A Promise So Big Only Jesus Could Keep It

If you have your Bible, I’d invite you to turn to me to Second Samuel chapter 7 and before we read this great passage let’s look to the Lord together in prayer and ask for His help and blessing.

Our heavenly Father, we do not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God.  The grass withers, the flowers they fade, and they fall, but your Word stands forever.  Sanctify us in truth, your Word is truth, all scripture is given by inspiration and is profitable for teaching reproof, correction, training in righteousness that we may be equipped for every good work so speak Lord, your servants listen, we ask this in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

Second Samuel chapter 7:1. This is the Word of God.  Now when the king lived in his house (pause) there is a play on words with the Hebrew word house in this passage.  It is the word Bayit like in Bethlehem, and in this passage, house will refer to a palace, a temple, and a dynasty.  So just be on the lookout through this passage for that play on words.  Now when the king lived in his house and the Lord had given him rest from all his surrounding enemies, the king said to Nathan the prophet, “See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent.”  And Nathan said to the king, “Go do all that is in your heart for the Lord is with you.”  But that same night the Word of the Lord came to Nathan, “Go and tell my servant David thus says the Lord, would you build me a house to dwell in.  I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling.  In all places where I have moved, with all the people of Israel did I speak a word with any of the judges of Israel whom I commanded to shepherd my people of Israel saying why have you not built for me a house of cedar.”  “Now therefore thus you shall say to my servant David, thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep that you should be prince over my people Israel, and I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you and I will make for you a great name like the name of the great ones of the earth and I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more, and violent men shall afflict them no more as formally from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel and I will give you rest from all your enemies.”  “Moreover the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house when your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers I will raise up your offspring after you who shall come from your body and I will establish his kingdom.  He shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.  I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son.  When he commits inequity I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, but my steadfast love will not depart from him as I took it from Saul whom I put away from before you and your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me.  Your throne shall be established forever.”  In accordance with all these words and in accordance with all this vision Nathan spoke to David.  Amen. 

And thus, since this reading of God’s holy inspired and inerrant Word may he write its eternal truth upon all our hearts.  The Lord’s Words in this passage to David through Nathan his prophet constitute the longest recorded monologue attributed to God since the days of Moses.  So, it’s been 400 years since God has spoken this many Words in a monologue to and through a prophet.  It’s been since the days of Moses.  So, when God speaks a lot of Words, something is up that’s big.  Furthermore, one commentator says this passage arguably plays the single most significant role of any scripture found in the Old Testament in shaping the early Christian understanding of Jesus.  Now that is a big claim, that is a big claim, but I actually think the passage lives up to it.  This is the dramatic and theological center of the books of First and Second Samuel.  This is the high point in David’s life, that ya know, it really doesn’t get better than this moment for David.  In just a few chapters in fact, it will really go downhill.  But this is a high point.  This is one of those times where you wanna go, “Atta boy David”, this is a point of tremendous blessing from God, and this passage is crucial to understanding the Gospel.

Now I’m gonna make another big claim.  I believe that the biggest theological problem in the Old Testament is the seeming failure of two promises made in this passage.  I would argue that the entire second half of the Old Testament is wrestling with have God’s promises to David failed.  Many of the psalms are wrestling with this.  Think of a psalm like psalm 89, psalm 89 is wrestling with the question, Lord you made promises to David, to us it doesn’t look like those promises have been fulfilled.  The historical books, whether it’s Samuel or Kings or Chronicles are all wrestling with that question, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and the minor prophets are wrestling with that question, so the second half of the Old Testament is asking, Lord have your promises to David failed?  And that in and of itself makes this a very important passage for us to study because that problem and the promises that God makes in this passage matter to us as Christians and they teach us important things about the Christian life, but they especially teach us important things about Christ. 

So tonight, I want to draw your attention to three things.  I want you to see a comparison, a condescension, and a covenant.  A comparison versus one to three, David compares his palace to the tent that the ark of the covenant is in.  A comparison and then a condescension, God condescends in his Words to Nathan to explain why he has never asked for a temple.  That’s in verses 4 to 7, and then in verses 8 to 17 the covenant that God makes with David.  Let’s look at that passage tonight.  Let’s begin with verses 1 to 3 and the comparison that David makes.  Now the king lived in his house and the Lord had given him rest from all his surrounding enemies and the king said to Nathan the prophet, see now I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent.  You can imagine David, the kingdom, has been united after years of civil and holy war between the forces of David and the forces of Saul.  David’s capital had been down in the southern country in Hebron, but now the city of the Jebusites, Jerusalem, has been captured, it’s now David’s capital, it’s at a central point that allows the passage from the north to the south of Israel to be much easier, a transit military traffic, etc, the unity of all the tribes is experienced in a greater measure than ever before in the unity of David’s kingdom and he is here and now a palace, a beautiful palace no doubt of stone, but it is lined with cedar which was the most expensive wood that could have been gotten in those days and here’s David in his palace he had been living for years on the fun and he looks out of his window and there’s the tabernacle, and in the tabernacle is the Ark of the Covenant and the Ark of the Covenant is the symbol of it’s the visible sign of the presence of God with his people and David makes a comparison and here’s what he says, ya know, it’s inappropriate that I should be in a more impressive building than God because God is more important than I am.  God is the one who put me here, God’s more important, in other words David is reacting like a shorter catechism boy.  He knows that the chief end of man is to glorify God and he knows that God ought to be receiving more glory than he is receiving and so he says to Nathan, “You know what I wanna do, I want to build a house, a temple for God that is the most important and impressive building in this entire realm because God is more important than anything”, and you just wanna go, “Atta boy David”, because look, when somebody reaches the top.  When somebody makes it to the top you learn a lot about that person, and a lot of times it is not very pretty, but in this case, this is David at his best. 

He is now the king, unquestioned, unchallenged, and yet he’s still humble, and he realizes that God is greater than he is and he wants that to be visibly represented in the structure that the Ark of the Covenant is in, and the answer from God is quite remarkable to this, and this is the second thing that I want you to see.  When he expresses this to Nathan, Nathan says the Lord has been with you everywhere you’ve gone, the Lord is with you.  Go and do all that is in your heart.  And by the way, Solomen will tell us at the prayer of the dedication of the temple that the Lord was pleased by this desire of David to build a temple even though he told him no, David you’re not gonna build a temple, somebody else is gonna build the temple, He was pleased with David’s heart.  And so in response, secondly, I want you to see this condescension in verses 4 to 7.  In response, that very same night the Word of the Lord comes to Nathan and says, “Would you build me a house to dwell in.  I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling ever since my people came out of Egypt and I have never asked anyone to build me a house.”  It is an absolutely stunning response.

Now I use the word condescension and that, I once upon a time was using this as an illustration of condescension and a lady met me at the door after church and she said, “You know usually condescension, when we use that word, it’s not a positive thing.”  And I said, “You’re right, ya know when we say Betty is condescending, we’re not giving Betty a compliment are we?”  Sorry, apologies to the Bettys out there.  When we say Betty is condescending what you’re saying is, Betty thinks she’s better than other people.  But here’s the thing, the only way that God can relate to us is to condescend, and what He says here to David is absolutely stunning.  He says, “David, while my people were living in tents in the wilderness, I want you to notice where I was living.  I was living in a tent right in the middle of them.”  That is a stunning condescension on the part of God.  Our God Isaiah says is high and lifted up, but He dwells near the humble and lowly of heart and when the people of God were wandering in the wilderness living in tents God said, that’s exactly where I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be right in the middle of them.”  And so when John tells you, and by the way we read the passage this morning, when John tells you that the word became flesh and tabernacled among us all he is telling you is that Jesus is just like his father.  The great God of Israel dwelt near and close to His people, He condescended to come down and dwell near to us.  That’s the kind of God we have.  Our God is sovereign and mighty and powerful, he is omnipotent, he is omniscient, he is infinite, eternal and unchangeable, but here’s the stunning thing that God makes clear about himself to David here, our God is humble, and he dwells near His people and it’s a stunning thing for God to say to David.  God says, “David, your desire is good.  Your desire to build me a temple is good, but you need to know something about me, there’s a reason why I have been dwelling in a tent, and that reason is my people have been in a tent and if my people are in a tent I want to be there with them.” 

My friends, that is something that it’s important for you to know about your God today, especially in the hard places of your life.  He is exceedingly near to his people, especially in their trials and their tribulations.  You know those wanderings of Israel in the wilderness and the constant warfare of the days of the judges were not easy days for God’s people and while they were living in tents and on the run, He was there with them.  That’s the kind of God you love, that’s the kind of God you worship, that’s the kind of God our god is.  He’s near to his people.  It’s so important for David to hear that.  It’s so important for us to hear that and then God says something that is absolutely mindboggling.  Look at what he says in verses 8 to 17.  He says, “David, I am going to appoint a place for my people Israel and I’m going to plant them so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more.”  In other words, David I am going to plant my people in the land of Canaan, the land of Israel, and they’re never going to be disturbed again.  They’ve been harried by the Philistines, and they’ve been attacked by enemies.  They’re gonna be planted in the land and they’re never going to be disturbed again.  And then He says to David, “And your house and your kingdom will be made sure forever before me.”  He makes a promise to David that His dynasty is never going to end.  David said, “Lord I wanna build you a house, a temple that’s greater than the house that I live in, a palace.”  And God says to David, “You’re not gonna build me a house, a temple, I’m gonna build you a house, a dynasty, and that dynasty is never going to end.  And interestingly, David’s dynasty lasted about 400 years, which as best as I can tell is the longest reign by a single family in a single capital in the history of the world.  Longer than the great Chinese dynasties, but what happened?

Turn with me in your Bible to the Book of Kings and turn with me to Second Kings chapter 25:7. This is a record of the last king in the Davidic line in Jerusalem, Zedekiah.  Second Kings chapter 25:7. “And they slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, then put out the eyes of Zedekiah and bound him with bronze fetters and brought him to Babylon.”  God promised that Israel would never be disturbed again in the land and that David’s line would reign forever, and then we come to Second Kings chapter 25:7.  What happened, the Babylonians had come against Israel, and by the way I think that this passage and the parallels passages to it suggest that Nebuchadnezzar knew the Davidic prophecies that we’ve been talking about in Second Samuel 7, and he was trying to disprove them and so he takes the last king in David’s line and he does what, he kills his heirs in front of him, and then he puts his eyes out so that the last thing he ever saw was not only the death of his children, but the end of the Davidic line.  And then he does something exceedingly cruel, he doesn’t kill him, he takes him back to Babylon as a prisoner for the rest of his life and of course along with him, who is carried into Babylon, Israel.  Now do you see why the second half of the Old Testament is spent asking the question, Lord what are you doing, you promised David that we would always be in the land and David’s heirs would always be on the throne and now we’re in exile and the line of David is over.  Have God’s promises failed?  And the very first verse of the New Testament begins to answer that question. 

Turn with me to Matthew 1:1. The very first verse of the New Testament says, “This is the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David!  This is the one that God was talking about in Second Samuel 7, not Solomon, Solomon was just a picture of him, Jesus is the son of David.  And by the way, if we were to walk through the Gospel of Matthew and you will be happy to know that I’m not gonna take you through the 28 chapters of Matthew tonight, if we were to walk through every chapter in the Gospel of Matthew except maybe chapter 14 and maybe chapter 17, every single chapter talks about the King and the kingdom, every single one, and what king, what kingdom.  The king and the kingdom of Second Samuel 7, Jesus is the king that God was talking about, his kingdom is the kingdom of heaven.  That’s when he and John said, the kingdom of heaven is at hand, that’s what they meant, the kingdom that God promised in Second Samuel has come near in the person of the king Jesus Christ, but if I could just take you to one passage in Matthew it would be this one.

Turn with me to the end of Matthew chapter 3.  It’s the baptism of Jesus and you’ll remember John was baptizing with a baptism of repentance in his time because Israel needed to repent of their sins.  As the prophets wrestled with have God’s promises failed, one of the things that they emphasize was, no, God’s promises haven’t failed, but we have sinned against His grace, and therefore we have been justly punished for our sin by God sending us into exile and by God ending the Davidic line and therefore the prophet said what the people of God need to do, repent, and notice John’s first message, it’s also in Matthew chapter 3, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.  So, there’s Matthew’s summary of John’s message.  It’s exactly the message of the prophets.  Folks, God’s promises haven’t failed, we’ve sinned, we’ve broken His covenant, therefore we deserve to be punished like we’ve been punished and therefore the only thing we can do is repent and so John’s message is repent, and his baptism was a baptism of repentance, that is it symbolized their need for cleansing from sin.  And so, Jesus comes to John in Mattew chapter 3, he says, “John, I want you to baptize me”, and John goes, “You have got to be kidding.  I need you to baptize me, but there is no way that I am going to baptize you, you’re the lamb of God come to take away the sins of the world, I don’t need to baptize you, you need to baptize me.”  And Jesus says something really remarkable in Matthew 3:15, “Permitted at this time for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”  And then listen to what happens after that baptism.  After being baptized Jesus went up immediately from the water and behold the heavens were opened and He saw the spirit of God descending as a dove and coming upon Him and behold a voice out of the heavens saying, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.”

Now do you remember in Second Samuel 7 that God said this to David, “Your son will be my son.  I will be a father to him, and he will be a son to me.”  Now that’s really remarkable language.  We saw this morning that in the Old Testament Israel collectively was called God’s son, but the only individual in the Old Testament that was ever called the son of God was the Davidic heir and at the baptism of Jesus, God in his own voice says, “This is Him, this is the one I was talking about, Jesus, my son, He’s the one whose kingdom will never ever end.”  And by the way, not only will his kingdom never end, what did he come to do, your pastor read it tonight in John 2.  What did He come to do, He came to build the temple, but the temple was not a temple of stone; Peter says it was a temple of living stones.  Paul talks about that in Ephesians chapter 2, Jesus came to build a house, not of wood, not of cedar, not of stone, but of people from every tribe, tongue and nation.  Men and women and boys and girls built into a spiritual house, He came to build the temple.  He is the one to whom these promises are made, and so it is no wonder that Christians look back at Second Samuel chapter 7 and say, this passage teaches us who Jesus is and what He came to do.  But you might ask me, but what about that language about disciplining Him when He commits iniquity disciplining Him with the stripes of the sons.  Again, Jesus didn’t sin, early Christians said this, “God’s stripes disciplined sinful Solomen, but Jesus’ stripes saved sinners.”  With his stripes we are healed.  He did not sin, but he bore the stripes for our sin as our sinless substitute, and he fulfilled second Samuel 7 in a way that Solomen never could.  In fact, we can say this, Jesus and Jesus alone is the answer to the problem of the seeming nonfulfillment of the promises of God in Second Samuel 7.  He alone is the fulfillment of those promises.

Now there are just a couple of things I want to leave you with to think about tonight.  The first is this, you know how long God’s people had to wait for that promise to be fulfilled, almost 600 years, 586 B.C. Jerusalem falls, and Israel is carried off into captivity into Babylon.  Jesus comes into the world just a little bit before 0 B.C., that would be 4 or so B.C., dies around 30 something B.C.  The people of God had to wait 600 years for the promises of God to be fulfilled.  Some of you have been praying prayers for a long time and you’re still waiting for them to be answered and you’re asking yourself, Lord, are you even listening, will you ever hear me?  There’s a wonderful saying of the black church that goes like this, “He may not come when you want Him, but He’s always on time.”  O friends, that is so good.  God’s time is not our time, but I can promise you this, He will never fail to fulfill His promises to you so persevering saint and you’re wondering whether the Lord is ever going to answer your prayers, you just remember, Daniel was praying for Second Samuel to come to pass, Simeon in the temple was praying for Second Samuel to come to pass.  God’s people prayed for six centuries for God to answer the prayer and God delivered.  So, when we have to wait there’s reason to trust God, but here’s the greatest thing, only Jesus is big enough to have fulfilled these prophecies, only Jesus could have been the answer to this problem and the fulfillment of these promises.  And that’s how the Old Testament cannot make sense without Jesus because Jesus himself said, it’s about me.  So, when we go back and we read our Old Testament let’s remember that Jesus is the only one that can fulfill the promises of God to His people in the Old Testament.  All the promises of God are yea and Amen in Christ, Paul tells us that, and these things were written for our instruction the Apostle Paul tells us in First Corinthians.  So, when you read the Old Testament remember Jesus is the one who fulfills His promises.  Let’s look to the Lord in prayer.

Heavenly Father, thank you for your Word.  We ask that you would bless it to our souls and give us faith Lord to wait in hope and prayer knowing that you will hear us and you will fulfill your promises.  We ask this in Jesus’ name.  Amen.