Promises Kept: God, David, and Us in Psalm 132
About This Sermon
In Sunday school, Bro. Scott Roush continued the series “Drawing Closer to God’s Heart,” a study of the Psalms of Ascent, with a lesson from Psalm 132 he titled “Promises to God, to David, and to Us.” The longest of the songs of ascent, this psalm moves, as the others do, from trouble to trust to triumph, and Bro. Roush traced its promises across Israel’s history from Abraham to the Messiah.
He began with David’s promise to God. Despite a life full of affliction—fleeing Saul for some fifteen years, family heartbreak, and a failed first attempt to move the ark—David vowed that he would not rest until he found a dwelling place for the Lord, putting God’s house ahead of his own palace. That promise was fulfilled when his son Solomon built and dedicated the temple, and the ark, long separated and left some twenty years at Kirjath-jearim, was finally brought up to Jerusalem with great rejoicing.
He then turned to God’s promises to David: to bring the Messiah through his line and to establish his throne. Solomon’s obedience was conditional and ultimately failed, but the unconditional covenant stood—“thy throne forever more”—fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of David.
Finally, Bro. Roush applied the psalm’s promises to us. God chose Zion as His dwelling and keeps His word to this day; more than that, He now dwells not in a building but in the believer’s heart, clothing His people with salvation and righteousness so that the saints “shout aloud for joy.” Pointing to the horn, the lamp, and the crown of verses 17-18, he closed on Christ’s certain reign, urging the class to keep God’s promises ever before them—for what God says, He does, from Genesis to Revelation.