God's Enduring Covenant With David

Well, last week we covered the amazing predictions that we find recorded in Genesis 12 of God promising to Abraham. Some things that, in many ways, are just remarkable. As you see, that he was promised national and material blessings, and we saw that last week as we went through many of the scriptures that deal with God passing that blessing on to Isaac and Jacob, and to Joseph, and to Joseph's sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, and how that Ephraim can be identified as Great Britain today, the British Commonwealth, and of course, Manasseh is this country here in the United States.

The greatest nation and the great Commonwealth of nations, the greatest that the world has ever seen. But God's promises to Abraham dealt with those material blessings, and it also, he had a statement there about spiritual blessings where all the nations of the world will be blessed through the one seed of Abraham, who would be Jesus Christ. And of course, everyone eventually is going to come to know God through God drawing them and coming to know Jesus Christ, and then receiving the benefits and the blessings of that.

Now, to follow up on what I covered last week, and again I hope that that was clear. It is something that we have taught in the Church of God for decades. It is clearly something that you look back over 40 and 50 years and you see the amazing blessing that God had poured out upon these great countries. And today, we find some of that waning, we find some of that declining, and not nearly, even though in this country, of course, we have many who talk about wanting to be great again, and of course, some confused about whether or not we were great.

And yet, you find the problems that we have in this country as far as our relationship to God, in essence, just kind of shoot us in the foot. We continue to bring penalties upon ourselves and that doesn't bode well for the future. But here in 1 Chronicles 5, I want to focus on just a couple of verses. 1 Chronicles 5, that talk about the sons of Jacob, the sons of Israel, Joseph, and Judah. See, those two names should stand out when we think of the national blessings and when we think of the leadership blessings that God would extend through Judah.

He says in 1 Chronicles 5, verse 1, the sons of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel. And so here it's kind of going through in this chronicle, it's going through a genealogy. There are numerous chapters that are dealing with different ones of the sons. But it says the sons of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel, and then it goes into a parenthesis saying that Reuben, he was the firstborn, but because he defiled his father's bed, his birthright was given to whom?

It was given to the sons of Joseph. And those sons were Ephraim and Manasseh, as we covered last time in Genesis 48. So in talking about Reuben, even though he was physically the firstborn of Jacob, his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh. So that Reuben is not entitled, or excuse me, enrolled in the genealogy according to the birthright.

Though, in verse 2, Judah became prominent among his brothers and a ruler came from Judah, yet the birthright belonged to Joseph. Now here, in those two little verses, point out the significance of Joseph and then Judah. And of course, in Genesis 49, in talking about Judah, in verse 10, it says, The scepter, meaning the rulership or the authority, the scepter shall not depart from Judah nor the ruler's staff from between his feet until Shiloh comes, and the obedience of the people is to him, Shiloh being a reference to Jesus Christ.

Now, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as we look at the Old Testament, as we read through that entire account, and you read through the whole thing, it's all about the sons of Abraham. It's about the sons of Israel. It's about their kingdoms that they were a part of. It's about ultimately their destruction. And it's about pointing us to an even more important Israel of God, because spiritually, the children of Abraham make up what we know of as the church today. And so there's a lot of connection here between what we read in the Old Testament and what we do read in the New.

Today, I want to cover another aspect of God's promises. See, did God only give promises to Abraham? As we saw, he passed them on to Isaac, he passed them on to Jacob and to Joseph. What about the covenant and the promises that God gave to King David of Israel? You know, it's really amazing when you look at it to see the prominence that God gave to David.

I think most of us know quite a bit about David. He's written about in the Bible a good amount. You can read about his sins, you can read about his flaws, you can read about his demise sometimes, you can read about, and certainly in the Psalms, you read about a lot of things he said.

You see, he has a psalm that deals with repentance. There's a lot of things you could say about David. But perhaps the most important thing that you read in the Bible about King David is that God says that he was a man after my own heart. That's a description you find in the book of Acts. You find it back even in describing. David even has a, when he was still alive, you see a mention of that. And of course that is a sermon in itself, which I won't go into at this point.

But what I want to simply point out is, you know, God is about leading. God is about rulership. God is about a coming kingdom, a coming government. And it's important for us to have the background of that. I'd like for us to think, whenever the Israelites were in Egypt, and whenever God sent Moses to bring them out, who was the king in Israel? You know, clearly Moses was the leader, but who was the king? And then later on, when Moses died and Joshua led them into the Promised Land, who was the king of Israel?

And then beyond that, throughout, no, Hansel went over this the other day. Mr. New gave us an entire sermon about the Judges, the Book of Judges, kind of a somewhat crazy book to read through. A lot of erratic things going on. And yet, the people continue to get in trouble. They continue to fail. They continue to sin. And every now and then, God would send a judge to rescue them and to pull them out. But, who was the king of the Israelites right then?

Who was the king whenever Samuel, being one of the last Judges, I guess the last Judge, who was the king over Israel at that time?

And who was the king whenever Saul was appointed as a human ruler? And then later, after Saul, David was appointed a human leader, and his son Solomon was designated to be a human king over Israel. But all during that time, who was the king? Well, 1 Samuel 8, verse 7. Samuel, whenever the people complained to God and wanted a king like everybody else, we want a king like whoever would have a king today, like Spain, I guess, or I don't know who has a king directly. But that's what Israel was complaining, we don't want to be like we are, we want to be like everybody else. We want a human king. Whenever Samuel brought that to God, God says, okay, give him a king. But God also said in 1 Samuel 8, verse 7, they have not rejected you, Samuel. They have rejected me from being their king. And you see that later, let me look that up to get you more of the background of that 1 Samuel 8. He says, they have not rejected you, they have rejected me from being king over them.

So, somebody wrote down the right answer. Who was the king during all this time? Well, the king, the ruler, the one who has authority over the people of God is, of course, God. He was the one who was the king. Now, he used Moses, clearly. Moses gave him all the credit for that. He used Joshua. He used the judges as needed. And yet, whenever he appointed Saul, and then later David and Solomon as kings in Israel, we don't want to lose sight of the fact that God was their king. You can also look at 1 Samuel 12, verse 12. This is recounting another incident. 1 Samuel 12, verse 12. But when you saw that the kimnehach of the Ammonites came against you, you said to me, No, but a king shall reign over us, though the Lord your God was your king. And so, I'm only pointing out that God was their king. And what we find here in 1 Corinthians, I'm going to have to change that designation. 1 Chronicles 29. I'm going to have to write it out better. 1 Chronicles 29. This has to do with the throne that David and then Solomon would reign on. 1 Chronicles 29. This is right at the end of 1 Chronicles and right before you go into 2 Chronicles. 1 Chronicles 29. In the middle part of verse 22, they made David's son Solomon king a second time. And so this is kind of recounting the fact that David had been anointed king by God, and he had ruled throughout his lifetime, and then after him his son Solomon would become king. That is physically. But it says David's son Solomon was made king a second time. They appointed him as the Lord's prince. And Zadok is preached. And then, in verse 23, Solomon sat on the throne of the Lord, succeeding his father David as king, and he prospered in all of Israel, obeyed him. Now there you see something mentioned, pointed out, that the throne that David had, the throne that Solomon also had, was the throne of the Lord. It was to be administered according to God's rule, God's direction, God's law. Now was the human king above the law? No. He was supposed to be right now the copy of the law. He was supposed to be studying the law. Now unfortunately, when you read the history, you find very few did very much about that. You see a few diligent people. But for the most part, the people of God, the people of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the people needed to look to God as their king. Now because Solomon sat on the throne of the Lord, now where was that? Well that was in, what was at that time, the nation of Israel. All of the tribes were still together. So when was that going to change? Well that began to change when Solomon died and then there was a big division. A big division between the tribes that would make up what is called the kingdom of Israel and then David's throne and Solomon's throne remained with his son Rehoboam and you see then that throne being ruled over by the kings and the descendants of David down through and called out the kingdom of Judah. And so then you had two. You had the kingdom of Israel and kingdom of Judah. But with David, they were all one. He was the king over all of Israel.

But as we know, because of disobedience, you see the nations split in two and ultimately you see one identified as the kingdom of Judah which continued to have the throne of David beginning with Solomon's son Rehoboam and then the northern ten tribes were known as the kingdom of Israel. It's important to be able to get some of that basic information somewhat clear or remind you of that because what I want to go through is like I went through God's enduring promises to Abraham last time. I'm going through God's enduring covenant with David because again David was a remarkable individual and yet more than that God... See who's going to rule in the kingdom of God over the people of Israel? God says King David is going to. There's something about the qualities that David learned. There's something about the manner in which he comported himself before God. There's something about the way his heart was that is extraordinary. I want to point out I'm going to talk about David. I'm going to talk about Jeremiah. I'm going to talk about Jesus in the rest of this sermon. Anybody who can't follow my three points. First one is David. The second one is Jeremiah. The third one is Jesus. I'll try to keep you all on the same page here. First of all, dealing with David, here in 2 Samuel 7, we see an account and you see this recorded here in 2 Samuel. You also see a very similar parallel account. I believe it's Chronicles. Here in 2 Samuel 7, consider what this says.

When the king, talking about David, was settled in his house and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around about him, the king said to the prophet Nathan, and so David is talking to his good friend and prophet of the Lord, Nathan, See, I'm living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God is over here in the tent. He just thought this was ridiculous. Here I've been given this glorious kingdom. I have this great city of David. I'm living in a house of cedar, and the tabernacle is where God resides. And Nathan said to the king, Well, go and do all that you have in mind, for the Lord is with you. But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan, and what God told Nathan was, Go and tell my servant David, thus says the Lord, you, or excuse me, are you the one that ought to build a house for me to live in. In other words, the reason why David wasn't going to be allowed to do this. But what I really want to get to is, what did God promise? What kind of covenant did God make with David?

God, through Nathan, continued to say in verse 6, I've not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt at this day. And I've been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle, and whenever I was moved about among all the people, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, Why have you not built me a house of Caesar? That really wasn't impressive to God. He didn't need a house of cedar. Now therefore, in verse 8, Thus you shall say to my servant David, Thus says the Lord of Hosts, Talking about David, I took you from the pasture. I took you from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel. And I have been with you wherever you went, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. And he says, And I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. And I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and I will plant them, so that they may live in their own place, and be disturbed no more, and evildoer shall afflict them no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel, I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the Lord declared to you, again in verse 11, That the Lord will make you a house. What kind of house was God saying he would make for David? It can more properly be understood to be, I'm going to make a line from you of descendants. A number of descendants, I'm going to make of you a house. And when your days are fulfilled, and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. And so, this was regarding Solomon. After you die, I'm going to appoint Solomon, and he shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

And so here David asking about building some kind of a house for God, complaining about the tabernacle that God resided in happily, I guess, wherever Israel happened to go. And yet David was told, no, you're not going to build me the house. You know, your son Solomon, who will be your offspring, he's going to build you, or he's going to build me the house. And he said in regard to Solomon in verse 14, I will be a father to him. He shall be a son to me when he commits iniquity. I'm going to punish him with a rod, such as mortals used with blows inflicted by human beings. And so he said, well, your son Solomon, who's going to build my tabernacle, or my temple, it would be, if he sins, if he commits iniquity, then he'll be punished for that. But he says, I will not take my steadfast love for him, as I did from Saul, whom I put away from before you. See, God cut off the lineage of Saul. We're familiar with Jonathan. He was David's friend. Jonathan was killed. Others of Saul's descendants were killed. The line of Saul did not continue. But he says, regarding Solomon in verse 16, Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever. In accordance with all these words and with all this vision, Nathan spoke to David.

To hear David was being given information about how it was, what he was going to be allowed to do, and how it wasn't, and how it was that through his descendants, particularly Solomon to begin with, and then the line of descendants that would proceed through Solomon and through the throne that was in Israel but would later be in Judah, David was promised that his throne would be established forever. Let's turn over to Psalm 89. In Psalm 89, you see a prediction of these same promises that God would make to David. And it says in verse 3 of Psalm 89, you said, I have made a covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to my servant David, I will establish his descendants forever and build your throne for all generations. And then he spoke in a vision, in verse 19, he spoke in a vision to your faithful one, and said, I have set the crown on one who was mighty, and I have exalted one chosen from the people. I have found my servant David with my holy oil. I anointed him. And in verse 27, again talking about David, I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth, and forever I will keep my steadfast love for him, and my covenant with him shall stand firm. I will establish his line, his house, his throne, the throne of the Lord forever. His throne as long as the heavens endure.

Now he goes ahead to rehearse in verse 30 that, well, if those children of yours are delinquent, then they'll be punished. If your children forsake the law, don't walk according to my ordinances. If they violate my statutes and don't keep my commandments, then I will punish their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with scourges. It wasn't conditional. It wasn't if they happened to obey me. This is going to be given to David and his descendants, who are representing the throne of the Lord. But in verse 33, I will not remove from him my steadfast love or be false to my faithfulness. I will not violate my covenant, or I will not alter the word that went forth from my lips. Once and for all I have sworn by my holiness, I will not lie to David. Mine shall continue forever, and his throne shall endure before me like the sun. It shall be established forever like the moon, and enduring witness to the skies. So here we have not only a direct account of a covenant with David, back in Samuel and Chronicles, but we see repeated in the Psalms even more about how God is going to promise that David's throne, the throne that David sat on, and that Solomon would also sit on, the throne of the Lord, would continue. It would not be discontinued. We turn over to Jeremiah 23. Jeremiah 33.

Jeremiah 33, you see this same thing predicted that God was going to be with the wine of David. He was going to be with the house of David. See, that house continues to exist today. That house will be reassumed by the Lord when he comes. But here in Jeremiah 33, in verse 17, he says, For thus says the Lord, David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel. The word of the Lord in verse 17 came to Jeremiah. Thus says the Lord, if any of you could break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night, so the day and night would not come at their appointed time, only then. See, that hasn't happened. That's not going to happen. Not until God changes the entirety of the heavens and the earth. He says, sure enough, the sun will rise. Tomorrow, the moon will continue to go around the earth. He says, only then, saying, if any of you could break my covenant with the day and the night, only then would my covenant with my servant David, in verse 21, be broken, so that he would not have a son to reign on his throne in my covenant with my ministers, the Levites. See, these are statements that you see that are direct promises to David. And so we can conclude, from even what we read about what God says about David and about his throne, we can conclude that that still exists today.

And, of course, it does exist in the royal family and the royal line that we see today in the Ephraimite nation of Great Britain. That's where it exists, as I'm going to show you. The second point, I talked about David. The second point is, who remembers? Somebody wrote it down. Nan knows Jeremiah. See, now, Jeremiah was a prophet who spoke to the people of Judah, the people who were a part of the house of Judah. The house of Israel fell 100, 150 years before Judah did. They were taken into captivity. The house of Judah remained until they were going to be overthrown by Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon. Now, whenever that happened, whenever that occurred, you know, then there had to be some connection between the demise of the king of Judah, who at that time was at Achaia, and how God was going to continue to maintain His promise to David. He said to David, your descendants are going to continue. They will maintain a throne. So let's take a look at Jeremiah, and I will say, if you read about the different prophets, you don't see anyone described like Jeremiah. You see different people doing different things. Isaiah was asked to do a lot of strange things. Isaiah was asked to do very strange things. But what about Jeremiah? Was he a special prophet that God sent to Judah, and that he not only prophesied to Judah, but he prophesied about the future, and about what we can expect even as we look into the coming of the Lord and the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth.

I guess we could stay a re-establishment of that, because that's really what needs to be restored.

But let's take a look here in Jeremiah, Chapter 1. Jeremiah, Chapter 1, he had, according to his account in Chapter 1, he had a very significant and blessed birth and special calling. See, Jeremiah wasn't just to do the work of God during his lifetime and give the words of God to whoever the king of Judah, or he also predicted things about Israel, but Israel had already been in captivity for 100 years. So clearly that had to be for future time and future application. But Jeremiah 1, starting in verse 4, says, Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. See, very few people you read about in the Bible have this type of description. You could clearly say Jesus, God knew Jesus before he was ever humanly born. You could say that John the Baptist was known by God, in that God predicted and told Zachariah all kinds of things that John the Baptist would do. He would pave the way for Jesus coming. And then you have Jeremiah. Wonder what's special about Jeremiah? Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I consecrated you and appointed you to be a prophet. To Judah? No. To the nations. To far more than Judah.

And of course, Jeremiah protested and he says, O Lord God, truly I don't know how to speak. I'm only a kid. I'm just a young man. The Lord says, Don't say I'm only a boy, for you shall go to all whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord. And then the Lord, in verse 9, put out his hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said, Now I have put my words in your mouth. Now this is clearly a different designation.

This is clearly a remarkable prediction about what God is going to carry through, having promised to David his descendants, his line, his throne, the throne of the Lord that David sat on, that it would continue. The Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth, and I'm putting my words in your mouth. See today in verse 10.

I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms to pluck up and pull down, to destroy and to overthrow and to build and to plant. Now this was a commission that Jeremiah was given. You see him later talking about this, about overturning and overturning and overturning. You know, there is a job that God is going to have this prophet of God do. It was a job. See, his nation, the people of Judah, they were going into captivity.

He had continued to warn them, tell them. Jeremiah was not a popular guy. We probably remember, you know, he's in the well, hanging upside down or in the mud or something. You know, that was more of the only graphic I think of about Jeremiah.

But see, Jeremiah's mission was not just to preach to the king and preach to the people there in Judah. It was far more important than that. It was, as we read in verse 10, I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to pluck up and pull down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant. He was to have a part in transferring the royal line of David through the final king of Judah, who was at Achaia, to wherever it was going to go, wherever God was going to send it.

Now, you might ask, how is God going to do this? How is God going to achieve what he said he was going to do? Now, you can read this story, and I'm going to read part of it to you, but you can read this story in one of our booklets. Tom Robinson wrote a booklet, it's all really a book, about 80 pages or so, about the throne of Britain, about how it is that the line of David and the throne that David ruled on ended up in Ireland and then later Scotland and finally Britain.

Now, I can just tell you that, and that is what you could look up. If you looked up in our website and just typed in the throne of Britain in the search, you can get the 80 pages, and I'm only going to go over one or two this afternoon. But see, what was Jeremiah involved in doing? Well, King Zedekiah, the final king of Judah, was taken captive by Babylon, by Nebuchadnezzar, he was put to death. Not immediately, but later on, his eyes were put out, all his sons were killed, he got to watch that, and then his eyes were put out, and eventually he would die.

And so you would say, well, maybe that's the end. Maybe that's it for the descendants of the line of David, and then through Zedekiah, through his family, it was over. Now, that's not the case, as we'll read here in Jeremiah. I'm not going to read all the verses, but I am going to read this text, and again, this is in a booklet that we have available, and Tom Robinson wrote this 15 years ago. It was updated from what we had written some about before that.

But it says from Jeremiah 45, verse 4, we can see that building and planting, in this context, originally entailed God's planting His people in the land, and then building a kingdom of them there, and then now to be pulled up and destroyed. So the commission would seem to involve planting people in another place, in order to establish a kingdom elsewhere. But did this have anything to do with the house of David? Well, intriguingly, Jeremiah did prophesy regarding David's dynasty, as we have already seen.

Yet, first note, this amazing fact, following the carrying away of Judah's people, a remnant that were left in the land included the king's daughters. This is in Jeremiah 41, verse 10. I'm not going to read through each of these, but you can go back and look at that if you'd like. Following the carrying away of the people of Judah, a remnant left in the land included the king's daughters, who were evidently young girls, since their fathers, Etakiah, who was again the last king we see record of in the Bible, was only 32 when he died.

And so, you see, these daughters of the king still existed, and we might ask, but could the royal line continue through a daughter? Well, according to Israel's law of inheritance, the answer would certainly appear to be yes. Though Nebuchadnezzar may not realize that initially, he may have thought getting rid of the king, getting rid of the sons, that's, I've got the job done. But according to, you know, what you read in Numbers, you can see that, you know, a daughter can, you know, be receiving an inheritance. And this mentions also, in fact, if kingship could not pass through a woman, then it could not have passed from Mary to Jesus Christ. So, it was through the mother of Mary that Jesus would receive the human birth that he would have.

So, what then happened to this remnant of people who were left as Judah was overthrown? Against God's command, they fled from the Babylonian invaders to Egypt to seek the protection of Pharaoh Haphra. And you read this in Jeremiah 43 and several different verses, verses 5 and 6 and 7 reference these princesses and reference Jeremiah. But according to the Bible, the Jewish remnant took with them men and women and children and kings' daughters and Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch his scribe.

And the majority of these, according to God, would die by sword or famine, but a few. A few would escape. And some would return. And we know that Baruch and Jeremiah, who did not go to Egypt by choice, they survived. And as we will see, so did at least one of the king's daughters. Remarkably, Jeremiah must have been responsible for transplanting the throne of David to Israel by taking a daughter of kings at Achaia to the ten lost tribes. Yet where do those Israelites live at that time? Well, we have covered, and I covered this last week, that Scripture shows us the birthright promises of national greatness went to the sons of Joseph, Ephraim, and Manasseh.

And of course, Manasseh is now America, and Ephraim today is the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, although it's diminished now from what it was. The heyday of Ephraim's national greatness came during the British Empire, as mentioned earlier, the largest empire in the history of the world. See, if we study history, we go back and look at the power that Great Britain and the empire of the British people back into the 1700s and 1800s. And of course, then, more so in the 1900s, the United States became more and more powerful and was at least as great.

But David's descendants, as we've seen, were to rule over Israel and become the highest of the kings of the earth. We read that in Psalm 89. God further said of David's dynasty, I will set his hand or authority also in the sea. Again, in Psalm 89, this is very much like the unofficial anthem of the British people. When Britain first at heaven's command arose from out of the azure main, this was the charter of the land, and guardian angels sang this strain, rule, Britannia!

Britannia! Rule the waves! Indeed, no nation has ruled the sea nor the land for that matter, as has Great Britain. Clearly, the monarchy of David must be one and the same with the monarchy of Britain. Following the primary line of descent of the British throne back to the time of Jeremiah, leads us to Ireland. God, of course, knew that the Irish royal line of Jeremiah's day would eventually become the British monarchy. Logically then, that is when he would have directed the steps of Jeremiah with at least one of Zedekiah's daughters in tow, to marry her into the royal line of Zara and thereby perpetuate the throne of David.

Well, or if it was the last time, any of us would recall another country's monarchy being transplanted into the throne's present location in England. Actually, he's writing this kind of in reverse since we conclude it's in the English and British monarchy today. How did it get there? Well, it came through being transplanted from Scotland and then earlier from Ireland.

So Jeremiah had taken these king's daughters to Ireland. So to answer the question, when was the last time another country's monarchy is transplanted into the throne's present location in England? The answer is in 1603. When King James VI of Scotland became King James I of Great Britain, the one who commissioned the King James Bible, this is obviously the last overturn to have taken place.

And because of it, today's British monarchs are of Scottish royal descent. And prior to that, was another country's throne ever transplanted into Scotland? Well, yes. The throne of the Scotty, S-C-O-T-I, as the Irish were anciently called, was moved from Ireland into southwest Scotland in the late fifth century. Their kingdom in that area, or their kingdom of Dariada in that area centered at Iona, eventually growing to envelop what is now Scotland. This was clearly the previous overturn, which is why Scotland's monarchy, which became Britain's monarchy, was originally Irish.

Now, since these were the last two overturns of three, there can only have been one other, the first. And that first overturn had to have been the transfer of the throne from Judah. Thus, it should be clear that this transfer must have been from Judah to Ireland. Had the throne been transferred in any other way, there would have been more than three overturns. But by simple deduction, the three overturns must have been Judah, Ireland, Ireland to Scotland, and then Scotland to England. Because there was also another verse that we didn't read yet, where Jeremiah was to overturn and overturn and overturn.

There should be three of those. So, in concluding, and what Tom writes in somewhat of a summary of what we learned through an extensive study, and again, going back through the history of hundreds of years in England or Scotland or Ireland, is not entirely clear.

It's not real specific in every way, but you can see what the end result is, and you can see where the overturns could have come. Now, we can see why the British royal family rose under Queen Victoria to the heights of world prestige and preeminence. This is not talking about Elizabeth today, but her mother, Victoria, and I believe our mother before that, when we were in London here several years ago, it's amazing to be at Buckingham Palace and to be out in the middle area there, where they've got a lot of guards, or what do they call them?

Not the Mounties, the... Well, the big hat, black hat guys, whoever they are. They're always marching up and down out there, and of course, there's a huge big thing in the middle, a lot of great big statuary. Queen Victoria quite prominently displayed there. And then on each side of this huge plaza, there's the Court of Scotland, or excuse me, not Scotland of Australia, and the Court of Canada, and the Court of South America, South Africa.

You know, those were, you know, it's impressive to be there and to just see what is put together there, but as this is written, this royal family rose under Queen Victoria, again back in the 1800s. Why it continues to hold a special place in the hearts of all manner of people the world over, and why of all royal families it is still the first one that would come to mind if you were be asked about a royal family here on earth, or generally think of, you know, the British royal family.

For the incredible purpose and power of the great God, Queen Elizabeth II sits on the throne of King David, in fact, the throne of the Lord, and even though she reigns over the foremost tribe of modern Israel, the Josephite tribe of Ephraim, the Lion of the Royal Coat of Arms, is the Lion of Judah. So Elizabeth and Charles and Andrew and William and Harry, ethnically, are all Jews. How truly remarkable this is! It's not particularly surprising when the nationality maintains a line of rulers of its own ethnicity, but the Ephraimite British continue to have these Jewish leaders.

This was all by God's design, by God's directive, talking to David as far as what he would do, and then through Jeremiah, achieving that. So let's go to the third point, which, as I told you, was regarding Jesus. Regarding his return, what is he to return to? Jesus is, of course, described in many ways.

He's described as a righteous branch that is destined to return to David's throne. And, of course, he is going to establish the Kingdom of God on earth. He is going to establish the throne of the Lord in Jerusalem. But, see, David's descendants will still be alive. That line will still be there. Here in Luke 1, I want to remind us of what we see here when the archangel Gabriel came to Mary.

He told Mary, I don't want you to be afraid. I want you to understand what it is that's going to happen. In verse 31, Now you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.

And in verse 32, he will be great, and he will call the son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. See, now we've read those verses, and we often read similar verses dealing with the millennial rule of Christ. But here he directly is said to be returning to take over the throne, the throne of his ancestor, David. Let's jump back to Isaiah 9, Isaiah 9, because this verse also is one that we generally would read during the Feast of Tabernacles, thinking about the millennium, thinking about the coming of Christ.

In verse 6, a child has been born for us, a son given to us, Isaiah 9, 6, authority rest upon his shoulders, and he is named Wonderful and Counselor and Mighty God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He shall establish and uphold it with justice and righteousness, and from this time onward and forevermore, the zeal of the Lord of Hosts will do this.

The establishment of the kingdom of God on earth is, in a sense, a conclusion to David's throne, being perpetuated down through the last 3,000 years, and Jesus establishing the rule of God on earth. If we ever misunderstand or don't believe that the kingdom of God is a government, well then, we need to think about that because it is the rulership that God had even before David, that he gave to David and Solomon, that he perpetuated down to our time today.

Here in Jeremiah 33, a couple of different verses we could read here to conclude. Jeremiah 33 says in verse 14, The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise that I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. In those days, in verse 15, and at that time, I will cause a righteous branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.

See, that's talking about Jesus Christ. It says that Jesus is the root. He was there before David, and he is also the branch. He is there after David. In those days, in verse 16, Judah will be saved, Jerusalem will live in safety, and this is the name by which it will be called. The Lord is our righteousness. These were predictions that God made through the prophet Jeremiah about his rule earlier, how he ruled through the judges and through the kings in Israel, how he continues to perpetuate that royal dynasty down to today, and how Jesus is returning to reestablish that rule and that order.

We might back up as well here to Jeremiah 33. Jeremiah 33 verse 6 says, I'm going to bring in recovery and healing. I'm going to heal them and reveal to them abundance of prosperity and security. Verse 7, I will restore the fortunes of Judah, and I will restore the fortunes of Israel, and I will rebuild them as they were at first. I will cleanse them from all the guilt of their sin against me, and I will forgive. All the guilt of their sin and rebellion against me in this city shall be to me a name of joy, talking about Jerusalem, a praise and a glory before all the nations of the earth who shall hear of all the good that I do for them, and they shall fear and tremble because of all the good and all the prosperity that I provide for them.

See, what do we read about the coming of Jesus Christ and the establishment of the kingdom of God? We read that we will be given responsibility to rule and reign with Christ at that time. And yet what he says is that he's going to reestablish Israel. He's going to cause them to be the pattern that they should have been, which they failed in, by not obeying. There's going to be a pattern, as we said, as I mentioned earlier, David is going to be directed to be the king over Israel in the world to come.

Jesus said to the twelve disciples, you're going to be over one of the houses of Israel in the world to come. See, that's the pattern that God is going to use. And so, not only did God make promises to Abraham, he also made promises to David, and he had a covenant with David. And we could close with this verse here in Psalm 132, because it regards God's servant David.

Psalm 132, in verse 1, O Lord, remember in David's favor all the hardship that he endured. In verse 10, for your servant David's sake, do not turn away the face of your anointed one. Verse 11, the Lord swore to David a sure oath, from which he will not turn back, that one of the sons of your body I will set on your throne.

See, that was to be perpetuated. That was to exist until Christ returned, and then that will be, in a sense, a ruling line that God will establish on earth when Christ returns. So, this lesson today is about the promises to David. God's enduring covenant with David is one thing that we want to understand. Another aspect that we need to understand, to fully understand prophecy, and really to understand the Bible is how it is, that the tribes of Israel, some of them can more easily be traced than others.

But why is it that they are called the lost tribes of Israel? See, that's something that we will explore next time.