2 Samuel 7:7

"Go and tell my servant David, Thus says Jehovah, Shall you build Me a house for Me to dwell in?" … Many a building of our own proposing and making God never asked of us. We ought not to run ahead of Him. Faith waits on God, instead of anticipating Him in self-confidence, or in the desires of our own heart, however simple those desires may be.

Had He ever suggested to any one of all the leaders of Israel that they should build Him a permanent house (v.7)? If God had expressed Himself in this way, then certainly David would have been right to do it. But he had no word from God on which to act.

The Lord would not allow another sun to rise without correcting the mistake of His servant. He sets before him His own past dealings with Israel and with David himself. He reminds David that He had never sought a house or a rest for Himself. Instead He wandered up and down with His people in all their wanderings, and He was afflicted in all their afflictions.

He had "gone from tent to tent, and from one tabernacle to another" since the time He brought up Israel. He had never asked any of the judges, "Why have you not built Me a house of cedars?" Despite all the waywardness of Israel, God had been with them. He was content to share their wanderings and to dwell in moving tabernacles.

Why? Because God still did not feel He had found His final rest. He continued to work. He sacrificed His own rest in favour of His people's rest and His king's rest. He was still working on their behalf, to establish them in the mountain of His inheritance, to plant them… He took the place of a worker for this poor people. He set aside His own interests entirely, so to speak, so that He might establish His people in a final rest that nothing will ever disturb.

We see once more how a man's heart may be right with God, and his thoughts wrong… Here too the Lord shows David that his thoughts are wrong, despite all the piety in them. The proof is conclusive: David had not formed those thoughts on any earlier sign of His will. Can a man think for God? Can we anticipate His mind? It is impossible; all that the most fervent spirit can rightly do is reverently to follow it.

Since redemption to this day He had walked in a tent and in a tabernacle, and had never spoken a word to anyone, saying, Why do you not build Me a house of cedars? God keeps this for His Son, the Man of peace. It will happen when the sharp sword coming out of His mouth has struck the nations in revolt, and when the Man whose name is the Branch grows up out of His place and builds the temple of Jehovah.