A Royal Covenant

If you have your Bibles with you, turn with me if you would to the 5th chapter of 2 Samuel.

We're going to start out with verses 1 through 5. The Lord of Israel came to the king at Hebron, and King David made a covenant with them at Hebron before the Lord. And they anointed David king over Israel. David was 30 years old when he began to reign. He reigned for 40 years.

At Hebron he reigned over Judah seven years and six months, and at Jerusalem he reigned over all Israel and Judah for 33 years. Bow with me as we go to our Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, this has been an emotional week for true believers in America. We have been warned that we must be silent or we will be canceled out.

It's a hard pill to swallow. Help us to respond with Christ's likeness. Help us to be loving yet uncompromising. Help us to be more concerned about your glory than our rights. Help us to be overwhelmed with the power of your sovereignty.

Help us to realize that we are not alone in this fight. You have promised never to leave us nor forsake us. May the storm that we are going through build Christ-like character in us. Lord, as we look today at David's coronation and the covenant that he entered into with Israel, may we be reminded of the covenant that you entered into with us. That covenant and all its promises are built on your integrity, not ours. Our salvation is built upon your grace, not our works. May we be humbled by the covenant of redemption. May we realize that our salvation is the undeserved, unmerited favor of God. May that truth drive us to holiness. Keep my lips from error this morning, for it's in Jesus' holy, precious name that we pray. Amen.

You may be seated. In Mark 4, we read a story that King David would have greatly benefited from. Jesus and the disciples are on a little boat and they are crossing over the Sea of Galilee. Jesus is tired and he goes down into the bottom of the boat and he falls asleep. Well, right as they're in the middle of the sea, all of a sudden a storm rages and the winds begin to blow and the waves begin to rage up and down and the little boat that they're on begins to be tossed to and fro like a styrofoam cup on the water. And the disciples realize the danger.

That boat could easily capsize and they could all be drowned. And so their hearts are up in their throats and their hands are shaking and trembling. And finally one of the disciples goes over to Jesus and he starts shaking him. And he says, Master, do you not care that we are perishing? Let me read you verse 39. And Jesus awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, Be still. And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. And he said to them, Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?

You can almost picture Jesus just kind of shaking his head, looking at the disciples and saying, Guys, I got this. I got this. You don't need to worry. Blowing winds and raging waves do not shake me. In fact, nothing shakes me.

So quit looking at your circumstances and look to me. Those were Jesus' words to a fearful group of disciples and yet those are Jesus' words to us as well. We need to ask ourselves some questions in this time in which we are living. Can Joe Biden knock Jesus off the throne? No.

And what if our Facebook account gets taken away from us? Is that going to weaken the ministry of the Holy Spirit? Absolutely not. Folks, Jesus lived under the reign of Herod Anabas. Paul lived under the reign of Nero. John lived under the reign of Domitian.

And guess what? Jesus still won. Jesus still won. And you and I are still serving that very same Jesus. In Hebrews chapter 13 verse 8, the scripture says, Jesus Christ is saying yesterday, today, and forever. Our circumstances might change, but our Lord never changes. It was Harry Reader who said this, Circumstances do not determine your character, they expose it.

And they present opportunities to strengthen and refine it. I would have loved to have been there with the disciples after Jesus calmed the storm and just heard their conversation. I can imagine them looking at each other in just unbelief and saying, My word, who is this? Look what He did. He calmed the sea. He stopped the winds from blowing.

Who is this? And why are we so faithless? Why don't we trust Him more? This Jesus is not just a man. He is God. Well, as David gets ready for his coronation, I think he feels a whole lot like those disciples felt that day.

He's asking himself questions. Why did I ever doubt? Why did I have these lapses of faith?

When I was 16 years old, the prophet Samuel anointed me and promised me and prophesied that I would be the king of Israel. And yet I have had these lapses of faith time and time again. And I've let my circumstances control me. I wasted energy. I've wasted time. And I have lost sleep. And now look what has happened. God has brought all this about. God has taken care of it.

I want you to picture this magnificent moment. David is in his residence at his home in Hebron. This is the day of his coronation. He did not organize this.

He did not tell the tribes of Israel what to do. They are the ones that organized it. They are the ones that planned it.

They are the ones that put it all together. And David watches as the soldiers begin to march through the gates of Hebron. And they come right up to his front yard. And they're standing there right in front of the house of David. In 1 Chronicles chapter 12, we have a more detailed account of what took place here.

David watches through the window, probably on the top story of his house. And he sees all of these soldiers coming in. How many soldiers would you think there would have been that came from all the 12 tribes of Israel? As many maybe as 20 that came from each of the tribes of Israel? So that would be about 240 soldiers?

No, no. Let me tell you how many there were. 214,600 soldiers. And they came there standing on David's front lawn. And they are all there, almost a quarter of a million soldiers. And they are paying allegiance to David.

All 12 tribes are represented. And there's no animosity. There's no anger.

There's just unity. And they are thanking David. And they are saying, David, we want to surrender to you as our king. And we believe that the Lord is going to honor this.

Now three points I want to share with you this morning. Point one is covenant and coronation. Look at verses 1 through 5 again. Then all the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron and said, Behold, we are your bone and flesh. In times past when Saul was king over us, it was you who led out and brought in Israel. And the Lord said to you, You shall be shepherd of My people Israel, and you shall be prince over Israel. So all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron. And king David made a covenant with them at Hebron before the Lord. And they anointed David king over Israel. David was thirty years old when he began to reign. And he reigned forty years. At Hebron he reigned over Judah seven years and six months.

And at Jerusalem he reigned over all Israel and Judah for thirty-three years. David stands in that window and I can just imagine him with tears rolling down his cheeks. Almost a quarter of a million soldiers are there. And they are there to pay allegiance to him. And there's no animosity. There's perfect unity.

And there's no anger. There's hope and there's joy and there's peace. I think David probably thought back to Psalm 37. When God inspired him to write these words. And David said, Delight yourself in the Lord your God and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way in Him.

Trust also in Him and He will bring it to pass. And that's exactly what God has done. God is fulfilling this right before David's eyes.

And David knows that this is not a situation that he has manipulated. This is simply and plainly a move of God. David had delighted himself and the Lord is God. God was giving him the desires of his heart. And that was that he be king of Israel. And God had brought that to pass.

Now with a quarter of a million soldiers there. They probably had to have a spokesman. And I'm sure that it was maybe one of the great generals. And he came forward and he began to speak to David. So that everyone could hear. And the first thing that he did was apologize. He confessed sin. He said, David, you are bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. You were raised on the same land that we were raised on. You worshiped and served the same God that we served. The only God, the Lord God Jehovah. David, you are not a stranger.

You are our brother. And then he began to talk to David about his leadership. And he said, David, you are our leader.

You, when God tells you to do something, you do it. When nobody else would stand up against Goliath, you went against Goliath and you killed and you defeated him. When nobody else would go to fight against the Philistines, you took charge and you defeated them. When nobody else would fight against the Amalekites, you took charge and you defeated them. You were the greatest leader in Israel.

But then he said that which is most important. He said, David, God called you. God called you to be the king of Israel. When you were 16 years old, the prophet Samuel anointed you with oil. He anointed you with oil and he said to you and prophesied over you that you would be the king of Israel.

He did this. It was God's call and that's why you were here. In 1 Chronicles chapter 12, we have a longer, more detailed account and I love what it says. It says that the 12 tribes of Israel went to David with a loyal heart.

I love that. So picture this. A quarter of a million soldiers out there on David's front lawn and they are underneath him. David's up in the window.

They're looking up at him and I can just hear them. Come on down, David. Come on down, King David. For now it's time to put this thing together.

Now it's time to make this legal. And David walks down and he goes out onto the front porch and there's several men that are representatives of the 12 tribes and they come and they stand before David and then I can see them all get down on their knees and they pray and then they lay their hands on David. They anoint him with oil and they make vows of surrender and vows of obedience and then David makes vows to them, vows of service and vows of commitment.

Let me tell you, folks, that scene, that scene ought to excite your soul and I want you to know that scene ought to knock the biscuits off your table. That scene is exciting to me because that covenant that was entered into between Israel and David is a picture of the covenant that God entered into with us. And when was that covenant established? Was that covenant established when you repented of your sins and trusted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?

Oh no. That covenant was established before the foundation of the earth. It was established between the three persons of the Godhead where God the Father said, I decree that Doug Agnew will be saved and then God the Son said, I will go to the cross and I will purchase his salvation by the shedding of my precious blood and then God the Holy Spirit said, I will take that precious blood of Jesus apply it to the heart of Doug Agnew and bring him into a saving relationship with God and I will awaken him and give him the ability to repent and to believe. Oh friends, 1972, the Lord convicted me deeply of my sin. I saw just how sinful I was and I was drawn to the Lord with that conviction and I repented of my sins. I trusted Jesus as my Lord and as my Savior. I can remember getting up the next morning and I didn't really understand much about exactly what had happened but I thought, man, look what has happened to me.

I'm going to heaven when I die. I've changed everything by the decision that I made for Jesus. Oh no.

No, no, no. That's not what took place. That's not what took place. The truth of the matter is it's not what I did for Jesus. It's what Jesus did for me. In 1972, my salvation did not start when Chip Sloan sat down with me and opened up his Bible and showed me that my only hope was Jesus Christ. Folks, my salvation started before Adam and Eve were created, before this world even was brought into existence. It was the covenant of redemption. So who gets the glory for my salvation?

Oh, not me. God gets the glory for it was God who initiated my salvation. It was God who brought it all to pass. Ephesians chapter 1 verse 3 through 6, Paul said, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us and Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love.

He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. Brothers and sisters, when I think of the covenant of redemption, that makes me want to delight myself in the Lord my God. Roger Ellsworth said this, God's promises are going to be fulfilled to the letter.

Not one of them will fall to the ground. We badly need this truth. Our circumstances, like David, often make the promises of God seem uncertain, and we, like him, find our faith flagging and faltering from time to time. In fact, flagging and faltering faith seems to be the order of the day. God's people seem all too ready to embrace the thinking and doing of the world and to disbelieve our own message. Much of our Christianity seems to be the insurance policy variety. We do not really expect all the Christian message to be true, but we want to be covered just in case it is. The tragedy is that as long as our faith flags and falters, we miss out on the highest level we can ever occupy in this life. There is absolutely nothing better in this life than the sheer joy and exhilaration of being fully persuaded that God's promises will all come true.

As long as we live in doubt, we are unable to mount this high plane. So David, at this point in time, is 37 years old. He has reigned at Hebron over Judah for seven and a half years.

He will reign over Jerusalem for 33. That takes us to point two, and point two is conquering through faith. Look at verses six through nine. And the king and his men went to Jerusalem against the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, who said to David, You will not come in here, but the blind and the lame will ward you off, thinking, David cannot come in here. Nevertheless, David took the stronghold of Zion, that is, the city of David. And David said on that day, Whoever should strike the Jebusites, let him get into the water shaft to attack the lame and the blind, who were hated by David's soul. Therefore it is said, The blind and the lame shall not come into the house. And David lived in the stronghold and called it the city of David. And David built the city all around the millow inward.

So what did David do once he was established as the king? Did he say, I've been waiting on this for 20 years. I need a break. I think I'm just going to go out and spend some time on the golf course. I'm going to take a few naps. I'm going to watch some videos that I've missed during these years.

I'm just going to kind of kick back. Absolutely not. And why not? Because David knew that there were infidels on the land of Israel, that God had commanded the people of Israel to get rid of so that they would not wickedly influence the people of Israel. Folks, Israel in the Old Testament is a picture of the church in the New Testament. And God's command to Israel to run those infidels off the land, that they might be free from all of that, is a picture of Jesus' command to the church that we call the Great Commission. Where Jesus said, Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and lo, I will be with you always, even to the end of the earth. I praise God that this church has a missionary heart. I praise God that we have a mission committee here that is deeply, deeply concerned about getting the gospel out to the four corners of the earth.

And I want you to know that if persecution continues, and persecution gets worse here in America, my prayer is that we will stand bolder than ever to get the mission and gospel message out to the four corners of the earth, and that we might be bolder in our own personal evangelism. So who did David go after first? He went after the Jebusites who were in Jerusalem.

Why did he do that? Because Jerusalem was centrally located. David was living down in Hebron.

It's very far south. He needed a place that was more centrally located. Beside that, Jerusalem was a fortress city. It was built on a mountain, and there are valleys down beneath it. If you read through the scripture, it's always interesting that when somebody's leaving Jerusalem, whether they go east, west, north, or south, it's always said that they go down from Jerusalem.

It was a fortress city. Now the land of Jerusalem was supposed to belong to the Benjamites, but there were people that were living on that land called the Jebusites, and the Benjamites tried to run them off, and they were totally unable to do so. But David was determined to take Jerusalem. Now remember David was born and raised in Bethlehem.

Bethlehem's just five miles south of Jerusalem. So David knew Jerusalem well, and he knew all about the Jebusites. They were arrogant.

They were cocky, and they would not get off God's land. Now I don't know if you'll remember this or not, but 20 years before that, David killed Goliath. He took Goliath's sword. He chopped his head off. And then he took the head of Goliath. He held it up in his hand, and where did he go? The scriptures tell us that he went to Jerusalem. And I don't know for sure, but I think this is probably what he did. I think he stood outside Jerusalem, and he held the head of Goliath up in his hands, and he said, What I did to Goliath, Jebusites, I'm going to do to you, because you have defied God's command.

You were supposed to get off the land, and you said that you will not do it. So 20 years later, David is backing up his words. He comes to Jerusalem to wipe out the Jebusites, because the Israelites had not done it yet. Judges chapter 1 verse 21 says this, But the people of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who lived in Jerusalem. So the Jebusites have lived with the people of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day.

But why did the Jebusites speak here of the blind and the lame guarding the city? I think that David probably had talked to the Jebusites about God. And he said to the Jebusites, We in Israel worship the true and living God, the only God. Our God is omniscient. He is omnipresent. He is omnipotent. Our God, His hand cannot be stayed.

You cannot stop Him. No one can stop our God. What you worship, false gods. They are no gods at all.

They are just pieces of stone or pieces of wood, and they can't walk, and they can't see, and they can't fight. And so I think the Jebusites are speaking sarcastically to David, and I think they are mocking David and mocking Jehovah, and says, Well, we've got gods that can't see, and they are lame, but they are still strong enough to keep you from getting into Jerusalem. David's got a plan. There's a water shaft, kind of like an underground tunnel, that water flows, and it goes all the way from the outskirts of Jerusalem all the way up into the inner part of the city. Now, how did David know about this?

I think David probably, when he was a little boy, used to play around there, and probably he had seen it and played in that tunnel many times. So he's got a plan. He will march a regiment of soldiers up through that tunnel at night, and he will catch them by surprise. So he asked, Who will do this? He said, Whoever will lead these men, a regiment of soldiers, to do this, I will give them the command of the entire army.

To David's chagrin, Joab said, I'll do it, and he did. And he marched at night, a whole regiment of soldiers, up through that tunnel. The guards on the outside could not see him because it was underground. They got into the city while everybody's sleeping, and once they did, they totally obliterated the Jebusites. So David made Jerusalem the center and the capital of Israel. Folks, Jerusalem had been a stronghold in Israel. The Jebusites would not leave. Israel tried time and time again to run them off the land, and they failed time and time again.

Finally, they were just kind of throwing up their hands and saying, We give up. There's just nothing that we can do until David. And the first thing that David did when he became king was this. He said, I'm going to tear down the stronghold.

I'm going to rip it down. I'm going to eradicate the Jebusites. And that's exactly what David did.

You say, Doug, how does this apply to us? Well, Jerusalem was a stronghold for Israel. The Jebusites controlled it. They thought it was impenetrable. They thought no one could get to it, that no one could destroy them. And the Israelites had tried over and over again, and they just were not able to do it. They finally just shrugged their shoulders, and they said, We just give up. There's nothing that we can do about it.

We're not going to win. As believers, folks, we have strongholds in our lives too, don't we? We have what the Scripture calls besetting sins. We have these habitual sins in our life that control us and that so often defeat us.

Ask yourself this question right quick. What is the one sin in your life that you struggle with the most? Is it lust? Is it alcohol addiction? Is it anger? Is it greed? Is it prejudice? Is it bitterness?

What is it? Well, as soon as I ask that question, What is the sin that you struggle with the most? I'll guarantee you, it came right to your mind, didn't it? That's called a besetting sin. How do we get rid of that stronghold in our life? The only way to do it is to do it radically. In 2 Corinthians chapter 10 verses 3 through 6, Paul said this, For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations in every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ, and having a readiness to revenge all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. Folks, the only hope in bringing down a stronghold, a besetting sin in your life is to get radical. You must radically pray. You must radically repent. And you must radically think, bringing every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

Alright, point three is enjoying God's blessings. Look with me at verses 10 through 16. These are the names of those who were born to him in Jerusalem. Verse 10 tells us that David became greater and greater.

Why? Well, we don't have to ask because he tells us because the Lord was with him. David had been faithful and God honored his faithfulness and blessed David. So David was rebuilding Jerusalem to his own specifications. He went down and he got dirt from down in the valleys below and he brought it up and he leveled out the city so that huge buildings could be built, so that roads could be constructed.

And then he brought in Hyrum who was an architect, who was a great engineer from Tyre and Sidon, and he built David a beautiful palace for him and for his family. Jerusalem became the hub of Israel. It became one of the most beautiful cities in the world. It became one of the most protected cities in the world.

It became one of the most functional cities in the world. David had been faithful, spiritually and physically courageous and obedient and God deeply blessed him. But this story ends here on a very sad note. On a very sad note, David was disobedient in one particular area in his life. And that caused David problems, not just for David, but for his family and also for his nation. Verse 13 says, And David took more concubines and wives from Jerusalem after he came from Hebron. In chapter 3 that we looked at a couple of weeks ago, we saw that David had six sons.

Here we are just a couple of chapters later. Now David's got eleven sons and they come from multiple wives. Now the pagan nations would look at that and they'd say, wow, that's a great thing.

That shows that he has power, that he has political strength. Let me tell you this, God condemned that. And David also had taken on concubines.

These were women that David was not married to, that he was physically intimate with, outside the dignity of marriage, and that greatly displeased our God. Folks, why is our culture rising up against the Christian church today? Because we believe in God's moral absolutes.

We believe that truth is not relative. When the culture violates God's moral absolutes, it causes them to feel guilt. And if we are the ones proclaiming God's moral absolutes, then they blame us and all we've done is just proclaim it. We didn't make the moral law. God made the moral law. All we're doing is proclaiming that law. Folks, we are not helping the pornography addict and the abortion doctor and the transvestite and the homosexual and the fornicators by keeping silent. God has called his people to call sin, sin.

And then when we do that, then we have the responsibility to tell those people who are under conviction that there is hope, that there is great hope, and his name is Jesus, who has come to this earth in order that he might die for sinners like me and for sinners like you. Folks, that's not mean. That's not hateful.

That is deeply, deeply loving. In Deuteronomy 17, 17, God told the kings of Israel if they were not to have multiple wives, especially multiple foreign wives, for those wives would steal away their hearts from God. That's exactly what was happening, at least partially, to David.

And it happened completely with King Solomon. So the message for us is this. If a man like David, who is the apple of God's eye, who is a man after God's own heart, if he could fall into such a heinous sin, it could also happen to us. Be sober, be vigilant, for your adversary the devil walks about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we are blessed by your child David. He was a man after God's own heart. He was the apple of God's eye.

He wrote the great majority of Psalms in the Psalter. He had unbelievable leadership skills. He was a mighty warrior. He fought Goliath with no fear.

He led the armies of Israel against its enemies with no fear. He became a great and mighty king. But there were strongholds in David's life. He struggled with lust and relationships. He disobeyed your commands concerning marriage.

And these strongholds hurt his witness and hindered his fellowship with you. Father, we pray that you will use David's success to motivate us and use his sin to caution us. Our desire is to live out our life that we might die with a testimony like Paul, who said in his final letter to Timothy, For I am now ready to be offered and the time of my departure is at hand. For I have fought a good fight.

I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. Father, help us to fight for that testimony. For it is in the precious name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.