James Nisbet Commentary - 1 Chronicles 22:7 - 22:8

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James Nisbet Commentary - 1 Chronicles 22:7 - 22:8


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

TO EVERY MAN HIS WORK

‘It was in my mind to build an house unto the name of the Lord my God. But the word of the Lord came to me, saying, … Thou shalt not build an house unto My name.’

1Ch_22:7-8

One of the great disappointments of David’s life was his desire to build a house unto the Lord, and God forbade the same. Why was it? Because he was a shedder of blood. Was it because he had made war? No. There was a shedding of blood in David’s life which was worse than war. The man after God’s own heart had gone astray in the matter of heart and the passions of life, which led the brave warrior to become a cowardly murderer. This was the sin on David’s soul, and when he wanted to change the sword for the trowel God forbade him. When the man who has lost purity, and given up simplicity of life for the more complex life of the king-warrior, wants to build a Temple to the Lord God in Heaven, no, he is not fit. The man after God’s own heart, the poet, the king, the warrior against God’s enemies, is not fit to build the Temple for God. He can only want to, and must stop short. It is very sad; it is very pitiful.

I. But we find it so in everyday life.—What has gone before counts for so much. A man comes to you and wants some appointment. You know him to be now a good fellow, straight of purpose, honest, true, but you know what his past is.

II. It is so in spiritual matters.—God sets us a high aim, and we have to prepare for a life that is a continual rising, step above step, to the very Heaven of God; and as we rise one step above another there is ever a power beckoning us on higher still; something nobler, something better for you to do. But when the calls come, they come just according to our power to meet them, and our power to meet these calls depends upon the way in which we have responded to other calls. It depends upon the way in which we have lived in the past how we shall be able to live for God in the future. By our past we may fit ourselves for high work; or we may not only have missed opportunities, but the power to be and do what in after life our soul longs to be able to do. We know it by experience. We know we may not do what we should like to do now, not merely because there has not been given us the power to do it, but because we did not use the powers we had in the past, and so made ourselves fit for the highest work in the present. A power within you bids you aid that man or that woman, and you force yourself to say and do what you feel it is your Christian duty to do, and yet you have a feeling it will fail, it is useless, it will not serve the purpose you have in view. And you know it is you yourself who are at fault, that your words won’t ring true, that the very man will find you out. You say, ‘I do not touch the heart and soul of those I come in contact with,’ and you know it is because your heart and soul are not quite what, by the grace of God, they might have been.

David had lost power, and when he wanted to do that thing which was the consummation of his whole life on earth he was forbidden. All he might do was to gather up the gold, and the iron, and the silver, and the timber, and say to another, ‘Do what I cannot do. I can touch a harp as you never touched it, I can bring peace into the land which in your days will only become starvation, but I cannot gather up my life in this supreme offering to my God, for He forbids me. My righteous indignation against God’s enemies has passed into passion; my love—pure and holy once was my love for Jonathan—has become impure; my hands that had only touched the hilt of the sword that shed the blood of those who sinned against God, have become red with the blood of the innocent whose wife I coveted. I have not conquered self, and now I cannot give to God that which is the fulfilment of my whole heart’s desire.’

It may come to you and me some day, this. If it comes some day it will be because we are not this day what we might and ought to be.

III. What is the lesson?—Conquer self, and if you conquer self the calls will come from God and you can respond. Conquer anger, conquer your passions, and you may build temples to God made of your own souls and the souls of others you have brought to Christ.

—
Rev. C. N. Kelly.

Illustrations

(1) ‘To each one God gives a work of his own. It was David’s part to conquer the land and get the country into a good settled condition. He wanted to build a Temple, but that was not his work. It belonged instead to one who was not yet born. We should learn that God gives to each his own particular work. We need never jostle each other, nor try to do work which it belongs to others to do. If we do all our own work, we shall have enough to fill our hands.’

(2) ‘No one need ever talk about doing his allotted work in this world who is not keeping God’s moral law. The first thing God wants of us is to be good; after that he will accept the good we do. Holiness must come before service, and holiness is obedience to the commandments.’