Let us go to II Samuel. In the seventh chapter, we find a very important covenant—and promise—given by God to David. Picking up the story in verse 8, this was God speaking to Nathan the prophet, and telling him to go to David and tell him this.
I want you to notice that this promise, prophecy, covenant weaves in between the present (I mean, the present from the time of Nathan and David.) and then suddenly leaps, all the way, way in the future. It is not something of which God was speaking that was going to occur right then, in David's time.
Now, we know that after David the Israelites were taken into captivity, and they have never returned to that place. So now this utterance becomes a prophecy. He is talking about something that has not occurred yet. It is still yet "future" for you and me.
