Welcome back. During a time of peace throughout the kingdom, King David grew restless and proposed building a house for God. Today on Truth for Life, we'll hear how God responded, and we'll learn why it's so important to teach and rely on God's Word, nothing more and nothing less.
Alistair Begg is teaching from the opening verses in 2 Samuel chapter 7. 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, God says on that occasion when Samuel got it wrong, 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 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?
Now, 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. Don't you find that 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 it took place, Nathan became aware of the fact that he was actually pretty quick to affirm David in what seemed like an okay plan. You've 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, only occurs here and in one other place back in 1 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 2 Samuel here, in chapter 24, when God pronounces his judgment on his servant David for having conducted a census which was beyond the parameters that God had planned.
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 1–3. He is my servant in verse 5. What a privilege to be the servant of the Lord. David understands what a privilege it is. 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 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. 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 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 is the task of the Bible teacher. They say, 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 eighteenth century, and I quote this often because I want to remind myself of it. He says to his congregation, I count it my honor and happiness that I preach to a free people who have the Bible in their hands. You cannot have an effective 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 and 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, 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 farther than I can prove it from the Word of God. And then he says, shouting out from the eighteenth century, from the seventeen hundreds, 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 thinking about building a house for the ark?
No, 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 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 play 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 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 2 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 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 6, 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 three hundred 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 in 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 gonna 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 7. 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 to sing all of this, and now he's gonna say it to David.
In all the places where I've 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 gonna take it on from here.
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 has 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 ar of the Chaldees, 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 sit one who will reign forever and ever and ever. If you've ever sung the Messiah on a Christmas week and you've said to yourself, What is it I'm singing here? And he shall reign forever and ever. And he shall reign forever and ever.
Who is this? It is the one who is promised in 2 Samuel chapter 7. Understand everything in light of this—the departure of one president, the arrival of another, the in the European Union or 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 the 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 made him special?
The one who was riding 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 2 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. 2 Samuel chapter 7. Who would ever have imagined such a thing? You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg.
Alistair returns in just a moment to close today's program. Well, if you've been listening to Truth for Life for some time, you probably know that we recommend to you two books each month, including devotionals, books written by pastors or theologians, Christian classics, even children's books from time to time. When you become one of our monthly truth partners, these carefully chosen books can be sent to you each month for no additional donation. It's one of the ways we say thank you to this small group of important supporters who give each month to make the ministry of Truth for Life possible. As a truth partner, you decide how much you'd like to give each month. And if you live in the United States, your giving is tax deductible. When you give $20 or more each month, you can request not just one, but both of the books we recommend.
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Go to truthforlife.org slash donate. Now here is Alistair with a closing prayer. O 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 foreordained still for your people. Thank you for your Word. Amen.
Thanks for listening today. Old Testament Scriptures can be particularly difficult to interpret correctly. Tomorrow, Alistair takes a half-step back from our focus in 2 Samuel to teach us how to properly study and understand the Bible. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.
