1 Chronicles 29:1

"Handfuls of Purpose,"

For All Gleaners

"Furthermore David the king said unto all the congregation, Solomon my son, whom alone God hath chosen, is yet young and tender, and the work is great: for the palace is not for man, but for the Lord God." 1 Chronicles 29:1 .

David was father as well as king, and when the father spoke he exalted the very office which he sustained as sovereign. The son is always young to the father; the son becomes doubly filial when the Spirit of God is seen to be working in him with a view to carrying forward the father's own chosen purposes. David recognised that the work was greater than the worker. Solomon was "young and tender," but the work was "great." We must make right uses of our personal circumstances; some would have said, Because I am young and tender, much cannot be expected of me: others, of nobler quality of mind, would say, Being young and tender, the greater shall be the glory of the Lord, because of my littleness, yea, my nothingness. Even kings should see that the work of life is great. When men imagine that they are greater than their work, when that work itself is God's, they begin to decrease in strength and to fall away into pitiable humiliation. The ideal must always be loftier than the actual. Every David and every Solomon must see that the thing yet to be done is greater than anything that has yet been accomplished. The great harvest has always to be garnered, the great battle has always to be won, the great love has always to be revealed. It would seem as if we had never seen high noon yet: the sun must be always on the point of giving us some fuller light, yea, surprising himself into an intenser brilliance. Thus are we drawn on by fact and by illusion, by common letter and by apocalyptic vision, to higher uses of strength and to nobler anticipations of hope. Even David could but prepare, and Solomon could but pray: the fire, the inspiration of the energy, must come down from above. David had a right to exhort, because he had done so much himself "I have prepared with all my might for the house of my God;" and again, "Because I have set my affection to the house of my God, I have of mine own proper good, of gold and silver, which I have given to the house of my God, over and above all that I have prepared for the holy house." David having done this much himself had a right to inquire what others were doing. After such a statement as he had just made he had a right to say, "Who, then, is willing to consecrate his service this day unto the Lord? " It is better to set examples than to make speeches; the speeches themselves may be necessary after the examples have been set.