Morning, May 31

Charles Spurgeon · Morning and Evening: Daily Readings

"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 forever, 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.