Chapter 22, First Chronicles, and 22nd chapter. My wife and I were going somewhere the other night, and I was driving, you know, We got pulled over, and a fellow walked up to the window and I rolled him down. He said, sir, you were driving rather erratically. I said, hey, she's doing all the driving. I'm just the one behind the wheels. See, she's not here today, so that's why. Don't tell her. I said, all right. She's used to it. She's been married to me for 44 years, and nothing much has changed. All right, today we're talking about David's wise counsel and the story generally concerns the command or the charge to build the temple of the Lord. Now, this lesson is set close to the end of David's life, and I think David realizes that, and he is determined to set things in order. That's the term we use, the phrase we use talking about coming into life. I need to set your affairs in order. there's something to that and David was doing just that. You know one topic that comes up a lot in preaching and teaching the Bible is the what we call the brevity of life. How that life is brief and James 414, for what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. I still remember back in, when I used to come to Bible school, Great Nation Bible School here at church, and Brother Hensley taught us, had chapel service, and I remember him having a spray bottle and it was full of water, and he used that, he was taught, he was teaching that verse, that passage, and he'd spray that bottle, and the vapor would appear, and then it would just sort of dissipate, and it would be gone. I've not forgotten that. In fact, I used that illustration a couple years ago in Bible school as well, and I gave credit where credit was due. But life is a brief thing. In Ephesians 5, 16, We are told to redeem the time. That means don't waste time. All the time that we have, which is rather brief, we need to make use of it in a way that is pleasing and glorifying to God. I often feel guilty when I look back upon a day, or maybe even a week, and realize how much of that time that I wasted, discredited away when I could have been doing something constructive. Three things, I think, that we ought to prioritize in life. And this is not the outline for the lesson. This is just something I'm throwing in extra. Won't cost you a thing, I promise. But when we think about life, when we think about the past, present, and the future, Well, first of all, we need to observe the past, learn from those that have gone before us. This is all going to fit into the lesson, I promise. But we need to learn from those that have gone before us. We need to learn from their successes, how they accomplished their goals. in life. I like to read books like the, what is it, Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. Dale Carnegie book, I think it was, How to Win Friends and Influence People. That's good. We need to learn from those that have gone before us, that have paved the way, that have accomplished those things which we would like to accomplish in life. We need to learn from their successes. Also, we need to learn from their failures, from their mistakes. I would much rather learn from the mistakes of others than have to make them and learn from my own, you know? That just makes more sense. Now, that doesn't always happen. Unfortunately, I've made plenty of mistakes, and I hopefully have learned from them. But we can learn from the mistakes of others as well. And then we need to optimize the present, make every day count. Acts 1336 says that David served his own generation by the will of God. It's been said many times and sung in many songs, we will never pass this way again. We've only got one shot at this life. And so whatever we're going to do We need to get to it. We need to do it. John 9, 4, Jesus said, you know, you need to work while it's day. The night cometh when no man can work. And there was a hymn, of course, written to that effect. So we need to observe the past, optimize the present, and then thirdly, we need to outfit our posterity. We need to prepare the next generation, and a lot of the lesson today is going to deal with that very thing. We need to impart our knowledge and our wisdom to those that follow us. The song says, may all who come behind us find us faithful. And hopefully they can see our faithfulness and learn from that and be inspired to be faithful themselves. And then we need to impart the mistakes that we've made. As I already mentioned, don't be afraid to own up to the things that didn't work. And don't make this mistake, son. Don't fall into this pitfall. Now, in our text today, we're reminded of all three of these aspects of life with a focus specifically on the third, and that is preparing the next generation to carry on the work of the Lord, both now and after we are gone. I love this verse. 2nd Timothy chapter 2 verse 2. And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also. And what's neat about this verse is it gives us basically five generations. First of all, it says the things that you have heard of me, and that's Paul who was writing the book, among many witnesses, those that Paul had influenced, those who he had won with Christ. He said, the things that you have heard of me among many witnesses, it says the same commit thou. Now we're at the third generation here. Paul did things, many witnesses confirmed that, and I, or thou, Timothy, he has heard those things, and he says, thou commit those to faithful men. There's the next generation now. And if it's not a generation in life, it's a generation of learning, a generation of spiritual education. So you've heard of me among many witnesses. Thou commit those things to faithful men. And then lastly, who shall be able to teach others spiritual generations there. Do you see how important each link in that chain really is? I mean, if Paul had not bothered to teach the many witnesses, that information may never have gotten to Timothy. He wouldn't have been able to teach the faithful men. They would not perhaps have been able to teach the others also. So it's so important that we keep that moving and each generation preparing the next for the work that God has called them to do. I don't often post these questions. You may have noticed I don't follow the book real closely, but it had this question. I thought it was very pertinent. How are you preparing? the next generation to serve the Lord. And I might just throw this out there. I don't often ask for comments and all, but what are some things that we can do to prepare the next generation for their experience in serving God? Anybody wanna venture a thought? I've got some thoughts. Okay. Example. Is that what you mean? Okay. Examples? Absolutely. Absolutely. Some things are better caught than they are taught, as someone has said. You can tell your kids, or your grandkids, or those you have influence with, you can tell them things until you're blue in the face. But if your example doesn't confirm what you're teaching them, it's going to fall on deaf ears. Anything else you can think of? Yeah, you're right. Yeah, not only I was going to say, teaching young people to pray, like at the table, praying for their food. It's very good. At the talk about prayer, a lot of it. Yeah. Even at a young age, if we teach them I remember we used to recite in school, believe it or not, public school. God is great, God is good, now we thank him for our food. And we said in Jesus' name, amen. Now, of course, you'd get jailed if you did that in a public school now, but... Even that was teaching us, even though it was a repeated prayer, it was teaching us the importance of prayer. And as she said, asking a blessing on the food and all that. Something else that I thought about was our family devotions, which is in that same genre. Just having casual conversations. with young people, with the next generation. I've had the opportunity to speak to some of our kids, just in passing. I was sitting in the office one day, I forget why we were all here, but a young fellow, about 10 or 12, and part of the family in the church here, he came in, just started talking, and he wanted to discuss some things. And so I taught him as best I could what I thought about what he was suggesting and learning about putting the word of God into the conversation. Promoting Sunday school, I think, is very important. Christian schools, if you have opportunity, our kids can go to a Christian school. Vacation Bible school, church camp. All of these things are ways that we can have an influence into the next generation and help them to grasp the principles of the Word of God that we have experienced in our lives. Now, the focus, as I said today on the lesson, is the building of the temple. So we're searching the text, and the first thing we see is the requisition for the temple. Look at verse 6. Then he, that's David, Then he called for Solomon, his son, and charged him to build a house for the Lord God of Israel." So here's Solomon, a young man in his 20s. So he's young. And the older I get, the younger it seems to be in your 20s. But he is being groomed, of course, to be the next King of Israel and Solomon David Charged him. That's a pretty strong word. It means he commanded him or Appointed him charged him to build a house for the Lord God of Israel now. It wasn't a casual suggestion He wasn't saying that now Solomon when you become king you you got to give some real thought to building a temple, building a house for the Lord. No, it wasn't like, you know, apparently the stop signs that we come to, they're just suggestions, right? It seems like that's the way some people feel about it. And I remember one time at three in the morning, who would have thought anybody would be paying attention at three in the morning? I was on my way to work, I was driving the truck at the time, and I just come up to this stop sign sign there close to my house and I just went on you know I didn't I just sort of offered to slow down a little bit and there you know there was a policeman and he pulled me over and suggested that I paying more attention to what the sign says. He didn't give me a ticket, and I thanked him for not doing that. And ever since, I've stopped pretty well at that stop sign. But how did I get off of that? I don't know. David was, though, he was setting the course. for Solomon's reign as king, or at least laying the groundwork for getting off to a good start. Later, David said to Solomon in 1 Chronicles 28.10, sort of repeating himself, he says, take heed now, for the Lord hath chosen thee. It wasn't just David's idea that Solomon build a temple. The Lord has chosen you, Solomon, to build a house for the sanctuary. Be strong and do it. So this is David's charge to Solomon. This is to be Solomon's first order of business as king. Now, the question came to my mind, and I thought it'd be worth just sort of discussing it a little bit. Is it important to have a place to worship? I think so, and I appreciate that. I'm gonna explain why I think that in a minute. But there's a common expression today that people say, well, I am the church, individually. I am the church, wherever I am, that's the church. I can be out in the woods, I can be on the golf course, and I'm having church. No, you're not. No, you're not. Now, I believe you can experience time with God and experience the presence of God in those settings. I have found that one time that I can pray and take time to meditate on the word of God, whatever, is while I'm driving. Sometimes I travel quite a bit same region whatever driving the truck and a lot of time there Now you don't close your eyes. Hopefully when you pray when you're driving, but you can't pray You can you can meditate on the things you've got so we have we have times when we can do that But that is not the church The church the word church literally means assembly We are commanded to assemble, of course. And so when we come together, we are the body of Christ in this community. And it's important that we come together regularly as a corporate assembly. And furthermore, we have set aside And we might even say consecrated this facility as our place of assembly. It's a place to worship and to hear the preaching and the teaching of the Word of God. God has given us a very nice building. I can actually remember when this building was under construction. and the blessing that it was for the church to be expanding and outgrowing the building next door and building this fine auditorium here. Now, I hasten to say, you know that I've heard this expounded a thousand times, the building is not the church, okay? If the church burns down this afternoon, we can still assemble somewhere this evening and be the church. We're not limited to this building. But as I said, this place is set aside as a facility in which Addison Baptist Church meets. We don't rent our building out during the week for parties and lodge meetings. We don't move the pews aside so people can come in and roller skate here at the church. We don't do that. This facility is dedicated. It is set aside for the use of the church. Now, not all churches have their own buildings. Some churches rent facilities either by necessity or by choice. Go to some of the poorer countries of the world, you'll find churches meeting under trees. or under a thatched roof in the open air. And so, I'm not talking about a hard and fast rule, but my point is, in this community, everybody knows when they see a bunch of cars parked outside here on Sundays and Wednesdays, they know that Addiston Baptist Church has come together to assemble. Now, back to the temple. Although the temple doesn't directly match up to the New Testament church, there are similarities. And it all boils down to the fact of it being the house of God. In our text verse, verse 6, he called for Solomon, his son, and charged him to build a house for the Lord God of Israel. So the temple was going to be the house of the Lord. Not that God needed a house to protect him from the rain and the snow and whatever. No, but Israel needed a place where to focus their attention as they think about God and his presence in their culture, in their lives. And then we go over to 1 Timothy 3.15. And Paul says, if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God. Oh, he's going to tell us what the house of God is. Well, it's the church of the living God. Old Testament, you've got the temple. It was the house of God. New Testament, it's the church of the living God, which is the pillar and ground of the truth. Now, is he talking about the building? No, of course not. Believers that is the house of God now. I'm glad as I said, we have this facility and it's warm in the winter and it's cool in the summer and and and we've got padded pews and we've got the sound system so everybody can hear and And all those are wonderful things But that's not the church. The church is us, the assembly of saints. Now, I've gotten carried away on this. Please notice that David did not give this charge to young Solomon and then plop down in his recliner and say, go to it, Solomon. Already, David had been making preparations for the temple. He purchased the threshing floor of Ornan. And I believe one of Brother Gary's lessons covered this. And he called it the house of the Lord. So Solomon already had a location at which to build the temple. And then David provided workers. He had them shape stones. They gathered both iron and cedar wood for the temple construction. Look at the end of verse five. We didn't read this, but it says, so David prepared abundantly before his death. How many times have you heard older saints That's most of us here, I guess. But you can either identify as older or not. That's strictly up to you. But how many times have you heard an older saint say, well, let the young people take over. Just let the young people do it. There is some merit in that, because us older folks, And I'm including myself in that. But we can't do everything that we used to be able to do. And that's just a fact of life. We age, and we're not able to perform the same functions that we once did. But let us not, as we grow older, just sit down and quit. We need to do what we can. I love that story of the woman who came and anointed the feet of Jesus and they fussed about it all. He could have sold this ointment and given it to the poor or whatever. And Jesus said, let her alone. She has done what she could. Now, I can't do everything I want to do, and I can't do everything that everybody else does, but I can do what I can. And I think that God is pleased when each of us do whatever it is within our ability to do. Ecclesiastes, watch over thy hand, find it to do, do it with thy mind. Well, let's go on now to the second point. We talked about the requisition of the temple, but notice the restriction. on David. Verse 7, And David said to Solomon, My son, as for me, it was in my mind to build a house unto the name of the Lord my God. And we'll get into this a little deeper. Verse 8, But the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Thou hast shed blood abundantly, and hast made great wars. Thou shalt not build a house unto my name, because thou hast shed much blood upon the earth in my sight. So David wanted to build the temple, but God did not allow him to do that. Over in 2 Samuel 7, we're not going to have time to go through all of this, but it says, it came to pass when the king sat in his house and the Lord had given him a rousing, rounded back from all his enemies, that the king said unto Nathan the prophet, see now, I dwell in the house of Cedar, but the ark of God dwells within curtains. In other words, he said, I just feel bad about this. The Ark of the Covenant is in a temporary structure. I'm sitting here in my nice seer house. I'm gonna build God a house. And Nathan said to the king, go, do all that is in thine heart, for the Lord is with thee. Sounds great. David's got this idea. Nathan the prophet, remember him, David had come to respect Nathan. Nathan was the one that came to David and confronted him concerning his sin with Bathsheba. And so Nathan is a man that David respects and respects his counsel. And here's Nathan saying, hey, go to it. Yeah, David, the Lord is with thee. And it goes on, and I'm not going to take time to read all this, but God had to come to Nathan and say, excuse me, Nathan, but you're off base here. People can be wrong, even good people, even godly prophets, and even preachers can sometimes be wrong in their counsel, in their advice that they give to others. And in this passage, verses four through 13, and as I said, we don't have time to go through it, David is told a couple of things. God tells Nathan what to tell to David. And he said a couple of different things. First of all, he said, now David, did I ever ask you to build me a house. Did I ever complain about the place where the ark dwelt? Have I ever said, man, I sure wish I had a house of cedar like you do, David. No, he said, I never commanded that. I'm not unhappy. God was not displeased with where he was. Now, the temple was in the plans. It was in the offing, and it would be built. But God says, you're in too big a hurry here because you are not going to build the temple. And in that passage that I just skipped through, he talks about the way that God had blessed David down through the years. And David wanted the blessing of building the temple. And God said, no, that's not going to be your blessing. It's going to be Solomon's blessing. Your blessing has been to reign over the people all these years. Now, in 2 Samuel 7, we're not told what this particular saying of God. you've made great wars, you're not gonna be the one to build the house under my name. Now, I want you to notice a couple of things. First of all, God's restriction on David, as far as we know, was not a punishment for his sin with Bathsheba. That's not even mentioned. That's not part of the equation. And then secondly, God was not punishing David for being a man of war. You see, when David went to war, he was obeying God. When he went and fought and conquered Israel's enemies and shed all that blood that we're talking about, It's not that God was displeased with David for making war. He was not chastising David for being obedient to him. God had sent him forth to conquer the enemies of Israel. Remember, Saul has slain his thousands and David his tens of thousands. That probably was a little bit of hyperbole, but nonetheless, David had done great things in the liberation of Israel from their enemies. So it wasn't a punishment on David. This was simply God's will in the matter. Something that comes to my mind, through the years, the temple became known as, anybody venture a guess, Solomon's Temple. That's how it was known, and that's how we still refer to it sometimes today, Solomon's Temple. Well, apparently God didn't want it to be known as David's Temple, and so God saw to it that the temple was built by a peacetime king. You've heard of peacetime presidents? Solomon was sort of a peacetime king. In fact, the name Solomon comes from the same root as the word shalom, which means peaceful. So let us never forget God is telling you, David, David, you've been blessed. I'm not fussing at you. I'm not punishing you because you went to war. I'm simply saying that you have your blessings. Now I'm going to bless Solomon with the task of building the temple. Let's never forget that it was David's efforts in war that enabled Solomon to reign in peace. See, Solomon inherited the kingdom at a time when pretty much they were at rest. There were some internal things going on, and I don't have time to go into all that, but as far as their enemies, they had pretty much been subdued, and Solomon was able to come into the kingdom and come to the throne at a time when there was peace, and that was due to David's efforts. And David, maybe, you know, maybe he thought, okay, you know, here I went through all this bloodshed, is going to reap the benefits. I don't know if that was David's attitude or not. I know that years ago I had the privilege of teaching in a Bible college extension that we had in Michigan and there was a fellow that sat under my teaching there that ended up far exceeding my accomplishments in ministry. And there was a time I was sort of envious of that. I said, here I am teaching him and he goes on and he, you know, God had blessed him so greatly, but God showed me that was inappropriate. My blessing was to invest in that man's life. And his blessing upon that man was to take, in part, what I had taught and others, and use that to be a more recognized figure, if you will. The building of the temple was a blessing to Solomon, but David had his own blessings. And if you get a chance, go back and read that passage in chapter 7 of 2 Samuel. That's interesting what God imparted to David. David, you've been blessed. I didn't ask for you to build a house. Be content with your blessings. Now we go on, the reassurance to Solomon. Look at verse nine of our text. Behold a son, this is, David is telling Solomon what God told him previously. Behold a son shall be born to thee. He's talking about Solomon's birth now. Who shall be a man of rest. And I will give him rest from all his enemies round about for his name Israel in his days he shall build a house for my name and he shall be my son and I will be his father and I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel forever now my son this is David say that's what God told me about you now son The Lord be with thee and prosper thou and build the house of the Lord thy God as he had said of thee. David is on board with the program. He got it wrong. He said, I'm going to build a house. Nathan, the prophet, said, yeah, Lord, go to it. And God steps in and says, no, no, no, just back up here a moment. Nathan, you got it wrong. David's not going to build a house. Solomon is going to build a house. And David says, OK. And now he's charging Solomon and reassuring him that God's blessings upon Solomon would be that he would prosper him and that he would be with him. And then there's the recruiting of the Israelites. Look at verse 17. Next page. David also commanded all the princes of Israel to help Solomon his son, saying, Is not the Lord your God with you? And hath he not given you rest on every side? For he hath given the inhabitants of the land into my hand, and the land is subdued before the Lord, before his people. Now set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God. Arise therefore, and build ye the sanctuary of the Lord. 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. So what we see here is David recruiting the princes of Israel to assist Solomon in this work. The work of the Lord is not the work of one. It is not even the work of a few. It is God's desire that all His people work together for the accomplishing of His purposes. In the book of 1 Corinthians, it talks about all the variety of spiritual gifts. Guess what? Everybody here has something you can contribute to the body of Christ with your talent. And you might be an ear, you might be a foot, you might be a nose, a finger, figuratively speaking. But each of God's saints that he puts within the Lord's church, each of you has something you can contribute. through your spiritual gifts, whatever God has enabled you to do, that can be a help to the church. And together, we do the work of the Lord. I hate to hesitate to quote a cliche, but together we are greater than the sum of our parts. I mean, individually, Some of you are great individuals. I'm not. I mean, physically, I'm not what I wish I could be. Spiritually, certainly no giants. But together, working together with each one contributing that which you can do, God will use that, God will bless that as we work together for the accomplishing of His purposes. Our work is not to build a structure of wood and stone and metal. Our job is to further God's kingdom. Seek ye first the kingdom of God, seek to further the kingdom of God and His righteousness. That's what we do through the spreading of the gospel. That's why we count contacts. We encourage people to reach others with the gospel. We do that, and as we see souls saved, then we will see the church increased. as those souls are saved, those saved ones, are baptized and added to us. And so it's everybody's job. And I'm not telling you anything you haven't heard, but each of us needs to be on board and doing what we can for the Lord. So now as we set the application, some points to ponder. Now, ponder is deeper than just thinking. I don't want you to think about things. I want you to ponder on things, okay? First of all, who can you remember from your past who helped you become the person and the Christian you are today? I'm not asking for awful answers now. But think about it. Who can you remember from your past that was a spiritual influence on you that helped you develop your development in life and paved the way, as I talked about, the previous generation helping us along. I can think of several. I'm not going to share them. So many, actually many people that poured into my life and enabled me to move forward in life. Secondly, what are you doing now in the present? to serve your own generation? What are you doing? Contemplate on that. Could you be doing more? Could you be doing something else that would be more fitted to the talents and the gifts that God has given to you? And then, how are you preparing the next generation to serve God? Always be aware. There's little eyes, little ears focused on you. And I've said this before, and it sort of scares me to think about this, but you are the best Christian that somebody knows. Someone is watching you and measuring Christianity by what they see in your life. They look at you and say, well, I guess that's what it means to be a Christian. That's what it means to be saved. That's what it means to be a follower of Christ. Are you being a good witness, a true witness? Or are you being a false witness? Does your life not measure up to that which you profess to be? It's a very sobering thought. And I think David had taught Solomon good things. And Solomon wrote most of the book of Proverbs and had a lot of wise things to say. Probably a lot of what he learned from his dad. But also, we know that David did not always show forth a good example to his children. Solomon, even though he was young, maybe he didn't firsthand observe some of the sinful things that David did. He'd heard about them. And Solomon, we can call him the wisest man who ever lived. And the Bible says that. None like him before or since. And yet, Solomon went on to do some very unwise things. He had 700 wives, which most of those, I'm sure, were just marriages of political convenience. But the Bible says that his wives turned his heart from God. Solomon did not always act wisely. Probably part of that was from what he saw his father do as well. Well, anyway, I hope that's a challenge to you. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this passage of scripture, and I pray, Lord, that as we contemplate on these things, that we would be reminded of who influenced us in the past. what we are supposed to be doing now, and then how we are to influence those that come behind us, and might we be a faithful and true example to those of the next generation. Blessing the service to follow now, bless our pastors who brings the message, in Jesus' name, amen.