When the Answer is NO!, Part 1

Man, just think of it. A temple where in the presence of God abides. He has the prophet's affirmation.

This is great. God says, yes. I kind of picture David rushing back to his cedar palace and getting into the dining room and clearing off the table and getting out fresh parchment, calling his architects and saying, okay guys, let's get to work. A green light from the prophet of God is a green light from God.

My dream can now begin to unfold. Not so fast. The first word in verse 4 changes everything. As you know, King David was called a man after God's own heart.

Why is that? Well, one of the reasons is that he had an accurate and humble perspective on himself. In the passage we're studying today, David comes to God with a plan. He has a desire to do something great for God.

But he knew that even though he was a king, he was subject to the King of Kings. And in this case, God's answer was no. What can we learn from the bitter disappointment when God's answer to our prayer is no? This is what we're exploring today on Wisdom for the Heart.

Here's Stephen Davey with a lesson called, When the Answer is No. One question that just about every child gets asked a hundred times or so when they're little is the question, what do you want to do when you grow up? What do you want to be when you grow up? What do you want to be when you grow up?

I did a little research again this week when I got back into town this weekend and found that kids are still kind of given the same answers that you probably gave when you were growing up and you got to ask the same question. Some still want to be astronauts. Several in this survey wanted to be Spiderman and Superman or some other superhero. One of the surveys I read one kid wanted to be a zookeeper. Another wanted to be a lion tamer.

Imagine, he's a handful growing up. Still another wanted to be a painter. Several wanted to be actors, actresses, pilots, doctors, race car drivers. Not any, of course, I guess things have changed, wanted to be garbage collectors.

Of course, that was back in our day. You know, you rode on the back of the truck and $5 an hour all you could eat. That was a great job people wanted. One kid told his mother in the survey he wanted to grow up to be the ice cream scooper at Baskin and Robbins.

Now that's great, isn't it? Another kid said he wanted to work at a Krispy Kreme factory store where he could eat fresh hot donuts. Oh, okay, I made that one up. That's mine.

I threw in there just for fun. What I did find interesting, though, not all that surprising was that LinkedIn did this survey and they found that less than 10% of the adults, and millions were included in this part, said that they were even remotely involved with their childhood dream. That means somewhere along the way most of our dreams changed. What we thought would be the exciting job to have. Truth is most people I know adapted to new desires.

We do that all the time, don't we? In fact, even now your desires are being transformed and the agent of transformation in your heart is the Holy Spirit at work in your life. And you're learning, we're learning together how to trust in the Lord with all our heart, to not lean on our own understanding, this is the way I think we ought to go, but in all our ways to acknowledge him, give him first right of refusal, and then watch as he directs our steps.

That's critically important because our direction is often different than the direction God wants for us. How do you respond? How do you respond? I mean, obviously, you know, I would imagine in a crowd this size there aren't many astronauts in here. There probably isn't a lion tamer in here.

Probably no professional actors or actresses or race car drivers, although you don't get paid for it, but maybe not the same. Evidently, we've had some closed doors along the way. How do you respond when you're planning to take some steps? Maybe it's a grown-up issue, now it's a relationship or a move, a purchase, a decision, and life will change and then God shuts that door. He doesn't allow you to make that particular turn in the road.

How do you respond to that? No matter how hard you turned the doorknob on that door, it remains closed. The average Christian will go get a sledgehammer and say, you know, I think I can open it.

Or maybe have friends pray and translate that prayer into, Lord, help him learn how to pick that lock so he can open the door. Do we really trust the Lord with all our hearts? Do we not lean on our understanding? Do we really acknowledge him as first and watch as he directs our steps?

Let me ask it this way. What do you do when God says no? How do you respond with wisdom and, could I dare say, joy? When God says not that door, in fact, the older you get, you realize it's not that door, never.

It's this over here. How do you respond in that wise and joyful manner that we see in the life of David? Let me have you rejoin in our study in this singer's life, the life of King David. We're in 2 Samuel.

And as I studied this text, that's what so obviously struck me. Now, by the time you reach 2 Samuel, this is our first foray into the second book. The word that came to my mind is the word finally.

Finally. We have walked with David over the course of several weeks together. It's taken him years to get where we've covered the territory in a few weeks. We've watched David struggle and go from one trouble to the next, haven't we? He's been fighting Philistines. He's been dodging spears.

He's been hiding out in caves. And now you get into 2 Samuel and he's finally anointed king. But if you note carefully the fine print in chapter 2, he's anointed king of Judah. The nation is divided.

It's going to be several years of working to unite them. It isn't over until chapter 5 where he's anointed king of Israel, those tribes. And in between you've got intrigue and murder and civil war and finally, finally you get to chapter 7, finally he hears the chant as it were of the people in his direction, long live the king. It's been 15 years to get from chapter 1 of 2 Samuel to chapter 7. We just flew over it.

15 years. He has defeated the Jebusites. Jerusalem is now their capital city. The nation is united. There is domestic peace. There is national rest. And you have to just say with a sigh of relief, finally, finally.

In fact, the opening line of chapter 7 just tells you how good it is. The king lived in his house, that is his palace, and the Lord had given him rest from all his surrounding enemies. And you just kind of picture David as a lazy boy with a remote and his feet are up and it's been decades of strife and trouble. He now has his dream job. Or does he? I mean everything that he could have imagined as a 13 year old when he was anointed by Samuel has come to pass. He's arrived and he's enjoying days of prosperity and they were days of great prosperity for the entire nation.

You can think of every Israel as having two donkeys in their garage and roast beef in every oven they had it made. The truth is David is not reaching for the remote. He's kicking his feet up. In fact, you discover, as we will together, this isn't his dream job after all. He's had something else in mind and it's been growing. Look at verse 2. The king said to Nathan the prophet, okay now, look now, I dwell in a house of cedar but the ark of God dwells in a tent. In other words, I'm enjoying my rare cedar palace. It was a gift by the way of another king.

It was quite the place to live. But I look out my window and the tabernacle, the ark of the covenant, the ark of God is living in a tent made out of badger skin and that just doesn't seem right to me. I've got a cedar paneled house and it's time to do something for God and I've been thinking about it a long, long time. I don't want you to think, by the way, that this is a random, strange, spontaneous thought. You know, David's been born ever since he stopped fighting the Philistines and everybody got unified. And you know, I've always wanted to try my hand at building.

I think I'd be good with a hammer and a saw and I think I'm going to do this. What do you think, Nathan? That isn't it.

No. This project has been his dream. In fact, if you hold your finger here in 2 Samuel and turn to 1 Chronicles, it's your favorite place to have devotions, turn right, go through 1 and 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, look at chapter 22 and notice verse 1. David said, here shall be the house of the Lord God and here the altar of burnt offering for Israel. David commanded to gather together the resident foreigners, aliens, who were in the land of Israel and he sent stone cutters to prepare dressed stones for building the house of God. David also provided great quantities of iron for nails for the doors and the gates and for clamps as well as bronze in quantities beyond weighing and cedar timbers without number. Notice verse 5, for David said, Solomon, my son is young and inexperienced and the house that is to be built for the Lord must be exceedingly magnificent of fame and glory throughout all lands. I will therefore make preparation for it. So David provided materials in great quantity before his death. You could simply translate that until the day he died. For the rest of his life, he's going to gather. He's going to prepare and provide. Now with that kind of lifelong desire in mind, go back to 2 Samuel.

With that kind of excitement and enthusiasm, David approaches Nathan and effectively says, look, give me one good reason why we shouldn't start now. This is going to be the culmination of my skill and effort and creativity and passion. We've united the kingdom. We have the capital city. Here's the temple mount. Let's build a magnificent temple for the glory of God and notice what Nathan says, the prophet, he says, go, do all that is in your heart for the Lord is with you. Go for it, David. Man, just think of it. A temple where in the presence of God abides, he has the prophet's affirmation.

This is great. God says yes. I kind of picture David rushing back to his cedar palace and getting into the dining room and clearing off the table and getting out fresh parchment, calling his architects and saying, okay, guys, let's get to work. A green light from the prophet of God is a green light from God. My dream can now begin to unfold.

Not so fast. The first word in verse 4 changes everything. But, oh boy, 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've been moving about in a tent from my dwelling.

In all places where I've moved with all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the judges of Israel? Did I ever command these that shepherded my people saying, why have you not built me a house of cedar? Now, therefore, go back to my servant David and say, thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture from following the sheep and you've been 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 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 will dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more and violent men shall afflict them no more as formerly from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel and I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house.

Let me stop there. There's a play on words, ideas. David says, God, I want to build you a house and God says, no, David, I'm going to make you a house. I'm fine in this tent of badger skin, but I'm going to do something for you. And what you have in this paragraph is effectively what theologians refer to as the Davidic covenant. The Lord is going to make you a house.

Verse 12. He's going to establish his kingdom from your body. He's going to build a house and establish the throne of his kingdom forever. There's this wonderful covenant given to David here of a land, a nation, a kingdom, a throne. It's still yet in the future, by the way.

He is saying to affect some things and some things will happen, have happened. The line of David is going to be established as the royal line and through that line comes the king. He has the right to the throne. He has the right to an earthly kingdom.

And by the way, that's why it's so exciting. So stunning to get into the gospels, into the new, just the rumblings of the New Testament where the angel Gabriel comes to that little peasant girl, Mary, and says that, boy, you're going to have 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, a throne, a house, a kingdom. David also delivers here the wonderful news that David's death will not annul this covenant. That's verses 12 and 13. David, when you die, don't worry.

That line is going to continue and it did. He also says even sin will not destroy this covenant and that's great news because people just keep sinning, verses 14 and 15. And he also says time will not exhaust this covenant. That's verse 16. That's wonderful news. As David, to his surprise, is given a covenant that will last forever.

Let's go back and focus on the bad news. God effectively tells Nathan to go and tell David that he doesn't need a house and the house that will be built, the temple, won't be built by his hand. In fact, if you look down at verse 12, I read it quickly. David is informed by Nathan that when he lies down with his fathers, that is when he dies, his descendant will build that temple, that house. Now, in a parallel passage in 2 Chronicles 17, it reads even more clearly, the word of God came to Nathan saying, go and tell David, my servant, thus says the Lord, you shall not build a house for me to dwell in. David, it won't be you. It will be your son, Solomon.

Now, before you rush ahead and say, well, yeah, that's great, kept in the family, that'd be wonderful. No, no, no, keep in mind, David has no ulterior motive here. He has no selfish ambition here. He has no desire to make a name for himself.

He's not going to write his name over the front door. He wants to exalt the name of God. Can you imagine wanting to exalt the name of God, wanting to do something glorious for God, have no ulterior motive, have no selfish ambition, God, I want to do this for you, and God says, no.

We're given a little further clarification in the Chronicles that since David spent most of his life at war, God wanted a man of peace to build the temple and Solomon, whose name is a derivative of Shalom, will be that man of peace. It isn't a matter of David's heart being wrong, it's a matter where God simply said, no. Now pause for a moment with the difficulty of this in mind for Nathan himself. Imagine a prophet having to do an about-face within 12 hours. That wouldn't have been easy. David is going to have another appointment the next morning with Nathan, and Nathan is going to have to effectively say, look, David, I got so excited and I know it's your passion and desire and it sounded great and wouldn't that be wonderful that I said, you know, God would be pleased for you.

Go for it. God came to me and said, oh yeah, he'll be pleased with the building of his temple, but that can be such a discouraging word, can it? Makes you just want to cry. You had planned to go to college or graduate school, but. You had made plans to get married, but. You were told that you were the person for that job, but. You had planned on having lots of children, but.

You had planned on not having any more children, but. That little conjunction can change everything, can't it? In fact, when you're talking to someone, what comes after they say but is what really matters, so tune in. Your child's elementary school teacher calls you and says, we really love having a little tornado in the classroom with us, but. A client calls up and says, we've enjoyed doing business with you for years, but.

Maybe you fellas had a girlfriend call you at some point and say, you know, you're a really nice guy and I really like spending time with you, but. You know what that means? It means you are now free to move about the country. That's what that means. I'm convinced David was unable to sleep. He was excited. He was dreaming, planning the things he would do for the glory of God, and God said, oh, but I have something else in mind. You know, it strikes me that when we're told that David had a heart after God, a heart after God's own heart, that's such a big statement, isn't it?

You can't attack that in one lesson. A mark of having a heart after God is probably nowhere more revealed than in how someone responds when God's heart says no. Let's go through these next few verses quickly, and let me give you five summary words revealed in David's attitude and action. We'll call it five ways to respond when God says no, all right?

Here we go. Number one, the first way to respond is with humility. Look at verse 18. That King David went in and sat before the Lord and said, who am I, oh Lord God, and what is my house that you have brought me thus far? He doesn't go into God's presence and I got a laundry list of why I'm the man for the job.

Why in the world wouldn't you let me do that without any argument, without any protest? David is literally at his best here when he goes into that skin-covered tabernacle and offers up the self-deprecating, self-renunciating, self-denying testimony. Who am I anyway to have received what you've given me already? What do I even have now that isn't a result of your goodness? In other words, dream or no dreams, I am a blessed person, David says. When God says no, respond with humility.

Secondly, respond with gratitude. Look at verse 19, and yet this was a small thing in your eyes, oh Lord God. You've spoken also of your servant's house for a great while to come, and you can insert, and that was a surprise. What you're doing for me, Lord? He's choosing to focus on what God is going to do rather than what God has chosen not to do.

Gratitude comes when we're willing to view the will of God in a longer term rather than a shorter term. God has something else in mind. In fact, have you ever thought about the fact implied in God's response to David through Nathan that had God allowed David to begin building the temple 20 years earlier when he wanted to, David would more than likely have made it out of cedar. God didn't want it out of cedar. He wanted it out of stone and gold and silver. I read recently about a man who had heard God say no, and then God's design was a yes in a different way.

It would involve surprise and disappointment. He and his wife had dedicated their lives to vocational ministry. They were going to Africa to reach an unreached tribe, and they raised all their support. They made it to the field, and in the middle of their first term, his wife came down with a serious disease which caused them to have to leave the field and come back to the United States.

In order to make a living, he joined his father in his dentistry practice. It was the last thing he wanted to do. They needed to eat. He also had the idea just from understanding a need within the congregation. He was part of a denomination that observed the Lord's table every time they gathered, and grape juice didn't have a very long shelf life before it would begin to ferment. So he began to experiment. He experimented with pasteurization so that he could provide unfermented grape juice for their communion.

He figured it out. The young man had been a missionary whose dream had been dashed along with his wife. His name was Thomas Welch. He went on to produce an unfermented sacramental wine for church, but it caught on.

To this day, in fact within ten years, it was selling around the world along with Welch grape jelly. He would go on to give hundreds of thousands of dollars to the gospel enterprises. God said no to that, and a yes to this. Maybe you can't teach, but you can pray. Maybe you can't go, but you can support. Maybe you can't sing, but you can organize.

Maybe you can't run that particular race, but you can provide the shoes for the people who can. Respond with humility and gratitude. Thirdly, respond with surrender. These aren't easy words, by the way.

These are daily challenges. Respond with surrender. If you look at verse 20, David says, and again, what more can David say to you? For you know your servant, O Lord God. In other words, I'm your servant. What more can I say? I belong to you.

That's good enough. Isn't it interesting that in verse 18 he asks, who am I? And in verse 20 he says, I am your servant, which provides an interesting principle of surrender and security.

It's not so much who you are, but whose you are. We're going to stop right there for today, but Stephen will be back on our next broadcast to finish this message entitled, When the Answer is No. This message was the basis for Stephen's small booklet called, When God Says No. It's a short, easy to read booklet that's filled with practical wisdom about responding well when God's plans differ from your plans. You'll find that booklet in our online store. And while you're there, please take advantage of the free resource we have for you.

Stephen's ebook, Do Babies Really Go to Heaven When They Die? is free this month, and that's also online. Our website is wisdomonline.org. Again, that's wisdomonline.org. If there's any way we can help you today, our number is 866-48-BIBLE. Once again, that's 866-482-4253.

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