The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Chronicles — Section 436

HOMILETICS. Ver, 1.-Goa's choosing,. and man's right attitude in the presence of it. It is very evident that great anxiety pressed upon the mind of David whenever he thouaht of the youthfulness of Solomon side by side with the magnitude of the ent.erprise i; store for him. Nervousness, however, does not paralyze David, but does make him thou"htful provident, and careful (as far as he can see the way) to disarm, at all events, th.;' mor~ apparent and threatening dangers. 'l'he remoter, human calculation must fail to gauge, and must leave with humble trust and humbler confession of its own limited powers. Notice in this connection- !. THE BIGN"IFICANT ASSERTION ON THE PART OF DAVID OF Goo's ACT OF CIIOICE. Addressing all the congregation of the people, and consciously facing all the peril3 of the situation-not blinding himself to them nor trying to cloke them from others- David says, "Solomon my son, . . . is yet young and tender, and the work is great;" but in the middle he finds opportunity to insert this snggestive qualification," Whom alone God bath chosen." ,1. God's choice, Goti's call, where they can be truly asserted, are the unchallengeable vindication of whatsoever may seem unusual, unreasonable, even unjust. He has legitimate power over all that he has made. He gives not account to any one of his doings. The things most unexpected are what be fre- quently brings to pass. This is David's tacit answer to all his elder children, if they are murmuring in their hearts; this his pronounced vindication of himself before "all the congregation of the people," if they should censure him, that in one a.ad the samo breath he makes Solomon his chief heir and successor and respon..ible for so ~eat a work, and yet betrays an unfeigned anxiety as to his fitness and competency for the position. It suffices to clear him of the suspicion of an unpaternal partiality, on the one hand, in his family, and in bis nation on the other hand, of a weak and unpatriotic favouritism. 2. God's choice-his call, the persuasion of his decree-is the one source of confidence to the innermost heart of the man, who must o~erwise often be the tor- tured victim of anxiety, of doubt, of mystery. In human life there may often be not one word of worldly wisdom to be urged for a course for which the individual heart never- theless may have not so truly its own reasons as God'a own reasons. The thing that conspicuously fails to justify itself before the eye of the whole world may find its sovereign raison d'etre in what was the dictate of an unmistakable inspiration. The grain of seed was of heavenly sowing. The spot where it fell was lighted by the light of God's eye. The germinating and all the subsequent stages of growth to the very ripening of it were all watched and favoured by Divine tending, 'l'he result is secure. And that result stands good and the fruits of it have spread far and wide, when all tbe criticism with which it was assailed has perished ignominiously. The strength of the martyr has, of course, been rooted in this, and the paradox has been times without number witnessed of the gentlest, meekest, and most self-surrendering standing the strongest, speaking the most dogmatically, and refusing to surrender a jot of what they beld. So with healthiest communication God visits the very heart of mankind, aml in re.aching one so deeply, so surely, influences millions, and colours the complexion of centul'ieY succeeding. Whatever natural apprehension remained now on the mind of David, it WI\S he who most felt of what a load of responsibility he was relieved when he coul<l say of Solomon," Whom alone God hl\th chosen," 3. The conviction of God's ohoice, call, or decree being in question inspires, not force, confidence, comfort only, but also reverence, unquestioning submission, implicit obedience. This proved already by the conduct of David and his own careful exhortation of Solomon and, so to say, educa- tion of him for his future place, is also abundantly evidenced in the tone of his present address to the. people in alluding to the subject. Perhaps no aspect of the character of God given us by revelation has met with more irreverent, sceptical, and quibbling treatment than this from that part of the world "that knoweth not God." Yet, in strictest harmony as it is with all the original facts of the spontaneity of One who mnst needs be a sovereign Cre1tor if he be any at all, the deepest things involved in the choice and the call and the decree of God must be the deepe~t, coolest springs of reverence, resignation, 1\1 d loving obedience to the other part ol \he world. Tt..eu ,re sing-  440 THE FIRS'r BOOK OF TltE CI1RONICLES. [en. xux. 1-30.