1 Chronicles 9:23-34 So they and their children had the oversight of the gates of the house of the LORD, namely, the house of the tabernacle, by wards.… The point of interest in these verses is the extreme care given to securing quietness, regularity, order, and due solemnity in God's worship. A point emphasized by the apostle in his counsel to the early Christian Church, "Let all things be done decently and in order." The order of God's house has this for its special mission, that it declares, realizes, and illustrates the Divine order in creation, providence, and redemption. "Order is Heaven's first law;" and it is the necessary attendant on truth, purity, almightiness, and the eternally right. So if man, in any of his spheres, can present a worthy picture or shadow of the Divine, one of its essential features must be orderliness, and such orderliness will prove to be witness and power. I. ORDER REGARDED AS A SIGN OF OBEDIENCE. Since it is God's will that everything should have its fitting place and be in that place, our setting things right becomes a sign of our true-hearted obedience to him; and the securing of order gains moral quality, and becomes an agency in the culture of character. II. ORDER REGARDED AS A SIGN OF SYMPATHY OF FEELING WITH GOD. Not merely have we to concern ourselves with it as our duty, but, from a higher standpoint of kinness with God and fellowship with his mind, we want what he wants, we love what he loves, and we try to get our works in full harmony with his. We would have heaven and earth ring together the same sweet note. III. ORDER REGARDED AS OUR WITNESS AGAINST THE DISORDER OF SIN. If we have rightly caught the redemptive spirit, then we shall be oppressed and troubled by the disorders caused by sin, whatever forms they may take, and we shall ever be striving to reach them that we may set them straight. Therefore Christians enter as remedial and recovering forces into all family life, social life, business life, and national life; everywhere seeking to get things out of the disorders of evil, and set in the eternal order of righteousness. And in Christ's Church and Christ's worship the devoutness, regularity, and beauty of a gracious order should make a striking contrast with the restless, anxious, disordered world around. Men should find heart-rest in God's sanctuary. IV. ORDER REGARDED AS A MORAL FORCE IN THE WORLD. For what does it plead and work? For (1) stillness; (2) forethought; (3) grace of form; (4) due relations of office. But under ordinary human conditions even "order" has its perils. It may come to be sought for its own sake and not merely for its uses. It may come to supersede "life" and even to crush "life" out, as has been proved in the over-elaboration of Church ceremonial. Two things are essential to true and worthy human worship. They are fully compatible one with the other. The culture of each may run along with the culture of the other. Nothing can supersede "life;" but order may be fully developed so that it may worthily express "life." - R.T. Parallel Verses KJV: So they and their children had the oversight of the gates of the house of the LORD, namely, the house of the tabernacle, by wards. |
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