June 7

ALL WILL SHARE ALIKE

David replied, “No, my brothers, you must not do that with what the Lord has given us. He has protected us and handed over to us the forces that came against us. Who will listen to what you say?

The share of the man who stayed with the supplies is to be the same as that of him who went down to the battle. All will share alike.” David made this a statute and ordinance for Israel from that day to this. 1 Samuel 30:23-25

It seemed logical for those followers of David who had finally been victorious in defeating the Amalekites, to divide the spoil themselves and not to share it with those who stayed behind—some of them “too exhausted” to continue on in the pursuit of the enemy. But David vehemently disagreed, insisting that “All will share alike” because all of them had contributed to the conquest. So it is with the work of the Lord. The unsung heroes of the church will also have their reward.

It was this passage from 1 Samuel that served as the text for one of Charles Haddon Spurgeon’s most memorable sermons. “The very last time Spurgeon preached in Metropolitan Tabernacle was the Lord’s Day morning of June 7, 1891. He appeared a broken man, ‘utterly weary in the Lord’s work, but not of it’; prematurely old, though but fifty-six; his hair white, anguish lines in his face, so enfeebled that he supported himself with his right hand on the back of a chair.” That afternoon, he suddenly became ill and remained bedridden for most of the remaining eight months of his life.

His final sermon reflected his own situation: a man too exhausted to go on in the battle. But he was not speaking of himself as much as he was of his parishioners—many of whom had worked faithfully over the years without receiving public acclaim. One such individual was William Higgs, the contractor and builder of the Metropolitan Tabernacle. Two others were Joseph Passmore and James Alabaster, the printers who served Spurgeon and the ministries of the church over the years.

Still another was Lavina Strickland Bartlett, who for sixteen years taught a Bible class for young women. “The class averaged six hundred in attendance, one thousand of whom had joined the church when she died in 1875. Of her Spurgeon said, “She aimed at soul-winning every time she met the class. Her talk never degenerated into story-telling, or quotations of poetry. She kept close to the cross, extolled her Saviour, pleaded with sinners to believe, and stirred up saints to holy living.”

Spurgeon loved the people in his congregation individually and collectively, and knew well how dependent he was on them. “Truly I may say, without the slightest flattery, that I never met with any people on the face of the earth who lived more truly up to this doctrine—that chosen of God, and loved by him with special love, they should do extraordinary things for him—than those among whom I have been so long and so happily associated.” 7