God's Housing Crisis

By: Stan Mast

Scripture Reading: 2 Samuel 7

May 17th, 2009

Are you tired of hearing about the housing crisis in North America? If you live outside North America I’m sure you are, especially if you live in a place where the housing crisis is much more severe. If you live in a one room corrugated tin shack, or if your house was wiped out by a flood last year, or if you have literally been homeless for a long time, you may wonder what all the fuss is about in the United States and Canada. So you’re tired of hearing about the housing crisis in wealthy North America. Well so am I, but I’m right here in the middle of it, in Michigan. The housing crisis is still very much with us, and some experts think it will linger for a long time, if not get worse. Depending on which expert you read, there are over 1 million homes in foreclosure in the United States alone, which is about one percent of all the homes in the country and it is growing all the time. Some have estimated that by the end of this crisis nearly 3 million homes will be either in foreclosure, turned back to the lender, or sold for less than the value of the mortgage. The economic effects of this housing crisis are enormous: banks and mortgage companies in deep trouble, home builders going out of business, real estate companies scrambling to sell homes at deeply discounted prices, home supply retail businesses struggling, the entire economy of the United States in recession and the economy of the world sinking along with it. Those are all just headlines until the crisis hits you or someone you know and love. I know a successful businessman whose business was destroyed by the negative economic forces that ravaged Michigan long before the rest of the country fell into this recession. His income has dropped and he has to sell his home. But he simply cannot sell his lovely home at any price. Perhaps you know a young couple who want to buy a home in this buyer’s market, but they can’t get a loan because of a credit market still frozen in spite of billions given to banks. I know a single woman who finally bought her own place only to discover that it is riddled with problems, but she can’t get rid of it in this market without taking a terrific hit. Perhaps you are a retired couple on a fixed income who has seen your nest egg decimated by the stock market collapse. You can’t afford your home anymore, but it has declined in value so much that you cannot afford to sell it either. Combine the national and personal stories and you can understand why some say that this is the worst housing crisis since the Great Depression. It is the worst of times, as Charles Dickens famously wrote at the beginning of his Tale of Two Cities. For King David in our text, it was the best of times. Indeed, things couldn’t have been better for him. After years of bitter and bloody warfare, his power was finally consolidated and he had rest from all his enemies. To top it all off, he had just completed a magnificent palace built of the finest materials of his day, the aromatic wood of the cedars of Lebanon. It was the best of times for him, but, as a man after God’s own heart, he was troubled by God’s housing crisis. The king of Israel lived in a palace, while the King of the Universe was homeless. Well, not exactly homeless. It’s just that God didn’t have a lovely solid house like his human servant did. God lived in an old tent, the tabernacle that had been built hundreds of years ago in the days of Israel’s wilderness wandering under Moses. It had been that way for a long time, but David had suddenly become aware of it and bothered by it. David’s new found awareness of God’s housing crisis was born of an event so happy that it made the great king dance in the streets of Jerusalem. The Ark of the Covenant had come back to Jerusalem after having been captured by the Philistines and kept in Philistine territory for too long a time. The ark was the physical symbol of God’s presence, so getting it back was like getting God back. No wonder this man after God’s own heart danced for joy before all his subjects. But now that the celebration is over, David sits in his beautiful cedar palace as the ark sits in its tent, and David is struck by the inequity of it all. And suddenly David decides he is going to do something about God’s housing crisis. The court chaplain, Nathan the prophet, exclaims, "Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the Lord is with you." In these messages on listening to God, I’ve often talked about people who think God has spoken to them, when in fact he hasn’t. Nathan is a perfect example of a man speaking for God when God had not spoken to him. The Lord was obviously with David, but the Lord didn’t want David building him a house. The very night David announced his intentions and Nathan agreed, the Lord spoke directly to Nathan. "Go and tell David, ‘Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in. I haven’t had a house for hundreds of years now. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling. Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to the rulers, ‘Why have you not built me a house of cedar?’" That’s pretty clear, isn’t it? Forget my housing crisis. I don’t have one. But the word of the Lord was about much more than David not building a house for God. It was about God building a house for David—not a house made of wood (he already had that), but a house made of David’s descendants. As a build up to the big announcement, God assures David that he will consolidate the gains made under David’s leadership. I will make your name great in the earth. I will provide my people a place on this earth. Indeed, God even uses that word "home" in verse 10. "I will provide a place for my people Israel and I will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed." So God at last fulfilled the promises given to Abraham and Moses, and he anticipated those lovely words of Jesus about heaven in John 14. Remember? "In my Father’s house are many rooms. I am going there to prepare a place for you." And then God makes the big promise, the central promise of the Old Testament, the great promise on which the rest of Israel’s history, the salvation of the world, and the solution to our housing crisis depends, the earth shaking, history making, eternity shaping promise that God would build a house for David. "The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you," says God. "When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up our offspring to succeed, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom." Wonderful, a successor. David’s son will sit on David’s throne. Something every father wants to hear; your son will be great in your place. Indeed, says God, he will build this house for me that you want to build. A father’s dream come true; your son will be even greater than you. But this promise is much greater than that. God says, "I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. Not only will you be his father and he your son, but I will be his father and he will be my son…. And even though I will punish him if he sins, my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever." Incredible! There will never be a housing crisis for the people of God because God has established the house of David forever. No matter what happens in this world, the Son of David will rule over God’s people, because the God who inhabits the entire universe is his eternal Father. No wonder David goes into God’s tent and falls on his knees and thanks God for this magnificent Word of God. It’s a good thing he couldn’t see what would happen to his house in the next thousand years. Not long after his son’s death, David’s kingdom divided and began a long torturous decline that ultimately led to the complete collapse of Israel and the house of David. The Land of Promise was not just bothered by a few minor enemies buzzing around their borders like a swarm of mosquitoes. It was completely crushed by the superpowers of Assyria and Babylon. God’s people didn’t just see a slow decline in the church’s membership and faith; they saw Solomon’s beautiful temple reduced to a pile of rubble. They didn’t just witness their great nation divided and desperate; they saw it destroyed and dispersed to the far corners of the Babylonian empire. They didn’t just live through one ineffective administration after another; they saw the end of the house of David. There was no king on David’s throne, because that throne did not exist. Even when Israel came back from the exile, there was no Son of David on the throne. The house of David lay in ruins. And that terrible housing crisis would last not for a year or two or ten, but for centuries. For hundreds of years Israel was dominated by one foreign king after another, including the mighty Roman Emperor, the great Caesars who ruled the world. During that centuries—long housing crisis, it was mighty hard for the people of God to believe the ancient promise God made to David. It was the worst of times for the house of David. Until, in the days of Caesar Augustus, when a tin pot tyrant named Herod ruled the Land of Promise, a young virgin heard the voice of God from the lips of an angel. "You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name, Yahweh Saves. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end." Nine months later a baby was born into the house of David, and the angel announced to certain bunch of shepherds, "I bring you good news of great joy, for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord." Could this be the Son of David about whom God was speaking when he made that promise to David a thousand years before? Is this the King whose kingdom will never end? He didn’t look very royal lying there in the manger, or fleeing from Herod into Egypt, or living as a humble carpenter in Nazareth, or trudging through the Judean dust as a lowly teacher, or hanging on a Roman cross as a condemned criminal. Oh, occasionally someone saw him as the King he was. Blind men cried out, "Have mercy on us, Son of David." Jubilant crowds waved their palm branches and shouted, "Hosanna to the Son of David." But in the end, they mocked him, "Hail, king of the Jews!" And as the final insult, those very words were posted over his head as he died on the cross. The housing crisis continued for God’s people, as it became painfully clear that Jesus was not the promised King. But then, he rose from the dead and proclaimed his kingship not just over Israel, but over the whole universe. "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations." Ephesians 1:20—23 summarize his kingship in these soaring words. The power of God "raised him from the dead and seated him at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church…." God kept his promise to David in a greater way than he could ever have imagined. Jesus Christ sits on the throne of David and his kingdom will last forever. He is far above all market forces, far above every government, far above all multinational companies and secret councils, far above all armies and weapons and computer programs, far above all presidents and prime ministers and premiers, far above all dictators and demagogues and demonic forces. Jesus is king over not only that little piece of land where he was born, but over everything, for the church, for those who follow him as King. God does not have a housing crisis. The house of the Son of David is unshakeable. It will never be foreclosed, sold, devalued, lost, or driven out of business. That is so important for us to remember in the current housing crisis in our world and in our lives. Great market forces can flip our lives upside down. Elected leaders seem helpless to solve our national problems. Bailout packages and relief bills don’t seem to work. Natural forces wreck our homes no matter how solidly we build them. Long term poverty destroys even the dream of our own home. We feel like pawns in a chess game played by demons. It was that way for David and it has always been that way everywhere. In my short life time as a citizen of the united states, I can think of at least a dozen times of crisis when it seemed that there was no solution to the mess we were in—I think back to the Korean war, the Vietnam war, the Cuban missile crisis, the Cold War, Watergate, the Iran hostage crisis, 9/11, 6 deep recessions, the death of God controversy, the infamous Jesus seminar, the evolution debate, and those are just the crisis in my own little part of the world. Living where you do, you can probably recall countless episodes of desperation in your own life. I’ve seen the rise and fall of many a house, when it seemed that the country was going down in flames and the church was about to die and our individual lives were hopeless. But God promised that the house of David would stand secure forever. And in Jesus Christ, it ever shall. He is the head over all things for the church, for you and for me. So even as we do our best to buy or sell our houses, make a living and manage our finances, and deal with the various inevitable crises of our lives, let us bow before Christ the King with the kind of thankful trust that David expressed in the beautiful prayer he offered right after he heard God speak. You’ll find it in II Samuel 7:18—29. "Who am I, O Sovereign Lord," David begins. "Who am I and what is my family that you brought me this far. Who am I that you have done so much for me? How great you are, O Sovereign Lord, because you have made me your very own. O Lord, you have spoken to my heart. Now keep your promise." If you have heard God speak to you in this promise God gave to David so long ago and if you believe that Jesus is in fact the great King whose house shall never fall, then you can take great comfort in the words of King David’s most famous poem, a poem that may have been written at this very time in his life. "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

About the Author

Stan Mast

Stan Mast has been the Minister of Preaching at the LaGrave Avenue Christian Reformed Church in downtown Grand Rapids, MI for the last 18 years. He graduated from Calvin Theological Seminary in 1971 and has served four churches in the West and Midwest regions of the United States. He also served a 3 year stint as Coordinator of Field Education at Calvin Seminary. He has earned a BA degree from Calvin College and a Bachelor of Divinity and a Master of Theology from Calvin and a Doctor of Ministry from Denver Seminary. He is happily married to Sharon, a special education teacher, and they have two sons and four grandchildren. Stan is a voracious reader and works out regularly. He also calls himself a car nut and an “avid, but average” golfer.

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