[Safe & Secure, 2012, JAVanDevender]
(2Sa 23:3-5 NKJ) " 3 The God of Israel said, The Rock of Israel spoke to me:`He who rules over men must be just, Ruling in the fear of God. 4 And he shall be like the light of the morning when the sun rises, A morning without clouds, Like the tender grass springing out of the earth, By clear shining after rain.' 5 "Although my house is not so with God, Yet He has made with me an everlasting covenant, Ordered in all things and secure. For this is all my salvation and all my desire; Will He not make it increase?"
I couldn't resist shooting the stuffed animal arrangement. The little cub was so nearly life like in its quizzical expression that you could easily imagine a real one gazing out at the world from the safe and secure haven of his mother's breast. Not a bad place to be.
Now - think about David's last words as they are recorded above and see him, the "lion cub" of Judah if you will, in a similar position. There he lay, safe and secure in the "order" of all things, confident in his relationship with God, knowing that his time had come, but able to survey his life and his future with settled soul and clear vision, able to not only accept but embrace God's providential watch over him and his life.
It is an amazing statement that he makes. David sees that "his house" is not in the same place that he is. He sees that the sin of his own life, the sin of his sons, the sin of his heir Solomon, the sin of... signified lives more in opposition to God than in accord with Him. To be in positions of responsibility, to rule over them, brings incredible responsibility. To whatever degree God gives us ministry, what ever it may be, we are to rule justly in it and to possess and demonstrate a healthy "fear of God" before the eyes of men. It's all about witness.
But sin is never far from us. Often times, in retrospect it stands out in such stark relief that we cannot bring ourselves to hope that any good that we accomplished would even register on the scale in comparison to that which we have hopelessly and pridefully mangled. Certainly David had such sins in his life. But now, in the fullest finite understanding of God's grace he rests in God's covenant promise, His everlasting covenant. Even knowing that he was breathing his very lasts breath, knowing that he would have no more opportunities in this life to rectify past wrongs, knowing that so often he had failed in this, that or the other, yet, in the final analysis, it was not up to him, it was up to God to bring about good out of the mess he had made... to bring order out of the chaos of his life even as God had brought order out of chaos at the dawn of creation. His confident survey is grounded in the strong watch that His father was keeping over him. Like the cub, gazing quizically out at the world, David could simply look forward to the future with wondering eyes, trusting not only his eternal soul but the "house" that he had established to His ever watchful God.
In the course of time, another David came, although this time apart from sin. He too supremely trusted His God and Father... He too gazed with a certain sure security at the life He had been given to live and the death He had been predestined to die and He learned obedience and did the work He had been given to do. And now, this true Lion of Judah, this incredible King of all Creation ("Jungle") stands watch over us. We are in His presence and under His guidance and though we may have more than a bit of resemblance to the first King David in what we can say about our life, both in its future and in its past, yet we can, with security trust in His providential ordering of all things, such that not even our sin can defeat His purpose to bring forth good from what we have done.
Famous last words indeed... King David's - "He has made with me an everlasting covenant" - and our Great King's - "It is finished." This is where we find our secure vantage point also.
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