Spurgeon: August AM
* 08/20/AM
"The sweet psalmist of Israel."
--2 Samuel 23:1
Among all the saints whose lives are recorded in Holy Writ,
David possesses an experience of the most striking, varied, and
instructive character. In his history we meet with trials and
temptations not to be discovered, as a whole, in other saints of
ancient times, and hence he is all the more suggestive a type of
our Lord. David knew the trials of all ranks and conditions of
men. Kings have their troubles, and David wore a crown: the
peasant has his cares, and David handled a shepherd's crook: the
wanderer has many hardships, and David abode in the caves of
Engedi: the captain has his difficulties, and David found the
sons of Zeruiah too hard for him. The psalmist was also tried in
his friends, his counsellor Ahithophel forsook him, "He that
eateth bread with me, hath lifted up his heel against me." His
worst foes were they of his own household: his children were his
greatest affliction. The temptations of poverty and wealth, of
honour and reproach, of health and weakness, all tried their
power upon him. He had temptations from without to disturb his
peace, and from within to mar his joy. David no sooner escaped
from one trial than he fell into another; no sooner emerged from
one season of despondency and alarm, than he was again brought
into the lowest depths, and all God's waves and billows rolled
over him. It is probably from this cause that David's psalms are
so universally the delight of experienced Christians. Whatever
our frame of mind, whether ecstasy or depression, David has
exactly described our emotions. He was an able master of the
human heart, because he had been tutored in the best of all
schools--the school of heart-felt, personal experience. As we
are instructed in the same school, as we grow matured in grace
and in years, we increasingly appreciate David's psalms, and
find them to be "green pastures." My soul, let David's
experience cheer and counsel thee this day.