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David's faith in and love for God advanced Israel's spiritual concepts (temporarily) by a quantum leap. David was truly unique. How could any person have David's level of faith in and love for God after the gross ungodliness of the period of the Judges? At that time in that context, such faith in and love for God is astounding. Read Judges 18 and 19. Judges 18 illustrates how perverted and idolatrous spiritual concepts were in Israel. In the context of those same times, King Saul was a spiritual failure.
Why was David spiritually unique? How could David live in the midst of incredible wickedness and write psalms that bless people almost 3000 years later? How could his faith in God kill Goliath and his love for God refuse to kill King Saul? The answer is found in David's heart.
Saul was a complete disappointment to God. In I Samuel 13 Saul waited for Samuel to arrive and offer an important sacrifice to God. Instead of continuing to wait for Samuel, he grew impatient and offered that sacrifice himself. Fear motivated him to do what no king was allowed to do. Only priests offered sacrifices. When Samuel arrived he said, "You have acted foolishly in your disobedience. God would have established your descendants as the kings of Israel perpetually. But now your kingdom will end with you. God wants a man to be king who is 'a man after his own heart'" [1 Samuel 13:13,14].
David was the kind of man God wanted. When God sent Samuel to anoint a son of Jesse to be Israel's future king, He reminded Samuel, "God sees not as man sees, for a man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart" [1 Samuel 16:7]. Samuel would have chosen Eliab because of his physical appearance. God chose David because of his heart.
After David's death, Solomon built and dedicated the temple that David longed to build for God. He said, "It was in David's heart to build a house for the Lord's name. The Lord told my father that it was a good desire" [2 Chronicles 6:7,8]. In Israel, David was known as "the man after God's own heart." Almost a thousand years after David's death, Paul affirmed what Israel always knew: David was a man after God's own heart [Acts 13:22]. David's spiritual uniqueness is seen and understood by examining David's heart.
We must understand that David being a man after God's own heart and our Christian concept of a person being after God's own heart do not match. David was a man of war. He decapitated Goliath and carried the head with him as a trophy [1 Samuel 17:50,51,54]. He took his troops, killed two hundred Philistine soldiers, cut off their foreskins, and brought the foreskins to King Saul as a dowry for Michal [1 Samuel 18:20-27]. He also knew enormous spiritual failure. In the matter of Bathsheba, he was guilty of adultery, lying, and murder [see 2 Samuel 11, 12].
What was there about this violent man who fell to horrible sins that made his heart so desirable to God? His unique heart is seen in these truths. (1) He fought the giant Goliath with a sling and stones because Goliath insulted God [1 Samuel 17:26,34-37,45-48]. (2) After David was anointed to be the next king, he refused to kill King Saul (who was determined to kill David). God anointed Saul to be king, and only God should remove Saul from the throne [see 1 Samuel 24, 26]. (3) When Nathan confronted David with his sin, David immediately acknowledged his guilt and was ready to accept the consequence--death [2 Samuel 12:1-15]. (4) The psalms reveal his heart. While he did not hesitate to declare his distress, he always thanked, praised, and exalted God. (5) When he sinned, he accepted responsibility for his acts and repented--no hiding, no "smoke screens," no blaming others, no self justification, no arrogance.
The problem created by the temple's existence was not rooted in David's heart. It was rooted in the hearts of Israel. It was rooted in their continuing love for the gods. Solomon built and dedicated the temple to the Lord, the God of Israel. His prayer of dedication revealed a heart that trusted in and depended on God [1 Kings 8:22-53]. However, Solomon also established idolatry in Jerusalem later by building sites for worshipping the gods of his foreign wives [1 Kings 11:1-8]. When he was old, his heart was not completely devoted to God as had been his father's heart. His worship of the gods angered God [1 Kings 11:9,10]. God informed him that most of Israel would be taken from the rule of his son [1 Kings 11:11-13].
After Rehoboam (Solomon's son) assumed the throne, ten tribes seceded from his kingdom. They made Jereboam their king [see 1 Kings 12]. Jereboam established worship sites at Dan and Bethel, built golden calves for both sites, and declared to those tribes, "Behold your gods, O Israel, that brought you up from the land of Egypt" [verse 28]. These tribes officially worshipped the gods until Assyria destroyed them as a nation.
Rehoboam led his kingdom into an idolatry greater than Solomon's [1 Kings 14:21-31]. High places (sites for worshipping the gods), sacred pillars, and Asherim were commonplace throughout Judah. Male cult prostitutes existed. They followed all the disgusting practices that God hated, practices that existed among the Canaanites before Israel arrived.
The concept of deity associated with the gods never died in the hearts of Israel. It existed in their forefathers' practices "beyond the river." It existed in their possession of household gods. It existed in the wilderness as evidenced by the golden calf. It existed in the worship of Baal and Asheroth in the period of the Judges. Then Solomon, Rehoboam, and Jereboam revived and advanced the practices and concepts of the gods. This concept of deity controlled the hearts and minds of Israel and Judah until Israel ceased to exist and Judah entered Babylonian captivity.
The concepts of the living God was too different. His ways and His expectations were strange. His emphasis in human conduct and behavior was strange. His values were strange. He lacked the self indulgent lure and appeal of the gods.
Israel's concept of deity was fashioned by the gods, not by God's acts. The purpose of the temple was reduced to the function of the temples of the gods. Appease God. Give Him the sacrifices He requires. Do not make Him angry by failing to give sacrifices. What people do in daily life is unimportant to God. Keep Him happy by giving Him the right sacrifices. And always remember that nothing bad can happen because you have the temple of God in your holy city.
How did Judah use the temple built for the living God? What value did that temple have to them? What attitude toward the temple did they have?
David's intent and purpose for the temple was good. God accepted the temple because it came from the man "after his own heart." The hearts that were in love with the gods perverted David's intent and purpose. The hearts that loved the gods perverted the gift that came from the heart of the man who loved God.
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