Okay, 2 Samuel chapter seven. You know, one of the most profitable
studies that you can do in trying to understand the word of God
as a whole is a study of the covenants that God made with
people. And you don't have to go very
far into the scripture to find out that God is a covenant God.
because it opens up with the covenant that God made with Adam.
And I know a lot of people, they disagree with how many covenants
there are, and what do you call this covenant, and I think people
get too bogged down in things like that and they miss the point.
But a covenant is an agreement between two people, at least
two, or two parties, let's say, because God's not people, but
between two parties. And in the Bible, you've got
two kinds of covenants. You've got what we call a bilateral
covenant. That means that each party must
agree to the conditions and terms for the covenant to be valid.
And in that realm, in the scriptures, you have what I see as two bilateral
covenants. The first one was the covenant
God made with Adam and the whole human race. the terms of which
the tree of knowledge of good and evil, he said, in the day
that you eat thereof, you shall surely die. That was the condition.
And the condition was obedience, basically. Not just that one
command, but obedience to God. So Adam's continued state in
the Garden of Eden, in that what we would call paradise, was conditioned
on his obedience. And of course we know what happened.
Adam disobeyed. Now we know that was the ordination
of God all along. Don't let that boggle your mind,
it's just true. But Adam broke the covenant.
And we fell in Adam. Well, the next bilateral covenant
was the covenant that God made with the children of Israel on
Mount Sinai through Moses. Now the bringing together of
the nation and delivering them from Egypt and getting them out
of Egypt and all of that and giving them the land, that was
not bilateral, that was not conditioned on them, that was given to them
by a unilateral covenant made with Abraham. Unilateral covenant
means that only one party has to agree to the conditions and
meet the conditions and of course that's God. But their continued
prosperity in the land of promise and even keeping the land of
promise was conditioned on their obedience. Now what we learn
about bilateral covenants in scripture is that when God makes
a bilateral covenant with sinful human beings, that covenant always
fails. There's no salvation there. There's
no eternal blessedness there. And that's real important to
see in this covenant that God made with David. Now, all the
other covenants, there are other covenants. There's the covenant
God made with Noah, and the covenant God made with Abraham, the covenant
that God made with David here. These are all unilateral covenants.
The wording would go like this. In a bilateral covenant, it'd
be like this. God would say, I will if you will. That's a
bilateral covenant. A unilateral covenant goes like
this, I will and you shall. And that's what you see in all
the unilateral covenants. Now, the covenant of grace, the
covenant of salvation is a unilateral covenant, and the preaching of
the gospel is the preaching out of the terms of that covenant.
Salvation, condition not on God's people, not on us, not on sinners,
but on the Lord Jesus Christ. And all the other covenants,
other than the two bilateral covenants I mentioned, they're
subservient to that everlasting covenant of grace, including
this one, which is called the Royal Covenant. Now look, in
the passage here, we won't read all the verses, but it starts
out, first of all, you remember the tabernacle of Moses? The
tabernacle. Well, the tabernacle was in a
place called Gibeon. You can read about that in First
Chronicles 21. But the Ark of the Covenant was here where David
was in Jerusalem. And you'll see as you go through
Israel's history, these things get separated. You remember the
Philistines had the Ark of the Covenant for a while and it was
brought back. And so here's the tabernacle
was in Gibeon, but the Ark of the Covenant was not with the
tabernacle. It was here with David. And what
David had done, he'd built a real small structure with walls that
covered that Ark, but it wasn't the tabernacle. And so David,
he got concerned about that. Here he says, and David had built
another house for himself made of cedar, the cedars of Lebanon.
And here's David's thinking. He said, well, here I am dwelling
in this nice royal house made of cedar, and the Ark of God
is in this little old dinky building that's there, you know. And so
David says, well, now I want to build a house for God. And
that's where the idea of the temple came, to replace the tabernacle. You remember the tabernacle,
they could move it around. So David says, I want to build
a house for God. Look at verse two. The king said
unto Nathan the prophet, see now, I dwell in a house of cedar,
but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains. So it really wasn't
even solid walls that they had the ark in. And that shows that
David had a real concern, a God-given concern for the glory of God.
Here I am in this nice place, you know, I know I'm king of
Israel, but God's presence, that's what the Ark, you know what the
Ark represented? God's presence, God's mercy,
God's salvation through Christ, the coming Messiah. And David
was concerned about that. So he said, I want to build a
house for God. I want to build a temple. And
so Nathan the prophet said, well now let's get started on that.
But God came to Nathan in a voice and told him, he said, not so.
David's not gonna build that temple. David's son Solomon's
gonna build that temple. Now, of course he wasn't named
Solomon at this time, but he said David's son. Now isn't that
amazing though? Because you know how Solomon came about. You know,
with David's adultery with Bathsheba, murdering of Uriah and all of
that. I mean, that was not a noble
process, but that's the son who was gonna build the temple. And
the reason God said, and you can read this in this first paragraph,
in the first nine verses here, you get a little bit of it. But
the reason he says, he said, David, you're not gonna build
the temple. You're a man of war and you've shed much blood. And
therefore I'm not gonna let you build the temple. But your son,
and later on he's revealed to be Solomon, and you can read
about this in First Chronicles 22. I've got all these scriptures
listed here that you can look at. Your son Solomon's gonna
build the temple because he's a man of rest. He's a man of
rest. So you got David, the man of
war, and Solomon, the man of rest. And what you have there
is in both kings, in King David and King Solomon, you have a
picture of Christ in our salvation, in the redemption that he accomplished.
David, being a man of war, shed much blood, and you know how
David, you know, he was in, you know, it took him quite a fight
to get away from King Saul and then fighting those armies and
all of that, and to be established as king. Well, David represents
Christ, our king warrior. going to war for us on the cross
against our sins and the curse of the law. And he shed a lot
of blood, but the blood he shed was his own. To put away our
sins by the sacrifice of himself, the precious blood of Christ.
So God had a purpose in this when he said, David, you can't
build the temple, you're a man of war. Solomon's gonna build
the temple, he's a man of rest, a man of peace. And that's what
Solomon's name means, you know, it's like Saloam, Shalom, Jerusalem,
and that's peace, rest. So here's Christ pictured in
David as the man of war going to war on our behalf as our king
warrior, as our champions we read last week when we dealt
with David defeating Goliath. And then Solomon is a picture
of Christ and the work's all done. He sat down at the right
hand of the Father. Sin has been put away. Righteousness
has been established. The blood's already been shed
and there's no more blood to be shed. That's why when you
hear about the Catholic mass, that's why that is so ungodly. because what they're actually
doing is in picture and in their mind shedding the blood of Christ
over and over and over again. And then they take the wine,
they say it turns into the blood of Christ. Well see, that's not
so. Christ's blood by one offering. How many offerings? One offering. He hath perfected forever them
that are sanctified. Hebrews 10, 14. And if what Christ
did in his warfare on the cross, did not totally put away our
sins, and did not totally establish all the righteousness that we
need for God to justify us, then there's no more offering for
sin. In other words, there's nothing else we can do. If Christ
didn't finish it, well, he did finish it. And he arose again,
and he ascended unto the Father, and he sat down on the right
hand of God, and now he's a man of peace. He's the prince of
peace. who established peace by the blood of the cross. And
that's what Solomon represents. Now that's what that temple would
represent, and that's why God said that. And you can see that
we rest in Christ for all salvation. And if we're looking anywhere
else, we're in trouble. I mean, if we look to ourselves,
you know, I talked about that on the message on TV this morning,
how when we examine ourselves, that's not talking about just
self-introspection, to see, do I measure up? Because I can tell
you right now, I don't measure up. But I can tell you one who
does, and that's Christ. And he's our righteousness. So,
okay, so now look down at verse 10. This is the Lord speaking, he
says, moreover I will appoint a place for my people Israel,
2 Samuel 7, 10, and will plant them that they may dwell in a
place of their own and move no more. Now notice that, he's gonna
put them where they'll move no more. Neither shall the children
of wickedness afflict them anymore as before time. Now God's promise
here applies specifically to Israel under David's reign. If you look at the history of
Israel, they moved a lot. And they were afflicted a lot.
But God here speaking about David's reign, which generally speaking
was a time of an established kingdom under peace. Now, there
were troubles now. I'm not saying that David didn't
have his troubles. He had a lot of troubles. But under David, was probably
the greatest time of flourishing and prosperity that Israel ever
had. And it continued under Solomon, but then Solomon messed up too. So he's talking about under David's
reign, but he's talking about David's reign in a limited sense. Because when you apply these
things, when we talk about the kingdom forever, well that's
during David's reign, but it's limited. in a limited sense. And we know this, first of all,
because think about the terms of the covenant God made with
Moses. It was a conditional covenant.
And if the people didn't obey, then they didn't prosper. And
sometimes they were taken out of the land and taken into captivity.
You see that later on, especially in the book of Isaiah, and then
later on in Jeremiah, where the whole nation and Israel was destroyed
and they were taken to Babylon. So he's talking about the prosperity
under King David that was generally the case in that kingdom because
Israel did prosper. And David was a godly man. Somebody
said, well David wasn't a godly man at all times. Yes he was,
he didn't act like a godly man at all times. He did things that
were against God's word at times, but David was a godly man. David,
listen, David was God's anointed king. And he didn't stop being
God's anointed king. David was the sweet psalmist
of Israel. And I know he messed up, but
he didn't quit writing psalms. You know what that is? That's
preaching to us. When you read a psalm that David wrote, God
the Holy Spirit's using him to preach to you. He didn't stop
after he messed up. We all mess up, we're weak vessels.
So David was a man after God's heart. That's what God said now.
So understand, what does that tell us? When he's talking about
these things about Israel and how they're gonna flourish and
move no more and not be, he's talking about generally under
David's reign in a limited sense. But David had his own problems. David and Solomon, after David
and Solomon, the kingdom was divided, remember. So it certainly
did move then. Now as you know, and I'll just
put this one to rest right before I get started here. You know
what some of these dispensationalists do. They say, well, now that's
talking about a future kingdom in Palestine that's going to
be fulfilled in some millennial future. That is crazy. That is
not true. Because I'm going to tell you
something. Any kingdom that's established here on this earth
is doomed to be destroyed. at the end of the age at least.
And this is not talking about a kingdom that changed hands
and then left and then come back to somebody, no. Well, God promised, David wanted
to build the house, God said no. God promised, look at verse
11. He says, and as since the time
that I commanded judges to be over my people Israel, and have
caused thee to rest from all thine enemies, also the Lord
telleth thee that he will make thee an house. I'm gonna make
you a house, David. Now what's strange about that
is this, David already had a house. And do you think that God means,
well, I'm gonna build a monument to you, David? Well, no. What house did God make David? Well, he's talking about a spiritual
house that would be established through the line of David by
the Lord Jesus Christ, whose house we are, his church. And how do you know that this
is talking about that spiritual house? And how do you know that
David knew anything about the spiritual promise here? Okay,
let's read the covenant. Verse 12. When thy days be fulfilled
and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers. Now what does that mean?
That means after you're dead. I will set up thy seed after
thee. which shall proceed out of thy bowels and I will establish
his kingdom. Now, there's a limited fulfillment
of that promise in the kings of Judah, but only limited. Didn't God already say, now how
do you know it's limited? It was limited from the first
time it was revealed. Genesis 49 verse 10, the scepter
shall not depart from Judah till Shiloh come, till Christ come.
But what's gonna happen when Christ comes? The scepter would
depart from Judah. So it was only true in a limited
sense, but the kingdom was established, so ultimately, spiritually, he's
talking about a spiritual house and a spiritual kingdom, and
he's talking about Christ coming. What'd Christ say about the house?
He said, upon this rock I will build my church, my house. The
rock is Christ, the glory of his person, the power of his
finished work. Verse 13 says, he shall build a house for my
name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. Now that had a limited time span
in the Kings of Judah, but it's forever and ever in Christ. Christ,
his reign is not limited. His reign and His rule is forever
and forever and forever and forever, and that's the significance of
this covenant. And then one of the other, you
know, as the progression, you know, the first promise and prophecy
of Christ was Genesis 3.15 is the seed of woman. And as time
went along and God revealed things, He revealed more and more details
about who this person, known as the seed of woman, the anointed
would be and what he would do. And he did that through Seth, he did it through
Abraham, he did it through Jacob, and now he does it through David. The Messiah, as far as his humanity
goes, is going to come through the line of David. And what does
Romans 1 tell us? the gospel of God, which he prophesied
in the Old Testament through the prophets and the law, of
Christ, who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh.
And that's how Christ came. His human genealogy was through
David back to Abraham. And both Mary and Joseph were
of the tribe of Judah, both of them were. You know, a lot of
people say, well, here he mentions Mary, here he mentions Job. They
were both of the tribe of Judah. So anyway, this promise and all
of its blessings are to be finally and eternally and spiritually
fulfilled, not in King David himself, but in Christ. And that's what it means. Well,
look at verse 14. I will be his father, he shall
be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will
chasten him with the rod of men and with the stripes of the children
of men. Now that applies to David, that applies to Solomon, because
both of them committed iniquity. But it doesn't apply to Christ
except by the imputation of our sins to him. Christ never committed
iniquity. When it comes to the establishment
of the eternal kingdom and the salvation of God's people, we're
talking about one greater than David. And I'll tell you who
knew that just about as well as anybody, David the king. Why do you think he said in Psalm
32, blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. I'll tell you why he said that,
because he knew he was a sinner saved by grace. He meant by that the blessedness
of the man to whom the Lord imputeth righteousness without works.
That's King David. David knew that he needed a righteousness
he couldn't produce. Now Christ went to the cross
based upon our sins imputed to him and the rod of God's justice
fell upon him for those sins. And he drank damnation dry. But
look at verse 15, he says, my mercy shall not depart away from
him as I took it from Saul. You see, Saul was not a part
of this covenant. He was a king, but he wasn't part of this covenant.
This is the royal covenant. And it comes through David in
the house of Judah, and it winds up and is fulfilled eternally
and spiritually in Christ. And he says, in thine house and
thy kingdom, Wait a minute, verse 15, I'm
sorry. My mercy shall not depart away
from him as I took her from Saul whom I put away before thee,
and thine house and thy kingdom shall be established forever
before thee. Now he did it before David because
David understood and he knew it. Thy throne shall be established
forever. How? An earthly kingdom? An earthly throne, no. No, a
heavenly kingdom, a heavenly throne. And he says in verse
17, according to all these words and according to all this vision,
now when you see that word vision applying to the prophets of God,
it's talking about a prophecy. It's talking about the word of
God came to them. And he said, according to all
this vision, so did Nathan speak unto David. So that's the royal
covenant. Christ, a descendant of David,
who would sit on the throne of David, not David personally,
but the throne of the greater David. That's Christ. The throne of the eternal David. That's Christ. And I want you
to turn over to the book of Acts, chapter two. So what we're seeing here is
the main point of that royal covenant that God made with David
was the fact that the promised Messiah would be a descendant
from David according to the flesh. And David knew, now he knew that
it didn't apply to him personally as far as the eternality of it
or the righteousness of it. And like I said, well I quoted
Psalm 32, David said. The last words of David, 2 Samuel
23, he said, although my house be not so with God, God hath
made a covenant with me, ordered in all things, and sure, this
is all my salvation and all my joy. What's David saying? He's saying I'm a sinner saved
by grace, I messed up. But there's a covenant, a unilateral
covenant, that wasn't conditioned on me, conditioned on my Savior,
on my King, the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what he's talking
about. Well, look at Acts chapter two and verse 25. Now Peter here is preaching at
Pentecost, and he quotes from Psalm 16, which the Holy Spirit
used David to write. And listen to what he says here.
For David speaketh concerning him. Now, who did David speak
concerning? Christ, the Messiah, the anointed
one, the coming savior, the coming king, the shepherd king. And
he says, David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always
before my face, for he is on my right hand that I should not
be moved. See, this kingdom's not gonna
move. Therefore did my heart rejoice and my tongue was glad,
moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope, because thou wilt
not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one
to see corruption." Now who's he talking about here? Talking
about Christ. He died for our sins. He was buried. But he didn't
stay in the tomb, he arose again the third day. He's ascended
at the right hand of the Father. Right now, he's reigning and
ruling to make sure everything works out. for the glory of God
and the good of his people. And verse 28 says, thou hast
made known to me the ways of life. Thou shalt make me full
of joy with thy countenance. You remember when David said
after in his prayer of penitence in Psalm 51, he said, restore
unto me the joy of thy salvation. Now David didn't say, I've lost
salvation, restore unto me salvation. He said, no, restore unto me
the joy of it. That's what David lost in his
time of ignorance and debauchery and sin. He lost the joy of it. Believers can do that. But thank
God, God won't leave us. And he'll bring us back. And
then he says, verse 29, now here's what Peter says. Listen to him
now. Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the
patriarch David. Let me tell you about David.
That he is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us
unto this day, therefore being a prophet. Now what he's saying
here is when David wrote that Psalm 16, he was writing prophecy. David was a prophet and a king,
and knowing that God had swore with an oath to him, that's the
royal covenant in 2 Samuel 7, that of the fruit of his loins,
according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his
throne. He, seeing this before, spoke
of the resurrection of Christ. David did. Now back there in
that covenant, and even in Psalm 16, what's he talking, he won't,
God's not gonna let his Holy One see corruption. Christ is
gonna die. He must die for our sins. Remember David said in
that Psalm 32, blessed is the man whose iniquity is covered. Well that's talking about the
death of Christ, the blood of Christ. He's seen this before,
verse 31 spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was
not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption. So you see David, the Holy Spirit
tells us what David knew in that covenant. Christ, who died for
our sins, will reign forever and ever and ever. Amen. All
right.