Welcome to Meridian Magazine's Come Follow Me podcast. We're Scott and Maureen Proctor

and we are delighted to be with you again this week. As we discuss, second Samuel chapters 5 through

7 and 11 through 12 and first kings, chapters 3, 8 and 11 in a lesson entitled Thy Kingdom shall

be established forever. Maureen, I'm just so amazed as we are going through the Old Testament how

applicable these lessons are to today. It just seems like every week they are right on the money

for the things that we are experiencing, the things that we're going through, the things that

we need to learn. I've just been amazed. You think that a book that's thousands of years old would

not have that kind of application but I just had to say that at the outset because I am just blown

away every week by these amazing lessons. Well and these are chapters that are enough to break your

heart. I have always loved David and I thrill to the things he writes about the Lord and his love for

the Lord. So to see the events of his life unfold have truly always been and they feel personal to

me. I feel a personal loss when we're thinking about David. So let's talk a little bit about his

background. David is anointed king when he's 30 years old in heaven and he reigns for 40 years

with the elders of Israel. This is widely considered Israel's golden time because he is able to do

what no one else has been able to do before and that is unite all the people of Israel

under one leadership. And then he makes Jerusalem to be what he calls the stronghold of Zion,

the capital of Israel. And it's a little bit like the Washington DC is it wasn't in any state.

It was a neutral place and that's how Jerusalem was. It was part way between the northern kingdom

and the southern kingdom. So it was everybody's capital. But Jerusalem didn't come easily to David.

It certainly didn't. He and his warriors had to come in and the Jebusite still have that

upper part of Mount Mariah and they're a Canaanite people. And so because Jerusalem is surrounded

by these deep valleys it really was much more prominent in those days than when we go there today.

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