Let us turn then to God's Word,
and I want us to turn again to the verse we were considering
in the morning hour, in 2 Samuel 23, verse 5. 2 Samuel 23, verse 5, Although
my house be not so with God, yet he hath made with me an everlasting
covenant, ordered in all things and sure. For this is all my
salvation and all my desire, although he make it not to grow. And I want to concentrate more
especially upon the beginning and the end of the verse where
we have something of David's confession He says, although
my house be not so with God, although he make it not to grow. There is a contrast of course
with what he says in the remainder of the text, which we were considering
this morning. Yet, the significance of that
little word draws out the contrast. Yet, He has made with me an everlasting
covenant ordered in all things and sure for this is all my salvation
and all my desire. We considered then those words
this morning and we thought of those three aspects of the covenant,
the parties who are covenanting together as the covenant is spoken
of as an everlasting covenant, so the parties must be from everlasting
to everlasting. And who is the one who is thus
described in scripture, in Psalm 19 verse 2, it is God, says Moses,
who is from everlasting to everlasting, the eternal God. And the covenant
is made between the persons in the Godhead. It is the everlasting
covenant of grace that is spoken of, as we said this morning. It was made on behalf of David
by David's great covenant head, his greatest son, the Lord Jesus
Christ. David himself, as we said this
morning, is is a typical person, he is a type of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Here in verse 2 he says, the
Spirit of the Lord spoke by me, and his word was in my tongue. It's not so much his own words,
and isn't, that he is speaking. He is speaking the words of God.
He is the mouthpiece of God. This is what we see throughout
the scriptures. God raises up his servants, the
prophets, and they speak not their own words, they speak,
says Peter, as they are moved by the Spirit of God. They speak
the words of God. And so here in the text then
we have God speaking. We have the Lord Jesus Christ
speaking here in the Old Testament. He has made with me an everlasting
covenant, ordered in all things and sure. Remember how we have that, what
we might term, parallel verse to this in Isaiah 55, 3, where
the Prophet speaks again of the everlasting covenant. and speaks there of that covenant
in terms of the sure mercies of David. I will make an everlasting
covenant with you even the sure mercies of David. And as we remarked this morning
when Paul is preaching there in Acts 13 the record of his
sermon that we have in that chapter that he preached at Antioch in
Pisidia and he actually makes reference to Isaiah 55 in reference
to the Lord Jesus Christ. There in that record of his sermon the reference is found in verse In verse 34, Paul says, We declare
unto you glad tidings, O that the promise which was made unto
the fathers God hath fulfilled the same unto us, their children,
in that he hath raised up Jesus again. as it is also written
in the second psalm. Now what my son, this day have
I begotten thee, and as concerning that he raised him up from the
dead, now no more to return to corruption, he said on this wise,
I will give you the sure mercies of David. The sure mercies of
David, the everlasting covenant. It all has to do with the Lord
Jesus Christ. The parties then, the parties
who engage in the covenant are the persons of the Godhead. That council of peace that is
between both of them, between the Father and the Son. And then also we observed something
with regards to the properties that belong onto the covenant. It's an everlasting covenant.
It's a covenant that's ordered in all things. and it's a covenant
that is sure. All things are in the covenant
and so Paul can say we know. We who have an interest in this
covenant, we know that all things work together for good to them
that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. And how do we know that all things
are working together for good because of the very nature of
the covenant. It's everlasting. It cannot be overturned from
eternity. And it's ordered. There's nothing
of confusion here. When we speak of God, when we
speak of God's decree, we should really speak in the singular
I know often we speak of the decrees because in time of course
we see God fulfilling his purpose in a succession of events. But
when we go outside of time of course there is no past or present
or future, there is no succession. There is one eternal now and
God's decree in that sense is singular. It's a decree of God,
it's a blessed simplicity. and all things are ordered by
God and there can be no confusion brought into what God himself
has purposed in that great covenant everlasting, ordered in all things
and sure and then also we remarked on the gracious provision that
God makes in the covenant what does God provide? He provides
salvation It's the covenant of redemption. It's the covenant of grace. David
says this is all my salvation. This is all my desire. All of salvation here, this is
the covenant of grace and the contrast is drawn as we were
endeavouring to say this morning between those two covenants that
are set before us here in Holy Scripture. The old covenant that
God made that Mount Sinai expressed in terms of the Holy Lord of
God, the Ten Commandments. The commandment of course is
holy and just and good. There's no fault anywhere in
that Lord of God. But alas, how that holy and just
and righteous law finds out the sinner. How it shuts the mouth
of the sinner. because it requires full, perfect
obedience. And James tells us if a man should
keep the whole law and yet offend him on point, he is guilty of
all. Just one sin, you see, brings
guilt, brings death. The soul that sinneth says the
law, it shall go on. All the law requires perfect
obedience. It says do. What are we to do? We are to do all of it, every
part of it, without any exception. Do and live. We cannot measure up to that. Whatever things the law saith,
it saith to them who are under the law, Paul tells us, that
every mouth may be stopped and all the world become guilty.
before God, therefore by the deeds of the law shall no flesh
be justified, for by the law is the knowledge of sin." That's
the old covenant that condemns the sinner, that only ministers
death to the sinner. Ah, but this new covenant, how
different it is. Christ has done it all. Christ
is that one, you see, who is engaged in this new covenant
and engaged to what? To do all the will of his father.
This is why he came. Not to do his own will, he tells
us, but the will of him that had sent him and to finish his
work. And now he's finished that work.
I have glorified thee on the earth, he says. I have finished
the work that thou gavest me to do. It's the covenant of grace.
Nothing for the sinner to do. All done by Christ. If by grace,
then is it no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace.
As these are exclusive, mutually exclusive, one of the other,
there's no works at all, it's all of grace. Neither is there
salvation in any other. There's none other name under
heaven given amongst men whereby we must be saved, says Paul.
Here is salvation. And it's personal to David. It's my salvation. Oh friends,
can we say it? Can we say it sincerely, truly,
know it? We don't come presumptuously,
but ought to know that we have an interest in this covenant.
This is all my salvation, and if it's all our salvation, it
will also be all our desire, because that's what David goes
on to say. As these two stand together, this is all my salvation
and all my desire. God has joined them. And what
God has joined together, the man is not to put asunder. Can
we say tonight that this is true of us, this salvation? It's all our desire. We desire
nothing more than this, that we have an interest in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Whom have I in heaven but thee,
says the psalmist. There is none upon earth that
I desire before thee. Is that true? Or are we those
who have idols in our hearts? There are those things that are
more important to us than an interest in this salvation. It's
not an all-consuming passion. That's how it should be. It should
be an all-consuming passion with us. to know this real religion,
this interest in the covenant of grace. To say with David,
again in the 38th Psalm, all my desire is before them, and
my groaning is not heard from them. Or we can't express the
depth of our feeling, the longings, the yearnings that we have after
the saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. is something of
what we were considering this morning with regards to this
covenant. But as I said, I want now to
turn to the confession that David makes, and the covenant is cautiously
in the midst of this confession. Although my house be not so with
God, although he make it not to grow, there was at the grieve,
David, Well, let's look for a while at David's confession. And what
is David confessing here? Well, he's confessing, in a sense,
his failings and his sins. He felt his own sinfulness did
this man. He knew that he had many failings,
although my house be not so with God. Now we might understand
that term, my house, in terms of David himself. We might understand
it in terms of David, his body. Remember what Paul says when
he writes in the fifth chapter of the second epistle to the
Corinthians. concerning the house of this
tabernacle is speaking of our own persons our bodies as it
were for we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle
were dissolved we have a building of God and house not made with
hands eternal in the heavens Although my house, you see, my
earthly tabernacle, be not so. He goes on in verse 4, does Paul,
we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened. Not
for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon that our mortality
might be swallowed up of life. And doesn't David here, as he
were groaned within himself, as he looks to him, self, as
he examines himself, these be the last words of day. He's come
to the end of his days. And would he not look to himself
and the life that he's lived, the sort of person that he had
been? We know that this man certainly
had a desire to be a holy man. He was the man after God's own
heart. In the 101st Psalm He says, I
will behave myself wisely in a perfect way. When will thou
come unto me? I will walk within my house with
a perfect heart. Can we not understand the reference
here to his house to be his body? He wants to work, he wants to
walk with a perfect heart, he wants to conduct himself aright.
Though David was very much aware of that sin that was constantly
clinging and clinging to him. He was full of sin and he felt
sin to such a degree that in another of the Psalms we find
David describing sin as if it was some loathsome disease. I
think of Psalm 38 and the remarkable striking language that we find
David using in that Psalm. Speaking of his house, the earthy
house of this tabernacle. He says there is no soundness
in my flesh because of thine anger, neither is there any rest
in my bones because of my sin. For mine iniquities are gone
over mine head as a heavy burden that too heavy former. My wounds
stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness. I am troubled,
I am bowed down greatly, I go mourning all the day long. For
my loins are filled with a loathsome disease, And there is no soundness
in my flesh, although my house be not so with God. He was so
much aware, this man, of his fallen nature. And was he not
a man who was guilty, guilty of sins of the flesh? David was
a man guilty of sins of the flesh. And you know what I think of
here is adultery. That's Sheba. And it's recorded,
is it not, in this very book. You turn back to chapter 11.
And what do we read concerning this
man David? David tarries at Jerusalem. Joab and all Israel are in the open
field at battle, but David tarries at Jerusalem. Verse 2, And it
came to pass in an evening tide that David arose from off his
bed, and walked upon the roof of the king's house, and from
the roof he saw a woman washing herself. and the woman was very
beautiful to look upon and David sent and enquired after the woman
and one said is not this Bathsheba the daughter of Eliam the wife
of Uriah the Hittite and David sent messengers and took her
and she came in unto him and he lay with her for she was purified
from her uncleanness and she returned unto her house And the
woman conceived, and sent unto David, and said, I am with child. Now, you can read the chapter.
You are probably aware of the chapter. And David seeks time
and again to cover his sin. And when he cannot cover his
sin, what does he do? He arranges the death of Joab. He was a man who was guilty of
sins of the flesh. Amazing! This is the man after
God's own heart. And of course the psalm that
we read, Psalm 51, is his great confession as we are told in
the title of that psalm. He had sinned. He had sinned
against Bathsheba, against Uriah, against Joab. He was guilty and
what does he say in the psalm? As he comes before his God against
thee, the only am I sinned. That's what he felt. His sin
was against God. All our sins are against God.
All our sins are against God. Although my house be not so with
God. He was a sinner, this man, a
great sinner. The reference then, we might
say, is to the earthly house of this tabernacle, his body.
Of course, David, as a man, also knew much of great trials and
many troubles. Before he was king, he was often
in fear of his life, he has to flee from King Saul, as Saul
is bent upon his destruction. We think of a man like Job, you
see, what trials, what troubles, Job also knew. In the earthly
hands of his tabernacle, Job says concerning his troubles,
In chapter 19 and verse 12, his troops come together and rise
up their way against me and encamp round about my tabernacle. All
the troubles you see that came round about Job's tabernacle,
round about his body. Now the man was struck down and
covered from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet
He boils and he goes and sits amongst the ashes and takes a
potsherd and he's scraping himself. Doubt trials come one after the
other. As they were encamping he says,
round about my tabernacle, and that was also true of David. During his life here upon the
earth, when we think of him and the things that he had to endure
in the bottom. Although my house be not so with God's, yes, he
is married with me an everlasting covenant. All friends, here is
his comfort, his only hope. His only hope was where? In the
covenant. That's the great thing, is it
not? That is the great thing, that covenant. It's really something
outside of himself. As I've sought to emphasise today,
it's God's covenant. It's a glorious objective truth,
you see. It's what God has done, how God
has covenanted with himself, that inter-Trinitarian covenant.
This is where David looks, he has to look away from himself.
In Psalm 74 and verse 20, I have respect unto the covenant, For
the dark places of the earth are full of the habitation of
cruelty." Oh, what a prayer to ask God that he would have respect
to the Covenant. Because of the situation, the
dark places of this wicked fallen world, are they not full of the
habitations of cruelty? Oh, it's in the Covenant that
we find comfort. It's in the blood of the covenant,
is it not? That lovely benediction that we find at the end of Hebrews
13, the God of peace. Oh, it's not the covenant of
peace that was made between the Father
and the Son and the Spirit, in order that those who were
so very far from God, those who were in a state of alienation,
Those who were enemies of God might be reconciled. What does Christ say? My peace
I give unto thee. My peace I leave with thee, not
as the world giveth, give I unto thee. Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid. It is a covenant of peace. And
there, in that benediction, Paul says, the God of peace that brought
him going from the dead, our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd
of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant.
Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working
in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight. All the blood of
the everlasting covenant. Isn't that what Presently we
will come to remember at the Lord's table that precious blood
that has sealed the covenant. Christ, remember, is the surety.
He is the surety, says Paul in Hebrews 7, of a better testament,
or covenant. We could translate the Greek
word either way. That's how it's translated in
the New Testament, sometimes it's Testament, sometimes it's
Covenant. You're one of the same thing. Christ is the surety of
a better Covenant. Better than the Mosaic Covenant,
better than the Law. Christ is the mediator of the
New Testament, the New Covenant. And I say this is where David finds his comforts. Nothing in
himself. We look at ourselves, what are
we? We're nothing. Nothing. Though I be nothing,
says Paul. But we're worse than nothing
in God's sight. Though my house be not so with God, yet he hath
made with me an everlasting covenant. But then, with regards to this
word, my house, you might say, well, surely the obvious meaning
here has to do with his family. It's his family that he's speaking
of. It's his sons that he's speaking
of. And how true it was that his sons and us were not right with God. They
were not right with God. We referred only last Thursday
to his son Hamnon. Spoken of there in chapter 13.
Remember we were looking at those works in chapter 14 and verse
14. But we referred back to the previous
chapter and the sad history of Hamnon lusting after his sister,
his half-sister Tamar. and forcing himself upon her,
and then despising her. Or how he hated her, that's what
it says. And the hatred that he bore towards
her, when he had his way with her, the hatred was greater than
the love that he professed. How real is scripture, how true
it is, the difference between love and lust. When the lust
is satisfied, the object of the lust is despised. Then Amnon
hated her exceedingly, so that the hatred wherewith he hated
her was greater than the love wherewith he had loved her. And
Amnon said unto her, Arise and be gone. Nothing more to do with
her. and then her brother Absalom, and he was a full brother
to her. Did he not call one of his own daughters Tamar, Atlas,
remembering his fair sister? Absalom was enraged and Absalom
so arranges things that Amnon is killed And Absalom is the
man who is responsible for it, and it was of course Absalom
that was really being spoken of in that verse we were looking
at. He was the banished one. He had to float. Joab is seeking
that he might yet be restored to the to the royal courts. He speaks of how God or this
wise woman of Tekoa. It's not her own words, it's
the words that Joab had put in her mouth. But that portion we
were looking at on Thursday. Neither does God respect any
person yet that he devised means that he's banished, be not expelled
from him. And in time Absalom was restored. And we're told at the end of
that 13th chapter And he came to the king and bowed himself
on his face to the ground before the king, and the king kissed
Absalom. David kissed his son Absalom.
Reconciliation. But then what do we read subsequently?
Chapter 15 following we have Absalom rebelling against his
father David. The rebellion of Absalom. And
Ahithophel, David's counsellor, is in the conspiracy. You can
read it there in chapters 15 to 18. that Absalom comes there and
he steals the hearts of the men of Jerusalem. Eventually David
has to flee from these cities. He has to flee for his very life. The whole city is gone. And of course, that's the context
of Psalm 55. And we see that David, time and
again in the Psalms, he's writing about a very real situation,
real concrete experience. that he knew. All the awful rebellion
of his time and eventually the council of Ahithophel who now
sided with Absalom. Though he'd been David's councillor
he was turned to foolishness, to confusion. And Absalom's rebellion
was altogether overthrown. But then what does David do?
this man of such a tender heart, how he laments for his son, Absalom. When Absalom was killed at the
end of chapter 18, the king was much moved, and went up to the
chamber over the gate and wept. And as he went thus he said,
O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom, would God I had
died for this, Oh Absalom, my son, my son. No wonder he says,
though my house be not so with God. What awful confusion came
into this man's house. It didn't end with his death,
did it? He says at the end of the verse,
although he make it not to grow, even subsequent to his death,
when Solomon was to be the king, it was Adonijah who sought to
seize the throne. There in the opening chapter
of the next book, the first book of Kings. In verse 5, then Adonijah, the
son of Agath, exalted himself saying, I will be king. And he
prepared him chariots and horsemen and fifty men to run before him. He would be the king. And eventually, of course, he
is killed because Solomon is the one who is to be the king. Although my house be not so with
God. Although he make it not to grow. Oh, but there is that one who is David's greatest son. There is the Lord Jesus Christ.
And what do we read in another scripture in the book of the
prophet Jeremiah? Concerning David's greatest son. Jeremiah 23.5 Behold, the days
come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous
branch, and the king shall reign and prosper, and shall execute
judgments and justice in the earth. or the righteous branch,
isn't that the Lord Jesus Christ, the man whose name is the branch
we read in Zechariah. David then comes and he makes
his confession, his confession concerning himself, concerning
the earthly house of his tabernacle, the sins that he was guilty of
in the body, concerning his own family and his son, In the midst of all this confusion,
where does David find his comfort? Only in the covenant, yet. Yet, he has made with me an everlasting
covenant. But then, as I said, this verse
really has to do with the Lord Jesus Christ. David is a type
of Christ. We remember the significance
of the name David. David means the Beloved. And God says concerning Christ
both at his baptism and again in the Mount of Transfiguration,
this is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Now he has
always pleased the Father. He speaks, does he not, in Proverbs
chapter 8, Then was I by him as one brought up with him. I
was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him. He is the Lord's delight. He
is that one who is the beloved of the Lord. He is that one,
as we said earlier, who is spoken of in the 34th chapter of Ezekiel that one who is the
true shepherd of his people so different to those shepherds
of Israel those who should have had the constant care of the
people the princes or the kings and the priests and the prophets
but alas there were many wicked kings or there were many false
prophets there were many of the priestly line of Aaron who were
unworthy, ungodly, wicked men and so they reproved these wicked
men in that 34th chapter of Ezekiel remember but then we read of
him who is the good shepherd God says, I will set up one shepherd
over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David. He shall feed them, and he shall
be their shepherd, and I, the Lord, will be their God, and
my servant David, a prince among them. I, the Lord, have spoken
it. It's all future tense. It's all prophecy. It's what
Wilbur now is equally speaking many, many years after David. David had seen corruption. David
was laid in the tomb. Who is this David? Who is the
true shepherd of his people? This is Christ. I am the good
shepherd, he says. The good shepherd giveth his
life for the sheep. Christ then is to be seen here.
Now, what does Christ say of his people? Notice the answer
that's given to that question in the Song of Solomon. What
will you see in the Shulamite? There in the Song of Solomon
we have Christ and we have Christ's Bride. It's not just a love song,
it is that. It celebrates all that is good
and noble In the love of a man for a woman and a woman for a
man, that's good, that's right, that's proper, that's what God
ordained. When He brought Adam and Eve
together, He said they shall be one flesh. But in the Song
of Solomon, it's not just a celebration of all that is good, in that
most intimate of all human relationships, a man and his wife, But it also
sets before us Christ and the church. And so Christ speaks, the church
speaks. What will you see in the Shulamite? The answer, as
it were, the company of two armies. The Shulamite. And what does the Shulamite say
of herself? I am black, but come. What does the Lord see in his
people? What does the Lord see in his people? There is nothing
in ourselves, we are nothing but sinners. Great sinners. Conceived in sin. Shaken in iniquity. Bent on backsliding. We are sinners. We sin in thought, we sin in
word, we sin in deed. There is not a just man upon
the earth that doeth good and sinneth not. All have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. But what does the Lord see in
His people? He beholds them and He grinds
to them that new life, that spiritual life. They are born again, they
are born from above. And then what does He see? He
sees two armies. There is His conflict, you see.
That that He is born of the flesh is flesh. And that that He is
born of the Spirit is spirit. And these are contrary one to
the other, Paul says. And you cannot do the thing that
you want. All the good that I would I do, not the evil that I would,
not that I do, he cries out. Wretched man that I am, who shall
deliver me from the body of this death? God causes the believer then
to feel something of this inward plague of sin he causes him to
feel what he is in his very nature and the hymn writer John Kent
says why it must be so all to make us sick of self and fond
of him wasn't that what David had to learn he had to become
sick of himself and all that pertained to him not just his
own person his own family sick of himself but so fond of his
God and that great salvation. O Israel, says the prophet Hosea,
thou hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thy help. You see
what the Lord has to teach us all the time, that our only help
is to be found in Him. He must then be all our salvation. He must be all our desire, the
one thing needful. is that we know Him and that
we are trusting in Him. Although my house be not so with
God, although He make it not to grow,
yet, yet He hath made with mercy an
everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure. For this
is all my salvation, and all my desire. May the Lord bless
His words to us.