Hope From the Word

Guest (Male): We've all heard the reply "no" from the Lord at various times, but Pastor Bill Luebkemann reminds us it's because He has something better for us.

Bill Luebkemann: The scripture says that the Lord gives us the desires of our hearts. Some people think that that means He gives us the object of our desire. "I desire to have a new BMW." While the object of our desire is the BMW, the desire is what we have in our heart, and the Bible says He gives us the desire. It doesn't say He gives us what we desire; it says He gives us the desire. If you want a new BMW, that's probably not a desire that He gave to you.

Guest (Male): It's not hard to recognize why God would say no to something terrible. We would expect that of Him, right? But according to the scriptures, there are times we can even desire a good thing in the eyes of God with a good motive, but God will still say no. Today, Pastor Bill Luebkemann will show us how King David desired to build a temple for God out of a good motive, and yet the Lord declines the offer. Turn if you would please to 2 Samuel chapter 7 for this helpful addition of Hope From the Word.

Bill Luebkemann: If you'll open up to 2 Samuel chapter 7, that's where we're going to pick up here. We were looking last at how David brought the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem. First, he had a failed attempt because they didn't know what God's word said, didn't take the time to find out, and never thought to look it up. They got confused, messed up, mixed up, and one guy got killed as a result of them not following God's procedure. But ultimately, the Ark was brought back to Jerusalem.

You see a trend here in the life of David. It's been said that he was a man after God's own heart. You can see that in the fact that when he finally comes to power, he wants to bring God's presence back to Jerusalem. They conquered Jerusalem for the first time. Here was a guy that wanted to have God's presence. It was said about him that he never did anything without checking with a prophet. That's mostly true, not every time, but he wanted to have God's presence there among them, and he put that at a high priority.

Now we see here in chapter 7, he also wants to have a building, a house for God, a temple. He wants to have a place where God's presence can reside on a permanent basis. You have to see here, even though he doesn't actually get a chance to build this house for God, you have to see where the guy is coming from. He is concerned about the things of the Lord, and they're so very important to him. He recognizes what God has done. He recognizes for the last 15 years that the Lord has made him king, and it didn't require that he go out and kill Saul for him to actually take over.

He recognized that God was capable of bringing that about in His own way and His own timing without David's help. David steadfastly refused to harm Saul in any way, always trusting in the Lord. Now that he's in power, wanting to have the Lord's presence there in Jerusalem, he thinks, "We need to have a place for God to live."

It starts out here in verse 1. After the king was settled in his palace and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him, he said to Nathan the prophet, "Here I am, living in a palace of cedar while the Ark of God remains in a tent." Nathan replied to the king, "Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the Lord is with you."

He's settled here now. Remember, he didn't build his palace. We saw a couple of chapters ago that another king sent down some guys with some wood and built a palace for him. They said, "Hi, we're the construction crew from Joe's building, and we came here. King so-and-so sent us here to build you a palace." It was Hiram, King of Tyre, who sent messengers to David along with cedar logs and carpenters and stonemasons, and they built a palace for David. They didn't build a shed or a shack; they built a palace. It was nice digs.

This other king did it. David didn't even have to build his own palace. God provided even a house for him to live in. God provided the win in all the battles, made him the king, and he's sitting there. He gets to thinking one day, he's got the Ark of God there and the presence of the Lord in the city of Jerusalem, and he realizes this isn't right. He says to Nathan the prophet, through whom the Lord often spoke to him, "Here I am living in a palace of cedar while the Ark of God remains in a tent."

He had the opposite problem of the folks over in Haggai. If you look at Haggai, where they had moved back to the promised land after the time of captivity was ending, at that point the house of God that David never built but his son Solomon built had been destroyed. The Lord wanted it to be rebuilt. It says in Haggai 1:3, "Then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai: 'Is it time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses while this house remains a ruin?'"

The people in Haggai's time were real concerned about having their own house built, and they weren't doing anything about God's house, which was a pile of rubble. Because the Babylonians, when they came and carried away the Jews into captivity, they ruined the place. Now it's just a pile of junk and mess. God said, "Rebuild it," and they started rebuilding it, but they got behind and then they stopped. They had a little opposition, but they didn't really push very hard.

In the time of Haggai, 16 or 18 years had gone by, and there was just a big pile of rubble there. The Lord spoke and said, "What's going on here? You people are living in your own houses, and they're not just any old house, they're paneled houses." They were nice houses. They fixed them up nice, but God's house they didn't care about. You see here, maybe one of the reasons why David is often called a man after God's own heart is because he has the opposite situation. Instead of worrying about himself first and the Lord second, he's always thinking about the Lord.

It occurs to him, "I'm here, I've got this great house, I didn't even have to build it myself, and the Ark of God is staying out there in a tent." There's some disagreement, by the way, if that was the tabernacle or not. It doesn't really say that he brought the tabernacle back to Jerusalem. It's possible that was somewhere else at this point and this was a different tent, but the point is it was not in permanent accommodations.

He didn't even tell Nathan what he was thinking. He must have known Nathan really well because he didn't tell Nathan what he was thinking. It's like Nathan read his mind, knew what he was thinking. "Well, you must be talking about building a house for God. What a great idea." Nathan said, "Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the Lord is with you." That may have been good advice in a general sense, but it was bad advice in this particular situation because God didn't want him building a house. Nathan was speaking for God without checking with God first.

The scripture says that the Lord gives us the desires of our hearts. Some people think that that means He gives us the object of our desire. While the object of our desire is the BMW, the desire is what we have in our heart, and the Bible says He gives us the desire. It doesn't say He gives us what we desire; it says He gives us the desire. If you want a new BMW, that's probably not a desire that He gave to you. And since it's probably not a desire that He gave to you, you're probably not going to get it, so you might as well forget it now.

He gives us the very desire that's in your heart, and the desire that David had to build a house, that's a good desire. I think David is commended for it, and Nathan as a general rule, I think, is saying here, "Go ahead and do that. The Lord is with you." He knew that the Lord was with him. He knew that the Lord would be giving David the desire of his heart, and that sounded good. There's a point where when you're walking with the Lord and He gives you the desire of your heart, as you're walking with the Lord day in and day out, you get to know Him well enough that oftentimes what you want is the right thing.

In this particular case, the Lord had another plan, another idea, so He had to speak to Nathan to give David this message. Verse 4: "That night the word of the Lord came to Nathan." I just wonder why didn't you just give it to David? Wouldn't that be easier, just speak to David? Why speak to Nathan? I don't know why God did it this way, but Nathan was the prophet and David was the king. The word of the Lord came to Nathan that night. "Go and tell my servant David, 'This is what the Lord says: Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day.'"

That was around 400 years. Remember, they came up out of Egypt, they spent 40 years in the desert, then they conquered the promised land in the time of Joshua, and then they went through the period of the Judges, and that was almost 300 years. Add it all up, we're up to about 400 years from the time of departure of Egypt. God says, "That whole time I was moving from place to place and I lived in a tent. Wherever I moved, did I ever say I need a house? Did I ever say to any of the rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, why have you not built me a house of cedar? I never asked for a house. I never needed a house. I never wanted a house. I didn't tell you to build me a house. The tent was fine."

I think David knew all that. They were moving around a lot. You can't move a house made out of cedar. A tent was the way that they lived back then. They moved around often; they needed to be able to break camp and move somewhere else. David's now thinking to himself he's got a house. He's made a big improvement. He's doing a lot better than when he was in the cave of Adullam. When you first get married, maybe some of you lived in an apartment or something when you first got married, and then you moved up a little bit, and eventually you got to a house.

David's moved up here. He started out living in a field, tending the flock. Then when he was anointed the king and he started running away from Saul, he was living out in the field, in a cave, in the Philistine territory. David's probably thinking, "Yeah, I lived in a tent too. I lived in a cave and all that other kind of stuff. Now I finally got a house. God deserves a house." God says, "No, wait a minute. I never had one before. You never heard me ask for one. I never said I desired one or never said I needed one."

Verse 8: "Now then, tell my servant David, 'This is what the Lord Almighty says: I took you from the pasture and from following the flock to be ruler over my people Israel. I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men of the earth. And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. Wicked people will not oppress them anymore, as they did at the beginning and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders over my people Israel. I will also give you rest from all your enemies.'"

The Lord says, continuing to tell David here, "Look what I've done for you." In other words, David here wants to build a house for God, and God turns it around and says, "Look what I did for you. I took you. You were out in the pasture. You were following the flock around. You were a kid tending your sheep, and I made you into the ruler over my people. Everywhere you've gone, I've been with you and I've cut off your enemies and you've always won." Now that he became king, he defeated all his enemies, and God says, "I took you from nowhere, made you into something, I cut off all the enemies before you, and now furthermore, beyond that, I will make your name great like the names of the greatest men of the earth."

David here wants to make something for God, and God says, "No, I'm going to do more for you." David wants to build God a house, and God says, "I don't need a house, but by the way, this is what I'm going to do for you." He just turns it completely around and says, "David, this is what I'm going to do for you. I'm going to make your name great, I'm going to provide a place for my people Israel, and I'm going to plant them so they have a home of their own." He's also going to do for the nation of Israel so they will not be oppressed by wicked people as they were previously. He's going to do all this stuff and give rest from the enemies.

"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. I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men. But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever." Nathan reported to David all the words of this entire revelation.

God's saying here, "Never mind about the house you want to build for me. Instead, I'm going to make a house for you. I'm going to establish a house for you. In fact, you're going to be the house, and your descendants are going to be the house, and my people Israel are going to be the house." I was reading today a quote from EM Bounds. It says men, and he means mankind now, but he says, "Men are the method that God uses." He said, "The church is looking for new methods, but God is looking for better men."

Men is the method. The point was the church is looking for a method, and the method is us. It's people. It's the church, the body of Christ, believers, men and women. God says that here, in effect, to David. "The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you. You want to build a house for me? Great, but never mind. No thanks. I don't need that right now, but I'm going to make you into a house. Then when your days are over, I'm going to raise up your offspring who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom, and he's going to build the house for me."

David found out at some later point, it says in 2 Chronicles, David is quoted as saying that he knew why the Lord didn't allow him to build the house was because he had so much blood on his hands. The Lord said, "Your son is going to be a man of peace, and the Lord didn't want the guy like David who had so much blood on his hands to also be the one building the house." At some point, David came to know that. I'm not sure if he knew it here, or it seems like maybe he found that out later. Maybe God was gracious and not telling him exactly the reason why.

But he's like, "It doesn't matter because I got a better offer for you. I'm going to make you into a house and I'm going to raise up your offspring, and furthermore, his kingdom is going to last forever. He's going to build the house for me. I'll be his father, and he'll be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with the rod of men, but my love will never be taken away from him." That's a unique promise. There's a lot of people in the Bible that got off the beaten track with God, and it seems like they left Him and He left them. If you look through the descendants of David, many of them got really messed up.

Solomon, David's son who took the throne after him, got really messed up. He had 300 wives and 700 concubines, it is said, and his wives and concubines kept him very busy, tired, but besides that, also they worshipped other gods. He married anybody he saw that he liked from anywhere that he saw them, and they distracted him. Solomon actually built altars to false gods, gods of the Moabites, gods of the Ammonites. He built altars so that his wives could burn incense and worship their gods. They led him astray. God told Solomon, "Because you did this, I'm going to have to take the kingdom away. But because I made this promise to your old man, I'm not going to take it away from you, but your son is going to lose it." And Solomon's son, the kingdom was divided. Israel and Judah came separate kingdoms.

God's extending a gracious promise here to David and also to his son. "When your son does wrong, I'm going to punish him, but my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you." Also see there, just a little confirmation that it was God that removed Saul because David kept saying, "I don't need to kill him. The Lord will take care of it." And the Lord did take care of it. The Lord will take care of whatever our problems are also.

The Lord just took this whole thing around and said, "You want to do something for me, but never mind. I'm going to do something for you." You know, it's like when you look around today, different religions of the world, how all of them involve doing something to please God, except Christianity, where God does something for you. Every other religion in the world, you have to earn your keep. The Jehovah's Witnesses have to knock on enough doors because only 144,000 of the best Jehovah's Witnesses, they believe, are going to make it into the top heaven.

They have to keep working to get enough converts so they can be among the 144,000 of the best ones so they could get into the top heaven. Since you never know how well everyone else is doing or how many is going to come after you, you don't really have any choice but to keep working. I wonder what happens if you're one of the top 144,000 and you get into the top heaven, but then some other guy who lives after you gets more people converted, can you lose your spot later?

Every religion in the world says that you have to somehow earn God's keep. You look back at the old religions of the Greeks and Romans and the different gods that they worshipped, they were always offering sacrifices. "Oh, there's a lightning storm. We have to appease the god." Or "There is not enough rain. We gotta appease some other god. Let's make an offer to your god and to my god because maybe your god is stronger than our god is, so we better cover all the bases and make offerings to all of them."

Paul even pointed out when he was in the one town, "You guys even have a statue here, an altar to the unknown god." Just covering their bases so they have every base covered. "We even have an unknown god here, so just in case we missed someone, we got him covered too. So no god should be unhappy with us." And the Lord here, we can see from this conversation He's having with Nathan here, this message that He's given to Nathan that's to be given to David, He works different than that. He says, "No, you don't have to do for me; I do for you."

Guest (Male): You've been listening to Hope From the Word. We're currently in a study of 2 Samuel. You can hear this message or more Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann by going to ccmarlton.org. Pastor Bill's messages can also be found by downloading the Hope FM app on your smartphone or tablet. Or if you prefer to listen via podcast, go wherever you find your podcasts and sign up there.

We'd love to have you join us at Calvary Chapel of Marlton either in person or online. Our Sunday service begins at 10:00 AM, and there's a Wednesday evening service at 7:00. To catch us online, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel at Calvary Chapel of Marlton or just go to our website for the link at ccmarlton.org. And if you'd take a moment to write to Pastor Bill, it would be such a blessing to us. We're thankful each and every time we hear what God is doing in our listeners' lives, and we want to pray for you too. Either email us through the website at ccmarlton.org or call 856-983-1662. We'll continue our study in 2 Samuel next time on Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann, a presentation of Calvary Chapel of Marlton.