Have you ever had someone look you right in the eyes and tell you a lie? How did you feel?
Have you ever had someone make a promise with pure intentions but possessed inability to fulfill that promise? Have you ever been that person making the promises?
We are going to explore one of the most pivotal passages of Scripture: “God’s promise to David.”
But this promise was not just for David; it was for you and me.
We have a Father who keeps his promises. His promises are pure and He possesses the power to keep his vows.
2 Samuel 7 is God’s oath to earth. This promise shaped the vision of the prophets and it is the hope of humanity. Be ready to be encouraged!
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Buddy Hoffman
Series: One Story: Digging Deeper
January 27, 2013
Famous Kings: God’s Oath to Earth
2 Samuel 7
Open your Bibles to 2 Samuel 7. For you who have been with us through this series, we’re talking about the One Story, about how the entire Bible is integrated into a singular story. It is the metanarrative. The big story of the Bible is kingdom. That’s what it really is all about. It’s God’s kingdom and how God is going to restore all of earth.
Now we’ve gone through several episodes of that, and we’re into what we call the section, the episode, of Famous Kings. Famous Kings are Saul, David, and Solomon. Then the kingdom is going to fracture. I’m going to talk about that next week, but the kingdom is going to fracture and become really… There’s a civil war, and even the Northern Kingdom fractures again. It’s really terrible what happens.
I want us to look at a passage that is… If you don’t have this passage starred in your Bible, you really should. You just should mark over on the side somewhere, because this passage is the foundation for actually the rest of the Bible. This is God’s oath to earth. This is where God makes the promise that he’s going to extend his kingdom throughout all humanity.
If you read the commentators, they’ll call it the Davidic Covenant, but this is God making a promise to David that he is going to extend his kingdom into all the earth. In this chapter, what you find is all the hopes you read in Isaiah. I love the book of Isaiah, when he envisions this new heaven and this new earth and that we’ll study war no more. All of that stems out of this foundation right here.
Second Samuel 7: “When King David was settled in his palace and the LORD had given him rest from all the surrounding enemies…” (2 Samuel 7:1) You might want to circle that word rest. That’s shalom. Shalom is more than hello. Shalom is more than goodbye. It’s more than a greeting; it’s a kingdom phrase. It’s more than the absence of war; it’s when everything is as it should be. David is now in a position where he is king of all of Israel, and not only he is in the right place, God has given him this shalom.
Have you ever experienced a glimpse of shalom, where maybe not everything was right, but a moment of just utter, almost perfect beauty, where you just kind of looked around and you went, “Wow. This is good”? I don’t mean to make you jealous or anything, but I spent the first two weeks of January in West Palm.
I have some really good friends who knew I had broken my leg, and they said, “You need just to be in some warm weather. We have a condo on the beach. Why don’t you just get in your truck and come down here, and you can have that condo. Bring your bicycle and you can ride around.” So like every morning for two weeks, I would just get up, watch the sun come up, get on my bicycle, ride over to Starbucks. It’s 78 degrees, and I was like shalom.
That’s where David is. I know you do this sometimes. You look at your kids, or you look at your grandkids, or you look at a family table, and you go, “Whoa! God, you’ve blessed us!” Now what happens often when you experience those blessings is exactly what David does.
“…the king summoned Nathan…” Now Nathan is like his spiritual counsel. He’s the one who really serves as David’s spiritual compass. He’s the prophet. “‘Look,’ David said, ‘I am living in a beautiful cedar palace…'” And David didn’t even build this palace. King Hiram built this palace for him. He sent all the cedar trees down from Lebanon and workmen, and they built this palace for David. He’s in Jerusalem.
He says, “‘I am living in a beautiful cedar palace, but the Ark of God is out there in a tent!'” Nathan replied to the king, ‘Go ahead and do whatever you have in mind, for the LORD is with you.'” (2 Samuel 7:2-3) They’re dreaming about what they can do for God. “God, you have been so good to us. We want to do something for you.” It has a real righteous ring to it, doesn’t it? I mean, it has just this real sense of reality. “Yeah! David, listen, you’re just exercising your gratitude and…wow, that’s great! That’s a great idea.”
Now I know some of you are going, “I see on the bottom there are blanks, and you have a reputation of not filling them in.” So I’m going to give you the first one anyway, because this is important. The chapter division falls into three categories. It’s David’s vision. What he wants to do is build a temple. Then it’s God’s revision. Then in verses 18-29, it’s David’s response. Now there are three observations about God’s oath.
What I’ve entitled chapter 7 (and this is really important to understand)… This chapter is God’s Oath to Earth. This is God saying, “I’m going to make some promises to you, and they’re unconditional. They’re going to be for everyone everywhere forever.”
This is rhetorical, because I know the answer. Have you ever been lied to? How’d you feel when you knew you were just flat out lied to? It makes you mad, doesn’t it? Sometimes it makes you just disappointed. Have you ever had someone make a promise with pure intentions but they didn’t possess the ability to deliver on the promise? When they said they were going to do something, they meant it, but they just couldn’t deliver.
I’m going to ask you a deeper question… Have you ever lied to someone? How many have ever lied to someone? Okay, the rest of you are liars. You know it’s true. I mean, we’ve all lied to people. When we do, we feel badly about it. Sometimes they’re like little lies that I’m not even sure God is real angry about, like when your wife says, “Does this make me look heavy?” and you go, “No! Absolutely not. No,” and you’re going, “The stripes should go this way.” Just saying.
I remember one time… I had the best mother ever. One time, my best friend and I planned to not go home for the night. He told his mother and dad he was spending the night at my house, and I told my mother and dad I was spending the night as his house. We just planned to cruise Tucker all night. About 4:00 in the morning (this is a true story) my mother woke up, and she says God woke her up. I believe her. She called my best friend’s mother and said, “Is Buddy there?” She goes, “No, they’re at your house.” She goes, “No, they’re not.”
She said she got down on her knees beside the bed and said, “God, where are they?” God told her, and she came and found us. What we were doing wasn’t that evil. It wasn’t that good, but it wasn’t that evil, but what really hurt me is when she looked me in the eye and said, “I really didn’t think you would lie to me.” Man, you could’ve just taken my heart and stomped it on the ground. It really hurt her because she really didn’t think I would lie to her.
These are God’s promises, and one of the things that is incredibly important for you and me to know is we have a Father who keeps his promises. He keeps his promises. This is the way God works. He makes covenants. He makes oaths. This is what he did with Abraham when he says, “Listen. Here’s what I want you to do, Abraham. Now then, you’re not going to have this land, but your kids are going to have this land.”
This is what he does with Jacob. This is what he does with Moses. Moses is out in the wilderness and speaking to him in the burning bush, and he says, “I’m going to bring you back to this very spot, and you’re going to worship in this very spot.” We have a God who makes promises and he keeps them. That’s our actual hope for everything. This is a fundamental promise, and we’re going to read it.
So verses 1 and 2, he’s dreaming. He says, “Go ahead! It sounds like an amazing idea!” Verse 4: “But that same night the LORD said to Nathan, ‘Go and tell my servant David, “This is what the LORD has declared: Are you the one to build a house for me to live in? I have never lived in a house, from the day I brought the Israelites out of Egypt until this very day. I have always moved from one place to another with a tent and a Tabernacle as my dwelling.
Yet no matter where I have gone with the Israelites, I have never once complained to Israel’s tribal leaders, the shepherds of my people Israel. I have never asked them, ‘Why haven’t you built me a beautiful cedar house?'” Now go and say to my servant David, “This is what the LORD of Heaven’s Armies has declared…”‘” (2 Samuel 7:4-8) I love what he says here. I’m reading out of the New Living, and it translates the idea very well, but it misses the point a little bit here.
He says, “‘”…I took you from tending sheep in the pasture and selected you to be the leader of my people Israel.”‘” (2 Samuel 7:8) What he actually says here, “I took you from following the sheep.” When God started working with David, David wasn’t even a good shepherd. He touches this point in David’s memory about, “Remember when you were chasing those sheep and you couldn’t even get the sheep to follow you and you weren’t even a good shepherd? You were just chasing sheep down. You were thinking, ‘Please follow me! Please follow me!’ You were afraid you were going to lose a little lamb.”
He says, “I took you from following the sheep to leading the nation. I’ve made you king. I’ve taken you all this direction.” Notice the personal pronouns. “This isn’t your hand, David. This is my hand.” It says, “‘”I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have destroyed all your enemies before your eyes. Now I will make your name as famous as anyone who has ever lived on the earth!”‘” (2 Samuel 7:9) Now when that translates, “I will make your name famous,” this has been a theme that has been coming up all the way out of Genesis.
Name to us just means what somebody calls you. People sometimes say to me, “How’d you get the name Buddy?” When I was a little kid, I had polio. I was a crippled kid. People would come by and pat me on the head and say, “Hey, buddy.” So I just thought it was my name. People would say, “What’s your name?” I’d say, “Buddy.” I asked my mom one time, “Mom, why does everybody know my name?” She goes, “Oh, everybody knows you.” She didn’t say, “Because you’re not smart enough to tell them your real name. You just think it’s Buddy.”
But in the Bible, name meant more than a set of syllables; name meant the substance of that person’s character. When you read in the Bible, “The name of the Lord is a strong tower,” it’s not just talking about the set of syllables by which you address God; it’s talking about the essence of God, the character of God, who God is.
Here’s what he says to David, “I’m going to do something in you.” We all want to do something for God, but here’s what God wants to do. Before God can do something through you, before God can do something through us, he must do something in us. He says, “I’m going to make your name great.”
Verse 10: “‘”And I will provide a homeland for my people Israel, planting them in a secure place where they will never be disturbed. Evil nations won’t oppress them as they’ve done in the past, starting from the time I appointed judges to rule my people Israel. And I will give you [shalom] from all your enemies.
Furthermore, the LORD declares…”‘” Look at this. This is really important because what God is going to do is turn this thing completely on its head. “‘”…that he will make a house for you…”‘” (2 Samuel 7:10-11) Do you remember how this starts? How this starts is, David says, “God, I want to build you a house.” God says, “I am going to make you a house!”
Now the word house in the Bible, it can mean a dwelling place, it can mean a palace, but what it really means is a kingdom. “I’m going to make out of you a kingdom. I’m going to do something that is beyond your imagination.” If you want to get those big points down at the bottom…one, two, and three…
1. We have good ideas; God has God ideas. That’s really important to understand. There’s nothing wrong with our good ideas. It’s a good idea to dream with your friends, “What could we do for God?” It’s a good idea when we think about, “Can I do something for you?” But what is so much more important is to recognize that God wants to do something in you.
2. We want to build something; God wants to birth something. Look at what he says. “‘”For when you die…”‘” That’s in verse 12. “‘”…and are buried with your ancestors, I will raise up one of your descendants, your own offspring, and I will make his kingdom strong. He is the one who will build a house—a temple—for my name. And I will secure his royal throne forever.”‘” (2 Samuel 7:12-13)
Now when you read biblical prophecy, what you find is immediate fulfillment mixed in with eventual fulfillment. What God is speaking about here, he’s talking about Solomon. Solomon is going to build the temple, but he’s talking about Jesus. “I’m going to raise up Someone out of your offspring.”
When you read this passage, this is the reason when you read Matthew and Mark and Luke that it introduces Jesus as the Son of David. That’s why you read those genealogies. I know if you’re like me, when you read those genealogies, there’s this temptation to go, “Okay, do I really need to know that all this goes back to here?”
Yes, you do, because what it’s saying is we have a Father who keeps his promises. All of those genealogies are pointing back to this point where God makes an oath to planet Earth, and he says very clearly, “Out of your offspring, I am going to bring forth a Son, but he is going to be eternal…forever!” Amen, Buddy.
“‘”I will be his father, and he will be my son.”‘” Now he’s talking about Solomon here, where he says, “‘”If he sins, I will correct and discipline him with the rod, like any father would do.”‘” But look at this in verse 15 “‘”But my favor [my grace] will not be taken from him as I took it from Saul, whom I removed from your sight. Your house and your kingdom will continue before me for all time, and your throne will be secure forever.”‘” (2 Samuel 7:14-16)
If you’re looking at those notes, we have good ideas; God has God ideas. Two, we want to build something; God wants to birth something.
3. We pray for miraculous moments; God creates miraculous movements. We want to experience that moment, and God doesn’t just do the moment; he magnifies the moment, and when it’s of God, it’s not over. It just continues to regenerate. Verse 17: “So Nathan went back to David and told him everything the LORD had said…” Here’s David’s response, and it’s just phenomenal.
“Then King David went in and sat before the LORD and prayed…” (2 Samuel 7:17-18) One of the things you see repeatedly about David, and it’s a pattern…it’s like nine times…when he doesn’t know what to do, it’ll say, “And David inquired of the Lord. And David inquired of the Lord. And David inquired of the Lord. And David inquired of the Lord.”
Here David just goes in. The word is more than just a physical position. It really carries this idea of abiding. David goes in and he just sits before the Lord. His response is phenomenal. “Who am I, O Sovereign LORD, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far?” (2 Samuel 7:18) Do you notice what he doesn’t do? He doesn’t say, “O God, I had a good idea! I wanted to do that. I kind of like my idea. I don’t want to just die and somebody else do this. I really want to do this.”
It’s interesting and I don’t have time to get into it, but God’s not going to let him build the temple, and so he goes and assembles all the parts of the temple and collects all the money and prepares everything so when Solomon has the opportunity to build the temple, boom! everything’s ready.
We need to recognize we are either setting the next generation up for success or really an obstacle to that success. The way we live our lives, the choices we make, the cultures we create either create make it easier for the next generation to follow God and fulfill that dream, or it makes it more difficult. God writes his kingdom stories across many generations.
I come back to this because this is incredibly important. People talk about, “Let’s build the church.” Generally, what they mean is, “Let’s build a building.” That’s a good idea. You who are sitting in the foyer, you know it’s a really good idea. We need some more space, but what we want is not just to build some kind of monument; what we really want is a movement that ripples across generations.
Let me just say this to you because I think it’s incredibly important. You recognize as a church that God is doing that in our midst. He is doing this. He is raising up young men and young women who have hearts for God to change the world. That is something we need to rejoice in.
That’s something we need to just sit before God and go, “God, who are we that you would allow us to nurture and to mentor and to disciple and to bring into this world men and women who are going on to college campuses and going across the world? Lord, who are we that you would allow this treasure as to be part of that treasure?” Amen? The response requires a humility. Not hubris, not pride, not like, “Look who we are!” No! “Who are we that you would let this be?”
Verse 19: He said, “And now, Sovereign LORD, in addition to everything else, you speak of giving your servant a lasting dynasty!” (2 Samuel 7:19) Everybody in this room is going to die. You know that. Do you know what the mortality rate is? One hundred percent. Unless Jesus comes back, you’re going to die. We live in denial that it won’t happen, but it will.
The book of Hebrews says, talking about running the race of faith, that since we are surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses, and it seems to refer back up to these people of faith, he says, “Let us run this race with perseverance.” I don’t know what this looks like when we die. I know there’s going to be the recreation of planet earth and we’re going to have this place as God meant it to be. I don’t know exactly what that means. I don’t know what that looks like after you die. I know you’re with Jesus, but I don’t know if you can actually see what’s going on, and I don’t want to be dogmatic, but I think so. I think so. Really, I think so.
I think those who have gone before us are cheering us on. I really do. They’ve set the pattern before us. I think they’re going, “Run that race. You’ll be glad you did. Finish that out. You’ll be glad you did.” Now if that’s true, one of these days, when we pass off the scene, we’ll be those silent cheerleaders, and when we look at what the high school kids and the middle school kids and maybe some kid who’s in our nursery today, and we’re cheering them on, I pray we have left a legacy they look back on, and they say, “We couldn’t have done this if those who had gone before us had not set us up for this.” Amen?
That’s what David says. He says, “Lord, you’re going to give me this lasting dynasty.” In this New Living Translation, it’s translated as a question, but as you well know, in the Hebrew, there are no punctuation marks. Everything is based on the context. Here’s what it says here. “Do you deal with everyone this way, O Sovereign LORD?” (2 Samuel 7:19)
But what it says there, and you can look at commentaries and there’s some debate, and that’s a great statement, “Lord, do you deal with everyone this way?” but what he’s literally saying is… How many of you can say hallelujah? Hallelujah. Say amen. You know two Hebrew words. There are two Hebrew words here. One is torah, which is teaching, or your law, and adam, which is Adam.
It should be, at least in my opinion and in the opinion of a lot of others, particularly in the light of other passages of Scripture, like Psalm 2, where it says, “Ask, and I’ll give you the nations,” and when you start looking at the sermons they’re preaching in Acts 2, and when they start preaching about what David saw and what David understood is that God was opening the door to the Gentiles. That’s us. What he’s saying here is, “You’re gracious with all humanity, just like you’re gracious with me. This is who you are. This is your way with mankind, that you’re gracious.”
Verse 20: “What more can I say to you?” I love what David says here. “You know what your servant is really like…” (2 Samuel 7:20) David is going, “God, you know me. You know what I’m really like. I don’t deserve this grace.”
Do you understand what kind of man David was? This is the reason David wasn’t allowed to build the temple because his hands had shed blood. David knew exactly what it sounded like to plant a battle axe in the middle of somebody’s head. David knew what it was like to be surrounded by Philistines and hack his way out of it. David knew what it was like to ambush people and slaughter people.
David was a man of war and battle, and that was what his time called for. David knew, if you’ve ever been in those situations, the inhumanity that comes out in war. David goes, “God, you know what I’m capable of. You know who I really am. How can this be, God?”
Verse 21: “Because of your promise and according to your will, you have done all these great things and have made them known to your servant. How great you are, O Sovereign LORD!” Listen to this. This is amazing. “There is no one like you. We have never even heard of another God like you!” (2 Samuel 7:21-22)
Do you hear what he’s saying? He’s saying, “We’ve heard about those pagan gods that do this and do that, but who is like you? Nobody’s like you! Nobody has this grace. You are a God who is unknown to humanity. This abundant, amazing, unconditional grace you are putting forth, this oath, this vow, this covenant with humanity, that you are going to restore earth, and you are going to open grace to everybody.”
If you want to know what God is like, you get a glimpse of it in the Old Testament. You see pictures of the Old Testament. You can look at creation and see his power, and you can see parts of the picture, but the picture really comes together in Jesus. Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God.
What does God look like? God looks like someone washing someone’s dirty feet. God looks like someone hanging up on a cross saying, “I forgive you.” God looks like someone looking at a bunch of ragtag disciples, young men, and saying, “Follow me, and I will change the world.” What kind of God is this?
“What other nation on earth is like your people Israel? What other nation, O God, have you redeemed from slavery to be your own people? You made a great name for yourself when you redeemed your people from Egypt. You performed awesome miracles and drove out the nations and gods that stood in their way. You made Israel your very own people…” Notice this word. This is repeated nine times in here. “…forever, and you, O LORD, became their God.” (2 Samuel 7:23-24)
I’m not really sorry, but I’m a little apologetic. This really bothers me. I mean, this gets to me down in my heart. “And now, O LORD God, I am your servant; do as you have promised concerning me and my family.” Listen. “Confirm it as a promise that will last forever. And may your name be honored forever so that everyone will say, ‘The Lord of Heaven’s Armies is God over Israel!’ And may the house of your servant David continue before you forever.
O Lord of Heaven’s Armies, God of Israel, I have been bold enough to pray this prayer to you because you have revealed all this to your servant, saying, ‘I will build a house for you—a dynasty of kings!’ 28 For you are God, O Sovereign LORD. Your words are truth, and you have promised these good things to your servant. And now, may it please you to bless the house of your servant, so that it may continue forever before you. For you have spoken, and when you grant a blessing to your servant, O Sovereign LORD, it is an eternal blessing!” (2 Samuel 7:25-29)
Now listen to me. This promise to David is a promise to us. This is a promise to us. We’re in here. This is what James said when he talks about this promise that made to David. He says, “This includes humanity. This is God’s oath to earth.” Do you know what? I know we want to do something for God, but what God wants to do is do something so dramatic within us and our offspring, both spiritually and physically, that it will affect generations upon generations upon generations, that people will look back and they’ll go, “Their God is God. There is no god like that God.”
We want to take a few minutes. Here’s what we do at Grace. We open the Bible. We read it. We say, “What does it mean?” We take a few minutes and we say, “God, what does that mean to us?” Worship is responding rightly to revelation. The right response to that revelation is, “O God, keep your promises. God, keep your promises in me.”
We want that moment; God wants to make that moment a movement. We want to build something; God wants to birth something. We have good ideas; God have great ideas. “God, keep your promises.”
We’re going to take few minutes. There are Communion tables open. We have a prayer team that’ll be right over here. We want God to do something miraculous in our presence, amen? If you’re here, you need prayer for healing or your marriage or you don’t know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you want to pray with somebody about that this morning, we want to pray with you. Let’s pray.
Lord, thank you. Lord, we thank you we can trust your promises, that you’re not a God who tricks and you’re not a God who says one thing and does another thing. Lord, you really know us. You know our hearts. You know our unworthiness, and you turn those ideas we think are good ideas and you go, “No, I have a better idea! I have a bolder idea. I’m going to do something in you and through you and to you.” Lord, we pray that prayer. Keep your promise. Keep your promise. In your name we pray, amen.