We Should Seek, Sing, Give, Remember and Speak
1 Chronicles 16:7-36
This chapter throbs with vital teaching. The song of praise and thanksgiving comes after the Ark of God has found its rightful place “in the midst of the tent that David had pitched for it and after sacrifices had been offered unto God and the people blessed in the Name of the Lord. Thankfulness is sure to come when God has got His rightful place in our life. Let us look at what this song teaches us.
- “Seek the Lord and His strength; seek His face continually”. There is here a threefold object set before the seeker.
- Seek the Lord; seek Him for salvation. He who finds Me, He says, finds life. This is eternal life to know Him.
- Seek His strength for service. They that wait on the Lord shall exchange strength. To them that have no might, He increases strength.
- Seek His face continually for fellowship. To have the light of His face is to have the light of His presence. “Seek and you shall find.”
What should we sing?
“Sing unto Him, sing psalms unto Him”. If all the earth” should sing unto the Lord, how much more so are those who have been redeemed by His Son and strengthened by His grace and Spirit. Those whose hearts are brimful of thankfulness to God are never at a loss to know what they shall sing. They have songs, which can only be sung by lips touched with live coals from the holy altar. They have many psalms to sing unto the Lord: the psalm of deliverance, the psalm of forgiveness, the psalm of peace, another of hope, another of joy and that other, which is the sweetest of all, the psalm of His presence. We would not be asked to sing unto the Lord, if the Lord did not hear and take pleasure in our singing. He hears our singing as well as our praying.
What should we give?
“Give thanks unto the Lord”. “Give unto the Lord Glory and strength”. “Give the glory due unto His Name”. The best thanks we can give to the Lord are to live a life of grateful trust in Him day by day. We give Him “glory and strength” when we act as those who believe in His glory and depend on His strength. We cannot give Him “the glory due unto His Name” by merely talking about it, but by allowing that glory to fill us so that His Name will be glorified in us. “Freely you have received, freely give.” Give out that light and love so freely given in Christ Jesus.
What should we remember?
- “Remember His marvelous works; His wonders”. The Israelites were never to forget the pit out of which they had been dug, nor the manner in which they had been brought out. They were saved by such marvelous works and wonders as can find their only antitype in the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
- “Remember the judgments of His mouth.” Remember His words. The works and words of God our Savior are inseparably bound together. The words of Christ are “spirit and life,” so are His works. The Jews wept when, in their affliction, they remembered Zion; we may rejoice at every remembrance of Christ.
- Remember His faithfulness. “Remember His covenant forever: the Word which he commanded to a thousand generations. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. Remember His covenant of grace in Jesus Christ and reckon on His faithfulness to all His promises. The sin of forgetfulness is a very common one.
What should we speak?
It is well to remember God’s works for us and His words to us, but with the mouth confession is to be made.
- We are to speak to one another of “all His wondrous works”. “They that feared the Lord spoke often one to another and the Lord hearkened and heard.” The conversations of God’s own people with each other are often such as must grieve the heart of the Divine Listener. If the works of our Lord are not really wondrous in our eyes, we shall not be inclined to talk much about them. Let your conversation be as becomes the Gospel that Gospel, which is the greatest wonder in Heaven, earth or Hell.
- We are to speak of “His glory among the heathen; His marvelous works among all nations”. We, who are witnesses unto Him, as our redeeming Lord and Savior, must seek to spread abroad the savor of His saving Name. Fellowship one with another ought to lead up to missionary enthusiasm for the cause of Christ. Blessed are all they, whose consecrated lives sing, this song of thanksgiving.