"Passing the Torch"

Introduction:

In our text we have recorded for us the last words of King David. David has been on the throne for 40 years.

Many of those years have been troublesome and now he looks back over his life and is about to speak to Solomon his son and successor and the people of Israel for the last time.

1. David’s priority.

David gathers around him all the officials, military officers and his sons and he addresses them.

Standing before David were hundreds of officials, military men, and his sons. When he casts his mind back over his lifetime there is one thing which comes to the forefront of his mind – David desired with all his heart to build the Temple, a house of God for God.

Years earlier, David began to make preparation for the building of the Temple.

1 Chronicles 22:7–8

However, God told David that he would not build the Temple because he has shed so much blood but God promises that David’s son, Solomon, would build the Temple!

At this point it would have been very easy for David to allow this disappointment to discourage him. But he did not and the very fact that he did not reveals his heart – a heart after God’s heart!

David emphasized the fact that it was God who chose the tribe of Judah to be the royal tribe; and from Judah, God chose David’s family to be the royal family. Then God chose Solomon to be David’s successor and the one to build the Temple!

The people were to obey the Lord through Solomon as they had through David.

The Jews owned the land by virtue of God’s covenant with Abraham, but they possessed and enjoyed the land only so long as they obeyed God’s Word.

In other words, if they wanted to maintain possession of the land and leave it to the next generation, then they had to obey God’s Word.

2. David’s passion

A. To know God.

Above all David wanted Solomon to know God. This may seem such an obvious thing to say that we could quickly skip over it.

Yet this is foundational to everything in David’s life, in Solomon’s and in the life of the people of Israel.

Of all the things he could have said, he told Solomon to know his God!

It would not be enough to know about God or to know His law. The admonition is to know God, to know Him intimately and personally!

This begins with salvation. God wants to have a personal relationship with you.

(John 1:12) “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:”

Some want to know God’s Will without knowing the God of the will.

David also knew that God forgives sin (Psalm 51).

(1 John 1:8–9) If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

B. To serve God.

This is the second in the list because you cannot serve Him without knowing Him. And if you really know Him, then you will want to serve Him!

i. “A perfect heart” means “completely and with all the pieces.” God desires our devotion demands all the pieces.

It also may mean “without competition for another.” When God is first there can be no second.

The tragedy is that Solomon did not maintain a perfect heart before the Lord.

He loved foreign women and worshiped their false gods (1 Kings 11).

A perfect heart is not a sinless heart, it means a heart totally devoted to the Lord, a sincere heart.

ii. “A willing mind” means to serve God not because you must but because you want to! He knows all our hearts!

C. To seek God.

There is a condition. When the Holy Spirit is prompting, you need to respond and do it.

David warns Solomon there are only two ways to live on earth. One is in pursuit of God and the will of God – which will result in blessing.

The other is to forsake God and His ways, and the result will be that God will reject you. A choice is laid before Solomon.

David laid the choice before Solomon – we know that Solomon in later life turned away from God and was rejected by God – that was not David’s fault that was Solomon’s sin. But David set before him the choice.

Can you see Solomon as he stands there? Can you feel his heart pounding in his throat? Inexperienced yet David was there to encourage him!

3. David’s preparation.

Notice what David did after God said “No, you are not to build the Temple.” He made all the preparations necessary for the Temple to be built by Solomon, his son!

If David had not gathered the materials, laid the plans, bought the site, gathered the skilled workmen and charged Solomon to build the Temple – it may have never been built when it was built!

Jesus came to do will of the Father. Never did He choose His will over the Father’s will.

(John 6:38) “For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.”

There is a blessing in not only accepting God’s will for your life, but in following God’s will for your life! David was not even going to see the finished Temple, but he trusted God!

But, like Moses before him, Solomon must build according to the pattern given by the Spirit to David (vs. 12; 19).

The pattern was not of David’s invention, but by divine revelation; for he experienced the Lord’s hand upon him.

In other words, the construction would be done by human hands, but the plan and significance of the temple were from God.

4. David’s praise

David had set the example in giving. Their giving was an act of worship, and they gave generously!

Their generous response brought rejoicing to their own hearts and to the heart of the king!

David spontaneously responds to God in gratitude for all that He had done throughout the years of his life!

He expressed his humility before God and acknowledged that they were unworthy to give unto the Lord and that even the wealth that he and his people had brought originally came from the Lord!