2 Chronicles 2:1-18 - Homiletics

This chapter, in a homiletic point of view, invites attention to

Those methods (or some of them) of religious enterprise which go to ensure success and to issue in real usefulness.

For we may notice here—

I. THE REPEATED RECORD , ON THE PART OF SOLOMON , OF HIS RESOLUTION OR DETERMINATION . "Solomon determined." The enterprise "of building a house to the Name of the Lord" had been set before him. He knew it had been in his father's mind. He had heard it in the earnest tones of a father's prayer. He had listened to the urgent, loving, proud tones of a father's charge to a son. He had, no doubt, said "Yes" with lip and heart. But now after coronation, vision, prayer, and gracious promise, he takes up the enterprise, and lifts up the responsibility, and makes the resolution all his own.

II. THE ADDING TO RESOLUTION THE COMMENCEMENT OF ACTUAL WORK . Resolutions there have often been, and strong ones, determinations alike deliberate and enthusiastic, which nevertheless have gone the same way by which, to a proverb, mere good intentions so very frequently go! Solomon's immediate setting to work is by far the simplest, surest safeguard. He makes the preparations nearest to hand, and that were within his own command. He seeks the help of others at a distance, both forecasting his own needs for the work, and also drawing upon memories of his father's doings and his father's experiences.

III. SUCH BEGINNING OF ACTUAL WORK AS WAS PROOF AGAINST THAT FERTILE SOURCE OF FAILURE THAT COMES OF STUMBLING ON THE THRESHOLD . Early disappointments go a long way toward disheartenment. And early disappointments originate most frequently in one or both of two causes—viz, in letting things drift, go by default, or take their own chance; or, on the other hand, in a busy disorder. Many a promising work of a man of good intention has been wrecked in these ways. But here there was order in what Solomon did at home, and distinctness and order in what he asked for far away from home. And it all told. All helped him and his work to find favour with God and man.

Lastly, TWO GREAT TRIBUTARIES TO SUCCESS IN THE MORAL QUALITIES WHICH SOLOMON EXHIBITS , as shown in:

1 . The great respect he has to "the ordinance for ever to Israel," which centred in "the house to the Name of the Lord," to be dedicated to him, with all its various services ( 2 Chronicles 2:4 ).

2 . The humble estimate he rightly entertains of himself, in all comparison of the work which he had to do, and him for whom it was to be done ( 2 Chronicles 2:5 , 2 Chronicles 2:6 ).