Read: 1
Chronicles 28 and 29.
These chapters bring into view something which,
in its realization, is the solution to all our problems and the
deliverance from all our difficulties. In a word, that
‘something’ is spiritual enlargement. Most of our
troubles are due to our smallness. Paul recognized that
enlargement was the solution to those very great problems at
Corinth, and you know what the problems were and the difficulties
which confronted him. At length he gathered all up in one
full-hearted outburst: “Our mouth is open unto you, O
Corinthians, our heart is enlarged. Ye are not straitened
in us, but ye are straitened in your own affections. Now
for a recompense in like kind... be ye also enlarged” (2
Corinthians 6:11-13). That was only an inclusive and
comprehensive way of saying: ‘All these things which are
such troubles amongst you, such problems, such difficulties, are
due to your smallness; if only you were bigger people so many of
these things would disappear altogether. The way out is
enlargement!’ It is true so often that the collapse of
things in different realms has been because there was no one big
enough to cope with them. If only there had been someone of
adequate measure to grapple with it, the situation would have
been saved. This is a day when all sorts of maladies are
troubling the Church and upsetting Christianity. We need
not mention them, for we are conscious of them, but they are
mainly due to a lack of spiritual greatness, or, to put it again
the other way, they are due to pettiness and smallness. The
only way out is enlargement, a new horizon, and a new sense of
the greatness of that into which we, as Christians, are
brought. But unfortunately today, in so many directions,
the only bigness amongst Christians is that which is according to
the world’s standards of bigness, and not the Lord’s
standards.
Now, in these Scriptures there are four great
things. We might call them: ‘The Four Pillars of the Faith,’
‘The Four Greatnesses,’ and we have covered them all in
the two chapters which we have just read. In type and
principle they are:
the Greatness of Christ,
David’s greater Son;
the Greatness of the Cross, as suggested by
the altar and the immensity of the collective
sacrifice;
the Greatness of the Church, the House of
God; and
the Greatness of the Word of God, indicated
in these chapters at two points. Firstly, Solomon’s
greatness was said to depend entirely upon his faithfulness
to the Word of God; and, secondly, David, in committing
the pattern of the House to Solomon, said that he had
received it all in writing from the Lord—it was the Word
of God governing.
Those are the four great things of the
Scriptures.