The Recompense of the King
‘Why should the ling recompense it me with such a reward ?’—2 Sam. xix. 36.
BARZILLAI ‘had provided the king of sustenance while he lay at Mahanaim,’5 exiled from his royal city. When the day of triumphant return came, David said to him, ‘ Come thou over with me, and I will feed thee with me in Jerusalem.” This was the ‘ reward.’
But what a privilege and delight it must have

1 Cor. iii. 9. 22 Cor. vi. i. ^ Mark xv’i. 20.
?* Hag, ii. 4. s 2 Sam. xix, 32. « 2 Sam. xix. 33.

been to the loyal old man! And to come nearer, what a continual joy it must have been to the women who ‘ministered ” to the exiled King of heaven ‘of their substance.’ How very much one would have liked a share in that ministry!
Is there any loving wish which our King does not meet? Was it not most thoughtful of Him to appoint His continual representatives, so that we might always and every one of us have the opportunity of ministering to Him! These opportunities are wider than we sometimes think; some limit His ‘gracious Inasmuch ” to services for His sake to the poor only. Yet the ‘strangers’8 whom He bids us love, may be rich in all but the friendliness and kindness which we may show them; and the ‘sick’ may be those among our own dear ones who need our ministry. Why should we fancy it is only those who are not near and dear to us, to whom we may minister ‘ as unto Him’ ?*
But oh, what little services are our cups of cold water!5 and how utterly ashamed we feel of ever having thought any of them wearying or irksome, when we look at * the recompense of the reward,”— ‘such a reward!’ Is there one of us whose heart has not thrilled at the mere imagining of what it will be to hear ‘the King say, Come, ye blessed !’7 Then what will it be to enter into the fullness of the reward, to ‘come over with’8 Him, and dwell with Him always in ‘the holy Jerusalem,’ and ‘go no more out.’9

1 Luke viii. 3. 2 Matt. xxv. 40. ^ Deut. x. 19.
4 Eph. vi. 7. 5 Mark ix. 41. 6 Heb. xi. 26.
^ Matt. xxv. 34. 8 2 Sam. xix. 33. ^ Rev. xxi. 10; ib. iii. 12.

‘Why should the king recompense it me with such a reward?’ ‘Why should thy servant dwell in the royal city with thee?” For there is such a tremendous disproportion between the work and there-ward, though such a glorious proportion between His love and His reward.
And yet there is a beautiful fitness in it. The banquet of everlasting joy for those who gave Him meat ;2 the river of His pleasures for those who gave Him drink;8 the mansions in the Father’s home for those who took the stranger in ;4 the white robes for those who clothed the naked ;5 the tree of life and ‘no more pain ‘ for those who visited the sick;* the ‘glorious liberty” for those who came unto the prisoner; the crown of all, the repeatedly promised ‘with Me’8 for those who were content to be with His sorrowful or suffering ones for His sake. Why all this? I suppose we shall keep on asking that for ever!