2 Chronicles 6:6-9 But I have chosen Jerusalem, that my name might be there; and have chosen David to be over my people Israel.… I. A REJECTED SERVICE. Here is a good man bent upon a service which he is not permitted to perform. It is an instance of a man's purposes outrunning the possibilities of his life. There are many reasons why a man should sometimes not be allowed to accomplish sell-imposed tasks, although they may be the outcome of very fine motives. There were reasons in David's life. David had been a man of war, and as such had shed human blood (1 Chronicles 22:8). There was an incongruity which God recognised, which had escaped David's attention, between shedding blood and building a sanctuary for God. Then, again, there may be some special hindrance in the age in which a man lives, or the circumstances by which he is surrounded, which makes the postponement of the work necessary. A man may live, as we say, before his age, he may project great purposes into human life, and yet God may say to him, "Stop, the motive is pure enough, and it is accepted as such, but the world is not yet ready; My providence must mature things, and we must wait." Again, there may be something in God's design — worldward: that design which includes time and eternity within the scope of its operation — which may put a veto upon any such scheme, his accomplishing tasks which are in themselves very praiseworthy, and which are prompted by pure and exalted motives. Now I have said that every man who has lived to a purpose must know some time or other what such a disappointment as this means. Why, this, book tells us that God has put eternity into a man's heart. God has put eternity into a man's heart; therefore the impulses of eternity, or the aims and purposes which take in eternity, are there. Man is not a mere creature of time: he strikes great outlines, not as the mere creature of time, but as one who is to live for ever. Thus, as long as it is true that God has put eternity into a man's heart, and has only put seventy years, or at most eighty or ninety years, into his life, there must be an overlapping of purposes and designs in relation to attainments in this life. It is impossible, therefore, that he should fulfil all his designs, or fill up the outlines of these plans, in a brief life. David was bent upon building a house unto the Lord: he was denied that privilege: but who will say that his life was therefore a failure? David, after all, was permitted to do a nobler work than building a sanctuary for God, great as that privilege would have been. He sang out the hymns which were destined to become the inspired psalter for all ages. Now, there are some men who escape these disappointments; but at what cost! The men who never aim at high things, who never strike the outline of any noble work; men who never allow the immortal spirit which is within them to design immortal things, and therefore things which can never be accomplished in a mortal life, doubtless escape these disappointments, but at the cost of degrading that which is noblest and best in their natures. II. THE APPROVED MOTIVE: "Whereas it was in thine heart to build an house for My name, thou didst well that it was in thine heart." Many a man would have said, "Ah, poor David, all the inspiration of a great purpose, all the patient planning, and all the earnest endeavour to accomplish the task on his part, have been useless. The Divine veto has put an end to all." Nay, not so. David does not occupy the same position Godward or manward which he would have occupied if he had never designed so devout and exalted a scheme. 1. It was well for David himself — well for his own soul that this thought took possession of it. Remember the circumstances. David had built for himself a house with cedared roof, but was then shocked with the thought of his dwelling in a palace while his God dwelt in the old tattered tabernacle of the wilderness. Surely that recoil itself was ennobling. 2. It was well, too, for David's outward, as well as his inner, life. While engaged in gathering materials for the temple, he was saved from doing things less worthy of his calling and position as the anointed of the Lord. While engaged at this work he had less disposition to engage in conflict with his neighbours. 3. It was also well that this was in his heart, because by gathering the materials for the building of the temple ha had furthered the object by preparing the way for some one else to finish the task.. 4. It was well, too, because, now that he knew that he himself would never be permitted to build the house, he would have an opportunity of exercising a self-denial which he would not have done if his had been the privilege of completing the task. Thus there was a spiritual blessing, an enriching grace, an ennobling providence in this denial. Now, we see this often in life. It is a law of human life that some men originate a work, and others accomplish it. There is nothing final about man's work on earth; we pick up the thread where other hands dropped it, and soon will drop it into younger hands than ours. God's designs cover millenniums. Look at daily life. There is a man who founds a house, or originates a business: a man who begins in a small room, and by dint of genius and perseverance, under God's blessing, so extends his business that it well-nigh takes up one side of a street. That man passes away. But he has had dreams greater than his accomplishment. Among his later thoughts was that something else might be done, but he was denied the privilege of giving embodiment to those thoughts. His son takes his place. Ah, and when the motive is never attained, still, if it be noble, it is not fruitless. There is that child overboard: a man leaps after it, but the storm rages and the ocean heaves and lounges terribly, so that the man at length fails to rescue the child. Who shall say that it was not well that he thought of it, and risked his own life in the noble endeavour? It is heaven that will supply the final solution, and it is the future that will crown the edifice of tasks unfinished in this our mortal life, although they were originated with high motives and far-reaching purposes. David entered eternity, not as a disappointed man, but as one who was inspired with an exalted aim that he bequeathed to a succeeding generation, whose noblest activities it set going. (D. Davies.) Parallel Verses KJV: But I have chosen Jerusalem, that my name might be there; and have chosen David to be over my people Israel. |
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