his likeness. As for the resurrection, “this is David’s spoil,” this is Christ’s gift and boon. The resurrection from the dea-l is the peculiar glory of Christianity. The immortality of the soul had been taught and known before, for it is a truth which even reason itself teaches; but the resurrection of the body comes in as the last and crowning comfort of our spirits: and “this is David’s spoil.”

Let me not weary you. The topic might well interest us on several occasions; it is too large to be confined to one discourse. Our siniiuUtr relatwn to God, and yet to materialism, is another rare gift of Jesus. God intended, by the salvation of man, and the lifting up of man into union with himself, to link together in one the lowest and the highest — - his creation and himself. Shall I make it very plain? These poor substances — earth, water, and the like — they seem far down in the scale. God makes a being that shall be, as an old Puritan used to say, half soul and half soil; even man who is both spirit and dust of the earth. We find in him water, salts, acids, all sorts of substances combined to make up a body, and married to this is a soul, which is brother to the angels, and akin to Deity. Materialism is somewhat exalted in being connected with spirit at all. When spirit becomes connected with God, and refined materialism becomes connected with a purified spirit, by the resurrection from tue deid, then shall be brought to pass the uplifting of clay, and its junction with the celestial. Do you not see how God, in the perfecting of his gracious purpose through the resurrection of the dead, causes his glory to be refiected even upon what we regard as poor material substances, gross and mean?

Try and get at my meaning again. Quakers, whom I greatly respect, get rid of the two ordinances, by denying that they are of perpetual obligation. They banish baptism: they put away the Lord’s supper. I have sometimes wished that I were able to agree with them, because my whole spirit and tendency are towards the spiritual rather than the ritual; but if anything be plain to me in Scripture, it is that Jesus Christ did command us to be baptized in water in the Triune name, and that he bade his disciples remember him in the breaking o Nread and in the drinking of the cup. The danger of men’s making too much of outward forms was eucouutered for some wise purpose. It was, I think, because God would have us know that even the material, though it can only enter the outer court, is still to be sanctified unto himself. Therefore, water, bread, and wine, all material substances, are used not only as syml:)ols, hut as tokens that all created things shall be ennobled and sanctified. Look ye, sirs, “Creation was made subject to vanity, not willingly, hut by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope.” Through man’s sin this outward world became blackened, darkened, and degraded; but God intends, through man, to lift up the nethermost extremities of his creation into a greater nearness to himself than they ever could have reached by any other means. And this is how it comes about. We are taking up with us, as it were, the earth which makes a part of ourselves. We are drawing up with ourselves the earth in those simple symbols with which we worship God. We are ourselves lifted up as spirits, and we are soon to be lifted up as spirits enshrined in purified bodies, and thus we bring the whole creation of God into nearer contact with himself. Hence it is that we are called ‘* kings and priests.” What can the dead earth do in worship till there comes one who worships God as the world’s priest? What can the fields and woods and hills say in the worship of God? They are dumb till a tongue attempts the holy task of uttering their praise. You and I are made of such stuff as the world around us, and yet we are the compeers of angels. We are brothers to the worm; and this body of ours is but a child of mother earth on which it lives See then how mother earth ^vursliips God through us, and dull, dead matter finds life and song. Behold the mists and clouds become a steaming incense of praise to God through men like ourselves, who, because Christ was slain, have been made kings and priesis unto God.

I wish you would, rather than listen to me, try and muse upon the wonderful position which redeemed men do now occupy, and will occupy for ever and ever. For my own part, I would not change places with the angel Gabriel, nay, not if he gave me his swift wing to boot, for I believe that an infinitely greater honour belongs to the least of God’s children than to the very highest of God’s servants. To be a child of God — oh, bliss! — there is no glory that can excel it. But all this is a special gift to our humanity through our Lord Jesus. “This is David’s spoil.”

Our manifestation of the full glory of God is another of the choice gifts which the pierced hands of Jesus alone bestow. Principalities and powers shall see in the mystical body of Christ more of God than in all the universe besides. They will study in the saints the eternal purposes of God, and see therein his love, his wisdom, his power, his justice, his mercy blended in an amazing way. They will admire for ever those whom God loves and delights in, those whom he keeps as the apple of his eye, those whom he rejoices over, and of whom he hath said that he will rest in his love, and he will rejoice over them with siuging. Truly it hath not entered into the heart of man to guess at the glory of God in the saints, the exceeding glory which shall be revealed in us through Jesus Christ our Lord. “This is David’s spoil.” Oh, come, let us sing unto the Lord, let us magnify the name of Jesus Christ!

IIL I close with the most practical part of my sermon: that

WHICH WE WILLINGLY GIVE TO JeSUS MAY BE CALLED HIS SPOIL. TheiB

METROPOLITAN TABRRNACHjE PULPIT.

is a spoil for Christ which every true-hearted follower of hi’s rotes to him enthusiastically. We have already seen that all things which we have are of Christ, and that there are certain special gifts which are peculiarly of Christ; and now, what shall be David’s spoil from you and from me?

First, our hearts are his alone for ever.

“Here’s my heart, Lord, take and seal it.
Seal it from thy courts above.”

Of every believing heart it may be said, “This is David’s spoil.” You and I must give ourselves to-morrow to earning our daily bread, and our thoughts must go, to a large extent, after earthly things in the common pursuits of every-day life. But our hearts, our hearts, are as fountains sealed for our Well-heloved. 0 mammon, thou shalt not have them 1 0 pleasure, thou shalt not have them! These are David’s spoil. Our hearts belong to Jesus only. “My son, give me thine heart,” is an Old Testament command, but under the New Testament manifestation of love we fulfil it; “for the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that he died for ail, that th-y which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and roe again.” Let it be so that our whole heart is the sole possession of Jesus! We will neither rend it, nor i-ast lots whose it shall be, for “this is David’s spoil.”

Now there is another property I should like King Jesus to have, and. that is, our special gifts. I know one who, before his conversion, was wont to sing, and he often charmed the ears of men with the sweet music which he poured forth; but when he was converted he said, “Henceforth my tongue shall sing nothing but the praises of God.” He devoted himself to proclaiming the gospel by his song, for he said, “This is David’s spoil.” Have you not some gift or other, dear friend, of which you could say, “Henceforth this shall be sacred to my bleeding Lord”? Some peculiarfaculty? Some choice piece of acquirement not generally possessed? Something in which you excel? I would that you had at least some little garden of flowers or herbs which you could so reserve that therein only Jesus should pluck the fruits. Say of the best gift you possess, “This is David’s spoil.” Is it not well to consecrate some part of the day, and say, “This hour is Christ’s? I have my work to do, my business must be seen to; all is Christ’s. But still I will reserve a special season, and wall it in, like a private garden, in which, with prayer, and praise, and meditation, T will commune with my Lord; or else in actual service I will honour his name.” Say, “Ttiis is David’s spoil.” Come, dear heart, what do you mean to give him? Surely you have some natural faculty or acquired skill which you can lay at his feet

Moreover, while our whole selves must be yielded to the Lord Jesus, there is one thing that must always be Christ’s, and that is our religious homage as a church. Somebody says that the Queen is head of the church. God bless her; but she is no head of the church of Christ! The idea is blasphemous: headship “is David’s spoil.” Jesus Christ is Head over all ihinpiS to his church, and nobody else can take that position. No one may dare to take the title of ‘* head of the church” without a usurpation of our Lord’s royal riht. Certain teachers of the church claim authority over consciences, and assert that they are infallible. I have heard it said that they are supreme guides, but I do not believe it, because “This is David’s spoil.” We have one infallible Teacher, and that is Jeus Christ our Saviour. We yield obedience to his every v?ord, and demand that others should do the same. Whatsoever he says to us by his Spirit in the Word of God is to us infallible truth, and we cease to dispute when Jesus speaks; but no man else shall dictate doctrine to us, for “This is David’s spoil.”, He must be sole Rabbi in the midst of his church. We call him Master and Lord, for so he is. I would have you keep your conscience for Christ alone. TaJ^e care that no book ever overlaps the Bible; that no creed ever contradicts the form of sound words contained in God’s own Word; that no influence of minister or writer supplants the guidance of the Holy Ghost. Your soul’s obedience-^ and faith belong to Jesus only: “This is David’s spoil.”

Lastly, have you not something of your own proper substance that shall be David’s spoil just now? That was a blessed act when the woman broke the most precious thing she had — her box of alabaster, and let the perfumed nard stream down the Saviour, anointing him for ’ his burial. She felt that the precious perfume was “David’s spoil.” There’^ was no waste; in fact, no other gift ever went so completely to its purpose without being taxed on the road, for Jesus had it alL Kindly did he observe the loving honour which she paid him. What if the oint- ’ ment were sold, and given to the poor? Yet it could never be so economically used as when it was all devoted to him. I do think it so pleasant sometimes to give Jesus Christ distinctly a gift from yourself of some a hat that you will miss. It is good to give to the poor, but it has a daintier sweetness in it to do somewhat distinctly for him, for the spread of his own glory, and the making known of his own fame. “The poor ye have always with you”: abound towards them in your charity whenever you will; but to your Lord at special seasons dedicate a choice gift, and say, “This is David’s spoil.” There was a poor woman once, whose little fortune could be carried between her finger and her thumb, — her fortune I said, for it was all that she had. Two mites, I am told, was all it came to. She took it, it was her all, and she put it in the treasury; for this was ‘* David’s spoil.” It belonged to the Lord her God, and she gave it cheerfully. I do not know wUether since the days of the apostles anybody has ever given so much as that woman. I have not. Have you? She gave all her living. Not all her savings, but all her living. She had nothing left when she gave her farthing: she loved so much that she consecrated all her living. We sometimes sing —

“Yet if I might make some reserve,
And duly did not call,
I love mj God with zeal so great
That 1 would give him all.”’

But do we mean it? If not, why do we sing falsehoods? There was a man who, in the providence of God, had been enabled to lay by many thousands. He was a very rich and respected man. I have heard it eaid that he owned at least Lalf-a-miliiou; and at one collection, when he felfc specially grateful aad generous, he found a well-worn sixpence for the plate, for that was David’s spoil 1 That was David’s spoil I Out of all that he possessed, that sixpence was David’s spoil! This was the measure of his gratitude I Judge by this how much he owed, or at least how much he desired to pay. Are there not many persons who, on that despicable scale, reward the Saviour for the travail of his soul? I shall not upbraid them. I shall not urge them to do more, lest I spoil the voluntariness of the large gifts they mean to bring. Let a hint suffice. For us, who are deep in the Redeemer’s debt, who have had much forgiven, who every day are bankrupt debtors to the measureless mercy of infinite love — for us, no paltriness will suffice. We must give something which, if it be not worthy of him, shall, at least, express the truth and warmth of the gratitude we feel. God help us to be often setting aside this, and that, and the other choice thing, and saying, “This is David’s spoil, and it shall be a joy to my heart to give it!” We shall find much sweetness in buying our sweet-cane with money, and filling our Lord with the fat of our sacrifices. It is heaven for a true heart to give largely to Jesus.

God bless you, dear friends. May we come to the table of communion, and meet with our glorious David there, and feel his praises making music in our hearts! Amen.

Portions of Scripture read before Sermon — Matt. xxv. 31 — 46 j

xxvi. 6 — 13.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book” — 416, 802.