2 Samuel 22:31

No. 1

The way of God may mean: (1) the way which He prescribes, the simple, absolute way of holy duty into which He seeks to guide the soul; or (2) the way which He Himself pursues, the method of His dealings with His children, humanity, and the world.

I. Consider first our knowledge of the way of God. (1) There is a light in man—call it the practical reason, the conscience, the moral sense, or what you will—which, even in a fallen state, is capable of furnishing to man certain broad lines of duty which will be coincident mainly with the ways of God. (2) God sent His word to reinforce conscience and to inspire it to be a guide. (3) God is a Person; and in Christ, the express image of His person, we may talk to Him as a friend to a friend.

II. Notice the ways of man with which David had had opportunity to compare the perfect way of God. (1) The way of passion; (2) the way of pride; (3) the way of the world.

III. Notice the reason of the perfectness of God's way as the way of a soul. (1) It stands square with the possibilities, constitution, convictions, and needs of our being; (2) with the laws and orders of the great universe; (3) with the fact of eternity.

No. 2

I. The way of God is perfect in that grand order of the universe which He has established and maintains.

II. In the order and progress which, as Lord of men, He secures in the human world; in the discipline and education of individual souls. The leading principles of His way are: (1) To establish a strong attraction; (2) to leave that principle to develop itself and have control of the whole nature and of the world by struggle; (3) to make it learn, by extreme severities of discipline if need be, patience, power, and knowledge of a fitness for Himself.

J. Baldwin Brown, The Perfect Way of God: Two Discourses.

2 Samuel 22:36These words gather up into their brief utterance all the song of the great king David when he recounted his greatness, and reveal at once the secret of his greatness and the heart of his song. David knew God as few human souls have done. He knew Him as the Creator and the Judge, but when he comes to consider his own life, it is to the gentleness of God he turns. All the lights and shadows and depths and heights of his manifold spiritual life had this for their source, and only this: the gentleness of God.

I. The gentleness of God is the secret spring of all the worth to which the great ones of God's kingdom have ever reached. Above and underneath all virtues are the dews and fountain-springs of the gentleness of God. From verge to verge, over all the sea of redeemed life, rises the thankful, joyous, self-abasing song, "Lamb of God, slain for us, Thy gentleness hath made us great."

II. It is not only the lives of saintly thinkers and workers in former centuries that illustrate this fact. It is borne out by the experience and testimony of God's people at the present day. Under all varieties of experience each arrives at the same conclusion: "By His grace we are what we are."

III. Of this gentleness which maketh great, Christ is the manifestation to us. The work Christ came to accomplish was the bestowal of gentleness upon a world which had lost the very elements of it. The light which shines from the Cross is the gentleness of God. He passed into the shadow of death, and there, with the gentleness of a Divine mother, laid His hand on the hand, His heart on the heart, of the very race which crucified Him, that He might overcome their enmity and bring them back to God.

IV. This is still the greatness of Christ as a Saviour and His power over the hearts of men. He is strong to save because He is longsuffering, and merciful, and generous. We are surprised when we read, "While we were yet sinners Christ died for us," but it is the same wonder of mercy, the same manifestation of gentleness, that He still lives to save His enemies.

A. Macleod, Days of Heaven upon Earth, p. 184.

References: 2 Samuel 22:36.—A. M. Fairbairn, The City of God, p. 204; W. H. Jackson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xviii., p. 172; J. Van Oosterzee, Year of Salvation, vol. ii., p. 433. 2 Samuel 22:51.—J. Irons, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 371. 2Sam 22-23.—Parker, vol. vii., p. 214.