MARROW AND FATNESS – Charles Spurgeon
MARROW AND FATNESS
“Then went King David in, and sat before the Lord, and he said, Who am I, O Lord God? And what is my house, that You have brought me up to now? And this was yet a small thing in Your sight, O Lord God, but You have spoken also of Your servant’s house for a great while to come. And is this the manner of man, O Lord God? And what can David say more unto You? For You, Lord God, know Your servant. For Your word’s sake, and according to Your own heart, have You done all these great things, to make Your servant know them. Therefore You are great, O Lord God: for there is none like You, neither is there any God beside You, according to all that we have heard with our ears.” (2 Samuel 7:18-22)
David was overwhelmed with the Mercy of God! Nathan’s message was too much for him; he felt emotions in his bosom which he could not express. Like a wise man, he went at once, while under the impulse of gratitude, into the place of nearness to God. It was not everyone who might go in and sit before the Lord as he did, but he felt he had a special call to draw near unto the Most High, and there he sat down in the posture of waiting to receive the fulfillment of what was promised; in the posture of rest, as one who had now all that he could desire, and was pressed down under the weight of blessing. Yet the Psalmist’s sitting was also a posture of worship, and surely of all passages of Scripture, none can be said to contain more true adoration than that which is now before us!
The king sat, however, before the Lord; the Mercy had all come from God, and therefore to God all his praise was offered. His soul waited only upon the Lord because his expectation was alone from Him. He was conscious of being in the sacred Presence, and he sat there, feeling that by the Covenant Blessing he had been brought very near, and his spirit exulted in that nearness! Brothers and Sisters in Christ, the mercies which God has shown to us are as great as those which He manifested to His servant David! And if the Spirit of God has opened our eyes to see and understand them, we may, this morning, ardently wish to do precisely what David did. Let us have boldness to enter into the nearest possible fellowship with God—yes, let us go where David could not go—within the veil, and there, where Christ has opened up the way through His torn body, let us sit down in a restful, waiting, happy spirit, and give full play to all those God-honoring emotions which ought to be awakened by reflecting upon the Loving-Kindness of the Lord!
I have selected this subject because there are many among us who have lately found the Savior, and it is well to let them see the happiness which belongs to them—the pleasures and the treasures which are theirs in Christ Jesus, that they may render unto the God of Grace the Glory which is due unto His name! David did not understand the words of Nathan to relate merely to his dynasty and to his dominion over the house of Israel; he looked far beyond temporal things, and therefore, in the words before us, there is a spiritual depth which will not strike the eye of the casual reader. The New Testament must be the expositor of the Old, and Peter, in his famous sermon, gives us the key to this passage! Turn to Acts 2:29 and you will find that Peter accounts for a memorable utterance of David in the Psalms by declaring that he was a Prophet, and knew that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, He would raise up Christ to sit on his throne. The joy which filled David’s bosom was a spiritual one because he knew that Jesus would come of his race—and that an everlasting Kingdom would be set up in His Person, and in Him should the Gentiles trust.
Now, then, we also, being blest with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, are bound to feel as David felt, and therefore we shall pass in review David’s expressions, with the desire that we may drop into the same mood! May God the Holy Spirit, who alone can enable us to do so, bless our meditation at this time.
I. THE HUMILITY OF DAVID
First, I shall need you to notice THE HUMILITY apparent in David’s words. “Then went King David in, and sat before the Lord, and he said, Who am I, O Lord God? And what is my house, that You have brought me up to now?” First, he acknowledged the lowliness of his origin—“What is my house?” He came not of royal blood; Nathan spoke the Truth of God when he said in the Lord’s name, “I took you from the sheepcote, from following the sheep.” David was but a humble shepherd lad when he was first anointed, and after that anointing, he continued in that humble office; from this he rose to become the leader of a motley band of free-lances exiled from their country! Yet the Lord was pleased to call him from his low estate to make him king over the chosen people!
Beloved, what is our origin? What is there about our descent that could claim for us the high privilege of being sons of God? Trace our origin to its most ancient source, and behold, SIN is there, staining the escutcheon of our house! All down the line, there is a taint of high treason against the Divine Majesty! We come of a race of rebels, and our own personal birth was marred with sin! Heraldry lends no pomp to us, and the genealogy for most of us reveals no hereditary glories—and even if it did, it would be mere fancies and fictions not worthy to be mentioned before the Presence of the Lord!
David laid the most stress upon his own personal unworthiness. He said, “Who am I? What was there in me that You should make me a king and a progenitor of the Christ?” And will not each Believer here say the same? Who am I? What is there in me? God might have chosen the great and the mighty of the world, but He has passed them by; He might have chosen the learned and famous, but not many of them are called; He has chosen the poor of this world and things that are despised! Yes, the base things God has chosen, and the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh might glory in His Presence!
Look at yourself from head to foot—examine every crevice of your heart, and every single feature of your character—can you see anything there that might command Jehovah’s esteem? Do you see any qualifications for being bought with redeeming blood? Are there any reasons that you can find why you should be made sons of God, and heirs of Glory? The Lord had reasons for choosing you, for He acts according to the counsel of His Will, but those reasons are not in you—they lie in His own bosom, and you must exclaim, “Who am I that You have brought me up to now?”
I have no doubt that David looked upon his own deservings—what if I correct myself and say his own undeservings? And he marveled that the Lord had chosen him and rejected Saul! He was a man after God’s own heart, but his conduct was that of a bold, rough soldier, and he could not look upon it without observing its imperfections. He prayed, in the 25th Psalm, “Remember not the sins of my youth, or my transgressions: according to Your Mercy remember You me for Your goodness’ sake, O Lord.”
These sins are not recorded in the chronicles of his life, but they were written in his own penitent memory; and being humbled concerning them he cried, “Who am I?” There must have been many an action in his exile and wanderings which he did not rejoice to remember; for instance, his mimicry of madness before the king of Gath; his great anger against Nabal; his affinity with the Philistines. And besides such prominent errors as these, he could see many failings and transgressions all along, and these both made the Grace of God the more illustrious and led him to cry from his very heart—“Who am I, O Lord God?”
II. DAVID’S WONDERING GRATITUDE
David wondered at what God had done for him—“What is my house, that You have brought me up to now?—to a house of cedar, and to be able to talk about building a house for You; to be Your chosen king, and to have my seed established on my throne, and to become the ancestor of the Christ!”
Praise Him for your Calling when effectually He drew you and you ran to Him weeping and singing! Praise Him for your Pardon when He washed you in the blood and you were clean—and you knew you were! Wonder of wonders is this! Praise Him for your Justification, when He took the robe the Savior wore and dressed you with it—never was a bride arrayed by the most loving bridegroom!
Praise Him for your Regeneration, when you were born into a new world! Praise Him for your being set apart for holy uses, admitted to new company, filled with holy joys, instructed in heavenly truths, and dedicated to sacred duties! Praise Him for Sanctification which has made you worthy to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light! Praise Him for the preservation from sin which you have, up to now, received—and the education for eternity which has so happily commenced!
Praise Him for the provision so bounteous with which He has furnished a table in the wilderness, both temporally and spiritually! And praise Him for the protection with which He has warded off the arrow that flies by day, and the pestilence that walks in darkness! O Lord, I bless You that You have brought me up to now!
III. THE MANNER OF GOD’S GIVING
David had yet another theme for wonder, which was this—the manner of the giving of all this. There is often as much in the manner of a gift as in a gift itself. The way God has given His mercies is even more astonishing than the mercies themselves! David says, “And is this the manner of man, O Lord God?” It is not the law of man; it is the law of Grace, the law of infinite Mercy, the law of infallible Faithfulness, the law of immutable Love.
Beloved, if it had not been revealed to you, you could never have imagined or dreamed of such a fullness of Grace as the Lord has actually made to pass before you! It is more marvelous than romance!
IV. DAVID’S PRAISE FOR GOD’S GREATNESS
David’s heart was full of PRAISE, and the praise was first for the freeness of the Grace which brought him such blessedness. “For Your word’s sake, and according to Your own heart, have You done all these great things.” Why did the Lord love you, my Brothers and Sisters? Because He would love you, is the only possible reply. He loved us because He would love us, “according to His own heart.”
David praised the Faithfulness of God. “For Your word’s sake.” Is not that the ground upon which all Mercy is received by the child of God? God has promised it and will keep His Word. He never did run back from His Covenant yet—“As well might He His being quit As break His Promise or forget.”
V. HIGH THOUGHTS OF GOD
To conclude, not for lack of matter, however, but for lack of time—David’s soul was wound up to HIGH THOUGHTS OF GOD, for our Text concludes with these words—“Therefore You are great, O Lord God: for there is none like You, neither is there any God beside You, according to all that we have heard with our ears.”
God is great! He is the greatest because He is the best! You, God, are good, and therefore You are great. We cannot help saying, “Therefore You are great, O Lord God”—positively great! Then great comparatively—“there is none like You.” Yes, greatest of all, superlatively—“neither is there any God beside You.”
Go forth, you daughters of Jerusalem, and crown your King! Throughout the whole of your lives weave chaplets for the Redeemer’s brow! Let your lives be Psalms, let your garments be vestments, let every meal be a sacrament, let your whole being be transformed into an immortal Hallelujah unto the Lord Most High, for He is greatly to be extolled!!
Charles Spurgeon