1-2 Samuel Week Thirty-Five: 2 Samuel 7:18-29

¹⁸ Then David the king went in and sat before the Lord, and he said, “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that You have brought me this far? ¹⁹ And yet this was insignificant in Your eyes, O Lord God, for You have spoken also of the house of Your servant concerning the distant future. And this is the custom of man, O Lord God. ²⁰ Again what more can David say to You? For You know Your servant, O Lord God! ²¹ For the sake of Your word, and according to Your own heart, You have done all this greatness to let Your servant know. ²² For this reason You are great, O Lord God; for there is none like You, and there is no God besides You, according to all that we have heard with our ears. ²³ And what one nation on the earth is like Your people Israel, whom God went to redeem for Himself as a people and to make a name for Himself, and to do a great thing for You and awesome things for Your land, before Your people whom You have redeemed for Yourself from Egypt, from nations and their gods? ²⁴ For You have established for Yourself Your people Israel as Your own people forever, and You, O Lord, have become their God. ²⁵ Now therefore, O Lord God, the word that You have spoken concerning Your servant and his house, confirm it forever, and do as You have spoken, ²⁶ that Your name may be magnified forever, by saying, ‘The Lord of hosts is God over Israel’; and may the house of Your servant David be established before You. ²⁷ For You, O Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, have made a revelation to Your servant, saying, ‘I will build you a house’; therefore Your servant has found courage to pray this prayer to You. ²⁸ Now, O Lord God, You are God, and Your words are truth, and You have promised this good thing to Your servant. ²⁹ Now therefore, may it please You to bless the house of Your servant, that it may continue forever before You. For You, O Lord God, have spoken; and with Your blessing may the house of Your servant be blessed forever.”

—2 Samuel 7:18-29

Sermon Outline

References

Weekly Study Guide

When my wife and I bought our first house, there was something about that experience I had not anticipated. We had rented many houses before, but had never owned our own place. But when escrow closed and the place was finally in our name, there was a sense of pride in ownership, a sense of belonging, and a newfound sense of security. And it wasn’t owning the house that was distinctive, it was owning the land. We owned this land. No one was going to kick us out. No one could tell us what to do. It was ours. We could tear the house down and rebuild it—or live in a tent if we wanted to. There’s something powerful about owning land that changes things. This week, we will get to see how this truth changed everything for Israel as well.

We did a bit of review last time to remind ourselves of the purpose of this study, as well as highlight some key points in our journey thus far. The purpose is to enable us to see both the nation of Israel and the plan of God with greater clarity and unpack what it means that God keeps His promises. We see those promises revealed to us in scripture in the form of covenants. God makes eight covenants in scripture—the first three with all of humanity, and the final five He makes with the nation of Israel. In the foundational covenant with Abraham, God makes certain promises to Abraham and his offspring, the nation of Israel. But the exciting part is that within that promise to Abraham is God’s promise to bring salvation to the world. This is where God tells us that He is going to fix what is broken.

What God is doing by choosing Abraham is taking the first step in His plan of redeeming the world back to Himself. The way I like to put it is that the Abrahamic Covenant is the initial step in the implementation of His plan. It gave God a base among men from which to launch His offensive against sin. Viewing salvation history through the lens of the Abrahamic Covenant rightly orients us to God’s plans and strategies. By choosing Abraham, God is starting a nation through which He will channel His blessings and, ultimately, the coming Kingdom. Again, the story of salvation history can be seen as the journey from a lost Kingdom under Adam, to a restored Kingdom under Messiah.

We’ve seen that the Abrahamic Covenant is the well-spring from which all the remaining covenants in scripture flow, and to which they are connected. It is the overarching promise to bless. We recall that there were three primary categories of blessing promised to Abraham and his offspring: Land, Seed, and Blessing. But the Abrahamic Covenant serves as an overview of these promises. It is the original statement of blessing. As the history of the nation of Israel unfolds, God elaborates on each of those promises. He never changes them or alters them. But what He does is add more detail; He adds more information. The promise of a land to dwell in is elaborated on in the Land Covenant. The promise of a seed, or a physical offspring, is elaborated on in the Davidic Covenant. And the spiritual blessing aspect of God’s promise to Abraham is elaborated on in the New Covenant.

So, let’s dive into the Land covenant. It is the covenant that guaranteed Israel’s ownership of the land forever. Let’s make our way through sections of chapters 29-30 and see what we find. This covenant is primarily found in Deuteronomy 29-30. Deuteronomy chapter 29 begins:

These are the words of the covenant which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the sons of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant which He had made with them at Horeb (Deut 29:1).

What we see here is that this is clearly a covenant. The same Hebrew word Berith is used here as with every other covenant. We also see that it is a separate covenant from the Mosaic Covenant. It says, “…besides the covenant which He had made with them at Horeb.” Horeb is just another name for Sinai, which is where the Mosaic Covenant was given. Notably, it also says that God entered into this Land Covenant with them in Moab, not at Sinai. This was just before they entered the Promised Land. As God does, He reveals His intentions to His people through covenants, but He always does it at the right time. Some 40 years after God gave the people the Mosaic Covenant, just as they were about to inherit the Land, God then gave them a promise about this land and highlighted its importance by raising it to the level of a covenant. Even though this appears in the book of Deuteronomy, this is clearly a different covenant from the Mosaic Covenant.

The Bible doesn’t call it the Land Covenant. We just use that name for lack of a better term. In some study bibles, you will sometimes see it called the Palestinian Covenant. I tend to avoid using that term for a variety of reasons—which requires some explanation. So, before we dive any deeper into this passage, let’s explore some of these reasons. First of all, in modern times, the term “Palestine” carries with it both significant baggage, as well as an abundance of misunderstanding and misinformation. In fact, there are thousands of misguided students on college campuses in America staging anti-Semitic protests and chanting about things of which they have no understanding, all because they are believing lies in the mainstream media about the history and state of affairs in Israel.

Ever since the cowardly massacre on Oct. 7^th of innocent Jews by Hamas terrorists from the Gaza region, followed by Israel’s defensive response, the plight of the so-called “Palestinians” has become a cause-celebre. The issues in this conflict are not new, but so much media attention has been focused on the area because of these events, that an entirely fictional and manufactured history has emerged claiming that there is a Palestinian people and that they have an historic claim to the land they are now occupying. There are so many factual inaccuracies in this narrative, that it is difficult to know where to start.

To begin with, there is no such people as the Palestinian people. The idea that there is this distinguishable people group called “Palestinians” was a made-up designation created by the monster Yasser Arafat as he tried to garner support for the P.L.O. (Palestine Liberation Organization) back in the late 60s. He thought if he could create an ethnic identity for the Arabs who then lived in the West Bank and Gaza—essentially, if he could put a face on his P.R. campaign—then he would have more success in raising international awareness for his cause. The P.L.O. was created in 1964 as a terrorist organization dedicated to wiping Israel off the map. Arafat became their chairman in 1969 after his previous terrorist organization, Fatah, failed and was expelled from Jordan. Arafat was one of the most evil men of the century—a man who would hang pregnant women from meat hooks. And despite everything he did, the Nobel Organization disgustingly gave him a Nobel Peace Prize in 1995 for the role he played in the Oslo Accords. He was truly a monster.

The people that are claiming to be Palestinians have no common ethnic identity. They are not descended from any one ethnic group. They are simply Arabs who emigrated to Israel in the latter 18^th and early 19^th centuries after the early Jewish settlers had made the land habitable. Prior to this early Zionism, the land of Israel was a wasteland. Under the Ottoman Empire, who had ruled the region for centuries, the land of Israel had grown desolate. One of the reasons for this was that the Ottomans imposed a tax on individual trees in the land. So, Jews living in the land cut down all the trees to free themselves from that heavy tax burden. The result was that, over the centuries, the land wasted away and became a swampland. When Mark Twain visited the land in 1867, he wrote that it was indeed a wasteland, virtually uninhabitable.

But the early Zionist movement began in the 1830s, and Jews slowly started coming back to their historic homeland. They drained the swamps, planted trees, and began farming the land. As the land improved, Arabs from neighboring countries came to Israel looking for work. They came from Egypt, Syria, the region that would become Jordan, and even as far away as the Baltic States. What the Jews had created in renewing the land was a far better environment than where these Arabs had come from. The descendants of these disparate peoples from many different places are now the ones calling themselves “Palestinians”. In reality, Palestinians are simply Muslim Arabs descended from many different nations. They are not an ethnic people, and the land they call Palestine is not their historic homeland—which is where we will pick it up next time as we continue to debunk more of these mistaken notions.

(MULTILINE)

Discussion Questions

1. What does it mean that we are blessed to be a blessing? Where have you seen this play out in your life?(MULTILINE)
2. What are some of the ways Israel was blessed by God? What are some of the blessings David mentions in this prayer? Why do you think David focuses on God’s sovereignty so much here? What does David reveal about God’s character? According to this prayer, how does God view Israel, and how does He view David? Why do you think God would reveal the future to David as He has here? What does this revelation accomplish? (MULTILINE)
3. What was David’s immediate reaction to the revelation from God in the first half of the chapter? Why do you think that worship through prayer was the natural response to what David had just learned? Worship has been defined as a response to all that God is, with all that we are. How do you see that play out in this chapter? What do we learn about God’s faithfulness in this chapter? (MULTILINE)
4. How do you think most people approach God in prayer: in humble submission, with fear and trepidation, through holy reverence, in confident trust, or perhaps with an element of skeptical doubt? Why do you think there is such a variety in how different people interact with God and His promises? If someone expressed to you that they had difficulty praying, how would you respond? (MULTILINE)
5. Why do you think David asks God to do what He has already promised to do? How is prayer repeating back to God what He has already told us, at least in some respects? How does this perspective rightly orient our thoughts? How do you view the promises of God in your own life? Are they a rock-solid confidence upon which you rest? Or, perhaps, are they more like a strongly felt hope that you cling to? How might bolstering our understanding of the inviolability of God’s promises serve as a bedrock of our faith and trust in Him? How might this be an antidote to worry and anxiety? What would you like to imitate in how David prays here? (MULTILINE)

Going Deeper

1. How does the way we pray mirror our relationship with God? What do we learn about humility and obedience in this chapter? What do we learn about God’s grace and abundant blessings? What do we learn about why David believed God’s promises would come to pass, in the way this prayer ends? (MULTILINE)
2. What do we learn about submitting and surrendering our plans to God’s will in this chapter? Do you think it was difficult for David to give up on the passion he had to build the temple himself? Why or why not? What has David learned thus far in his life that might have helped him in giving this up? What does David do in response to this redirection of his plans by God? How might we learn from David’s example here? (MULTILINE)

Transformational Activity

Worship

Why is our attitude so important when we pray and worship? When is it important to approach God humbly? When is it appropriate to approach God with boldness? Why is prayer such an indispensable part of our worship? Take some time this week to think through these questions and ask God to reveal to you where in your life you might worship Him more fully.  Read through David’s outburst of worship in this chapter and see where you might follow his example.