Immanuel Sermon Audio
2 Samuel (10:66)
All right, anybody need an outline? Anybody need one? Somebody needs one. Marshall needs one. There's some in the back. Okay, if you need one, they're at the front and the back. In your Bible, find the book of 2 Samuel, 2 Samuel. This is number 10 out of 66. This Samuel is a little bit of a tricky book to think about teaching, because for the most part, the book is about David, and we're familiar with David. We know the stories about David, and you could probably spout off three or four, five, six, seven stories about David, just right off the top of your head. So sometimes when you're familiar with something, it becomes a little bit trickier to break it down, and there's been lots of books written about David, and so lots of books written about 2 Samuel, but we're going to try to dig it in, dig into it, and break it up in a way that is hopefully helpful and memorable. One of the things I hope in this series is we go through and talk about different books of the Bible, is that you take away sort of an idea of what each book is about. Maybe you don't memorize the outline, or maybe you don't memorize everything we talk about, but if somebody was to say to you, what is the story of Ruth about, or what is the story of 2 Samuel about, or what is this book about. There will be something that pops into your head, and so hopefully we do that tonight. First of all, let's talk about the history of Israel, just to put this book in its place. We are done with the conquest. We're done with the judges, and that was the book of judges in the book of Ruth. Last week we jumped into first Samuel. Samuel was the last judge, and we are now into the monarchy. We talked about Saul last week. That was the beginning of the monarchy. David is the main character here in 2 Samuel, and so we're talking about the monarchy, and going forward, just so you kind of have an idea of what's to come. The kingdom splits, it divides, there's rebellion among the people, Judah and Israel. They're both sent into exile, and then God brings back a remnant in the end. So we're talking about the monarchy, which means in a real sense we're talking about power. We don't have a monarchy in this country. The monarchs that are still in place around the world today are mostly figure heads. You think about the queen of England, and you think, "Well, she really doesn't have any power. She just goes to tea and dresses nice and shows up at important things. She really doesn't seem to do anything. But when you think about ancient kings and you're talking about the monarch, you are talking about power, and so I'll put a quote on the screen. This is a quote from a guy named Lord Acton, and you have probably heard this quote, and my guess is not only have you heard it, but you've heard it in about a dozen different forms. There's all sorts of suggestions about what the real quote is. To the best of my knowledge, this is the actual quote. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. A fitting quote to think about when you're thinking about the monarchy and you're thinking about a king, but let me give you a more biblical version of this quote. That's true in practice in life, but here's a more biblical version. Absolute power reveals our corruption. That's a totally different statement than what Lord Acton says. What Lord Acton is saying is you get a guy, he's a pretty good guy, you give him absolute power, and it corrupts him something from the outside, changes him, twists him, and in the end he's corrupt. And I think a more biblical view would be to say power, and especially absolute power reveals the corruption in our hearts. That was true of Saul. We talked about Saul last week, right? Started off everybody thought he's a pretty good guy. He's all right. It's this power as king, and it reveals what was in his heart the entire time. We're going to talk about David, drastically different than Saul. I don't have to tell you that. You all know Saul thumbs down, David thumbs up. But in the end, the exact same thing is true of David. The power of the monarchy reveals the corruption that's in his own heart. It takes a little bit longer to be revealed, a little bit longer to be drawn out for different reasons, but in the end it ends up exactly the same. One just sort of soapbox thought. I just was thinking about this as I was studying at about 430. A lot of the time we look at rich and powerful people who do stupid and wicked things, and we sort of thumb our nose at them like they're really stupid, like why would you do that? Why would you waste money like that? Why would you make decisions like that? Why would you destroy your life like that? And when we make those judgments, what we're really doing is saying, I wouldn't do that. If I were in your shoes, I would not make the same mistakes that you're making. And I think we need to be careful when we do that. And it may just be that we're not making those mistakes because we don't have the power and the money to make those mistakes. And it may very well be true that if we have the opportunity, we have the authority, we have the power, we have the money that we make the exact same stupid decisions that they do. That's what you see in Saul's life, that's what we'll see tonight in David's life. Now, question, this is an important question. My thoughts of you hinge greatly on this question. How many of you have seen the movie, the good, the bad, and the ugly? Hold your hand up. Do not put it down. I need to look around the room. If your hand is not up, we're going to have an altar call at the end of the night. And you need to come down and repent and get right with the Lord if you have not seen this movie. A great classic Western movie, if you don't like Westerns, I guess you're pardoned. But you've got Blondie, who is Clint Eastwood, he's the good. You've got Angel eyes over there on the right. He is the bad, even though it says ugly underneath him. He's the bad. And then Tuko in the middle is the ugly, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And it's a classic Western. It has great characters. They have great names. There's great gun fighting. There's great scenery. That's one of the most important things in a good Western is that you have good scenery and good backgrounds, and so it's got all of that stuff. And we're going to use this to break down the book of 2 Samuel. Okay, so when you think 2 Samuel, you just go back and you think Clint Eastwood, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I know the outline of the book, it's so easy, I'm never going to forget it, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And so here is the outline of 2 Samuel. Chapters 1 to 10, the good, 11 to 20, the bad, and 21 to 24, the ugly. Now that's not a deeply exegetical, theological, scholarly outline, but that gives you the general contours of the book to think about the movement throughout 2 Samuel, the good, the bad, and the ugly. So, take your Bible, 2 Samuel 1, we're not going to read this, but I want to flip through and show you some things. Chapters 1 to 10 are the good. And so if you take your Bible and you look in chapter 1, it talks about David who heard about the death of Saul. He'd been fighting and he hears about the death of Saul. And beginning there in chapter 17, it says David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan, so he hears that his friend Jonathan and his dad who was trying to kill him, Saul, have died and he laments and he mourns and he leads Israel in this. Chapter 2, he is anointed the king of Judah and they do some fighting and you get into chapter 3 and 4 and there's some intrigue and some sort of power struggle, but by the time you get to chapter 5, David is the king of Israel and he's leading them in battle and they're going out and they're fighting and they're doing all these things, defeating the Philistines, things like that, and it's all good. And then you come to 2 Samuel 6, look at 2 Samuel 6. You come to 2 Samuel 6 and you start to talk about the ark, okay, so we'll put a picture of the ark. This is, I know kind of cheesy, it's something that you would, I guess, put on your desk as a, or your shelf as a decoration, but I like it because it gets the dimensions pretty close to being right. Sometimes you see pictures of the ark and people carrying the ark and it's all out of whack and it doesn't really represent reality. This gives you a general idea of the size of it, you see the people of what tribe standing underneath it, okay, Levites underneath it with the poles, through the ark. The only thing maybe not accurate in this is that at least once it made its home in the tabernacle and they're moving place to place, God said you cover it when you carry it. You go in, you cover the thing, you pick it up by the poles and you carry this thing around and so that gives you some idea. Most of you think about the ark, you think about Indiana Jones, right, Raiders of the Lost Ark and there they are, picking the ark up and so you get the general idea of what it looked like. You remember last week we talked about the ark and it got captured by the Philistines and they put it in Dagan's temple and they go back the next morning and Dagan's laying down on his face, pick their god back up, set him up, come in the next morning and Dagan what? He's down again and his head is chopped off and his hands are chopped off and they're sitting at the doorway and there he is laying down in front of the ark, bowing down to the ark and they say let's get rid of this thing so they send it down the road, everybody gets cancer, they send it down the road, everybody gets cancer, they send it down the road, everybody gets cancer, they just send the thing back to you. You got me back on, yeah, so they send the thing back to Israel and it goes back to Israel, they heard what happened in Israel, right, they know the idols fell down and everybody got sick and so they're a little bit freaked out to have it back, they're glad it's back but they're a little bit scared and so they basically take it to this guy's house named Abinadab and it stays there for 20 years because they're too scared to do anything with it. You go carry it, I'm not carrying that thing, you remember what happened to Dagan, you remember what happened to the people in that village, leave it where it's at, just it's not broken, don't fix it, leave it alone and so they leave it there and 2 Samuel 6, David says okay I'm king over Judah and over Israel, we should bring the ark to the capital, we should have it here with us and so he makes plans to bring the ark to Israel and look what we read in 2 Samuel 6, David again gathered all the chosen men of Israel, 30,000, he arose and went with the people who were with him from Baal Judah to bring up from there the ark of God which is called by the name of the Lord of Host who sits and thrown on the cherubim, they carried the ark of God who did verse 3, they, they, is David a Levite, so they go and get it and they carried the ark of God on what, and it was a new cart, it was new, they probably bought it just for this, felt really good about themselves, took up a collection, it was new, it was nice, it was shiny, carried on a new cart and they brought it out of the house of Abinadab which was on the hill and Uzzah and Heo the sons of Abinadab were driving the new cart with the ark of God and Heo went before the ark and so they say look you guys have done a good job the last 20 years, why don't you bring it to Jerusalem on the cart and so it looks something like this, except there's a detail in this picture that is not mentioned in chapter 6, what's that detail? talks about the oxen in chapter 6, maybe not in the verses we read but it talks about the oxen, the cover, never says in there that they covered it, maybe they did, maybe they didn't, so we don't want to just blame them for everything, but it never says they had it on the cart covered like it was supposed to be, the idea in the text is it's on a cart instead of being carried with the poles, everyone can see it and it's supposed to be covered and they are carrying it, not the Levites, right, strike one, strike two, strike three, so here they go down the road and you keep reading and it says the oxen stumble and this nice new cart starts to lean and the Uzzah does what? that and what happens to Uzzah? it's funny to read Bible commentators who don't believe in miracles, there's more of them than you would think and a lot of them say Uzzah was so nervous about what was happening and he knew that he was not doing things correctly, that when he touched it he just panicked and he had a heart attack, he just freaked out, just on the spot spazzed out, heart went crazy, died on the spot, the text says he reaches out and touches it and God strikes him and David doesn't get mad at Uzzah, David gets mad at God, okay, now you can learn a lot of things from this story, okay, we're thinking about David so just think about it from David's perspective, I think for David this is a warning to David, God is warning him, listen, when I tell you to do something you really need to do it, you need to take it seriously and if I say the Levites need to carry it they need to carry it and if I say you need to use poles, not a brand new shiny cart, you need to use poles and if I tell you to cover it you need to cover the thing and if I tell you don't touch it you really shouldn't touch it and God is warning David and we're going to come back to this, he's warning him, you need to be careful to do what I tell you to do, you need to take these things seriously, so you get to chapter seven and they finally get the ark to the tent to the tabernacle in chapter seven, most of you I know are familiar with the tabernacle, here is a toy model of the tabernacle, pretty close to scale, you get the general idea, walls around the outside, altar there in the middle, basin and then the holy place and the holy of holies in the very back where the ark would sit, now just think with me, okay, the tabernacle, it goes back before David, before Saul, before Samuel, before the judges, back all the way back to who built it, Moses and the people and they built it and then what did they do right after they built it? Walked around in the desert for 40 years, so you got 40 years in the desert with the tent, okay, a tent is all it is, 40 years in the desert, taking it up, taking it down, up and down, up and down, walking around in the desert and then you got all through the period of the conquest with Joshua, all through the period of the judges, all the way through Samuel, all the way through Saul, all the way up to David, what do you think the tent looked like at this point? It probably did not look great and one day this dawns on David, right? He's looking at the ark and he says you know what, this tent stinks, it probably literally did stink and he says this is embarrassing, it's the most important thing we have in Israel, the symbol of God's presence with us and we're leaving it in this smelly old place and he looks over and he sees what, his house, man I'm living in a nice place and God is living in a smelly, nasty, dirty, worn out tent and the light bulb goes off and David's mind and he says this isn't right, we need to do something about that, what is his plan? We're going to build a house, build a temple and so he just says we're going to build a temple, we're going to build a house for God and what does God say, it's one of the funniest things in all of the Bible, I've never lived in a house and I don't remember asking you to build me one and so the answer to that David is no, you're not going to build, you are not going to build me one but I am going to do what, I'm going to build you one and David says wait a minute, I got one right here, it's really nice, that's what started the whole thing and the idea about building the house for you, I have one and God says no, no, I'm not talking about that kind of house, I'm talking about a dynasty, I'm talking about a legacy from you, I'm saying kings are going to come from you, you aren't going to build me a house, I don't need you to do anything for me but I am going to build you a house and we're going to come back to the promise that God made him in chapter 7 verse 18 to 29 or so, great great prayer of David and promises of God, so we'll come back to that, that's the good, okay, we've summarized the good, not perfect, right, incident with the ark, David presuming he's going to do God a favor but for the most part it's good, now the bad, chapter 11 verse 1, in the spring of the year, the time when the kings go out to battle, David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel and they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Robba but David remained at Jerusalem, right, sin of omission, right, not a sin of co-mission, not doing something that God had said don't do, he's just not doing something he was supposed to do, right, a very simple thing, I'm not going to go out and fight this time, you guys handle this one and I'm going to take the year off and I'm going to stay here, small sin of omission, do you remember the warning that God gave him earlier, with Uzzah, David, you need to take this stuff seriously, if you're supposed to do something you need to do it, if you're not supposed to do something you don't need to do it and he gives him this very dramatic warning and David gets all bent out of shape about it, right, he's not paying attention, he's not listening, so one sin of omission and here's the downward spiral, we're not going to read the whole story here but it goes from sin of omission to lust to adultery to deceit to conspiracy to murder and it all ends in chapter 11 verse 27 when the morning was over David sent and brought her, the her is Bathsheba to his house and she became his wife and bore him a son and at this point you can almost see David patting himself on the back, I'm going to step up to the plate here, I'm going to take care of this woman and the child, I'm going to do what's right, here's what God thinks about it, the thing that David had done displeased the Lord, very understated but very serious, what David did in not going out to fight and lusting after this woman and committing adultery and lying about it and trying to cover it up and being guilty of conspiracy and murdering a man, all of that greatly displeased the Lord and so there's a great story in chapter 12, if you've never read this you need to read it, Nathan, the prophet comes and who knows if it looked like this but that's about the best picture I could find of all Nathan, Nathan walks in and he says, I've got a story to tell you, rich guy, poor guy, rich guy steals the only lamb of the poor guy and feeds it to his company, it's all the poor guy had, he loved that lamb and David says what, that's ridiculous, that rich man, he should be beaten, he should be imprisoned, he should pay for what he's done and Nathan points the bony finger at him and says what, talking about you buddy and in that moment we don't know exactly how much time went by, the text seems to indicate it was a while, it wasn't like the next day, this period of time goes by and he says this to him and he says you're the man and sort of the light bulb just goes off in David's mind and he says I've sinned against God, this is horrible to what I've done and we're not going to study it, we don't have time to read it tonight but I'll put a couple of passages up on the screen, 2 Samuel 12 you should read that chapter and then you should read Psalm 51 and then you should read Psalm 32 in that order, you read 2 Samuel 12 it talks about the actual story of David when Nathan says you're the man and David says guilty is charged, I repent, I'm sorry he seeks for forgiveness, that's 2 Samuel 12, Psalm 51 is what David wrote after he repented, I've sinned against God and I was sinful from birth from the time my mother conceived me and I need you to wash me and I need you to purge me and I need you to cleanse me and all of these things he confesses sin and transgression and iniquity, those three words sin, transgression, iniquity, wash me, cleanse me, purge me over and over and over again and at the end of Psalm 51 he says if you forgive me I will teach people about your grace, Psalm 32, blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him, blessed is the man who is forgiven, Psalm 32 is David doing what he said he would do in Psalm 51 and guess what, Psalm 51 he says I'm guilty of iniquity sin and transgression, Psalm 32, God is not holding this sin and iniquity transgression against me, he's forgiven me, his blessing is upon me and so 2 Samuel 12 is the incident, Psalm 51 the repentance, Psalm 32 the forgiveness and mercy and then down at the bottom there there's still consequences, he repents, there's forgiveness, he teaches people about repentance and forgiveness but there's still consequences when you come back to 2 Samuel 12 and so again we're not going to read all this but let me just summarize the fallout here, David and Bathsheba have a baby and what happens to that baby dies, Amnon one of David's sons rapes his sister tomorrow and what does David do about it, nothing, okay, you read that and you say that makes no sense, why would you do nothing and you just hit the rewind button and you go back to this incident with Bathsheba and all the mess that he got entangled in and you think about real life people you know who have family drama, it never is contained to two people is it, it never stays contained to three people does it, it spills out to everyone who is related to the folks who are having these issues and you think about the gravity of what David did in this situation in lusting adultery, conspiracy, lying, covering it up, murder all of it, that had massive consequences in his life as a father and as a husband and in all the lives of his children and all of his family so this thing happens in their family, David does absolutely nothing about it, his son Absalom leads a coup in Jerusalem, what does David do about it? He runs, he does nothing, there's a promise that Absalom way back there's a promise that one of his sons is going to shack up with David's concubines in Jerusalem and that happens and David does what about it, nothing, he just does nothing and Joe Ab, we read about Joe Ab right, David didn't go out to war but he sent Joe Ab in the army out, Joe Ab finally steps up and he kills Absalom and what does David do when Joe Ab does what everyone should have been doing all along the way ending this threat, what does David do, oh I miss Absalom, you mean the guy that just tried to kill you, yeah I miss him, the guy that just tried to throw you the anointed king of Israel off the throne, yeah I wish he was still here, Joe Ab, oh why'd you do that, Joe Ab gets in his face and they argue and David is a complete mess and in this section 11 to 20 ends with a guy named Sheba getting his head cut off, so if you like stories where a guy gets his head cut off and you can go and you can read 2nd Samuel 20, good story there, so that's the bad, we've gone from the good to the bad and here's what you could call the ugly, really 20 to 24, 21 to 24 are not all ugly, there's some stuff that just didn't make it in earlier in the story, so the book is not chronological from beginning to end, so this last section kind of looks back and it mentions a few different things, talks about some of David's fighting and it talks about some of David's prayers and it talks about his mighty men, but look at 24, the very last chapter in 2nd Samuel, 2nd Samuel 24, again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel and he incited David against them, it's a strange verse, isn't it? God is angry with Israel, so he incites David against Israel, when you read this same story written by the chronicler, right, 1st 2nd Chronicles, when you read it there it's a little bit different, anybody know how it's different? It does talk about David doing it but there's another character in addition to God and in addition to David that's mentioned, Satan's mentioned, Satan tempts him, lures him, drags him to do this and you read that and you say wait a minute, wait a minute, did God do it or did Satan do it? Who was behind this census and what's the answer to that question? Yes, yes, right, and you can get a little bit of explanation in the book of Job and we'll get to Job in a couple of weeks, but you look at Job and Satan is coming to Job and he's wanting to do these things to him and Satan is guilty for these inflections he's casting on to Job but who gives ultimate permission? God does, God says yeah you can do it this far no further, that's it. So you step back from the story of Job and you say yes Satan did it but God allowed it and he could have stopped it, so in a real sense God was behind it and that's what you see in Samuel and Chronicles. God allows Satan to tempt David into numbering Israel and Judah and again Joab steps up and Joab says David, this is not a good idea. There's lots of people here, God has blessed this nation, let's not take a head count and David says I'm the king, I'm the monarch, I'm the authority, I'm the power, go count heads. So he goes and he counts the heads, look at chapter 24 verse 10, David's heart struck him after he had numbered the people and you sort of wonder at that point, you say did Nathan come back? Maybe, not mentioned, but maybe Nathan came back with a great story, not recorded in the Bible and stuck his finger out there one more time and said David you're the guy or maybe it was the spirit of God just convicting him. You don't know how it happened but his heart struck him after he had numbered the people and David said to the Lord I have sinned greatly in what I have done but now oh Lord please take away the iniquity, there's that word again the iniquity of your servant, for I have done very foolishly and jump down and look at verse 17. There's a plague, 70,000 people die as a consequence, David spoke to the Lord when he saw the angel who was striking the people and he said behold I've sinned, I've done wickedly but these sheep, these people, what have they done? Please let your hand be against me and against my father's house. So again there's forgiveness for David but there's consequences, right? 70,000 people die in this plague and David has to live with that and bear the weight of that and so really not all of chapter 21 to 24 is ugly but the ending is ugly. You look at David and you just think after all you've been through, after all the Lord is done for you, you're still making decisions like this. So three lessons from David's life and we will wrap it up. Lesson one, David's sin in the grace that followed should serve as an encouragement to believers. David's sin in the grace that followed should serve as an encouragement to believers. Sometimes people who are followers of Jesus and have a very tender conscience can really beat themselves up over sin that they're struggling with or sin that they have fallen into and wonder in question even though they know the right answer, wonder in question and doubt God's grace. Have I done it too many times? Have I crossed the line too many times? Have I gone too far? Have I done something that's just not forgivable? And this is a great story to take those kinds of people too and say look this was a man after God's own heart who committed some terrible sins and he dealt with the consequences of that for the rest of his life but there was grace and there was mercy and there was forgiveness and you can see it in Psalm 51 and Psalm 32 so an example and encouragement for believers. Here's a quote from Lord Acton, one that you probably have not ever read, "Great men are almost always bad men." So very similar to what he's trying to say in his other better known quote, "Great men are almost always bad men." Is that true of our Bible quote unquote heroes? Abraham, idolater, Noah, drunkard, Jacob, liar, Moses, murderer, coward, on and on down the list. Samuel, great Samuel, great guy puts his wicked sons up to be judges of Israel knowing exactly how wicked they are, puts his his own family to preserve power up over Israel. David falls into this category so great men are almost always bad men. We'll come back to that thought here in a minute. Number two, David sinned and the consequences that followed should serve as a warning to believers. So the grace in his life ought to give you encouragement. The consequences in his life ought to be a warning to you and when you read everything in David's life after this incident with Bathsheba, it's almost like you've gone back to the book of Judges and you're reading stuff thinking, "Really? Are you serious?" Sometimes when you read these stories of David, if you're honest and you're really engaged in it, you say, "I don't understand that." That doesn't make sense to me. Why would he do that? Why would he say that? And it's the consequence of this sin in the family dynamics and his thought process and all of it continues to affect him for the rest of his life. You know as well as I do, if you turn on the TV or you go to the movies and I do both of those things. So don't hear me say throw your TV out. Don't go to the movies anymore. But when you turn on the TV or you go to movies and you watch something that is comedy, funny. I'm not talking about Lucille Ball, old stuff. I'm talking about new stuff today. There's a great lie in all of it and the great lie that runs through all these comedies that come out today. You see it's more in some than others, but you see it in almost all of them is that sin has no consequences and in the end it's just funny. And you just laugh at it and it's just trivial and you can just do it and then you can wake up tomorrow and there's no consequences for what you've done. You just sort of move on with life as if it never really happened. That's baloney. That is unreality TV at its finest. And when you look at David and you see the consequences, you say this is a reality check. If you're going to go down a path of sin, is there going to be grace at the end of that road? If you seek it, yes. There was for David, but there are going to be consequences and they're going to be painful and there will be consequences decades into the future that you never anticipate. I can think about one of my best friends in Kingfisher. We had lived there a year or so, became really good friends with this guy and he came to me one day and he said, "I don't want to be married to my wife anymore. I want to be married to that lady." It's a bad idea. It's not going to work out. Well, let me just tell you how bad it is now. And let me tell you how great it could be over here. All those problems are going to go away. I said, "Have you lost your mind? Are you serious? Your kids and kids are you crazy?" It's like talking to David after chapter 11. You say, "You've lost your mind. You don't understand." And they stayed married and things got better, but there's still consequences today. There are still consequences and there will always be consequences. Is there grace? Is there mercy? Is there forgiveness? Yes, but there are consequences and you never think about the consequences when you go down the road of sin. A lot of the time you have no clue what those consequences may be one day. You can't even dream or fathom or imagine the consequences that are waiting at the end of that road, but they're there and the story of David reminds us of that. Last idea is this. David's failure as king of Israel points us forward to the promised offspring, singular offspring, one of David. His failure as king reminds us, Samuel is not the one they need, Saul is not the one they need, David is not the one they need. So I'll put the quote up by Lord Acton one more time. Read it carefully. "Great men are almost, almost always bad men." It is? Take what? Take almost? See, I emphasized almost. Almost always, not always, almost always. And the one exception would be Jesus, right? So in the Bible, you could say, depending on how you want to emphasize the grammar and the syntax, it's true or maybe you need to take the almost out, but almost always, save one, right? So take your Bible. Second Samuel, chapter 7. David says, "I'm going to build you a house." God says, "Never lived in one. Don't need one. Didn't ask you for one. Don't do it. In fact, you're not going to build me a house. I'm going to build you a house." And so look, we'll pick up chapter 7 about verse 11, 10. "I will appoint a place for my people Israel and I will plant them so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. Violent men shall afflict them no more as formerly. From the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel, and I will give you rest from all your enemies, moreover, the Lord declares to you, here it is, that the Lord will make you a house. When your days," he's talking to David, "when your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body and I will establish his kingdom." In the immediate future, that was who? Solomon. In the distant future, that is Jesus. And you read that verse like you're driving from West Texas to New Mexico, right? And you get over into New Mexico and you get close to the mountains and you look on the horizon and all you see is just mountains. And it looks like just one long big mountain. And from way far away, it looks like just a mountain. And the closer you get up on those mountains, you realize, well, there's a mountain here. And then one of the mountains I saw was way, way, way, way, way, way down there. And there's a great distance between them. And you read this verse and you say, okay, I'm looking at the offspring from way back here. And it just looks like he's talking about the offspring. And you get up on it and you realize, okay, yes, Solomon is the first mountain, but there's depth to this. And there's something else beyond it that he's pointing to. So he says, I will raise up your offspring after you. He will come from your body and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father and he will be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men. But my steadfast love will not depart from him as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever in accordance with all these words, in accordance with all this vision. Nathan spoke to David. So you see some great promises about Jesus here. He comes from David's family and you get to Matthew 1 and you read Jesus' family tree and David's right there in the middle of it, right? Comes right from David. He talks about ruling forever and you fast forward and you go to Revelation that talks about the king of kings and the Lord of lords. And he establishes this kingdom that will never be shaken and never be never be challenged. He talks about disciplining this offspring for iniquity. And in the close mountain you see that is Solomon. And in the far mountain you see that's Jesus, disciplined for whose iniquity? Not his own, but for ours, right? Isaiah 63, by his wounds you are healed, by his stripes you are healed. On him fell the chastisement that brought us peace, right? Discipline for iniquity. And in the end God says, "My love will not depart from him." And we certainly see that true of Jesus. So in the end, the good, the bad, the ugly, all of it points us forward to Jesus. And I hope you're seeing a theme here as we go through these Old Testament books and we talk about people like David and Joshua and Samuel that all along the way, we learn from these men and these women, but we don't put them up on a pedestal is the hero, right? Even these Old Testament stories point us forward to the one true hero of the story who is Jesus. So let's pray. Father, we love you. Thank you for the book of 2nd Samuel. We believe that there are lessons we need to learn here, lessons about grace and about mercy. Father, we believe that there are warnings about the destructiveness of sin and the consequences that it brings into our lives. Father, we believe that this story and these collective stories about David are pointing us forward to the offspring of David who has established a kingdom that will never be shaken and who was disciplined for our sins, took the punishment for our sins. Father, help us to see Jesus as we read through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. Father, help us to be drawn to him as the great hero of this story. And Father, help us to learn from the people who followed you and at times they did well and at times they failed miserably. Help us to learn lessons from their lives. Father, we love you. We're grateful for the chance to study together and we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. All right.