1 Chronicles 15:29 And it came to pass, as the ark of the covenant of the LORD came to the city of David, that Michal… One only incident tarnished the brightness of this greatest day of David's life. Michal, his wife, in the proud, we may almost say conservative, spirit of the older dynasty - not without a thought of her father's fallen house - poured forth her contemptuous reproach on the king who had descended to the dances and song of the Levitical procession. There are marked differences in the dispositions of men in relation to religion. The colder-natured are apt to regard the impulsive as extravagant; and the warm-hearted and excitable too readily conclude that the quieter-toned people are insincere. Explain the Eastern ecstatic modes of expressing joy. In time of excitement, rhythmical movements, such as dancing, afford great relief. And such clanging of trumpet and cymbals was the very thing to set the company upon dancing. Distinguish the natural movements and gestures of excited feeling from the ordered fashionable dancing with which we are familiar. What lessons may be learned from Michal's inability to appreciate David's religious intensity? I. RELIGION FINDS DIFFERENT RESPONSE IN DIFFERENT INDIVIDUALS. We must not look for the same experiences and manifestations in all. Each man's religious conduct will bear the plain impress of his character and disposition. This may be applied to experiences of conversion-time, or the beginnings of the Christian life. As also to the forms in which men stand related to public worship and Christian work. If we venture to make moulds for the necessary Christian life, we must take care that they are large and general, with no fine lines of must-be peculiarities in them. Christ gives a new life, and sends each man forth to express it according to his own genius and character. II. RELIGION CAN FIND EXPRESSION THROUGH ALL DISPOSITIONS. So we may not, even in thought, exempt any man from its gracious influence; and we may not be anxious to have the natural dispositions of men changed. Men do not need to be made other than they are. The all-sufficing change is the inward regeneration, the renewal of the vital principle. We need not want to make the channel of the river bend and turn in any other and, as we think, more graceful forms. Our anxiety should concern the purity of the waters flowing down from the fountain-head, which fill the stream. Preservation of the characteristic disposition is, however, quite consistent with all due Christian culture, and this may sometimes so bring out to the front the best in men, that they may seem other than they were. III. CHRISTIAN CHARITY FINDS A FREE SPHERE FOR EVERY MAN. Just in this Michal failed. She had not charity enough to give David credit for the sincerity which would have clothed his act with dignity. A man's ways may not be our ways, may not even be such as we can approve; but it should suffice for us if we can see in them the signs of genuine religious life and feeling. Then we may wish him "Godspeed." Application of a practical character may be carefully made to those more enthusiastic and excited phases of religious life and association which are so marked a feature of nineteenth-century Christianity. From the calmer, colder point of view, such as Michal would take, there may seem in all these only a perilous fanaticism. The charity that "hopeth all things" may at least enable us to say, in the spirit of our Lord, "Forbid them not, for they that are not against him are on his part." And his kingdom has its on-coming in wondrous ways; no man knoweth how. - R.T. Parallel Verses KJV: And it came to pass, as the ark of the covenant of the LORD came to the city of David, that Michal the daughter of Saul looking out at a window saw king David dancing and playing: and she despised him in her heart. |
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