Key Verse: "The Lord declares to you that the Lord Himself will
establish a house for you: when your days are over and you rest with your
fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your
own body, and I will establish His kingdom. He is the one who will build a
house for my name, and I will establish the throne of His kingdom forever.
2 Samuel 7:11B-13
Four hundred years have passed since the days of the exodus
when the children of Israel wandered in the desert. Now they have a history. They have had times of obedience, such as
conquering much of the land that God had promised: and times of disobedience,
when God had to raise up leaders to bring them back to godliness. They desired a king, but the first one, Saul, did many
things that displeased God and God finally had to remove him from the throne.
Next, God chose a man after His own heart, David, the son of
Jesse, of the tribe of Judah. David
could do it all from leading a battle, to writing poetry and David wanted
everything he did to be for God's glory. Most of all, David was a descendant of Judah,
and became a direct forefather of the promised Messiah still to come.
Unfortunately, David also sinned against the Lord by having
an affair, murdering the woman's husband and then trying to pretend that God
didn't see, but of course, as we know, He did. God confronted David about his sins through
the prophet Nathan and David, faced with his sin, repented and cried out to God
for mercy and forgiveness. David's first
son from this affair died in infancy. Yet
God was gracious in accepting David's repentance. As a result, God blessed their second son,
Solomon, out of all of David's children, as the one who would continue the line
of descendants to Messiah. How like our
God, to turn tragedy into blessing.
Now, King David, with a heart full of Gratitude to God,
wishes to build a temple, a monument expressing how great and awesome God is. God doesn't need a temple, but, once again,
our creator, God, understands David's heart, and offers him this glimpse of the
future.
In this passage of Scripture, many believe that God is
talking about Solomon because it is Solomon who built the temple that David had
hoped to build. While it is true that
Solomon did build David's temple, that temple was destroyed and Solomon's
kingdom was also split in two after Solomon's death and did not last forever.
God is referring here instead, to another descendant, to Jesus,
and the temple that Jesus would build, the church, which would last forever. Even the gates of hell would not prevail
against what Christ would build, a temple, not built by hands, but by the
hearts of those who would claim Him as Lord. It is through Christ that David's reign can go
on forever.
Also, in this passage, God promises to punish the son, but
God never punished Solomon for all of the ways that he strayed from obedience
to God. God did punish Jesus, however,
undeserved and as unfair as it was. God
punished Jesus for David's sin and for yours and mine. It is because of that unjust punishment that
Jesus is crowned as Messiah, king forever, in the order of Melchizedek, forever
and ever.
Hymn: "Once In Royal David's City"
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