Galen Call's Sermon Library
"When God Says No - Part 2" - March 24, 1985 (PM Service)
2 Samuel, chapter 7, David was a man with a great heart for God. He desired to build a house for the Lord. He dwelt in a house of cedar and God dwelt in a tent. However, God said no to David's desire. God said it in a loving, compassionate, and even an appreciative tone. But nonetheless, God said no to his heart's desires. God ever said no to you? Has God ever said no to you regarding something that you wanted to do for Him? It's disappointing. It's something you have your heart set on. It's a vision that you have. It's a calling that you sense. It's a project that you envision. And God just shuts the door. When God shut the door on David, He did it with wonderful promises. God promised Him a seed, a descendant, verse 12, who would come after Him. God says, "I will establish His kingdom. He shall build a house for My name." Of course, the direct fulfillment of that is Solomon, David's son, who was the one responsible for the actual construction of the temple. David gathered the materials together before he died, it was Solomon who constructed it, and he was that fulfillment of that promise. However, the greater fulfillment of this descendant, this seed, is the one who is greater than Solomon, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ, the son of David. God also promised David a kingdom, an everlasting kingdom, one that would be established forever, verse 13. And then again in verse 16, "Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever, your throne shall be established forever." And so God is underscores forever, forever, forever, I will give you a kingdom and a throne. That could not have been fulfilled only in the historical kingdom of Israel. There has to be something future here because God said, forever, and God is faithful to His promises. And so the kingdom that is really in view is beyond that of ancient Judah, but it is that future kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, embracing both the earthly kingdom, the thousand year reign of Christ, the millennium, as well as the eternal kingdom of the Savior. And David will be, of course, resurrected from the dead along with all of the Old Testament saints, and there are Bible scholars who believe that in his resurrection, David will share in his reign with his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. So God said no to David, but He gave him some very wonderful promises when He said no. God's promises to David far surpassed the scope of anything that David could have hoped for or asked for. We need to keep in mind that when God does shut the door, when God says no, it's because He has something greater in mind than we could envision at that point. The Apostle Paul says about the Lord is still true today. He is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we could ask or think. Now when God says no, when that initial disappointment hits the heart, how is it that we should respond? When we've prayed for healing and no healing comes, when we've prayed for that job interview and it doesn't come through, when the college closes its admissions before we have an opportunity to be accepted, when we have a need and the money doesn't come through like we expected that it would, how do we respond when God chooses to say no in our circumstances? We can learn a lesson from that by watching what David did. David did not mourn. He did not pout. He did not complain. He did not become angry at God, but rather he humbly and gratefully accepted what God said. David's response to God's no was twofold. In the first place, there was praise for God's person. We begin reading about this in verse 18. And the lesson that we see in watching David here and listening to his words in prayer is that in our deepest disappointments, when God has said no, we must remember in that moment to praise the Lord, praises that which gives us victory, it is that which even lifts our hearts, God inhabits the praises of his people. So in that moment when God has said no and disappointment begins to flood us, we need at that moment to praise the Lord. Notice that King David went in and sat before the Lord. That does not necessarily mean that he sat in a chair. This was a customary way for an oriental to worship and it pictures his kneeling actually and then sitting back on his heels before the Lord. And this is what he said, notice how he praises the Lord for who he is. He says, who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house that thou hast brought me this far? And yet this was insignificant in thine eyes, O Lord God, for thou hast spoken also of the house of thy servant concerning the distant future. And this is the custom of man, O Lord God. The first thing he does is to praise the Lord for his unlimited grace. He says, Lord, whom I, and what is my house that you have even brought me this far? Remember that David was the least of his family, the one that was least suspected when Samuel knocked on the door and said, Jesse, one of your sons will be anointed to be the next king. They left David out in the field. He was the red-headed runt in the family. He was the youngest, he was the baby of the family, but he was God's choice by grace. And David says, who am I, and what is my house that you have brought me this far? But more than that, what you've done in the past, Lord, isn't even compared to what you're going to do in the future. You've spoken about the distant future, and David's talking here now after he's dead. He's saying, Lord, you've given me promises that go beyond my brief lifetime. He praises God for his grace, revealed in his eternal plan. Now, who of us cannot testify of the same thing as we sit here tonight? Whatever our circumstances may be, maybe you are right in the very heart of a disappointment. Can you not honestly look at the grace of God in your life, and see where God has brought you from? Maybe you feel low tonight, but were you not Lord before he found you? Took you out of the mari clay and set you up on a solid rock. And think of where you would be tonight. Had your life taken its natural, sinful course? Think where you would be, apart from the grace of God. Can you not this evening, however low you may feel because of disappointment? Praise God because of the grace that he has manifested, and not only that. But think of what God has promised to you in the future. For the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to even be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us in the future through Jesus Christ. I has not seen, ear has not heard, neither has entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love him. My friend, God has a marvelous plan and destiny for you as his child that is all based upon his grace. His grace is unlimited by time, it is unlimited in its quantity, and its vast in its quality. He has saving grace, he has strengthening grace, he has dying grace, he has serving grace. God has any kind of grace you need, he has all you need, and it is always good. God's grace never gets stale, it's never outdated. God's grace is always fresh, always vital, and brimming with potential for you. We can praise God for his unlimited grace even in the time of bitterest disappointment. Then in verses 20 and 21, David praises God for his unutterable love. He says, "And again, what more can David say to thee? For thou knowest, thy servant, O Lord God. For the sake of thy word and according to thine own heart, thou hast done all this greatness to let thy servant know." David seems here almost to be at a loss for words. He says, "Lord, you know me." And of course, God did know David just as he knows each one of us. God knew that David wasn't a perfect man, God knew that better than David himself did. And yet God saw David as a man after his own heart that has already been God's estimation of this man. You say, "Well, God didn't know what was going to come, the sins of David's later years." Yes, God knew all of that, friends. God knew the end from the beginning of David's life. Isn't the marvelous thing that God chooses not to dwell upon the points of failure in our lives, but he forgives and cleanses those, and that God chooses rather to look at the bent, the tenor of the whole thing. That's the way it was with David. God forgave the iniquity of his sins when he fell, just as he does for you and me. And as God looked at the bent of his life, as God looked at the whole of it, God said, "Now here is a man after my own heart." I would pray tonight that that would be God's estimation of each of us. David says, "Lord, you know me." And he says, "For the sake of thy word and according to thine heart, thou hast done all of this greatness." My friend so it is that God has done things for us. It is according to the love of his heart for us. I'm reminded of Paul's words and Ephesians, the second chapter, as he expresses what we are in Jesus Christ. He says this, "But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. In order that in the ages to come, he might show the surpassing riches of his grace in his kindness tortoise in Christ Jesus, and all that flows out of his love for you and for me. It is the love that is unconditional. It is the love that knows no boundary, it knows no end. The songwriter has put it this way. If we with ink the ocean fill, or were the skies of parchment made, were every stalk on earth a quill or every man ascribed by trade, to write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry, nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky." Well, that was David's thought as he thanks God for the unutterable love. He was just at a loss for words to express his gratitude to God for the love which he was manifesting to him. And then he praises God in verse 22 for his unparalleled greatness. There is none like God. He says, "For this reason thou art great, O Lord God. There is none like thee, and there is no God besides thee, according to all that we have heard with our ears." He's not saying there, we haven't heard everything yet. Primarily, the revelation of God was passed down verbally at this point, from the fathers to the sons to their sons' sons, written copies of the Old Testament's revelation were not common. And so David is saying, "Everything that I have heard about you, Lord, all of the revelation that you have revealed tells me how great you are. There is none like you. There is no God besides you." Psalm 8610 says, "For thou art great, and doest wondrous things, thou art God alone." If only men could realize the greatness of God. I tell you, if we could get just a little vision of how great God is, it would change the way we live. But think what it would do in our skeptical, blasphemous, irreverent generation. Think what it would do to the carelessness about spiritual things in our society. If only a little bit of this unparalleled greatness of God could be grasped. There is no God besides our God. There is none like him, he is great, he is great. David praises him for his greatness. We sing that wonderful hymn of a familiar one and beloved by us all, "How great thou art." I'm sure that if David could hear that today, he would regret he didn't write those words because he was so overwhelmed with the greatness of the Lord. And then finally in verses 23 and 24 he praises God for his unfailing faithfulness. He says, "And what one nation on the earth is like thy people Israel, whom God went to redeem for himself as a people, and to make a name for himself, and to do a great thing for thee, and awesome things for thy land, before thy people whom thou hast redeemed for thyself from Egypt, from nations and their gods. For thou hast established for thyself thy people Israel, as thine own people forever, and thou, O Lord, hast become their God." Finally he praises God for his faithfulness. Just in Israel's history he reminds himself and the Lord as if God needed to be reminded of the history of the nation. He says, "You delivered your people from idolatry and from their wonderings. You redeemed them from Egypt. You kept them from the nations, and brought them into the land." Why? Because Israel was so faithful and obeyed God all of those years, no, no. Because of his unfaithfulness that's why. Israel is his people, and my friend Israel is still his people today. Now granted they are set aside from God's direct dealings at this particular point in this age. Because of their unfaithfulness they have been judged as a nation, yet God is pleased to call some Jews in Jesus Christ to be a part of the church. But it does say that Israel is his people here forever. God has not permanently set aside his people. There is a time yet coming when God will take a hold of that nation of Israel, and he will make them great upon the earth again. And he will make himself a name through his people and prove his faithfulness to all the nations of the earth through the nation of Israel. And by way of application, let's remember that today God is making himself a name. Think of this through you and me. What God is about is calling out a people for himself to make himself a name in the earth. What does that mean to make himself a name? Well, his name is his nature, it is who he is. In other words, God is desiring to advance his reputation. God is desirous of expressing the knowledge of himself through you and through me, even with our failures, and there are many, aren't they? You say, "How can God ever do this? I am such a failure I feel like in my Christian walk." Listen, God will do it because of his faithfulness, not because of your faithfulness or mind. God is very short, it seems, but God's is eternal, it's unfailing. And David recognized that. David knew that the people of Israel had failed God miserably time and time again, but he praises God for his unfailing faithfulness which had been expressed to the nation. So when you and I are disappointed, when God has said no, how do we handle that? We handle it by doing what David did, by remembering to praise the Lord. Now, there's a second response that David gave, and that is a response of prayer, verses 25 to 29, and from this we see this lesson. Not only do we praise the Lord in our disappointments, but in those disappointments when God has said no, you and I can claim God's promises in prayer. When God has said no, we can still claim the promises of the Lord. David prays in verse 25, and what it boils down to is this, he says, "Lord fulfill your Word." Look at what he says, "Now therefore, O Lord God, the Word that thou hast spoken concerning thy servant and his house, confirm it forever, and do is thou hast spoken." Basically what 25, verse 25 is, is a signature. God is here establishing a covenant with David. God has laid out the covenant. David's first response was to praise the Lord. Now verse 25 is a verbal signature where he says, "David accepts." He says, "Lord confirm it, and do as you have spoken." Basically he says, "Lord, I trust these promises." You and I never do wrong to do that. Our prayers are always right if we begin at the promises of God. Dr. Albert Barnes said, "The promises of God are the true guide to the prayer of his people. We may dare to ask anything how greatsoever it may be which God has promised to give." God is searching throughout the earth for that man and woman who will say, "Lord, in my life, fulfill your Word." So step of faith to do that when God has just said no, when God has shut the door, when God has given us that disappointment, but we say to him, "Lord, fulfill your Word. I claim this promise." God seeks those who would dare to believe him and claim them. And notice in verse 26 that secondly David prays in essence, "Magnify your name." He says, "That thy name may be magnified forever." By saying, "The Lord of hosts is God over Israel." And may the house of thy servant David be established before thee. David is saying, "Lord, fulfill your Word, your promises resulting in your name big magnified." God magnify your reputation. God he says, "Cause your testimony to be brought near to people." That's what magnification does, isn't it? You look into a microscope and it makes that little speck seem big. I can remember the first time I looked into a microscope. I must have been about ten years of age and a man who lived next to where my cousin lived invited us over into a little something on the back of his house. I can't even describe what it was. It was almost like a little greenhouse kind of thing. He went down to the creek that flowed behind the house and got a little bit of water and brought it up, made a slide of that and stuck it under the microscope. And I remember how amazed I was at all of those things crawling around in that water, which you could not see with a naked eye but magnified there they were. My friend, that's what God wants to do through us. David here says, "Lord, make yourself close to people. May they see the reality of you in the way that you fulfill your promises in my life." That's what God wants to do. God seems so distant to some people you work with. Some of those people you study with at school don't even believe in God. What God wants to do is to magnify himself, to make himself appear big and close near to those around you, and David says, "In the midst of his own disappointment, Lord, fulfill your promises to me and magnify yourself." Psalm 72 verses 18 and 19 says, "Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things, and blessed be his glorious name forever, and let the whole earth be filled with his glory, amen and amen." Psalm 115 verse 1, "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy and for thy truth's sake." We just need to be a little more concerned perhaps that it's God's name who gets the glory instead of our own, as he who is magnified and not we. Finally in verses 27 and 29, "David responds by praying this, 'Lord, bless my house. For thou, O Lord, of hosts, the God of Israel, hast made a revelation to thy servant, sing, I will build you a house.'" Remember David said, "Lord, I want to build you a house." God said, "No, David, you can't, you're a man of war, but I'll build you a house." And what God meant was a dynasty, "Therefore thy servant has found courage to pray this prayer to thee, and now O Lord God, thou art God, and thy words are truth, and thou has promised this good thing to thy servant, now therefore, may it please thee to bless the house of thy servant, that it may continue forever before thee. For thou, O Lord God, hast spoken, and with thy blessing, may the house of thy servant be blessed forever." David here is suggesting his own personal commitment to the will of God. He's saying in essence this, "Lord, if that's the way you feel, if that's what you want, then that's fine with me. That's great." Then David prays for his descendants to enjoy those promises that God had given to him. He prayed for his family. What a good thing for parents to do. Pray for their family that they may enjoy the promises of God, know the blessings of God. I tell you, I wonder if there are any more powerful forces in the life of a child in the prayer of Mom and Dad. David says, "Lord, bless my house," I surrender to what you say gladly. How have you responded to God's nose in the past? It may be that right now God has said yes to you, and you're riding high, you're charging on, the victory is yours, you're on the mountaintop. Well, let me guarantee you one thing, there is going to come a day when God's going to say no to you again. God has a way of doing that, not because He doesn't love you, He loved David too. Not because He doesn't appreciate your vision even for him or the project you want to accomplish. He does. Not because He feels that you're worthless and washed up, no. God has a purpose for you, but when God says no, remember He has something better in store, and therefore you can respond by praising Him for who He is and you can respond by claiming His promises, surrendering to Him. Praise God and thank Him for His unlimited grace, His unutterable love, His unparalleled greatness, His unfailing faithfulness, and ask Him to fulfill His will in your life. Ask Him to magnify Himself through you, and then commit yourself to whatever God has said. And if you do that, you like David will be a man after God's own hearts. Lord, make us that kind of people. I say this, and I think I mean it, and I trust others here will join me in it in saying, Lord, do what you need to do in us to make us that kind of people. Make us people after your heart. Thank you for graciously and mercifully, for giving our sins, and likewise in your grace and mercy judging our lives on the whole of it in our walk with you. And Lord, when your ways seem mysterious, when we don't quite understand all that you are doing in our lives, in those times when we face disappointment because of a door that you have shut, I pray that we will be able to respond as David did. In Jesus' name, amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]