The Lost Tribes of Israel

Chapter 2

 

 

David Takes the Throne!

 

 

After the death of Jacob and his twelve sons in Egypt, their children grew in some two hundred years to a population of about two million in that land. Then God raised up Moses and fitted him in special way to lead these children of Israel, out of the bondage that had come to them in Egypt. When they reached Mt. Sinai, in the peninsula wilderness, God made a covenant with them establishing them as a nation, His nation, among the kingdoms of the world. Their government was theocratic, with the civil, as well as the spiritual and religious laws, given direct from God. God himself was their king and he ruled them by a system of Judges.  

But later the Israelites demanded a man for king, even as the Gentile nations around them. And so God gave them Saul as their first human king. Saul, however, was not a good king, nor was his heart right with God. Saul was dethroned and his dynasty faded away with his son. Then God placed David, a man after his own heart, of no relationship to Saul, upon the throne of Israel. Because of his obedience and sincerity and honesty of heart, David, like Abraham, received a most astonishing unconditional promise from God, as little known as the birthright promised to Abraham. This promise of God became known as The Davidic Covenant.

Like the covenant with Abraham, God made the Davidic Covenant unconditional and unbreakable. David wanted to build a great Temple, as God's house in Jerusalem but God told him in 11 Samuel 7:12, 

"When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever."

 

This, of course, was his son Solomon, who succeeded David to the throne. God said of Solomon in 11 Samuel 7:13, 

"He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever." 

It is important to note here that the throne of David, occupied by Solomon, was to be established forever! If that throne ever ceased to exist, then God's promise has failed! But some say the promise was conditioned upon the obedience of Solomon and the future line of kings or their people.

However, God said in verses 14 and 15, 

"I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men. But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.'" 

Saul's dynasty ceased because of his disobedience but God promises David that He will never take away his throne. David's dynasty shall never cease! Not only was that throne established forever, it was to exist continuously, forever, through all generations! Psalms 89:3-4 says, 

"You said, "I have made a covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to David my servant, 'I will establish your line forever and make your throne firm through all generations.'"

 

That throne was to stand forever as attested in verses 28-37,

 

"Once for all, I have sworn by my holiness and I will not lie to David that his line will continue forever and his throne endure before me like the sun; it will be established forever like the moon, the faithful witness in the sky."

 

Jeremiah 33:17 (KJV) says, 

"For thus saith the Lord; David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of the House of Israel"  

What I want to share with you now is very important. So far as is Biblicaly and historically known, the last king of David's dynasty to sit upon that throne was King Zedekiah of Judah. He was killed along with all his sons, and many nobles of Judah. There is no historical record of any continuance of the throne of Judah from that year.

 

Did David want for a man to sit upon his throne, and continue his dynasty, from that day on? Some say Christ took over the throne. But he didn't. Instead he was crucified, resurrected, and ascended to heaven. He shall come, and soon, to sit upon that throne as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Even if Jesus had taken over the throne, the throne was vacant from the time of Zedekiah to the time of Jesus. The question then must be asked, "How can Jesus Christ, when he returns again to earth, take over and sit upon a throne that long ago ceased to exist?

If the throne of David ceased with Zedekiah, then it does not exist today. And if it does not exist, how shall Christ sit upon a nonexistent throne? In Luke 1:31-32 the Bible says, 

"You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. 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."

 

Since the throne of David was to continue through all generations, how about those many generations between Zedekiah and the birth of Jesus? God said in Jerimiah 33, 19-21, 

"This is what the LORD says: 'If you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night, so that day and night no longer come at their appointed time, then my covenant with David my servant, and my covenant with the Levites who are priests ministering before me, can be broken and David will no longer have a descendant to reign on his throne."

 

How many of you realize that day and night still continues. Well, then, does David's throne? But what do the people say? Unless you can stop this old earth from turning on its axis, unless you can remove the sun and the moon and the stars from heaven, says the Almighty, you cannot prevent him from keeping his covenant to maintain continuously through all generations, forever, from the time of David and Solomon, a descendant of David in one continuous dynasty on that throne! Not necessarily ruling over all the House of Israel or of the Jews, but at least some of them, enough to form a nation. Remember again, the sceptre promise, which includes this line of kings until it culminates in Christ at his Second Coming. Jacob said in Gen. 49:10,  

"The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh [Christ] comes; and to him shall be the obedience of the people" 

Has the Scepter departed from Judah? Has the throne ceased? Or does it, as God so bindingly promised, exist today, so that Christ can take over and sit upon a living, going, continuous throne when he comes?