John 15:13: Greater Love Has No One...

Presented to each the Nipawin and Tisdale Corps, 15 November 2008
Presented to Swift Current Corps, 08 November 2009
Presented to Warehouse 614, 05 November 2017
by Captain Michael Ramsay

Click here to read the homily: https://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2008/11/john-159-17-greater-love-has-no-man.html

Devotion 3.11/113: Matthew 6:14: Tutsi Forgiveness

Presented to River Street Cafe,  27 October 2017

and 614WM am service,  22 Ocotber 2017

Read Matthew 6:7-15

Immaculee Ilibagiza says, “Forgiveness is possible in every situation”; she says, “God is always right; whatever our Lord tells us to do is right. And God tells us to forgive.” Immaculee is a Rwandan and she is a Tutsi. Remember the Rwandan genocide? The Hutus slaughtered about 1 million Tutsi’s in 90 days – mostly by machete.

            Immaculee remembers her family was able to hide her in a home of a Hutu pastor. No one else in the family could hide. They were murdered. One day a death squad came to search the house where see was hiding. A chain of people surrounded the house so that if there were any Tutsi in the house they couldn't escape. Then then searchers came in the house. They searched even suitcases in case someone might be trying to hide a small child there. They were looking for Tutsis and if they found one, even a child, they would kill her.

            She remembers when searchers were close to their hiding place, a part of her wanted to run out and defy them and a part of her wanted to remain hidden. She is Catholic and she prayed, "God, if You are who You are, please don't let them look in this room" and then she fainted. When she came to, the evangelical Hutu pastor who was harbouring them said that they were by the door when one searcher said, ‘Mr. So-and-So, you are a good man, you wouldn't have anyone in your house’ and they left. God saved them.

When God answered her prayer and the searchers did not come in her room she knew God was real more than she ever knew before and so she would pray her Rosary prayers all the more. One of the prayers on the Rosary is the Lord's Prayer. She would pray it regularly but then she would get to the part that says please forgive our trespasses (our sins) as we forgive those who trespass (sin) against us and stop. Surely God didn't mean me? How can I forgive the sins of what has been done to me? How can I forgive my enemies – when they killed my mother, my father, my brothers, and my family? She got to the point where because she knows God is real and knows everything, she wouldn't even say those words in the Lord's Prayer – forgive us our sins as we forgive others - she would skip them over because she didn’t want to forgive them but then, of course, all-knowing God knows she is skipping those words. She came to realize this and so she opened her Bible to find some relief from this conviction to forgive her enemies. She opened her Bible and it said:

• Pray for your enemies, so she closed it and opened it again,
• Pray for those who persecute you, close,
• Forgive your enemies!

And then she remembered God. Jesus on Cross: do you remember what some his last recorded words are - about those who have put him up on that cross to die? Jesus said, "Father forgive them" and then Jesus said "for they do not know what they do". Jesus forgave his enemies. Jesus says, "Love your enemies and do good to those who hate you. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven." Jesus himself told us to forgive others as we want to be forgiven.

            Immaculee says, “Forgiveness is possible in every situation and God is always right; whatever our Lord tells us to do is right. God tells us to forgive.”

            And if Jesus forgives those who put him on a Cross to kill him and if Immaculee can forgive those who killed her family and extended family and the people she loves then surely we can forgive those who hurt us.

Matthew 6:12: “… as we forgive those who trespass against us”

 Presented to 614 Warehouse pm service, 22 October 2017 (abridged version in the am) by Captain Michael Ramsay

To read the 2022 Alberni Valley version, click here: https://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2022/03/matthew-612-as-we-forgive-those-who.html

  

Hello everyone. It is good to be back, I missed church here and the many friends that we have around here over the previous few weeks. While I was away we experienced some interesting things:

• We went to Wye Marsh and were able to walk around the woods there. They had some owls that lived there. What were the kinds of owls there, Heather? It was great. They even talked to us. Heather was having some great conversations with many of them as they all clamoured for her attention. There was one owl that looked like Gonzo - do you remember Gonzo from the Muppets? - He was neat. If I would hold out my arms he would hold out his wing. It was a lot of fun.
• Of course, we were able to join you here at Warehouse for Thanksgiving. That was a blessing. We also had a Thanksgiving dinner and other dinners at home that Susan and the girls made and decorated.
• I was blessed to be able to say grace and ask the blessing as I addressed the gala to celebrate Toronto Kiwanis Club’s centennial celebrations.
• We had some good family times. I went to the Argos game with my kids - yes, we are all in green. You can take the person out of Rider Nation, Saskatchewan but you can't take Rider Nation out of the person.
• I finished writing another book - now I just need to get it edited and complete all the requisite Army paperwork.
• I got caught up with old friends Majors Stephen Court and Danielle Strickland. They are great Godly people. They sent us into the work and are always a great help when things are difficult.

It has been a difficult time. It is interesting. When things are difficult you learn who your friends are and maybe you learn who your friends aren't. Times away can really be eye openers. Thursday and Friday, we were at The Global Leadership Summit. It was a great conference streamed at THQ; we learned a lot. There were very many good speakers. One lady - Juliet Funt (her dad hosted that show, Candid Camera many years ago; remember that show) – she spoke about something called 'white space', the strategic pause of even a mere moment but with intent. Over the past few weeks I have had the opportunity to more than pause, to pray, and to reflect quite a bit.

How we use time away - especially difficult time away is very important. How I used that time was very important. I was upset. I know some here know what it like to be upset. I know some of us here know what it is like to be betrayed, to be falsely accused and to anxiously wait to finally be exonerated. I have spent a lot of time in court rooms and prison ministries in the past. I know how our hearts and our minds can become consumed with all kinds of bad thoughts when life's circumstances seem to be bad and some people around us seem to be bad and other people and institutions and processes that we have mistakenly placed our trust in also appear to be bad. I know it can be very anxious when after a person is cleared, they are thrust back into an environment where they must face their accuser. It is tough. I know this.

            I don't know how much attention people pay to the sermons I have preached over the years here but one key theme to which I keep returning is forgiveness. It is central to Christianity, to following Christ, and it is the most powerful way for us to remove hate and fear from our lives. Hate and unforgiveness kill us and unforgiveness, as I have often said, is a self-inflicted wound. So-and-so may have hurt you when they did that terrible thing to you but you hurt yourself over and over again when you do not forgive them. They aren't necessarily hurt by your unforgiveness. They might not even know you are mad at them but if every time you think about that person if your heart hardens, your mind tightens, and you stomach and back ache, then your unforgiveness is killing you. We actually have the power to forgive and be released from the pain we are suffering but it is not easy.

            Let me share with you another story were heard at the Global Leadership Summit at THQ this week. This one is from Immaculee Ilibagiza. She says, “Forgiveness is possible in every situation”; she says, “God is always right; whatever our Lord tells us to do is right. And God tells us to forgive.” Immaculee is a Rwandan and she is a Tutsi. Does anyone here remember the Rwandan genocide?

            In the late 20th Century people in Rwanda were required to carry racial ID cards stating whether you are a Hutu, Tutsi, Pygmy, or another race. This is reminiscent of South African Apartied, American segregation, or the star Jews had to wear during WWII. In 1994, the president of Rwanda's plane was shot down and this unleashed the brutality that had apparently been building up for years. She remembers now hearing radio programs promoting hatred and violence against the minority Tutsis by the majority Hutus for years before the genocide but she never thought much if it. We hear wakkos spreading hate on our TVs, radios, and social media every day and every minute here now. Everybody seems to hate somebody for something. She didn't think much of it then - just a few Hutus publicly hating Tutsis. But then with the death of the president it unleashed a genocidal wave that wiped out about a million lives in about 90 days. The people on the radio were calling for Hutus to track down their Tutsi neighbours and not only report on them but to actually kill them. I remember reading the horror stories in the news at that time of neighbours hacking apart neighbours with machetes.

            Immaculee remembers her mother, her father, and her brothers sent her away when this began. They wanted her to be safe. The sent her to hide in the house of a Hutu pastor. She remembers that she was put in a bathroom, 3ft by 4ft, and told not to leave the room and not to make any noise. She remembers saying or thinking, 'I can't stay here it is too small; Then two more girls came to live in that room and then two more and then more and then soon the room was jam-packed with girls and they couldn't leave in the daylight and they couldn’t make any noise at all - if anyone knew they were there they could, they would, be killed.

            Immaculee remembers one day a death squad came to search the house. A chain of people surrounded the house so that if they found any Tutsi in the house they couldn't escape. Then the searchers came into the house. They searched in closets, they searched in the halls, they searched in the ceiling, they searched in the floor. They even searched in suitcases in case someone might be trying to hide a small child in one. They were looking for Tutsis and if they found one, even a child, they would kill her.

            She remembers when searchers were close to their hiding place, a part of her wanted to run out and defy them and a part of her wanted to remain hidden. She is Catholic and she prayed, "God, if You are who You are, please don't let them look in this room" and then she fainted. When she came to, the evangelical Hutu pastor who was harbouring them said that they were by the door when one searcher said, ‘Mr. So-and-So, you are a good man, you wouldn't have anyone in your house’ and they left.

            They stayed three months jam packed in that washroom. They had nothing to do so they asked that a radio be placed where they could hear it and on it they heard day after day the government inciting people to hate and kill them and day after day people were. One government official even encouraged the Hutu to kill Tutsi children saying, "the child of a snake is still a snake," Hate is powerful, When you hear people plotting to kill you and your loved ones it is easy to grab onto hate and try to get through this time by hating your enemies and plotting a real or imagined vengeance at the expense your soul. Now to make her soul an even more fertile ground for hate to grow, on her first night of the 90 nights she spent in that washroom, pressed up against all of the others, she heard the news that her mother, and father, and brothers, were hacked to death.

            Whether in that room or afterwards I do not remember, she had her Rosary beads with her. When God answered her prayer and the searchers did not come in her room she knew God was real more than she ever knew before and so she would pray her Rosary prayers all the more. One of the prayers on the Rosary is the Lord's Prayer. She would pray it regularly but then she would get to the part that says please forgive our trespasses (our sins) as we forgive those who trespass (sin) against us. But surely God didn't mean me? How can I forgive the sins of what has been done to me? How can I forgive my enemies – when they killed my mother, my father, my brothers, and my family? She got to the point where because she knows God is real and He knows everything, she wouldn't even say those words in the Lord's Prayer – forgive us our sins as we forgive others - she would skip them over because she didn’t want to forgive them but then, of course, all-knowing God knows she is skipping those words. She came to realize this and so she opened her Bible to find some relief from this conviction to forgive her enemies. She opened her Bible and it said:

• Pray for your enemies, so she closed it and opened it again,
• Pray for those who persecute you, close,
• Forgive your enemies!

And then she remembered God, Jesus on Cross: do you remember what some his last recorded words are - about those who have put him up on that cross to die? Jesus said, "Father forgive them" and then Jesus said "for they do not know what they do". Jesus forgave his enemies. Jesus says, "Love your enemies and do good to those who hate you. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven." Jesus himself told us to forgive others as we want to be forgiven.

            Immaculee says, “Forgiveness is possible in every situation and God is always right; whatever our Lord tells us to do is right. God tells us to forgive.”

            And if Jesus forgives those who put him on a Cross to kill him and if Immaculee can forgive those who killed her family and extended family and the people she loves then surely we can forgive those who hurt us.

            In the conference we were at, Bill Hybels invited us to think of a person who has recently hurt us. He invited us to think of someone who when we think of them our muscles tighten and our hearts harden. He asked us to forgive them and free ourselves from the pain of unforgiveness. I know that is not easy because the person I still need to forgive was in the same room that afternoon. The speaker invited us to make up with our attackers and I will keep trying. And when I forgive them in my heart then maybe even I can forgive them with my words, for forgiveness is possible in every situation; God is always right; whatever our Lord tells us to do is right. God tells us to forgive.

Let us pray

www.sheepspeak.com

2 Samuel 7: David's Kayak.

Presented to 614 Warehouse Mission 2:30pm service, 
10 September 2017.

This has been a weird summer for us. We didn't have any real family vacations. The older girls were both working. Rebecca was working out of town at Jacksons and Sarah-Grace was working at day camps; so we mostly just had Heather who we tried to keep busy through some great summer camps and lessons. We did try to make to most of our time together. The older girls and I went down to Buffalo to see G'n'R and Live in concert and just the other weekend we saw Alice Cooper and Deep Purple here in Toronto.  Susan, the younger two girls and I went to see the Martyr's Shrine where Father Brebeuf and the others were martyred. That was really interesting. Sarah-Grace and I were going to go to an Argos game and Heather and I did go to a Blue Jays game. It was actually quite a full and busy summer on top of Karaoke nights and the rest of things around here.

There were a couple of big corps events as well. Yesterday was the Cabbage Town festival here and Friday we went to see the Niagara Falls and early in the summer we went to see Howard fall out of a kayak. It is a good thing we weren't anywhere near the falls when Howard falls into the water. I may share about this story a little more in a little bit but I should probably get onto today's topic.

Today we are chatting a little bit about covenant. Covenant is a topic that I know a little bit about with my book and a number of articles that have been published on this topic.[1] However, I must confess that, like the Apostle Paul, I have spent much more time looking at God's covenant with Abraham than I have His covenant with David.[2] Today we are going to look God's covenant with David. Who can tell me what is a covenant? And what does the word 'berit[h]' (covenant) literally mean? (bound).[3] In our passage here today God binds David, Jacob, and all of humanity to Himself in an important covenant.[4] Bruce Birch writes that "this chapter is the most important theological text in the books of Samuel and perhaps the entire Deuteronomistic History.'[5] Let's take a look at how that works.

First it is very interesting: When the chapter opens, we have the king sitting in a palace of some sort. He must be a little board. It says he has a rest from his enemies and later we read about some of the other stuff he does when he is board but today he starts off pretty good. He must have been thinking about the Lord as, Verse 2, 'he said to Nathan the prophet, “Here I am, living in a house of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent.”

           3 Nathan replied to the king, “Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the LORD is with you.”

Have you ever had a moment when you say or do something without thinking and then, oh oh...? Have we ever just answered someone quickly without thinking about it or - worse - has anyone ever involved someone else without checking first. Think of the stereotypical husband in the old days before cell phones who invites his friends over for dinner without checking with his wife first. Think about the wife who lets the kids or someone else borrow a tool or something else of dad's without checking with him. Have we ever been in a spot where we answer someone quickly without checking or without thinking. This is what the Lord's prophet does here when, verse 3, 'Nathan replied to the king, “Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the LORD is with you.”

Verse 4 records that that night the Word of the Lord comes to Nathan and says, basically, 'why didn't you check with me first!?' and then He opens up on Nathan like a steadfast wife; He says, you tell  David this and you tell David that and then tell David one more thing. You ask David this and you tell David the other thing.  You ask David, Verse 7, ' Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”’ The Lord then talks about all the things He has done for David and all the things He has done for Israel. He doesn’t need David to build Him a house. God makes that abundantly clear and God doesn’t want David to build Him a house and Nathan should just march right back there and let David know that. God has been fine without a house until now and he will continue to be fine without a house.

Nathan before God here must feel a little like Howard on our kayaking trip this summer. No sooner had we gotten on the river, out of sight of the kayak rental place and all their equipment when ‘snap’ Howard’s paddle breaks in two. That cannot be a good omen. If this were a Shakespeare play you would know that something bad was going to happen to poor Howard before the trip was done – and you wouldn’t be wrong. We set up Howard as best we could but he was an inexperienced kayaker in the current; he really was up the creek without half a paddle. More about this later. But in the end God took care of Howard and God took care of Nathan. (And God took care of David)

After God finishes the exchange with Nathan about all of this, God has one more thing to tell him. The one more thing He has to tell Nathan is that God is going to build a dynasty for David and this is interesting – in the Hebrew there is a play on words that actually exists in the English translations as well. The word ‘house’ can mean a building or a dynasty: for instance, our current monarchy is from the House of Windsor, formerly the House of Hanover, meaning the family dynasty of Windsor. It is the same in Hebrew: David says he is going to build a house (a temple) for God but God says no, He is going to build a house (a dynasty) for David. This part actually reads a little bit like a love letter between two young people.[6] I don’t know if any of you have managed to keep any old love letters from years gone by or if you have even just noticed young love in action. I think we have all seen young people just in a new relationship, right? This exchange reminds me a little bit about that: 'No you’re the cutest and I am going to build you a big house of love'.

                  'No you’re the cutest and I am going to build you a big house of love'.

                  'No, no, no, you are… '

David wants to build a house, a palace for God but God will not except it from David. Instead God is going to build a house, a dynasty from David that will last forever.[7]

God loves David. David, after all, as 1 Samuel 13:14 and Acts 13:22 say, David is ‘a man after God’s own heart’. Now, you may stop me at this point and say, ‘hold on there, Captain! It’s all fine and dandy to say David is a man after God’s own heart but we’ve skipped ahead in 2 Samuel and we’ve been reading about him over the past few weeks and David doesn’t always sound like a great guy. He’s a horrible father! His kids seem to hate him. He commits adultery with Bathsheba, murders her husband and then has her come live with him and his other wives and their kids. He seems to treat a lot of people poorly and after his own son tries to overthrow him it seems that it is only by the grace of God through the (maybe even deplorable) actions of his nephew Joab that he and his house even exist at all. And I remember we read the other week that God said about David, 2 Samuel 12:9-10, “Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes? … Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’ David is a man who got into all kinds of trouble; so how can this be the same man who loves God and who God loves in this way? Good question. Let me try to explain it this way…

Going back to the kayaking trip, after Howard’s paddle breaks and things are looking a little shakey for the trip, we set up Howard as best we can but he is an inexperienced kayaker in the current and, in reality, he is up the creak without half a paddle. He makes it for a while then he hits a rock in the fast moving current. He capsizes and his boat fills up with water very rapidly and drifts downstream as it begins sinking quickly. Howard doesn’t know what he is doing and most of the people on our trip don’t know what they are doing either. I am the only experienced kayaker there and we are all floating downstream very quickly as Howard crashes on the rocks and abandons ship as his craft begins to sink. I send Rob back to keep him company while I try to empty the kayak of water mid-stream with Sam as the two of us are being carried downstream farther and farther from Howard. I can’t empty his kayak in the water. It is too full. Sam and I guide the boat to the river bank whereby I get out of my kayak, then lift Howard’s water-filled kayak over my head and dump it out. I’m exhausted. This is a lot of work. Then Sam and I have to paddle upstream, against the current to try to get the kayak back to Howard so that we can try to put him back in his boat. And...until now Howard has been sitting nicely on a rock by Rob who has been keeping him company. All we need to do is pull Howard’s kayak up to the rock and he can climb in easily. I’m exhausted and I am just thinking that it is great that we can just load Howard in his boat from a rock rather than –in our exhausted state- drag Howard up out of the water when Howard decides to jump into to water  and swim to us! We do eventually get him out and no one is the worse for wear and we have a great story and a lot we have learned from this experience.

This is like David. His staying home when kings go off to work was when his paddle broke. He made subsequent choices and experienced the consequences of those choices that must have exhausted him and those around him but God like Rob, Sam, and I did not give up on him. God metaphorically paddled all the way upstream; even though David must have seemed like he was exhausting God by jumping in the current of sin. God never gave up on David. David’s actions had some serious consequences and he broke more than just a paddle but God loved him all the same and God fought against the current to be faithful to His covenant - in spite of all the strange moves David made. This is very important. The scriptures, Romans 3:3-4, ask us, “What if some were unfaithful? Will their unfaithfulness nullify God’s faithfulness?” The answer is of course not. Once God commits to a covenant He will be faithful even if we are faithless. This is the whole point of covenants and this is how God saves us through them. God will never abandon a covenant before it has been completed. He is faithful even when we are faithless.[8]

And this is good news. Anything less would be a works-based salvation, salvation achieved by our own merit, skill, and ability, and as the Apostle Paul points out that is an impossibility. None of us can achieve salvation on our own. We need God to save us. None of us can pull ourselves from the fast moving current by ourselves; we all need Jesus to do it for us – and he has through the cross and the empty tomb. God promised David that He would build an everlasting dynasty through him and He does. Jesus is the heir to David’s dynasty and Jesus reigns forever; so no matter how many times the devil may tempt David or you or I to sin that will not nullify the Word of God.[9] There is nothing that will ever cause God to break His promise of salvation for any of us – the only question is whether we will avail ourselves of that salvation or not, whether we will be pulled back into the kayak of salvation or whether we will choose to drown in our sins. And no matter what sins we have committed in our lives, make no mistake, it is not too much or too late, while we still have breath in our body we can still let Jesus lift us into that kayak of eternal salvation.

This is what the passage we are looking at today is talking about. God is faithful to his covenant (and still offers each of us the opportunity for eternal salvation) even when David is not; God is faithful to his covenant (and still offers each of us the opportunity for eternal salvation) even when Israel is not; God is faithful to his covenant (and still offers each of us the opportunity for eternal salvation) even when we are not. No matter what we have done, God has his arms out ready to accept us into His salvation.

In our passage today, it introduces us to everlasting life by saying that the Lord’s kingdom will last forever, and it will be ruled by David’s successor, Jesus, for all time and nothing can change that. The only question for us today is, do you and I choose to drown in the quickly moving current of all the temptations and sins of our world or do we accept the eternal joy of that salvation by riding peacefully down the river of eternal life in the kayak of Christ? It is my hope that each of us will choose Christ.

  

www.sheepspeak.com

Questions for further exploration listed below.

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[1] Captain Michael Ramsay. Praise The Lord For Covenants: Old Testament wisdom for our world today. Vancouver, BC: Credo Press, 2010. (c) The Salvation Army. For more info: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Praise-The-Lord-For-Covenants/155941614427110?v=info

[2] Cf. Michael Ramsay, 'Covenant: When God is Bound...a look at Genesis 15:7-21'. Journal of Aggressive Christianity, Issue 52, December 2007 – January 2008, p 5. On-line at http://www.armybarmy.com/pdf/JAC_Issue_052.pdf

[3] G.E. Mendenhall. "Covenant." In The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, edited by George Arthur Buttrick. (Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 1962), 715. Cf. also M. Weinfeld. "berith." In Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, edited by G. Johannes Botterweck. (Stuttgart, W.Germany: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1975), 253.

[4] Cf. Michael Ramsay, "Berit[h]" Journal of Aggressive Christianity, Issue 40, December 2005 – January 2006 pp 16-17.

[5] Bruce C. Birch, 'The First and Second Books of Samuel' in New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 2, ed. Leander E. Keck, et el. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1998), 1254.

[6] Cf. Gbile Akanni and Nupanga Weanzana, Africa Bible Commentary, (Nairobi, Kenya: Word Alive Publishers, 2010), '2 Samuel 7:5-15:Nathan's Prophetic Declaration', 387

[7] Cf. Bruce C. Birch, 'The First and Second Books of Samuel' in New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 2, ed. Leander E. Keck, et el. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1998), 1255 and Gbile Akanni and Nupanga Weanzana, Africa Bible Commentary, (Nairobi, Kenya: Word Alive Publishers, 2010), '2 Samuel 7:5-15:Nathan's Prophetic Declaration', 388

[8] Captain Michael Ramsay. Praise The Lord For Covenants: Old Testament wisdom for our world today. Vancouver, BC: Credo Press, 2010. (c) The Salvation Army. This is the thesis statement of PTL4C: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Praise-The-Lord-For-Covenants/155941614427110?v=info 

[9] Cf. Gbile Akanni and Nupanga Weanzana, Africa Bible Commentary, (Nairobi, Kenya: Word Alive Publishers, 2010), '2 Samuel 7:1-17:The Promise of a Dynasty', 387

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Questions for further exploration

       I.            Life

1.      What is something you noticed about God this week?

    II.            Text

2 Samuel 7

Leader's note:

·         This passage is the record of the Davidic Covenant. It, along with the Abrahamic Covenant, points to the Good News of Salvation through Jesus Christ. Jesus, descended from David's line (house) will rule eternally.

·         There is an interesting play on words both in HB and in English in this chapter. The word for 'house' can mean 'building' or 'dynasty' / 'family line'. Ie: the house of Windsor (formerly Hanover) is our current Canadian Monarchy. In this passage then David wants to build a house (building) for God but God says instead He will build a house (dynasty) through David.

1.      What happened in this story?

2.      Re-read 2 Samuel 7:1-4:The king lets Nathan know what he intends to do, 7:1-2, (presumably for either feedback or approval); Nathan replies, 7:3, 'Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the LORD is with you.' That night, 7:4ff, the Word of LORD says something very different.

a. Do we ever speak without thinking and then afterwards have to back track?

b. Nathan is a prophet of God; David is God's annointed king. They both made an error here: what was it? How could it be avoided?

c. David seems to have been led astray by good intentions; what were his good intentions? Do we ever fail to consult God because our intentions are good and are plans seem good - like here building a temple/house for God?

d. Nathan made the assumption that because 'the LORD is with David' that whatever he had in mind was good; do we ever blindly accept or reject things because of where/who they come from?

e. Even when we have good plans, they may be wrong; even when others have good plans they may be wrong; how can we be sure that what we are doing is what God wants us to do?

f. Give an example of when you listened to and obeyed God.

3.      God has done a lot for David, 7:5-7; God has done a lot for Israel, 7:8-11. List some of those things from the text. God has done a lot for us; what are some of the things God has done for you?

4.      2 Samuel 7:11-16 (along with Genesis 12:1-3) is one of the most important pericopes in the Old Testament.

a.  what strikes you about these verses?

b. Verse 16 states that "your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever" Who is the member of David's house (dynasty; his ancestors) who will sit on the throne forever?

c. Do you serve Jesus who is the ruler who rules forever? Are you a citizen of the Nation/Country/Kingdom of God? Do you want to be?

If you have never prayed to dedicate your life to God and to serve Jesus forever, you are welcome to pray: Lord Jesus please accept my life in service to You. Please forgive my sins and please come into my heart for now and forever more. In Jesus' Name, amen.