The Gospel According to Samuel: The Kingdom Come (2 Samuel 23:1-7)

Hello, friends.

This is Pastor Creighton.

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Today we continue our sermon series, The Gospel According to Samuel.

God has made with David an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and secure.

So let us pray.

Oh Lord, our Alpha and our Omega, who was and who is and who is to come.

Lord Jesus, ruler of all kings, would you, through your word and Holy Spirit, illumine the hope of the kingdom to our hearts.

By grace, let us look ahead to that glorious day where your kingdom will be on earth as it is in heaven.

It's in your powerful name, King Jesus, that we pray.

Amen.

Please be seated.

Last words have a special significance, don't they?

They tell us a lot about the character or the aspirations or the expectations or hopes or dreams of those who speak them.

George Harrison famously said, Love one another.

Although, to be fair, I don't think that's original to George Harrison.

Winston Churchill said, I'm bored with it all.

I think that's a very Churchill thing to say.

I'm partial to Jack Daniel of Whiskey Fame, who said, One last drink, please.

What we see in 2 Samuel chapter 23 are David's last words, his parting words for God's people.

2 Samuel 23 · chapter mention

His last words reflect on his experience, raised up as a humble shepherd from a humble shepherd in Bethlehem, to an exalted king who is promised an everlasting kingdom by God's own word.

David's last words here are spoken after being humbled and broken.

See, last Sunday we saw David's devastating sin, didn't we, in 2 Samuel chapter 12.

2 Samuel 12 · chapter mention

And this is a sin from which the kingdom never fully recovers.

David's house turns against itself.

David's son Absalom attempts to assassinate his father and steal his throne.

So David goes on the run in the wilderness once again, except this time he's not an innocent man.

After Absalom is killed in 2 Samuel 18, David reclaims the throne in chapter 20.

But he's a broken man, a humbled man.

And now here we find his last words stuck in the middle of an epilogue from chapters 21 to 24.

Chapters 21 and 24 are not in chronological order, but rather their significance is found in the fact that they reflect both the failures of David and Saul together.

They reflect on David's military victories and God's faithfulness in them.

But at the heart of it all, we find David's poetic memoirs in chapter 22, which form the basis of Psalm 18 that we read today.

And we read David's final words, his parting words for God's people.

These words are not self-pitying, looking back on his experience, neither are they hopelessly idealistic.

They look forward to a future hope, a hope based on God's promise.

And they point us, God's people, to his kingdom to come.

Verse 5, David says, He that is God has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and secure.

This covenant is a sure promise made to David.

At the end of it all, David's hope for himself and for all God's people is the kingdom come.

And there are three things that I think David wants us, God's people, to know about the kingdom.

And I have to give credit to one commentator, Dale Ralph Davies, for helping me sort this through.

There are three things David wants us to know here.

One, the kingdom to come is a sure kingdom.

Two, the kingdom to come is a beautiful kingdom.

And three, the kingdom to come is an exclusive kingdom.

The kingdom is sure, beautiful, and exclusive.

So at the end of it all, this is the good news for David.

Just as it is the gospel according to the book of Samuel for us here at Nusong.

To a world ravaged by sin, death, and suffering, where we, like pilgrims, know the disappointment and despair of unmet expectations, of worthless rulers, of flimsy promises, and travel to a promised country, we find that God has spoken.

His kingdom will come, his will will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Friends, the hope of the kingdom is not something tangential to the Christian life.

It is the hope of the Christian life.

That God will renew and restore all things, and at the center of it is our Savior and our King.

So let's understand this hope of the kingdom.

David wants us to understand that the kingdom to come is a sure kingdom.

Let's look at verse 1.

If you've got your Bible or you've got your order of service in front of you, pull it out with me and let's read verse 1 of chapter 23.

These are the last words of David.

The oracle of David, the son of Jesse, the oracle of a man who was raised on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, the sweet psalmist of Israel.

So this verse gives us a fourfold description of David.

I don't think it's so much answering a sort of presupposed, you know, David who kind of question.

No, we know who David is pretty confidently by this point in the narrative, but it's meant to locate us in the history of God's actions, God's sovereign saving grace worked out in David's life, exalting him from a humble shepherd to the king over his people, to the bearer of God's covenant promises.

These are David's last words.

It's what he wants to leave with God's people.

But notice they aren't just David's words.

Verse 2.

The rock of Israel has said to me.

And let's pause right there.

These are David's last words, yes.

But who else is speaking here?

Well, the Spirit of the Lord speaks by me.

It's his word that's on my tongue.

This opens up to us what we understand as the Christian doctrine of inspiration.

We talk about inspiration sometimes artistically.

If you've got a guitar, maybe you've been inspired by natural beauty, or you've been inspired and, you know, having fallen in love or something to write a, well, at least if you're me a so-so song, but maybe you've written something.

You felt that inspiration, that energy, that animation.

It's not exactly what we're talking about when we talk about the Christian doctrine of inspiration.

It's not that biblical authors or David here is just, ooh, just really excited.

I mean, they might be, but inspiration here is a very technical term.

Inspiration comes from the Latin for breathed out, inspire.

And so if you read a very important verse like 2 Timothy 3.16, it's a very important verse for understanding how Scripture understands itself, you'll read that all scripture is breathed out, or if you're reading the KJV, is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training and righteousness.

In other words, inspiration of God's word means that everything God speaks is reliable, trustworthy, and true.

And notice that Paul in 2 Timothy 3 says, all scripture.

Theologian Barry Cooper says this: when we open God's word, we can be sure that what we're reading is breathed out by God, not just in general, but right down to the specifics.

See, David understands that yes, these are his last words, but this is God speaking.

And this is how we should come to Scripture.

Understanding that it's not just human authors who are really excited about a religious life who are writing.

This is God's own word to us, his people, through his people.

If you were to ask David, so David, is this your word or is this God's word?

I suspect he'd say, yes.

It's not dictation, it's not a mechanical writing down, it is God speaking through, authoritatively through David, through his people.

So when David speaks of God's kingdom in verse 5, did you notice that?

He has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and secure, pointing us towards his house, towards his kingdom dynasty.

David's not just saying, hey, this is my best wishes for the future.

He's saying, God has surely promised this.

This is God's word.

The Spirit is speaking, his word is on my tongue.

See, when God promises the kingdom, it's not just our best wishes, wishful thinking.

This is a sure thing.

Because God surely performs what he promises.

David's words are carried forth by God's own breath, his own spirit, his ruach, which you can translate spirit or breath.

I think it's wonderful wordplay.

The kingdom is a sure thing, as sure as God's own word.

And this is why we Christians come to our scriptures.

It's why we come to them every day, isn't it?

I mean, Bible trivia is nice, and learning some interesting facts about the ancient Naris is cool, if that's your hobby, I guess.

We come to Scripture because we want to know what it is that God has spoken and what it is that God speaks through the illumination of his spirit.

If we want to know God's promises so we can grab on to God's promises, we go to where we know that he is spoken.

And he has spoken in and through his people, in and through the scriptures.

David wants us to know that this promise that God makes is a sure thing.

The kingdom to come is a sure kingdom.

It is as sure as God's word is trustworthy.

But it's not simply the kingdom's surety that David finds so compelling.

Rather, he finds it compelling for its beauty, a restored kind of beauty.

It's around this time of year that I start thinking some uncharacteristic thoughts.

See, I'm really not a beach person.

You might be surprised by that based on my complexion and uh, you know, just my general distaste for sand and desire for personal space and things like that.

But right around this time of year, I suspect your experience is like mine, you start to see those ads popping up online for travel agencies with pictures of crystal clear blue water and white sands and palm trees swaying, and you start to think, boy, that looks pretty nice.

That looks a lot, well, that looks nothing like where I am here in the increasingly dropping temperatures and frigid climate of Canada.

That's something that I want for myself.

That's a place I desire to be.

See, beholding this beauty, this beauty on the travel ad is meant to make me want to be there, to strive to be there.

And so too is David's understanding of the beauty of the kingdom to come.

David sees a beautiful vision of things to be, and he wants to be there.

And he wants to invite us to want to be there too.

This is the heart of David's message.

Let's pick it up on the last half of verse 3.

When one rules justly over men, ruling in the fear of God, he dawns on them like the morning light, like the sun shining forth on a cloudless morning, like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth.

So, sure, this is pretty dense and it's pretty poetic, but I think we can catch some key terms that give us a clue to what David is saying here.

We see the word justly, and it relates us to justice and a right ordering of society.

And we see images of flourishing and vitality and life, images like dawn in the morning, like sun breaking through the clouds, like rain that gives the ground life and causes grass to sprout.

See what David is saying here is that the kingdom is the fulfillment of our greatest desires, our desire for a rightly ordered world, a world of justice, and a world full of life and flourishing and vitality.

This is David's hope.

And it's a sure hope because God has promised it.

This flourishing takes place because there's a just ruler over men or over humankind, ruling in the fear of God.

And that's not that's not terror, right?

That's not panic, but that's a due reverence, an obedience, a submission to his will.

And when a just ruler rules justly, well-being, vitality, and life flourish like dawn, like a sun, like rain.

And it's always meant to be so.

If we were to look at Genesis chapter 2, we would see God's commissioning to our first parents exercise dominion over all creation.

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

They were meant to cultivate and see life and all things flourish under their authority.

It seems that the things to come bear a strong resemblance to things as they were always meant to be.

This is a beautiful thing to think about.

This is the greatest hope for the future, a world as it's meant to be.

This is not just a beautiful thing to behold, this is the beautiful thing to behold.

And why is that?

Perhaps it's because our current experience is that the world is not as it should be.

Rulers do not rule justly.

They don't occasion flourishing, but so often they grasp for power.

Things are not the way they are supposed to be.

We see it every time we open up our news app, don't we?

Our hearts sink and break to read these headlines that we do.

And when we do, we can take action for justice.

And that's a very noble thing indeed.

And we should act rightly in a way that points towards the kingdom to come.

But we can read so many of these headlines that we can tend to get cynical, can't we?

And we can get resentful, and we can get bitter, we can even get hopeless.

So the question for us as Christians is: do we, like David, have our hearts set on a this worldly hope or a greater hope to come?

See, for a Christian, it's this sure and beautiful hope of the kingdom, of a world as it is always meant to be, ordered under the just rule of a ruler, of a just ruler.

You know what I'm saying.

It's this hope that animates our present endeavors and desires for justice and for flourishing.

And it animates our prayers.

We're pilgrims traveling from this world of disorder and destruction and sin into a world to come, the kingdom to come.

So when we pray, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, it's because we know that things on earth are not as they are in heaven.

But we pray today, as someday it finally will be.

See, David looks forward and he sees the kingdom to come as a sure promise of God and a beautiful thing to desire.

This is where we are meant to be.

But David wants to leave us with no illusions.

This kingdom is an exclusive thing.

Let's read verses six and seven.

But worthless men are like thorns that are thrown away, for they cannot be taken with the hand.

But the man who touches them arms himself with iron in the shaft of a spear, and they are utterly consumed with fire.

In the Hebrew you could add, they are consumed with fire on the spot.

This is an image of judgment.

It's also a contrast.

This contrasts worthless men, or those who we could say are worthless, wicked, godless, with a just ruler.

See, under a just ruler, life flourishes.

Everything is ordered rightly.

But when the worthless, the wicked, the godless do their thing, they cause pain and violence and destruction in the order of creation, like thorns.

David understands this.

As sure and as beautiful as the kingdom to come is, there will be those whose heart is set against it, whose prayer is not thy kingdom come, but my kingdom come at all costs.

And that's why David prays in Psalm 53.

The fool says in his heart, There is no God, they are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity, there is none who does good.

See, the worthless, the wicked, the godless fool here in Psalm 53 dethrones God, dethrones the God who created them, and enthrones themselves.

Having done so, there is no higher law that they are held to, and they are a law unto themselves.

C.S.

Lewis once wrote that there are only two kinds of people in the end, those who say to God, Thy will be done, and those to whom God says, In the end, thy will be done.

So God in his administration of justice throws thorns that cause pain and devastation and destruction away, and consumes them with fire, an image of final and ultimate judgment.

And this corresponds to what the Apostle John sees at the end of the present age in Revelation 21.

A great judgment.

See, a renewed creation, the kingdom to come, has finally and ultimately answered sin and pain and devastation.

And there is no place for these things in the kingdom.

So what's David saying here?

He's saying that the kingdom is not something to be taken lightly.

It's not something to be assumed, it's not something to which we are entitled, it's not something which we take for granted.

The kingdom must, in one sense or another, be sought.

Especially if there are none who do good in Psalm 53.

See, David's final words here end on a minor key, don't they?

Perhaps they resonate with our own present experience of a disordered and devastated creation.

But we must not miss the gospel in David's words.

David looks forward.

The kingdom to come is a sure thing.

It's a beautiful thing.

And we know the kingdom to come is as sure as our Savior.

Paul writes this to the church in Colossae.

He, the Father, has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

See, for the Christian, it's no mystery whose kingdom we belong to.

For the Christian, we have been claimed by Christ and brought into his kingdom, and baptism is for us the sign of his claiming us, his covenant grace to us.

See, this kingdom is as sure and as beautiful as our Savior is.

But my words will never pass away.

Jesus has promised us the kingdom.

And that is not a flimsy or flittering promise.

It's a sure thing that we count on, that we grasp by faith, and that we carry with us on this journey from the world that is to the kingdom come.

David understood that the kingdom is a sure thing.

We know the kingdom is as sure as the king himself, and it is beautiful as the king himself, who puts to right all the wrongs and pain and devastation of this world.

The Apostle John sees the final day when this kingdom comes.

He, John writes, Jesus, the King, will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more.

Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.

The age that is, the age of sin, has passed away and given way to the kingdom come.

This is the way things should be.

The fulfillment of all our deepest desires for life and flourishing, secured by Jesus Himself.

And this kingdom will be for his people an everlasting dawn, everlasting sunshine, like rain upon a thirsty ground.

And so we will sing for all eternity.

Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth, and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.

And David makes no mistake.

Jesus is an exclusive king.

And we confess he will come to be our king and our judge.

Jesus says to his disciples in Matthew 13, Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so it will be at the end of the age.

The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out his kingdom all causes of sin and lawbreakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace.

This is unsettling, isn't it?

It makes someone like me ask, Am I among the desirable wheat or the undesirable weeds?

Am I among the sheep or the goats?

The fruitful or fruitless branches of the vine?

See, the kingdom is not the default destination for a corrupted humanity that causes pain and violence.

It must, in one sense or another, be sought.

But it is not sought by our good works.

It is rather sought through faith, which the Spirit works in our hearts.

See, we must bear in mind our citizenship in the kingdom is not something we win for ourselves, but something that Christ has won for us, his people, through his cross, resurrection, and ascension.

We are not the ones who make the first move toward Christ.

He has made the first move towards us in grace.

He is the one who scatters the seeds of his word, who calls his sheep by their name, who causes otherwise fruitless branches to flourish.

If you trust in Christ, the kingdom is your inheritance.

And it is your heart's greatest desire to be with your king.

So in David's last words, we see the heart of the gospel according to the book of Samuel.

God has promised to his otherwise lowly and wayward people a sure and beautiful kingdom.

Therefore, let us seek first the kingdom by seeking after the king through faith.

These are David's last words.

I suspect the last words spoken over us as Christians as this world gives way to the kingdom to come is what we find in Revelation chapter 12.

Revelation 12 · chapter mention

The kingdom of God and the authority of his Christ has come.

Friends, the kingdom is near.

Draw near to Christ the King and praise forever the King of kings.

Amen.

Thank you for listening today.

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