CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.—
1 Kings 8:14. King turned his face about—with his back upon the people; he and they had been watching the movements of the glory cloud; now he faced the awed concourse 1 Kings 8:15-21 contain Solomon’s address to the people, who listen standing, in which the king gratefully records that he undertook and completed the temple in obedience to Jehovah’s word. 1 Kings 8:22-53. The Royal Prayer of Dedication—“Solomon stood before the altar” on a brazen platform erected for the occasion (2 Chronicles 6:13) in front of the altar of burnt offering; there, too, be knelt (1 Kings 8:54), and with uplifted hands (1 Kings 8:22) presented this sublime prayer before Jehovah.
HOMILETICS OF 1 Kings 8:14-21
THE JOY OF AN ACCOMPLISHED PURPOSE
The human mind abhors incompleteness. When Charles Leslie died, he left upon his easel an unfinished painting of Titania, from the Midsummer Night’s Dream, that was to be another pictorial realization of Shakespearian creations with which the fame of Leslie is inseparably connected. But the busy brain ceased to work, the pencil dropped from the facile fingers, and the deserted fragment retains but a dim promise of the artistic genius which the completed picture would have revealed. It is impossible to gaze upon an incomplete work like that without feeling disappointment and regret. The crumbling ruins of a structure that was once complete is more satisfying to the mind than an unfinished building abandoned to decay without having served any useful purpose. How great, then, is the joy of seeing accomplished a purpose which has cost so much anxiety and thought, and which has been in progress for years! Such a joy was realized by Solomon at this time, when he witnessed the greatest work of his life completed, and that it was accepted of God. Observe—
I. The joy of an accomplished purpose is expressed in devout thanksgiving (1 Kings 8:14-15). The heart of the king was full of joyous gratitude, and under its influence he blessed the people, and blessed the Lord God of Israel. Sharing in the gladness and solemnity of the occasion, the whole congregation stood up, as if eager to receive the benediction. The first moments of a realized good, long hoped and worked for, are full of unutterable emotion. The ecstacy is sometimes fraught with peril. In his last days the Venerable Bede was engaged in a translation of the New Testament on which he had set his heart. He dictated to one of his disciples the last verse in the Gospel of John. “It is finished, master,” said the scribe. “It is finished,” replied the dying saint. “Lift up my head, let me sit in my cell, in the place where I have so often prayed. And now, glory be to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.” And, with these words, as if the rapture of having accomplished a patiently prosecuted purpose was too much for him, his spirit fled. It is said, on one occasion when Sir Isaac Newton was engaged in some calculations to prove the extent of his elaborated theory of terrestrial gravitation, that, as he drew to the close and foresaw the absolute certainty of the theory they would inevitably prove, he became so agitated that he was obliged to desire a friend to finish them. A genuine joy overflows in thanksgiving.
II. The joy of an accomplished purpose is intensified by a review of the varied steps by which it is consummated (1 Kings 8:15-21). These verses contain an appropriate narration of the most interesting facts connected with the planning and building of the temple, and without such narration the services of the dedication would have been incomplete.
1. This purpose was divinely suggested. “The Lord God of Israel spake with His mouth unto David my father” (1 Kings 8:15). Our best thoughts and holiest inspirations come from God: and the most successful work in connection with His Church is that which is done on the lines projected by His Word. Moses was directed to build the Tabernacle according to the pattern showed him in the Mount (Hebrews 8:5).
2. Its accomplishment was greatly needed. For years the ark was migratory, and Jehovah had no settled place for His worship. Under a theocratic government it was important there should be some spot specially set apart in which the Lord could record His name. Jehovah first chose the person who should rule His people, and then put it into his heart to build a house for His worship (1 Kings 8:17). If any other city than Jerusalem had been divinely chosen for the Temple, then this would be regarded as a usurpation. But it is expressly stated that God “chose no city to build an house” (1 Kings 8:16); therefore, there was the more urgent need for the building of this.
3. It was cherished by one who was not permitted to carry it out (1 Kings 8:17-19). It was the life-purpose of David to build a temple for Jehovah, and he made extensive preparations accordingly. It would have been an unspeakable joy to him had he been permitted to build and consecrate the temple; and the occasion would have called into exercise the highest genius of his poetic nature. But this honour was denied him; partly, because the ancient nomadic form of worship was not yet to be abandoned; and because the wars of David unfitted him to be the founder of a seat of peaceful worship (2 Samuel 6:6; 2 Samuel 6:11; 1 Chronicles 22:8). But a solemn assurance was given that his dynasty should last for ever to continue the work: and the glory of building and consecrating the most celebrated temple of antiquity fell to the lot of Solomon (2 Samuel 7:13; 1 Chronicles 22:9). Jehovah approved and accepted the good intentions of David, though he did not permit him to put them into execution. This Divine approval was implied by God’s acceptance of the design, with only the difference that it should be executed by the son instead of the father, and also by the various promises by which He rewarded the pious wish of His servant (2 Samuel 7:10-16).
4. It was brought to its final accomplishment by Divine assistance. “The Lord hath performed His word that He spake” (1 Kings 8:20), “Hath with His hand fulfilled it” (1 Kings 8:15). Solomon was the instrument; but Jehovah, as in all truly great enterprises, was the moving power. The son was but completing the plan which had been preconceived and arranged by his father. It is instructive to observe how the unfinished works of a previous age are continued and completed by succeeding generations. M. Lesseps, in constructing the Suez Canal, has only completed the work commenced by Pharoah-Necho; while the Mount Cenis engineers, in tunnelling a way though the Alps, have finished the work of Hannibal. The Pacific Railroad, and the new line of steamers from Hong Kong to San Francisco, have accomplished the grand vision of Columbus of a direct trade between Europe and Asia by the Western, instead of the Eastern route. Russia, by her present efforts to make Sarmacand a great centre of traffic, is filling in the grand outline bequeathed to her by Tamerlane; while, by choosing the Oxus as the great commercial highway of Central Asia, she is merely treading in the footsteps of Alexander the Great. Every age has its own special mission; and it should strive to maintain and extend the civil and religious blessings handed down to it by our suffering and heroic forefathers. The Divine side of the work remains unchangeably the same. God never yet “suffered His faithfulness to fail, nor altered the thing that went out of His mouth” (Psalms 89:33). Witness the constant and concurrent experience of saints in all ages—not one instance to the contrary.
III. The joy of an accomplished purpose is based on the assurance of its harmony with the Divine covenant (1 Kings 8:21). The tables of stone laid up in the ark were enduring witnesses of the covenant into which Jehovah had entered with His people. The erection and consecration of the Temple was another evidence of the faithfulness of God to His part of the covenant; and this thought would augment the joy of Solomon on the occasion. There can be no solid satisfaction in doing anything that we know is not in harmony with the Divine will: Whatever good we do, we must look upon it as the performance of God’s promise to us, rather than the performance of our promise to Him. The more we do for God, the more we are indebted to Him; for our sufficiency is of Him, and not of ourselves.” We have more need to be concerned about our own fidelity than that of God.
LESSONS:—
1. No purpose can prosper that is not conceived in a humble and grateful spirit.
2. It is an unspeakable privilege, and a great responsibility, to be allowed to take any part in the work of God.
3. The joy of an accomplished good outweighs the suffering and toil encountered in its achievement.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
1 Kings 8:16.—The choice of God is no blind preference of one and prejudice against another, but aims at the salvation of both. As from amongst all nations He chose Israel for its salvation, so out of all the tribes of Israel He chose the city of David for the blessing of the whole kingdom.—Lange.
1 Kings 8:17. How many individuals, as well as whole congregations, have the means and the power wherewith to build a church, to repair a ruinous one, or to enlarge one which has become too small; but nothing can be further from their mind.
1 Kings 8:18. Unrealized ideals not useless.
1. The character of an individual life is influenced and shaped by the ideal after which it continually aspires.
2. The ideal of a holy and useful life should be constructed in harmony with the requirements of the Divine will.
3. If the ideal of life is not realized, the effort after its attainment will confer a reflex benefit on the sincere aspirant.
4. Ideals of goodness, though unrealized, call forth the Divine commendation.
5. Unrealized ideals in the present life become the bases of still loftier ideals in the future.
—He who purposes to do a good work, but is hindered therein not by his own fault, but by Divine decree, has yet “well done.” God regards his intentions as the deed itself.
—On maintaining a high ideal.
1. By a high ideal is meant, not something vast and vague and unattainable, but what each, by God’s help, in the full development of his own nature, may attain. To aim at less would be to be sluggish, undutiful, unfaithful. To aim at more would be to enter the mist, and become unreal. Speaking generally, it will be found that whatever can be intelligently and conscientiously aimed at, can be attained. In the very ideas we entertain, and in the endeavours we make, God gives us the assurance that what we thus think of and strive after may be attained. It was the notion of Plato that each individual human creature is an offspring or product of an eternal form or idea in the Divine mind. Something of this kind must be supposed in reason: something of this kind is indeed taught by the Christian revelation. God thus, as we may say, keeps the secret of every life, its true image and proportions, and opens that secret to each as he comes to Him. He has a picture in his own mind of which each may be, through His grace, a living reflex. O beautiful, inspiring thought! touching us with fear, and yet raising us to rapture—that each of us can find himself truly, only in his God, and that the discovery is certain to be eternal advancement and salvation.
2. To maintain the ideal high, we must be continually striving to enlarge it. Our moral conception of our own proper nature must either grow larger and more luminous, or fade down into narrowness and darkness. Nothing on earth, mental or material, can continue in one stay. There is a sense in which our best thoughts and noblest purposes are passing away and dying; and our only safety lies in raising still better thoughts and still nobler purposes from the ashes of those that have died. Swift and subtle and sure is the passing away of our most etherial thought, our most glowing emotion. Swift and sure also is the reproduction and expansion of them, so that while there is dying and coming into life perpetually, there shall yet be to our consciousness only an unbroken continuity, and a going on of our life from strength to strength.”
3. In seeking to maintain and still enhance this spiritual and great idea of our own life, we shall be much assisted by an assured belief that it is the very thing which God wishes and will help us to realize and be. If God will not help us in this by the breath of His own infinite sympathy, by the uplifting of the light of His countenance upon us, our life is indeed a dark and hopeless thing. It never can expand into summer breadth and beauty. How it pleases a father, or a strong elder brother, to take the hand of some youthful climber and help him up the rocks and along the giddy and perilous ridge towards some sunny and safe elevations of the mountains! Will it please the Heavenly Father less to help those who, already called and quickened by His grace, are aiming, as they can, after entire conformity to the very image of their Father?
4. If we would maintain a high sentiment and a pure idea about our own life, we must learn to believe in the actual goodness of others as well as in the possible growth of our own. To use technical but perfectly appropriate language, we must learn to believe that God has a people in the world. Look for goodness, and it will shine out upon you, unless you yourself are evil. Look for the love and tenderness of Christ, which yet are found in so many human hearts, and you will soon be refreshed by the breathing of that love and tenderness as though He Himself were near.
5. The contemplation of goodness in others will be found, in the case of most young persons, to operate powerfully in the same direction—towards raising and keeping the standard and tone of life pure and high. Nothing touches life so deeply and sensibly as life. Nothing moves it to finer issues. Is it not certain that, looking, we shall become like? being changed by the subtle, benignant laws of grace into the same image we thus see and admire—“from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
6. Above all, we must maintain a constant, vital connection—a connection by faith, love, admiration—with Jesus Christ. None among us, old or young, can maintain a high ideal of our life without Him. We need Him—for our reverence and for our admiration, and for our enthusiasm and for our love! and for our frailties, oh! how much! and for our great unworthiness. A human life is simple, pure, and high, when it is a “growing up into Him in all things who is the head.”—A. Raleigh (condensed from the Sunday Magazine for 1873).
1 Kings 8:20. The fairest prerogative of him whom God has placed upon a throne is, that he has power to work for the glory of God’s name, and to watch over the extension of the Divine Kingdom amongst His people. Every son who succeeds to the inheritance of his father should feel obliged, first of all, to take up the good work whose completion was denied to his father, and perfect it with love and zeal.—Lange.