Morning, August 20, edited from Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening

“The sweet psalmist of Israel.” — 2 Samuel 23:1

Among all the saints whose lives are recorded in Holy Bible, David possesses an experience of the most striking, varied, and instructive character. In his history we meet with trials and temptations not to be discovered, as a whole, in other saints of ancient times, and consequently he is all the more suggestive a picture of our Lord. David knew the trials of all positions and conditions of men. Kings have their troubles, and David wore a crown: the peasant has his cares, and David handled a shepherd’s staff: the wanderer has many hardships, and David abode in the caves of Engedi: the leader has his difficulties, and David found the sons of Zeruiah too difficult for him. The psalmist was also exasperated in his friends; his counsellor Ahithophel forsook him, “He that eats bread with me, has lifted up his heel against me.” His worst foes were those of his own household; his children were his greatest affliction. The temptations of poverty and wealth, of honor and reproach, of health and weakness, all tried their power upon him. He had temptations from outside to disturb his peace, and from inside to mar his joy. David no sooner escaped from one trial than he fell into another; no sooner emerged from one season of depression and apprehension, than he was again brought into the lowest depths, and all God’s waves and breakers rolled over him. It is probably from this cause that David’s psalms are so universally the delight of experienced Christians. Whatever our frame of mind, whether elation or depression, David has exactly described our emotions. He was an able master of the human heart, because he had been tutored in the best of all schools–the school of heart-felt, personal experience. As we are instructed in the same school, as we grow matured in grace and in years, we increasingly appreciate David’s psalms, and find them to be “green pastures.” My soul, let David’s experience cheer and counsel you this day.