Limited permanency.
For the changed locations of the ark, see Bethel ( 20:26, 20:27), Mizpeh, Shiloh, Kirjath-jearim, house of Obed-Edom, Jerusalem. We are often disturbed by the fact that God's promises have a sound of permanency, but that permanency has not been realized, at least in the way in which the realization was expected. There are two things which need to be taken into consideration.
1. The Bible is largely poetry, and the poetry is of the Eastern type, in which there is always an element of intensity and exaggeration. In dealing with all poetry we have to use an answering imagination to that of the writer of it, and so get at what he suggests rather than what he says.
2. It is to be borne in mind that, strictly speaking, the idea of absolute permanency can never be applied to anything created, for every created thing must be dependent on the good will of its Creator. To these considerations a third may be added. The introduction of sin, as human self-will, into the world, has introduced frailty and brevity into everything related to the sinner. The promise of permanence for David's royal house, or for the temple which his son built, was certainly not formally realized. David's dynasty ceased; the Babylonians destroyed the temple. And it was not that the promises were conditional; it was that they were never intended to be permanent. It would not have been the best blessing for the world for David's dynasty or the Solomonic temple to have continued forever, in a literal sense.
I. A THING IS REALLY PERMANENT THAT CONTINUES SO LONG AS IT IS REALLY NEEDED. A thousand things are better passed away when they are done with. Mere length of endurance in time is no necessary blessing to anybody. True permanency is fitting to use. "A man is immortal until his work is done." Then it is best for him to be mortal.
II. A THING IS REALLY PERMANENT THAT PASSES INTO WHAT IT PREPARED FOR. For everything is a matrix, forth from which something comes which is to live and be a matrix in its turn. In one sense everything is destroyed; in another sense nothing is destroyed. We live forever in the great succession of things. Our living force goes into the stream of time, flows on to the ocean of eternity, and can never be lost.—R.T.
HOMILIES BY C. SHORT