I Chronicles 22:2-29:30

[00:00:00] Chapter that we reached last week in the first book of Chronicles, chapter 21, You remember, I put this all up on the board so it might help you in just reminding you. [00:00:20] We are on the second division of these two books, a realization of the purpose of God. And we're dealing with the first movement in the realization of the purpose of God. That is that movement of the Holy Spirit centered in David, the preparation for the temple in green. Underneath, you see, I have put the subdivisions that we found together which was so of such vital importance. [00:00:57] Remember last week we ended in chapter 21, and this evening I don't purpose by the grace of God at any rate, to go beyond the end of the first book. So we have really this evening only from chapter 21 to chapter 29 to deal with. But there is so much in these few chapters. [00:01:22] And I want to ask your forgiveness, although really I shouldn't say that, for the reiteration that there will be this evening of necessity, of much that we said last week, or that is, there will be a certain amount of reiteration of the two previous points to this last one. You remember, we found two major things in the preparation for the temple. [00:01:55] This part of the Word of God is of vital and strategic importance if we're to understand the purpose of God, and particularly if we're going to understand how God is going to recover his testimony in a day of general ruin. [00:02:21] We have discovered that the Book of Chronicles is the history of the Old Testament written from a particular standpoint. [00:02:36] That is, there is nothing in a sense in the books of the two books of Chronicles which are peculiar to them. [00:02:47] There are some incidents, a few details, but in general there is nothing peculiar to those two books. [00:02:55] It is the reinterpretation of all God's dealings with men, from Adam right down to the rubber book. [00:03:06] That means that the whole of pre Christian history is being interpreted for us by these two books of Chronicles. [00:03:20] And we have found here in dealing with David, that we have come to the heart of everything. [00:03:29] There are three things we have found in these chapters, from chapter 11 to chapter 29 of the first book of Chronicles. And they are of the most tremendous importance if we're going to understand God's order. [00:03:47] God has an order not because he's fussy or meticulous. [00:03:52] God has an order because he is all knowing and all wise. [00:03:59] He knows exactly why things have got to be in a certain order, why certain things must precede and why certain things must succeed. That is why it is a tragedy when any Christian or any Company inverts the order of God. [00:04:22] Disorder is disease, simply disorder is illness. [00:04:30] Disorder is just sin. That's all. [00:04:36] Order is holiness. [00:04:39] That is why in some of our versions we read worship the Lord in array. [00:04:49] Instead of the beauty of holiness. [00:04:52] There is a thought about holiness, which means just order. [00:04:59] Now, beauty is order. [00:05:01] Beauty is right, dimension, symmetry, harmony, taste, everything related, everything submissive, that is beauty. [00:05:13] Anything ugly is disproportionate, unbalanced, lopsided. [00:05:25] It doesn't matter what you look at. Beauty is symmetry, harmony, order. [00:05:30] Holiness is beauty in the sight of God. Beauty is holiness in the sight of God because it is order. [00:05:41] So we have found that there is an order here. [00:05:44] And the Holy Spirit is the custodian of that order. [00:05:48] He will not allow there to be any contravention of that order. [00:05:52] And the first thing we find that the Holy Spirit takes up in the history of David, he bypasses his whole history. He bypasses everything that has preceded. And he seizes on one great thing, the capture of Jerusalem. And we have just called it the ground secured for God's house. [00:06:11] So the first great thing we have described is ground. [00:06:15] Ground is the first thing in the order of God when He is actually realizing the building of the house of God. The first thing he does is to get the ground. First thing he does is to define the ground. The first thing he does is to get his people to see the ground possess the ground and maintain the ground. [00:06:39] That is why we have the story of them seeing it, battling for it, securing it, and then rebuilding the walls, and as it were, clearly maintaining it as the ground of God. Then the next great section in Chronicles is all connected with bringing the Ark up into the. Into Jerusalem. [00:07:02] And we have simply said, this is the committal of God to the right ground. [00:07:07] God committing his presence to the right ground. Here he has his people on the right ground. [00:07:14] Now he commits himself to his people on the right ground. [00:07:18] The Ark is the symbol of God's presence. And you remember we stayed even last Sunday morning with why there was a halt in God's committing of himself, until finally he got the right order, even down to detail the Levites carrying the Ark on their shoulders. Then finally the ark was brought into its resting place in Jerusalem. This speaks of God committing himself. He's got the ground. [00:07:46] He's defined the ground. He's got a people on the ground. Now he commits himself to them on the right ground. [00:07:54] And then the last section we found was to do with the provision and preparation of the materials, the pattern and the arrangement for the service of the house of God. [00:08:08] That is from chapter 13, from. I'm sorry, from chapter 17 to chapter 29. Now, that is where really we come to tonight. [00:08:21] We're not going to go back to those first chapters that we took last week. You'll remember very simply, chapter 17. [00:08:29] Open this part, this last part of this subdivision. [00:08:36] It begins with David expressing the passion of his life. Now we have this passion in many of his hymns, his son. [00:08:45] It is the house of God. This has been the guiding objective of David's life. Wasn't the throne, it wasn't making himself a great man, wasn't becoming the first person in the nation. [00:09:01] David's great objective from when he was a little lad was that he might dwell in the house of the Lord forever. [00:09:09] That he might build the house of the Lord in order to live in it. [00:09:13] He might find his own resting place in the resting place of God. [00:09:19] He might find his satisfaction in the satisfaction of God. This was the passion of David's life. And chapter 17 draws the veil aside. We haven't seen this in the book St. Samuel, but Chronicles draws aside the veil and allows us to see into the heart of David. And we suddenly find David expressing this great object of his heart. [00:09:45] And then you remember how the Lord says, no, David, that is, I don't want you to do that. You're not to do it. You're not the one to this job. [00:09:55] You're soundful, so good. [00:09:58] And you remember that it was David's reaction to the Lord that was so beautiful. [00:10:04] Instead of trying to do it, instead of fighting about it, instead of rebelling about it, he quietly submits under the hand of the Lord and puts himself into the hands of the Lord to be enabled to make every preparation for that house. [00:10:24] So that when the day comes that his son comes of Abraham, that house might not be wanting for anything. [00:10:35] It would have been very interesting as to what the story would have been if David had had refused the word of God by Nathan and had tried to build the house of the Lord when it was not his vocation or function, but David knew the Lord. And this is just one aspect of David's spiritual character, character of Christ in David that he was able so meekly to submit under the hand of the Lord, prepared not actually with his eyes to ever see the house of God built and completed, but prepared even though his greatest desire was denied, to give himself wholly to the collection of all the treasure and the material that was so necessary to the building of that house. [00:11:28] That is chapter 17. [00:11:30] And then we're introduced straight away from chapter 18, 19 and 20, these three chapters, to all the wars of David. Now, this is not in chronological order, it goes right back, but we've introduced the chronicler by the Holy Spirit's leadership has now, just as it were, listed, the wars of David. And each one ends up with a little significant phrase. There was much brass here for the house. There was much gold and silver there for the house. [00:12:03] Iron was won there. [00:12:06] Every single victory over the enemy yielded material for the house of God. [00:12:13] And we learned last week not only must we submit to the hand of God, but we must also learn that every victory personally, every victory, corporate life is a contribution of material to the building. [00:12:33] We are members one of another. [00:12:37] The measure in which each member fails or is defeated or is held up is the measure in which there is a poverty of material. [00:12:48] The measure in which each one is getting through, is really triumphing, is finding the victory of the Lord is the measure in which there is being a supply of material all the time to the building of the house of God. [00:13:05] Now, of course, this is a matter we're going to look at a little later and probably later when we come to the actual building of the house. What is this material? [00:13:15] What is this material? It is Christ being reproduced in his children. [00:13:25] The house of God is the living stones being built together. That is not our old nature. That's not what belongs to us by natural birth. It is what is being produced in us by the Holy Spirit in the hands of God. [00:13:42] All that gold of his nature that is being produced by the way that a hand goes, is the material which is being produced and prepared, provided for the house of God. So we have found that all these victories are tremendous things. And sometimes it is encouraging, even if we're having a rough time of it, to recognize this, that the more resistance we're facing, the harder our problem, the greater the yield when the Lord gets us free. [00:14:16] All our battles when we're the Lord's, are we corporate battles. [00:14:22] God trusts his children with big problems for the rest of the family. [00:14:30] So you may have got a big psychological problem, you may have a big problem to do with your history. [00:14:36] You may have a big material problem, but that has been trusted to you on behalf of the family, on behalf of his word. When you get through, you won't know it, but something's been added in that can never be taken away. [00:14:53] Now, that's always what is happening. We look around and we see one another and we think, well, I expect that if every one of you were to be absolutely open and we could have a kind of open time of testimony and you were all truthful with each other. You'd all be saying, well, I'm the real trouble in the company, really. And truthfully, I'm the one that's holding things up, if you really want to know. I'm trying to put on a brave face about it all. [00:15:20] I'm trying to get through, but really, I'm the one. [00:15:25] Now, we also all know that many of you, you don't know it. We watch and we see that one is getting first. [00:15:35] They hardly know it, but they're getting through it. [00:15:38] And you can sense that that one is adding something in. [00:15:44] You know, it's just there is something about them. You can't put your finger on it, but something's being produced, something's being yielded, something's being added in. [00:15:56] You can't have an atmosphere. You can't have that fragrance, that spiritual fragrance. It doesn't come from a congregation. It doesn't come from a collection of units. It doesn't even come from great spiritual knowledge. [00:16:12] It comes from the most devastating suffering, hidden for the most part in the background of the members of the body. [00:16:24] And that is producing a fragrance, it's producing an atmosphere, it's producing just that. All you can see is living stones pit and frame together. [00:16:36] Now, I'm told by someone who's travelled to Jerusalem that the great stones with which the foundation of the temple were made, you can hardly get a penknife between no concrete, no cement, no bonding material at all. [00:16:56] You can hardly get a pinnacle, stones that if you look at me and think of another one of me on top and the other way two or three times, and you've got an idea of the stone. Each stone wedged together, heated together. [00:17:17] That took a lot of work, a lot of chiselling, a lot of hammering in order for that to happen. Well, there we are. We found these victories, these tremendous victories in the background. They've yielded a lot. They've yielded the stone, they've yielded the iron, they've yielded the timber, the brass, the gold, the silver. These precious vessels all have been won in bitter conflict. [00:17:42] So let us. We have learned that, I'm sure. [00:17:46] Now we find ourselves in chapter 21. [00:17:49] And you remember the story of chapter 21 we touched upon last week. [00:17:55] In this chapter, you remember David sinned. He made a terrible mistake. More rightly, he sinned. He did something that he knew he should not have done. Even Joab warned him about it. He numbered the People. He numbered the people because he wanted to know how strong the nation was in order to be able to say what. What a strong, mighty, established, secure people we are. [00:18:19] He did it without observing the statute of Moses which was that in any numbering there must be the payment of a half shekel for every one number as atonement money, as a sign that all the increase and the multiplication was based wholly upon the grace of God. But David didn't do that. He didn't think about that. He didn't worry himself about that. He just had the people numbered. And a terrible plague swept over the land as a judgement. [00:18:53] You remember, as we remember. You remember last week, what happened? [00:18:58] This terrible mistake of David was turned by the Holy Spirit into the most wonderful spiritual discovery. Discovery. [00:19:08] David is remembered for only two terrible sins in his life. One was Bathsheba over Uriah the Hittite, and the other was the numbering the people. [00:19:20] But it is one of the most encouraging facts in the Bible that both David's terrible mistakes were woven into the purpose of God and made instrumental in the purpose of God and finally became the ground of glory. [00:19:40] Bathsheba was finally to bear Solomon, the chosen one of God. [00:19:49] The numbering of the people was to end in David discovering the site of the house of God. [00:19:56] You know in chapter 21, how he saw the angel standing over the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, with his sword drawn, ready to strike at the population of Jerusalem. And how God told David to get up to that threshing floor, to buy it as swiftly as he could and to make there an altar to him. And David did it. [00:20:19] Do you remember then that he saw the angel put the sword back into its. [00:20:25] And it ended with these wonderful words of chapter 22, verse 1. [00:20:30] This is the house of the Lord God. And this is the altar of burnt offering. [00:20:38] Now here we have come to the most basic thing about any provision for material or the definition of the pattern or the giving of the arrangement for the worship of God or the service of God. [00:20:57] We have seen first of all that God requires us to see the ground, the actual ground, and take it, stand on it. [00:21:11] Then he commits himself to it. He gives his presence. He commits himself as it were holy. [00:21:20] He himself comes to live on that ground with you. [00:21:23] The next thing we find is that the arrangement for the service of God, the pattern, all the materials are all found within the presence of God. [00:21:38] The presence of God is the key to the functioning of the church, to the expression, the practical expression of the church, to the development of all the ministry of Christ in the church, the life of God, the presence of God is the key to it. It doesn't come by suddenly thinking you've got a gift or a function. It doesn't come by looking at scripture and thinking, well, I'd like to be a prophet or a teacher. [00:22:04] It doesn't come by simply deciding that you might be called a full time service or such like. And all the rest of comes by the life of God getting a bigger and bigger way in our lives. And as the life of God or the presence of God becomes more and more real, effective, realized in his people, so all the pattern begins to take shape, all the arrangement begins to be expressed, the material begins to be supplied. [00:22:42] It all comes just like that. [00:22:46] It is an organic thing. [00:22:50] You can't yourself put it together. You can't, as so many foolish people have done and ended in tragedy after tragedy, take the New Testament as a kind of blueprint the church and say, now we have elders, we have deacons. Here is the Lord's table, here is baptism. Now let's put it all together. [00:23:10] First we have a place, then we must have a company. [00:23:13] Then we must have our elders and deacons, then we must have the Lord's table. Then we must have a kind of corporate ministry and all the rest of it. So gradually, bit by bit, like a machine, we put it together and bolt it together and screw it together. And so the thing takes shape. [00:23:28] But it has one thing that is lacking and that is the presence of God in is inanimate. [00:23:40] It is static. [00:23:42] It is something that's been arranged and appointed and put together. [00:23:47] You can put a whole company of people together and you can keep them together for years and years and years and years. [00:23:56] And at the end of it, they are not built together, they are not woven together, they are not fused together. You can have elders, you can have deacons, you can have the Lord's table, you can have it all. New Testament pattern and yet at the heart of it, it is not animated, it doesn't throb with life, it cannot reproduce. [00:24:21] That is something organized as over against something organic. [00:24:26] When the thing is organic, you've only got to plant it and lead it to the life inside. [00:24:32] It will take shape, it will express itself. [00:24:37] When you've got the right ground, that's the order. [00:24:40] Then when you've got responsible people, however small a number committed to that right ground and the presence of God on that right ground, God commits himself completely. [00:24:54] And when God commits himself completely, what is the first thing he does? [00:25:01] The first thing he does is to bring us to the devastating experience of depression, flaw of ornament, the genocide. [00:25:11] Now, let's put that into practical language. [00:25:14] It simply means we've got to go through a devastating experience, not only of being threshed, but of being offered as abundant. [00:25:27] This is the key to the life of God. [00:25:32] Now listen to me very carefully. You can get a company to see the right ground. [00:25:39] You can even get the presence of God committed to a people on the right ground. [00:25:46] But there need not necessarily be any building of the house of God until we discover at the heart of it an altar. [00:25:58] When we find the altar and give the altar its right place at the very heart of it, then everything begins to be prepared. You get the material provided you get the pattern defined. You get the arrangement for the service of God given. Now, this is most interesting. These few chapters have begun like this. First, we find David's desire. Secondly, we find all these victories yielding material. [00:26:27] And then suddenly we're wound up with a jalt. [00:26:30] A whole chapter is taken up with a terrible sin of David, which in the sovereignty of God and by his grace, is turned into spiritual discovery. [00:26:42] Now, if ever any of you sin terribly, remember this. May the Holy Spirit bring to your memory. If ever anyone of you should so fall. Should anyone of you ever fall ever sin terribly, never run away from God, always turn back to Him. [00:27:01] You will find that God can take, although you will be chastened terribly. [00:27:07] God will take the thing that you've done and will make it a point of spiritual discovery. [00:27:18] Do you know what happened with David? [00:27:22] He discovered the site on the ground. [00:27:27] Let me put it this way. He discovered the foundation. [00:27:31] He discovered the foundation. Now, it's one thing to know the ground. It's another thing to know the presence of God. [00:27:37] It's another thing to find the actual foundation. Now, you can't just build a house anyway. You've got to find the foundation. [00:27:44] A foundation's got to be laid. A site has been chosen on that site and no other place the house of God's going to be raised. [00:27:54] David has discovered that the altar is the key. [00:28:03] The cross is the only way by which God can express the pattern which is inherent within his life. [00:28:16] Now let me put it even more simply. [00:28:18] The church is not an institution. [00:28:23] The church is not an organization. [00:28:27] It is not a human society or community. Even people who think of the church as a human community have completely misunderstood and misinterpreted the mind of God. [00:28:41] It is not only not an organization or institution, it is not even a Human community merely. [00:28:47] The church is the very expression of Christ in a corporate way. [00:28:56] That is, the church is something that is actually inherent in the life of God. [00:29:02] And if the life of God is allowed to express, you will have the church. [00:29:07] You can't stop it now. I don't care where you go in this world. [00:29:11] Get a little group of people in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. Get them on the ground. [00:29:18] Get them on the ground of Lhasa. [00:29:21] Get them looking to the Lord on that ground. Get them devoted to the Lord on that ground. [00:29:28] And before you know where you are, you will have the church at larger. [00:29:34] If you leave it long enough, you will find without any missionary, without anyone touching them. You will find when you go there, you will find elders, you will find deacons. You will find the varied ministry of Christ. [00:29:49] It doesn't depend upon Westerners and it doesn't depend on white faces. [00:29:54] It depends on the Holy Spirit of God. [00:29:57] If you can get the life into human vessels, you've got the church. [00:30:02] Get the life of God into human vessels and you've got the church. [00:30:07] Try to put human life together and you've got account of it. [00:30:11] Try to put so many human beings and try and put them all together. One afternoon, say you're an elder, you're a deacon. [00:30:18] You've got a ministry of the Word and you have it. [00:30:22] You ought to scrub this step. [00:30:24] You must play the altar. [00:30:26] And they'll be there like that in 30 years time. Still dependent on foreign funds, still dependent on some white missionary, still dependent on help from outside. [00:30:39] You get a little group together on the ground of Lhasa, devoted to Christ, wholly given over to him. And you'll have the church. [00:30:48] You'll have the chance. [00:30:50] That's the tragedy of the West. [00:30:53] Now, I could take, I believe, five people from this company and send them Timbuktu. [00:31:04] And I believe that within a year you would have the Church of God in Timbuktu. [00:31:10] If I took people that I know by the Holy Spirit have seen what I'm talking about, you'd have the Church of God in Timbuktu with them again. [00:31:22] It is dependent on seeing the ground, on getting onto the ground, which means devastating cost. [00:31:33] And the cost now here we are, a company of Christians. [00:31:40] We are all born of God. [00:31:42] What are we doing with the life of God inside? [00:31:45] Is our spirituality counterfeit? [00:31:49] Are we producing something alongside by our own effort and energy of the Holy Spirit? [00:31:58] This is not only the tragedy of evangelical Christendom. It is the tragedy of what's called the Church, it is all something that. That is very much the product of human energy. [00:32:16] I get a fact to be not to do certain things and to do other things. [00:32:24] To say certain things and not to say other things. [00:32:29] To have an atmosphere about you which is very decidedly religious. [00:32:40] And so we could go on. [00:32:42] There are people who have a false love. It's sentimental, sheer sentiment. [00:32:49] And such people, you always find the key to it. They treat their own people in a terrible way. [00:32:59] You have people who have got false humility. [00:33:04] You know, they dither when you ask them to do something, when they're perfectly capable and furthermore they know it. [00:33:12] For if you were to stand up publicly and say so and so is absolutely rotten at doing so. And so they'd go, you wouldn't see them again, they'd be so annoyed. [00:33:22] A false heart of humility. [00:33:24] And so you can pipe thing after thing after ding. [00:33:28] That is not truly of the Holy Spirit. It is not in wrought. It is not the character of Christ being produced in the same way. [00:33:38] You've got the church, which is a counterfeit thing. [00:33:42] People being put together, sat together or meeting together. [00:33:49] And you can have varying degrees of scriptural patterns, each claiming to be the thing. [00:34:00] But listen, when you have the life of God in a crucified people, you've got the church. And the wonderful thing is no two churches are alike. [00:34:12] No two churches are alike. As every blade of glass is different, so every church in every locality is somewhat different. But the principles are the same. The life is the same. The Lord is the same, the basis is the same. But you will find in each one it's original. [00:34:29] It's absolutely original. It's come out of Christ inside the people. [00:34:33] It's being regulated by the cross. [00:34:36] The cross is the great regulating factor of the life of God. It's the controlling factor of the life of God. You see what I mean? The deeper the working of the cause, the greater the life will through. [00:34:49] The deeper the working of the cross, the more fruitful. [00:34:55] The more the cross has done its devastating work, the more you'll find the Lord Jesus growing in that company. [00:35:02] This is the explanation of why so many have to go a terrible way. [00:35:09] This is the key. [00:35:11] The altar of ornament upon ornaments. Freshman lost. [00:35:20] That is the only way that it can be expressed. [00:35:26] Of course, when we are in a real experience of the life of God, then we feel all the time that it is very poor. [00:35:39] We see the failure. [00:35:42] Everything organic is like that. [00:35:44] Do you know? [00:35:47] Do you know? You can have an organized thing. Perfect, perfect, absolutely perfect. [00:35:55] Oiled Absolutely. [00:36:00] And it is just absolutely. Count of it. [00:36:06] Count of it. [00:36:09] The Church of God is a living thing, and because it is living, oh, you will find that it just doesn't take the way you think. [00:36:23] All kinds of things that you think ought to happen won't happen, and all kinds of things you think you ought not to be involved in your destiny, and probably the very thing you think you ought to be doing, you won't be doing. The very thing you think you shouldn't be doing, you won't be doing. [00:36:39] That's what happens when the life of God gets loose to the people. [00:36:45] People who think they've got great ministries are found scrubbing the floor. [00:36:50] And people who would perhaps prefer to be scrubbing a floor are found having a I have met many, many people, if you pardon this aside, who have come to me and said that they have been anointed by the Lord and they've got great prophetic ministry, and they're this, they're that, and the rest, and every one of them has come to a sticky end. [00:37:15] Not a very satisfying and comfortable thought, but it's true. [00:37:20] The Lord just doesn't do things. [00:37:23] I praise the Lord. He knows our old nature far too well to tell us that we've got great ministries far too well. When people think they've got a big ministry or any kind of ministry, they're pretty sure they haven't got any ministry yet. [00:37:38] When they've been so blasted out of existence that to even tell them that they've got a ministry, they would sit down and laugh till they cried. [00:37:48] Then they've started under my load. [00:37:52] Let us be absolutely clear in this this question of ministry has been the greatest stumbling block amongst the Lord's people, because we've got our foot on the wrong thing. [00:38:10] God wants a shared life, not a ministry of the Word. [00:38:15] Oh, I'd rather not have any ministry of the Word and have a shared life. Is that not so? [00:38:22] When we have a shared life, we find the Lord. [00:38:25] When we have a ministry, we have only a congregation. [00:38:31] We prefer to have a shared life and be members one of another, and to have ministry as a means to an end rather than something that is very pretty and eloquent and tickles our dances, and we all come to sit and listen. [00:38:50] No, ministry is a means to an end, not for display, not for exhibitionism. [00:38:56] It is one end to build up the body. [00:39:00] And it is better for us to sit down and have nothing to say and have fellowship together than to just talk. For talking simply. [00:39:13] The cross, then, is the key to the life of God. [00:39:18] We have discovered then ground. We have discovered that God commits himself to the right ground. We have discovered that the whole pattern of the church, the arrangement of the church, the gifts of the church, the order of the church, the expression of the church is inherent in the life of God. And the life of God is shut up in the cross. [00:39:43] Let the cross do its work in us and the life starts to flow. [00:39:49] Rebel against the work of the cross and the life of God starts to flow. [00:39:58] Let us see that very clearly then together then very, very swiftly but simply. We find in the next chapters from chapter 22 to chapter 26, the final preparations of David's life. Now I want you to note that it says expressly in verse 2 of chapter 22, if you look on there, David commanded to gather the sojourners and he set masons to hew wrought stones to build the house of God. Verse 5. [00:40:37] He says, My son is young and tender and the house that is to be builded to the Lord must be exceeding magnificent of fame and of glory throughout all countries. I will therefore make preparation for it. [00:40:49] So David prepared abundantly before his death. Now you see the order. [00:40:54] First we get what the objective of David's life. Then we find a refusal of the law. Then we find David taken up to be used to prepare for the building of the house of God. Then we find all the victories of David and his mighty men yielding the material. Then we come to the cross. [00:41:14] Then we discover the site. [00:41:17] And now we come to the real preparation. Here we've got the real preparation. David abundantly began abundantly to prepare for the house of the Lord. Now if we look through this, we're going to find some very interesting things. [00:41:32] In chapter 22 we shall find first of all David's first great charge to his son Solomon. We read it tonight. [00:41:39] I want you to note three things. First of all, I want you to note the amount that David gave to the house. Now we feel here, somehow or other there must be a spiritual meaning. I won't say for a moment that I know what it is. Do you know the value of what David gave to the house of the lord? It was £900 million. £1 million talents of silver, £100,000 of gold. [00:42:09] Professor Ellison says that he thinks that we must take this to mean a very big sum. [00:42:17] A very big sum. [00:42:19] Because if he gave £900 million, it would mean that he had more than sorrow. [00:42:27] But I pointed out to you it just simply means this. Whatever happened, in actual fact it means Simply this. [00:42:34] David gave everything for the house of the Lord to be built. It took everything. [00:42:41] Everything. [00:42:42] Now this is the testing factor in our lives. [00:42:46] If we are prepared for our home, our career, our job, our personal life to be flung away, that we might be given to the building of the house of God and to find our job, our home, our family, our personal relationships, our personal life given back to us in the context of the house of God, then we shall see the house of God. [00:43:09] But if we hold on to any path we have lost, we lose. [00:43:16] The cross devastates us. [00:43:20] The cross spoils us for everything if we're in the purpose of God. But the purpose of God. [00:43:28] God ruined me. [00:43:32] I think God has ruined many of you. [00:43:36] Sometimes we almost sit down and weep about it. We think, what's the Lord doing to me? He's got me into such a position now that I couldn't go back into the world. [00:43:45] He's ruined me. He's got me into such a position. I can't go back into evangelical Christianity. [00:43:51] He has ruined me. [00:43:53] He has ruined me for everything. But his purpose has. He ruined you. That's what the cross will do. Face up to it. The cross will ruin you. You'll never be able to go back to anything else. You'll never be able to go back to any other thing. It will ruin you, except for the purpose of cross. [00:44:10] But if it ruins you, you will find home and family and polation and personal life and friendship in the context of the house of God. [00:44:24] So we find that's one thing then. Another thing I find here in verse 19 is the ark of the covenant. Now hear this. [00:44:32] The Ark is on the ground. [00:44:35] God wants the Ark in the house. So it is one thing to have the Ark on the right ground. [00:44:41] It's another thing to have it in the house. [00:44:44] God, when he gets a people on the right ground, brings, as it were, the Ark into the midst of them to its resting place. But then he will not stop there. God doesn't want an ark in a tent in Jerusalem. He wants to build a house around it. When God's presence is given to a people, the first thing he starts is to produce a family. [00:45:04] God must have a family. [00:45:06] God, if I may put it reverently, I put very simply, He's a family man. [00:45:16] He must have a family. [00:45:17] We see this even in the Trinity, his relationship to the Son. [00:45:23] They must have a family. [00:45:26] God would extend himself from Evergrande. [00:45:30] God wants to find himself in human beings was to see his character, see his image. That's why? Man was made in his image, see? And after his life, of course, God wants a family. [00:45:47] When God gets the ark onto the right ground, then he puts a house around it. [00:45:53] When God gives his presence to a people, however small and scattered and dispersed and congregational, when he gives his presence, he starts to fuse till he smashes the individualism, he smashes all the barriers, he breaks down everything between. He fuses them and welds them together and all out old man rised up against it. We don't like that. [00:46:19] This business about children obeying their parents, wives being subject to the husband, the servants being obedient to their masters. [00:46:28] Very much against 20th century teaching. [00:46:32] Today we don't think of being subject one to another. [00:46:37] The house of God just breaks down everything and it brings a right order in. First with the Lord, then with one another, then with our parents, then with our children, then with our husbands, then with our wives, then with our employers or our employees. [00:46:57] So we find something there. The ark of the Lord. [00:47:01] First it's gone onto the right ground. Now David says, arise that you might bring the ark of the covenant into the house that is to be built for the name of the Lord. So the ark is on the right ground, but now we've got to get the house built to get it into the house. [00:47:15] God wants to give himself now to body. [00:47:18] And then I want you to see also that there are holy vessels. What are these holy vessels? Can anyone tell me what the holy vessels are? The holy vessels? You know what the holy vessels? The holy vessels are the golden altar and the candlestick gold and the table showbread and the brazen laver and the brazen altar. These are the holy vessels now. Well, what's happened to them? All the holy vessels are somewhere else. [00:47:46] Do you see today, if we may put it in 20th century language today that's exactly what happened. [00:47:54] We've got a ministry of teaching, but it's not got the context of the house of God. We have there a ministry of evangelism, but it hasn't got the context of the house of God. [00:48:06] Over there you've got a ministry of food of life. [00:48:16] It's not got the context for the house of God. [00:48:19] These things are all things in themselves. [00:48:22] So that you have this movement teaching this that movement teaching that this movement set on foot to evangelize that that movement set on foot to evangelize that God would have a everything with the context of the house. [00:48:39] If it's evangelism, it ends to build up the church. If it's teaching it is to build up the church. And how does this all come down in practice? It comes down to the saints in a locality. Every single movement has one object of building up the saints in that locality. Not this name or that name or this ism or that isn't, but just the Lord's people there. Building them together. That's their aim. Get them together, get them together, fuse them together, get them growing up into Christ. [00:49:09] Then it doesn't matter if you have a thousand societies. [00:49:12] Let's have this society and that society and the other society and another society and 10 more and let them all come to Richmond. And what will they do? I won't be afraid, nor will you. [00:49:24] For this society will come in and it will have one object to build up the same signature. And this other one will come in and they will have one object to build up the same signature. [00:49:33] And then something else will come in and it will have the same object. Why, it's all related. [00:49:40] It's not trying to form little groups of its own emphasis or to divide people and separate them to its own teaching. [00:49:49] It is just seeking to bring them all together in that. [00:49:55] On the ground of Christ in that locality. [00:49:59] So let us see that these holy vessels. David's charge to Solomon was bring the holy vessels into the house. That's our charge today. We have got to bring the ark into the house. [00:50:11] We've got to see that in our day. We've got to see the holy vessels put into their right perspective. [00:50:17] There the candleship, there the golden altar. There the table of showbirds. There the labour. There the golden altar at the brazen altar. [00:50:31] Everything in its right perspective, all in its right place, all as it were, leading you on one step after another into the holiest place of all, not leaving you high and dry, not leaving you at any one particular spot. [00:50:53] So we see that then, if you go on, you find in chapter 23, 24 and 26 all the arrangement for the service of God. A very wonderful arrangement. Here we find first of all in 23 the Levites, in 24, the priests in 20, in 25, the singers, in 26, the doorkeepers, the treasurers, the judges and the officers. Here's a wonderful arrangement. [00:51:18] David divides The Levites into 24,000. He divides them into three houses, Gershon, Koath and Marathon. Then he divides them into 24 courses, that is a course of a thousand each. [00:51:31] These courses were to come on duty on a rota, in rotation, all the time, a thousandth of time, coming onto duty all the time, right round the Year they came just round and round the rota they came. Then you come to the priests. There are two houses, Eleazar and Ephemer. [00:51:49] They are divided again, 24 courses. But the priests don't all live in Jerusalem as the Levites also the same. They live in other cities. [00:51:59] And they came in for two weeks a year. [00:52:02] So for two weeks every priest did his duty in the temple and then he went back to his home. [00:52:10] Then you've got the singers. Now they of course had to live there. The 4,000, they had to live in Jerusalem. But these singers there were 288 really skillful ones. They were the choir leaders. And the rest of the 4,000 were all scholars. [00:52:27] And we've got three houses asset Heman and Ethan or Jedison E San was in charge of the wind instruments and he man was in charge of the string instruments. [00:52:43] Those skillful musicians, the leaders of the choir, taught in the praise of God. [00:52:49] They were divided into 24 courses. [00:52:53] And never, day or night, was the house of God without its choir and without its music. [00:53:00] Then we have the doorkeepers again, as far as we know, 24 causes, all in rotation. These doorkeepers, what were all these people were? The Levites were for waiting on the priests. They were for overseeing the work of the house of God. Their job was seen that everything was clean, baking their showbread and seeing things were all the whole thing well oiled. Everything was harmonized, all was in order. [00:53:30] Their job was to praise, to stand and to praise the Lord morning and evening and the corpse of the Lord. [00:53:37] They had to wait on the service of God. That is, sometimes they just have to stand and wait. Many of us don't like Levitical service. [00:53:44] We don't like standing and waiting on others. [00:53:47] Someone else is doing the job. We have to stand and wait on them. [00:53:51] We just have to be there. Take that. They took it when that burnt offering was being offered the knife. Take that. [00:53:59] Something else. You take that. [00:54:02] They just had to stand and wait. They assisted in everything, help in everything. [00:54:08] Then you have the priests. Their job was intercession all the time, standing in between the people and God, in prayer, in sacrifice, in offering gifts, in everything. They stood in between. [00:54:26] Our Lord Jesus is just that. But there is a sense in which even we are priests, we stand in between. [00:54:33] There's no such thing as being a mediator of salvation, but there's a sense in which we're intercessors. We stand in between all the time, even to one another. We can do that. [00:54:45] And then you go to these singers What a wonderful job, these singers. [00:54:50] Well. Well, sometimes I wonder whether all of us have learned the lesson of the singers. [00:54:56] Do you know God's house was a place of worship? [00:54:59] I don't suppose sometimes those singers felt like singing. [00:55:03] There must have been at times things in their background and things in their history that made them feel more like weeping. But unfortunately, I can just see some cases their duty on the roster came round and they were on just when they least fell back. [00:55:18] And there they had to play the harp or blow the horn and sing with all their heart. Praise the Lord for His loving kindness endureth for us. Perhaps they didn't feel very much like it. [00:55:31] Now, I want to tell you a little thing that may surprise many of you. [00:55:35] Won't take us very long. [00:55:37] I have drawn on the back of this board, or rather recorded a little verse that you will find in 1 Chronicles 25 and verse 4. [00:55:54] Now you look at 1 Chronicles 25:4 and see if you can get a spiritual lesson out of 1 Chronicles 25. 4. [00:56:09] I would like to hear you all read that verse. [00:56:14] I think you all think I've made a mistake. [00:56:17] Those numbers say Professor Ellison has discovered that the names from Hananiah, the nine names beginning with Hananiah at the end of the verse in Hebrew, can be read as this. [00:56:40] Be gracious unto me, O Lord. [00:56:42] Be gracious unto me. [00:56:44] Thou art my God. How I magnify and exalt all my help. When in trouble, I say, give an abundance of this. [00:56:54] Well, that just bears out what I was saying about the Levites. This was their ministry. Now, some of the Lord's people have got a very foolish habit. [00:57:04] They think to be real, you must just display to everyone exactly how you feel. [00:57:13] This is a fallacy. [00:57:16] God, when he does something in us, when he gets real spiritual character, has people who can hide what they feel for the sake of others. [00:57:29] Here, behind these names was a prayer of people in trouble. [00:57:37] This is a prayer of someone who just longs for the Lord. [00:57:43] He's appealing. Lord, be gracious to me. [00:57:46] He's in trouble. [00:57:48] He wants to see the Lord. [00:57:52] This is Levitical service. [00:57:56] This is the thing that is found in the courts of the law and nowhere else. [00:58:04] When God has a people living on this ground and in the house, they have a deep hidden history with God. [00:58:18] This history is just like this. [00:58:21] I could take this one. [00:58:24] And if we were, we were. I was the. [00:58:27] Then I might say, well, there's this name and that name and the other name, the other name and the other name and the other name and I might put it down. They were singers in the service of God. [00:58:42] But God might read behind their names a history. [00:58:49] This is one of the little things in the Word of God which are so very wonderful. When we come to the book of Esther, we shall find some more. But here it is. This is hidden to the natural eye. [00:59:00] It's behind the ledge. [00:59:02] Isn't that wonderful? [00:59:04] So we find all these things. Well, we come to the singers. What a wonderful ministry they had. How it must have helped the people to praise and thank the Lord when they heard the singers. But then we go from the singers, we come to the door. Keep it. Do you know who these doorkeepers were? They were always called mighty men of valor. Now none of the others are called mighty men of valor. These doorkeepers had to be mighty men of valor because they were, as it were, I may put it rather almost irreverently, the strong armed men of the house of God. They had to open these great doors which really took some strength to open in the morning and shut them at night. They also had to guard the treasury. [00:59:44] They were doorkeepers. [00:59:46] Our Lord has all these different functions in the house. Then there were the treasurers, two kinds of treasurer. And then you come at last the judges and the officers who went throughout the land everywhere. These were magistrates or they had secretarial jobs. [01:00:02] So they went throughout the whole land. There with all this administrative work, it wasn't very easy. Perhaps they didn't think it was service. Now then, probably some of you find that a little bit humdrum and routine. But you know, worship is doing what God has given you. In the house of God there are thousands of practical things which we don't look upon as worship, but which God says worship. [01:00:28] Sometimes what comes out of our mouth, God says, that's not worship. [01:00:33] But sometimes when we just wash a few things up or do a little practical job, God sent his worship. [01:00:43] So that's why the psalmist said, I'd rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord with a dwell in the tents of wickedness. [01:00:50] Sumptuously to fare in the tents of wickedness. No, I would rather be just a doorkeeper, someone who pushes open the door or pulls the door or just walks around and keeps his eye on the treasures. [01:01:06] I'd rather be left. [01:01:09] Well, there are many jobs. Whether we have to go out into the world and these kind of things, these administrative things is still levitical. It's still levitical. [01:01:20] These are the people who are, as it were, the closest, most intimate links with the house of God. [01:01:35] Then I think we must summarize all this. Then what do we learn then from all this? [01:01:43] We learn that everything has its place, its function and its time. [01:01:48] Everything, Nothing was left to charge. Now, in the house of God, although it's all organic, nothing is left to chance. [01:01:56] It's written in the life of God. Written in the life of God. Just let the life of God express itself. Nothing is left to chance. No, nothing. [01:02:06] Nothing is left to chance. Everything is catered for in the life of God. There's a time, there's a function, there's a place for every one of us. If we'll only allow the life of God to have its way. Now, listen to me carefully. Some people often say, why don't I come to know what I am? Why don't I function? Perhaps you've got your hands on something. [01:02:27] You let the altar do its work. Let go, let go. [01:02:32] You cannot come into your place until it's let go entirely. [01:02:39] Then again, everything's by appointment. You notice it's under the hands of the king, by appointment of the king, under the hand of the king, by lot. The king was there. His chief chief officers of state were there, and they cast the line. [01:02:52] Everything was prior. [01:02:54] When the king saw what the Holy Spirit was determining, he appointed them. [01:03:02] And they did it. [01:03:03] No time, anyone. [01:03:06] This whole thing is a marvel of submission and relatedness. [01:03:11] A marvel. [01:03:15] If anyone started to be difficult, you would have thrown the whole thing out. [01:03:20] Everyone was appointed, everyone had a punch, everyone had a boost. [01:03:26] They submitted, just admitted they were related. [01:03:33] You know what happens when people are just not like that? See? Well, you bring it right down to practical things. Just write down practical. [01:03:40] You probably don't think of it like this. [01:03:43] When you're asked to do a job, however practical, you're given a time to be there, get there on that time. [01:03:48] If you don't get there on that time, you throw others out. [01:03:51] Means someone else has to do more work. [01:03:53] You're given a job to do it. You ought to do it thoroughly. [01:03:57] Absolutely. From beginning to end. From the time you're appointed to the time you finish, you do it. [01:04:03] To lose 10 minutes is to insult God. [01:04:09] It is the appointment of God, the service of God. That's why we put such a tremendous emphasis upon the church in local expression. Oh, it's so easy for people to talk about order. Order, they say. We believe in order. It's so ethereal, so intangible. It's worldwide, it's universal. And they can do anything. [01:04:28] Then they can do anything. Let it come down to the church in the locality. Then you ask to do a job, then we'll see. Now let's see about all this appointment up here. Let's see what happens down here. [01:04:45] Now let's see how people react to the service of God when it comes to little humdrum things like filling a glass or water. [01:04:56] See their attitude when they come cleaning, how we relate it, how we submit to each other. [01:05:04] Do you see your experience? [01:05:06] My experience is putting something into the house of God forever, never taken away. [01:05:13] Oh, let's learn all these things. Then in the last chapter, those last two chapters 28 and 29, you find David's last great charge to Solomon. Then it ends finish. The gold is given over, the silver's given over, the pattern's given over, the arrangement's given over. Everything's put into the hands now of Solomon. And David's life ends. His great passion is now fulfilled. [01:05:40] It's a magnificent ending. Those two chapters 28 and 29 are some of the finest passages in the whole Bible. [01:05:48] David's life is finished. [01:05:51] And you know, if we would be really co workers together with God, we have got to learn how to give as David gave. Do you remember how in the end he said, I not only give all this, but even my own private property I give to the Lord. This had a tremendous effect upon all the people because they all started to give. [01:06:15] Now if you give, others give, if you withhold, others withhold. Example is infectious. [01:06:22] So here then we have come to the end of the first book of Chronicles and we have learned some very simple lessons, but they are profound. [01:06:31] We have learnt first of all in our day. We must discover what church ground is because God will only commit Himself on that ground. He will bless us on other ground, he will use us on other ground, but he will only commit himself to that ground. [01:06:52] There's a tremendous amount being blessed and used of God in his sovereignty. [01:06:55] But to have God committed is a different thing. When God commits himself, undertakes personal responsibility for the whole thing, direct leadership, that's a different thing. [01:07:06] And then too we've learned that everything lies within the life of God. [01:07:13] Everything. All that. Just let it express. [01:07:17] And the key to that expression is the cross. [01:07:20] Give ourselves to the Lord as those that have been crucified with His Son. And God starts to work. [01:07:27] He starts to work, he gets on with it. [01:07:31] These chapters can be summed up just like this. [01:07:34] When we come by the cross under the anointing which is on the head, we find the arrangement for the service of God. [01:07:47] We find the pattern of the house of God. [01:07:50] We find the material for the house of God. All is bound down with the light of God. [01:07:57] The life of God is bound up with an experience of the cross of Christ. [01:08:03] The cross of Christ will bring us under the anointing of the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit himself. [01:08:10] And in his hands he will lead us into the building of the house of God.