David's praises of God's will and power (Quality: Very good)

[0:00] evening I will venture to speak from the chapter that we read together in our lesson. My mind is on the 10th and 11th verses. The 29th chapter in the first book of Chronicles and the 10th and 11th verses. Wherefore David blessed the Lord before all the congregation and David said blessed be thou Lord God of Israel our Father forever and ever. Thy know Lord is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty. For all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine. Thine is the kingdom O Lord and thou art exalted as head above all.

[1:21] This was a momentous time in the life of David. We remember David. I suppose we are all well enough acquainted with scriptural history to realize what a favored lad David was from the days of his youth right through that checkered experience until eventually his life upon earth was terminated and the Lord took him home to heaven. But David, he was a man of like passions with us.

[2:07] One thing that amazes us in the truth of Holy Scripture is the readiness of the inspirer, the Holy Spirit of God to reveal the great characters of Scripture as persons fallen. Persons that though great grace may be given to them yet the scripture unfolds certain weaknesses in their lives that speak to us of the fact that they were men and women of like passions with ourselves. Oh my friends how good is the scripture in comforting us despite all our sense of personal weakness and shortcoming that God is a God of grace.

[3:07] The God delights in the forgiveness of sins and sent his son into the world to do the greatest work of the world.

[3:19] It cost God more in Jesus Christ and by Jesus Christ to save one soul than it did to create the world.

[3:34] Now you just put that along your measure in your thoughts. That it was easier for God to bring the world into existence as we know it and to so constituted that it should continue for 6,000 years or so now.

[3:53] But it all was planned and it was all prosecuted, the continuation through the generations according to the character of mankind and the character of the beasts and the bird and the fish in the sea.

[4:15] It was all planned by God and brought to pass in that wonderful period of creation. Now, but I say again, it was easier for God to create the world than it was to save a soul.

[4:38] Now, what a price, what a price of thanksgiving is due to God if we have a hope in his mercy and that Christ, Jesus, was sent by the Father into the world to prosecute a work that was so essential essential to the satisfaction of divine justice and holiness and that we may be delivered from the consequences of a broken law and made ready fit, washed and clothed to be presented faultless before the throne of God forever and forever.

[5:25] Now, that's the gospel, my friends. That's the gospel. And oh, what does that gospel mean to you? Does it mean more than the world to you? It's a great mercy. If we say from our hearts, I could from all things parted thee, but never, never, Lord, from thee.

[5:52] Well, now, David, I spoke to Saul and Paul this morning. We come to the Old Testament. It's the same God. It's the same God.

[6:06] And he had a gracious favor toward David. Why? For what reason? David, David, he chose David before the foundation of the world to partake of the blessing of salvation through the ultimate sacrifice of his own dear son that his son was going to pay to the last farthing upon the cursed tree of Calvary.

[6:36] David went to heaven when he died. David went to heaven when he died. According to the decree of God, a place was prepared and he was brought into possession of that blood-bought benefit before he ascended the throne in Israel.

[7:02] Now, I want to come because David, he had his weaknesses. I'm not going to dwell too much upon that, but he was a man of war.

[7:15] And it was not consistent with the mind of God that a man of that character, and if I may put it like this, capability, because he was blessed with a wonderful amount of courage, and he was blessed with a wonderful measure of the fear of God.

[7:40] And he did a great work in Israel.

[8:10] All the other metals that he felt necessary and proved necessary under God to be essential to the building of that palatial temple for the worship of God.

[8:24] He was allowed to prepare the wherewithal for its erection, but God didn't allow him. It wasn't within the will of God that he should see the building built.

[8:41] The blessing was given by a sovereign God to his son Solomon. Now, I was going to put this thought in.

[8:54] Sometimes the Lord gives something directly to a generation. He gives some things directly to individual persons.

[9:07] And I do believe in the context of the Christian church. Some of the gifts that God gives are given directly. God intends that that experience should be the experience of an individual or a collection of people or even a nation of people.

[9:29] But it is not his will to do everything at the time when it might be considered necessary.

[9:45] God is a sovereign. God is a sovereign. He works according to his own wisdom and power and sufficient understanding of the details of a situation.

[10:00] Well, now, David brings the people together.

[10:11] And the preparation in detail drew forth from the kingdom of Israel a wonderful spirit.

[10:30] of union and enterprise. They all joined in giving this, that, and the other, as we read in the lesson, that the provision should prove adequate for the purpose that David was collecting and the purpose that ultimately would be employed in the building of the temple by his son Solomon.

[11:01] It's a wonderful thing, really. One generation preparing the means for the execution of such an enterprise as the building of the glorious temple of Solomon that was to the glory of God and was to be beneficial to generations after Solomon had executed the work appointed.

[11:37] Isn't it wonderful how God works? He casts a bridge over the distinctions and differences of a generation.

[11:48] He says to David, you're not going to build it. He says to Solomon, you're going to build it. And David mercifully, most willingly fell in humility before the revealed will of God.

[12:06] That didn't make him turn away from the whole enterprise and say, well, if I'm not going to be allowed to build it, I'm having nothing to do with it. And my friends, that's a spirit always to be watched against, to turn away because you may be denied something that you set your heart upon, but it hasn't proved the will of God that that should be in the limits of your personal experience.

[12:36] God works at his own time, in his own way, and by his own will and purpose, controlling in detail everything.

[12:50] Now that's the spirit of the text, really, isn't it? Wherefore David blessed the Lord before all the congregation. He saw the people willingly giving, and he saw the objective in view was to the glory of God.

[13:10] Though I say a detail was denied him in involvement, nevertheless the heart of the whole body seems to be united in this, that in due time, when the will of God was so, such an enterprise should find its completion under the good hand of young Solomon.

[13:36] Young Solomon. Solomon was the next generation to his father David. Well now, Wherefore David blessed the Lord before all the congregation, and David said, Blessed be thou, Lord God of Israel, our Father, for ever and ever.

[14:06] David speaks in one place of his cup, the third psalm, of his cup flowing over. My cup floweth over. It's a wonderful thing.

[14:19] When such a spirit is given of satisfaction, submission, and pleasure to the will of God, that you can praise God in an overflowing spirit within your own heart.

[14:38] Here he says, Blessed be thou, Lord God of Israel, our Father, for ever and ever.

[14:54] We sing sometimes the doxology. I sang it at the graveside on Friday in Oxfordshire. Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

[15:06] If your heart's in that spirit, if your heart's in that spirit, it's a most wonderful, gracious influence that's exercised upon your heart and your mind for you to honestly, as before God, sing in that language, that terminology, the praise of God.

[15:29] David here has it. Whatever may be denied, it pleased the Lord to bring him into sweet unity and harmony with the outworkings of his own will.

[15:43] And David, in the satisfaction of grace to the will of God, he, before the whole congregation, before all the congregation, David said, blessed be thou, Lord God of Israel, our Father.

[16:05] Our Father. What a high place. It is really to feel, as David felt, that the living God was his Father.

[16:19] His Father. We only have one Father on earth, don't we? and really, and really, and really, and really, and really, and really, and really, universally, and over the whole history of the world, there's only one Father.

[16:32] True Father, Spiritually considered, and that's God the Father. Well now, David, I believe, was addressing his praise to the fact that the Lord had brought the provision and given him the opportunity of joining with those of a succeeding generation that should be instrumental in raising the temple to the glory of his God.

[17:09] And my friends, there is, and I've proved this in my own experience, there's a wonderful, a wonderful feeling of praise to God in the hearts of older people when they realize that God is preparing and using some of the younger generation to carry on his work here upon the earth in the collective exercises and ministries of his church in the earth.

[17:45] Oh, what a favor it is when young people are enabled to come forth and testify publicly that they fear God and that they desire to be identified as the disciples of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

[18:06] David enjoyed, as it were, under a certain sense of personal denial, but nevertheless his cup overflowed and he saw the goodness of God to the nation through the instrumentality of that son whom he had been the father of.

[18:29] Naturally speaking, his son and time-honored Solomon as we realize the outcome of that kingdom of Solomon that was so great and so glorious at that period of the world's history.

[18:48] Now, blessed be thou, Lord God of Israel, our Father, forever and ever. It's like as if his heart was in tune with heaven, doesn't it?

[19:04] Forever and ever. Oh, my friends, it's a high place of spiritual experience when you feel a harmony of spirit within your own breast to what you know by the revelation of scripture is going on all the time around the throne of God on high.

[19:24] Praise. Praise God is the ceaseless employ of the redeemed in glory. Well then, he goes on and he says, where is it?

[19:51] I'm sorry. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory.

[20:03] Listen. There's a chain, a golden chain worked in the heart of David by the Holy Spirit of God.

[20:15] He says, O Lord, thine, O Lord, is the greatness and the power. If you ever thank God that he is not less than he is. You can't comprehend him.

[20:28] He's too great. The natural mind is incapable of comprehending the greatness and glory of the Lord. But nevertheless, in that measure which has been granted to you by the leading and teaching of the Holy Spirit, you realize what a great God he is.

[20:51] How sufficient he is for everything, about everything. nothing happens by chance.

[21:02] Nothing takes place without his notice. He's so great and what a wonderful thing it is. I remember I was in great trouble and I was traveling between Kettering and Thrapston in Northamptonshire and I was overborn.

[21:31] I was going away to preach and my circumstances were in anything but good order and I felt so miserable and yet I'd got to go and try and preach the gospel to fellow sinners and I felt most out of tune with the whole exercise.

[21:51] I could have turned the car back and gone home and left the people to get on the best they could. That was the innermost feeling. You know, I got to a point in the road driving my car and I should never go over that spot or perhaps never go over it again because of the changes and motorways and so on.

[22:13] After that, I never went over that spot. without remembering. I got to a high spot in the road and there I was burdened, almost depressed beyond measure and suddenly I was in a high spot and I looked out over the countryside.

[22:35] All around me. Trees, fields, everything in beautiful order and it was as if the Lord spoke.

[22:50] I created all these things. I put these things in order. I've maintained this situation through the generations of time.

[23:01] You know, my friends, while I looked at the seed that was eclipsed, as it were, with a sweet influence of God's Spirit witnessing to me all these things were made by me in the beginning and I have maintained them absolutely to the present glory in this moment of time.

[23:30] you know, that was of such import to me that my trouble, instead of being oppressive and I was groaning and crying and thinking I ought to not go where I was going and so on, my trouble went less and less and less and you know, in the end I was so full of the praise of God within my soul that I hadn't got any trouble.

[24:01] The God that made all this is my God and what can't he do? What can't he do? He can make the crooked thing straight, the rough place plain, he can solve the most difficult tangles of life's experience, he does as he will in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth none can stay his hand or say unto him what do we say?

[24:26] I hadn't got any trouble. I hadn't got any trouble. It was all in the hands of God and all would be made straight in his own time and in his own way.

[24:40] Oh, I shall never forget that spot on the road as long as I live because the Lord shone like the sun from heaven into my very soul and transformed the same situation circumstantially but in the context of his own glory and sufficiency and ability to do all he wished to do in every aspect and consideration of the situation.

[25:21] Now, it seems to me that David here is experiencing somewhat of the tangle of well, he's got everything ready and but he could go so further no further than get everything in order and he saw that God had moved the hearts of the people in a supportive way to do what needed to be done and he just lost himself under a sense of the presence and being and sufficiency and greatness and glory of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords who never knows what it is to be tired he never knows what it is not to see anything in the future as ready as he can see it in the present and has known it in the past all things are naked and open before the eyes of him with whom we have to do

[26:32] David was given the spirit of sweet submission that put this harp in tune not the one that he played before Saul to try and mediate the awful bad temper in which King Saul was afflicted but no he was before the King of Kings and Lord of Lords offering the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving for the working of God and the ultimate promise of God that God would have a temple and his son would build it that was the ultimate plan obviously in the mind of Jehovah at that particular time thy no Lord is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty you know the things there are things that

[27:41] God doesn't know anything about in that personal way that is common to mankind God doesn't know anything about defeat God doesn't know anything about personal defeat he's never defeated he's never defeated none has ever suffered so much conflict to his position and possession as the Lord Almighty and the great power of evil that is present in the world and has been so from Adam's and Eve's fall in the garden down through the generations of time and has afflicted so much sorrow anguish and pain to the hearts of mankind God's never been disturbed in that sense his eternal thought moves on his undisturbed affairs thou

[28:52] O Lord thine O Lord is the greatness and the power and the glory all thanksgiving belongs to God all that is favourable is a consequence of his intervention and provision and then we come to this do we not and the victory oh you and I cringe sometimes at the power of the enemy don't we the power of evil within us the power of evil round about us you come to that point where you say can ever God dwell here my heart seems so full full of wretched rebellion and bitterness can ever God dwell in such a heart as mine he never loses the victory whom once he loves he never leaves but loves them to the end cast thy burden upon the Lord he shall sustain thee he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved you see my friends our God is a great

[30:06] God he reigns everything is subject to his power and to his purpose and the victory is his and will be his evil will never finally prevail evil one day will be safely and eternally deposited beneath his feet these are truths that our faith feeds on there's something within us that rejoices in the fact the man in the street he said oh those old religious people oh my friends let them struggle on with their troubles I wish I could persuade them differently but they don't want anything of this character brought to their notice and impressed upon their hearts and minds to relieve them of the oppression of the enemy sometimes some sweet token of

[31:18] God's truth and God's favor comes into our hearts and puts things in true perspective for this God is our God forever and ever and he will be our guide even unto death thy no Lord is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty he rules he reigns not a single shaft can hit until the God of love sees fit well then he says for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine poor poor he has power over everything power over everything he raises monarchs to their throne and dashes them as he plays we've seen that haven't we look at

[32:32] Adolf Hitler in the youthful years of some of us that are here few of us that are here we remember the rise and threat of Nazism when it seemed he was sweeping through Europe and it was only a matter of time before he set foot on our own shore and would bring us into the captivity into which France and other nations on the continent were the subjects but he reigned he reigned he brought he brought victory to our nation when the world in general was writing us off they couldn't see how we could possibly defend ourselves we were so exposed to the power and might of the enemy a little nation on the edge of

[33:35] Europe but the time came we had street parties and we had waving flags and we had all sorts and we had services in our churches in our chapels of thanksgiving to God who had given us the victory we nationally in a sense turned to the secret of our deliverance and sang what David is doing here singing to the praise of him who is worthy of all honour because it's in him we live and move and have our being all that there might be a turning again in our nation all people are depressed they say it's terrible days we're living through and what's going to happen to us and all that sort of thing my friends there's a refuge we've proved it we've proved it read your history book you'll find it's on page after page how the

[34:40] Lord in various ways and by various means arose and delivered us and now we're despising the good hand that saved us well I don't want to get involved in politics and national historical facts but some of us are very worried very worried because we feel God is our refuge and strength he has been he can be in his mercy and by his power he can put down every enemy he can control every evil that exists to the deliverance of his people there's nothing too hard for him David had a view of it didn't he

[35:41] David had a view word and he saw it in the context of the future my friends that's what I long to do to see a context of the goodness and God the majesty and ultimate victory in the hands of the almighty I'm a grandfather of ten children living and the future worries me I'm not so worried about my own future because it can't be long it can't be long but history goes on doesn't it the world lasts history goes on and a condition of national Christian influence and blessing from on high is the secret of real peace and real prosperity nationally as well as individually and I must draw to a close thy no

[36:56] Lord is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the victory and the glory and the glory and the glory is the great I am he remember he maintains the situation without any particular diminution through giving thine no Lord is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty for all that is in heaven and in the earth is thine thine is the kingdom O Lord and thou art exalted as head above all you might say to me tonight after what I've said from the pulpit you've got a pretty miserable miserable turn of mind that things are going wrong and you're feeling very depressed of what's coming and all that sort of thing my friend

[38:02] David says in one of his psalms why art thou cast down O my soul why art thou disquieted within me looking at the situation yes we're cast down and our soul is disquieted within us but what was the remedy hope thou in God for I shall yet praise him who is the health of my countenance and my God if you're looking for an uplift in the midst of miserable circumstances there is an answer there is an answer hope thou in God for I shall yet praise him look unto me and be ye saved all the ends of the earth he's the king of kings he's the lord of lords he's God over all and blessed forevermore

[39:03] I hope you followed I can't maximise my thoughts sufficiently to speak to speak of such a being as God is but he's altogether sufficient he delighteth in mercy he hears the prayer of the destitute and doesn't despise their prayer he condescends to men and women and children of low estate what a wonderful thing to fear God and to be a Christian surely morning service folds in some measure into the folds of the evening service this great God the foundation of all

[40:08] Amen