Gooding, David: 4 - 1 Chronicles 17

Thank you, sir, for those kindly words of welcome. Thank you all for your kind Christian fellowship and friendship in the course of these brief days together. May God himself encourage you in your work and witness for the Lord. It is a stimulus to one's own faith to see the way God has maintained his testimony among you over these so many years. May he continue to do so ever increasingly until the great day when the Lord will come. Now let us read tonight, beginning in First Chronicles chapter seventeen and verse one. First Chronicles chapter seventeen and verse one. And it came to pass, when David dwelt in his house, that David said to Nathan the prophet, lo, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of the covenant of the Lord dwelleth under curtains. And Nathan said unto David, Do all that is in thine heart, for God is with thee. And it came to pass the same night that the word of God came to Nathan, saying, Go and tell David, my servant, thus saith the Lord, thou shalt not build me an house to dwell in. For I have not dwelt in an house since the day that I brought up Israel unto this day, but have gone from tent to tent and from one tabernacle to another. In all places wherein I have walked with all Israel, spake I a word with any of the judges of Israel whom I commanded to feed my people, saying, Why have you not built me an house? No, therefore, thus shalt thou say unto my servant David, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I took thee from the sheep coat, from following the sheep, that thou shouldest be prince over my people Israel. And I have been with thee whithersoever thou wentest, and have cut off all thine enemies from before thee. And I will make thee a name like unto the name of the great ones that are in the earth. And I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in their own place and be moved no more. Neither shall the children of wickedness waste them anymore, as at the first. And as from the day that I commanded judges to be over my people Israel. And I will subdue all thine enemies. Moreover, I tell thee that the Lord will build thee an house. And it will come to pass, when thy days be fulfilled, that thou must go to be with thy fathers, that I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall be of thy sons, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build me an house, and I will establish his throne forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. And I will not take my mercy away from him, as I took it from him that was before thee, but I will settle him in mine house and in my kingdom forever, and his throne shall be established forever. According to all these words, and according to all this vision, so did Nathan speak unto David. Then David the king went in and sat before the Lord, and he said, Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that thou hast brought me thus? And this was a small thing in thine eyes, O God, that thou hast spoken of thy servant's house for a great while to come, and hast regarded me according to the estate of a man of high degree. O Lord God, what can David say yet more unto thee concerning the honor which is done to thy servant? For thou knowest thy servant. O Lord, for thy servant's sake, and according to thine own heart, hast thou wrought all this greatness to make known all these great things. O Lord, there is none like thee, neither is there any God beside thee, according to all that we have heard with our ears. What one nation in the earth is like thy people Israel, whom God went to redeem unto himself for a people, to make thee a name by great and terrible things, in driving out nations from before thy people, which thou redeemest out of Egypt. For thy people Israel didst thou make thine own people forever, and thou, Lord, becameest their God. And now, O Lord, let the word that thou hast spoken concerning thy servant and concerning his house be established forever, and do as thou hast spoken. And let thy name be established and magnified forever, saying, the Lord of hosts is the God of Israel, even a God to Israel, and the house of David, thy servant, is established before thee. For thou, O my God, hast revealed to thy servant that thou wilt build him an house. Therefore hath thy servant found in his heart to pray before thee. Now, O Lord, thou art God and hast promised this good thing unto thy servant. And now it hath pleased thee to bless the house of thy servant, that it may continue forever before thee. For thou, O Lord, hast blessed, and it is blessed. God give us good understanding of his holy word. Now, last night we began together the study of the third stage in the First Book of Chronicles, and we noticed from its opening words the third great advance in the pathway of man from Adam up to the time of glory. That third great advance consisted in David's bringing up of the Ark of the Lord into Jerusalem city. Last night we saw reason for thinking that the significance of that act, the bringing up of the Ark of the Lord into the city of Jerusalem was for David and his people a literal and veritable coming of the Lord to Jerusalem city. One Chronicles thirteen and verse six, when David first attempted to bring up the Ark, though by a wrong method, the Ark is described as the Ark of God, the Lord that sits upon the cherubim, which is called by the name. To see that ark born on the shoulders of the Levites in stately procession, entering the city of Jerusalem, thrilled David's heart to its very foundation. It was the Lord who was coming on the throne of his ark, coming to establish justice and judgment in Jerusalem. And therefore, it was but natural, do you not think, for David to suppose now that the time had come at last where he might be permitted to build God a tabernacle. And not only a tabernacle, but a permanent, solid, glorious stone temple in Jerusalem. You see, David was acutely aware that he was living in a royal palace. He was not living in any mere tent covered with curtains. Yet while he was living in a palace with ceilings at the roof, the ark of the Lord still abode under curtains. And you can understand David's feeling, can't you? And I hope you side with him in thinking that he really wanted to do something for the Lord. Shameful this. I mean, if we lived in homes more comfortable than the Lord, that would be an occasion for shame, isn't it? It embarrasses me sometimes as I go to bed up at nighttime and snuggle down into my soft pillow, to think that I am more comfortable on earth oftentimes than God's own son was when he lived in our world. But then David came to Nathan, therefore, with his proposal. Now surely was the great age of peace, and he came with the proposal that he should be allowed to build God a permanent dwelling place that did not, like the tabernacle, have to move from one place to another, always on the march and never long settled in one place. Now at last, so to speak, was the time come to take the staves out of the ark and for God to settle down in peace and be in his permanent home of a temple. David meant it very well. It was, of course, a serious mistake. So that just as we have seen in the other sections of First Chronicles, each section is ad- uh, is marked by a great advance of man towards the throne of glory, and then is followed by a setback, which nevertheless leads on to a greater glory. So now it is here. The great advance in the coming of the Lord to Jerusalem, seated upon the cherubim of the ark. The setback, David's suggestion at this stage to build God a permanent temple. You will say the time had not yet come, had it? Even though the Lord had come, the time had not yet come for the great age of peace. There were still many enemies to be subdued, and David must reign still. David, the great man of war, must reign until the last enemy was subdued. And when the last enemy was finally subdued, then would come the great age when the great temple might be built. Until that time, God was on the march. Oh, what a wonderful word does God speak in David's ear here and in the parallel passage in Samuel. Said God to David, David, have I ever asked anybody to build me a permanent place? You know, I've been walking all these years, step by step with your fathers. I took them out of Egypt, and in my grace I came and dwelt in the tabernacle, and as they trod the wilderness, step by step, all that weary and laborious way, says God, I walked with them. All the great mercies of God. Just you imagine it. Didn't give Moses a visiting card and a map, did he, and say, if ever you arrive at the promised land, here's my visiting card, this is where I live, and you'll find me there. Certainly not. When God would bring his people from Egypt to Canaan, himself came down from heaven to walk the road with them, step by step, all the way to their promised inheritance. And now, as God makes his reply to David, he gently chides his servant, doesn't he? Because, frankly, it was an impertinence in David's part, wasn't it? Understandable, but an impertinence, not in the land. Did I ever ask for it, says God? Well, no. Well, David, my man, yes, certainly man shall one day sit upon the throne of the Lord, but now another question. According to whose plan is it, David? Was it your idea after all, David? Is it you that is calling the tune? Did you advi- d- devise the whole scheme, David? Was it your idea? No, it wasn't, was it? Now let me remind you, David, says God, you'll see, actually, when I first found you, you were in charge of a half a dozen sheep or more. A little shepherd boy among the sheep, and I suspect your wildest ambitions was to be like your father, or perhaps like some local tycoon who had so many sheep he could afford at least two chariots. You'll see, and if you had risen and made a million dollars or two, and you've got two chariots to your name and a whole flock of sheep, a house in the town and a ranch in the country, you would have been content, wouldn't you, David? That was the limit of your ambition. And it wasn't your idea, David, that I would take you from the sheep goats as a little peasant boy and train you and equip you and eventually make you the head of the nations, founder of a royal house that should last for centuries. That was my idea, David. And I've not only done it so far, David, raising you to the throne and making your name great among the nations as at this present, but now let me tell you, David, I'm not finished with you yet. I'm still on the march, for I have plans for you, David, far exceeding your wildest imagination. When you have gone home to glory, I will build you a house, and I shall not take my mercy from your house as I took it from the house of Saul. You shall have a son, and I will be his father, and he shall be my son. And I shall enter into a relationship with that king, that son of yours, utterly unparalleled in history. And I shall make his throne great, and I shall establish your throne forever. Oh, how marvelous it was. And though God was gently chiding his servant, yet at the same time, like God always d- does, he pours oil into the wound, doesn't he? And David's little ideas about building a stone temple in Jerusalem began to fade as he listened to God outlining God's plan for the centuries to come. He would have a son. Oh, how marvelous. And God would be his father, and that son should be God's son. You say, who was that? Well, Solomon in the first place. And David thought it was marvelous. I wonder what he would have thought had he known who it really was. But though that prophecy was to be fulfilled in part in Solomon, even so God wouldn't rest until there came that king of David's line upon whom God had set his choice. The very Son of God incarnate, born of the line of David. And the promise would be fulfilled in an unimaginably high sense. There should be born the blessed Messiah, and God would be to him a father, and he should be the very son of God himself. Oh, I wonder if even then David began to catch a glimpse of it. What would he have said? Well, he knows now, doesn't he? I wonder what he's thinking about tonight. I hope he doesn't hear my comments about him, but ha ha, wonder what he's thinking about tonight. Is he kicking himself, do you think, and saying, wasn't I stupid to take it upon me to tell God when the time to finish had come and and tell him I'd arrived and we were now going to have the permanent dwelling place, you see, God. If God had been content with my plans, where should I have? Compared with the eternal weight of glory that God had in mind for him. Man shall sit upon the throne of the Lord. We need to ask ourselves, don't we? According to whose plan? How easily we settle down, don't we? Tell me, my brother, my sister, what's your ambition, if I might be so personal as to inquire? What are you wanting out of life? Well, you say in the first place, I'd like a husband. Oh, good, yes, of course. I'm sure God, God has got one for you, yes. Uh, you want a wife, sir? Well, God bless you. And then you want a good job, yes. Uh, uh, oh, you, you want a little more than that. Well, a good bank balance, yeah, and that life isn't too awkward and difficult. I see. Would you like a house in the country as well? Could I interest you in an ocean-going yacht, five ranches up in Texas somewhere, and a holiday chalet in Switzerland? Now, would you be content? What is your ambition? Oh, how easily we settle down. And what do you make of salvation? What would you be content with? You know I'm not telling tales out of school when I confess to you I've heard believers say, ah, well, you know, Chronicles and all that. I don't bother about that much myself. You see, I'm saved by grace, and uh, that's that. Oh, how easily we do settle down, don't we? With our little knowledge of God's word. And that's enough, we say, because we can get to heaven without knowing about Chronicles. Ooh. So you can, but whereabouts in heaven you'll be, I don't know. How easily we settle down with a little knowledge of salvation and a little knowledge of the Lord. And therefore, sometimes life becomes a mystery to us. And just when we think we're nicely arrived and we've made it, you know, and are portly and middle-aged or middle-aged without being portly, but we've arrived anyway. Then life begins to go wrong. And we find that instead of being able to settle down, life becomes a bit of a wilderness once more, and we wonder what God is at. The fact is we haven't arrived yet. Not according to God, we haven't. He has ambitions for us. We'll go on into the imaginable and uncountable ages of eternity. Oh, my brother and sister, take seriously the word of the Lord. Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us an exceeding and eternal, now listen for it, weight of glory. Do you suppose you'll be able to bear the weight? Glory is a difficult thing to bear, you know, isn't it? That's why I, I don't go to the palace and dine with the queen in my country very often. I don't make a practice of it anyway. You'll see, it is a dear, dear lady, and I give her the allegiance of my heart, but you'll see, going to dinner at the palace is a bit fussy, all those knives and forks, and which one would you use first, and the spoons, and then you had to dress up and all that ermine stuff and crowns and things. I prefer sardines on toast for the most part, you'll see, to all that, ah, it sort of embarrasses you if you're not used to it. Uh, how are you going to get on? With the weight of the glory that you will be invited to bear in God's eternal heaven. And because God will not be satisfied until he brings us there, he must keep us on the move. Hence sometimes the glorious entitement- enticements and the visions of glory that he lets burst on our sight, and hence sometimes those difficult trials that churn us up and destroy any feeling that we might have had that we've arrived, and make us aware that we're far from arriving, and there remaineth very much more of the land to be possessed. And if in those times we feel downhearted as though the road were too long, let us listen to the Lord's words to David. Was it your idea? May I ask you, was salvation your idea? Did you come to the Lord one day and say, Lord, I'm a terrible sinner, and I couldn't possibly might save myself. I suggest to you with all reverence that you provide the salvation. Did you come and suggest that to the Lord? No, it wasn't your idea, was it? And which one of us would have had the impertinence to come to God and say, now look here, God, I suggest that you send your son to die for me. Was that your idea either? No, indeed not. And because it was his idea, who saw us in the morass and mud of our sins and in our poverty-stricken state, and had ideas of glory for us above the highest archangel. He reserved the right to call the tune all along the pathway and to set the pay and not to let us settle down before the crown of glory is. But oh, what a wonder. What a wonder as David listened to God, then he went into the temple, and this time he didn't kneel to pray, he sat to pray in that receptive posture to try and take in the wonders that God had told him. Oh God, he said, what a God you are, and how utterly unique a God you are, for you have spoken of thy servant for a great while to come. And I repeat it in your ears tonight, my brother, my sister, all sit you down a moment when you can find five minutes and put your feet up and try to take in that God has spoken about you for a great while to come. Save sinner and forgiven, member of the Church of Christ, member of the very body of Christ, indwelt by the divine Holy Spirit. Not only is there a mansion awaiting you in the glory, but God destines you a prince and a princess in the reigning house that shall reign over the whole of the universes for all eternity. And I asked myself, who raised that wondrous thought? Or who did it suggest that blood-bought saints to glory brought should with the sun be blessed? Father, the thought was thine, thine only it could be, true to that wisdom, power divine, peculiar unto thee. The thought of it is old David's heart and work and set him to pray as perhaps he had never prayed before. But now with a difference. You'll see when he came suggesting that he should be allowed to build God a house, he had no scripture for it, had he? Now he had, if not a scripture, he had the word of God. And therefore thy servant has found it in his heart to pray, says he. Because now you've told me I have your word for it, Lord. Therefore, please hear my prayer, and this time my prayer is do as thou has said according to thy good counsel and thy purpose. That's a lovely way to pray, isn't it? To first find out what God intends to do and then pray that he'll do it. Well, I can think I can understand, uh, David, because if God had talk- talked to me like that, I should have said this is so incredibly wonderful. I- I just make sure that God keeps his word, so to speak. Because, ah. Yeah. And when we read Ephesians, that lovely letter of Paul, there we hear about God who, of his own counsel, without asking us, which he counseled in Christ before the very foundations of the world, according to the purpose and the wisdom of his own grace, which he purposed in Christ, that one day we should be eternally before him in love, predestined to sonship through Jesus Christ our Lord, and in Christ's death and resurrection and ascension to God's right hand has raised us up too and set us at his own right hand in glory. Well, we can't help doing what Paul then did, can we? Saying, well, if this is God's purpose, would never have dreamed of it myself, but if that's what he purpose. Then let us pray, O God, give us an illumination by your spirit, that we might grasp what is the hope of our calling, what the exceeding riches of thine inheritance in the saints, and what your power is to water. So then, we are not surprised to find that stage three of Chronicles gives out onto another long stage. In fact, another two long stages before the temple of God's glory is finally built. So let us briefly inquire what stage four turned out to be about. Stage four that begins in chapter nineteen and verse one and extends through that chapter and twenty and twenty one and twenty two. Turns out to be the record of David's reign continued until the very last enemy had been destroyed. He had to reign, you see, didn't he? He was the king of God's judgment until the last enemy was destroyed. Then came Solomon. Those enemies were mainly three, as we are told. First came the king of Ammon, who eventually was put down with very stiff warfare. Then we are told there were the remainder of the giants, the progeny and relatives of the younger generations of Goliath himself, and they had to be dealt with and put down. And then finally came the biggest enemy of all, Satan himself. Let's think of those enemies for a moment. First there came Ammon. And who was he? Would you know what a typical Ammonite is? I imagine you've got your ideas as what a typical Englishman is, though you're polite enough not to say so. Yes, be assured that we English have our notions of what a typical American is, though we're vastly too polite to say so. It is, you'll see, because history and geography and climate and experience combine, don't they, to form certain national characteristics. And though, of course, we mustn't think in stereotypes, yet there is such a thing as national attitude. It was so, of course, in the ancient world. The different nations of the ancient world, with their different origins and their different histories and different experiences and different cultures, developed a national characteristic. But when the Holy Spirit is talking about these nations in his word, you will find that the character remains very often constant. Now, Ammonites, whatever else they were besides being enemies of God's people, were marked by two features, wherever you read of them. They had the habit of bitterly and sarcastically mocking the people of God. And that in itself was tactics adopted for a further motive, and that was to try and filch and steal from Israel the inheritance that was rightly Israel. You take the stories that you remember about Ammon from your Sunday school days or more recent reading. Remember in the time of Saul, when Saul was barely elected, that the king of the Ammonites came up to the Jebus Gileadites and said, gentlemen, I propose to, uh, make you my subjects, you see, and I spare your lives on this one condition, that everyone among you shall consent to have his right eye put out and it be put to a reproach to Israel. A lot of one-eyed men, you see, who couldn't stop the Ammonites taking them over. And when Saul heard of it, he boiled a whose rage to an oxen and cut it into pieces and sent it round all Israel, and thus commandeered Israel to come and fight the Jebesh Gileadites and save Israel from that massive humiliation at the hands of Ammon. Yeah? So it is in the story here in one Kings, you'll see. one Kings chapter nineteen, where we read that the king of Ammon died, and David, in his kind heart, sent, uh, messengers to Hanun, the son of Nakash, the late king, in order to comfort him concerning his father. Was, of course, a political and diplomatic move. But the young and new king, instead of being grateful for the political courtesy showed him, took David's servants, cut off their clothes in the middle, shaved off half their beard, and drove them away. But he wouldn't be friends with David, and in fact, truth to tell, you couldn't be friends with the men. And shame these men to the very roots of what hair was left on their heads. If you find yourself in the middle of the street with your trousers cut off in the middle, gentlemen, and your beards, if you have one, half shaved off. Make an absolute fool of them. Yes, because you see, the Ammonites had in fact lost a bit of the territory to Israel. God had taken it and given it to Israel, and Ammon never got over it and was always for trying to get it back. So it was, you remember, in time of Nehemiah the Prophet. When Nehemiah was building the wall, and it was only at a little height, came Tobiah the Ammonite, and with aristocratic sarcasm he said, what do these feeble Jews want? Why, if a mere fox came along and swayed his tail, the whole wall was to him, trying to intimidate them to stop the work going on by sheer making them look foolish by his mockery and sarcasm. Ah, Nehemiah went off on his holidays or state business, and then when he came back from the capital, he happened to be walking by the temple one morning and heard funny sounds and the smell of coffee coming out of one of the side rooms and went to investigate, and there was the foresaid Tobiah. He'd installed himself, if you please, in one of the side chambers of the house of the Lord. You'll say that was the point of his mockery, to discourage Israel and then insert himself and take over Israel's heritage, and if need be, the very heritage of the Lord himself. And Nehemiah kicked him out and all his household stuff. Yeah. This was Ammon, the great mocker of the people of God, intent on taking over their inheritance. I don't know if you suffer from any mockers nowadays. Peter did, didn't he? And recorded it for our admonition in two Peter chapter three. Know this, that in the last time there shall come mockers who pour scorn on the Christian gospel, and in particular, pour scorn on the idea of the second coming of Christ. And shrugging their very learned shoulders, they say, ah, I will say, where is the sign of his coming, you see? We've heard it since John Nelson Darby, and we've heard it for a long time before. All this talk about the second coming, you see, and uh, it hasn't happened yet. So say, where is the sign of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they did according to nature's law of the continuity of the physical. Yeah. Mockers. He says, Peter, you better be warned about them. For if you let them, they will rob you of your great inheritance. They will tell you at last that not only the Lord Jesus is not coming again, but there isn't any Lord Jesus to come, nor any God either. Their idea is that of the secular humanist, this world for man, and please God, if there is one, keep out. Before the age is over. It will come to the big showdown, won't it? It shall indeed. There will come a day when the great Antichrist sits in the temple of God, advertising himself as God. And telling the general public that at last it has been proved that what hitherto was thought to be miraculous power, the scientists have now finally proved isn't miraculous at all. There's no God out there, and man is God and has taken over the earth as a self-contained human. God's answer shall be what it was for Ammon. The blessed Lord shall come, and he shall destroy him with the outshining of his appearance. And oh, what a day it will be to see it happen. For when Ammon was destroyed, the historian tells us, they took the crown off Ammon's head, and they put it on the head of David. You live for that moment, don't you? The head that once was crowned with thorns. How you live for it, my brother and sister, don't you? To see it and to be present when the crowns of the whole of earth are taken off the enemy's head and put upon the once thorn-crowned brow of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Come across any giants around Woodside recently, or Fanwood? There isn't just one giant, you know, there's a whole brood of them. They come up from the cellar and they come down from the bedroom, don't they, and they're where you wouldn't expect them lurking behind a pillar in your office, giants of all kinds. Ever since this world was invaded by evil spirits, ever since indeed his satanic majesty induced men to sin, what giants and hobgoblins there have been to oppose the people of God. They're not all finished yet, well, at least they're not around my part of the world where I live, my home I die. They shall be one day, ah, as sure as David and his servants eventually cleaned up the whole brood of the giants and giants ceased forever. So one day, the wicked shall be removed, and the righteous shall shine forth in the kingdom of their father. Beyond all human enemies, there is a bigger, isn't there? The last enemy destroyed, says scripture, is death. Yeah. Well, then the second last, what is that according to the Revelation chapter twenty? Before the great eternal temple is built. Why, you say the answer is Satan himself cast into the lake of fire. Now, in this fourth section, after the victory over Ammon and over the giants, once more the pattern repeats itself. The advance is followed by a very serious setback. Fresh from his victories, and doubtless encouraged by them, David one day summoned Joab to the royal presence and commanded Joab to number the people. Well, Joab wasn't renowned for his godliness. I don't know anybody who ever thought he was. But even he protested when he heard this astounding suggestion. Number the people? Why would you number the people, said Joab to David? Well, why do you think? It wasn't, was it, for the better efficiency of organizing the army or the civilians either. The Lord made them ten times as many as they are, said Joab. Why must you know their number, David? Well, why? You'll find the answer in two things. You'll find the answer when you trace the temptation to its source. Satan stood up and provoked David to number the people. And the great sin of Satan. Paul refers to it, doesn't he, when he advises Timothy on the selection of elders to guide a church. Not a novice, he says, lest he be lifted up with pride and fall into the error and snare of the devil. Deadliest of all sins. His very author, Satan. It is a sin that can beset a novice. But it is a sin, as you now see from David's experience, that can cons- can beset the middle age and the older folks in particular. Yes? Piled when he was with a half a dozen feet, was he? And David wasn't proud when he came home from beating Goliath. But now, on the threshold of unimaginable glory, David fell to the snare and temptation of Publius and became proud, wanted to know the number of the people. What for? For God's glory? Well, God already knew. Now, I'm afraid, as Joab could see, he wanted to know it for his own glory. You say, but that's only a little sin, isn't it? No, it isn't, my brother. Why, if it weren't rooted out of our hearts, it would make hell of heaven itself. Man shall sit upon the throne of the Lord. Let me ask you another question, not merely by whose authority, or by whose power, or according to whose hand, but man shall sit upon the throne of the Lord for whose glory? Glory. It often is in middle age, when success has attended our labors in things secular or even in things spiritual. Satan is able to trip us up, and little by little and imperceptibly get us to the point where we are serving the Lord or serving him in things spiritual or secular for our own naughty little pride of heart. I'm a better preacher than he is, and I know more than he does, and I've led more souls to the Lord than him, and... And that kind of thing would be a ruination of the music of heaven, would it not? When all bow head and heart without reserve and say to the Lamb that sits upon the throne, be the honor and the glory. How will you ever build a temple? If you minister in it and start praising the Lord, in your heart there nestles the sin of pride that's doing it for your own glory. Have you ever known, my brother, as you have stood at the Lord's Supper to give thanks, and as Paul says, you gave thanks well. But you sat down with a sense of immense satisfaction, saying, I wonder what they thought of that. They must have thought that was very good. Well, now you of course have never known that in all your life, no. But I have, so it can happen. And at the highest pinnacle of work, to have the thing ruined. High self-interest and pride. God therefore had to discipline David and his people exceedingly severely. And the very thing in which David prided himself, the numbers of Israel, God dealt with him, and the numbers were cut low. Now the story ends magnificently. For David not only saw his evil deed and repented of it, but listen to the outcome. David opened his eyes and saw the angel of the Lord's judgment with sword outstretched over Jerusalem city. Then king though he was, in front of all his people he humbled himself and walked out to meet the angel in his court, saying, oh God, have mercy on these sheep. It's I that have sinned, not they. I offer myself to your judgment to save them. Oh, in that moment, you see another David, don't you? A man after God's own heart. How one day, on that very spot, the temple of God's praise would be built, where Earth's ghastly sin was atoned for. The temple would be built. As we think of it, our minds go down the centuries to Jerusalem still, to a place just outside the city, where great David, greatest son, entitled to all the glory of all the worlds there are, stood on the streets of Jerusalem and said, what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. But then for this cause I came to this hour. Father, glorify thy name. And walked out to Calvary. And met the avenging angel of God's wrath, sinless himself, that we sinners might be saved. Do you know where heaven's temple is going to be built? I mean, even that great eternal temple. We built, my brothers, my sisters, on Calvary. Shall it not? I don't mean physically here on earth. But every note of every praise that shall ascend in the great dwelling place of God for all will rise on what was done by the son of David, our Lord, on our behalf at Calvary. God's final answer to Satan. I, if I be lifted up, draw all men to me. Now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And with that done, David was free to turn to happier things. And calling the nation together, so we are told, he charged Solomon, his son, in the hearing of all the elders of Israel, seeking to impress upon that impressionable boy the wonder of the dignity and the role that had now been committed to him by the Lord God Almighty. Son of David, for whom God would be a father, and he should be God's son, commissioned to build the great temple of the Lord. So you may think of him on the one hand, and if you like, the sons of the giants on the other, because ultimately you're in one group or the other anyway, aren't you? And what are you? The son of a giant? Or a son of God? For you will remember our dear beloved Apostle John in his first letter and chapter three says, The whole what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God, sons of God indeed. It does not yet appear what we shall be. We know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Now, says John, everyone that has that hope of one day being exactly like the Son of God, everyone that has that hope, it is the matter of fact that they purify themselves. So much so that if you find somebody who never bothered to purify himself, then he is giving evidence that he or she doesn't have that hope, not in reality. For everyone that seriously has the hope of being like the Son of God when he is manifested the second time, does in fact seek God's grace to purify himself or herself now. But even now he or she might be more like the Son of God. And pray, what is he like? Well, if you want to know that, think about when he was manifested the first time, says John. If you hope to be like him when he's manifested the second time, be like him now as he was when he was manifested the first time. And why was the Son of God manifested the first time? Well, he was manifested that he might undo and destroy the works of that old giant, the devil. So naturally, says John, you're in one family or the other, aren't you? You are of Cain, who was of the devil, or you are of God. There are only two families, ultimately, and you're one or the other. Oh, God, help us to keep our eyes on the hope of being like the Lord when he comes, that even now we might progressively purify ourselves to be like him as he was when first he appeared. That leads us finally to our last section, and we can, uh, dismiss it in a few words. Not that it is unimportant. It is the most important section in First Chronicles. But here are things perhaps too deep for words, too high for mere phraseology. The last stage opens with David now an old man, and he semi-abdicates the throne in favor of Solomon, and they made Solomon king. To release David from the responsibilities of actively governing the kingdom, so that he would be free to do what his heart was really set upon. I wonder if I could help you. I don't know what kingdom you're king or queen of. I think it takes a lot of running one way and another, and a lot of thought and time and attention. If you could be free from that and be a retired king, you know, I've often thought I'd like to be a retired king. Not a retired just anybody, but a retired king. And then I could really do what my heart was set on. It, what would you do? If you had all the time in the world, for the last years of your life, what would you do? I know what David did. He wanted to do something that would last. He gave himself to collecting the treasure and organizing the Levites, the priests, the treasurers, the trumpeters, uh, the candlestick maker, the baker, and all the rest of them, organizing them from the till the day when the temple should be built, and the whole of the nation should find its place organized with that temple at its center. So whatever the people's gifts were, candlestick makers, trumpeters, bakers, embroiderers, Levites, goodness knows what else, whatever their gifts were. Then as God came down and filled that temple, the living God might manifest himself through all those individuals, their personalities and their gifts. What a lovely sym- symphony it would be, with God himself conducting the concert and manifesting himself through the gifts and personalities of his people. David so organized them that when the temple is built, every activity would not merely express God, but would flow back to God and to God's glory, in perfect harmony and music. David prepared for the eventual erection of the temple. Costly business, it turned out to be. Gold he'd won in the battles of life. Silver he'd won as spoil from the enemy. Oh, every bit nearly told a tale of hard struggle and warfare and perseverance. At last it was all collected. David summoned the people and brought in their offerings as well as every willing heart had offered. Oh, what lovely things there were. Ah. You know, tapestries that the women had embroidered with their needlework with great care for it was for the Lord's day, it was for the priest's robe. And there was wood that had been shaped and carved, there was gold that had been refined, there were nails even. There were trumpets polished. There were Levites trained to say the right thing at the right moment. Ah, and our whole offering was set before the Lord, waiting for the day when one day he would take it to build, for his sake, house, the temple. And as David stood before it, and by this time he was a king used to wealth, but as he surveyed the vast wealth of it, his heart and emotions were overpowered. Oh God, he said, who am I to be able to give you after this manner? To think that I, a little mortal that once was a boy with a few sheep, raggedy at that, could now stand here and offer God such wealth. And yet, said he, when I think about it, it of is but of your own. The ring of difference. Put it in the imaginations of the or of the hearts of your people, he said, ever to have before them this glorious goal and the sheer wonder of the privilege of serving the living God. I know the answer to my question that I asked you earlier. Of course I do. So do you. If you were a retired king, ah, you could do exactly what you wanted to do. Ah, you already do it before you're retired. Isn't that so? You go to work not to earn a tin of beans to survive on. Not merely, you have to survive, so you have to have the beans, and you have to go to work. But taught by our Savior, as you go to work, you say, Lord, it's not merely to get shoe leather. Lord, take my daily work and use it to shape my character, to discipline my heart, to teach me the ways of righteousness, and to prepare me for the eternal service of the everlasting temple of God. Don't you? And you elders and Sunday school teachers, oh, what material you work on. Oh, all that gold. Well, eventually, if you make a mistake with a bit of gold, you can put it in dustbin, can't you? I mean, the odd bit of gold in America doesn't count for all that much. But a personality that is going to last eternally and express the glory of God and live and serve to the glory of God, and God puts it in your hand to work with. The wealth is almost too much, isn't it? How shall I bear the responsibility? We are but pilgrims and strangers. There's none abiding on this earth. David, the elderly David, says we're on our way home, aren't we? To think that in a few fleeting years we are allowed of God to prepare eternal spirits and human personality for the eternal glory. Oh, how shall we bear the wealth? And next door to the glory of heaven is the privilege now of getting ready for it. Of his own we give him. He had to provide the salvation, didn't he? He provided the forgiveness at the cost of precious lives. Provides the Holy Spirit. He provides the scripture. Provides everything now you think about, doesn't he? And of his own gift. That, of course, when all is said and done, is the secret of an undisturbed age of peace. We take from God with unsinning hearts and thank him for his gift, and with unreserved worship, we give it all back straightway to God. The Lord keep it in our imaginations likewise, and make it real, so that the reality of the coming glory overcomes all disturbing and distracting temptation. Help us devote our energies undiminished to that preparation for the coming of our great Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Shall we pray? Now, Lord, we say with thy servant David, O God, we are insufficient for these things, insufficient for the weight of glory that thou hast designed for us. But now, as thy Holy Spirit makes it real to our hearts, we pray thy grace. We thank thee with profoundest gratitude and ask thy wisdom that we may present our bodies living sacrifices, we may give our time and energies and thoughts and abilities and gifts to thee, and taking thy promise seriously, may work responsibly, preparing for the great day until the Savior comes, and all for his glory and for his name's sake. Amen.