As we move through 1 Chronicles, chapters 19 – 21 contain stories we looked at in 2 Samuel:
- 1 Chronicles 19 = 2 Samuel 10: Success!
- 1 Chronicles 20 = 2 Samuel 21: Giants! 1 Chronicles skips over the David and Bathsheba affair and Absalom’s rebellion.
- 1 Chronicles 21 = 2 Samuel 24: Lessons from a Hard-To-Understand Chapter (the census)
The takeaway from the ill-advised census story with a pestilence as punishment leads to the site of the new temple:
God then sent the angel to Jerusalem but when he saw the destruction about to begin, he compassionately changed his mind and ordered the death angel, “Enough’s enough! Pull back!” The angel of GOD had just reached the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. David looked up and saw the angel hovering between earth and sky, sword drawn and about to strike Jerusalem. David and the elders bowed in prayer and covered themselves with rough burlap…The angel of GOD ordered Gad to tell David to go and build an altar to GOD on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. David did what Gad told him in obedience to GOD’s command…At this time the Tabernacle that Moses had constructed in the desert, and with it the Altar of Burnt Offering, were set up at the worship center at Gibeon. But David, terrified by the angel’s sword, wouldn’t go there to pray to God anymore. So David declared, “From now on, this is the site for the worship of GOD; this is the place for Israel’s Altar of Burnt Offering.” (1 Chronicles 21.15, 16, 18, 19, 29 – 1 Chronicles 22.1, MSG)
Then we have an example of how we seniors need to be equipping the next generation. David didn’t just choose a site for the temple, he gathered materials:
David ordered all the resident aliens in the land to come together; he sent them to the stone quarries to cut dressed stone to build The Temple of God. He also stockpiled a huge quantity of iron for nails and bracings for the doors of the gates, more bronze than could be weighed, and cedar logs past counting (the Sidonians and Tyrians shipped in huge loads of cedar logs for David). David was thinking, “My son Solomon is too young to plan ahead for this. But the sanctuary that is to be built for GOD has to be the greatest, the talk of all the nations; so I’ll get the construction materials together.” That’s why David prepared this huge stockpile of building materials before he died. Then he called in Solomon his son and commanded him to build a sanctuary for the GOD of Israel. (1 Chronicles 22.2 – 4, MSG)
“If I can’t build the temple, the least I can do is pave the way for Solomon to build the temple.” A good attitude. The elders equipping the next generation? Absolutely!
Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. (Titus 2.3 – 5, ESV)
When I was on church staff back in the early 2000s, I preached the Sunday night service from time to time. It was attended mostly by the older members of the congregation, and once I got a baton (the kind the US men’s 4 x 100-meter team can’t pass!) and talked to them about passing the baton. About helping train their children and grandchildren. Later that week, one of the older men dropped by my office and said something like: “That was a really good sermon Sunday. You need to share that with the younger people.” I said, “I was talking to YOU!” And then I suggested some ways he might become involved with a son who lived in another city.
David took his responsibility seriously. Might we do the same.
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. (Deuteronomy 6.4 – 7, ESV)