Sunday School | David - 2 Samuel 8

Good morning, everybody. Thanks for your patience there. I don't know why the sound has been so weird. So, here's what we're going to do today. I'm going to jump in because we are both going to cover 2 Samuel chapter eight, which is our newest and next chapter, but we're also going to pause and review what we did last week. So, if you were here last week, you might recall that it was a bit of a tour de force. We covered a ton of material in a short time that was kind of complicated. And so, it was one where I have some very strong preference that we would have an interactive dialogue when we talk about these things, but last week there was just so much that I didn't let you talk very much, and I didn't give you much space for questions, and I was just talking a lot. So, it might be that you don't even remember what we talked about. And so, in case that's true, I asked Jordan to kind of pass out the notes from last week. So, there should be a one or two copies at each table.

That's a reminder what we did. Last week, I tried to make the case that 2 Samuel 7 is one of the most important chapters in the Old Testament. It ties together all sorts of really important theological concepts and then it also gets picked up in the New Testament over and over and over again. So, we can take this thing wherever you want—you can say, got it, next, move on, and we can do that. But let me make a few suggestions of things that you guys might want to talk about. Think of them like just thought bombs that I dropped and then moved on, and maybe they bothered you and you didn't like it and you want to rebuke me—and that's fun. I like that process. Or maybe you want to tease out some things.

Review of Key Concepts from 2 Samuel 7

Here are a few things we might want to review if any of these got caught in your gears. We talked about the idea that Jesus being the Son of God has at least three, maybe more implications. On the one hand, it's what we mean about his eternally begotten nature. He is ontologically, in his very nature of being, fundamentally the second person of the trinity. That's what we mean by the Son of God. But it also means that he was divinely conceived—that Mary had a baby without a human male partner. And sometimes we use the term the Son of God, and this might have been the most surprising or the newest: that that's a term of royalty. He is the royal son. There's coronation language. You really see it in Psalm 2. You see it in what's essentially happening in Daniel 7. It's alluded to in Romans 1, that Jesus has become king, and sometimes that is described as that he has become the Son of God. We're not saying that he ontologically became the second person of the trinity. We're saying the one who has always been the second person of the trinity became the king of the world.

So, Son of God—that was some new teaching. You might want to work on that. You might also be curious or confused by the resurrection argument. If you have your notes here, I argued that we gain insight into the resurrection of the dead. We even have anticipation that Jesus would be raised from the dead in Psalm 16, and Peter makes a case in Acts 2 for the resurrection of the dead based on Psalm 16. And that was a little complicated. You might want to look at that.

Also, I just made a brief allusion to the eternality of Christ's kingdom. It's very clear that David will have one on the throne forever, and I made kind of an oblique reference to the eternality of Jesus's kingdom. That's complicated because there's going to be an interruption in his reign as king, which is super weird and very off-putting to people, but it's actually true. Most people just don't even notice it, but it's true and I can show you that. We can unpack that.

We could also look more deeply at how the Old Testament spoke about David long after he was dead and how basically the term David ceased to be merely a name of someone who had been dead and became the title of the messianic king who would come.

Or you could say, yeah, yeah, yeah, got it, chapter eight, whatever you want. So, is there anything that you left here unsatisfied about last week that you wanted to give a few more minutes to from 2 Samuel 7? You could pick any of those or something else that I didn't just mention. Happy?

The Interruption of Christ's Reign

So, you want to talk about the interruption of Jesus' reign as king? Because that's weird. That's probably one of the strangest things. Okay, so take a look at this. Grab your Bible and let's go to 1 Corinthians 15. I'll show you what I mean by that.

So, it's historically affirmed and I affirm that Jesus will reign forever. Sometimes I'll ask the question like this: if we were to describe the reign of Christ as king, you describe that best as a line, a line segment, or a ray? Do you remember—you're like, what is that, seventh grade geometry? What's a line? Eternal in both directions. What's a ray? Starts at one moment, goes eternally. And what's a line segment? Beginning and end.

So, the reign of Christ—is it a line, a line segment, or a ray? A line. Yeah. Okay. So, for the sake of being brief, I think the answer to it is it's a ray, but it's a little bit of a dotted ray. There's going to be an interruption to it, which is super odd, okay?

A lot of people think it's a line. He's always been king. He will always be king. But he has not always been king. He became king in a moment in time. That's what Psalm 2 is about. That's what Daniel 7 is about. We can affirm this in a million different ways, but that's not the debate of the moment, okay? He became king. Just trust me on that or don't, but he did, okay? Then he will be king forever. 2 Samuel 7 affirms the eternal kingdom, but something funny is going to happen that's worth understanding because it's glorious, okay?

So, go to 1 Corinthians 15. In one word, what's it about? Resurrection. Resurrection, okay? So, this whole thing is all about the resurrection of the dead. And when I say the resurrection of the dead, I don't mean chiefly Jesus's resurrection from the dead. I mean yours. You, all, everyone—the righteous and the wicked alike. Everyone will be raised from the dead. We're not looking forward to going to heaven when we die, although we will, but that's fine, but it's brief. What we're looking forward to is the return of Christ and the resurrection from the dead when he restores all things, okay?

So, 1 Corinthians 15 is chiefly about that moment when all comes to fruition and everyone is raised from the dead. But he says this such odd, interesting, bizarre thing. Let's start at verse 22.

For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each in his own order. Christ the first fruits, and then at his coming, those who belong to Christ. — 1 Corinthians 15:22-23

What Paul is saying there is that Jesus is like the little scoop of ice cream that you get when you go to the ice cream store. You don't know which one you want, so you get like a little small spoon with one thing of ice cream. And the idea is whatever is true in this scoop is going to be true of the whole cone, okay? That's what it means that Jesus is the first fruits. The first crop of wheat is indicative of the quality of the whole crop of wheat, okay? So if this little spoonful of ice cream was delicious, the whole thing is going to be delicious. And if Jesus, the first fruits, the sample, if he raised from the dead, you're going to raise from the dead. That's what Paul is saying, okay?

Now check this out. This is where it gets weird.

Then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet, and the last enemy to be destroyed is death. For God has put all things in subjection under his feet. But when he says all things, his plan is accepted. He who put all things in subjection under him. And look at verse 28: When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all. — 1 Corinthians 15:24-28 (ESV)

Now, the ESV famously gets things accurate but unhelpful. So here's the NIV.

It says verse 24, then the end will come when he, that's Jesus, hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he's destroyed all dominion, authority, and power. And then in verse 28, when he's done this, the son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him. What Paul is revealing here is the dot in the ray, the interruption in the line.

What happened already in history when Jesus became king is that God gave to Jesus the cosmos, the created order. The world is his. He has become, and he is today reigning as king over all things. His kingship has begun, and that is the absolute centerpiece of the gospel. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus has become king. Because he's king, there's a new kingdom. Because he's king, he can free us from this old domain of darkness and bring us into this new kingdom of love. It's because he's king that he can grant absolution and amnesty for all the garbage that we pulled when we're members of the old kingdom.

The centerpiece of the gospel is there's a new king. The old ruler, this usurper who hates you, who hates God, who had stolen the throne—the devil himself—who told Jesus in Matthew 4 that all the kingdoms of the world have been given to me, and I can give them to anyone I wish. He's a liar. You can't take him at his word. They weren't given to him. He stole them. But the Bible affirms over and over again that he had become, had taken over the rulership of the world. The most common title given to Satan is ruler. And so Jesus came to cast him out, to crush him, to destroy him, and to take on his kingdom.

What happened at the cross is that Jesus became the inheritor of the world. He became king, but everything was a train wreck. Everything was a mess. Everything was in absolute disobedience, absolute disarray. From that day to this and until he comes again, what he is doing is he's restoring the world to be the way that it was always supposed to be. He's fixing it. It's as if God gave him, as if his Father gave him a '67 Fastback Mustang, but it was a rusty, broken mess. He gave it to him and now he's restoring it, getting rid of the rust, putting on the original upholstery, getting everything back to the way that it's supposed to be.

The day will come—this is what Paul is alluding to—when the last enemy, the final piece of rust, will be destroyed. And what is that? Death. Death will die. And when finally death dies and the entire cosmos is absolutely perfect, entirely perfect and entirely his, what's he going to do with it? Give it to God. He's going to give it to the Father, and that is absolutely insane.

Verse 23: Christ the first fruits, and then when he comes, those who belong to him. And then the end will come when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion and authority and power.

Verse 28: When he has done this, the son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.

Once everything is restored and everything is flawless and everything is perfect, Jesus will essentially reenact the cross. On the cross, Jesus took all that he was and he surrendered to the Father, and he said, "Here I am. Whatever you want to do to me, whatever it takes for you to accomplish your purposes, I will drink to the bottom the cup of your wrath. I will take absolutely everything." He utterly surrendered to the Father because he so absolutely delights in the Father. And as he did it there, he's going to do it again. He's not going to be crucified again, but when he is the supreme commander of the universe that is flawless in every way and entirely his, he will take that even as he once took his life and do this: "It's all yours."

It could appear, therefore, that Jesus' reign is a line segment. It began at a moment in time, and it ended at a moment in time. But tell me this: the first time Jesus surrendered his life to be beaten and crucified and he died, what did the Father do? He gave it back, all of it and more. He gave him back his life and ascended him to reign as king. So do you want to guess what's going to happen when Jesus has all things and he surrenders it to the Father? What's the Father likely to do? Give it back. He's going to give it all back. And that's the way the book ends.

And I was thinking, where's Jesus? That's him. It is him. That's right. Yeah. And I love—I always whenever I come across that passage or somebody brings it up, it always reminds me of this beautiful thing that Jonathan Edwards said. Some of you may be tired of hearing me say this, but there's a scene where John is told. He says, behold, the lion of Judah and he looked and what did he see? A lamb. He saw a lamb. He looks for a lion but he sees a lamb. And Edwards quips, he says, for he is a lamb still, even amidst the throne of his exaltation.

Some people will just kind of be diplomatic. I've heard diplomacy being described as the art of saying nice doggy, nice doggy until you can find a big enough stick. But Jesus' graciousness and his lowliness and his kindness persists even when he's king of the universe. He even is still there. He is a lamb. He is gentle. He's a slain lamb, and ever shall he be.

And then, at the very end of the book, this is how the story ends in Revelation 22. Listen to this.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life bearing 12 crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. No longer will there be any curse, and here it is, the throne of God and of the lamb will be in the city and his servants will serve him. — Revelation 22:1-3

So, it appears to be that there for the moment, Jesus has become the king of all things. The day is coming when he will yield to the father and give it away just as he once gave his life away but just as his life was given back to him in even greater measure, he will be invited for all eternity to be co regent with the father. The father and the son together reigning over all things and then it's just as if that's not enough, we will, you will be invited to reign with them. So, that's crazy but that's so the—and all of that really, all of it is rooted in 2 Samuel chapter seven. The eternal kingdom that is given to David has been given to Jesus. He will give it away because his whole life is about adoring and delighting the father, but the father will give it back.

And this is, by the way, the theology of this pervades in our lives, right? For Jesus says, what does Jesus say?

Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will save it. — Matthew 16:25

So when he invites us to live lives of radical generosity, to give ourselves away, He's like, you guys, I'm just telling you, this is the way the universe works. You give it away and you get it back. So, give away your life.

So, resurrection is predicated on death. Kingship, reigning is predicated on the lowest place. The shape of the gospel is a cross, but it is also the letter V. The lower down we go, the higher He exalts us. God exalts the humble. Jesus does this in at least two major world changing epochal moments, right? Epochal moments, like at the cross and at the resurrection, of our resurrection, not His resurrection, our resurrection, or the ultimate giving away and then receiving back all that much of it.

So, that's what I meant by that. Does that make sense? It's deep, deep stuff, but it's amazing, beautiful, and good.

Anybody else want to pull on any other thread from 2 Samuel 7? It still seems like I'm doing a lot of talking, so I'm not sure what to do about that. Are we groovy? Okay. Then let's move on. We'll look at 2 Samuel chapter 8.

2 Samuel 8

Alright. There's really one main thing that I want you to get here, but we'll take it as it comes.

In the course of time, David defeated the Philistines and subdued them and he took Metheg Amah from the control of the Philistines. — 2 Samuel 8:1

What do you remember about chapter 7? What were some of the promises made to David in chapter 7?

Kingdom forever. That's what we've been hitting on. What else was kind of the vibe of that? If you flip back and cheat a little bit if you want. His children—he would never fail to have one of his sons on the throne over Israel, right? And there's this about a temple. Yes. Very good.

So, David wants to build the temple and that was kind of the primary word game of it. David says, I want to build you a house and God says, no, no, no, I'm going to build you a house, right? And David meant, I'll build you a temple. God meant, I'm going to give you a dynasty but there's this kind of play on words. So, his kingdom will last forever.

His son, one of his sons will build the temple which is fulfilled immediately in Solomon but ultimately in Christ who is the temple, right? "Destroy this temple in three days and I'll rebuild." He's talking about himself.

What other promises made to David in First Samuel or Second Samuel 7? Yes, Mike?

Yes, that's a huge thing. Basically, it anticipates like political victory over your enemies and we talked about how the fact that that's a problem because there has not been eternal peace in Israel in the last three thousand years.

And so, do you remember how we talked about how does that get resolved? How does the Old and New Testament treat that apparently unfulfilled promise? You do remember this? Anybody remember?

What do we do with the promise made to David that his kingdom would be one of endless peace? Total victory over his enemies. Really talking Jesus' kingdom ultimately.

That's exactly right. It is and this we see this much earlier than the New Testament. The Old Testament catches on like, okay, maybe not quite yet.

Those promises of endless peace, of total reign, of everything being the way it's supposed to be with Israel, the people of God being triumphant, that's later. It's coming, it's coming, but that's going to come under David's greater son, under the Messiah, right?

However, it's not entirely absent in the present tense and that is really that single issue is what the author picks up in chapter eight. So what we're going to find, we made a promise, David, you're going to rule over your enemies and then in chapter eight, we're just going to kick everybody's butt, okay?

David's Military Victories

Chapter eight:

In the course of time, David defeated the Philistines and subdued them.

The Philistines are like public enemy number one. This is the ones that he's constantly having a hard time with, that's Goliath's story, and he's going to beat them. He doesn't, by the way, completely eradicate the Philistines, but they will never again, in the rest of the Old Testament, have anywhere near the antagonistic power that they've had until now. So, the author is showing us the beginning of the fulfillment of the promise, not the ultimate fulfillment. That's not coming until Jesus but it begins to be pretty good.

And then, look at verse two:

David also defeated the Moabites. He made them lie down on the ground and he measured them off with a length of cord. Every two lengths of them were put to death and the third length was allowed to live. So, the Moabites became subject to David and brought tribute.

Anything strike you as interesting about David's subduing and showing mercy to the Moabites of all people?

Why do you mention Naomi and Ruth? Because he's showing mercy to the people who are going to become a part of the bloodline of Jesus.

Yes. And where did Naomi and Ruth fit chronologically? Before or after this?

Oh, good job. Like, before two generations?

Yes. And who is their most famous great great grandson? Who? It's or maybe great great great grandson? David's, it's David, you guys. This is his people, right?

Kelly Sue?

It's also where he didn't he take his parents there or something like that? He sheltered somebody up there.

Oh, did he? I don't remember that. Did he?

Yes. He shelters them in Moab.

I'd forgotten that. Okay, so he is this is his people and so he's supposed to completely wipe them out but he only subdues them. He doesn't completely defeat them. He subdues them, allows them to live, and then gets tribute from them which is interesting. I mean, you gotta, this is his family. When you see Moabite and you see David, he's he is of Judah but there's that whole story where you go, "I will go, your people will be my people, your god will be my god." That whole story is about these guys and David, so David is of them and he's showing mercy to them. So, he's reigning but he's reigning graciously and he's reigning in a way that enriches Israel.

Did you want to say something?

No.

Okay. So, you got that so far? So, he beats the Philistines. He beats the Moabites but then he's kind of gracious to it and then in three and four:

Moreover, David fought Hadadezer, son of Rehob, king of Zobah. When he went to restore control along the Euphrates River and David captured a thousand of his chariots and seven hundred charioteers and twenty thousand foot soldiers and he hamstrung all but a hundred of the chariot horses.

This is an area that's kind of north of Galilee and it's just one more victory and all what the author is trying to say is everywhere David goes, he beat these guys, he beat these guys, he beat these guys. There's different methods.

There's different degrees of intensity but everywhere he goes, he's victorious, okay? It's the beginning of the fulfillment of Second Samuel seven.

Catherine, I don't understand that hurting all the horses.

Oh, the horses. Yeah, okay. This is interesting. So we always say, no animals are harmed in the filming of this movie. Why would he not just take the horses? This isn't here for a reason. Why doesn't he take the horses? He's not supposed to.

Now, I recognize that we're like, well, that still sounds kind of brutal, but there were three things that the kings were forbidden to have a lot of: horses, wives, and money. So what I think that what the author is including is that he could have just taken some of his 7,000 charioteers and 20,000 foot soldiers. I'm assuming that each charioteer gets his own horse and what he's saying is David could've had all of these horses but he didn't take them.

I know. I know. It's brutal. I don't know. Maybe they're mean horses. I don't know what to tell you. But and maybe what that means is that he killed them. I mean, I think hamstring doesn't necessarily imply killing them, and I don't know why you would do that.

Do you guys know? Suzanne?

So they couldn't then be used as... Yeah, but aren't they just like sad all the time?

I know how that works. It sounds horrible. It does, it really does. And I don't know. It was you can still have your horses, but they can no longer serve their service or whatever. So they have limited usefulness. They're still useful, but they'll never be an agent of war.

Harry, do you have insight into that?

That's it. Prevents the people from being used against him in the future. Still able to be used, but they will never be able to fight.

Yes. I mean, I guess I think of like, if a horse breaks his leg, you shoot it, right? So if a horse is hamstrung, it still can be useful?

That's true. Oh, okay. See, I don't know any these things. Okay. That's good.

Ali, did you want to add some?

Alright. So that I think that's what we're seeing is he's reducing the military threat but he is obeying the admonition not to become the one who's got 7,000 horses, okay? And that's going to be interesting because that's going to happen in another way in a second, okay?

David's Expanding Victories

So then, look at this. This one's interesting. This is verse five:

When the Arameans of Damascus came to help Hadadezer, David struck down 22,000 of them. He put garrisons in the Aramean Kingdom of Damascus and the Arameans became subject to him and brought tribute. — 2 Samuel 8:5

That's the second time that you're going to see that. This idea of subject and tribute. What does tribute mean? Tax. It's a foreigner that's paying tax to you, right? So we pay tax when we pay your taxes, it's not really tribute. It may feel like tribute, okay? But if we had to pay taxes to Russia, that would be tribute, right?

So we're making them pay tribute and the Lord gave David victory wherever he went—which by the way, that's the point. That's the whole point of this thing—but listen to this. This is where I think it gets pretty interesting.

David took the gold shields that belong to the officers of Hadadezer and brought them to Jerusalem. From Tebah and Berothai, towns that belonged to Hadadezer, David took a great quantity of bronze, okay? When Tou, king of Hamath, heard that David had defeated the entire army of Hadadezer, he sent his son, Joram, to King David to greet him and congratulate him on his victory in battle over Hadadezer, who had been at war with Tou. And Joram brought him articles of silver and gold and bronze. — 2 Samuel 8:7-10

What's happening there in verse nine?

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Yes. Yes. But there's also a more direct meaning. It's more of like, I want him to be my friend. So here's what happens: David just crushed you, and he crushed you, and he crushed you, and he crushed you, and now your table gets smart, and you hobble over to David and be like, hey, congratulations on all those victories. Can I get you anything? Okay?

And so what he meant to see is that everybody, everybody is like, okay, alright, got it, you're in charge. And how about if we just send you some money before you hamstring all our horses? Did you get it? Okay?

You guys, we're talking about unimaginable sums of wealth. Absolute, completely insane amount of wealth. I want you to see the parallel to this. Go to First Chronicles 22.

First Chronicles 22 — 1 Chronicles 22

Oh, I thought parallel but it's a reflection on this. Chronicles recaps Samuel and in First Chronicles 22, we see this conversation that David is having with Solomon. So David doesn't get to build the temple.

Solomon's going to build the temple and David's like, hey, I want you to go build the temple because that's what Yahweh had said. But good news, I've already got all the money. I've already got all the wealth. I've already got everything you need. So, you should be fine. Get the thing done, okay?

And then he says this, and the problem with reading the Bible is we're outside of the cultural context and we don't really understand this. He says this—verse, this is 1 Chronicles 22 starting verse 14. This is David speaking to Solomon:

I have taken great pains to provide for the temple of the Lord a hundred thousand talents of gold, a million talents of silver, quantities of bronze and iron too great to be weighed, and wood and stone. And you may add to them. — 1 Chronicles 22:14

Now, here's the problem. What's the problem with reading that for us? We don't have any idea what a talent is. A hundred thousand is a big number though. So it's probably like a lot, right?

Let me have somebody look this up for me. Somebody go to Exodus 38:24. In Exodus 38:24, you're going to find out how much gold was involved in the building of the tabernacle—which was the pre-temple, okay? It's the tent version of the temple. Whoever gets there, give me how much gold in Exodus 38:24. Who's got it? How much? Twenty-nine talents. Okay, so when they built the tent, they needed 29 talents of gold. How much do they have now? A hundred thousand. That's more. That's a whole lot more.

Does anybody have a footnote of how much one talent of gold is? It's about 75 pounds. That's right. Seventy-five pounds is one talent. So what's 100,000 times 75? We have a hundred thousand, 75-pound chunks of gold. That's 7,500,000 pounds of gold. I did the math on this. Today's value of that at whatever gold is—I can't remember exactly what I calculated, but it's like $1,200 an ounce or something—it's $225,000,000,000 in gold. $225 billion in gold to build this temple. And by the way, how much silver? A million. A million? So we have 75,000,000 pounds of silver and too much bronze to count. How much is too much to count? Do you understand? The point of this is vast, vast, extreme, ridiculous, overwhelming quantities of wealth.

Now, with all that said, he had a whole slew of horses, but he doesn't keep the horses. He gets just an absolute enormous sum of money. And so what does he do with the money?

In verse 11, it says:

The king David dedicated these articles to the Lord, as he had done with the silver and gold from all the nations that he had subdued—from Edom, from Moab, the Ammonites, the Philistines, and Amalek. He also dedicated the plunder taken from Hadadezer son of Rehob, king of Zobah. — 2 Samuel 8:11

That's where the money is coming from. It's from his military victories. Is that what David does? He has $225 billion in gold and he doesn't keep any of it. He dedicates it to the Lord and he gives it to Solomon to build the temple.

David's Faithfulness with Power

This is what we're meant to see: Wow, he has all these horses under his control and he's like, no, no, no—hamstring them. Too tempting. He has all this gold and he says, give it to the Lord. Build the temple. I won't touch it. He's taking great pains to get the wealth, but he doesn't keep it for himself. He dedicates it to the Lord.

And that, you guys, is why David is great. Because throughout all of human history, the more power that we get, the more that we keep. But David just gives it.

Now, I said till chapter 11, he's going to crash and burn. We're at the point of the story where we're still hopeful—like this might be the Messiah. This could be the guy. This is amazing. This is great and he's going to crush it. He's going to break our hearts, but not yet. Not yet. That day is still coming.

And this is all that the author is trying to do here. You can piece it all together. In chapter 7, these ridiculous promises are made to David—so much that he's like, woah, woah, woah, who am I? What is my family that you would be this gracious to us? And in chapter 8, it's like, and we're off to the races. It begins to happen. Total victory. Economic and military prosperity for David. And it's going to go very, very well until the wheels fall off. But not yet.

So I want to end with this because it's something important I want to click on. Catherine was saying that David had previously said in chapter seven, "Who am I? Who am I to have this?" And it's not merely who is David, son of Jesse, but like, what is man that you are mindful of him? Who are we? Who are any of us that you would show us any kind of love, any kind of grace?

Martin Luther famously said, "If I were God and the world had treated me as it has him, I would kick the vile wretched thing to pieces, right?" And there's a Psalm. Do you guys know the Psalm that Catherine is unwittingly quoting? Psalm eight. That's it, Andy. Good. So look at this. I want you to see this. Psalm eight is that exact sentiment. Psalm eight is exactly what we're saying.

Psalms are always right in the middle of the Bible, and then go left to get down to chapter eight. Ready?

Oh Lord our God, how majestic is your name in all the earth. You've set your glory above the heavens. From the lips of children and infants, you ordained praise because of your enemies to silence the foe and the avenger. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you've set in place, and here's the line: what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings, than the angels, and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands. You put everything under his feet, all flocks and herds, the beasts of the fields, the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, and all that swim the paths of the seas. Oh, Lord, oh, Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. — Psalm 8

So this is David—I don't know who wrote it. Did David write that? Yeah, Psalm of David. So David writes it and he's reflecting on this thing: not just who am I, but who are any of us? Why would you grant rulership of the cosmos to a human being?

Now, what's interesting is the author of Hebrews is going to take this Psalm—Psalm eight—and he's going to say, "Yeah, except not really, because humans lost it. Humans don't reign over the world, don't rule over the world. Satan stole it, and everything's ruined. But one day, and a day has now come, right? One would come who would fulfill Psalm eight."

When Jesus came, he was coming because the world is to be ruled by a human being and we were all grossly unfit for the task. So God became a human being so that he might rule over the world in fulfillment of the promise from Genesis, right? That we would rule, fill the earth, subdue it, take it all. Psalm eight is like, "Yeah, that'd be great." By the book of Hebrews, like, "Yeah, that never happened and that's why Jesus had to come to be it, right?" He is the one who fulfills. He is the man, the human, the son of man, the son of Adam, who would come and reign over all things.

The State of the Church

Now, one final thing and then we're going to stop. Catherine said there's something that's happened in her mind where she has shifted from looking at the bad things that they did—now, you guys, they're all getting subdued by David. You're all evil ones—into the bad things that we did. And I think, really, we're going to talk about this at much greater length. I think that we are at a major inflection point as a culture, as a Christian culture, that we need to get our head around the fact that we have totally blown it.

Are you paying attention to Christianity in the news? Are you paying attention to the number of our heroes? Ravi Zacharias is like evangelical royalty and he blew it. The Southern Baptist Church is in just a deep mess. Every time you turn around, it's us. It is us.

When I was at Penn State, the cry at Penn State was, "We are Penn State." Until Jerry Sandusky was found to have molested children and then everybody's like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. That wasn't me. That wasn't me. That wasn't me." I'm like, well, you didn't get a touchdown either, buddy. But you thought that you were Penn State when the team was winning and now you're disavowing.

You guys, we can't disavow the darker parts of our community. We are the church, and we need to repent. We are you guys. This is all because of you, and it's not because of Samuel. But we are long overdue for a revival. We are long overdue. And if there is not a massive outpouring of the spirit of God, I just think the future is grim.

But here's how revival works. This is all for free and then you can go to church. This is how revival historically has always happened. Somebody, somewhere, some Christian begins to repent and they don't just repent like, "Those people are sinners, Lord, forgive them," but they repent and say, "We are sinners, Lord, forgive us."

And there is an outpouring, a sense of our own filth, our own dirtiness, our own need for repentance. When we begin to repent and we actually do, we pray. Go back and just do it. Look up Nehemiah chapter one. Read Nehemiah. He's like, "My house, my people, we—us—have disobeyed you."

Watch the pronouns. We have disobeyed. But you said, you said that if we disobeyed you and then we repented, you would restore us. So restore us.

If we disobeyed you and then we repented, you would restore us. — Nehemiah 1

Okay? It happens like this. Christians get some sense of like, "Oh, we're just a mess. Our house is dirty." We repent and we repent so much. The Spirit of God comes and he pours himself out on us. But he comes with such vehemence and power that it floods to all those dirty pagans. And it's not just we who are cleansed, but there's so much of an outpouring of spirit that it changes not just the church but it changes outside the church. It changes the whole culture.

But every time it has happened—and the Spirit of God is moved where there's these great movements of mass conversions to faith in Christ—historically, it always begins with the church. With Christians having a sense of their own unworthiness, crying out to him in repentance and faith, longing for him to come. And then he does. He just spills and it changes the world.

And if that doesn't happen soon, I don't know what the story is going to look like.

But so, all that to say, consider: if we need—well, we do need—but do you experience your internal sense of need to repent? If we would gather as a people to humble ourselves before his face, seek his face, acknowledge our complicitness in the brokenness in this world, that's our greatest hope. That the Spirit would come, reach us, it would flood to the world, and we would turn this train wreck around.

Good enough? Amen. Amen. Alright. All for now.