Why did God rebuff King David's well-intentioned proposal to build the Lord a house? Old Testament passages like the one we find in 2 Samuel can be difficult to interpret correctly. So today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg takes a half-step back from our focus in 2 Samuel to teach us how to properly study and interpret the Bible. We turn now to 2 Samuel and to chapter 7, and I invite you to follow along as I read from the first verse.
Samuel 7 concerns, first of all, the Lord's promise or covenant with David. 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, 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. Amen. Gracious God, as we turn to the Bible, we acknowledge our need of you to think properly, to understand, to believe, to love, and to obey your Word, to follow your Son. So meet with us now, we pray, for Jesus' sake.
Amen. Well, I hope you will have your Bible with you and that you have been reading along as we have found ourselves here in 2 Samuel. Some of you may have already concluded that we have all of a sudden stalled in 2 Samuel chapter 7, because here we are for the third occasion. Those of you who were here last Sunday night will know that we made a second attempt at it, as it were—a little bit like trying to land the plane in severe weather, where you have to do a go-around.
And we are now trying to make another landing of these verses in verse 8 to verse 17. And I want to approach things differently this morning than normal, and in saying that, alert you to the fact that we may only finally reach the text when it's time for us to stop. That may not be the case.
I don't know, but it may happen. And it argues, actually, for our evening service—I don't say that as a mechanism for hoping that you will return, but just to be factual about things. And the reason for that will become obvious as I proceed.
Let me begin by saying this. To understand and to interpret the Bible correctly is hard work. Any notion that we have of you just read your Bible and it all pops out is really coming from somewhere other than from a mind and a heart that has become a student of the Bible. The fact that it is the work of the Holy Spirit to illumine the pages of Scripture to us does not absolve us of the need for diligence.
And it is to that diligence that the pastor and the teacher is committed, and it is on account of that that the church is then enabled to go on to maturity, and part of going on to maturity is maturing in our understanding of and our commitment to and our obedience for and love for the Word of God itself. And this, of course, should be obvious to us in the reading of our Bibles. As we go through from day to day, as we read perhaps an outline from working through the New Testament or perhaps in the Murray M'Cheyne readings, we come on passages of Scripture which press us and which call for us to really dig down and think. And it should be obvious to us by now that 2 Samuel chapter 7 has become for us one of those passages. We noted last time that it is a hugely significant section of the Bible. In many ways, it is a fulcrum between all that was promised to Abraham and all that is finally ours in a new heaven and in a new earth.
And at the same time, we have discovered that it is a challenging passage. And as I have been in it now for a couple of weeks, I've been helped this week by reminding myself of the fact that the disciples, the followers of Jesus—who had been with Jesus, they had seen his miracles, they had heard his teaching—those same disciples were in need of a significant amount of help in understanding the application of the Old Testament Scriptures. And you will recall how, in the providence of God, two of them got an amazing Bible study that is mentioned in Luke chapter 24. When on the road to Emmaus, they encountered Jesus, not realizing that it is Jesus risen from the dead, and as they share their despondency with this at that point unknown individual, Jesus says to them, How slow of heart you are to believe all that the prophets have written! And then he began, and he explained to them all the things in the Scriptures concerning himself.
Now, we need that too. We need to understand how our Bible fits together. We need to understand how to interpret the Bible.
Because all of us come to the Bible with our own presuppositions, in the same way that we come to our newspapers with presuppositions. And so the real question is, how do we interpret the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, properly? Now, the word for that in biblical theology is the word hermeneutics.
It sounds a little bit like a medical condition, but it isn't. It simply means the science of interpreting Scripture, or the methodology, or the theory of how do you approach the Bible. And it is, of course, something that we all engage in. It may not be in the front of our minds, but we're all doing it all the time as you listen to the Bible being taught. So, when we affirm the infallibility of the Scriptures, it doesn't follow that any or every interpretation of a passage of Scripture is itself infallible.
You understand that distinction? When we affirm the infallibility of the Bible, it doesn't follow that every and any interpretation of a passage of Scripture is itself infallible. That's very, very important.
It's very important. The Bereans understood it in Acts, after Paul had been in Thessalonica and went on to Berea. You remember Luke says that the Bereans were more noble than the Jews who had been listening in Thessalonica, and then he says, because they examined the Scriptures every day to see if these things were so. In other words, they went back to the Old Testament, they listened to the proclamation, and they searched the Bible, and they said, Now we'd better hold whoever it is who's proclaiming what they're proclaiming to the Scriptures themselves. We alluded to that last week with Newton's comment, which I quoted from the eighteenth century in England, you know, make sure that when you listen to the Bible being taught, Newton said that you have your Bible there to make sure that you can check. Now, if that was necessary when they were listening to the apostle Paul, it's surely necessary when we're listening to one another. And therefore, it's inevitable that one is held up to scrutiny in this regard, that I am absolutely committed to the infallibility of the Bible. I wouldn't be so bold as to suggest to you that all my interpretation carries with it the same imprimatur, because it doesn't. And it's very, very important we recognize that. Now, one of the men, an Australian, actually, Goldsworthy, has done wonderful work on this, which was a help to me some years ago, and I had reason to return to it again this week.
Let me give you a quote from Goldsworthy, which I think you will find helpful as we proceed. Those, he writes, who adopt a thought-out and definite position on any matter will have the conviction that they are right. No one holds to a position that they believe is wrong. But thinking that we are right about key issues does not mean that we think we have all the answers in interpreting the Bible or that our position is infallible. It should not mean that we think that we have arrived at the ultimate truth about all matters biblical. So I would say to you, as much as we want to be men and women of conviction, let us be wary of those who create the impression, by whatever means, that they actually know everything, that they understand everything, and that their interpretation of everything is the only interpretation possible.
You have to be careful of that. There used to be somebody on the radio here called the Bible Answer Man. And I used to feel dreadfully sorry for him, because he had to keep coming up with the answer. And he had to sound like he knew the answer. And I would drive in the car and shout out, Just tell him you don't know! Tell him you don't know!
Why wouldn't you do that? Whoa, I'm called the Bible Answer Man, therefore I need to have all the answers. No, the Bible has all the answers.
The Bible has the answers. Our task is to read our Bibles. Now, it's obvious, isn't it? We do this all the time. When we think about this, we then are alert to the dangers that beset us. You perhaps listen to somebody on the television, and they come away with something, and it just rings a bell in your head. You say, Now, wait a minute.
I don't see how that could possibly be. Or perhaps you listen to a sermon, or you read something that somebody has written. And you say to yourself, But that is just an eccentric way of trying to explain the Bible. Let me give you one from my own history, someone that I respect very much gave me some sermons to read a long time ago. He felt that these sermons had been very helpful to himself and to others, and so I wanted to pay them pretty careful attention. And the one that stood out to me was a sermon that had to do—I think the title of it was something like Running a Ground or Running Into the Rocks or whatever. But it was from Acts chapter 27, where you have the record of Paul sailing towards Rome, and you remember that the nautical challenges are significant, and Luke is giving us the material. And so, as he records what's happening, he makes it very, very clear that the difficulties were real. And they take soundings in verse 28 of 27, and they see how deep it is, and they find it's twenty fathoms. And then they get a little further on, and they take another sounding, and they find it's fifteen fathoms. And then Luke records, And fearing that we might run on the rocks, they let down four anchors from the stern, and prayed for day to come.
Well, that makes perfect sense, doesn't it? We're gonna wreck ourselves here if we're not careful. So the word went out from the captain, Let down the four anchors.
So far, so good. But now, here's the application. Here's what the preacher did with it. He said, Now here you see a situation where they are in danger of running a ground on the rocks. And he said, And you may be in danger of running a ground on the rocks. Well, that's highly unlikely.
I mean, look at where you are right now. But of course, he uses that as a metaphor. And then he says, And if you are about to run a ground on the rocks, you better let down the four anchors. And then he went on to give us the four points—anchor number one, prayer, number two, witnessing, number three, worship, and number four, Christian service. Well, that is all very good stuff.
But I ask you, you're sensible people. Do you think that's why we have it in Acts chapter 27, so that you can turn to the Bible and use it like a trampoline and just jump up and down on it? And so you come to something like four anchors, and then you make up a talk called four anchors. Or you come to the rocks, and you make a talk about the rocks. Now, we've got to understand that the way in which the Bible is written is written so that we can understand it in the framework in which it is given. That is an historical record of a voyage and the events that unfolded. Therefore, it is to be read as such.
Now, if we're going to get serious about this, we have to have certain controls that prevent us from the eccentric and the wrong. We're not going to work our way through them all, but let me just give you two or three. Number one, Scripture can be interpreted only by the Holy Spirit. Scripture can be interpreted only by the Holy Spirit. It is God who wrote the Bible, and he knows exactly what he wrote.
Therefore, it is the work of the Holy Spirit, as we say, to illumine to us the printed page. Secondly, Scripture must always be interpreted by Scripture. So the way in which we understand one passage of the Bible is in relationship to what we find in other passages of the Bible, particularly where we have something that comes across as difficult.
The Westminster Confession of Faith summarizes it as follows. The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself. When there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture, it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly.
All right? So when we come to a passage that we find is challenging to us, then we say, Now, I know that if I were to pay attention to my Bible, I will be able to get some light on this subject. And then, thirdly, we interpret what is earlier in light of what comes later or in light of what is fuller.
That, of course, I think, makes perfect sense. This is why we say to one another that there is a value in reading the Bible backwards. Now, let me give you an illustration from the passage that we have before us in 2 Samuel 7. How, for example, does the New Testament understand 2 Samuel 7? How does the apostle Peter understand it?
You say, Well, why did you choose that? Well, I chose that because he mentions it. And in Acts chapter 2, in his sermon on Pentecost, as he works his way through this great historical record, he eventually comes to David. And as he quotes David—we're in verse 25 now—and David is speaking of the Lord, and when Peter is speaking, he's pointing out that David looks forward to the one who is to come. And then he says, in verse 29, Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David, that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day, being there for a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne… Okay, so here we are. We just finished there verse 17.
And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me, your throne shall be established forever. And so, here is Peter, and he says, He foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades. So, when we try to come to terms with 2 Samuel 7, we learn that Peter explains that section as being fulfilled in the resurrection of Jesus.
How else was this going to be fulfilled? Well, of course, it is by reading what is later that we understand. Similarly—and let me just give you one other—in Hebrews and in chapter 12—and I go here because one of the great questions that is before us in dealing with 2 Samuel 7 has to do with the city, it has to do with Zion, it has to do with Jerusalem, it has to do with a place, and so on. So, Hebrews chapter 12. What the writer does here is make a big distinction between two mountains. One mountain is Mount Sinai, and he's referring to all that took place there when the people came trembling before that. And you'll see that in verse 18.
I'm not going to read it all to you. The word was given, If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned. It was so terrifying that even Moses said, I tremble with fear.
He says, now, that's what was going on. You know that in the history of the people of God, that that was there on that mountain. But that's not where you are, because you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God. Now, he's not talking about Jerusalem. You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God. You say, Well, why did you say he's not talking about Jerusalem?
Because it says it in the text, the heavenly Jerusalem. Now, how had they come to the heavenly Jerusalem? Well, they had come through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the new covenant in my blood, which is given for you for the remission of your sins. And so you have come now to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven. You are now part of a huge congregation. Some of them have already finished the race.
Some of them are already in heaven. But you are united in this company. You are already united in this company.
Why? Because your names have been recorded in the register of heaven. And if that's not enough to jazz you, think about it before the creation of the world. And this assembly is made up of those who have been gathered through the gospel as a result of the gospel being proclaimed to you, and you have believed. And others have finished the race, and you're still in it. You're listening to Alistair Begg on Truth for Life with a message titled, Understanding the Promise.
We'll hear more tomorrow. We're learning that in order to understand scripture correctly, it takes spirit-led diligence on the part of a congregation as well as the pastor. No matter how long we've been studying the Bible, there's always more we can learn. And that's why our pattern at Truth for Life is to teach the Bible verse by verse. It's why Alistair often encourages us to open our Bibles. Our mission is straightforward, to teach God's word with clarity and relevance, because we know God works through his word to open blind eyes and soften hard hearts. We pray that as this daily program is heard, God will bring unbelievers to saving faith.
Believers will be more deeply rooted in their understanding of scripture, and that way they can hold firm to truth in our challenging world. Now, if you enjoy Alistair's Bible teaching, maybe you'd like to learn from him in person on the Deeper Faith Cruise coming in November. Alistair will be teaching from the Bible during a 10-day adventure that sets sail out of Lisbon, Portugal, and includes stops in the Azores, the Canary Islands, Casablanca, Morocco, and Seville, Spain. It's a wonderful way to combine Bible study and Christian fellowship with exciting adventures and breathtaking views.
Travel dates extend from November 10th through the 20th. Find out more or book your cabin at deeperfaithcruise.com. We are glad you studied God's word with us today. Tomorrow we'll learn more tips for interpreting scripture and discover where David's thinking went awry. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.
