The King of the People
Notes
Transcript
Introduction:
A king without a capital city is really more like a deposed king than a reigning monarch.
David has become king of Israel, but God is not finished with Him yet.
Tonight we are going to see that God delights to use those who are committed to Him.
1 Then all the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron and said, “Behold, we are your bone and flesh.
2 In times past, when Saul was king over us, it was you who led out and brought in Israel. And the Lord said to you, ‘You shall be shepherd of my people Israel, and you shall be prince over Israel.’ ”
3 So all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron, and King David made a covenant with them at Hebron before the Lord, and they anointed David king over Israel.
4 David was thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years.
5 At Hebron he reigned over Judah seven years and six months, and at Jerusalem he reigned over all Israel and Judah thirty-three years.
1. God's Promise of a Kingdom (vv.1-5)
1. God's Promise of a Kingdom (vv.1-5)
David had been anointed king many years earlier by Samuel.
David had been on the run from Saul
David had finally been recognized as king of Judah, but then Ish Bosheth and Abner were in the way as Ish Bosheth reigned over Israel.
All of this time, David waited on the Lord for Him to fulfill His promise. David did not get ahead of God.
Once Ish Bosheth and Abner are gone, at no fault of David’s, the people of Israel are looking for a leader. They finally come to their senses and realize that David has been a great leader and military commander and that God had chosen David.
Now, they seek to make a covenant with David for Him to rule over the whole nation. It’s surprising but only Saul, David, and Solomon ruled over a united Israel.
David enters into a covenant with the people. He promises to fulfill his duties as their king and they promise to support him.
You know, it is not just a kings right to rule over his people. There are responsibilities that a king has to his people.
Jesus is our King. He is ruling and reigning over the hearts of His people.
Jesus made a new covenant with us in His blood that was shed for the forgiveness of our sins.
2. God's Providence for a City (vv. 6-10)
2. God's Providence for a City (vv. 6-10)
6 And the king and his men went to Jerusalem against the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, who said to David, “You will not come in here, but the blind and the lame will ward you off”—thinking, “David cannot come in here.”
7 Nevertheless, David took the stronghold of Zion, that is, the city of David.
8 And David said on that day, “Whoever would strike the Jebusites, let him get up the water shaft to attack ‘the lame and the blind,’ who are hated by David’s soul.” Therefore it is said, “The blind and the lame shall not come into the house.”
9 And David lived in the stronghold and called it the city of David. And David built the city all around from the Millo inward.
10 And David became greater and greater, for the Lord, the God of hosts, was with him.
As we mentioned already, a king cannot truly be a king without a city to rule from.
David had been ruling from Hebron, but he needed a capital that would be in between Judah and Israel.
He needed a new capital city that had not been under either kingdom’s control.
Jerusalem was just that city. It was a city controlled by the Jebusites. It was also on the border between Israel and Judah.
City Map
The Millo
The Millo that is mentioned here is a steeped terrace that means “the fill.”
It was the King’s responsibility to maintain this area and was the most vulnerable part of the city.
The city was well defended on every other side.
Again, David prefigures Christ.
The reason David captured the city, was not because they were cleaver, but because God was with them.
They climbed the water shaft to the city and opened the gates allowing the soldiers to come flooding into the city.
The Jebusites were a pretty strong people. This city of Jerusalem had been known by several other names before.
Melchizedek knew it as Salem.
The Jebusites called it Jebus. They taunted David saying that the blind and the lame could ward him off.
They were so confident of their fortified city, but they didn’t plan on one thing. God was with David.
David was a military genius as well and the people went up the water shaft of the Gihon Spring that fed the city water.
David got the last laugh as they conquered the city.
He renamed the city after himself, calling it the City of David.
Psalm 2 parallels this event. It says in Psalm 2:1-3
1 Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?
2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying,
3 “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.”
The Psalmist goes on to say,
4 He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.
5 Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying,
6 “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.”
David is an antetype of Christ. He is a picture for us of a future King who will rule from the City of David over all the nations.
3. God's Provision of a House (vv. 11-12)
3. God's Provision of a House (vv. 11-12)
Well a king can have a city, but he also needs a place to live so that he is not homeless.
David got that too!
11 And Hiram king of Tyre sent messengers to David, and cedar trees, also carpenters and masons who built David a house.
12 And David knew that the Lord had established him king over Israel, and that he had exalted his kingdom for the sake of his people Israel.
David is recognized internationally now as a king by the king of the Phoenicians, King Hiram.
He sees David as a powerful force that now controlled the trade routes he needed. The Phoenicians were a sea-faring people and were wealthy and powerful.
Hiram makes an alliance with David and sends the famous cedars of Lebanon to him with workers to help Him build a palace.
Once again, we see that the Lord is with David.
Now not everything is roses. We see David’s cracks in his armor again. We have a summary statement that David took more wives and had more children through them.
While God did not approve of this, the children were a part of God’s plan. Through them God would bring Messiah, the true King of Israel.
However, God did give David the children he had by these wives. This is probably not trying to tell us that David did not have kids until he was in Jerusalem.
The point here is that David had a house and lineage established.
You and I stand in the long line of David if we are in Christ.
Jesus is the Son of David and we who believe have been adopted into the family.
4 As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious,
5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
6 For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
We have become the new house of God not made with hands. We are to go into all the world and help build this house because the Lord is with us.
It is not about the physical buildings, but the spiritual children that God brings into His family through us.
4. God's Plan for a Victory (vv.11-25)
4. God's Plan for a Victory (vv.11-25)
Once David had his throne, his city, and his house, everything did not just go all hunky dory all the time.
David was now tested. The Philistines might have tolerated David if he was ruler over one tribe of Judah in the South of Israel.
Now, David was a legitimate force to be reckoned with. They saw David as a threat, so they issue a call to arms and seek to go up into the mountains and break up David’s kingdom by attacking him in the capital.
Maybe this new king would not have it all together yet.
Well, the King of Kings does and David went down to meet them in battle.
David inquires of the Lord first as to what He wanted David to do.
You know God has the battle plans to victory. He wants us to inquire of Him and He will defeat our enemies.
David was not afraid of the Philistines like Saul was. David went down and took the battle to the enemy.
David goes to the stronghold and the Philistines, the huge people that they were, spread out in the Valley of the Giants, or the Valley of Rephaim.
God gives them a decisive victory, so much so that David describes it like water breaching a dam and calls the place, “Baal Perazim,” or the “Lord Breaks Through.”
You might suppose the Philistines licked their wounds and retreated with their tales between their legs, but the enemies of God’s people rarely do.
They come again and again!
Satan will beat and batter you, hoping each time to weaken you, and he will succeed if you fight him in your own strength and with your own strategies.
David is attacked again, and you might think he would just use the same old battle plan and go for again, but he wisely consults God again.
This time God gave him the victory in a different, more unique way.
God told him,
22 And the Philistines came up yet again and spread out in the Valley of Rephaim.
23 And when David inquired of the Lord, he said, “You shall not go up; go around to their rear, and come against them opposite the balsam trees.
24 And when you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam trees, then rouse yourself, for then the Lord has gone out before you to strike down the army of the Philistines.”
25 And David did as the Lord commanded him, and struck down the Philistines from Geba to Gezer.
God told him to go around to the rear. They were going to cut off the retreat this time and deliver the final blow. God would march before them and the Philistines would hear what sounded like the marching of an army in the tops of the trees.
As they retreated they met the army of David and David delivered the final blow that would end the reign of the Philistines in Israel.
God had handed over Israel’s enemies and fought for her.
Conclusion
Jesus offers the same to you and me.
Our greatest battle is with sin and death. We may try to scheme up a way to defeat it, but we will lose every time if we don’t fight God’s way.
God has fought for us. Jesus defeated sin and death on the cross of Calvary.
He calls us to faith in Him.
We will have enemies that seek to destroy us, but God is our every present help in time of need.
He will neither leave us nor forsake us.
Psalm 46:1 says
1 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
I hope you are resting in the stronghold of faith in Christ Jesus our Lord.
If the enemy has you shut up inside, there is not safer place you can be. Rest in Jesus and rely on Him to go out to battle for you.
