READ: 2 Samuel 7:1-22
“That the king said unto Nathan the prophet, See now, I dwell in an house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains.“ – 2 Samuel 7:2
To know what is good and to withhold your hand from doing good can be one of the most difficult things for someone who has walked with God. But doing good can actually get you into trouble with God. King David wanted to build a temple. Is it not a good thing to build a temple? Is church planting and church building not our foremost quest?
Yet God wanted David to refrain from building a church. After you have served God for years, will He be able to tell you what to do and what not to do? Will you not be too experienced and knowledgeable to receive such absurd and non-biblical guidance? Would you not know what is good and right and just stick to it? This is where David would have parted with God. But even in doing this good work, he consulted God because he knew that not all good things are God’s will.
The point I am making is that we need to stay close to God. We need to be like David who constantly inquired of the Lord. He never assumed that he knew what was right or wrong. After eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we begin to assume that we always know what is right or wrong. Remember; the longer you have served God, the more prone you are to this sin of desolation: substituting God for a tree of knowledge.