April 18, 2025 - 1 Chronicles 17-20

David wanted to build a house, a building, a temple, to house the ark of the covenant.  The Lord said to him, “It is not you who will build me a house to dwell in.  For I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up Israel to this day, but I have gone from tent to tent and from dwelling to dwelling.  In all places where I have moved with all Israel, did I speak a word with any of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people, saying, ‘Why have you not built me a house of cedar?’” (17:4-6).  How silly to think that God needs a physical dwelling place on earth, the God who called the earth all that is into existence with a word!  David’s son, Solomon, indeed did build the temple but as a place where the people of Israel could come and meet with God and worship and remember.  The people of Jeremiah’s day thought the temple itself was key to their blessing.  Jeremiah responded, “Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord’” (Jeremiah 7:4).  It is good that Israel had a place they could gather and worship and hear from God.  It is good that we have such places.  But, at the end of the day, those are just places.  It is in God that we trust.  It is in him that we hope.  It is in him that we rest.

How great a being, Lord, is thine,

which doth all beings keep!

Thy knowledge is the only line

to sound so vast a deep.

Thou art a sea without a shore,

a sun without a sphere;

thy time is now and evermore,

thy place is everywhere.   --John Mason (1906)