Please open your Bibles this evening again to the Psalms, the center of your Bible. We continue our series through the Songs of Ascents. We're nearing the end. In fact, we've come to what might be considered the climax of the march to Jerusalem. We're going to look at Psalm 132, Psalm 132, on page 659 in that Pew Bible. And once you find that, put your bulletin in there. We're going to come back to it. And then I want you to turn toward the front of your Bible to 1 Chronicles. 1 Chronicles. That follows 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles. Where we're going to read a version of the story behind the psalm from chapter 17, 1 Chronicles chapter 17. On page 441 in that Bible. 1 Chronicles 17 is the second telling of this story. The first telling is in 2 Samuel chapter 7. It's a little more extended. That's why I chose this one for us. 1 Chronicles 17. Hear now the word of God. Now when David lived in his house, David said to Nathan the prophet, Behold, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of the covenant of the Lord is under a tent. And Nathan said to David, Do all that is in your heart, For God is with you. But that same night, the word of the Lord came to Nathan. Go and tell my servant David, thus says the Lord. It is not you who will build me a house to dwell in. For I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up Israel to this day. But I have gone from tent to tent and from dwelling to dwelling. In all places where I have moved with all Israel, did I speak a word with any of the judges of Israel? when I commanded to shepherd my people, saying, Why have you not built me a house of cedar? Now therefore, thus shall you say to my servant David, Thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, to be prince over my people Israel. And I have been with you wherever you have gone, and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. And I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in their own place, and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall waste them no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I will subdue all your enemies. Moreover, I declare to you that the Lord will build you a house. When your days are fulfilled to walk with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for me, and I will establish his throne forever. I will be to him a father, and he will be to me a son. I will not take my steadfast love from him as I took it from the one who was before you, but I will confirm him in my house and in my kingdom forever, and his throne shall be established forever. In accordance with all these words, and in accordance with all this vision, Nathan spoke to David. And now turning back to Psalm 132. A song of ascents for the people of God in worship. Remember, O Lord, in David's favor, all the hardships he endured. How he swore to the Lord and vowed to the Mighty One of Jacob, I will not enter my house or get into my bed. I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids until I find a place for the Lord, a dwelling place for the mighty one of Jacob. Behold, we heard of it in Ephrathah. We found it in the fields of Jaar. Let us go up to his dwelling place. Let us worship at his footstool. Arise, O Lord, and go to your resting place, you and the ark of your might. Let your priests be clothed with righteousness and let your saints shout for joy. For the sake of your servant David, do not turn away the face of your anointed one. The Lord swore to David a sure oath, from which he will not turn back. One of the sons of your body I will set on your throne. Your sons keep my covenant, and my testimonies that I shall teach them. Their sons also forever shall sit on your throne. For the Lord has chosen Zion, he has desired it for his dwelling place. This is my resting place forever. Here I will dwell, for I have desired it. I will abundantly bless her provisions. I will satisfy her poor with bread. For a priest I will clothe with salvation, and her saints will shout for joy. There I will make a horn to sprout for David. I have prepared a lamp for my anointed. His enemies I will clothe with shame, but on him his crown will shine. Here ends the reading of God's word this evening. Now you may have noticed already, regardless of reading 1 Chronicles chapter 17, that Psalm 132 is a little longer than the rest of these songs of ascents. It's a good two times longer than all the rest. There's a lot here. I'm going to do my best to distill it down for you, but I ran across one commentator that said it's notoriously complex, and I must agree. But this psalm, this long psalm, and I think it's long, partly it's placed in the Psalter here, is this marks the apex or the climax of the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. It began in Psalm 120, up from the unbelieving world, through many dangers, toils, and snares, Psalm 121, to Mount Zion in Jerusalem, Psalm 122, and now here in Psalm 132, they are in the worship of the Lord in His house. And something very important is happening here in this worship service. Of all the psalms, all the psalms, not just the songs of ascents, this is the only psalm that mentions the Ark, the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark that the Lord designed to be the touchstone between His heavenly throne and His earthly people in the temple. It was designed by Him to stand at the center of their worship. But after the exodus and after the conquest of the land, After some times of misuse and disaster, the ark got parked, got stored away, for the most part out of sight and out of mind, far from the center of worship. And after David became king and conquered Jerusalem, he set out to bring the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem on Mount Zion to establish the new center of worship of the Lord. And Psalm 132 remembers what David did. And it was sung in the temple that he never lived to see. The first half, verses 1 through 10, is a prayer. It's a prayer offered in David's name. And the second half is a proclamation by a minister of the Lord to the saints who have gathered together to worship the Lord in his house. So this psalm is set in the temple where the people are worshiping before the Lord. And it opens with a prayer. A prayer of the king of Judah or someone on his behalf who prays that the Lord would remember something in David's favor. Verse 1. And then in verse 10 that this prayer would be heard for the sake of your servant David and not to turn away from your anointed one, the king. So that's the brackets of the first half. It's a prayer in David's, asking for the Lord to remember in David's favor and for the sake of David's son, who's now king, whoever that might be. We might say this prayer was offered in David's name. A man after God's own heart. And in short, this prayer is offered to ask the Lord to remember David's desire. Verse 1. Remember, O Lord, in David's favor all the hardships. He endured. Now David had a long life and he faced a lot of hardships. So the question is, what hardships are in mind? And I believe from verses 3 to 5 we see that it has to do with hardships related to a very specific event in David's life. And that's when David was trying to find a place for the Lord. A dwelling place for the mighty one of Jacob. That's in verse 5. That's what he was after. David said more than once in the scriptures that he had it on his heart to build a house for the Lord. and so Nathan said to him in Chronicles do what's in your heart David we hear that and we might think he's a sentimental fool he just had a nice warm feeling well this would be a nice thing to do or that's a good idea when I get time and some money I'll go do it no what David had in his heart was a desire perhaps his strongest desire from the moment he became the king of Israel and that was to establish the house of the Lord in Jerusalem. Verses 2 through 5 tell us that he was so committed to building this house that he swore to the Lord and vowed to the mighty one of Jacob. My experience in life and in the past, I've come to really appreciate the fact that we do not understand what it means to make an oath or to say a vow. David did. He understood the law. He wasn't bound to do it. It wasn't something that God required. It would not be sin to him if he didn't do it, but he wanted to do it because it bound him under penalty of judgment, under penalty of consequence, to do this. David would be guilty if he allowed himself to enjoy the comforts of his own home, the comforts of his own bed, until after, if he did that, until, if he did that before the house of the Lord was finished. He was going to deny him his personal comforts of home before he established a home for the Lord. Now, that's saying a lot. I don't know that I'm willing to give up my house and my bed for you or for anybody. David, that's what he was saying. Now, it's poetic and it's emphasized here, but that's what he's saying. This is my first priority above everything else. And by the time we read this psalm, David already made a beginning. It's rehearsed in verses 6-10. There we see something David's already done by the time he announced to his son and to Nathan that he wanted to build the house. He'd already got the ark. He knew where he was going. And so we want to look at verses 6-10 here, which recounts the story in a very abbreviated poetic way of the journey of the ark from the boondocks to Jerusalem. And it's an interesting set of verses here because we can see here in these verses the same story, the same journey told from both ends. We can see it told from the end of David at the beginning. Going to get the ark to take it to Jerusalem. And we can see it from the end when Solomon has established the ark in the temple so many years later. So let's look at these verses 6 through 10 first from the beginning. And that's verses 6 through 9. In 6 through 9, we hear David speaking at the beginning of this journey. In verse 6, we hear him tell how he found the ark. Now, there's lots of dispute about all these names and places, but the bottom line here for me is this. He writes, Behold, we heard of it in Ephrathah. That's another name for Bethlehem. We heard of its location while we were in Bethlehem. is the most straightforward interpretation. Someone told us where it was. And we found it in the fields of Ja'ar. Now that's not the name of a place, that's a description of a place, a place of farmlands that's been carved out of the forests in the hills of Israel west of Jerusalem, the Boondocks. It'd been there for 20 years. So David said, that's how we found it. And in verses 7 to 9, we can hear him speaking through the events that are described in 1 Chronicles for how he brought it back. There in 1 Chronicles, David told the priest to consecrate themselves, to do what the law required so that they would not be guilty of handling the ark. Why did he do that? Remember the story of Uzzah? He handled the ark and he wasn't ready. And he died. Consecrate yourselves. Do what the Lord requires that you can handle the Ark of the Covenant. And here David says, in verse 9, Let your priest be clothed with righteousness. There, in the history, David called for singers and musicians to raise sounds and shouts of joy. And here, David says, let your saints shout for joy. And there, in the history, David and all Israel set out toward Jerusalem. And here, David calls out to the people to go. Let us go to his dwelling place. Let us worship at his footstool. Let's go. And he cries out to the Lord to lead. Arise, O Lord. Lead your people. That's what he said all through the Exodus to lead them into battle. Here he calls on the Lord to lead them to his rest. Arise, O Lord, and go to your resting place, you and the ark of your might. So that's the story from David's end of the travel. Now let's look at verses 8 to 10. 8 to 10. And I want you to listen to this as Solomon praying at the end of his journey. And I want you to follow the words on the page very carefully, verses 8, 9, and 10, because I'm going to read the closing words of Solomon's prayer of dedication from 2 Chronicles, which gives the history of this. Verse 8. You're reading from verse 8, I'm reading from 2 Chronicles. And now arise, O Lord God, and go to your resting place, you and the ark of your might. Let your priests, O Lord God, be clothed with salvation and let your saints rejoice in your goodness. O Lord God, do not turn away the face of your anointed one. Remember your steadfast love for David, your servant. And then the text tells us, as soon as Solomon finished the prayer, fire came down from heaven, sacrifices were consumed, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple. mission, or journey over. This is an important, important, central thing that happened in the life of Israel. That was to establish the worship of the Lord amongst his people in Jerusalem at Mount Zion. And the prayer here remembers that. Remember, O Lord, in David's favor, all the hardships he endured to make this happen. And when Solomon prayed this prayer, and very likely all the kings of Judah, as they came to power. They prayed it as well, asking the Lord to remember David, to remember his desire to establish his house, the house that Solomon built, the house where they stood to worship, and for David's sake, verse 10, for David's sake, not to turn away the face of their anointed one, to not to turn away the face of the king, to not break relationship with the king, David's son, to keep the relationship whole and moving forward, to receive them and to bless them as he had received and blessed David. It's an earnest prayer. And it's not a prayer that's just plucked out of a pocket. It's a prayer based on promises. See, when Solomon fulfilled what David vowed to do, he didn't do it because David had somehow failed. Remember, David had vowed to build his house. It's not that he failed, but the Lord overruled him. The Lord heard his vow and he voided it because he gave him a vow of his own. And that's what turns us to the second half of our psalm this evening in which the minister of the Lord urges the saints who worship the Lord in his house to trust the Lord's choice, what the Lord did, what he chose to do for David, what he chose to do for his people. You see, David desired and he vowed to build a house for the Lord, a house of sticks and stones that would one day fall. But the Lord chose and vowed to build a house for David, a dynasty of flesh and blood that would last forever and still exist today. Verse 11. The Lord swore to David a sure oath from which he will not turn back. Hebrews chapter 6, I think it is, tells us that when the Lord makes an oath, it's an unbreakable thing. When we make oaths, we make them by God because He can break us. When the Lord makes oaths, He makes them by Himself because no one can break them. And He swore this oath to two promises which follow in verses 11 and 12. First promise in verse 11 is unconditional. It's just going to happen. One of your sons of your body I will set on your throne. It's going to happen. The second promise is conditional. It will happen if, if certain conditions are met. If your sons keep my covenant and my testimonies that I shall teach them, then, as implied, then their sons also forever shall sit on my throne. David, I'm giving Solomon your throne. Thereafter, if they keep my covenant, I'll keep them on the throne. Now we look at, those are promises made thousands of years ago. And we need to know today, as the people of God are reading this, that the Lord has fulfilled these promises. These are not hanging fire. These have been fulfilled. Initially, when the Lord placed Solomon on David's throne, he fulfilled the first one. And Solomon fulfilled what the Lord called him to do, which was to build the house to the Lord. And then his life went sideways, and he sinned so severely that the Lord stripped everything away from him except for one tribe, the tribe of Judah. And that was only for David's sake. That was only for the sake of the promise he'd given. And from then on, all the sons of David, all the sons of Solomon who took the throne in Judah were likewise unwilling and unable to meet the terms. Some did better than others, but none of them met the terms. And so it went, king after king, until all earthly hopes were dashed In Babylon. That came and took the last king away. King Jeconiah. He was tarried into exile. In Babylon, the king of Babylon burned down the house of the Lord. He burned down the king's house and he tore down the walls of Jerusalem. Case closed. Story done. What now? What now? You've got to believe that the Jews in exile, what now? And they went to their Bibles. They went to the Psalms. And in the exile, the Lord aroused His people to look up and to look forward for a king who would come and would meet the conditions. Who would come and who would merit the promise. The anointed one that they called the Messiah. They didn't know His name. But they were looking and waiting for Jesus. The Christ. The anointed one. The son of David, according to Matthew 1, David's greater son who alone kept all of God's law and who merited, who earned not only David's throne, but the throne that's above all throne. He's the son of God who came down from heaven and took on flesh, not to do his own will, but to do the will of his father. He came to be obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross, so that God highly exalted him to the heavens in his body. To take the throne. Far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, not only for this age, but for the age to come. King Jesus is on the throne. Before Jesus was born, the angel Gabriel came to his mother, and he said to her, The Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. And in his Pentecost sermon, Acts chapter 2, Peter. Peter makes the case from the Old Testament. He says that David being a prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ and his exaltation to the right hand of God. David was a prophet. Peter's testimony and scriptures he understood. And he announces this conclusion to that sermon, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and King, Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you've crucified. Promise fulfilled. Promise fulfilled, and the king's on the throne. Now, in verse 13, the minister moves. He moves on to remind the saints why the Lord promised what he promised. Why the Lord did what he did. For, because the Lord has chosen Zion, and he's desired it. It's His dwelling place. And then He speaks for the Lord in verse 14, this is my resting place forever. Here I will dwell and I have desired it. You see, the Lord had chosen Zion as His dwelling place, His resting place, long before David got any ideas. The Lord chose it to be the earthly focus of His heavenly rule, where He would establish David's earthly throne that derived his authority from his heavenly throne his invisible throne for which the ark was his visible footstool the Lord chose all of this for greater purposes than Israel greater purposes than David and I need to pause here this is a really beautiful example of a doctrine that we don't talk about very often but we live every day that a $20 word like most of them do is called concurrence at the same time. The doctrine of concurrence is the doctrine of how the Lord uses human initiative, human thoughts, words, and deeds that are their own. And here's David's intensely personal desire to build a house for the Lord. He uses those human initiatives to accomplish His perfect will that to us is unknown, it's secret. it. Concurrence. We can see it in hindsight. We can never see it going forward. It's the story we want before it happens. We want the Lord to tell us how and when and why going forward, but we get to see it looking backwards. His will is accomplished as he works through people. Concurrence. Anyway, that's a segue. The point of the minister here is that because the Lord chose Zion for himself, he makes promises to her. Not just to David. He makes promises to her in verses 15 to 18. He's the one who's able to do more abundantly than all that we can ask or think. And it shows up here in a very poetic style. He promises great and unexpected things to his people and to David's son. And these things he promises in the second half of the psalm echo what we heard in the first half of the psalm that we're prayed for. And these things He promised point us beyond David and his sons, and they point us to David's greater son and his heavenly reign in the new Jerusalem. In verses 15 and 16, the Lord promises to provide His people, all the citizens of Zion, with everything they need, body and soul. I will abundantly bless her provisions. I will satisfy her poor with bread. For priests I will clothe with salvation. And her saints will shout for joy. And for the earthly kingdom under David's rule and that of his sons, the Lord provided material blessings above and beyond anything they could ever deserve, enough to provide for all the poor and the needy if sin did not get in the way. And he provided in relationship to their obedience. He promised them blessing for obedience and cursing for disobedience. And so we see in the history of Israel these ebb and flow of this provision that the Lord provided. And He provided for their spiritual blessing as well. Meeting with them in the temple. That seems so automatic we talk about. Meeting with people in a temple. And ministering to them through priests clothed with salvation. Performing ceremonies and sacrifices and prayers that pointed them not to what they were doing but to the Savior that they needed. They preached the gospel to them in all these ways. You see, to the people of Israel, the Lord gave countless reasons to shout for joy. The tragedy is they didn't. They complained. They grumbled. They turned their backs and they chased after false gods and they did it so long that the Lord finally gave them over and he sent him into exile. That was it. And even centuries later when the Son of God came in the flesh to dwell among his own people, they didn't receive him. John tells us that. They did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, citizens of the kingdom of heaven. Citizens who belong, body and soul, and life and in death to our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, a faithful high priest who made propitiation for all of our sins and who clothes us with garments of salvation and who covers us with the robe of His righteousness, Isaiah. Jesus Christ, who provides for us all that we need, body and soul. Above and beyond what we deserve, brothers and sisters, you know it. But He does so always in relationship to the perfect obedience that He had. The perfect obedience that He credits to us as our own. And so His goodness to us is always and ever. Even when it's difficult. Even when it includes discipline. Even when it means that my neighbor has something that I don't. It's all good for us, His people, for the sake of Jesus. And then in verses 17 and 18, the Lord promises to provide for the king in Zion. There I will make a horn to sprout for David. I've prepared a lamp for my anointed. His enemies I will clothe with shame, but on him his crown will shine. Beautiful, but distill it down and the Lord has promised three things. A horn, a lamp, and a crown. Symbols. A horn symbolizes power like that of a wild ox. It's a picture of power. A lamp is, this is a little trickier. I had to spend a lot of time on this. My mind goes to, well, Jesus is the light of the world, but that's not what this is saying. This term is used specifically in the narratives of David. The lamp was used as a symbol for a son of David who would stand in good relationship with the Lord. The Lord promised that he would have a lamp in David's house all his days. This whole promise is there always going to be a lamp in the house. That's someone who is able to look at the Lord, and the Lord looks at him, and it's a relationship of blessing. That's why we hear in verse 10, the king prays, don't turn away the face of your anointed one. Don't break this relationship and have me go away. The Lord promises the lamp will be there. He'll have a lamp in Zion. And a crown symbolizes a victor. A victor over his enemy. Common in our understanding. And the Lord gave all these things to David. And he gave all these things to his sons. For generation after generation, more than they deserved. Again, up and down with their obedience. Until finally he took away all three. He took away all three from their earthly kingdom and he sent them into exile. Because they would not repent anymore. These promises had to wait to be fulfilled until the coming of the Messiah, until Jesus came. And you hear these three things and now listen to these familiar texts that you've heard before. From Luke chapter 1, Gabriel to Mary. I'm sorry, Zechariah, John the Baptist's father, he prophesied about Jesus. He is the horn to sprout for David, a horn of salvation raised up for us, Zion, in the house of David. He's the lamp. He's David's greater son. He stands in the face of God always. His relationship with the father is never broken, can't be broken. He stands as our king in the kingdom of heaven. And He's the crown that shines. Seated at the right hand of God to reign over all things. There He reigns until He puts everything under His feet, even death. And when that's all done, as we heard this morning, He's going to come. The King of glory is going to come. Our King, He's going to come. And He's going to bring His salvation with Him. And all is going to be set right. Peace will prevail. And the glory of the Lord will be our experience. But until that day, we gather together to worship the Lord and His house. Week by week, we come here together. We gather in this earthly place. And as Pastor Gordon has been trying to emphasize, and I won't say trying, he's been emphasizing, whether we've got it or not, that's another story. He's emphasizing the reality of our relationship with what's going on in heaven, right here and right now. Right here, right now. We come together in this earthly house and we lift up our hearts through faith. We are lifted up by the Spirit to Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and we join in the heavenly worship that we've been seeing in Revelation. I want to pause here for an application that is part of our worship experience. In the Lord's Supper, in particular, You will hear the minister say to you, lift up your hearts. And we answer as a congregation, we lift them up to the Lord. That's what this is talking about. It's a confession of faith that by faith in Jesus Christ and the power of the Spirit, when we lift our hearts to Jesus Christ, we are actually participating in heavenly worship. We don't say it often enough that I just I've told people this I wanted to tell you now because this is what it's about and so when we come together and we participate in this heavenly worship this meeting of heaven and earth by the power of the spirit through faith we offer our prayers to the Lord just like the first half of the psalm but we don't offer them in David's name we offer them in Jesus' name and we ask the Lord to bless us for the sake of Jesus and all the hardships that He endured for us to open the way for us to come together as His people around His throne of grace and to worship the King, all glorious above. For all the promises of God are yes in Jesus. And through Him we utter our amen. And when we come together for worship, to worship the Lord in this house, we are reminded again and again to trust the Lord's choice. His choice of King David yes a man after his own heart but a sinner just like us he chose to work through a sinner and through his sons to bring into the world the son of God in the flesh Jesus Christ and he chose to lift Jesus up on a cross so that whoever believes in him may have eternal life before he lifted him up into heaven to reign as the king of kings and the lord of lords and he chose a people for himself he chose the people for himself from before the foundation of the world from Jews and from the nations that includes us he chose us to bless us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm he chose us to hear the word of truth the gospel of salvation he chose us to believe in Jesus and be saved through faith which he chose to give us and he chose us to be sealed with the Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of the inheritance that is yet to come until we possess it, to the praise of His glory. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, You have opened to us through an earthly tabernacle, an earthly temple, an earthly fixture and ark that represents Your footstool into promises made and vows taken that were made not only to David and his sons, but made to David's greater son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. And we thank you that in Him, we are the beneficiaries of those promises. We thank you that in Him, we can come to worship the Lord in His house. And that by faith, through the Spirit, we can be lifted up to participate in what's going on right now in the heavens. open our eyes to see make our hearts to understand help us to pray in Jesus name recognizing that we're leaning on him for everything for he's the one who went before who stands with merit before your face that we might be heard for his sake and help us to Lord more and more trust your plan of salvation that includes the frailties of men and promises Lord that are profound and eternal Help us to meditate on these things, Lord, to your glory and our encouragement. In Jesus' name, amen.