All right, let's look at 2 Samuel
chapter 7. I've got to studying this for
a couple of reasons, and I've entitled the message Christ the
Builder of His House. Christ the Builder of His House. One of the reasons that got me
onto this is Randy preached several weeks ago on 2 Samuel 23, the
last words of David, David on his deathbed, when he said, although
my house be not so with God, he said, God has made a covenant
with me that is ordered in all things and sure. And there he
speaks of his house. And of course, David has reference
to his immediate family there, but I believe he's referring
also to the house of David, the the dynasty of his own kingdom
and as you know David because of his own sin you know he was
under heavy chastisement from God and then Solomon came along
and he took over the kingdom and you know Solomon he he was
a wise man and he knew the Lord but he also he was a sinner saved
by the grace of God and he He messed up, too, and at the end
of his reign, the house of David became divided, the divided kingdom. Another reason I got to studying
this is we've been studying through Isaiah up in Ashland, and I'm
going to bring a message this morning later on in Isaiah 55,
and it speaks of the sure mercies of David. Now, the sure mercies
of David has to do with the certain salvation that God would provide
by his grace through the son of David son of David meaning
the Messiah the Lord Jesus Christ who would come in time and who
would in the place of his people redeem redeem us from our sins
and put away our sins by the shedding of his blood and establishing
righteousness on the cross where God could be just to justify
the ungodly and so I began to study what's called the Royal
Covenant or the covenant that God made with David back here
in 2 Samuel 7, because this is where the sure mercies of David
are. Now, you know, most of you sitting
here, you know about types and figures and pictures in the Old
Testament. You've studied probably quite
a bit of that. And you know that the Old Testament
message is as much the gospel of God's grace and Christ and
him crucified as the New Testament. And it's what we preach today
in the New Testament. Christ told the Pharisees when
John chapter five and verse thirty nine he said you do search the
scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life but they
are they which testify of me. He said his disciples down just
before his ascension under the father after his resurrection
and he taught them out of the out of the law of Moses. And
out of the Psalms and out of the prophets, the things concerning
himself and how that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer and
bleed and die on that cross. At the Mount of Transfiguration,
he showed Peter and James and John that glorious vision that
he of him, he himself speaking with Moses representing the law
and Elijah representing the prophets or the prophetic message. Showing
how that they spoke of his decease which he should accomplish And
of course that word decease there in Luke and that Luke uses that
the amount of Transfiguration is though is a word we could
translate exodus in other words Christ's death On the cross was
a leading an exodus out of bondage of leading his people out Just
like Moses let us let his children of Israel out of Egypt the bondage
of Egypt In 2 Corinthians 3, the apostle Paul spoke of the
Old Covenant, and he said when the Jews read the Old Covenant,
there was a veil over their heart. And of course, that veil of spiritual
darkness and blindness, because they will not believe God's testimony,
but stubbornly, as all natural men and women do by nature, unless
God stops us and arrests us and brings us to conviction and a
saving knowledge of Christ, that they stubbornly refuse to believe
God's clear testimony in the Old Testament. And he said there's
a veil over their heart that when the Old Testament is read,
they can't see it. And he said the only way that
veil is going to be removed is when they turn to the Lord, when
they see Christ. Now, with that in mind, here
in 2 Samuel chapter 7, you see David and Solomon both as types
of Christ. And I want to go back to verse
1 to begin with. Here's where David tells Nathan,
the prophet, that he has it in his heart to build a temple,
to build a house for God. He wanted to build a temple.
David desired to do that. And it says in verse 1, it came
to pass when the king sat in his house, and the Lord had given
him rest round about from all his enemies, that's David now,
that the king said unto Nathan the prophet see now I dwell in
a house of cedar but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains. In other words the ark of the
covenant over which the mercy seat there was no permanent house
to house the ark and of course that ark represented the presence
of God that comes to his people through Christ and the blood
of Christ. Remember how the high priest
went into the holiest of all one time a year with blood and
he sprinkled it on the mercy seat. And that was representative
of the gospel of God's grace, how God can be just and justify. So David says, he's saying here,
I've got a big house here made of cedar. The king dwells in
this great house, but the ark of God has no permanent dwelling
place. And verse 3 says, and Nathan said to the king, we'll
go, do all that is in thine heart, for the Lord is with thee. Now
the problem here is that Nathan the prophet did something that
wasn't characteristic of Nathan the prophet. Normally, like any
other prophet, true prophet of God, the first thing they would
do is what? They would consult with the Lord.
They would consult with God as to what should be done. But Nathan
went ahead and spoke of his own, and he said, well, you go do
what you want to do, David. Let's build the Lord's temple.
And, of course, you know that didn't happen. Verse 4, it says,
It came to pass that night that the word of the Lord came unto
Nathan, saying, Go and tell my servant David, Thus saith the
Lord, shalt thou build me a house for me to dwell in. And then
he goes on and proclaims how you can't contain God in physical
houses. And that's true. But it was in
God's mind to have a house built, the temple. But it wasn't going
to be David who built it. It was going to be David's son,
Solomon, who would build the house. Now, why is that significant? I want you to turn to 1 Chronicles,
chapter 22, and I want to show you why. Now, both David and
Solomon, as kings, were types of Christ in their office. Not personally. You know, David
had a lot of problems. Solomon had a lot of problems.
So we're not talking about David and Solomon personally. We're
talking about David and Solomon in their office as types of Christ. David typified Christ in one
way as king. Solomon typified Christ in another
way as king. And let me show you how. Look
at 1 Chronicles 22 and look at verse 8. Now David's talking,
he's talking to Solomon. And look at verse 7, or verse
6, he says, Then he called for Solomon his son, and charged
him to build a house for the Lord God of Israel. And David
said to Solomon, My son, as for me, it was in my mind to build
a house unto the name of the Lord my God. But the word of
the Lord came to me, saying, Thou hast shed blood abundantly,
and hast made great wars. Thou shalt not build a house
unto my name, because thou hast shed much blood upon the earth
in my sight." Verse 9, Behold, a son shall be born to thee,
who shall be a man of rest. Now David's what? He's a man
of blood. He's a man of war. But Solomon, a son, is a man
of rest, and I will give him rest from all his enemies round
about, for his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace
and quietness unto Israel in his days." And of course Israel
did enjoy peace and solitude under Solomon's reign, even though
Solomon himself had a lot of trouble. But the kingdom was
in peace. So here's David, the man of war,
the man of blood. Here's Solomon, the man of rest.
What's significant about that? Well, he's teaching a pertinent
gospel lesson here. Before there can be rest and
peace and safety, blood has to be shed. So David, he typifies
Christ the warrior, the warrior king who comes to conquer all
our enemies. And that's what Christ did when
he came to this earth. He came as the warrior king to
conquer sin, to conquer Satan, to conquer all that would go
against his people by his obedience unto death. And he shed his blood
as the pavement for all our sins. He shed his blood to establish
the righteousness based upon which would come what? Peace
and solitude and safety. So David pictures Christ the
man of war, the man of victory, conquering his enemies. But Solomon
pictures Christ our Sabbath, the man of rest. You remember
in Hebrews chapter 4 it talks about how Christ did his work
and then he brought rest. He sat down and we enter into
his rest. The work's been done, you see.
The war's been fought. You know, in Isaiah, it talks
about her, speak to Israel, her warfare is over. Our warfare
is over as far as our salvation and our justification before
God. It's been done. It's finished.
It's complete. Now we have a warfare of the
flesh and the spirit that we have to fight. But even victory
is already assured because of what Christ has already accomplished
on the cross. So there you have David, the
man of war. And you see, before the house can be built, now what's
the house? The house is a picture of his
church, his temple. That's his people. Before the
house can be built, the work's got to be done. The work's got
to be finished. The blood has to be shed. Before
there can be a king and a kingdom, there's got to be people to populate
that kingdom. And that's what happens, you
see. Christ did the work, and then we're commanded to enter
into his rest. Now go back to 2 Samuel 7. Now
in verse 12, God assures David that his kingdom is not going
to waste away into oblivion. But here's the point. He's not
talking about an earthly kingdom here for David. He's talking
about the eternal kingdom. and house of the Son of David,
the Lord Jesus Christ. Much of what's said here in the
Royal Covenant can be applied to Solomon, but only in a limited
way. But all of it, eternally, is
applied to the Son of David, the Lord Jesus Christ. And in
the New Testament, He's called the Son of David over and over
again. He's the Messiah. So this reaches beyond Solomon.
Look at it. He says in verse 12, that when
thy days be fulfilled, And thou shalt sleep with thy fathers,
I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out
of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom." Now, certainly
that can apply to Solomon in a temporal, earthly, limited
sense. But the ultimate application
is to Christ, who was made of the seed of David according to
the flesh. And he's going to establish this
kingdom, and he says in verse 13, he shall build a house for
my name. Now that, when it applies to
Solomon, it applies to the earthly temple of Solomon. But look here,
he says, I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
Now I want you to know, in the history of Israel, neither that
earthly temple nor that earthly throne in Jerusalem lasts forever. They were gone from this point
in time years later after Solomon and the kingdom divided. And
then God sent Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian army in and
they destroyed Jerusalem and destroyed the temple, leveled
it. The temple of Solomon was gone totally. And so it didn't
last forever. Now there was a rebuilding of
the temple under a man named Zerubbabel. And then that was
destroyed. And then there was another rebuilding
of the temple under Herod, who wasn't even an Israelite. He
was an Edomite. And it wasn't even finished until
after the days of Christ on the earth. When Christ was on the
earth, that was an unfinished temple. Yet it was there. And
then that was destroyed in A.D. 70 by the Romans. And now people
talk about the rebuilding of the temple. The scripture doesn't
talk about that, but people do. The house that's built now is
not a physical temple in Jerusalem. The house that's built now is
the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he built it. Now let me prove that to you.
Look back at Genesis chapter 17. Now this covenant of David,
this royal covenant, First of all, it has its roots in the
everlasting covenant of grace made before the foundation of
the world where God chose a people and gave them to His Son, and
His purpose to send His Son into the world to establish His kingdom
and build His house. And so it goes all the way back
there. See, it's an everlasting covenant. The Bible speaks of
the everlasting covenant of grace. There's no covenant that is made
with a human being Per se a sinner that you can say is an eternal
everlasting covenant. But now the covenant made with
Christ, the God man, the one who would be made flesh and dwell
among us, that covenant is everlasting. He was set up to be the surety
of that covenant before the foundation of the world. And all the conditions
and all the responsibilities of the salvation of his people,
the building of his house, the establishment of his kingdom
was laid squarely upon his shoulders. And therefore it's called the
covenant of what? Covenant of grace. Now look here, this is
the covenant with Abraham. You know, God taught lessons
and he worked out his purpose on earth through using men and
covenants. We could talk about the covenant
with Noah. That's subservient to the everlasting covenant of
grace. That rainbow, that shows that God, number one, he does
punish sin, but he's a merciful God, too. And he's merciful in
Christ. And then we come to the covenant
made with Abraham. And look at Genesis 17. He's talking about here to Abraham,
he says, He changed Abraham's name in verse 5. He said, Neither
shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be
Abraham, father of a great multitude. For a father of many nations
have I made thee, not just one nation now, but many nations.
God has a people out of every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation.
And that's who makes up his house, his family, his kingdom. And
verse 6, And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will
make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. There's
going to be kings come out of Abraham. Well, what's he talking
about? Well, in an earthly way, he's talking about the kings
of Judah. David, the royal line, you say. And then look over at Genesis
49. Now, as time developed, God... Now, the Gospel's been revealed
from the beginning. When man fell into sin and death,
the gospel was immediately revealed in direct revelation, the seed
of woman, that's Christ, the Messiah, and in tithe. God, you remember when Adam and
Eve, they tried to hide their shame and their nakedness by
covering it with fig leaf aprons. God slew an animal. Shed blood
because without, you remember what he told Adam, if he ate
of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in the day
that you eat thereof, you shall surely die. That's death, spiritual
death. And the process of physical death
began. Die and thou shalt die. So without
the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness, no remission
of sin. So God showed that out, not only in the promise of the
Messiah, who would come and die. Satan would bruise his heel,
that speaks of his death. but also in the establishment
of the sacrificial way of worship and in the type of a slain animal.
He shed blood. And you remember what he gave
Adam and Eve? Coats of skin, which are typical of the righteousness
of Christ, charged and credited and imputed to his people. That's
how sinners are just before God. Not by our works, you see, never
has been. Not in the Old Testament, not
during David's time, Abraham's time, never has been by our works.
It's always been by the blood and the righteousness of the
Lord Jesus Christ. But see, as time developed, he
began to reveal details about this Messiah so that when he
actually arrived on earth, he could be identified and distinguished
from counterfeits. How do we know Jesus of Nazareth
is the Messiah? Because he fits all that's described
of him and revealed of him in the Old Testament. And that's
what he said. And look at Genesis chapter 49.
Now look at verse 9. This is Jacob blessing his sons,
the tribes of Israel. And he speaks of Judah here in
verse 8. Genesis 49. He says, Judah, thou art he whom
thy brethren shall praise. Thy hand shall be in the neck
of thine enemies, thy father's children bow down before thee."
Now, what he's doing, he's establishing Judah as the kingly tribe here.
Ultimately, the Messiah, who would come from the tribe of
Judah, and he says in verse 9, Judah is a lion's wealth. From
the prey, my son, thou art gone up. He stooped down, he couched
as a lion, and as an old lion, who shall rouse him up? And you
can mark it if you want to look at a verse there to mark Micah
chapter 5 and verse 2 and read that in connection with it. But
look at verse 10. He says he says the scepter. Now, what is a scepter? That's
what the king holds. That's the symbol of his reign
and his rule. Shall not depart from Judah nor
a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh come and unto him
shall the gathering of the people be. Who's Shiloh? That means
peace. That's talking about Christ.
What he's saying is this, that the line of Judah, the line,
not lion, the line of Judah is Christ, but the line, the kingly
line of Judah will not cease until when? Until Christ comes. Until the Messiah comes, until
Shiloh comes. And then it's over. Then it's
done, you see. There's no more king. You see,
David's line here could only be everlasting. And go back here
to 2 Samuel. David's line could only be everlasting
and eternal as it would be fulfilled in one who himself is eternal
and everlasting. Well, Solomon wasn't eternal
and everlasting. Solomon died. Now, he lives forever
in Christ. Solomon does live forever, but
the only reason Solomon lives forever is because of Christ,
who is eternity, who is life. Solomon would have no life, David
would have no life, were it not for the Messiah who was to come. And so this is speaking of an
everlasting kingdom forever that goes beyond Solomon, goes beyond
David, goes beyond any earthly king. It has its fulfillment
in Christ, the King of kings, the Lord of lords. Look at verse
14 of 2 Samuel 7. He says, I will be his father
and he shall be my son. Christ is the Son of God. Now
David and Solomon both were children of God, sons of God by redemption,
sons of God by adoption. But Christ is the Son of God. This is my beloved Son, in whom
I am well pleased. Hear ye Him." Now, he says here,
if he come in iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men
and with the stripes of the children of men. Now, some people use
that verse and go haywire with it. What he's simply saying,
you can look at this in two ways. This is a bifocal scripture here,
so to speak. First of all, he's teaching this,
that no matter what happens in these earthly kings in the line
of Judah, this covenant shall stand. Now, why is that important? Well, go back and read David's
biography. Now, if this kingdom, this house
being built and established forever, were conditioned on David personally,
how long would it have lasted? Or Solomon? And go down through
and read some stories in the Old Testament about the Judaic
kings. You mentioned one, didn't you?
Manasseh. He was a wicked, wicked, wicked, wicked man, wasn't he?
That's what we all are by nature. Manasseh is just a picture of
what we'd be without grace, without God, without Christ. And that's
what you were asking. Even during Manasseh's reign,
Judah and Jerusalem practiced sacrificing their children unto
Molech. How wicked is that? So if that,
you mean to tell me that that's the king upon whom this everlasting
covenant depends? No, not at all. God in his sovereign
power overruled all of that wickedness and all of the fleshly weakness
of these earthly kings. to keep that tribe together. And you know, that's an amazing
thing. You think about Israel and their history, the divided
kingdom, the southern, the northern kingdom was called Israel, the
ten tribes. And then you had the southern kingdom that was
mainly made up of the tribe of Judah and then also the tribe
of Benjamin, but mainly the tribe of Judah. And it was called Judah.
So when the Bible refers to Judah specifically, it's referring
to the southern kingdom. That's where Jerusalem was. And
all through the trouble and times of that ancient world, you know,
there's no civilization that lasted throughout those centuries.
When they were conquered, they were obliterated. They were gone.
The Northern Kingdom, when it was conquered by the Assyrian
Empire, it was obliterated. That's why they call it, you've
heard these stories about the Lost Ten Tribes. Where'd they
go? We don't know. And you don't know. And you're
just beating the air trying to figure that out. I'll tell you
what, God did away with them. Now, you can write your children's
stories about it if you want, but you're not going to find
them. I'll tell you why, because God put them away. But all through
that, He kept Judah together. And that's an amazing thing,
because Judah was just as wicked as Israel. They were just as
rotten to the core. That's what we are by nature.
That's why salvation cannot be conditioned on the sinner. It
has to be conditioned on the substitute, the one who can,
not the one even who wants to, but the one who can. That's why
Christ had to come like David, as the man of victory, before
he could rest like Solomon, the man of rest. And so you see this
now, he said. So when he said if he committed
iniquity, I would say now these kings, they did commit iniquity,
but the covenant stood. But now let me tell you how this
would apply to Christ only by imputation. He was not a committer
of iniquity in himself. He never became a sinner. But
our sins were charged to Him. And even though He came under
the wrath of God on the cross for His people and suffered the
full measure of God's wrath against our sins on that cross, there
was mercy there. That's where justice and mercy
met together, right there. That's where righteousness and
peace came together, right there. It was our sins. In other words,
sin being imputed to the Savior did not destroy the covenant
and it did not destroy the house that he was building. In fact,
it's the foundation of the covenant. It's the foundation of the house
that he built. Because in that transaction,
sins were put away. The debt was paid. Righteousness
was established. And so he says in verse 15, but
my mercy shall not depart away from him. He is our mercy. He's
the mercy seat. And he said, as I took it away
from Saul, whom I put away before they know, you know why Saul
could not remain on the throne of Israel. He wasn't from the
tribe of Judah. He was from the tribe of Benjamin.
Saul was a great man in the eyes of the people. He was the people's
choice. They'd held the election, Saul was the man who got it,
and that's what they did, but he wasn't God's choice. You know
who God's choice was? The shepherd of Israel, David,
the type of Christ, the great shepherd, who laid down his life
for the sheep, the sweet psalmist of Israel. That's David, but
Christ is the subject of all the Psalms. He's the sweet psalmist
of Israel, ultimately. So he says in verse 16, and thy
house and thy kingdom shall be established forever before thee,
thy throne shall be established forever. How is David's throne
going to be established forever? He's not talking about David's
earthly throne. He's talking about the son of David. He's
talking about the kingdom of grace that God accomplished by
his purpose through even King David as he brought Christ in
according to the flesh. made of the seed of David according
to the flesh. And he said in verse 17, according
to all these words and according to all this vision, that's the
word of God. That's what that vision is. So did Nathan speak
unto David. Now, what did Christ tell his
disciples when he asked them? He said, whom do men say that
I am? And they were giving him all those answers that men would
give and their opinions. And he said, well, who do you
say that I am? And Peter said, thou art the Christ, the son
of the living God. And you remember what Christ
said, Blessed art thou, Simon bar Jonah, for thou art blessed
above all people, for flesh and blood have not revealed this
to you, but my Father which is in heaven. And he said, I tell
you, Peter, that upon this rock, I will what? I will build my
church. It's Matthew 16. Upon this rock,
what rock? The rock Christ Jesus. The one
who would come and establish that kingdom by his substitutionary
death on that cross. his resurrection because of our
justification he said upon this rock I will build my church and
he said the gates of hell will not prevail against it that's
his church that's his house Christ the builder of the house all
right