1 Chronicles 22:14

Now, behold, in my trouble I have prepared for the house of the Lord.

Great enterprises for God

I. That great things done for God look poor in the sight of the noble souls by whom they are done. “Now, behold in my trouble,” or as rendered in the margin, “in my poverty,” or as it is given in the margin of the Revised. Version, “in my low estate,” “have I prepared for the house of the Lord.” Speaking after the manner of men, David had really made great preparations for his sacred design. It has been calculated that as much gold was used in the building of the temple as is usually stored in the vaults of the Bank of England, and toward this lavish expenditure David made a large contribution: “A thousand talents of silver.” This is reckoned such an incredible quantity that some scholars suspect that an error has crept into the text. Brass and iron, timber and stone, were also prepared in abundance. Yet the king does not regard his gifts with complacency--there is no trace of pride or boasting; on the contrary, he feels that his offerings are poor and inadequate. It is ever thus with noble souls; however great in the sight of the multitude is their work or sacrifice, they mourn over it as over a mean and incommensurable thing. If any man thinks that his sacrifice for the cause of God is notable and adequate, there is something wrong with the size of that man’s soul.

1. Whatever we are, we are poor by the side of what God is. The god in many an idol temple is a poor creature indeed when compared with the splendid fabric in which it is worshipped; it is a shock to turn from the gorgeous workmanship of the shrine to the stained, ugly, contemptible idol. Exactly the contrary of this was true in regard to Solomon’s temple. However glorious the building, it was yet an unworthy footstool of the God whom Israel knew and worshipped. The God of Israel was the Eternal; the Creator of earth and heaven; the only wise God; the God of truth and without iniquity, just and right; glorious in holiness, delighting in mercy, doing wonders. When tempted to spiritual pride and vanity let us be humbled by “the beauty of the Lord.” If you wish to gain a true estimate of yourself do not measure yourself by your neighbour; judge yourself in the sight of God, and your righteousness shall fade as a leaf. The sight of God makes the millionaire a penitent, and as penitents we must strive to build His house again.

2. Whatever we do is poor by the side of what God does. We must notice how both David and Solomon cast side-glances at the vastness and magnificence of the temple built without hands. “But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee; how much less the house which I have builded.” Whatever they might build was narrow and mean in comparison with heaven and the heaven of heavens. It is a fine discipline to compare our best workmanship with the work of His fingers. The chemist can produce an artificial rainbow, but nobody will mistake the stage rainbow for God Almighty’s rainbow. It is well in a generation of intellectual power and artistic skill to put our creations by the side of God’s marvellous doings so that we may not forget. “In my poverty have I done this,” is the confession of every noble artist who criticises his work in the light of nature’s perfections and the glory of the world.

3. Whatever we give is poor by the side of what God gives. What a magnificent giver God is I We see that in the boundless, infinite outpouring of the riches of nature. And we see that supremely in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ. “Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift.” If we take our richest gift and grandest sacrifice to Calvary they dwindle into nothing in sight of the Cross. Then it is that we pour contempt on all our pride. So in the sight of God’s personal perfection, and in remembrance of His gifts and works, David felt his talents of gold, his ingots of silver, his forests of cedar, his quarries of marble, his abundance of iron and brass were trivial; they did not pay his debt to God, they simply acknowledged it. If, then, when at our best we are poor, let us not live below our best. David, at least, did his best; let us do ours. Let us not mock God by any paltriness of spirit.

II. Great things must be attempted for God in the face of the most discouraging conditions. David certainly proposed to do great things for God. He had set his heart upon building a house for God that should “be exceeding magnifical, of fame and of glory throughout all countries.” Familiar as were the nations round about with wonderful architecture end splendid adornments, David proposed to build a sanctuary for the true God that should eclipse them all. But no sooner did he attempt to work out his pious design than he became conscious of the crippling disabilities of human life, of the narrowness and hostility of the human environment. We have a fine time of it whilst we dream and design; the imagination and emotions know nothing of narrowness, difficulty, or defeat. I should like to see the temples you never build; I should like you to hear the sermons I never preach. But as soon as we essay to turn thought into fact our troubles begin. It is always a critical moment when we proceed from idealism to action. It was so with David. He no sooner attempted to take the temple out of his heart and plant it on Mount Zion than he became conscious that he was poor, afflicted, and of low estate. But--and here is the lesson--all the great work of the world has to be undertaken and carried out with the sense of disheartening difficulty and discouragement. Whenever we thoughtfully look at the splendid achievements of industry, science, literature, and art we feel that an infinite pathos enters into the contemplation. The angels “who excel in strength” may do splendid things with a touch, a breath, a look, but we mortals in poverty and weakness and suffering have built up the whole magnificent fabric of civilisation. And all the great work of the Christian world has been done in similar strenuousness and sacrifice. Not out of a superabundance of wealth, learning, leisure, and opportunity has the Church of Christ floated into power and universality, but in defiance of circumstance does it win its widening way. In what deep poverty Christianity had its origin! Christ is the supreme example of the fact that glorious work must be done in profound discouragement. II David built his golden house in poverty, did not his greater Son in a far deeper poverty build His Church which is becoming the refuge of men of all nations, languages, and tongues? The Cross is the grand symbol of His life and work and mission. Indeed, the primitive Church wrought out its great task of evangelisation and establishment amid unparalleled difficulties and a great fight of afflictions; and through successive generations the expansion of Christ’s kingdom has been a series of victories over manifold limitations, oppositions, and persecutions. If you are prepared to do anything for God that is in the least degree worthy of Him, gird yourself and be ready to face almost overwhelming difficulty. If you mean only little things for God, you will have little trouble in doing them; and if you mean less things than that, you will have no trouble at all; but if God has put a great thought into your heart it will mean a sacrifice and a battle. You never do a really large thing easily. The work you passionately desire always looms impossible. Circumstances fetter you, but you must resolutely work in fetters. Physical weakness must not deter you. Do not excuse yourself because you have no leisure. Half the work of the world is done by men who have no time, and who therefore make it. Do not allow the gathering infirmities of age to quench your zeal and effort. Put into the narrowing range of work higher qualities of faith and devotion. Do not even allow private sorrows to deny or discount your public service. When a young Greek soldier complained that his sword was short, a veteran instantly answered him, “Then add a step to it.” And I say to you who find yourselves short of time, short of money, short of strength, short of opportunity, “Add a step”; in other words, make up for the deficiencies of material, opportunity, and instrument by an intenser resolution, enthusiasm, and sacrifice. “Well,” you reply, “a man can do no more than he can do!” Now that sounds like a very deep philosophical saying that you must take slowly in, but in fact it means nothing. Men never know what they are, what they can give, what they can do, until their soul awakes. “Stir up the gift that is in thee.” “Out of my trouble have I done this,” might have been the confession of Tycho Brahe, who made his great discoveries without a telescope, showing that what an astronomer chiefly wants is not a big glass but a big eye. “Out of my trouble have I done this,” might have been the confession of Christopher Columbus, who crossed the Atlantic in an old tub that we should hardly use to-day for a Newcastle collier. “Out of my poverty have I done this,” might have been the plaint of Turner, who painted some of his masterpieces with colours mixed in broken teacups. “Out of my trouble have I done this,” says John Milton, old, poor, and blind, as he enriches the world with “Paradise Lost.” “Out of my low estate have I done this,” says John Bunyan, when he gives you out of Bedford jail the Land of Beulah, the Palace Beautiful, the shining ones, the country that is green the year round, the city of gold and glass, which when we see we wish that we were there. Do not wait until you have “spare time,” “spare cash,” or “spare” anything else; do your best with things as they are, and faith, which is the genius of the heart, will surprise you and the world. However poor and inadequate our work may seem, God will prosper and multiply it in an extraordinary degree. David felt his poverty, but God brought the thought of his heart to the utmost fruition. “Thus Solomon finished the house of the Lord, and the king’s house; and all that came into Solomon’s heart to make in the house of the Lord, and in his own house he prosperously effected.” (W. L. Watkinson.)

One worker preparing for another

Let us notice--

I. That david had zealously done his part.

1. He had gathered the materials. Many a man collects people together, and yet he has not the fashioning of them--he does not see many conversions.

2. He fashioned some of the materials.

3. He prepared the way for Solomon’s temple.

4. He found the site for the temple. We do not always remember the men who prepare the sites for the Lord’s temples. Luther is remembered, but there were reformers before Luther.

5. It was David who received the plans from God.

6. He gave a solemn charge to others.

7. Have you done your part?

II. David had done his part in trouble.

1. David thought little of what he had prepared. It is those who do little for the Lord who are like a hen with one chick--they think a great deal of it.

2. It was a proof of his sincerity. David in the day of his trouble, when his heart was ready to break, still went on with his great work of providing for the house of the Lord.

3. It was an incentive to service.

4. It must have given an elevation to David’s whole life.

III. David’s work fits on to the work of another.

1. This is the order of God’s providence in His Church. I am told that my venerable predecessor, Dr. Rippon, used often, in his pulpit to pray for somebody, of whom he knew nothing, who would follow him in the ministry of the Church, and greatly increase it. He died and passed to heaven about the time I was born. Older members of the Church have told me that they have read the answer to Dr. Rippon’s prayers in the blessing that has been given to us these many years.

2. But this is a terrible blow at self. Self says, “I like to begin something of my own, and I like to carry it out; I do not want any interference.” There are some who do not want any help; they are quite up to the mark; they are like a waggon and four horses, and a dog under the waggon as well.

3. I believe that it is good for the work to have a change of workers.

4. This creates unity in the Church of God.

5. This leaves a place for those who come after. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

And thou mayest add thereto.--

Limited liability

So David encourages Solomon to arise and build the temple. The king had done his best to facilitate the building, and now he urges the young prince to come forth and do his part. It may be appropriate to reflect a little upon the fellowship of service, to remember our mutual limitations and responsibilities, and to encourage one another in service.

I. Let us observe the circumscriptions of human service. David could not take in hand the whole business, and build the temple independently of Solomon and everybody else. He soon discovered his limitations, and knew that if the great enterprise were to be carried out he would have to take Solomon into partnership, and Solomon would have to take the nation into, partnership.

1. We are subject to personal, constitutional circumscriptions from which we cannot escape. We have a certain gift and susceptibility, and within the lines prescribed by our special endowment we can work happily and effectively, but we make sorry work when we attempt anything beyond those lines. We have all heard of the mathematician who, on hearing “Paradise Lost” read, wished to know what it proved. Well, it proved that a cell was wanting in his brain, and that he soon gave himself away when he got off his own proper ground. We talk of “all-round” men, but strictly speaking such men do not exist. All have the defects of their qualities with strange work. We may easily get into a place that we do not fit; easily attempt work for which we have no faculty.

2. We are subject to circumscriptions of circumstance. We see this in the case of David. He had gifts and aspirations which the trend of events did not permit him to exercise and develop. The sword was thrust into his hand when he would have preferred the harp; he was condemned to deal with politics when he longed to write poetry; he was shut up to empire-building when he felt the passion strong to temple-building. We possess faculties that our life does not permit us to cultivate, aspirations that we may not gratify. Some birds have little or no song in the wild state, although they have highly developed song muscles which they can turn to excellent account in other and favourable circumstances. Our environment is often too strong for us, and we must coerce ourselves into the performance of duties for which we have little or no inclination.

3. And then we all suffer from the circumscription of time. “David prepared before his death.” We have only life’s little day for our large, manifold, and strenuous speculations. “We are strangers and pilgrims, as all our fathers were.” And this is just as true of the higher service of the race as it is true of intellectual, political, and material service. We are restricted to narrow bounds, and can do only here a little and there a little.

II. Let us, however, observe to our encouragement the continuity of human service. What David could do he did, and what he could not do he passed on with confidence to Solomon. There is wonderful continuity and coherence in the action of man. Leo Grindon says: “Nothing so plainly distinguishes between man and brutes as the absolute nothingness of effect in the work of the latter. Unless the coral isles be esteemed an exception, of all the past labours of all the animals that ever existed, there is not a trace extant.” No; the irrational creatures have been sagacious in an extreme degree, they have been active and energetic from the beginning, powerful, clever, but there is no conservation of their work, no perpetuation, no accumulation. It ceases with the life of the individual or with the existence of the special community. Myriads of bees, birds, ants, and beavers, curious, restless workers, but nothing of their creations and fabrications survive. But it is strangely different with man. Frail and fugitive as the individual may be, we have the ability to bequeath our small personal contribution to the general and increasing wealth of the race. There is a physical law in the animal world which economises the experience of the individual for the benefit of the species, but we have the immense advantage of a social law which preserves and perpetuates in an extraordinary degree the services and sacrifices of the humblest individual. We see this in the intellectual world. Our glorious things in literature and art are the legacies of our gifted ancestors. The architecture of Assyria, the astronomy of Chaldea, the pottery of Etruria, the science of Egypt, the art of Greece, the jurisprudence of Rome, the moral science of Palestine, have come down to us corrected, enlarged, perfected by successive generations. Bees have been making comb for ages, and yet there is nothing to show for it to-day; but swarms of golden bees from Homer to Tennyson have filled a million cells in the British Museum with immortal sweetness. No phonograph has caught and preserved the music of the birds, although they have piped from the morning of time; but the songs and symphonies of ancient minstrels stir our souls with deep thoughts and passions. And once again we see this continuity of service in the national life. Our fathers bequeathed us this great empire. Your toils and sacrifices will be conserved, they will be added to the general stock, they will survive for ages. Here is our grand comfort and encouragement. Real work is wealth that moth and rust do not corrupt.

III. Observe, lastly, to your encouragement, the complementariness Of human service. What David could not do Solomon could do. What is missing in one man is found in another; what is lacking in one man’s service is supplied by the service of another. We see at a glance that men are wonderfully different from each other. Living things and creatures have always an individuality more or less sharp. Artificial things are uniform. The roses on my drawing-room paper are surprisingly alike--exactly the same size, the same colour, the same number of leaves, the flowers grow at precisely the same distance from each other, grow at the same angle, are identical in form and colour whether they grow at the top of the room or the bottom, whether they get the sun or the shade, and they never vary with the seasons; but the garden outside has no uniformity. The roses are all sizes and colours, grow at all angles, and not the roses only but other flowers of a thousand shapes and dyes and perfumes. So in society. David has a character of his own, so has Solomon. And this individuality becomes the sharper with education. Culture intensifies individuality, civilisation spells differentiation, godliness means individual distinction. And because we are different we often think severely of one another. The multitude of teachers utterly unlike each other unconsciously conspire to bring out the whole truth. “Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas,” and yet the threefold, the thousandfold, ministry is necessary to bring out the infinite truth. Amongst the great company of preachers, each with his singular appreciation of truth and righteousness and grace, the world gets the fulness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ. And so the multitude of workers, utterly unlike each other, cover the whole field of service. As geologists, astronomers, chemists, and many other workers in nature complete the circle of the sciences, so the various servants of Christ and humanity, guided by the sovereign, universal Spirit, take up all kinds of gracious work so that all needs may be ministered unto and the whole race be visited and blessed. “Moreover there are workmen with thee in abundance, hewers and workers of stone and timber, and all manner of cunning men for every manner of work.” “Thou mayest add thereto.” It is a matter of obligation. Are we to receive all and do nothing? Some people add very little to anything. But we all feel how ignoble are such parasitic souls. Solomon felt that it was an obligation to build, and we are awfully guilty if we shirk the work which God has so manifestly committed to us. “Thou mayest add thereto.” It is a privilege to do so. When God built the world He did it altogether without our intervention. We were not there when He laid the foundations of the earth. We had no hand in piling the Alps. We did not dig a trench for the Atlantic. We did not adorn the firmament with golden star and silver crescent and crimson cloud. We did not plant the oaks of Bashan or the cedars of Lebanon. The rainbow owes nothing to our paint-pot. God did it all. “Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of Thine hands.” But God has granted to us the glorious privilege of being His fellow-workers in building up a regenerated humanity. Our thoughts, gifts, sympathies, prayers, tears may go into this new creation whose glory shall eclipse that of sun or star. “See that no man take thy crown”--that is, see that no man does thy work. (W. L. Watkinson.)