The Lord promised King David …
12 When your days are over and
you rest with your ancestors, I will
raise up your offspring to succeed you,
your own flesh and blood, and
I will establish his kingdom.
13 He is the one who will build a house
for my Name, and I will establish
the throne of his kingdom forever.
2 Samuel 7
I was at a wedding recently, and I watched a young man and an old man meet.
As these two talked, it was fun to watch as they figured out that they shared the same unique profession. They both worked in companies that developed the technical equipment that makes heart transplants possible. One, now retired, was in the pioneering generation of this field. The other, now, is in the perfecting generation. But they know all the same people!
In the midst of this conversation, I heard the elder man tell of a famous friend who invented a piece of medical equipment. He said, “He sold it for $400 million … and he gave it all away to charity!”
“Wow!” said the young man. (Listening in, I said, “Wow,” too!)
“And then,” said the older statesman, “this fellow invented another piece of equipment, sold it for $1.2 billion, and gave all that away too!”
This time the response wasn’t just “Wow”; it was “Why?” too.
And somehow between us we realized that giving our children too much isn’t always wise. In stories like these, the first generation creates the wealth. The second often maintains the wealth. But the third generation is usually a mess! They’re often arrogant and entitled. (So perhaps, we concluded, this man was saving his grandkids!)
It’s funny. That was the pattern of King David. He “created the wealth.” He was the conquering king.
His son, Solomon, maintained it. He built the temple. (An obvious advancement!) Nevertheless, if you read the story of the rest of his life, he increasingly compromised his integrity. Soon noticeable cracks were forming in the foundation of the kingdom.
By the time the third generation came along, it was chaos and division. (How could there not be … with all of Solomon’s children from all his hundreds of wives!) By the time this third generation rolled around, the mighty kingdom was literally torn in two. Evilness and corruption soon defined an earthly kingdom that was once dedicated to God.
Now, why do I tell you this? Because God said to David, “When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom.”
Hmmm. If we stopped the telling of this story of David and his offspring here, then God was flat out wrong and prophecy was dead. Indeed, if we focus downward upon things of this earth, there appears to be no God, no power, no hope, and no light. It’s all just human chaos. And that would have been the epitaph of David’s kingdom. (And that could be the epitaph of our family tree, too. “They were successful, but their grandkids are a mess.”)
Fortunately, God wasn’t talking about a human kingdom! (Though you can easily understand why people would have thought that he was.)
No!
God was talking about “a house for [God’s own] Name.” He was talking about a spiritual rather than a physical kingdom. An eternal realm rather than a temporal principality. He was promising to “establish the throne of [the Messiah’s] kingdom forever.”
The billionaire who gave away his fortune was trusting God that there was a better future for his family without the trap of earthly riches. Are you trusting God that he has in store a Kingdom greater than any earthly kingdoms, riches, or priorities?
God was telling David to look up, because life for David’s line and lineage would come through a spiritual King, the eventual Messiah. Are you trusting God for that too? That life for you, your line, and your lineage come through the eternal King, Jesus the Messiah?
In Christ’s Love,
a guy who’d love to
have a billion dollars …
so that I could have
the privilege of
giving it away!
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