Sermon
Some of the most relaxing family holidays we have had were spend in mobile homes especially in France. However after some time you begin to miss the larger brick buildings we call our permanent homes. I know that people who live in mobile homes while their houses are being built can’t wait until they move into their permanent homes. The people who sang Psalm 132 have arrived in Jerusalem they have left their camping mobile days behind and are now settled in their houses. During their travelling days God travelled with them, in the ark of the covenant seen in the tent/tabernacle and some especially David now think it is time for God to be settled in a house, what we now know as the Temple. This was a good plan and the Lord liked it (1 Kings 8; 18) but the plan would not be implemented by David rather his son Solomon. However God would build David a house a dynastic house a line of Kings forever as seen in God’s oath in verse 11, which is in contrast to David’s oath in verse 2.
This Psalm can be divided into two parts, David’s oath and God’s oath. Yes David on oath promised a house for God, which did happen but without David. God on oath promised a house for David which did happen. One was an earthly enterprise the other an eternal enterprise. Indeed the earthly Temple when build by Solomon and rebuilt by Nehemiah eventually disappeared and pointed forward to the King David’s greater son the Lord Jesus the eternal high priest and whose work continues to this day. The costly work of a human King David was turned upside down to become the work of a divine King Lord both of whom who swore on oath. We begin with David’s oath in verses 1-10. This Psalm was obviously not written by David but by another King who looked back to David. David had become aware that the Ark of the Covenant had been a blessing to the peoples of Ephrathah and Jaar v6 and so he wanted it back in Jerusalem this he did see but not in a house the Tabernacle.
Verse 1 tells us that David who was Israel’s greatest King endured hardships. Verses 3&4 tell us something of these hardships, but the hardest off all must have been barred from building the Temple, despite the fact he had brought the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem. But there were other hardships in David’s life where he was not appreciated by his family in which his father overlooked him and his brothers mocked him. He was not appreciated by his King that is Saul, even after he played his harp to Saul. David’s employer didn't’t appreciate him that was and is a hardship. It must also have been hard for David to wait on God. David was promised the throne but had to wait years for the promise to be fulfilled. Even after being anointed as King he had to wait, he wasn't’t immediately made king. David fell into great sin, he let sexual sins bring him down but he found that sin has a price and that was hard. However in the historical context of this Psalm David found it hard that he had made an oath which he was unable to keep. It was self glorifying and not God glorifying and so God said no to David he would not build the Temple, rather it would be his son and successor Solomon.
Stephen refers to this in Acts 7; 46. In Acts 7 Stephen is before the Sanhedrin defending himself against two charges 6; 13, one to do with worship and the other God’s word. The point that Stephen was making in his reference to David and Solomon was that God cannot be limited to a building, where some worship a place more than a person. Stephen standing before this church court points out that long before them, great figures of the OT including David and Solomon never imaged God being imprisoned in a building despite David’s desire to build such which happened with his son and successor Solomon. God’s presence is not limited to a place now off course people need to meet in a place but such is not a holy place unless his people are holy. God is a God who is on the move he is always with his people, he is omnipresent. Yes we dare not forsake the assembling of ourselves together in worship, but we don’t worship a building. In these days of decline in the church there will be increasingly more empty church buildings and some who object to their closure often are breaking one of the commandments worshipping an idol. In the story of the transition from Tabernacle to Temple which the first half of Psalm 132 refers too, Stephen’s point is that it was not wrong to construct either the tabernacle of temple but such should never be regarded as in any literal sense God’s home. And so Stephen’s words in v48 and verses 49 & 50 where he quotes Isaiah 66; 1&2. If God has any home on earth it is with his people whose bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Christians, yes in the words of the hymn writer ‘We love the place of God.’ But God is not restricted to a place; he will never leave you or forsake you especially when like David you in the words of verse 1 endure many hardships.
Yet Christians what a challenge is ours in these days when increasingly fewer and fewer people come into a church building. Yes we need to go out to them be among them where they see God living in us because that is where he dwells. I wonder sometimes if we need less in church buildings apart from times of prayer and preaching and us Christians going us as the church into our community. What should happen when Christians come together as a church? Verse 7 tells us there should be worship. The Ark of the Covenant was more than a mere artefact, some visible aid to worship, loaded with ancient tradition and rich in symbolism. No it was sought because it was the place where the heavenly God touched down on earth. ‘His footstool’, v7 the real presence of the Lord was at the centre. It was the place where eternity entered time, all of which was fulfilled in Jesus. As we come to church yes we meet in a building but in our worship do we meet with God through his son, spirit and scriptures? Is that what drives us to worship and we truly sing, ‘We love the place o God wherein thy honour DWELLS.’ Yes as said earlier God is omnipresent but that is no excuse for not worshipping God collectively as a church. We must not forsake the assembling of ourselves together and those who do often end up worshiping an idol of and including creation as Paul teaches us in Romans 1. Also those Christians who are not present at worship in the presence of God and other Christians rarely have any credible teaching and preaching seen in the absence of such people. NB! Priests where important in the worship in the Tabernacle and Temple and while preachers/teachers to-day are not priests their presence points to people set aside to help in worship. What type of people should we find in worship? V9 talks ‘priests clothed with righteousness.’ Christians we are all priests, part of the priesthood of all believers and we must be clothed in righteousness. A righteousness which is not just for Sunday worship but for our week day work. V9 also talks about a saint, a word which Paul uses to describe Christians pointing again to holiness. Listen to the Psalmist of Psalm 15.
Yes we come to church to worship a Holy God but that does not mean we cannot be joyful. V9 talks about how ‘your saints sing for joy.’ In an earlier ascent Psalm we read and sang’ ‘I joyed when to the house of God go up they said to me.’ Why do you come to church? To meet in the presence of God with God’s people, to worship him with joy and in that worship to hear from his word by those set aside to preach and teach that word. It is a serious sin Christians to neglect worship and put other people and places before God and meeting with his people in this congregation. Spuregon wrote, ‘Alas we have many around who will never carry their care for the Lord’s worship too far.’ Yes David’ oath was not fulfilled but it showed a love and loyalty to God and God’s people which is sometimes missing in some Christians to-day. We need such to-day especially in small situations like ours thanks to those of you who are and to those who are not, if it hurts my heart as your minister, how much more it hurts the heart of God? The one who send his son who loved the church and gave himself for the church. David’s oath, that he would build an earthly house for God did not happen. 1-10.
Secondly there is God’s oath in verses 11-18 where God said he would build an eternal dynastic house of and for David. David was not worthy for God to use him because of his sins of adultery and murder. But David did marry Bathsheba and they had a son called Solomon. Although God had many other options he chooses to work through the line of Solomon to build a dynastic house of and work David as we read in v11. If we had been planning this we would have protested ‘the blood of the line of the Messiah cannot come through Solomon the son of the women with whom David committed adultery.’ What an encouragement God works through the mess of our lives because his work and his words, including oaths are eternal. There are two levels to God’s oath; indeed one is a promise, because such unlike an oath a promise normally has a condition attached. At one level God promised to David that his heirs would not seek to occupy the throne as long as they kept God’s word. However we know this did not happen, the earthly throne of David did not endure forever it ended when the last of the Davidic Kings Jeconiah/Jehoiachin was carried off to Babylon at the time of exile. This King was so disobedient it was prophesied in Jeremiah 22; 30 that no descendant of his would prosper nor, ‘sit on the throne of David or rule anymore in Judah.’
At the second level however the oath level God promised a Messiah King David’s greater son the Lord Jesus Christ. The throne of Jesus is eternal, as we read in verses 13&14. Jesus reigns and rules in Heaven and one day will fully reign on earth. Speaking of the future Rev 11; 15 says of Jesus ‘The kingdoms of this world has become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ and he will reign for ever and ever.’ Until then God will provide for his people seen in verses 15&16 but again we need to see the two levels, earthly but more importantly eternal. God provides us with houses and homes, but one day for his people he will provide an eternal home and house. NB! John 14; 1-3. Then in verses 17&18 we read how God will cause a horn to grow for David that is a powerful ruler who will achieve all that God has promised on oath. This all points to Jesus as do the words lamp and crown who will be given the throne of David. Luke 1; 31-33. When that time comes the enemies of God will know shame but his people will shine v18. Christ came God swore such on oath and we will be thinking about that at Christmas, but one day he will come again because God has said so in his word which cannot be broken unlike human oaths made by humans like David and others including ourselves. In Psalm 132 there have been a number of contrasts, mobile & permanent homes, David’s unkept oath and God’s kept oath, the earthly Jerusalem the eternal Jerusalem, to name but three contrasts. The Psalm really hangs on three verses referring to David. Verse 1 refers to his past, verse 10 refers to the present and verse 17 refers to the future, reminding us of King David’s greater son the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday to-day and forever. The Ark of the Covenant God’s presence among his OT people had been in the tent/tabernacle and then in a Temple not built by David despite his oath but rather by his son Solomon. God on oath had promised that one of David’s descendants would be placed on the throne and that one was ultimately Jesus whose birth we will soon celebrate but whose death we recall/recalled in the sensible signs. The Ark of the Covenant which David wanted to house or home was a chest with a gold lid and on that gold lid the High Priest sprinkled blood from an animal. All of this points to Jesus and his shed blood which cleanses and continues to cleanse from all sin. Without which we will not get into that eternal heavenly home rather an eternal hellish home and God has sworn such on oath, his word, so come to Christ and be part of his church, not a building but a body of people in this congregation. Receive Christ by faith and then be received into the fellowship of God’s people, showing love & loyalty.
Now to-day as a body of believers not a building we meet in the present we remember how in the past the Lamb of God’s blood was shed and sprinkled but one day in the future we will see our Saviour without the sensible signs.