1 Chronicles 17:27 Now therefore let it please you to bless the house of your servant, that it may be before you for ever: for you bless, O LORD… This was a prayer founded upon a promise. God had declared his purposes towards the seed of his servant David, and David was honouring God's faithfulness, as well as expressing his own heart's desire, when he thus solemnly and confidently invoked the blessing of the Giver of all good upon his household and his posterity. I. FAMILY FEELING IS DIVINELY ORDAINED. Nations of warriors have sometimes regarded and treated such feeling as weakness. On the contrary, it is implanted by the Creator; and God, the universal Father, cannot but be pleased with fatherly sentiment and fatherly care on the part of the heads of human households. II. FAMILY FEELING IS HALLOWED BY RELIGION. Always a beautiful thing, a father's love becomes a holy thing when it is sanctified by a spiritual tone of mind and a spiritual habit of life. III. FAMILY FEELING WILL PROMPT A FATHER'S PRAYERS. If it is natural to wish well to our children, it is religious to express those wishes before him who does so much to fulfil our best and purest desires. As it would be criminal in any parent to be careless as to his children's future, so it would be monstrous in a Christian parent to omit to commend his offspring to the care and guidance, love and sympathy, of our Father in heaven. IV. FAMILY FEELING WILL LOOK FORWARD TO THE COMMON ENJOYMENT OF BLESSINGS DURING THE ENDLESS FUTURE. It is questionable whether the language of the text has any reference to the future state. In praying that his house might be "before the Lord for ever," and so "blessed for ever," David was probably contemplating the permanence of his throne and that of his descendants. His prayer has been answered in a manner deeper than he could have anticipated. But we are bound to seek for our posterity an immortal happiness, and to anticipate for our families reunion in the presence and in the service of the Eternal. - T. Parallel Verses KJV: Now therefore let it please thee to bless the house of thy servant, that it may be before thee for ever: for thou blessest, O LORD, and it shall be blessed for ever. |
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