God’s Perspective on David’s Proposal

the following message by aleister begg is made available by truth for life for more information visit us online at truthforlife.org i invite you to turn with me to 2nd samuel and to chapter 7 and i'm going to read from the first verse to the 17th verse 2 samuel 7 and beginning from verse 1. 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 israel saying why have you not built 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 formerly 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 iniquity 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 how this is the word of the lord thanks be to god eternal god we thank you that our prayer has been sung to you we simply add our amen may it be so that we hear your voice far beyond the voice of any mere man for this is our great need and we pray in christ's name amen well i wonder if we set ourselves the task of putting together a list let's say the top 10 list of what we might regard as the most significant chapters in the bible i would imagine that amongst that list and uh probably we would have a diversity of lists if we all said about it on our own but probably we would have in there uh genesis chapter three the account of the fall of man we'd probably have in it isaiah 53 that great prophetic passage on the atoning work of the son some of us i think would have john 1 others would have john chapter 3 many of us would have romans chapter 8 which shall separate us from the love of god some of us i think would include first corinthians 15 the great chapter on the resurrection and so on many i think would want also to include uh revelation chapter 21 that great and glorious picture of a new heaven and a new earth but i wonder if any of us would actually have included in our top 10 the chapter which we have just begun to read just now second samuel chapter 7. i'm not sure that i would have had it in my list either until i began to study it more seriously in a more focused way i mean i'm familiar with it but i have never actually preached on it and therefore i've never really studied it to the degree that i can and i've been quite staggered to find out how many people of great significance and worth both as bible teachers and as theologians clearly have 2nd samuel 7 in the very heart of that top 10 list our friend john woodhouse says there are few chapters in the bible more important and more exciting than 2nd samuel chapter 7. now i read part of it and you can read the rest of it on your own and you can conclude as you choose uh whether that is hyperbole or whether it actually is the case god's promise to david god's covenant with his servant david in this chapter and you may want just to look down again to verse 16 where god says to david and your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me your throne shall be established forever now we've already alluded to this in our singing this morning where uh in the opening song we sang there david's greater son has fixed his royal throne so we are already giving indication in our singing of our understanding of the significance of what god promises here to david in fact it would be fair to say that what we have here in this chapter is not simply the key to understanding all of first and second samuel as it is but in actual fact here in this chapter you have a key which unlocks the entire storyline of the bible the whole story of the bible and in so far as god's promise to abraham to put together a people of his own then finds its focus and its fulfillment and its reinforcement in david and in his kingship and david in turn points us forward to his greater son namely the lord jesus christ who is the king who has come and who is the king who is coming now all of that is founded in and focused in this particular chapter simon winchester wrote a very helpful book entitled the meaning of everything he was referring to the creation of the oxford english dictionary but in borrowing from that title it is fair for us to say that this chapter 2nd samuel 7 opens the door to the meaning of everything not just the meaning of everything that is in the bible but in the meaning of everything in the entire panoramic history of the world now i can't set it up any better than that this is a major chapter and therefore it is incumbent upon us to take time to study it now of course you mustn't take my word for this uh you need to examine the text on your own and see if these things are actually so we won't go further than the seventh verse this morning and we will look at these first seven verses in two parts first of all in verses one to three what we refer to as david's proposal and then in verses 4 to 7 god's perspective in fact i gave to our study this morning the title god's perspective on david's proposal now you will notice the context is given to us immediately at the top of the chapter now when the king lived in his house and the lord had given him rest from all his surrounding enemies that then is the context for all that takes place if your bible is open as mine you will have before you the 11th verse of chapter 5 when we studied that we noted that hiram the king of tyre sent messengers to david and sent cedar trees and carpenters and masons and they built a house for david and it is this house in which david now finds himself living i think what we're supposed to understand is that at this point in the history of things david is established the battles are over at least for the time being uh the ark which we have just considered has made its way now safely and eventually to jerusalem and the family feuds which have cropped up again and again are behind him for a while and you will notice that in these first three verses he is never referred to as david he's referred to as the king each time now when the king lived in his house verse two and the king said to nathan and nathan said to the king so try and allow this to settle in your mind the lord has now given him rest he is in a secure position he is if you like in a successful spot he's able to reflect on all that has gone before and to realize all the victories and triumphs that he's enjoyed and he recognizes at least the narrator understands that all of this has happened because of the lord's goodness to him and it is his rest the rest of god that he enjoys at this point which of course raises the question how will he cope with this how will david do uh given that he is no longer doing what he's good at doing because we have observed him he's good at running he's good at fighting he's good at hiding he's good in battle and so on but how about sitting how about being settled how about sitting in his house how about being able to look out look back look around and say you know things are actually pretty good at the moment now is it in that context given the person that he is that he finds himself saying you know i think i'm going to have to do something if you're an action kind of person it will be a great challenge to you to learn how to sit it's one of the reasons some of us don't do so well in retirement because now we have been removed from all of the engagement that has given sense and a semblance of order to our very existence and then all of a sudden it becomes somewhat quiet the battles are ore the children have moved on and we find ourselves just sitting across the breakfast table from one another and perhaps at least thinking if not actually saying so what are we going to do now i take it that david was thinking along those lines and that is why he decides that he's going to have to do something and on latisha waring uh wrote a number of hymns nobody really knew much about her she has a wonderful hymn that begins father i know that all my life is portioned out for me the changes that are sure to come i do not fear to see i ask you for a present mind intent on pleasing me and then the third verse and i thought of this verse as i allowed my mind to run along these lines with david she writes i would not have the restless will that hurries to and fro seeking for some great thing to do or secret thing to know now obviously she says i i recognize in myself that there is a sort of incipient tendency to want to charge around here and there and so she says i i don't want to have that kind of restless will that hurries to and fro i don't want to be the person who's always seeking for some great thing to do or to be on the inside of some significant secret now again we just have to let the text say what it says because as the story unfolds and if you know the story you know this is true in relatively few verses we're going to discover if it's in any doubt here that david doesn't do well with downtime david does not do well sitting on the roof looking around and few of us do now this is the context this is the context and the context gives way to this conversation a conversation a dialogue which takes place between the king and nathan and nathan emerges somewhat abruptly here we will see more of him later on but now in this conversation david takes the initiative 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 now what he apparently is doing is sensing the incongruity of this situation we know all that has been involved in bringing the ark from the house of abinadab and so on and into its place in jerusalem in the 17th verse of chapter 6 we were told there that with the dancing and the leaping having taken place verse 17 they brought in the ark of the lord they said it in its place inside the tent that david had pitched for it and there he offered burned offerings and so on and david understood what was being done there that the ark was the symbol of the power and of the presence of god uh through all of the history of the people of god with the tabernacle and the ark contained and the law of god contained in the art all of the people understood what that was about and so it is that david apparently recognizing the disparity between where he's put the ark and where he finds himself he doesn't actually say i want to build a house for god you will notice that no but it is clear by way of inference and we recognize that in the response of nathan initially and then in the clarity of the word of god which comes to david through through nathan now it's quite interesting isn't it i mean if you've been to assisi uh you will have been uh there in that little cave where the little fountain is and the requisite little bird uh where saint francis uh was spending his time and i thought of saint francis here when i realized the inference from the text david says it's somewhat incongruous that i am in this house and the ark of god is in the tent but he doesn't say so i think i shall downgrade myself to a tent now he's not planning on a downgrade for himself but he's planning for an upgrade for the ark now it's not difficult to see the progression here is it first of all the king is in his house he has rest from his enemies everything is settled and yet david himself is unsettled it doesn't really seem right and in that context nathan picking up on what david is inferring says to the king go and do all that is in your heart for the lord is with you go for it you're the man you're the lord's man the lord is with you that phrase of course is going to come again in another context later on now we've no reason to doubt that david's desires and his motives are anything other than good and there is no reason either to assume that nathan's response is anything other than well-meant right nathan is a good man he's a prophet of god and we're going to see later on that he is able to make the tough call that he is able to take on david but perhaps in this instance he's a little too quick to simply affirm the king's proposal i'm sitting here and the ark is over there he says yeah you're the man you're the man that's yeah that's good go for it now i'm indicted i'm in and i'm indebted to my friend ralph davis for a very simple but important observation at this point in his commentary and he says here we ought to acknowledge the limitation of the servants of god the limitation of the servants of god that because somebody is the prophet of god he has limitations so for example we won't go back through the whole of the the chapters that we've done but if you remember eli way way back at the beginning of first samuel in relationship to hannah and you remember that hannah got herself in a dreadful state she was talking and mumbling and crying and she was she was a mess and eli got it wrong and he assumed that she was drunk the servant of god got it wrong samuel got it wrong when he called for the sons of jesse and decided on his own perspective and on his own from his own perspective that eliab was the obvious choice as the king he was wrong david got it wrong you will remember when he decided that the best thing he could do would be to take out nabal and be done with him once and for all and it's and it falls to abigail to intervene on behalf of the husband that she did she couldn't really stand but the point is that in each case the servants of god got it wrong now there is a salary warning in this it is a reminder of what we say to one another regularly at least i hope we do namely that the best of men are men at best the same is true for ladies for women therefore we better choose our heroes carefully and we better resist any tendency to deify those whose ministry we appreciate whose instruction we benefit from and whose prophetic word we pay attention to and the reason for that is because if we get that wrong it will be both harmful to them and of no help to us in another context i would give you chapter and verse i would give you names and i would give you places but you will be applying it in your own mind already here's the facts nathan's support was well-meaning but it was missing god's perspective it is always the perspective of god that we need in relationship to the unfolding of the purposes of god so let's spend the balance of our time then there if the proposal is as we've outlined it what is god's perspective well we come to this in light of all that we've known before you remember uh god says on that occasion when samuel got it wrong that the lord sees not as man sees and of course that was the difficulty there with samuel he looked at it and he said well it makes perfect sense he's tall he's the biggest he's the oldest and so on and therefore it just seems perfectly reasonable that that would be the case and god says no no you've you've got it wrong now as the prophet of god which is what nathan is as the prophet of god he is responsible to understand god's perspective and then convey it to david and of course god is concerned and you will notice verse 4 but that same night in other words immediately the word of the lord came to nathan god has already intervened in the way in which the ark was going to be brought up to jerusalem we saw that last time didn't we i'll just put it on a cart we'll be able to move along directly god intervenes the whole operation is shut down for three months in order that the perspective of god might be clearly discovered now i can just imagine and perhaps you can too that same night the word of the lord came to nathan uh don't you find that uh when the events of the day have begun to dim you reflect on things now it says down in verse 17 that it was in the context of a vision and therefore we understand that but in whatever framework uh it took place nathan uh became aware of the fact that he was actually pretty quick to affirm david in what seemed like an okay plan you got to be careful again when people want to get on your side you have to exercise your own caution sometimes come on you can go for it let's go for it now nathan is in his bed and he's saying to himself as the evening shadows fall and as he ponders that notice the phrase the word of the lord came the word of the lord came came to nathan in a vision verse 17 says but the word of the lord came we don't need to spend our time trying to figure out how it came it is the fact that it came that really matters all right and it came in actual fact that phrase the word of the lord came [Music] only occurs here and in one other place back in first samuel 15 where the word of the lord came to samuel saying i regret that i made saul king it then comes in the final chapter of second samuel here in chapter 24 when god pronounces his judgment on his servant david for having conducted a census which was beyond the the parameters that god had planned so in other words we're supposed to make sure that we understand that this intervention of god in this moment as in the previous situation and in the one that then follows is an intervention in a crucial moment with a vital message it's a crucial moment and it is a vital message i want you to go and tell my servant david thus says the lord thus says the lord now you will notice that he is my servant david he's the king king king in verses one to three he is my servant in verse five what a privilege to be the servant of the lord david understands what a privilege it is by when we get to verse 18 in this chapter david goes in and sits before the lord and he says who am i o lord god and what is my house that you have brought me thus far i i know i know that this is a wonderful thing you remember when the angel comes to mary and announces all that is to happen what is her response behold i am the servant of the lord let it be to me according to your word now he comes now to the servant of the lord with the word of the lord now let's not miss this let's not miss this the role of nathan is not just to affirm whatever david comes up with the role of nathan is to declare the word of god the role of the prophet of god is to speak the word that the lord has spoken get that that the role of the prophet of god is to speak the word that the lord has spoken the prophet does not come up with his own words those were the false prophets no the prophet of god takes what god has said and then says it to the one that to to whom they're sent now if you think about that what does that mean today well what it means today is that the person who exercises if you like a prophetic ministry is exercising a ministry not of ideas that he or she has dreamt up and strange notions that she propounds which is of course not uncommon on religious tv and elsewhere but no it is to take the word of god which has been spoken by god and tell the people what god said that's the role of the prophet to take the word that god has spoken and then to say this is the word that god has spoken so that's that is that is the task of the bible teacher i say uh you you have questions today about life here is the word that god has spoken about death and so on here is the word about marriage about anything here is the word that god has spoken now those who have been effective in bible teaching ministry have understood that just as nathan had to understand it you remember newton of amazing grace in the 18th century and i quote this often because i want to remind myself of it he says to his congregation i counted my honor and happiness that i preached to a free people who have the bible in their hands who have the bible in their hands you cannot have an effect of bible teaching ministry if people don't have their bibles you're not here to listen to somebody come up with a few bright ideas or observations or insights we together are students of what god's word has said the ascended christ has given gifts to the church and part of those gifts are pastors and teachers the role of the pastor of teacher is to go in the kitchen the way somebody goes in the kitchen and work hard with the menu and the food and finally put it on the table in a way that can be edifying and edible and so newton says and so it is ah you have the bible in your hands and to your bibles i appeal i entreat i charge you to receive nothing upon my word any further than i can prove it from the word of god and then he says shouting out from the 18th century from the 1700s he says and bring every preacher and every sermon that you hear to that same standard i'm in a house the ark is over here maybe we ought to do something about that perhaps it's time for me to do something significant immediately that night the word of the lord came to nathan and you go to him and say this is what the lord says god's word nothing more nothing less nothing else now what is it that he says well there's a rhetorical question there at the end of verse 5. would you build me a house to dwell in would you build a house for me it's interesting isn't it because david is actually talking about a place for the ark well how are we to understand that well the lord doesn't even mention the ark he doesn't say are you are you thinking about building a house for the ark now he says would you build a house for me well of course because the symbol is of god's presence and of god's power and the lord is understanding this it was common for pagans at that time and it remains common in cultures of the world for people who are thankful to their gods with a small g to build big edifices as an expression of thanksgiving or to make a statement about their relationship with their gods with a small g but that's not what's going to happen here now what is what is the lord saying here you want to talk about incongruity he says what about this you building me a house to dwell in now of course what happens is that it would not be david that builds any structure but it would be god who makes david a house and we can only mention this and we must return to it because this is part of the key to understanding the whole chapter if you look down at verse 11 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 make you a house would you build a house for me i am the lord who will make you a house now we will never understand this chapter until we recognize the two ways in which house is used house in the mind of david is a place a structure a building god you will notice the lord does not say i will build you a house the lord says i will make you a house and the lord is referring not to a building but to a dynasty he is referring to the house of david he is referring to the house that will be the home ultimately of great david's greater son and so nathan is charged with this responsibility and indeed later on and incidentally there is no mention of temple here there's no mention of temple until after david dies so those of us who've been familiar with reading 2nd samuel 7 and reading into it all kinds of notions and connotations we need to divest ourselves of that for a little while at least to examine the text because you remember even when solomon puts together the temple what does he say he says lord behold heaven the highest heaven cannot contain you how much less the house that i have built would you try and localize me in a building no david i'm i'm going to make a house for you i presume that this was somewhere in paul's mind when he addresses the athenians on mars hill and remember he says to them the god who made the world and everything in it does not dwell in temples made by man nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything you're right david it is an incongruous thought but he says furthermore in verse six think about it i haven't lived in a house since the day i brought up the people of israel from egypt to this day for i've been moving about in a tent for my dwelling i haven't lived in a building he says for the last some 300 years now you remember that the ark of the covenant in the tabernacle a tented space and as the people move as they go in their pilgrim status god he says i haven't been stuck one one place i haven't lived in a house my people have been unsettled why would i settle down when they're unsettled my lord knows the way through the wilderness and all i have to do is follow their strength for today is mine always and all that i need for tomorrow because the lord knows the way through the wilderness how does he know the way through the wilderness because he's gone through the wilderness there's nothing special about this space except that it is a space in which those who are in christ gather in the wonder of the fight that god inhabits all of everywhere and he's as much in your office as in your car as in your bathroom as in your gymnasium as in any other place you're going to build a house for me i will create a house for you why have you never built me a house he says i never once said that verse seven in all the places where i've moved with all the people of israel let me ask you a question and incidentally this is the word of the lord in the vision to nathan in the night nathan is proceeding saying all of this and now he's going to say it to david in all the places where i moved with all the people of israel think about it did i speak a word with any of the judges of israel whom i commanded to shepherd my people saying why have you not built me a house of cedar he says no i never ever did i never did it now in light of that verse 8 now therefore thus shall you say to my servant david now he's going to take it on from here and and we'll stop here but you'll notice if you read ahead all of the initiative comes from god immediately thus says the lord of hosts i took you verse 9 i've been with you verse 9b i will make you in other words if we put it just in common terms david there's no reason for you to sit around in that place that the king of tyre is built for you trying to figure out some way that you can do something for me it's an insult to even consider it but david remember you were a shepherd boy and i came for you you were a weak kneed rascal and look at what i've done with you here is the wonder of it all your significance lies in the fact that you're my servant and what he's going to go on to do is to say once you understand this perspective then you will be able to rest in my promise a promise that as i said to you at the beginning and conclude now in the same way a promise such a promise that it shapes human history such a promise that it extends from eternity to eternity for god determines i will have a people who are my very own he calls abram out of the hour of the caldis a pagan family and he says and you out of your seed the nations will be blessed you fast forward all through time and now he says to david and david you in this great panorama of my purposes i will make for you a house and on your throne will set one who will reign forever and ever and ever if you've ever sung the messiah on a christmas week and you've said yourself what is it i'm singing here and he shall reign for ever and ever and he shall reign forever and ever who is this it is the one who is promised in second samuel chapter seven understand everything in light of this the departure of one president the arrival of another the in the european union are out of the european union the great missiles that are pointed towards us from north korea the issues of iran the concerns of the middle east everything everything is actually framed by this chapter that most of us would never ever have considered for a moment to put in the top ten of significance david had a good idea but it wasn't what god had in mind david wanted to do something significant but his significance was in being god's servant what was the significance of a donkey you ever think about the donkeys in jerusalem if that one donkey was like hey you know i'm a very special donkey what are you yeah what made him special the one who was writing on his back no his significance is in his servitude and let me just say to you let's be cautious when it comes to our instincts and our initiatives christian discipleship is not a glandular condition god is not in need of our ideas he's not in need of our agendas he doesn't need for us to sit in our settled condition dreaming up plans god sets the program god establishes the agenda and god will be glorified in it all think about all the years that are represented leading up to this moment in 2nd samuel 7. think about all the years that are represented in the history of christianity in the united states think about those who come behind us it's a strange thought isn't it that if we really want to do a good turn for our children and our grandchildren we better make sure that we help them to understand ii samuel chapter 7 who would ever have imagined such a thing oh god we want to be students of your word we want to be servants of your word we want to be those who set aside our own plans and our agendas no matter how bright our ideas may appear to be and no matter how many people tell us that they're a good idea god grant to us your perspective grant that we might rest in your promises that we might covet your presence no matter where we are or how we are thank you for watching over your people thank you that you have plans and purposes for ordained still for your people thank you for your word amen this message was brought to you from truth for life where the learning is for living to learn more about truth for life with alistair begg visit us online at truthforlife.org

Channel: Alistair Begg

Views: 12,759

Rating: 4.8965516 out of 5

Keywords: Biblical Figures, Character of God, God’s Word, Service, Sovereignty of God, King David

Id: EiIY9xgEXtM

Length: 45min 14sec (2714 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 27 2021