And it came to pass, that after the year was expired.
The capture of Rabbah
From its capture and punishment of its people we learn--
I. That in spiritual warfare there must be no cessation. Rest gives advantage to the enemy, and may delay or frustrate the end in view. “Forwards, children, forwards”! urged Blucher, in meeting Wellington at Waterloo.
1. Make needful preparation.
2. Be ready for every advantage. “The time to go out” must be discovered and seized.
II. That in conducting spiritual warfare opportunity is given for the display of virtuous qualities (2Sa_12:26-29). We must, transfer the glory of our conquests to our gracious “Commander and Leader.”
III. That all things in spiritual warfare will be subdued under God’s power. (J. Wolfendale.)
And David took the crown of their king from off his head.
The loss of a crown
The loss of a crown is much or nothing. The crown itself is a mere bauble, but it is full of significance as a token. Every office points in the direction of supremacy. The doorkeeper is on the road to the highest seat. Do not have a crown that any one can take from you. Men may steal your clothes, but they cannot steal your character. Start your son with fifty thousand golden, pounds, and he may lose it all, and want fifty thousand more; start him with a fine sense of honour, with a sound practical education, with a love of wisdom, with a knowledge of things real, simple, practical, and of daily occurrence, and he will, be rich all the time. Let no man take thy crown. When Carlyle was so poor as hardly to have a loaf, he was walking by the popular side of Hyde Park, and looking upon all that gay tumult he said to himself, with what in another man might have been conceit, but what in him was heroic audacity: “I am doing what none of you could do”; that is to say, he was writing one of his profoundest and most useful books. There he was rich. Have ideas, convictions, resolutions, ideals, and be faithful as a steward ought to be faithful, and it will never be written of thee that any man took thy crown. A man may throw away such a crown, a man may play the fool in old age; but the truth now to be inculcated is this, that no man, or combination of men, can take away the moral crown, the spiritual diadem, without the man’s own consent. (J. Parker,D. D.)
