The following message by Alistair Begg is
made available by Truth For Life. For more information visit
us online at truthforlife.org. And I invite you to turn with
me to 2 Samuel and to chapter 7, and we’ll begin reading at the eighteenth
verse. Two Samuel 7 and reading from verse 18: “Then King David went in and sat before the LORD
and said, ‘Who am I, O Lord GOD, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far? And yet
this was a small thing in your eyes, O Lord GOD. You have spoken also of your servant’s
house for a great while to come, and this is instruction for mankind, O Lord
GOD! And what more can David say to you? For you know your servant, O Lord GOD! Because of
your promise, and according to your own heart, you have brought about all this greatness, to make
your servant know it. Therefore you are great, O LORD God. For there is none like you, and there is
no God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears. And who is like your people
Israel, the one nation on earth whom God went to redeem to be his people, making himself a name
and doing for them great and awesome things by driving out before your people, whom you redeemed
for yourself from Egypt, a nation and its gods? And you established for yourself your
people Israel to be your people forever. And you, O LORD, became their God. And now, O LORD
God, confirm forever the word that you have spoken concerning your servant and concerning his house,
and do as you have spoken. And your name will be magnified forever, saying, “The LORD of hosts
is God over Israel,” and the house of your servant David will be established before you.
For you, O LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, have made this revelation to your servant,
saying, “I will build you a house.” Therefore your servant has found courage to pray this
prayer to you. And now, O Lord GOD, you are God, and your words are true, and you have
promised this good thing to your servant. Now therefore may it please you to bless the house
of your servant, so that it may continue forever before you. For you, O Lord GOD, have spoken, and
with your blessing shall the house of your servant be blessed forever.’”
Amen. And we ask God’s help as we come to the Bible:
Father, we come now, saying, “Speak, Lord, to us through your Word.” We recognize that you
speak to us through what you have already spoken. And so we pray for help, that we
might both understand and believe, and live in the light of the truth that is here
in the Bible. For we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen. Well, we resume our studies at the
eighteenth verse. Some of you will remember how we struggled all our way through the
first seventeen verses but eventually got there. I think it’s appropriate for us to be
reminded of what we have said as a kind of gateway into our study of 1 and 2 Samuel—indeed,
into a study of all of the Bible, and particularly the Old Testament. And I’m referring
to Paul’s statement in Romans 15:4, where he says, “Everything that was written
in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement
of the Scriptures we might have hope.” “Everything.” So in other words,
it is a comprehensive statement. “To teach us.” This is Paul writing in the first
century about all of the material that has gone before. And he is saying to those who are the
initial readers of his letter to Rome, “All that material was written not only for its impact upon
the moment and the day and the time but in order that it might teach us”—and teach us this morning;
and that the material that has been granted to us is of an intensely practical dimension,
insofar as it is to bring about endurance, so that we can keep going, and encouragement,
so that we might life hopeful lives. And our conviction as we study the Bible
together, of course, is that God himself encourages us, each of us. The encouragement comes
from God through the living Word of Scripture as God continues to speak to us through what he
has spoken to us—that what he has spoken to us we now have in our Bibles, and we turn to our Bibles,
and we say, “Speak, LORD, for your servant hears.” Now, that this is so comes across quite forcibly
in a phrase that you will notice at the end of verse 19, where David says, “This is instruction
for mankind.” “This is instruction for mankind.” We won’t delay on that now, but we will come
to it as we work our way through these verses. The chapter, you will recall, began with the
desire on the part of David to build a house for God. He was living in a nice spot, and the ark
was in a tent, and so he said, “I think it would be good if we did something a little better.”
You will recall that that request was denied him, and yet, despite the fact that he is not going
to do this, the word of God comes to him through the prophet (that is, through Nathan) that the
Lord—and I’m referring to the eleventh verse now—that “the LORD will [build] you a house,”
or “the LORD will make you a house.” So, “David, you’re not gonna make a house for God, but the
Lord is going to make you a house.” And we’ve noted already how that word “house” comes again
and again; how it refers not sometimes to the physicality of a dwelling but to a dynasty and so
on. And then in the sixteenth verse, that house, “your kingdom shall be made sure forever before
me. Your throne shall be established forever.” Now, we make reference to that because it
is important to recognize that all that now follows here in the prayer that David prays
is triggered by all that has gone before in the word that has come to him through Nathan
the prophet. And you’ll see that in verse 17: “In accordance with all these words, and
in accordance with all this vision, Nathan spoke to David.” So the words that were spoken by
Nathan painted, if you like, or created a picture. And it was as he heard God’s word to him
through the prophet that he was enabled, then, to see things which he would never have seen by
any other means. Now, if you think about that—and again, we won’t delay here—the same is true
for us: that it is as we hear the word of God that we then see things in a way that we would
not see things were it not for what it is we hear. Then we come to verse 18, which
begins, interestingly, with “Then…” “Then,” we’re told, after all of this,
“David went in and sat before the LORD.” Now, presumably he went into the tent—the tent that
has been mentioned back at the very beginning of the chapter. You will remember that it says
back there, if your Bible opens in that way, he was… “See now, I dwell in a house of cedar,
but the ark of [the Lord] dwells in a tent.” And now here he is, sitting “before the
LORD.” It may be of passing interest to you that that is the same verb that is
used both of “dwell” and of “sitting.” So, having heard from God, he now speaks to God.
First he listens to God, and then he responds in prayer. This, of course, is the pattern of
prayer throughout the story of God’s dealings with us. The hymnwriter helps us by saying that
“prayer is the soul’s sincere desire, uttered or unexpressed,” so that when we think in terms
of our response to God, when we think of that in terms of prayer, we ought not to think of it
in a formulaic way or even in a way that demands that our language and the process of our speech is
ordered in just a perfect fashion, but in the same way that you’re able to sit in the presence—as a
child, perhaps—with your father or even with your mother, and you don’t have to actually say very
much, but you are able simply to engage with them. And so it is that David sits. He “went in”
purposefully “and sat before the LORD.” One of the ways that we could summarize these
verses all the way to the end of the chapter is to view David first of all as sitting
in the Lord’s presence, and then, secondly, as standing on the Lord’s promise. Sitting
in God’s presence, standing on God’s promise. We’re not going to approach it in that way,
but I think it is one way to summarize it. Instead, I want to employ four words
to help us through at least the opening section of the prayer. We won’t, today, get
through all of these verses to verse 29. And in order to help us remember the
four words that we’re going to use, I created an acrostic so that we can perhaps
remember it, because the words are very similar to each other. The acrostic is this: Eat Out
Every Day. Eat Out Every Day. All right? And that gives us, with the first letter of each of those
words, the first letter of the four words that I’m going to give you—which actually sounds a lot
more confusing, and I wish I hadn’t mentioned it. David’s Exclamation
But anyway, here is the first of the four words: the first word is exclamation. Exclamation:
“Then King David went in and sat before the LORD and said, ‘Who am I, O Lord GOD, and what
is my house, that you have brought me thus far?’” Now, you’re looking at the text, and
you’re saying to yourself, “Well, why do you say exclamation? Isn’t it actually
a question?” Well, of course, it is a question, and you will notice that in our English text,
there is a question mark at the end of verse 18. But I take it that it is rhetorical—in other
words, that David is not actually asking for an answer to this question; that at least,
I think, in the early part of this prayer (and it may not be true the whole way through),
we’re actually eavesdropping. We’re eavesdropping on private prayer. We’re given the privilege now
of going into a place that few of us will ever get in the lives of each other. I don’t know
how you begin your day. I don’t know whether you pray on your knees or standing up. I don’t
know. And you don’t really know about me either. And so it’s a very special thing when we’re able
to go behind the scenes and enter into the life of the servant of God as he turns to the living God.
Murray M’Cheyne is the one who has reputedly given this quote: “A man is what he is on his
knees before God; that he is, and nothing else.” That statement would be true of a woman: “A
woman is what she is on her knees before God; this is what she is, and nothing else.”
In other words, the reality of our lives, exposed before the living and true God, is
nowhere made clearer than in that place where we engage with God, as we find David doing here.
What is this man, then, if a man is what he is in this way? What about David, the man? What do we
know about him? Well, those of you who have a good memory will remember that we were introduced to
him as being “handsome” and with “beautiful eyes.” We know that he was chosen by God. We
know that he was anointed by Samuel. We know that he defeated Goliath. We know that he
is the king in Jerusalem. In other words, we know all these things about him. And we know, too, that
he had plenty of reasons for making the mistake of thinking of himself more highly than he
ought. After all, his CV is pretty good: not only handsome, not only chosen, not only anointed,
not only victorious in battle, and so on. And as we sneak in, as it were,
to this very secret moment—as we peek in on it—we listen to him as he
makes this exclamation: “Who am I, O Lord? O Lord God, who am I that you have brought me
to this place? O Lord God, why have you showered your blessings on someone as insignificant
as me?” You see, he views himself—himself, first of all—as undeserving. And he recognizes
also that he comes from an undistinguished family; that his perspective on his own life before the
greatness of God is such that he is humbled. He’s not walking around cocksure of himself. He’s not
presenting himself as some peculiar individual. No, he recognizes that that is not the case.
After all, in verse 8, he knows this. Nathan was given the charge to say to David in his
disclosure, verse 8, “[This] you shall say to my servant David, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts,
I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep.’” That’s where he came from. And not
only did God take him, but God kept him. Verse 9: “And I have been with you wherever you went and
[I] have cut off all your enemies … before you.” The God who takes is the God who also keeps. David
in one of his psalms will write about how the Lord is the one who watches over his going out and his
coming in, “from this time forth,” says David, and even “forevermore.” “I lift … my eyes to the
hills,” he says. “Where does my help come [from]?” Well, you see, his prayers are true to his
life. If you go back to the Goliath scene, you will remember that Goliath says to him, “You
coming out to me… Do you think I’m a dog, you coming at me with stones and sticks and things?”
And you remember what he says: “I come to you in the name of the living God.” That’s where his
confidence lies. And so we’re told that David has become greater and greater because the Lord of
hosts was with him. In short order, he is where he is, in this “house of cedar,” by divine enabling,
and not on account of his own genius—or not on account, ultimately, of his own human endeavor.
Now, let’s just pause and acknowledge something: Every single one of us in Christ may say the
same thing. We are where we are not as a result of peculiar gifts and worthiness. That’s why we
sang the song: “My worth is not in what I own.” My worth is not in who I am. My worth is not in
me. This, you see, is what David is pointing out. It’s quite remarkable, isn’t it? I think he’d
be perfectly happy to come and join in many of our songs. I imagine him singing with us, “O how
the grace of God amazes me.” Of course it does. You find the very same thing when you run into the
New Testament. And there you will remember how the priests and the Levites came to this strange
character, John the Baptist. He was preaching, and many, many people were coming out to him. He
dressed strangely, and he had a rather bizarre diet, as we’ve noted on previous occasions. And
they came to him, and they said, “Who are you?” And they said, “And what do you have to say about
yourself?” And you remember what he said? “Why, thank you for asking. Why don’t you
check it out on my Facebook page?” No. Do you really think everybody
is that interested in us? No, you see, what we do is we magnify
ourselves, and we diminish God. And when God reveals himself through his Word, he
reverses that order. For “this is the one to whom I will look,” says the Lord God: “he,” or she,
“who is humble … in spirit and [who] trembles at my word.” That is why we see David right
here, amazed at the privilege of being a servant. “Who am I?” is always and ever
the right response, as opposed to “Let me tell you who I am.”
David’s Observation That’s the first word: E for eat, for
exclamation. O for out, for observation. Because he goes on to say, verse 19, “And yet,” he
says: “And yet this is a small matter compared to what’s coming.” And, of course, what has happened
is that this word that has come to him through Nathan is making it clear to him that God has
even bigger plans for him, bigger plans for his house. For his house. We’re thinking dynasty.
Verse 16 again: “And your throne, your house, your kingdom shall be made sure forever and
ever.” And you will notice what he says here: “This,” verse 19, “this was a small thing in
your eyes.” “In your eyes.” Now, of course, God doesn’t have eyes. It’s a metaphor, isn’t it?
From the perspective of God. From the perspective of heaven. From the perspective of eternity.
You think about all the things that preoccupy us and concern us in the moment. And they’re
realistic, and they’re important. They’re vital in the journey of our lives. But when you
stand far enough back from it, if you put it in a long continuum in terms of time, it pales.
I had an illustration of this without looking for it this weekend, when a couple of my
granddaughters were staying with us overnight. And in the morning, somebody wanted
to know what age I was in 1968—or ’64, it was. And I said, “Oh, in ’64… I was
twelve in ‘64.” I said, “Isn’t that very old?” She said, “No. Well, not in relation to the
time of the Roman Empire, Papa.” I said, “That’s good! That’s good.” That’s a different
perspective on things. That’s a vastly different way from viewing everything in such an atomized
fashion that we’re almost paralyzed by the now. And the word of God that comes to David
blows the categories wide open, and he says, “And yet, as dramatic as everything has been to
this day, this was a small thing in your eyes.” You see, I think it would be perfectly
understandable if David were to have viewed everything that had happened to him to this point
as kind of the apex of things—that this was it. You know, after all, from shepherd boy to king of
Jerusalem, to king of Israel. This must be—there can’t be anything more now, is there? Hmm, yeah!
This is just the beginning! You will notice again, if you see verse 19 there: “You have spoken also
of your servant’s house”—here we go—“for a great while to come.” “For a great while to come.”
What is he referring to when he says, “You have spoken … of your servant’s house”? He’s referring
to verses 11–16. That’s the context. Notice that it is “your servant’s house.” When you have
time later on in the day, you can count how many times he is referred to here as a servant
and how many times he says again and again, “You are the God of heaven’s armies. You are
Adonai. You are God. You are Lord.” In other words, he’s got this very, very clear
in his mind: “You are great. Who am I, that you would speak so clearly to me and
that you would have these plans for me?” Actually, the real wonder is not that David refers
to himself as God’s servant but that God refers to David as his servant. If you look back up in
your text, you will see that earlier up in 7, the word that is given to Nathan is to “go and
tell my servant David.” “Tell my servant David.” Now, you won’t know this unless you’ve
researched it, but I can let you into a secret. For David to be referred to as “my servant David”
takes him into rare company. For to this point, the only other people in Holy Scripture referred
to in that way are Abraham, Moses, and Caleb. So when God speaks to Nathan in this
way and he designates David in this way, it is quite dramatic. He is the servant
of God. He is only the servant of God. You see the tension, again? What a wonder
that we are made the servants of God. Let’s not forget that we are only the servants
of God. You remember when Jesus is speaking to his followers and he says, “You know, if you
have a house, and you have a servant, and you come home, and you say to your servant, you know,
‘Could you please fix me a meal? Would you please dress properly? Would you serve me correctly?’ and
so on.” He says, “You don’t make a big fuss and bother about it. You’re not giving out awards,
because after all, he is simply a servant.” And then he says to his followers, “So you also,
when you have done all that you were commanded, [you] say, ‘We[’re] unworthy servants;
we have only done … our duty.’” It’s quite wonderful, isn’t it? It’s
the same thing when Paul writes, and the people in the context of Corinth, understandably, they decide, “You know, which
preacher do you like the best? Do you like Apollos, or do you like Paul, or whatever it might
be?” It’s an inevitability. And he says, “Well, let’s not get hung up on this.” He says, “What,
after all, is Apollos? What, after all, is Paul? Only servants, through whom you believed.” See
it again? The magnificence and the might of God, and the amazing wonder of it, that he
sets his love upon the likes of us. Now, here we come to the phrase with which
we began. You will notice he goes on to say that this is actually “instruction
for mankind.” “You[’ve] spoken … of your servant’s house for a great while [still]
to come, and this is instruction for mankind.” In other words, the plan and the
prescription for God’s kingdom is the plan and prescription through
which the whole world is to be blessed. Now, just let that settle in your thinking for a
moment or two. God is conferring powers and rights and privileges on David and on the seed of
David for the benefit of all mankind—not simply that David will be secure in his kingdom, not
simply that Israel will progress as God’s people, but this instruction is like
a charter for all of humanity. That’s why we began, again, with Romans 15:4.
Because the reaction to that is surely to say, “But wait a minute! It’s very interesting. We’re
in the twenty-first century, and we’re considering something that’s way, way, way back, and we can
learn principles from it.” No. That’s fine, but that’s not it. No. “This instruction,” says David,
“that has come to me through your prophet, Nathan, affects the entire story of the entire world,
of the entire history of the world.” Oh! “Hmm,” you say. Because God’s promise to Abraham that
through his offspring all the nations of the earth will be blessed is a promise that David now
realizes is applied to him and to his seed—that God is promising that through the seed of
David, God will establish his kingdom forever. Think about this for a moment or
two. There he goes: “David went in and [he] sat before the LORD.” And he’s
thinking. And he’s giving voice to this: “The things that you have said,
gracious God, go way beyond me. I mean, you’ve given me a place, but who
am I? This actually goes to the ends of the earth.” How does he get to that? How is
it that he is able to respond in this way? The answer: by faith. By faith.
There is no way that David could know how this would be and will be fulfilled. All that
is yet to come in the fulfillment of the promise is hidden to him. It’s part of an unknown future.
He doesn’t know what we are privileged to know, having been the recipients
of the record of the gospel. He doesn’t know, as he sits in that tent and
thinks about these things, that one day an angel is going to come to a virgin girl
and say to her something that will be virtually beyond comprehension: “Behold, you
will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be
great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him
the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob
forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Do you see? You see, it is as we hear the word of
God that we see things from an entirely different perspective—that the purpose of God from all of
eternity is focused on his King. And that King is the one about whom we’ve been singing.
David’s Explanation E for eat. O for out, for observation.
E for every, or for explanation. So, exclamation, observation, explanation.
How is it—as you look at the text—how is it that God has brought about all this greatness? That’s
the question. You will see that he’s dealing with this there, in verse 21: “You have brought
about all this greatness.” How is it that he’s brought about all the greatness? What can David
say in response to this? That’s what he’s asking. Again, a rhetorical question in verse 20:
“And what more can David say to you?” Well, actually, he still has quite a bit more to say;
otherwise, the chapter would end right there. But you see what he’s saying: “Really, I’m not
sure that I can adequately respond to this. What can I say? For you know… For you know your
servant.” It doesn’t mean that he knows who he is, or even that he knows what he is,
but also that he knows where he is. In other words, “God, you and I both know—you
and I both know—that all this greatness that you have bestowed and that
you are apparently about to bestow has nothing at all to do with my worthiness, has nothing at all to do with my importance,
has nothing at all to do with my giftedness.” You say, “Well, how can you say
that?” Well, because the text says. Verse 21: “Because of your promise…” You see,
again? “It is because you made a promise. That promise that you made first of all
to Abraham and now to me is the promise that you have spoken.” “You have spoken…” How did
he speak? Spoke through his servant, Nathan. He told him of these great things that are to come,
the “instruction for mankind.” “And now,” he says, “I understand this. It is because you made a
promise.” It is because “the steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an
end.” It is because of the covenant purpose of God to take to himself a people that are his very
own and to make those people like the sands of the seashore and as vast as the stars in the sky.
Revelation 7: a company that no one can number. How is there ever gonna be a
company that no one can number? On accordance with God’s promise.
He promised. He promised! You see, it’s the exact same, whether you’re
in the Old Testament or in the New Testament. How did the people in the Old Testament that
sang the Psalms know they were forgiven? How did they know that God accepted their worship? On
the basis of his promise. And so the same here: “It’s according to your promise, and it is
according to your own heart.” You see that? “Because of your promise, and according to
your own heart, you have brought about all this greatness, to make your servant know it.”
Well, of course, this, you will remember, some of you, way back into 1 Samuel and chapter 13, when
we came on what is one of the most famous verses in the whole of 1 and 2 Samuel, and a verse
that we said is most often applied incorrectly. And that verse is where Samuel said of
him, “Your kingdom [won’t] continue,” he says to Saul, but “the LORD has sought out a
man after his own heart.” “After his own heart.” And I hope you remember then we said that the
significance of this is that he was a man of God’s choice—that what is being said there is
about the place the man has in the heart of God, not the place that God has in the heart of man.
You see, when you get it the other way round, you immediately run into problems: “Oh, he was
the man after God’s own heart.” We’re only a couple chapters away from a disaster zone in
the immorality of his life with Bathsheba. So suddenly we have to readjust our view: “What
does it really mean to be a man after God’s own heart? We hold him up as the epitome of that.” No,
the wonder of it is that God’s heart was filled with David, not that David’s heart was filled
with God. “And the reason that this is going to happen,” he says, “is because of the place that I
have in your heart, O God.” In other words, it is by trusting God’s promise and knowing God’s heart
that the greatness that has been revealed to David will be his to know.
David’s Declaration “Therefore,” verse 22. Our time is gone. Let
me just give you the last of the four words: D for declaration. Verse 22. We’ll resume here—not
this evening, for we have Communion this evening, but next time we will come back around verse
23. Verse 22: “Therefore you are great, O LORD God. For there is none like you, … there is
no God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears.” You see the progression
from “Who am I?” to “There is none like you.” It is amazing how many times we have reason
to refer to the prayer of Hannah way back at the beginning of 1 Samuel. First Samuel 2:2, and
Hannah prays, “There is none holy like the LORD: for there is none besides you; there is no
rock like our God.” Now notice this as well: that David’s ability to declare this—his ability
to declare this—the final phrase of verse 22, is “according to all that we have heard with our
ears.” “All that we have heard with our ears.” What has he heard? God’s promise. What has
he listened to? God’s word. “Faith come[s] by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” It goes
like this: preaching, hearing, believing, living. So we end where we began: “All these things
have been written in the past for us.” “For us.” I was rereading this week Surprised by
Joy by C. S. Lewis. And towards the end of his autobiographical piece there, as he
recounts his move from atheism to theism and on, he says that he was convicted of what he
refers to as “chronological snobbery.” “Chronological snobbery.” He says, in other words,
“the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is” on account of the fact
“discredited” and virtually obsolete. That is standard in our world today.
Why would we pay any attention to history at all? Indeed, the best we can do with history is
deconstruct it, is rewrite it, is reframe it. And one of the distinguishing features of what it
means to be a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ and a believer in the word of the Bible is
actually to have an entirely different view and perspective of history than that which
is part and parcel of what we’re facing now. After all, we’re living in a world that
has lost its story. We’re living in a world that is unprepared to pay attention to the
greatest story ever told. And if you know that story, then let me encourage you—let us encourage
one another—to share it widely and kindly and boldly and unashamedly, because
this is “instruction for mankind.” Just a brief moment of prayer:
Our God, we thank you that your Word is fixed in the heavens. And we thank you that
it introduces us to the wonder of a promise made, a promise kept, a promise fulfilled. We want
to emulate David in this respect. We want to sit in your presence, and we want to stand on
your promise. Help us, for your Son’s sake. 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
