Spurgeon: May AM
* 05/31/AM
"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 for ever, 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.