“Now set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord, your God; arise therefore, and build ye the sanctuary of the Lord God, to bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and the holy vessels of god into the house that is to be built to the name of the Lord.” I Chron. 22:19
To say that King David loved Jehovah God would be an ‘understatement’, for Jehovah God, Himself, stated, “David is a man after my own heart.”
Now we all know of the failures of David, we all know of his affair with Bethsehba, we all know of his abuse of Uriah the Hittite, and how David plotted Uriah’s death. We are also aware of the price David paid for his failures. We also know that as men we are prome to emphasize the failures of others to the exclusion of the passion in the depths of their hearts. We all seem to be able to converse over the sins of David, yet, the overwhelming evidence of his life points out the truth that David loved God.
At the point of our text David is nearing the end of his life. What a life! A life filled with excditement, danger, victories and defeats. There were times of lonliness and times of great worship and meditation. David was the ‘great song’ writer of Israel. David was a poet, a warrior, a great strategists, he was tender hearted and at times cold hearted. David knew the sorrows of being hated and he also knew the joy of being loved and befriended. David experienced the joy of children and he had grieved over the rebellion and sin of his children. He had been thrilled at their birth and the people had heard him weep aloud at their death.
The most profound thing in David’s life was that as a ‘Shepherd Boy’ he had been chosen, by God, to be the anointed ‘King of Israel’. WOW! Tending sheep one day the next the chosen anointed one of God! David went from the humble duties of the shepherd to the throne all by the grace of God. When I think on these things I am always overwhelmed at how far the grace of God has brought us! By the grace of God we have gone from death to life. We have gone from having nothing to being ‘joint heirs’ with Christ. We have gone from being alienated from God to being His sons and daughters. We are, in Christ, a part of a royal priesthood and saints of the living God!
As David nears the end of his life he is obsessed with honoring his God by building Him a beautiful Temple of worship. It would be a beautiful place of worship with singers, a place of sacrifice and place of prayer. The Temple, most importantly, would be a place for the Ark of the Covenant, within the Holy of Holies. Within which would dwell the glory of God and the blood of the Passover Lamb would be applied toi atone for the sins of the people.
David was not permitted to build the great Temple but he did gather the material for his son, Solomon. With all the material ready David speaks to his son, Solomon, along with all the singers, princes, masons, craftsmen and priests, “Now set your hearts and your soul to seek the Lord your God.” The first great responsibility each generation has for the next generation is to provide the material for them to carry on the work of the Lord. It is also vitally important that we tell them the first order of business is to “SEEK THE LORD YOUR GOD”!
SEE YOU SOON – BRO. ED