The

The Promen The promises God made to his people in the Old Testament still hold true, and today

on Truth for Life, Alistair beg traces the line from then to now, as we shift our focus

from David's kingdom to a higher throne. We're looking at 2 Samuel

Chapter 7. We begin today in verse 8.

The relationship between the Lord and His people Israel was the relationship of Father and Son.

Now, just so that you don't think I'm making it up, then in Exodus and in four, when the word is given to go to Pharaoh,

and the Lord said to Moses, when you go back to Egypt,

see that you do before Pharaoh, all the miracles I've put in your power, and so on, then you will

say to Pharaoh, thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son. Israel is my firstborn son.

So the descendants of Abraham are his firstborn son, and you must go to

him and tell Pharaoh that the relationship that I have with them is a father-son relationship.

I have chosen them. They belong to me, and they know that they are to love me, and that they are to obey me.

That is the covenant that he established with them, initiated by God and promised by God.

And so they belong to God, and in belonging to God, then obedience and love for God is to be the evidence that they are actually members of the family, that they are offspring.

Now, then, what is the point? Well, it is at least this, that just as Israel was God's son, so now the offspring of

David is described in the same way. Now, at least we need to understand this, that God's

great promises to Abraham concerning Israel are now being applied to the king of Israel

descended from David. All right? So the descendants of David as the great king, God's people,

will be God's sons because their king is God's son.

Now, I'm not any word good enough to have picked this up, but I am phenomenally grateful to our dear friend, John Woodhouse. If your Bible is open, you turn back a page to 2 Samuel and

Chapter 5 and verse 1. And Woodhouse makes this profound observation in relationship to that,

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