FBC Daily Devotional – January 25, 2022

Well, a good Tuesday morning to you. Hope you're doing well today. Got your week off to a good start yesterday and Have gotten into God's Word and perhaps today you read our in our

Bible reading plan in 1st Chronicles chapters 16 through 18 and then a couple of verses in the book of Proverbs chapter 19, but I want to zero in on this

This little interchange between David and his trusted spiritual advisor so David is, you know the king and He's he's burdened

About the fact that he lives in a palace. He lives in a decent home but the

Ark of the Covenant this piece of furniture that God had

Moses build in the wilderness has been it's been dwelling in tents for years and years and years and He brings that out in verse verse 1 of 1st

Chronicles 17 David says see now I dwell in a house of cedar and you know, you can imagine the

The relative luxury of that in that day and time this would have been a stone home

That would have been paneled with cedar paneling And if you have a cedar if you've had or ever had a cedar closet or something like that in your home you can appreciate the

The fragrant Ambience of such a home. Well, I was quite a luxurious dwelling at that in that particular time

So he says I dwell in a house of cedar But the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord is under tent curtains

He says this is a this is an awful thing now implied in that statement is a desire that David has to build a temple a permanent structure

In which the Ark of the Covenant can be placed and this would be the place of worship that God's people would come to and so forth

So, I mean, this is a noble desire It's a it's a good and noble desire and so he's telling

David is telling this to his spiritual advisor man by the name of Nathan and Nathan, you know as a good spiritual advisor will do he he listens to the plan

It's reasonable he considers the legitimacy of the need and It is

I mean tent fabrics and all that wear out and it surely would be more beneficial if the

Ark of the Covenant were in a stone structure and Protected from the elements and it'd be a permanent place for that thing to set to sit

So he's considering the reason the reasonability of the plan the legitimacy of the need

And and the motives of the planner, you know, what are David's motives here? What does

David have to get out of this? He's got no ulterior motives here David's not going to make himself wealthy in this thing.

Not not at all. In fact David's going to give of his own wealth to make sure that this temple actually gets built.

So there's nothing like that Going on no ulterior motives Everything seems to line up For Nathan to give the green light and He does

Nathan is a man of God. He's in tune with the Lord. He's a prophet of the

Lord and a good reliable trustworthy spiritual advisor and by the way

You'll remember that it was this Nathan who confronted David when he sinned with Bathsheba same day same

Nathan so Nathan He hears all of this and in verse 2 he says do all that is within your heart for God is with you in this

All right, good to go. I've got the green light My spiritual advisor has has sounded

I've sounded this out by him and he says go for it God's with you in it. Well, the problem is that This wasn't

God's will for David It was God's will that a temple be built eventually

But it wasn't God's will for David to do the building of that temple so later that night

Nathan Sleeping soundly. Here's a message from God He comes to God and says

God your God comes to Nathan and says go and tell my servant David Thus says the Lord you shall not build me a house to dwell in He goes on to explain

I haven't dwelt in a house for all these years and you don't have to build me one now

But he goes on to explain that The the one after you your son is going to build me a house.

All right, so now Nathan Nathan's Reputation is on the line he's the spiritual advisor the one that's been trusted to share the the

Word of God a word from the Lord and to give direction to David who has asked him advice and He's given him the green light he said go ahead do what do all that's within your heart

God is with you in this thing. And now the

Lord comes to Nathan and says I'm not This isn't my will for David So go and tell him don't do this

So what's Nathan to do? What's Nathan to do? He's gonna eat crow

Because a good spiritual advisor a good advisor Will still will be sensitive to correction to the need for Recalculation readjustment or completely abandoning the advice that he's already given sometimes somebody who's given spiritual advice will leave the counseling session the and and you know reflect on it and and then some other information may come into his purview and He has to go back to that person.

He advised and say no, you know what? I was wrong in that I need to change my advice to you.

Don't go there. Don't go that route Change course and that's exactly what

Nathan did He acknowledged his error and he corrects his advice accordingly this

Comes out in the rest of our reading today. He goes back to David and says no you're not to do this and wonderfully

David doesn't question Nathan. I mean he doesn't accuse him of being

You know less than forthright less than honest or anything like that. No David accepts that word from the

Lord and submits to it good spiritual advisors They will listen carefully.

They will weigh the reasonability of a plan the legitimacy of a need The motives behind the plan they will offer their advice but they will also they will also be sensitive to what

God has to say and Even be open to correction and changing their advice if need be

So I hope you have good advisors In the multitude of counselors there is wisdom.

Be sure you get the good kind good kind of counselors those who will those who will

Gladly share with you the Word of God the will of God as they perceive it

Well father, I pray that we would surround ourselves with good advisors with people who are sensitive to your will and to your word and and we would we would weigh heavily their counsel and their advice and And accept it readily

So Lord bless us with that we pray and to the extent that perhaps We have surrounded ourselves with those

Who would lead us astray? I pray that you would give us the wisdom to break from such counsel

This we pray in Jesus name. Amen All right. Well, have a good rest of your