Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCharles Spurgeon Collection: Spurgeon - C.H. - Sermons from 1 Chronicles: 04 - 1CH 22:14 One Worker Preparing for Another
TOPIC: Spurgeon - C.H. - Sermons from 1 Chronicles (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 04 - 1CH 22:14 One Worker Preparing for Another
Other Subjects in this Topic:
One Worker Preparing for Another
August 14th, 1890
by
C. H. SPURGEON
(1834-1892)
"Now behold, in my trouble I have prepared for the house of the LORD
an hundred thousand talents of gold, and a thousand talents of silver;
and of brass and iron without weight: for it is in abundance: timber also
and stone have I prepared; and thou mayest add thereto."-- 1Ch_
22:14.
The building of the temple is an admirable type of the building of the
Church of God. I am afraid that there are some present with us at this
time who have never helped to build the spiritual temple for Christ. They
are not, themselves, living stones. They are no part of God's spiritual
house; and they have never helped to bring their cedar, or iron, or gold
to the great Builder of the Church. In fact, there may be some here who
have rather helped to pull it down, some who have delighted to throw
away the stones, and who have tried to hide from the divine Builder the
precious material which he intends to use in the sacred edifice. Judge
your own hearts; and if you cannot say that you are a living stone, if you
have not helped to build up the Church of Christ, may you repent of your
sin, and may the grace of God convert you! But if you are workers for the
Lord, if your hearts are right with God, I think that I shall be able to say
some things that will encourage you to work on, even if you should not
for a time see any immediate results from your work.
There were many who helped to build the temple: David gathering the
materials; Solomon, the master mason, by whose name the temple would
afterwards be called; the princes helping him in the great work;
strangers, foreigners, and aliens, who dwelt throughout Israel and Judah;
these all took their share, and even the Tyrians and Zidonians had a part
in the work. Now, we have here many ministers of God and students,
Davids and Solomons; but I pray that many, who are strangers as yet,
may be enlisted in this holy service by our great Lord and King, and that
some, who are farthest off from Christ, Tyrians and Zidonians, who have
gone far away from God, may be enabled, by divine grace, to contribute
their share to this glorious work of building a house for the living God, a
house not made of gold, and silver, and stone, and timber, but a spiritual
house for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
I. In considering our text, let us notice, first, that DAVID HAD ZEALOUSLY
DONE HIS PART, although he might not build the temple. There are many
servants of God whose names are little known, who, nevertheless, are doing
a work that is essential to the building up of the Church of God. I have
known many such, who have never lived to realize any great success; their
names have never been written upon any great temples that have been built;
but, nevertheless, they have worthily done their part, even as David did.
You see, then, first, that David had gathered the materials. Many a man
collects people together, and yet he has not the fashioning of them. He is
the founder of a Christian congregation; but he does not live to see many
conversions. He gets together the raw materials upon which another
shall work. He ploughs and he sows; but it wants another man to come
and water the seed, and perhaps another to gather the harvest. Still, the
sower did his work, and deserves to be remembered for what he did.
David did his part of the work, in getting together the materials for the
temple.
Besides which, he fashioned some of the materials. He had the stone cut
from the quarry, and many of them shaped to take their places, by-and-
by, in silence in the temple, when it should be reared without sound of
hammer or axe. So there are teachers and preachers who help to form the
characters of their scholars and hearers, by working away upon their
minds and hearts. They will never build up a great church; but still they
are knocking the rough edges off the stones. The are preparing and
fashioning them; and by-and-by the builder will come and make good
use of them.
David had prepared the way for Solomon's temple. It was by his fighting
that the time of peace came, in which the temple could be erected.
Though he is called a man of blood, yet it is needful that the foes of
Israel should be overthrown. There could be no peace till her adversaries
had been crushed; and David did that. You do not hear much about the
men who prepare the way for others, Somebody else comes along, and
apparently does all the work; and his name is widely known and
honoured; but God remembers the heralds, the pioneers, the men who
prepare the way, the men who, by casting out devils, routing grievous
errors, and working needful reforms, prepare the way for the triumphal
progress of the gospel.
Moreover, David found the site for the temple. He discovered it; he
purchased it; and he handed it over to Solomon. We do not always
remember the men who prepare the sites for the Lord's temples. Luther is
rightly remembered; but there were reformers before Luther. There were
hundreds of men and women who burned for Christ, or who perished in
prison, or who were put to cruel deaths for the gospel. Luther comes who
the occasion has been made for him, and when a site has been cleared for
him upon which to build the temple of God. But God remembers all
those pre-Reformation heroes. It may be your lot, dear friend, to clear a
site, and to make the occasion for others; and you may die before you see
even a cornerstone of your work laid; for it will be yours when it is
finished, and God will remember what you have done.
Further, it was David who received the plans from God. The Lord wrote
upon his heart what he would have done. He told him, even to the weight
of the candlesticks and lamps, everything that was to be arranged.
Solomon, wise as he was, did not plan the temple. He had to borrow the
designs from his father, who received them direct from God. Many a
man is far-seeing; he gets the plan of the gospel into his heart, he sees a
way in which great things can be done, and yet he is scarcely permitted
to put his own hand to the work. Another will come by-and-by, and will
carry out the plan that the first one received; but he must not forget the
first man, who went into the secret place of the Most High, and learned
in the place of thunder what God would have his people do.
David did one thing more; before he died, he gave a solemn charge to
others; he charged Solomon, and the princes, and all the people, to carry
out the work of building the temple. I revere the man who, in his old age,
when there is weight in every syllable that he utters, concludes his life by
urging others to carry on the work of Christ. It is something to gather
about your last bed young men who have years of usefulness before them,
and to lay upon their consciousness and their heart the duty of preaching
Christ crucified, and winning the souls of men for the Lord.
So you see that David had done his part toward the building of the
temple. I should like to ask every believer here, Have you done your
part? You are a child of God; God has loved you, and chosen you; you
have been redeemed with precious blood. You know better than to think
of working in order to save yourself; you are saved; but have you
diligently done all that you can for your Lord and Master? It was well
said, in the prayer-meeting before this service, that there are several
thousand members of this church who could not preach, and there were
some who did preach of whom the same thing might be said, for it was
poor preaching, after all; and our brother said in prayer, "Lord, help us
who cannot preach, to pray for the man who does!" Have you, dear
friend, who cannot preach, made a point of praying for the pastor of the
church to which you belong? It is a great sin on the part of church-
members if they do not daily sustain their pastor by their prayers.
Then there is much else that you can do for Christ, in your family, in
your business, and in the neighbourhood where you live. Could you go to
bed to-night, and there close your eyes for the last time, feeling, "I have
finished the work which God gave me to do. I have done all that I could
for the winning of souls"? I am afraid that I address some who have a
talent wrapped in a napkin, hidden away in the earth. My dear man, go
home, and dig it up, before it gets altogether covered with rust, to bear
witness against you. Take it up, and put it out to heavenly interest, that
your Lord may have what he is entitled to receive. O Christian men and
women, there must be very much unused energy in the Church of God!
We have a great dynamo that is never used. Oh, that each one would do
his own part, even as David did his!
We shall soon be gone; our day lasts not very long. "The night cometh
when no man can work." Shall it be said of you, or of me, that we wasted
our daylight; and then, when the evening shadows came, we were uneasy
and unhappy, and though saved by divine grace, we died with sad
expressions of regret for wasted opportunities? It is not very long that I
sat by the bedside of one who was wealthy, I might say very wealthy. I
prayed with him. I had hoped to have found him rejoicing in the Lord,
for I knew that he was a child of God; but he was a child of God with a
little malformation about the fingers. He could never open his hand as he
ought to have done. As I sat by his side, he said, "Pray God, with all your
might, that I may live three months, that I may have the opportunity of
using my wealth in the cause of Christ." He did not live much more than
three hours after he said that. Oh, that he had woke up a little sooner to
do for the Master's church and cause what he ought to have done! Then
he would not have had that regret to trouble him in his last hours. He
knew the value of the precious blood, and he was resting in it; and I had
great joy in knowing that all his hope and all his trust were in his Lord,
and he was saved; but it was with a great deal of regret and trembling. I
would spare any of you who have wealth such trouble on your dying bed.
If there is a young man here, who has the ability to preach the gospel, or
to be doing something for Christ, and he is doing nothing, I am sure that
it will be a pain to him one of these days. When conscience is thoroughly
aroused, and his heart is getting nearer to God than it has been, he will
bitterly regret that he did not avail himself of every occasion to talk of
Christ, and seek to bring souls to him. I should like these practical
thoughts to go round these galleries, and through this area, till some men
and women shall say, "We have not done our part, as David did; but by
God's grace we will do so, and he shall have all the praise."
That is my first head, then, David had zealously done his part.
II. But, secondly, there is a remarkable fact in the text, DAVID HAD
DONE HIS PARTIN TROUBLE. Read it: "Now, behold, in my trouble I
have prepared for the house of the Lord an hundred thousand talents of
gold;" and so on. In the margin of your Bibles, you will find the words,
"in my poverty." It is strange that David should talk about poverty when
his gifts amounted to many millions of pounds.
David thought little of what he had prepared. He calls it poverty, I think,
because it is the way of the saints to count anything that they do for God
to be very little. The most generous men in the world think the least of
what they give to God's cause. David, with his millions that he gives,
says, "In my poverty I have prepared for the house of the Lord." As he
looked at the gold and silver, he said to himself, "What is all this to
God?" And the brass and the iron, that could not be reckoned, it was so
much and so costly; he thought it was all nothing to Jehovah, who fills
heaven and earth, whose grandeur and glory are altogether unspeakable.
If you have done the most that you can for God, you will sit down, and
weep that you cannot do ten times as much. You that do little for the
Lord will be like a hen with one chick; you will think a great deal of it.
But if you have a great number of works, and you are doing much for
Christ, you will wish that you could do a hundred times as much. Your
song will be,--
"Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing
My great Redeemer's praise!"
Oh, to be multiplied a thousand-fold, that we might, anywhere and
everywhere, serve Jesus with heart, and mind, and soul, and strength!
So, David here considers that what he did was very little.
Yet, it was proof of his sincerity. that he should be saving all this wealth,
and preparing for the house of his God in the time of trouble, was a proof
of great sincerity. Some Christians want to have all sunshiny weather,
and the birds must sing all day and all night to please them. If they
receive a rebuke or somebody seems a little cold to them, they will do no
more. I have seem many, who called themselves Christians, who were
like a silly child at play, who says, when something offends him, "I won't
play anymore." They run away at the first rough word that they hear. But
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 God. Some
who have attended this house of prayer have been absent, and when we
have enquired the reason, they have said that they had become so poor
that they did not like to come. Oh, dear friends, we would like to see you,
however poor you are! Why, if you are in trouble, you should come all
the more; for where could you go to find comfort better than to the house
of God? Never, I pray you, stay away on account of poverty. David said
that he had prepared for the house of his God in the time of his trouble;
and that proved his sincerity. One said to me, "Ever since I have been a
Christian, everything has seemed to go wrong with me." Suppose that
everything should be taken away from you, should you not be grateful
that you have an eternal treasure in heaven, and that these losses, which
might have broken your heart if you have not known the Saviour, are
now sent in heavenly discipline to you, and are working for your good? It
shows that a man is right with God when he can walk with Christ in the
mire and in the slough. God does not want you to wear silver slippers,
and to walk on a well-mown, well-rolled grassy lawn, all the way to
heaven.
David prepared for the house of the Lord in his trouble; and I have no
doubt that it was a salve to his sorrow. To have something to do for
Jesus, and to go right on with it, is one of the best ways to get over a
bereavement, or any other mental depression. If you can pursue some
great object, you will not feel that you are living for nothing. You will
not sit down in despair; for, whatever your trouble may be, you will still
have this to live for, "I want to help in building the Church of God, and I
will do my part in it whatever happens to me. Come poverty or wealth,
come sickness or health, come life or death, as long as there is breath in
my body, I will go on with the work that God has given me to do." Do I
speak to any who are in great trouble? If you are a Christian, the best
advice that I can give you is this, get to work for Christ, and you will
forget your trouble. If you are not a Christian, I advise you to trust the
Saviour at once, for he is the only solace of spiritual sorrow.
Again, it was an incentive to service when David, in his trouble,
prepared for the house of the Lord. There were many things in trouble
that would tend to damp his ardour, and make him feel as if he could not
hold on any longer; but he said to himself, "I must go on with this work
for God. His temple must be 'exceeding magnifical', and my son
Solomon must build it, so I must go on gathering the materials." So he
just roused himself afresh, and went on with his work with new
earnestness, whenever his trouble would otherwise have depressed him.
It must also have given an elevation to David's whole life. To have a
noble purpose, and to pursue that purpose with all your might, prevents
your being like "dumb driven cattle", and lifts you out of the mist and fog
of the valley, and sets your feet upon the hill-top, where you can
commune with God. I would suggest to your younger friends that they
should begin their Christian life with a high purpose, and that they
should never forget that purpose; and if trouble should come, they should
say, "Let it come; my face is set, like a flint, to do this work to which my
Lord has called me, and I will pursue it with all my might." It may seem
as if there were no spiritual help in such advice as this; but, believe me,
there is. If God shall give you grace to go on with your life-work, he will
thereby give you grace to overcome your life-trouble.
Ye would be like your Master, ask not to have a smooth path, and great
success. Remember what a life of sorrow he lived. He was grief's close
acquaintance. Yet although he saw but a small Church rising before his
bodily eye, he knew that he was doing the work that God had given him
to do, and he went on with it through agony and bloody sweat, through
shame and spitting. He was not more in earnest when he rode in state
through the streets of Jerusalem than he was when he hung on the cross
of Calvary. He was resolved to do his work; and in trouble he did it, and
he amassed treasure beyond all conception for the building of his
Church. Riches of grace and wonders of glory he gathered together by
his suffering and his death. If you would be like your Lord, you must be
able to say with David, "Behold, in my trouble, I have prepared for the
house of the Lord." God give his troubled ones to enter into fellowship
with the Lord Jesus Christ in this respect!
III. I am glad that I have come to my third point, for my strength well-
nigh fails me. What I have to say here is this: DAVID'S WORK FITS
ON TO THE WORK OF ANOTHER. That should be a great joy to some
of you who do not see much coming of what you are doing. Your work is
going to fit on to somebody else's work.
This is the order of God's providence for his Church. It does not happen
that he gives a whole piece of work to one man; but he seems to say to
him, "You go and do so much; then I will send somebody else to do the
rest." How this ought to cheer some of you up, the thought that your
work may be no failure, though in itself it may seem to be so, because it
fits on to the work of somebody else who is coming after you, and so it
will be very far from a failure! You have sometimes seen a man take a
contract to put in the foundations of a house, and to carry it up to a
certain height. He has done that; he will not be the builder of that house;
that will be the work of the next contractor, who carries up the walls, and
puts on the roof, and so forth. Yes, but he who did the foundation-work
did a great deal, and he is as much the builder of the house as the man
who carries up the walls. So, if you go to a country town or village, and
you preach the gospel to a few poor folk, you may never have seemed
very successful; but you have been preparing the way for somebody else
who is coming after you.
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
seemed to have in his mind's eye some young man, who, in after years,
would greatly enlarge the number of the flock, and he often prayed for
him. He died, and passed away to heaven, about the time that I was born.
Older members of the church have told me that they have read to answer
to Dr. Rippon's prayers in the blessing that has been given to us these
many years. If you keep your eyes open, you will see the same thing
happen again. You will notice how one shall do his work, which shall be
necessary to some larger work that somebody else will do after him. This
is God's way, so that the second man, the Solomon coming after David,
may do his work all the better because of what his father has done before
him. Solomon had not to spend years in collecting the materials for the
temple; he might not have got through the building if he had that task.
His good old father had done all that for him; and all that he had to do
was to spend the money that David had gathered, work up the gold, and
silver, and brass, and iron, bring in the big stones, and put them in their
places, and build the house for God. I daresay that Solomon often
thought gratefully of his father David, and what he had done; and you
and I, if God blesses us, ought always to think with thanksgiving of the
Davids who went before us. If you have success in your class, my sisters,
remember that there was an excellent Christian woman who had the
class before you. You come, young man, into the Sunday-school, and you
think that you must be somebody very great because you have had
several conversions in your class. How about the brother who had given
up the class through ill-health? You took his place: who knows which of
you will have the honour at the last great day? I was about to say, Who
cares? For we do not live for honour, we live to serve God; and if I can
serve God best by digging out the cellar, and you can serve God best by
throwing out that ornamental bay window, my brother, you go on with
your bay window, and I will go on with my cellar, for what matters it
what we do so long as the house is built, and God is glorified thereby? It
is the way of God in providence to set one man to do part of a work
which pieces on to that of another man.
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 from
other people." A friend proposed, the other day, to give you a little help
in your service. You looked at him as if he had been a thief. You do not
want any help; you are quite up to the mark; you are like a waggon and
four horses, and a dog under the waggon as well! there is everything
about you that is wanted; you need no help from anybody; you can do all
things almost without the help of God! I am very sorry for you if that is
your opinion. If you never get into God's service, he may say to you,
"You shall never begin anything; but shall always come in as the second
man;" or, "You shall never finish anything; you shall always be getting
ready for somebody else." It is well to have an ambition not to build upon
another man's foundation; but do not carry that idea too far. If there is a
good foundation laid by another man, and you can finish the structure,
be thankful that he has done his part, and rejoice that you are permitted
to carry on his work. It is God'' way of striking a blow at your personal
pride by allowing one man's work to fit on to another's.
I believe that it is good for the work to have a change of workers. I am
glad that David did not live any longer; for he could not have built the
temple. David must die. He has had a good time of service. He has
gathered all the materials for the temple. Solomon comes, with young
blood and youthful vigour, and carries on the work. Sometimes, the best
thing that some of us old folk can do is to go home, and go to heaven,
and let some younger man come, and do our work. I know that there are
a great many lamentations about the death of Dr. So-and-So, and Mr.
So-and-So; but why? Do you not think that, after all, God can find as
good men as those that he has found already? He made those good men,
and he is not short of power; he can make others just as good as they
have been. I was present at a funeral, where I heard a prayer that rather
shocked me. Some brother had said that God could raise up another
minister equal to the one that was in the coffin; but prayer was offered by
another man, who said that this preacher had been eyes to his blindness,
feet to his lameness, and I do not know what beside; and then he said,
"Thy poor unworthy dust does not think that thou ever canst or wilt raise
up another man like him." So he had not an omnipotent God; but you
and I have, and with an omnipotent God it is for the good of the work
that David should go to his rest, and that Solomon should come in, and
carry on the work.
Certainly, this creates unity in the Church of God. If we all had a work
of our own, and were shut up to do it, we should not know one another;
but now I cannot do my work without your help, my dear friends, and, in
some respects, you cannot do your work without my help. We are
members one of another, and one helps the other. I hope that I shall
never have to do without you. God bless you for all your efficient help! In
many Christian works you will have to do without me, one of these days;
but that will not matter. There will be somebody who will carry one the
work of the Lord; and so long as the work goes on, what matter who does
it? God buries the workman, but the devil himself cannot bury the work.
The work is everlasting, though the workmen die. We pass away, as star
by star grows dim; but the eternal light is never-fading. God shall have
the victory. His Son shall come in his glory. His Spirit shall be poured
out among the people; and though it be neither this man, nor that, nor
the other, God will find the man to the world's end who will carry on his
cause, and give him the glory.
This leaves a place for those who come after. On thing David said to
Solomon I like very much, "Thou mayest add thereto." I have quoted that
sometimes when the collection has been rather small. I have said to each
of our friends who were counting the money, "Thou mayest add thereto."
It is not all a bad text for a collection-sermon; but it may also be used in
many other ways.
Here are certain preachers of the gospel. Cannot I put my hand on some
young man's shoulder, and say to him, "Thou mayest add thereto; thou
hast a good voice; thou hast an active brain; begin to speak for God;
there are numbers of godly men in the gospel ministry; if thou art called
of God, thou mayest add thereto"? We have a good Sunday-school,
though some of you have never seen it. We have a number of loving and
earnest teachers; "thou mayest add thereto." Go thou, and teach likewise;
or engage in some other work for which the Lord has qualified you.
I wonder whether there is an unconverted man here this evening, or
unconverted woman, whom God has ordained to bless, and to whom he
will speak to-night, some stranger whom he will bring in by his almighty
grace, some servant of the devil who shall to-night be made a servant of
Christ. My Master has a large number of servants; "thou mayest add
thereto." If thou wilt yield thyself to Christ, thou mayest come, and help
God's people. We want recruits; we are always wanting them. May God
lead some, who have been on the side of sin and self, to come out, and
say, "Set my name down amongst God's people. By the grace of God, I
am going to be on Christ's side, and help to build his temple." Come
along, my brother; come along, my sister; we are glad of your help. The
work is not all done yet; you are not too late to fight the Lord's battles,
nor to win the crown of the victors. The Lord has a large army of the
soldiers of the cross; and "thou mayest add thereto." God save thee!
Christ bless thee! The Spirit inspire thee! May it be so with very many,
for Christ's sake! Amen.
Provided by:
Bible Bulletin Board
internet: hyperlink
modem: 609-324-9187
Box 318
Columbus, NJ 08022
....online since 1986