2 Samuel, Chapter 7 (part 2) - Built to Fall | Prophets of Israel Daily

Shalom friends. Welcome back to the prophets of Israel Daily brought to you by the land of Israel network at the land of Israel.com. This is the second book of Samuel chapter 7 part two. So yesterday we left David trembling before one single profound life-changing question. God had told him plainly, "You will not build my house. Your son will." And David, whose whole heart burned to build it, turned to God and asked the question that's bothered me personally for years. If my hands are clean, David said, "If the blood I spilled in Israel's wars was precious before God and not a stain on my soul, then why, oh master of the world, can I not build your house?" And I told you the answer is going to turn the whole thing on its head. And here it is. God says, "Because if you build it, it can never be destroyed. If you build it, it will never be destroyed." Now, Jeremy, let's just think about that for a second. The reason David is turned away isn't that he isn't holy enough. It's the opposite. It's that his holiness is too great. Right? A house built by David's hands would never fall. It would stand indestructible against any enemy and any century. And that sounds like the highest blessing imaginable until you remember what God already knew was coming because he's God, right? Hashem foresaw the day Israel would sin gravely enough to deserve destruction. And the wrath would have to land somewhere. If the temple were indestructible, it would land on the people, on the children, on the children of Israel. So God arranges for Schlommo, right? King Solomon, whose very name comes from the word shalam, which means wholeness and peace. Hashem arranges for Schlommo to build a house that can fall. So that in in our hour of judgment as we read in the fourth chapter of the book of lamentations a right God could pour out his wrath on the wood and on the stones and spare his children. Do you hear what that means? The destructibility I don't know if that's a word. The destructibility of the temple was never a flaw. It was mercy. The beta mikdash was built un was built breakable and in some deep way it had to be breakable so that the children of Israel would be unbreakable. Then God turns from what David won't do to what he's already done. Verse 8, I took you from the pasture from following the sheep to be ruler over my people over Israel. I was with you wherever you walked. I cut down your enemies and I made your name great. And then came the words that actually change history. Verse 11. And the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. Jeremy, did you hear that there? Right. David turned to God and said, "Hashem, my God, I will build you a house." And how does God answer him? No, I will build you a house. Now, David meant cedar and stone. God meant a dynasty, an eternal royal line, right? David offered God a building that could one day fall. And God hands David back the one thing that never will fall. And then God spells it out, leaving no room for confusion. verses uh 12 and 13. I will raise up your seed after you and he shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. Your son Solomon will build the temple and his throne will stand forever. And then God says something so intimate, words that as a father I imagine must have been such a comfort for David to hear. Right? Speaking of his son Solomon, God says verse 14en, I will be to him as a father and he shall be to me a son. Right? If he sins, God says I will correct him with the rod of men. But my my loving kindness will never depart for him as I took it from Saul. And my friends, I really think that that that one line, that's the whole difference between a kingship that ended and a kingship that never ends. You know, that's right. A kingship never ends. It lasts forever with David. And it really lays down the blueprint for us because David carries the dream of building the temple. And God tells him, "It's your son that's going to lay down the stones." And that is the design. That's how redemption is going to move forward. The dreamer and the builder, they're rarely the same person. Herzel never set foot in the Jewish state. The Kalutim, the pioneers, they drained the swamps, buried their friends to malaria. They never saw their greatgrandchildren flying F35s over the land. The nation is built by people planting trees that are never going to sit in the shade of those trees. And I think the challenge for David now is that he has to find the inner strength and character to pour his whole heart into a dream he already knows he's not personally going to complete. >> Right? And and while that's I think a challenge a challenge for many of us for David I feel like that's just part of his character. It's part of his essence. Right? And then comes his response and it isn't triumph it's it's tears. Right? Verse 18. Adonai, who am I, oh Lord God, and what is my house that you have brought me this far? The greatest king Israel would ever know. And his first instinct is, "Who am I?" And then he says something the commentators have wrestled with for over 2,000 years. Verse 19, "And this is the law of man, O Lord God. Torah to Adam and this is the Torah, the teaching of humankind. Now, I'm not going to act like I fully understand this or I get it, but because that phrase is almost untransatable in a way that would make simple sort of sense, and I think that's the point, David is reaching for something far larger than a royal contract. It's as if kneeling in his cedar palace, he glimpses that the promise to his house was never only about David or even about or or even only about Israel, but that this one eternal throne is the channel through which all of humanity's redemption will one day flow. one line, the whole future of the world folded into the heart of one humble king with a heart for God. And friends, I think this is the essence of everything we're praying for. Right? Three times a day, we ask for we pray for the flourishing offshoot of David, the the longing for Messiah, for the Messiah, son of David, the Messiah from the house of the Davidic line, his descendants. It's not, this isn't a poetic sort of add-on to Judaism. It was planted right here in in a palace of cedar on the night that a prophet had to take back his own words. Right? The prophet Natan said, "I was wrong. That was from me." Right? And Jeremy, look where this leaves us. We have returned. We have houses of cedar or Jerusalem, he stone. We have a sovereign state, an army, vineyards blooming in the Judeian hills. And yet, and yet the throne of David, as of now, it appears to still be empty. The house is not built. Jerusalem holds the world's attention, but the presence of God still in the deepest sense dwells within curtains. You know, I really want to touch on that now because we're sort of living in this transition as we're watching Jerusalem being rebuilt. And when you look at the Tanakh, especially with King David, you can really connect to prayer at the most fundamental level. I mean, David was the poet of the psalms that we read. That's how we pray. It's like King David taught the world, the Catholics and Christians, like taught all the world how to pray. And so this point is pretty essential. God just told him, "Your house will be eternal." That's it. It's guaranteed. Sworn by God himself. And then David turns right around and prays for the very thing that God just promised him. I mean, he prays to God to bless his house that it should stand forever. And usually we think about prayer is like praying into the unknown. You know, we pray when we're a little bit anxious, when the outcome is a little bit in doubt and we're desperate and we have nowhere else to turn. And here David is like holding like this ironclad divine promise in his hands. And he prays harder. Like the promise is the foundation of his prayer. The promise is what gives David permission like the audacity to ask boldly. David's prayer, it's like a conversation with what God has already spoken. He's taken the promise and he's handing it back to heaven and saying, "You said it. Now bring it to pass." That's the boldest, most intimate form of prayer that there is. He's not begging for a faroff god for a favor or for mercy. He's holding his father to his own word. And I see it like this. Right now in this generation, God promised through his prophets that he would rebuild Jerusalem, that the city would be restored, that the children would return to their borders. And we're watching it happen before our eyes. Jerusalem today is larger, more alive, and more full of Jewish children than any moment in 3,000 years. Jerusalem today is huge compared to David's time. The promise, it's visibly coming true right in front of us. And so, what is our job? It's to do exactly what David did. Take the promise we can see unfolding and pray it the rest of the way home. To stand in the rebuilt city and to hold God to his word and ask Hashem to finish what he started, >> right? To finish it. That's what we're praying for every single day. To finish it. Not for our sake, but for God's for God's own sake. for his own name. That's it. Exactly. You know, David uh David, I think he teaches us the the posture that we can really seek to emulate for living inside an unfinished promise like we are right on on one side, who am I? Total humility, knowing none of this was earned. And on the other, he turns right around and boldly ask God to fulfill the promise forever. Right? Verse 29, the final words of the chapter. or David requests of God, bless the house of your servant that it may stand before you forever. Right? Humility and boldness, gratefully receiving the promise on the one hand and still daring to ask for its completion on the other hand. Right? And maybe that's where this chapter and the moment of history we find ourselves in right now, that's where it's that's where they meet. Right? Remember my friends why David couldn't build, why he couldn't build the temple. It was so that the house could fall and the people could live. Twice the temple was destroyed. Not once, but twice. And every time the wrath landed on wood and stone, and Israel walked out of the fire and back into history. The building was made breakable so the nation would be eternal. And here we are. the very children those stones were destroyed in order to protect back on these hills holding the miracle of return in one hand and the empty throne in the other hand. So we keep building and we keep praying and we keep faithfully marching toward the day that the dynasty of David will be rebuilt. He only got a glimpse of it but it will be rebuilt in the world that we live in now. May we be that generation. May we be that generation that helps carry it across the finish line. I mean, can you imagine my friends and we'll see you tomorrow as we move into chapter 8 with Jeremy. And if you're enjoying walking this journey with us, you're invited to join us on our global fellowship family at the land ofisrael.com. It's like nothing else on earth. Shalom, my friends.