1 Chronicles 28:9-21 And you, Solomon my son, know you the God of your father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind… These words were not spoken from the death-bed, and yet behind them there is the background of death, judgment, and eternity. When dying men or women are speaking to us we know their words are few and well ordered. Especially so are the last utterances of parents to their children, if there is sufficient strength left of mind and body. In this instruction to Solomon we feel just as if the Spirit of God gave David inspiration. Just as if he looked into Solomon prophetically and saw both his weakness and his strength, words shaped themselves upon David's tongue that exactly fitted the best and worst in the youthful life that lay before him. 1. David felt, "I cannot offer the chart of ray life to my own son when he is beginning his voyage and say, 'Just sail as I sailed,' for if so, he will run on reefs that I was nearly foundering upon, he will run on the quicksands that nearly ruined me." Those lights that lie around our dangerous rock-bound coast are all very fine, and our lighting system is one of the glories of our British commerce. How all our coasts are lighted up at dangerous places at the expense of millions of money spent in building lighthouses, fitting them with the best lights, and keeping efficient men to take charge of them! But take the best of them, and ask any sailor, and he will tell you that five minutes of the sun itself is worth them all together. So it is with the best human testimony, the best earthly wisdom, and the best human experience. What a blessing when we can lift our heads right above it all to the sun that never fails us! "Know thou the God of thy father." 2. See how David recommended his God to Solomon. In Old Testament days to name His name apart from any human qualification and attachment was then something too large, too vague, too profound. But when David speaks of "the God of thy father," how homely it makes God! 3. After all, grace is not an heirloom. It cannot be bequeathed. Solomon had to know God for himself. Of the godly Eli's family it was said, "Eli's sons were sons of Belial." 4. What wonderful instruction in the philosophy of conduct is in religion, if we would only believe Him! Know Him, and let your knowledge be of the practical kind. I said this to my son the other day: "My lad if I were beginning just where you are, and only twelve years of age, if I knew about myself and about what a fool I am at bottom, about how bad I am by nature, and what sin and grace really mean, what the Word of God means, and what Christ means — oh, my lad, if I were back with you, I think I would make more of life than I have done." I think David is saying all that to young Solomon. "If I could begin all over again, Solomon, if I could stand where you are standing, I would make life to mean just one thing — God! God! God! God!" (John McNeill.) Parallel Verses KJV: And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for the LORD searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever. |
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