The Son of Psalm 2 (Hebrews 1:5)

Kootenai Church

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You turn now to Hebrews chapter one, we're gonna read together verses five through the end of verse 13.

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Verse 14, we'll read through the end of the chapter. Hebrews chapter one, beginning of verse five. For to which of the angels did he ever say, you are my son, today

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I have begotten you. And again, I will be a father to him and he shall be a son to me. And when he again brings the firstborn into the world, he says, and let all the angels of God worship him.

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And of the angels, he says, who makes his angels winds and his ministers a flame of fire. But of the son, he says, your throne, oh

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God, is forever and ever. And the righteous scepter is the scepter of his kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness.

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Therefore God, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions. And you

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Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth and the heavens are the works of your hands. They will perish, but you remain.

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And they all will become old like a garment. And like a mantle, you will roll them up. Like a garment, they will also be changed.

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But you are the same and your years will not come to an end. But to which of the angels has he ever said, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.

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Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to render salvation for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?

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Let us pray together. Oh Lord, it is our desire that you would be glorified through the proclamation of your word and our study of it.

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We pray that you would attend the teaching and are looking at your word this morning with the power of your Holy Spirit to grant to us eyes to see and hearts to obey.

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We commit this time to you and our efforts and energies to that end in Christ's name, amen. Did you all remember to bring with you the sheet that we handed out last week that was in your bulletin?

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They were also handing them out. Lanny has to raise his up nice and high. He has his today, so I have nobody to single out.

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They were also handing this out outside at the table here. So you've got that where the

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Hebrews passage verses five through 13 is on one side and then all the Old Testament citations that the author of Hebrews cites are on the other side.

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You have that. Okay, so go ahead and put that away because you're not gonna need that today. Or maybe since you have that out, the only thing

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I would say that you would need that for is just so that you can notice in verse five of Hebrews chapter one and the two passages across the page.

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Notice how the citations there are virtually word for word. They're virtually identical. And so there's no need then to compare them to the

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Old Testament citations since we're going to be going back there. But I would just have you note that we're looking at two verses here on the right -hand side that are cited in Hebrews chapter one, verse five.

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Now you really can put that away. Tomorrow, next week, I shouldn't say tomorrow, next week, it's not going to be as simple as just saying, look, they're identical on one side and the other.

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It's a little bit more complicated than that. But we'll get to that next week. We face today as we come to verse five, a challenge. And this is a challenge that we're going to be addressing all the way through the book of Hebrews and actually with every citation from the

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Old Testament that we find in the book of Hebrews and there are quite a bit of them. And the challenge is this, that when we look at chapter one, verse five of Hebrews, we're not actually just looking at one verse of scripture.

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We're looking at three verses of scripture because we're looking at Hebrews one, verse five, which quotes

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Psalm two, verse seven and second Samuel seven, verse 14. And so this is the challenge that we as an audience listening to this epistle do not have the same understanding and shared context of the

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Old Testament texts that the original audience would have had. So we have to study not just what

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Hebrews chapter one, verse five says, but we have to kind of go behind the scenes as it were to what this author quotes in the original citations and ask ourselves, what do those original citations mean?

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And part of the difficulty is that if I were to ask you before you came in here this morning, give to me the meaning, the theme, the overall idea of Psalm chapter two and its redemptive significance in God's historical redemptive plan.

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How many of us would have been able to do that? If it were required of you to, in order to come in here today, to give me an overview of Psalm two and its significance, would you be able to do that?

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And then I were to follow up with saying, and by the way, tell me the significance of second Samuel chapter seven. What's going on there? And how does that play into God's plan of redemptive history?

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If that was your ticket for entry today, would you be sitting here this morning? I'd be pretty empty.

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Now I would be here, but that is in large part due to the fact that I spent the last seven days pouring over all of these passages so that I could be able to do that.

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But we, as a large group of Christians in America, we in modern

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Christianity do not have that shared Old Testament understanding of those texts. And so we have to go beyond what's just written in Hebrews one.

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We wanna look at the original citations because the question that we have to answer is this. Why did the author of Hebrews quote

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Psalm two? What's going on in Psalm two? Why does he quote that and expect his original audience to understand that?

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And then quote second Samuel chapter seven. What's going on in second Samuel chapter seven? And how does that play into the meaning here in Hebrews chapter one?

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So we're going to do that. Now in most churches, it would be standard kind of evangelical fair to just simply read

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Hebrews one five and then say, see, now there are some quotations from the Old Testament that show that Jesus is the son. And so let's move on to the next quotation.

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That would be typical. Now that may be what some of you came here expecting. Maybe that would be what some of you would prefer, but that is not at all what we're gonna do.

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We're gonna go back to Psalm chapter two. We're gonna look at that. We're gonna look at second Samuel chapter seven and look at that. Then we're gonna come back to Hebrews chapter one.

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But before you go turning back to Psalm two, let me give you a couple of things that I want you to notice here as you're looking at Hebrews chapter one.

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First, I want you to notice what the main point of this comparison again is. We covered this last week, but I just want to remind you of it.

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In chapter one, verse five, where he says, for to which of the angels did he ever say, you are my son, today I have begotten you.

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And again, I will be a father to him and he shall be a son to me. The main point of this comparison is that Jesus is greater than the angels.

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That's what he says in verse four, that Jesus has become much better than the angels and he has inherited a more excellent name than they.

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And now he is in these quotations that follow going to prove that point, that Jesus is greater than the angels. He wants to show that though Jesus for a while was made lower than the angels in his resurrection, in his ascension and his exaltation to the father's right hand, where he sits now at the right hand of the majesty and high in that position, he enjoys not just a better position than the angels, having been lower than the angels for a period of time.

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Now he is greater than the angels in that regard. He also has inherited this name, the son. He is the son.

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And God has said of him that he is my son. And so in that title and in that name, he is also greater than the angels because the author is going to say to which of the angels did he ever say that?

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And that's the argument for the rest of this passage. He's going to show from the old Testament scriptures to a Jewish audience that their scriptures declared that the

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Messiah to come was going to be greater than the angels and that he is greater than the angels. So that's the first thing. Notice the main point of that comparison.

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Second, I want you to notice how these old Testament, how the old Testament is cited here in this chapter. This is curious to me.

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The author doesn't give any citations from where he's draw these passages. Do you notice that? Like if you didn't have the little narrow thing in the middle that tells you where that came or if you're studying a

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MacArthur study Bible, which gives you the references, you would be hard pressed if you just had the raw text to be able to cite off of your head where those passages are coming from, what he's citing from.

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Or if you don't have that handy dandy little piece of paper that I handed out to you that I told you you're going to need for this week, but you're not really going to need for this week.

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If you didn't have that, it'd be hard pressed to know where he's quoting from. How is it that he just cites the verse and not give any kind of citation?

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Now, it wouldn't be right for us to expect him to say, as it says in Psalm two, verse seven, we shouldn't expect that.

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Why? Because chapter and verse divisions were added hundreds of years after the completion of the New Testament for convenience.

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They're not inspired. So we wouldn't expect him to cite it that way, but we might expect him to cite it like this. Like for instance, when

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David, or sorry, when Peter in Acts chapter two cites Psalm two, he says, as David says in the

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Psalms, why do the nations rage in the people's plot of vain thing? So he quotes the author and he quotes the

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Psalms, but this author here doesn't quote, doesn't say it's from the Psalms, doesn't say it's from the historical books.

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He just quotes it. And I think that that indicates something. It indicates to us that, number one, this author was deeply familiar with the

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Old Testament. So much so that he could make an argument and take the language of Old Testament scripture and incorporate it right into his argument without even bothering to cite it.

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And the fact that he doesn't even bother to give a citation or tell us where it is from also assumes a deep familiarity of the

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Old Testament with his audience. That they just in hearing this language and hearing this words would say, oh yeah, that's the second

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Psalm. Oh, that's 110 Psalm. Oh, that's Psalm 95. Oh, that's Psalm 45. They would just know this off of the top of their head.

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A deep familiarity with the Old Testament. It would be as if I were to say to you, look, we know that the

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Lord is our shepherd. Most of you sitting here this morning understand what? That comes from Psalm 23, the

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Lord is my shepherd. And not only in me stating that, that the Lord is our shepherd, not only are you thinking in your mind the specific reference of the location of that in the

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Old Testament, but you're also probably calling to your mind all of the things that go with it. Oh, yes, that's David who wrote that about the tender mercies of God.

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He is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me to sides to waters. He comforts me.

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He prepares a table for me in the presence of my enemy and my enemies. You call to your mind all that's part of that Psalm.

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Why? Because you understand it. You know it, you're familiar with it. Or if I were to say to you, look, we understand that God loved this world enough that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

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Do I need to cite the reference to you? No, because I would assume that you are familiar with John 3, 16. In the same way this author quotes these

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Old Testament passages. There is such a deep and profound familiarity with the Old Testament language and the Old Testament context that all he has to do is cite them and they would get all of that context.

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We have to go back and get that context because we're not as familiar as they are with it or were with it. All right, number three.

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Notice that he cites them without explaining them. This is kind of interesting. Later on in the epistle, he will cite these passages and then he will kind of exegete them or explain them, kind of expound upon them a little bit and develop an argument around them.

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Here, he just rattles off citations from the Old Testament, rattles off Old Testament language to prove his point almost as if the very quoting of these passages proves the point and he doesn't need to explain them.

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So he's just giving us a load of Old Testament passages that prove this point. And again, what is the point? That Jesus is greater than the angels.

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He's better than the angels. All right, now let's go back to Psalm 2. Turn back to the second Psalm again.

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I'm gonna look at this in its context. You're gonna see verse seven is the passage that is quoted or is the verse that is quoted in Hebrews chapter one.

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This is a Psalm of David, though the little tiny letters at the top of the Psalm don't tell us who it is that wrote it.

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Peter does on the day, not the day of Pentecost, but Peter does in Acts chapter four. I think it's verses 25, 26.

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It's in Acts chapter four somewhere. I didn't write it down. But Peter says, as David says in the

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Psalms, and he quotes Psalm 2 verse one, where it says, why are the nations in an uproar and the people's devising a vain thing?

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The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed saying. And Peter quotes that as being fulfilled at the time of Christ.

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He cites this passage two verse one as being fulfilled when Herod and Pontius Pilate and the

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Jewish leadership and the Roman leadership all conspired together against Christ and crucified him.

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David saw in that event an ultimate fulfillment of this raging of Gentile powers and national rulers against the

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Lord and against his anointed. So David takes, sorry, Peter takes something that David says, which is very general and applies to the nations over all of human history.

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And he sees in that statement, not just a fulfillment of what is happening even today, but he sees in that statement, a fulfillment of something that happened when the rulers of the people came together against the

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Lord and against his anointed. You know what it would take to get Caiaphas and Pilate to conspire together, to work together, to do anything?

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Do you know what it would take to get the Jewish nation on the same page as a Roman nation to work together in anything?

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Had to be something there at the heart of that. You know what it was? It was the Christ. And that brought every enemy of God together, regardless of national distinctions, regardless of their religious or ethnic background, it brought them all together against the

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Lord and against his Christ. So this was written by David. Peter tells us that in Acts chapter four. Let's begin in verse one.

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And what we have to do this morning is, before we begin in verse one, hold on. What we have to do this morning is

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I have to tell you, this is going to be something of an overview of both Psalm two and second Samuel chapter seven, because we could do two messages on the second

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Psalm. As I was kind of reading through it, I thought there's two. Okay, we could probably do three. And the same could be said of second

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Samuel seven, but we don't wanna do that because then we lose track of sort of where we're at in Hebrews and have to go back and reintroduce you to Hebrews.

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And it's just, it becomes a mess. So we're just going to give you kind of an overview of Psalm two and second

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Samuel chapter seven. I'm not gonna answer all of your questions, but we are gonna kind of get the whole gist of the argument from these two passages.

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All right, Psalm two. Why are the nations in an uproar and the people's devising a vain thing?

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The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed.

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And those first two verses describe the rebellion of the kings of the earth, the rebellion of the leaders of the nation, the princes, the judges, the rulers of the world.

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They are in an uproar. They are in a fury. They are militantly allied against God and against his anointed, against God's truth, against God's righteousness, against the establishment of God's kingdom.

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All of the kings of the earth are allied against that. They take their stand against it. They're shaking their fist at heaven.

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They wish to thwart the rule and the purposes of God. Now, when was this verse true? It was true in David's day when he wrote it, right?

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Is it still true today? Just a little, just a wee bit, right? It doesn't matter who the king is or what the nation is.

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We have leadership at every level that all agree on one thing, that we want nothing to do with Christianity or God or God's truth.

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And so the nations are in an uproar. There is this fury, like the foam of a tossing sea.

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This is the fury of the people who are allied against God and hate God. And so what do they say? Verse three, let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from them.

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Who's the us? Let us, that's the kings of the earth, tear their fetters. And the fetters, they refer to the restrictions or restraints that God's word, that God's truth puts upon the wicked.

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They want to break those chains. Ultimately, they want this freedom. And their idea of freedom is the ability to pursue my own desires, to do my own thing, and to be free of the shackles and the restraints of righteousness and truth and God's law and anything about that.

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We just want to be free to do our own thing without any regard to who God is or what he demands of us.

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That is their desire. And so this is how the unbeliever, the pagan of verses one and two, this is how they view

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God, that it binds them. God's law binds them, it restricts them, right?

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And their conscience bears witness to that. And they hate the law of God. And if they could get their way, they would drag

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God off of his throne and trample them under feet and ascend the throne of heaven and sit there themselves. That is in the heart of every wicked man.

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That is what he desires. So they want to cast off all restraint because that's what they desire.

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That is what they think is true freedom. Now, what does God do in response to this? Verse four, he who sits in the heavens laughs, the

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Lord scoffs at them. It's okay to love that verse. I love that verse.

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I love it. It's my favorite verse in this whole Psalm. I love the picture of God looking down upon a rebellious humanity and just scoffing at them.

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And all the leaders of the world conspiring together to establish their kingdom and their truth, to cast off God's shackles, to be free of him and their conscience and the law of God and righteousness and to have their own way to do their own thing.

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And God just looks down and he scoffs. He holds them in derision, the pagan, the unbeliever.

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Not just that, but he holds them in contempt and under his wrath. Look at verse five. Then he that is

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God will speak to them, these wicked rulers in his anger and terrify them in his fury.

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And what is it that God says to them that ought to terrify them? Verse six, as for me,

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I have established my king upon Zion, my holy mountain. So the nations are raging and seeking to establish their own kingdom.

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And God scoffs at that and all of their opposition to his purposes. He is not sitting in heaven, pulling out his hair, sitting in heaven, coming up with plan

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B. God looks at all of their resistance to his purposes and he laughs and he scoffs. And in his anger, he says to them, here's my answer.

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As for me, I have established my king upon Zion. I will sit my king on that mountain.

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Now the question is, who is that king? And what is he going to do? Who is the king that God is going to sit on Zion?

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Who fulfilled that purpose and that intention? And when will it be fulfilled or has it already been fulfilled?

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Verse six, God says to them, and this ought to terrify them, this ought to terrify every king and every wicked ruler in the world that God is going to establish his kingdom and his ruler on Zion.

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This should terrify them because of what is to follow. Now, what follows in verses seven through verse nine are the words of the king who was installed upon Zion.

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So you have in verse six, the words of God, the father who says, I will establish my king and I will sit him on Zion.

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Then you have in verse seven, the author taking upon himself the persona of this established and installed king.

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And now he is speaking, the king who has been installed on Zion is speaking. In verse seven, I will surely tell of the decree of the

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Lord. He said to me, that is the Lord said to me, the king installed upon Zion, you are my son.

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Today I have begotten you. We're gonna come back at the end of the psalm to what it means that he has begotten. You are my son, today

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I have begotten you. That is what the king installed says to the

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God, the father who has installed him upon Zion. Verse eight, ask of me and I will surely give the nations as your inheritance.

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Again, this is God speaking to this king. Ask of me and I will surely give the nations to you as your inheritance and the very ends of the earth as your possession.

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Coming back to Hebrews chapter one for just a moment. Who is the heir of all things? Who gets this inheritance? And so here we have, we have that now do you see why the author would quote

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Psalm two in Hebrews chapter one? He's just told us that Jesus is the heir of all things. And now he comes and he quotes

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Psalm two and this would call to the mind of the audience. Oh yeah, ask of me and I will give you the nations as your inheritance.

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The ends of the earth is your possession. He is speaking, this is the son. This is the one who was installed upon Zion whom the father calls his son.

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He is speaking back to the father and saying, this is what the father said to me. Ask of me and I will give you the nations as your inheritance.

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Verse nine, you shall break them with a rod of iron. You shall shatter them like earthenware. This is why they should be terrified by his fury up in verse five.

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Why? Because the father has said to the king installed upon Zion, you will inherit the nations, but you will destroy them first.

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You will crush them like an earthenware vessel. You will shatter them like a clay pot. They will be destroyed before your rod of iron.

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He will rule and he will reign. And he has been installed as king and he has been given all of the nations.

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And before he is going to inherit all of those, he will put down, as scripture says, all of his enemies. He will destroy every last enemy.

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He will bring all things into subjection to himself. That king who has been seated upon Zion.

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Zion is the mountain upon which Jerusalem rests. So we're talking about a specific location in the land of Israel on Mount Zion, a specific literal mountain where this king will sit and he will rule and he will reign.

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He will be given the nations and he will crush them. That is the nations and their kings and their rulers and all of their opposition.

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He will crush them with a rod of iron. He will shatter them like a clay pot. That is why they should be terrified.

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So now verse 10. Now, therefore, O kings. Now this is counsel to the kings of the earth in light of what has just been revealed.

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Now, therefore, O kings, show discernment. Take warning, O judges of the earth. Worship the Lord with reverence and rejoice with trembling.

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Stop your opposition, lay down your arms, turn from it. Admit that what you're doing is futile. It is vain.

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It is empty. It is stupid. It can go nowhere. And instead you ought to worship this Lord, the one who has installed his king upon Zion.

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Verse 11, worship the Lord with reverence and rejoice with trembling. Do homage. As some translations say, kiss the son.

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It means to do homage, to do reverence, to bow down in submission or subjection to. Do homage to the son that he not become angry and you perish in the way.

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In Psalm 2, who is it that is angry? Here. Well, we saw that somebody speaks to the nations in his anger in verse five.

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And that is the father. That is the one who installs this king. He says to the nations, I'm gonna put in my king on Zion.

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But in verse 12, who is it that's angry? It's the son. Well, what about Jesus meek and mild?

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What about the little Jesus? What about the Jesus who bounces children on his knee? Doesn't he just wink at sin and not judge anybody and just say, hey, whatever you want, it's up to you.

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You just do whatever you want. No accountability. I understand. We welcome everybody. You're all my children. Isn't that Jesus?

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Here, the son is angry. It's the son who will pour out his wrath upon an unbelieving world.

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It is the son who raises unbelievers to eternal damnation and says to those who are on his left, depart from me, you wicked, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.

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It is the son whose wrath is kindled on the day of judgment because of the impenitence and the rebellion of a lost world.

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And that righteous indignation is the indignation of the father. It is the same wrath for the same purposes and for the same reasons.

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It is the son who will take the great white throne where all the books are open and the dead will stand before him, the small and the great, and they will receive the reward of what they are due because of all of their deeds, which have been written in the books.

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It is the son who is angry. It's the son who pours out his wrath. It's the son whom they should fear.

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Why? Because he has been installed on Zion and he will deal with that rebellion. And so verse 12 says, "'For his wrath may soon be kindled.

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How blessed are those who take refuge in him.'" Now there is, we talked in Sunday school this morning about these seeming paradoxes or contradictions.

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Here's another one. The very one who is angry with you as an impenitent individual, if you're not in Jesus Christ, is the very one that you should come to for refuge.

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That's, there's an irony there. If you find your refuge in him, you will never face his wrath. If you will not find your refuge in him, you will face his wrath.

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He is angry. His wrath will be kindled. And if you do not find a refuge in him, you will perish in that day. That's the promise of the psalm.

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So what do we have in psalm two? We have the raging of the nations, God's response to establish a king in Zion.

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That should terrify the wicked. It should terrify the unbeliever because he is going to crush them and destroy them. That son is the one whom the father, that Messiah is the one whom the father calls son and says to him, "'Today

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I have begotten you.' That is the one who is going to be a full expression of all of the wrath of God against an impenitent and unbelieving world.

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And he is the one in whom you must find refuge. And if you do not find refuge in him, you will perish in the day."

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That's psalm two. It's beautiful. And again, my favorite part, God's scoffing. He's laughing at them because all of their resistance to his purposes accomplish nothing.

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It's just so vain. It's just so empty. As if God is going to adjust any of his plans to accommodate everything that's going on in the world.

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It is all moving inexorably to that end and nothing can stop it. He is going to have his way.

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He is going to establish his king upon Zion and he will destroy the wicked and destroy the unbeliever.

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And so we are forced and asked and begged to heed that warning and do homage to the son. Now the question comes up, was this fulfilled by David?

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Because David is the one who wrote this. And so if David is writing this and he obviously was installed as a king upon Zion, is this fulfilled by David or was it fulfilled by Solomon?

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Obviously there are elements of this psalm that were partially fulfilled in David.

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He was established as a king, but his throne was not over all of the nations. All of the nations were not given to him as an inheritance.

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So David is describing here a work of God whereby God establishes his king on Mount Zion, but David is looking beyond that king, which in this case was

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David, to a king who would fulfill this in a greater and larger sense behind him. And so the details of Psalm 2 have to be fulfilled by the

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Messiah, by the king. And so what is the takeaway? What is our takeaway of Psalm 2? To remember that here in the scripture, the father calls the king whom he has established for Zion and on Zion, his son.

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Now, what does it mean that he has begotten? Let's go back to verse seven.

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I will surely tell the decree of the Lord. Now this is the king, the established and ordained king speaking. He, the father said to me, the king, you are my son.

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Today I have begotten you. So this is the father or God addressing the king whom he has installed upon Zion, saying to him, you are my son.

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Today I have begotten you. Now, what does the term begotten mean? Because when I say the word begotten and when you read the word begotten, you are probably thinking in your mind the same thing that I would be thinking in my mind, which is this is describing something that happens in a point in time where somebody is created or brought into existence, because it is the same

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Hebrew word here that is used to describe one man begetting a child and that child begetting another child.

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And so when you read the genealogies, that's what you have. You have a procreation and one generation following another.

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And they use the term begotten to describe that because it can describe something that's brought into existence. Now, this word begotten has a large semantic range.

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So it's kind of like many of our English words, like the word deck, for instance. I can deck you with my fist. I could go out and build a deck.

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I can deal a deck of cards and we can go out on the deck of a ship. As the same word used so many different ways because there's a large semantic range, a large variety of meanings to that one

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English word. And so context and intention always determine the meaning of any word. And it is the same here.

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The word begotten can be used to refer to something that is created in time or generated and comes into being, but it doesn't always mean that.

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It can also describe bringing forth something or bringing something up or displaying something and putting it out there. It has that meaning.

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According to the theological word book of the Old Testament, in this context, this word begotten likely refers to a relationship of love.

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That is that the father or the son here, the king, is describing the relationship that God has said he has with this king.

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This is God's declaration concerning this king. This is my son. I am manifesting or declaring to all of the world that he is special and that he is unique and that I have a relationship with this individual that you would associate between a father and a son, that kind of a familial love relationship.

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That is what the word begotten means. Interestingly, the word is used in Acts chapter 13 of the resurrection.

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When Paul, when he is preaching in Pisidian Antioch, says that God, and he's speaking here of the resurrection in the context before and after this verse, he says in Acts 13, 33, that God has fulfilled this promise to our children and that he raised up Jesus, as it is also written in the second

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Psalm, you are my son, today I have begotten you. So there, Paul applies the word begotten to the resurrection.

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And here in Psalm two, it is likely a reference to God ordaining this individual as the king and seating him upon Mount Zion.

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That is why it says in verse six, but as for me, I have installed my king upon Zion, my holy mountain. And so he says today, you are my son, today

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I have begotten you. What does the today refer to? Probably the establishment of that king on Zion.

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So if you believe or want to teach, as some people do, that Jesus came into a being at a certain point in time and that that's what the word begotten means, that he was created or brought forth in that sense of being created, then you have to answer the question, when did that happen?

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Most people will say, well, it happened before the creation of the world, back in eternity past, before anything else was created, Jesus was created. That's what a

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Jehovah's Witness would say, for instance. He came into being at some point back then. Well, in Psalm chapter two, the begotten refers to the day of his coronation being established on Zion.

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In Acts chapter 13, he quotes Psalm two as referring to the resurrection. In Hebrews chapter one, the argument could be made that Hebrews chapter one is saying that this happens when he takes a seat at the father's right hand, that then he is begotten.

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So what does the term begotten mean? That the father has displayed this love relationship, this sonship.

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He has put on display before the world, the sonship of Christ. How did he do that? In the resurrection and in the ascension of giving him his place at the father's right hand.

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And he will do it someday when he has installed his king upon Zion. I don't mean to split hairs or overdo this, but think of it in these terms.

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It is difficult if not impossible to differentiate entirely between those three events because they are all part of the exaltation and the begottenness of the son.

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He is raised from the dead and declared to be the son of God. In that sense, he is begotten. He is brought forth and displayed that he is the son before all of creation, the resurrection.

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When he took his ascension at the right hand of the father, he is displayed and put on display before all of the angels and all the world that he is the begotten one, the son who has that relationship with the father.

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And in the future, when the father establishes him on the throne in Jerusalem, in Zion, it will be displayed before all of the creation that he is the son, that he is the divine one.

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So that begottenness does not refer to a beginning. That begottenness refers to a love relationship and a sonship that is put on display in the resurrection, the ascension, and the exaltation, and eventually the enthronement or ordination of that king upon Zion.

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All of those display that begottenness, that sonship. Now, 2

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Samuel chapter seven. That was a race through Psalm 2. 2 Samuel chapter seven.

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You're gonna have to go back further to the left -hand side of your Bible. 2

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Samuel chapter seven. What is the context of that? We'll begin at verse one, and we're gonna be reading together through the end of verse 17.

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And though this is a longer passage, we're just gonna be reading most of it so that we can catch the context and the gist of this here.

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2 Samuel chapter seven. This is David, his king. He is king in Jerusalem. God has established him as his king.

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And David has built for himself a house, a beautiful house, a beautiful palace. And yet he sees the temple of God moving around in a tent with the tabernacle.

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And God doesn't have nearly as nice of a house as David does, so David gets the idea that he's going to build God a house.

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Chapter seven, verse one. Now, it came about when the king lived in his house, and the Lord had given him rest on every side from all his enemies, that the king said to Nathan the prophet, see now

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I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in tent curtains. Nathan said to the king, now Nathan was a prophet, go do all that is in your mind, for the

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Lord is with you. But in the same night, the word of the Lord came to Nathan saying, go and say to my servant David, thus says the

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Lord, are you the one who should build me a house to dwell in? I have not dwelt in a house since the day

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I brought up the sons of Israel from Egypt, even to this day, I have been moving around in a tent, even in a tabernacle, wherever I have gone with all the sons of Israel, did

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I speak a word with one of the tribes of Israel, which I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, why have you not built me a house of cedar?

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There's a different passage in later on, I think it's in first Chronicles, second Kings, first Kings, wherever it is, where in their account of the same thing,

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God says to David, you're not gonna build a house for me because your hands are covered with blood, but your son Solomon will build a house. Now Solomon ended up building the temple, that's why it was called

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Solomon's temple and not David's temple. David made preparations for it, Solomon actually did the work of building the temple of God and he built

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Solomon's temple. But David had upon his heart and God said, you're not gonna do this, and he gives some reasons here, but then this becomes the occasion for God to make certain promises to David.

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Now, David wanted to make a promise to God, I will build you a house. So now God is gonna turn that around and he's gonna make certain promises to David.

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And God's promises to David is, I'm gonna build you a house. And here's the details of it, verse eight. Now, therefore, you shall say to my servant

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David, thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture from following the sheep to be ruler over my people

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Israel. I have been with you wherever you have gone and have cut off all your enemies from before you, and I will make of you a great name, like the names of the great men who are on the earth.

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Now, what David wanted to do was make a great house for a great God so that God would have a great name in the city of Jerusalem.

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And now God turned that around and said, I'm gonna make of you a great name. Since we're talking about greatness, I'm gonna make you great.

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And God did this for David. The establishment of this Davidic kingdom, all of Israel goes, looks back to, David's kingdom is the high watermark of the nation of Israel.

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It was the greatest, David is the greatest king who has ever sat upon a throne in Israel. He's not the greatest king who will ever sit upon the throne in Israel, but he is the greatest king who ever sat upon a throne in Israel up to our present day.

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He is truly great. By the way, in Jerusalem, next to the wailing wall, not too far from the wailing wall, is

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David's tomb. And I got to walk in there when I was in Israel. They have a place there where, because the

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Jews do this with men and women, they have it divided down the middle where the men walk on one side and the women walk on the other side. You both get to see

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David's tomb or where his body is laying, but it's right there in Jerusalem to this day. Now, whether his bones are in there or not,

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I don't know if anybody has cracked that open, but they are in there 24 seven worshiping and doing homage at this.

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You would think that they were Roman Catholic in the way that they do homage to David. They're in there honoring the presence of his bones, who he is.

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He is a great one in the land of Israel. And Israel looks to him as the high watermark of the nation because it went downhill after David.

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So where were we at? Verse 10. I will also appoint a place for my people in Israel and will plant them that they may live in their own place and not be disturbed again, nor will the wicked afflict them any more as formerly, even from the day that I commanded judges to be over my people

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Israel. And I will give you rest from all your enemies. Has that ever happened? David had rest from his enemies.

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It was a temporary peace because of his military might at the time. But God promised a time when the

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Jews would be planted in the land and they would experience a rest and a peace from all of their enemies.

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They would not be in danger at all. And there would come a time that from that moment forward, they would never again fear their enemies.

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Has that ever happened to this day? It has never happened to this day. That has never been fulfilled to this day.

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So therefore the fulfillment of this, unless God is a liar, the fulfillment of this rests some point yet future to us.

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Because after David through Solomon, Rehoboam, the division of the kingdom, all the way till they were conquered by Babylon and drawn away into exile and then come back in the land, the

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Greeks ruled them and the Romans ruled them and then they were dispersed. And even today, they don't have any peace or safety or security in their land.

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Verse 11, is that where we're at? The Lord, here we go.

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The Lord also declares to you that the Lord will make a house for you. When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers,

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I will raise up your descendant after you who will come forth from you and I will establish his kingdom.

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Have you just read that? Who do you think he's talking about? Well, we know the history, who came after David? Solomon, Solomon was born to David.

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David gave the kingdom to Solomon. Solomon took over the rule and the reign of the nation. Even before David died,

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Solomon had assumed the throne. And it basically become the king of Israel. But obviously verse 12 can't refer to just Solomon.

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Verse 13, he shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

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Verse 13, he, who's he? He will build a house for my name. Who would that be describing? Well, Solomon built a house for God's name, right?

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There is a dual, we see this often in scripture and this is fascinating. There's a dual fulfillment here. God promised to Solomon, you will build my house for me.

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Solomon built a house. It was a physical house, it was the temple. But there was a descendant of David who also built a house for the

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Lord. And we are that house. In fact, Hebrews chapter three makes that argument that Moses was faithful in his house as a servant.

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Jesus Christ is faithful over the household of God as a son. He's the enthroned son. And so this descendant has actually built a house for God.

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It is the church. We are the living house of God made of living stones. First Peter chapter three. So verse 13, he shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

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But Solomon's throne didn't last forever, did it? His kingdom didn't last forever. Verse 14, I will be a father to him and he will be a son to me.

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And when he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men. Now, hold on a second.

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Verse 14 is what is quoted in Hebrews chapter one. Do you notice that? I will be a father to him and he will be a son to me. That's Hebrews one verse five.

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So here you have in this context, the one who is the Messiah who was to come being called a son or a son to me by God.

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So it's kind of the same idea as in Psalm two. But there's something about this verse that could never be fulfilled by Jesus.

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And what is it? Verse 14, I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men, when?

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When he commits iniquity. That's what verse 14 says. So that can't refer to Jesus. So there are elements of this promise that is made to David that can only apply to Solomon.

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There are elements of the promise that can only apply to the Lord Jesus Christ. And there are elements of these promises that apply in some sense to both of them.

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So again, as in Psalm two, we have God speaking something to David that partially came true in David's day.

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Part of it was fulfilled by Solomon and yet part of it looked forward to a future and greater fulfillment, which we find in the

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Lord Jesus Christ. So who fulfills the details of this covenant? Is it David or is it Solomon or is it Jesus?

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Yes, it's all three of them. Because in some sense, all of them play into this. But what we see in Jesus is the greatest, the fullest and the best fulfillment and the most accurate fulfillment of this.

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Though Solomon and David both played a way, a role in being shadows of what was to come, figures or types of what was to come.

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So verse 14, is that where we're at? Verse 15, but my loving kindness shall not depart from him as I took it away from Saul, whom

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I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom shall endure before me forever. Your throne shall be established in accordance with all these words and all the vision.

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So Nathan spoke to David. Now, if you read David's prayer beginning in verse 18 and going through the end of the chapter, you'll see there that David understood that these promises applied to a time that David says, quote, a distant future, close quote.

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That's how David described it. So David understood in the context of this promise, that some of this applied to Solomon and that some of it applied to things that would take place in the distant future.

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We live in a period of time between the fulfillment of some of this and the fulfillment of the rest of this. We live in the period of time between when

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Solomon built a house for the Lord at the temple and when Jesus is building a house for himself as God and that time when he will be installed upon Zion in Jerusalem.

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We live in that period of time between those two bookends, as it were. So those are the promises that are given here.

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Now, if you were a Jew, what is your takeaway from 2 Samuel 7, verse 14? You would say to yourself, here we have

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God in promising to David a descendant who will rule and reign forever. God calls him my son.

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So it is God's son then, or one who is called the son of God or God's son who ends up taking the throne and establishing the rule of God, of David in David's throne in Zion, which throne will last forever.

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And I would just remind you of, I read this in Sunday school this morning because someone asked a question that stole all the thunder from the message today is if there was any thunder here to have, but Isaiah chapter nine, verse six, for a child will be born for us, to us, a son will be given to us and the government will rest on his shoulders and his name will be called

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Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. That is a prophecy of the birth of Christ.

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Verse seven says this, there will be no end to the increase of his government or of peace. On the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore, the zeal of the

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Lord of hosts will accomplish this. That is the promise. God has said, I will accomplish this.

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I will sit David's descendant upon David's throne and he will rule and reign forever. And there will be no increase to the reaches of his, there will be no decrease, the increase.

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What do we got? There will be no limit to the increase of his government. That's it. It will reach to the farthest reaches of creation.

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Why? Because he is the heir of all things. So everything is given to him. Ask of me and I will give you the nations as your inheritance. There'll be no limit to it.

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He's not gonna rule over just Jerusalem or Jerusalem and the Near East or Jerusalem and Asia or Jerusalem and Africa.

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He's going to rule over Jerusalem and everything. All of the nations will be given to him. He will destroy them with a rod of iron. It is a violent, destructive overthrow that will signal the beginning of the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

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God's zeal will accomplish this. He will do it, not by might, not by power, but by his Holy Spirit, he will do all of this and he will establish his king.

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This should terrify the nations. So what is our takeaway from Psalm 2 and 2 Samuel chapter 7? The one who is to rule, who is

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Jesus Christ, the Lord's anointed, God calls him my son. And so back to Hebrews chapter 1.

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And I promise you this is coming to an end faster than it looks. Back to Hebrews chapter 1. So here we have the author of Hebrews quoting both of those passages word for word and doing so in such a way as to call to the mind everything of his ears, everything that we have covered so far.

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So the point again, verse 5, for to which of the angels did he ever say this? The answer to that is he didn't say that to any angels.

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Now he does call the angels sons of God. They are given that title, sons of God, but they're given that title as a created class.

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God never said to Gabriel, you are my son, or to Michael, you are my son, or to a cherubim or to a seraphim, you are my son.

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That title of the unique son in a unique relationship, the begotten one of the father, that title is never given to any angel.

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The angels are sons of God in the same sense that we are sons of God. We are created in God's image.

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We are created beings and we are sons by adoption. So we have a relationship that is similar to a son, but to no other human being has

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God ever said, you are my son in this unique sense. To no angel has the father ever said, you are my son.

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And therefore Jesus is greater than the angels. And so he quotes Psalm 2, he quotes 2 Samuel 7 to show the

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Jews that in their own Old Testament, God called the Messiah, his son.

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Now Jesus came into the world and claimed that title for himself. So as we walk away from Hebrews 1, let me give you a couple of lessons or a couple of concluding thoughts.

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First, the Christian teaching about Jesus Christ is not fabricated out of whole cloth.

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You should be able to look at the Old Testament and realize this. Our claims about Christ are quite magnificent.

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So we believe that God stepped into human history, became a man, took upon himself human flesh. He lived here and he lived a perfect life and that he was

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God incarnate. And he was the son of God and he eternally existed and he left the glories of heaven and came into humanity and walked among us.

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That is our claim. Now that is what Jesus claimed of himself. He talked about leaving heaven. He talked about coming down here.

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He talked about being born of a virgin. He talked about doing all of this to reveal to us the father.

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He talked about going back up to heaven and having made all of those claims and having claimed to be the son of man, a divine figure from the

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Old Testament, having claimed to be the son of God in unique relationship to the father like no other man could ever claim.

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He claimed to be the one who would forgive sins, who would judge all men, who would raise the dead. And then he raised the dead and he healed the sick and he made the lame walk in the blind sea.

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He predicted his own death, burial and resurrection. And then he rose again three days later, right on time to demonstrate that everything he claimed is true.

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Now that is what we assert regarding Jesus. So when we talk about Jesus Christ being the son of God, we and the early church did not fabricate that idea out of whole cloth.

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It was the Old Testament. This came out of the Old Testament. It was the scriptures themselves, the Jewish scriptures that declared the

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Messiah would be God. That should have been the Jewish expectation that this one who would step into human history, who would rule over the house of David was a divine figure because God says of him, uniquely him, not angels, not any other men, not any other king, thou art my son.

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And I've displayed this forever in the resurrection, in the ascension and ultimately in ordination and enthronement on the house of David in Jerusalem.

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Second, we should remember this, that God always keeps his promises. God promised something to David 3000 years ago, 3000 years ago.

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Now he has fulfilled that partially 2000 years ago by raising Jesus from the dead. It was necessary that the

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Messiah no longer be subject to death if he is to rule over the house of David forever. How could somebody be born into history and then take the throne and rule forever and never die?

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That's a head scratcher, isn't it? But not on this side of the resurrection. Now we look at it and see that having died to sin once for all, he has died for sinners once for all.

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He has made this one death and now death no longer has dominion over him. He is no longer subject to death. So now he is perfectly suited to take the throne of his father

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David and rule and reign forever and never die. It was necessary that he be raised from the dead in order to fulfill that promise to sit on David's throne and to rule and to reign forever.

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God always keeps his promises. 3000 years ago, God promised something to David. 2000 years ago, he fulfilled part of that promise.

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We are looking forward to the day when he will fulfill the rest of that promise. We should look forward to and expect and anticipate with great hope that day when

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God will say, today I have begotten you. I have seated you on the throne in Jerusalem and he will crush the nations with a rod of iron, destroy them like earthenware vessels, inherit all of the nations and the world will belong to our

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God and to his Christ. That's what we look forward to. I close with the words of Psalm 89, three quotations from Psalm 89.

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I would commend this Psalm to your reading in the next week because it is a Psalm that is centered around, it's a worship Psalm centered around the promises made to David in that covenant that we just read in 2

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Samuel chapter seven. Here's what it says in verses three and four. I have made a covenant with my chosen. I have sworn to David, my servant.

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I will establish your seed forever and build up your throne to all generations. Verses 28 and 29, my loving kindness,

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I will keep for him forever and my covenant shall be confirmed to him. So I will establish his descendants forever and his throne as the days of heaven.

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Psalm 89 verse 35, once I have sworn by my holiness, I will not lie to David. His descendants shall endure forever and his throne as the sun before me.

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It shall be established forever like the moon and the witness in the sky is faithful. That's God's promise to David.

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God has sworn he will keep his promises. Our God is a covenant and promise keeping God. We look forward to that day, don't we?

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Let's pray. Our father, we bless your name and we praise your name for you are good and glorious.

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Your purposes are established in heaven and on earth. And we know that you always keep your word.

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You always keep your promises. And there's coming a day when every last promise that you have made concerning the nation of Israel, concerning the descendant of David, the

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Lord Jesus Christ, concerning the nations and this world and the great inheritance that awaits us, all of it will be fulfilled.

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Every last piece, every last statement. We long for that day. We pray that in the meantime, that you would cement our confidence and our faith and our trust in Jesus Christ and in him alone.

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Give us joy and delight as we look forward to what you have in store for us, who are yours by your choice and by your work of salvation in our hearts.