In this message I still have the burden to speak on 2 Samuel 7:12-14a.
The divine revelation in the Bible is progressive. At the very beginning, in Genesis, God created man with a good nature. This means that there was nothing sinful or evil in the man created by God. When God looked at what He had created, including man, He saw that it was "very good" (Gen. 1:31). At the beginning of man's history, God put man into a pleasant garden in front of the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God commanded Adam not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, telling him that in the day that he ate thereof he would die (2:17). This indicates that God wanted man to partake of the tree of life. However, man fell. The conscience was activated, and fallen man thus feared God and worshipped Him, realizing that he should do good and abandon evil.
Eventually, Abel received the revelation of God's redemption. Redemption did not come at Abel's time. Rather, it was anticipated in God's foreknowledge, and this anticipated redemption was revealed to Abel. Later, a little more of the divine revelation was given to Enoch and to Noah.
During the time from Adam to Job, the divine revelation was somewhat ambiguous. Job was a person who feared God, who worshipped God, and who endeavored to build himself up to the uttermost in his integrity, uprightness, and perfection. Job tried his best to practice his integrity. However, God stripped Job of everything to show him that his need was not integrity nor perfection nor the highest standard of morality; his only need was God Himself. God seemed to be saying, "Job, I do not want you to build yourself up in your integrity or perfection. I want you to build yourself up with Me. You should not be a man of integrity or perfection—you should be a man of God. Job, you need to realize that what you lack is Me. You do not need perfection or integrity—you need Me."
At the time of Job, the divine revelation had not proceeded very far. What had been revealed was mainly that man needed God, that man had been created by God and for God, and that he needed to receive God as life. A man should be solely, wholly, and absolutely a man of God. Thus far, nothing had been revealed concerning God's building. If we stop with the book of Job, we may think that it is sufficient for us to have God. However, to have God is not adequate, for, as we will see, God wants a building.