Morning    “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.

 

Evening    “Who healeth all thy diseases.”    Psalm 103:3

Humbling as is the statement, yet the fact is certain, that we are all more or

less suffering under the disease of sin. What a comfort to know that we have a

great Physician who is both able and willing to heal us! Let us think of him

awhile tonight. His cures are very speedy–there is life in a look at him; his

cures are radical–he strikes at the centre of the disease; and hence, his cures

are sure and certain. He never fails, and the disease never returns. There is no

relapse where Christ heals; no fear that his patients should be merely patched

up for a season, he makes new men of them: a new heart also does he give them,

and a right spirit does he put within them. He is well skilled in

all diseases. Physicians generally have some speciality. Although they may know

a little about almost all our pains and ills, there is usually one disease which

they have studied above all others; but Jesus Christ is thoroughly acquainted

with the whole of human nature. He is as much at home with one sinner as with

another, and never yet did he meet with an out-of-the-way case that was

difficult to him. He has had extraordinary complications of strange diseases to

deal with, but he has known exactly with one glance of his eye how to treat the

patient. He is the only universal doctor; and the medicine he gives is the only

true catholicon, healing in every instance. Whatever our spiritual

malady may be, we should apply at once to this Divine Physician. There is no

brokenness of heart which Jesus cannot bind up. “His blood cleanseth from all

sin.” We have but to think of the myriads who have been delivered from all sorts

of diseases through the power and virtue of his touch, and we shall joyfully put

ourselves in his hands. We trust him, and sin dies; we love him, and grace

lives; we wait for him and grace is strengthened; we see him as he is, and grace

is perfected forever.