p. 166Ladies and Gentlemen,—
On the last occasion I submitted recorded particulars of David’s case, which it is no extravagance to contend are sufficient to carry conviction to men of penetration, that the story is a true one. My urgent argument is, that on no principle of story-telling, or story writing, or history making, or fiction-fabricating known to man, could such things come to be written, except one, and that is the simple principle that the things written are true. It is very easy for the sweeping dogmatisms of doubt, learned or ignorant, to waive its hand over the narrative in a general way and class it with the myths and legends of antiquity; and such a performance may carry weight with those who do not take the trouble to read and consider the narrative for themselves. But the narrative remains with features which cannot be so disposed of, and which on the strong principles of common sense, even when p. 167 the reader may not be able to formulate them, will create and perpetuate confidence and faith when unbelief is shouting its loudest triumphs. If this is the case with the incidents rehearsed at our last meeting, how much more with those that remain?
When David came to the throne after the death of Saul, and had acquired Jerusalem as his capital, his first care was for the ark of God, which, at that moment, was in an obscure corner of the land in which it had been left after its return from the land of the Philistines, who had captured it in the days of Eli. He erected a tent for it at Jerusalem, and then appointed a day for its public removal, with great pomp, to its new quarters from the house of Abinadab at Gibeah, where it had been for twenty years. The ark was placed in a new cart made for the occasion, drawn by oxen, and taken charge of in the procession by the two sons of Abinadab—Uzzah and Ahio. When they got to a certain spot, the oxen shook the cart: and Uzzah, evidently afraid of the ark falling off the cart, laid hold of it. He was struck dead on the spot. It had been enacted in the law given at Sinai that none but the sons of Aaron should handle the ark, on pain of death, “And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah, and God smote him there for his error.” It is the next feature of the narrative that demands your notice: “And David was displeased because the Lord had made a breach upon Uzzah: and he called the name of the place Perez-Uzzah (that is, the breach of Uzzah), . . .” and he abandoned the ceremony of the removal of the ark, and “carried it aside in to the house of Obed-edom the Gittite” (2 Sam. vi. 6-10).
Ladies and Gentlemen,—Remember this is written in the public records of the nation of Israel. Can p. 168 you suggest a reason why it should be written that David suspended a public ceremonial because of displeasure at the death of a servant? Was it flattering to the king? Was it flattering to the servant whom it represents in the act of committing sacrilege? Was it pleasing to the people to represent God as marring their festivity because of forgetfulness of His law? Was it not the reverse in each case? Yet here it is. You cannot account for the record as a myth or a fable. You can account for it if it happened, and only in that way. And if it happened, what then? God is before us as a Living Reality in Israel’s life, And if a Living Reality in David’s transactions, He was necessarily so in the enactment of the Law, and in the reproofs of the Prophets, and in the message by Christ and the Apostles.
Then consider David’s relation to the Temple—the great feature of the Jewish system as historically viewed from the world’s standpoint. A mythical history would certainly have given the whole credit of this to David. Instead of that, you have David thinking of the project, but interdicted from prosecuting it (in 2 Sam. vii.; 1 Chron. xvii.): “That night . . . the word of the Lord came unto Nathan (the prophet), saying, Go and tell my servant David, Thus saith the Lord, Shalt thou build me an house to dwell in? . . . I will build thee an house. . . . I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build me an house for my name, and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever.” David refers to this in his “last words” (2 Sam. xxiii.) as a promise going forward to the millennial day: and Peter refers to it (Acts ii. 29) as a promise of the succession of Christ to the throne of David. You cannot imagine this as p. 169 an invention. Does it not bear on its face the impress of truth? For what purpose could the idea have been invented, that David was Divinely forbidden to build the Temple? If it is not an invention, then consider the proof of revelation it brings with it, and the unity subsisting between a promise given in the days of David and the birth of Christ a thousand years after—a unity inexplicable on any supposition that the official writings of Israel are mere human records.
Next, consider the great blot of David’s life, which has given so much cause for unbelieving scorn in every generation. David erred greviously with Uriah’s wife, and then, to cover his shame, procured the death of Uriah. The particulars are rehearsed with unsparing literality (2 Sam. xi.). Nathan, the prophet, comes to him: and in parable presents the supposed case (which David supposed to be a real case) of a rich man, with many flocks, seizing the only lamb in a poor man’s possession to provide hospitality for a visitor. David’s indignation is excited against the rich man, and he declares that he must die. Nathan says, “Thou art the man” (2 Sam. xii. 7), and proceeds to rehearse the particulars of David’s crime with a “Thus saith the Lord.” He not only rehearses the crime, but passes judgment on David: “Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife. Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house . . . because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme,” etc.
Ladies and Gentlemen,—Did you ever hear of a story like this written in the records of any king’s reign, at any time, in any nation under heaven? I make bold p. 170 to answer for you. You never came across anything of the sort. Royal Chronicles are always written in the vein of subservient and servile adulation. The king is praised in everything he does, says, or thinks. He is indeed alleged incapable of any wrong or any weakness: and if anything discreditable is known it is carefully hushed up in the records, and not a breath or trace allowed to appear. But here is a story of vulgar crime—patly and plainly told: here is a rebuke, stern and unsparing, delivered to royal ears. Here is retribution, unmixed and terrible, denounced against the most illustrious of Israel’s kings, the anointed of Jesse’s sons, the “man after God’s own heart.” Can you imagine such a story the work of invention or legendary development by any known process whatever? The story is before you. It has been in the Bible for ages. How do you account for its existence? Allow that the thing happened, and there is no difficulty: but if your opposition to Bible truth requires you to suppose it did not happen, you have a problem absolutely insoluble in your hands. You cannot give a reasonable account, or hazard a reasonable theory, of how this actually existing story came to be written in a serious national record, yet you are bound to have a reasonable theory of it: because the thing is there, and it came into existence in a way that reason can recognize;—if, as a myth, then with objects that reason can always recognize as the inspiration, or origin, or object of myth:—or, if as a fact and a truth, then in a way that reason can recognize as the usual origin of truth.
Ladies and Gentlemen,—Try your hand. You cannot possibly succeed with the problem except in one way. This story exists because as a fact David sinned,—which is the only reason adequate to p. 171 the influencing of any writer to write such a story as part of Israel’s record.
If this is the fact—if truth is the explanation of the story—(I earnestly repeat there can be no other explanation)—then you must see that it brings much more with it than David’s sin. It brings David’s God, and all that is involved in the prophet’s message of condemnation. It brings with it David as a king, and Israel as a nation, and a hundred questions concerning their origin and history which can only be answered by the fact of God’s revelation and co-operation with their father, which logically takes with it the Divinity of the whole Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation.