1 Chronicles 14:15, commentary and pictures

When David sought guidance about fighting the Philistines he was told to turn aside from a direct attack and come against them from before the mulberry trees and wait for the sound in the treetops, and he did as commanded and struck them. That sound was more than wind in the leaves, it was the marching of the hosts of God and angels going before and encompassing him. Hearing that movement was the appointed moment and signal to go out to battle at once, because God had gone ahead to strike the Philistine army, so victory was assured and a cause for rejoicing. The sound is a sign that the Lord is going before His people and opening the way, calling them to bestir themselves and advance in the time and channel He appoints, and the opportunity He provides is within their ability to meet. Workers must recognize such providential openings as the sign to advance, follow as the Spirit guides, go to just the place where God would have them, and trust Him to protect the work, turn opposition into large and attentive attendance and favorable hearing, and give His truth the victory.

David's Signal for Battle

When David inquired about fighting the Philistines, the answer directed him away from a direct attack to come against them from before the mulberry trees and to wait there for a marching sound in the treetops as the signal to go to battle. David did as God commanded and struck the Philistines, so the mulberry tree recalls that victory. The sound in the tops of the trees was more than wind moving the leaves; it was the marching of the hosts of God going forth before David to smite the Philistines. It was the Lord leading His people, understood as marching angels, with God's heavenly host going before and encompassing David.

Hearing that movement in the tops of the mulberry trees was the sign and appointed moment given to David for going into battle. Then he was to go out at once, because God had gone ahead to strike the Philistine army. Victory was therefore assured, and David and his men rejoiced at the sound.

Sound Heard in Mission

The rustling to be heard above the mulberry trees is the appointed token that the Lord himself has moved out ahead of his people against opposing power, and it summons them to rouse themselves and press forward in the time and by the channel he appoints, for the opening he gives lies within their strength to meet. Faithful urgent labor by each one in his own assigned place brings that token of divine advance into hearing. The present stirring among God's people to complete their work, with angels marching before them, is that same leading made audible. The same token gives assurance that God prepares the way for his own cause, and when his servants allow him to work he brings the message to hearts and opens doors that appeared shut. Providential openings are therefore to be discerned as the signal to advance, the Spirit's guidance followed, the exact place of God's choosing entered, and his protection trusted to turn opposition into large and attentive congregations and a favorable hearing and to crown the truth with victory. In warning the cities that going in the treetops declares the Lord moving onward, and workers are to join themselves to him that he may effect his purpose through them.

At first only a faint stirring of the leaves answered the plan for Christian education, but the rising desire of young men and women to obtain such training is the full sound of advance, proving that God has gone before, removed hindrances, and made a way for earnest youth to go forth to labor. Stirring interest, cheering letters, pledges, and ready help for the school buildings and fund at Washington prove his leadership and call for immediate hasty united exertion to press on and supply the needed money within the next two weeks. What has been accomplished in recent years with oneness of feeling and purpose among the brethren in the Southern field proves his going before his laborers in the closing work of the gospel and should fill every heart with courage. Encouraging spiritual assemblies rallying for the work to come, as seen in the camp-meetings of the Pacific Northwest, are that image of signal and onward movement. The advance at Manila, with foundations for a new school nearly finished, twenty more baptized there, and a Filipino canvasser's report of $283 in one week, is the sound of God going forth before his people to break opposition.

The advance in Africa is that sound of his going, heard in the first baptisms at Asmara in Eritrea where three Abyssinians were baptized, in about two score students professing conversion in South Africa, in baptisms of Europeans in Cape Colony and the Transvaal with others preparing, in twenty-five added at Kickham on the Gold Coast, and in new stations opening in the interior of the Gold Coast and Sierra Leone. The onward canvassing work in South Africa, with more laborers entering, well-attended institutes, and large sales of papers and books, is the same sound giving the order to go out to battle. The widespread hunger for present-truth literature, with calls from many places for hundreds of copies of papers on health and temperance, the Sabbath, and other themes for friends and neighbors and for every home in a city, is the sound declaring that God goes before to open the way and grant success. Renewed missionary activity and a growing movement toward foreign service are the sound of a going. God's truth marches on, and the most striking signs of the times lie not only in growing wickedness and calamity but in this advance and in dawn-light breaking upon the earth, bidding God's people rise and act like men watching for daybreak.

His going before his people to battle is the token that the work will soon be finished. Even now that sound is heard amid the supreme crisis of the shaking time, urging its hearers to seek God most earnestly and to toil to awaken his sleeping people before the time to secure oil in their vessels is past. The same angelic hosts surround his servants when they suffer for truth, and persecutors may be made to sense that presence as a warning of coming judgment, so that they are seized with fear and flee though no earthly foe appears, for the forces of the living God have been abroad through the whole controversy between good and evil and remain with his people, and those with them outnumber all arrayed against them.