TWENTY-SEVENTH SUNDAY

Morning

ABSALOM'S REBELLION AND DEATH

Passages to be read: 2 Sam. xv. 1-12; xviii.

BSALOM was the third son of David.

A mother was Talmai, a king's daughter.

His

He

comes before us vividly, for the first time, in his murderous revenge on his half-brother Amnon. After that terrible deed he had to fly, and he sought shelter in the mountain fastnesses where his father-in-law held his petty highland court (xiii. 37). In this wild retreat he remained for three years, nursing strange projects in his dark and restless heart, and little dreaming how his father in Jerusalem would have given all the world to have him home again. At last (by an artifice of Joab) he was recalled, though for two years more David refused to see him. Five years had flown since that day of blood at Baal-hazor, before father and son were reconciled again. But the iron had entered into Absalom's soul. The love he owed his father was forgotten. It was driven out by the bitterness of exile, and the haunting fear that Bathsheba's son should supplant him. And such was the popularity of Absalom, and such (spite of his heart) his personal charm; such, too, the weakening of David's kingly influence through his most unkingly and unkindly sin, that when the standard of revolt was raised at Hebron, the hearts of Israel went after Absalom (xv. 13). The rebellion seemed to issue in success. David with a breaking heart fled to

Mahanaim-where Jacob had seen angels long ago (Gen. xxxii. 1-2). Absalom entered Jerusalem in triumph, and assumed his father's royal rights.

BUT the triumph of the rebellion was short-lived. Had the counsel of Ahithophel been followed, David would have been attacked at once. But the counsel was rejected, and when at last Absalom went out to give battle to his father, David had mustered a strong army. The forces met in a wild district of Ephraim, shadowed with oak-woods and tangled with bush and briar, and we know how the day went against Absalom. We have known, too, since we were little children, how Absalom was left hanging on the oak, and how, in spite of the earnest pleadings of David, he was stabbed as he hung there, by Joab. All that, with his hasty burial in the wood-pit, and the casting of stones on his grave in execration, and the agony of David at the tidings, closes this sad and memorable passage.

NOW let us note first the unlikely instruments of God.

We know that a woe had fallen on David. The sentence of God had gone forth against him, after he fell into his fearful sin (and God's word never returns unto Him void); but who could have dreamed that the instrument of judgment would have been the darling of his father's heart? Yet we hear almost nothing of Absalom in Scripture till the light of his father's sin is shed on him, and then, with all his beauty and all his gifts, he moves before us as God's instrument. Does not that often arrest us in God's dealings? Does He not often choose unlikeliest instruments? We cannot read the story of gifted Absalom but we feel how unexpected are God's agents. Who would have thought that this gallant and handsome son was to work out the woe upon his father's life? Who would have believed that

the bond-slaves in Egypt were to keep alive the knowledge of the one God? Who would have guessed that little Samuel would have been chosen to hear the doom of Eli? Or that the twelve would have been the instruments of Jesus in spreading the knowledge of His truth abroad? My ways are not your ways, saith the Lord.

WE WE are to learn again that there is something better than popularity. We see from our chapter how popular Absalom was. He had the arts and parts to win a people's favour. He treated everybody with a certain honour; he made a show with his retinue; he was beautiful. These graces and gifts, well used, made him the people's idol; yet back of it all was a bad and treacherous heart. So we see that to be popular is not everything. It is a thousand times nobler to be good. We are never too young to covet the best gifts; we should resolve from the first to be true to God and duty.

AND, lastly, we must observe the wonderful constancy

of a father's love. Through the years of exile that Absalom spent at Geshur there was never a day but David was thinking of him. David woke every morning with the prayer that God would give a new heart to his dear son. Then the rebellion came with all its bitterness, but even that did not quench the love of David. Let the battle be waged as fiercely as men would, no spear, in the hottest of it, was to be turned on Absalom; and when a spear was turned, and Absalom died, and the tidings of the tragedy reached David-nothing but love, love wonderful and deep, can explain his cry of sorrow and the agony. Now do you not feel in that strong love some token of our Father who is in heaven? Do you not know that with a love like that (only a thousand times stronger and better still) God loves

each one of us? Let us think of it and yield ourselves up to it. We love, because He first loved us,' and greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down. his life for his friends.

TWENTY-SEVENTH SUNDAY

Evening

ZACCHEUS

Passage to be read: Luke xix. 1-10.

HE last chapter closed with Jesus giving sight to a

TH blind man; to-day's opens with the priceless story

of Zacchæus. And that swift passage from the blind beggar to this high official well illustrates the rapid changes that meet us in the life of Jesus Christ. We are prone sometimes to think of the lot of Jesus as a very limited and circumscribed one. We think there was little in it of that movement and variety that characterise our life in modern times. And so (almost unconsciously) many have grown to feel that Jesus is standing far away from them. As a matter of fact, I question if there ever was a life so rich in its variety as Christ's. It is amazing how swiftly the scenes change; how constantly the environment is shifting. This rapid transition from the roadside pauper to the home of one of the richest men in Jericho is typical of the experience of Jesus.

THE 'HE first thing we note here is, there is an interest in Christ in most unlikely quarters. If there was one man who might have seemed deadened to religion, it was this receiver-general of Jericho. He had had such treatment from the priests of Jericho (and Jericho was a very priestly city), as might have thoroughly disgusted him with religion. He had grown rich, too, in very question

able ways-and had not this Jesus spoken tremendous words about the perils even of clean riches? And yet Zaccheus was aflame with eagerness to get into close touch with Jesus Christ. Why he was so, maybe we cannot tell. We do not know what he had heard from his collectors. We cannot tell what his home was in his childhood. We have no hint of the ministries of God in keeping his conscience alive through all the years. All we can say is that this was the most unlikely of all quarters, yet here was a hidden interest in Christ. Now I wish all parents and teachers to remember that. It will give them new heart and hope for certain children. Who knows what little boy may not be interested, when we recall the interest of this little man?

AGAIN, we learn that where there's a will there's a way. Jesus was at the height of His popularity. Wherever He moved the narrow streets were crowded. It would have taken a Saul to have seen Him well; there seemed no hope for a small man like Zacchæus; and had Zaccheus had a small heart in his bosom, he would have gone home and said it was impossible. But Zacchæus had had a great will to grow rich, and he had found there was a way to that. And now he had a great will to see Jesus, and he was not the sort of person to be stopped. He quite forgot himself, says Matthew Henry. He climbed the sycamore like any schoolboy. Perhaps he had heard that except we become as children we cannot see the kingdom of heaven-or the king. At any rate he was earnestly bent on seeing Jesus, and as a result he saw Him and was seen. All which has been written down to teach us that the whole-hearted search for God is always crowned. What texts lay stress on that? 'Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.' 'Those that seek Me early shall find Me.'