Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1412
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, May 5, 1878
“Therefore has Your servant found in his heart to pray this prayer to You.” 2 Samuel 7:27.
DAVID had first found it in his heart to build a house for God. Sitting in his house of cedar, he resolved that the Ark of God should no longer abide under curtains, but should be more suitably housed. The Lord, however, did not design that David should build His Temple, though He accepted his pious intentions and declared that it was well that it was in his heart. From which we may learn that our intentions to serve the Lord in a certain manner may be thoroughly good and acceptable and yet we may not be permitted to carry them out. We may have the will but not the power—the aspiration but not the qualification. We may have to stand aside and see another do the task which we had chosen for ourselves—and yet we may be none the less pleasing to the Lord who, in His great love, accepts the will for the deed.
It is a holy self-denial which in such cases rejoices to see the Lord glorified by others and at the Captain’s bidding cheerfully stands back in the rear when zeal had urged it to rush to the front. It is as true service not to do as to do when the Lord’s Word prescribes it. The reason why David was not to build the house is not stated here, but you will find it in 1 Chronicles 28:2, 3. “Then David the king stood up upon his feet, and said, Hear me, my brethren, and my people: for me, I had in my heart to build an house of rest for the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, and for the footstool of our God, and had made ready for the building: but God said unto me, You shall not build an house for My name, because you have been a man of war, and have shed blood.”
David’s wars had been necessary and justifiable and by them the people of the Lord had been delivered. But the Ever Merciful One did not delight in them and would not use for building His Temple an instrument which had been stained with blood. The great Prince of Peace would not have a warrior’s hand to pile the palace of His worship, choosing rather that a man whose mind had exercised itself in quieter pursuits should be the founder of the place of rest for the Ark of His Covenant of Peace. He is not so short of instruments as to use a sword for a trowel, or a spear for a measuring rod, especially when these have been dyed in the blood of His creatures.
In your own household affairs you do not use the same implement or utensil for opposite purposes. If David, therefore, is used to smite Philistines, he is not to be employed in erecting a Temple. Solomon, his son, a man of peace, is called to do that holy work. I have sometimes trembled on behalf of our own nation and especially just now, lest its warlike propensities should disqualify it for what has, up to now, appeared its highest destiny. If it should resolve to pick a quarrel and wantonly plunge itself into a bloody war, it may come to pass that our God may judge it to be unfit for the accomplishment of His purposes of Grace. Even if it were granted that the war would be most just and right, yet should it be undertaken with solemn reluctance, lest it should deprive our nation of the capacity to be the preacher of righteousness and the herald of the Cross.
With what face can we preach the Gospel of Peace among the heathen if we, ourselves, provoke war? Little wonder would it be if the Lord should say of the English people, “You shall not convert the nations nor build up a Church for My name, because you delight in war and have needlessly shed blood.” God grant that all things may be so ordered according to His infinite wisdom that this land may be the true Solomon among the nations and build a Temple for God which shall enclose the whole earth, wherein every language and every nation shall be heard praising and magnifying the Lord! Labor, I pray you, O you servants of the loving Savior, to promote peace if the temporary rage of the multitude may be appeased without carnage!
To return to personal cases—it may happen to any one of you to be called to pass through business or domestic trials in which you may be altogether blameless—and yet you may, at the close of them, find yourself disqualified for certain prominent positions of usefulness, at least for a time. Therefore you may not hope to accomplish certain high and noble
purposes which once were laid upon your heart. God may have to say to you afterwards, “Your use lies elsewhere. I will not employ you for this, but, still, I accept you and it was well that it was in your heart.” And if He should so see fit, do not repine, but, like David, do all you can towards the work that the man who is to perform it may find materials ready to his hand. David gathered much of the treasure to meet the cost and did it, none the less earnestly, even though another name would outshine his own in connection with the Temple.