Part 7
There is a story in the Books of Samuel--away back as far as the time of the kings of Israel--which will help us to understand the Gospel. It is about a man of the name of Mephibosheth.
You remember what a hard time David had when Saul was hunting him to kill him--just as men hunt for game.
Well, one day David and his good friend, Jonathan, were taking a walk together in the fields. Saul was very angry, and was bent on killing David; but his son, Jonathan, was looking out for a chance to save him.
The fact had been revealed to Jonathan that David was to be king after Saul’s death, instead of himself, but this did not lessen his love for David. That must have been a real friendship which could stand this sort of thing.
After they had agreed upon a sign by which David was to know whether it was safe for him to stay around the court of the king, where he could see his friend once in a while, or whether he must leave, and go off into the cave of Adullam, Jonathan says to him:
“David, it has been revealed to me that you are to be king after my father. Now, I want you to promise me one thing. When you come to the throne, if any of the house of Saul are alive, I want you to be good to them, for my sake.”
“I will do that, of course,” said David. So he made a solemn covenant to that effect, and then he went away to the cave of Adullam, to get out of the way of Saul, who was bound to kill him if he could.
But God took care of David. You never can kill or harm a man if God is taking care of him.
About four years after that, David heard that there had been a great battle over by Mount Gilboa, and that the Philistines had beaten back the Israelites with great slaughter, and that Saul and Jonathan were both dead. So he got his men together, and went out after the enemies of the Lord and of Israel; and it was not a great while before he had turned the tables on them, and set up his kingdom at Hebron.
It must have been pretty near fourteen years after that before David remembered his promise to his old friend, Jonathan. It is a great deal easier to make promises than to keep them. How many broken vows has God written down against you?
But one day King David was walking in his palace at Jerusalem, where he had removed his capital, and all at once he happened to think of that promise. It is a good thing God does not forget His promises that way.
“That’s too bad,” mused David. “I had forgot all about that promise. I have been so busy fighting these Philistines and fixing things up that I have not had time to think of any thing else.”
So he called his servants in great haste, and asked: “Do any of you know whether there is any of Saul’s family living?”
One of them said there was an old servant of Saul’s by the name of Ziba, and maybe he could tell.
“Go and tell him I want him, right away.”
Pretty soon Ziba appeared, and King David asked: “Do you know whether there is anybody of the house of Saul in my kingdom?”
Ziba said there was one he knew of--a son of Jonathan, by the name of Mephibosheth.
Jonathan! How that name must have smitten King David! One of the sons of his old friend living in his kingdom for as much as fourteen years, and he had never known it! What would Jonathan think of him for forgetting his promise that way?
“Go, fetch him!” says David. “Go quickly. Tell him I want him. I want to show him the kindness of God.”
Now, where do you suppose Mephibosheth was all this time? Why, he was down at Lo-debar. Did you ever hear of that place? If you are a sailor, did you ever come across that port? When you have traveled on the railway, did any of you ever stop at that station?
Ah, yes! That is where the whole human race are until they come to Christ for salvation--away down at Lo-debar, which means “a place of no pasture.”
The king is in haste to keep his promise now. I see them hurrying off. Maybe they take the king’s own chariot, and rattle away to find this son of Jonathan.
When they reached the little out-of-the-way place, I fancy there was a great commotion.
“Where is Mephibosheth? The king wants him.”
Poor fellow! When he heard this announcement he hung his head. He was afraid the king wanted to kill him because he was of the house of Saul, his old enemy.
“Don’t be afraid,” said the servants. “The king says he wants to show you the kindness of God. He is in a great hurry to see you, so get ready and jump right into the chariot. Don’t you see the king has sent his own chariot to fetch you?”
It did begin to look as if the king meant no harm to him.
But poor Mephibosheth had another difficulty. He was lame in both feet. He was a little fellow when King David came to the throne, and an old servant, who was afraid that all the house of Saul would be killed, took him up and ran away to hide him. Somehow he managed to drop the lad, and lamed him in both feet.
And now I can see poor Mephibosheth looking down at his feet. Maybe his toes turned in, or he was club-footed. And he says to himself: “I am not fit to go to the king. I am a poor cripple. I am not fit to be seen among the tall and handsome servants of the palace in Jerusalem.”
“Never mind your lame feet, Mephibosheth; so long as the king sends for you, it is all right.”
So they take him up and put him in the chariot, and start for Jerusalem on a run.
As soon as the king sees him he takes him in his arms and cries out:
“O Mephibosheth! The son of my dear old friend, Jonathan! You shall have all that ever belonged to the house of Saul, and you shall live with me here, in the palace.”
Some people think that Mephibosheth, like certain low-spirited Christians, after he went to live with the king, must have been all the time worrying over his lame feet. But I do not think so. He could not help it, and if David did not mind it, it was all right. So, I think that when he dined with David in state, with the great lords and ladies all around him, he just stuck his club feet under the table, and looked the king right in the face.
MOSES.
Moses was about to leave the children of Israel in the wilderness. He had led them up to the borders of the Promised Land. For forty long years he had been leading them in that wilderness, and now, as they are about to go over, Moses takes his farewell. He said a great many wise and good things on that memorable occasion.
There was not a man on the face of the earth at that time who knew as much about the world and as much about God as did Moses. Therefore, he was a good judge. He had tasted of the pleasures of the world. In the forty years that he was in Egypt he probably sampled every thing of that day. He tasted of the world--of its pleasures. He knew all about it. He was brought up in the palace of a king, a prince. Egypt then ruled the world, as it were.
Moses had been forty years in Horeb, where he had heard the voice of God--where he had been taught by God--and for forty years he had been serving God. You might say he was God’s right hand man, leading those bondmen up out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of bondage into the land of liberty, and this is his dying address--you might say, his farewell address. This is the dying testimony of one who could speak with authority and one who could speak intelligently.
If you have not read that farewell address of Moses, you will find it in the last few verses of Deuteronomy. I advise you to read it. You are reading a great many printed sermons. Suppose you read that. Why, there is as much truth in that farewell address of Moses as there is in fifteen hundred printed sermons at the present time. Let me just give you a few verses:
“Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O Earth, the words of my mouth.
“My doctrine shall drop as the rain; my speech shall distill as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass.
“Because I will publish the name of the Lord. Ascribe ye greatness unto our God.
“He is the Rock; His work is perfect. For all His ways are judgment; a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He.
“They have corrupted themselves; their spot is not the spot of His children. They are a perverse and crooked generation.
“Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise? Is not He thy Father that hath bought thee? Hath He not made thee and established thee?
“Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations. Ask thy Father, and He will show thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee.
“When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.
“For the Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance.
“He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness. He led him about; He instructed him; He kept him as the apple of His eye.”
There are two or three sermons in that last verse.
“As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings, so the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him.
“He made him ride on the high places of the Earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and He made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock.”
And so Moses went on and finished his sermon, and God called him off into the mountain. He went up into Mount Nebo, and there God showed him, from the top of Pisgah, that land which he could not possess; showed him the land from Dan to Beersheba.
Then “God kissed away his soul and buried him.”
NAAMAN.
Naaman was a successful, valiant and noble man. But he was a leper--and that spoiled him.
What a blight that must have cast on his path! It must have haunted him day and night.
He was a leper, and there was no physician in Syria who could help him. It was an incurable disease, and I suppose he thought he would have to go down to the grave with that loathsome ailment.
We read that several companies had gone down to the land of Israel and brought back to Syria some poor captives. Among them was a little girl, who was sent to wait on Naaman’s wife. I can imagine that little maid had a praying mother, who had taught her to love the Lord, and when she got down there she was not ashamed to own her religion. She was not ashamed to acknowledge her Lord.
One day, while waiting on her mistress, I can think of her saying: “Would to God your husband was in Samaria. There is a prophet in that country who would cure him.”
“What! A man in Israel who can cure my husband? Child, you must be dreaming. Did you ever hear of a man being cured of leprosy?”
“No. But that is nothing. Why, the prophet in Samaria has cured many persons worse than your husband.”
And perhaps she told her about the poor woman who had such an increase of oil, and how her two boys were saved from slavery by the prophet, and also how he had raised the child of that poor woman from the dead, adding: “If the prophet can raise anybody from the dead he can cure your husband.”
This girl must have had something about her to make those people listen to her. She must have shown her religion in her life. Her life must have been consistent with her religion to make them believe her.
We read that Naaman had faith in her word, and he went to the king and told him what he intended to do. And the king said: “I will tell you what I will do. I will give you a letter to the king of Israel. Of course, if any cure is to be effected, the king will know how to obtain it.”
Like many men nowadays, they believed, if a thing was to be got, it was to be got from the king, and not from his subjects. So you see this man starting out to the king of Israel with all his letters and a very long purse. I can not find, just now, how much it was, but it must have been something like $500,000. The sum was a very large one, likely. He was going to be liberal. He was not going to be small.
Well, he got all his money and letters together and started. There was no small stir as Naaman swept through the gates of Syria that day with his escort. He reaches Samaria, and sends a messenger to the king, announcing his arrival. The messenger delivers the letter to the king, and the first thing he does is to open the letter and begin to read it.
I can see his brow knit as he goes on.
“What is this? What does it mean? This man means war. This Assyrian king means to have a war with me. Who ever heard of such a thing as a man cured of leprosy?”
And the king rent his mantle.
Every one knew something was wrong when the king rent his mantle, and the news spread through the streets that they were on the eve of a war. The air was filled with rumors of war; everybody was talking about it. No doubt the news had gone abroad that the great general of Assyria was in the city, and he was the cause of the rumors, and by-and-by it reached the prophet Elisha that the king had rent his mantle, and he wanted to know the cause. When he had heard what it was he just told the king to send Naaman to him.
Now you see the major-general riding up in grand style to the prophet’s house. He probably lived in a small and obscure dwelling. Perhaps Naaman thought he was doing Elisha a great favor by calling on him. He had an idea that he was honoring this man, who had no influence or position. So he rides up. A messenger is sent in to announce Major-General Naaman of Damascus. But the prophet does not even see him. He just tells the servant to say to his master:
“Go and wash in Jordan seven times.”
When the messenger comes to Naaman and tells him this, he is as mad as any thing. He considers it a reflection upon him--as if he had not kept his person clean.
“Does the man mean to insinuate that I have not kept my body clean? Can’t I wash myself in the waters of Damascus? We have much better water than they have here. Why, if we had the Jordan in Syria we certainly would look upon it as a ditch. The idea--wash in that contemptible river!”
Naaman was as full of rage as he well could be, but suddenly he said: “Behold, I thought.”
That is the way with sinners; they always say they thought. In this expression we can see that Naaman had thought of some plan, and had marked out a way for the Lord to heal him.
Keep this in mind: “My ways are not your ways, nor my thoughts your thoughts.” If you look for the Lord to come in one direction, He will come in another direction. “My ways are not your ways,” thought the leper. No man gets into the kingdom of God until he gives up his thoughts. God never saves a man until he gives up his own thoughts and takes up God’s.
Yes, Naaman thought the moment the prophet knew he was outside he would come out and bow and scrape, and say he was glad to see such a great and honorable man from Syria. Instead of that, he merely sent him the peremptory prescription: “Go wash in Jordan seven times.”
When we were in Glasgow we had an employer converted, and he wanted to get a man in his employ to come to our meetings, but he would not come. If he was going to be converted, he would not be converted by those meetings. You know, when a Scotchman gets an idea into his head he is the most stubborn man you can find. He was determined not to be converted by Moody and Sankey. The employer argued and pleaded with this man, but he could not get him to come to the meetings then being held.
Well, we left Glasgow, and got away up to the north of Scotland--in Inverness--and the employer sent his stubborn friend up there on business, thinking he might be induced to go into the meetings. One night we were singing “On the Banks of That Beautiful River,” and he happened to be passing. He wondered where the sweet sounds were coming from. He came into the meeting, and I happened to be preaching that evening on the very text: “I Thought.”
The stubborn man from Glasgow listened attentively, and soon did not know exactly where he was. He was convicted--he was converted--and he became a Christian. Verily, a man must yield his own way to the way of the Lord.
Now, you can see all along that Naaman’s thoughts were altogether different from those of God. He was going to get the grace of God by showing favors--just as many men now believe they can buy their way into the kingdom of God. But we can not purchase the favor of Heaven with money. If you get a seat in Heaven, you must accept salvation as a gift.
Naaman had another thought. He believed he could get what he wanted by taking letters to the king--not to the prophet. The little maid told him of the prophet, yet he was going to pass the prophet by. He was too proud to go to the prophet. But pride, if you will allow me the expression, got a knock on the head on this important occasion.
It was a terrible thing for him to think of obeying by going down to the Jordan and dipping seven times. He had got better rivers in Damascus, in his own wisdom, and he queries: “Can’t I wash there, and be clean?” Naaman was angry, but when he got over it he listened to his servants.
I would rather see people get angry than see them go to sleep. I would rather see a man get as angry as possible at any utterance of mine than to see I had sent him to sleep. When a man is asleep there is no chance of reaching him, but if he is angry we may get at him. It is a good thing for a man to get angry sometimes, for when he cools off he generally listens to reason.
So Naaman’s servant came to him and said: “Suppose Elisha had bid thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it?”
Probably, had Elisha told Naaman to take cod liver oil for ten years, he would have willingly done it. If he had told Naaman he wanted as much money as the leper brought along, that would have been all right. But the idea of literally doing nothing--just to go down into Jordan and wash himself! It was so far below his calculations that he thought he was being imposed upon by some charlatan.
But Naaman’s sensible servant said to him: “If the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it? Hadn’t you just better go down and wash in Jordan?”
Possibly, Naaman answered: “If I go down into Jordan and am not cured, what will my enemies say of me when I get back to Damascus?”
But he was influenced by the servant, and he went. That was one good point in Naaman’s character--he was influenced by an humble messenger. A good many people will not accept a messenger unless he is refined and cultured and educated. But it is the message you want--not the messenger. It would be the message I would want. And so it was with Naaman.
She was a little Hebrew girl who first told him to go to Samaria, and now he was told to wash by his servant. So Naaman goes down and dips into the waters. The first time he rose he said: “I would just like to see how much my leprosy has gone.” He looks, but not a bit has left him. “Well, I am not going to get rid of my leprosy in this way; this is absurd.”
But the servant persisted. “Do just as the man of God tells you; obey him.”
And this is just what we are told to do in the Scriptures--to obey Him. The first thing we have to learn is obedience. Disobedience was the pit Adam fell into, and we must get out of it by obedience.
Well, Naaman goes into the water a second time. If some Chicago Christians had been there, they would certainly have asked, sneeringly: “Well, how do you feel now?”
He did not see that he was any better, and down he went a third time; but when he looked himself over, he saw just as much leprosy as ever. Down he goes a fourth, fifth and sixth time. He again looks at himself, but not a speck of leprosy is removed.
Naaman now chides his servant. “I told you so! Look at me! I am just the same as ever.”
“But,” says the servant, “you must do just what the man of God tells you to do--go down seven times.”
Naaman takes the seventh plunge, and comes out. He looks at himself. Behold, his flesh is as that of a little child. He says to his servant:
“Why, I never felt as good as I do today. I feel better than if I had won a great battle. Look! I am cleansed! Oh, what a great day this is for me! The leprosy has gone.”
The waters to him had been as death and judgment, and he had come out resurrected--his flesh as that of a little child. I suppose Naaman got into his chariot, and away he went to the man of God. He had lost his temper; he had lost his pride; he had lost his leprosy.
That is the way now. If a man will only lose his pride, he will soon see his leprosy disappear; leprosy will go away with pride. I believe the greatest enemies of men in this world are unbelief and pride.
Naaman drives back to the man of God, and takes his gold and silver. He offers him money. “I do not want your money,” replies the prophet. If Elisha had taken money, it would have spoiled the beautiful story. Naaman had to take back every thing he brought from Damascus except his leprosy.
PETER.
The first glimpse that we catch of Peter is when Andrew brought him to the Savior. That is John’s account. That is when he became a disciple; but he did not leave every thing then and follow Christ. He waited until he got another call.
I think we all can learn a lesson right here--that it is not every one who is called to be a disciple of Jesus that is called to leave his occupation and become His follower entirely. I believe there are many self-made preachers--man-made preachers--and this is the reason why so many fail. No man who was called by God has ever failed, or has ever broken down in the ministry; but when a man runs before he is sent, I believe he will fail.
Now, we are called to be His disciples--all called to follow Him--but we are not all called on to give up our occupations and devote all our time to the ministry. I have men come to me constantly who say they have been raised up, and want to give up their business and their worldly occupation and go into the work of the Lord entirely; but I never advise a man to go into the ministry. I think I never advised a man to give up his occupation, and to go out into the vineyard of the Lord and go to work. It is too high a calling, it seems to me, for men to be influencing one another to go into it. If a man will only wait until God calls him--be sure that God sends him--then success will crown his efforts.
Now, we find, in the fifth chapter of Luke, and also in the fourth chapter of Matthew, where Peter got his calling. He was out with his partners and others, fishing, when Jesus came along and told them to cast their net, or to launch out into the deep and cast their net into the sea.
“But,” says Peter, “we have toiled all night and caught nothing.”
“Nevertheless,” commanded Jesus, “let down your nets.”
At the word of God they did so, and were successful, and when they got ashore they found Jesus had called them to be His disciples. Just open your Bible at the fifth chapter of Luke:
“And it came to pass that, as the people pressed upon Him to hear the word of God, He stood by the lake of Gennesaret, and saw two ships standing by the lake; but the fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing their nets.
“And He entered into one of the ships, which was Simon’s, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land. And He sat down, and taught the people out of the ship.
“Now, when He had left speaking, He said unto Simon: ‘Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.’
“And Simon, answering, said unto Him: ‘Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing; nevertheless, at Thy word I will let down the net.’
“And when they had done this, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes, and their net broke.
“And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink.