Well, if you haven't been with us for the past few months, I've
been going through some of the chapters in Second Samuel,
beginning with Absalom. David's sons revolt against him
beginning in about chapter 15. And we've been kind of going
through that, just kind of continued on going through these
chapters and the chaos. We've seen all the all the
things that have happened, all the turmoil that's in David's
rule, if you want to say have really disrupted his his reign
being disrupted. We might tend to ask ourselves,
you know, is this thing going to end well?
Is there going to be a happily ever after?
If you want to say to all that David is trying to achieve and
all the things that have gone on, I mean, how many more deaths
and how many more murders are going to take place?
And, and, or we just, you know, in five chapters have that many
deaths already. And we're not done because we're
just going to be two more deaths that we're going to study about
here in chapter 20. So the return of David to
Jerusalem after he left there, he had fled to escape his wicked
son, Absalom, as we mentioned. And all these things have
happened in, in that short period of time.
Absalom's rebellion actually ended with Absalom's death.
And here the people are getting him back across the Jordan to
Jerusalem. But it's not a return to peace
and tranquility as he would have hoped in Second Samuel 8 and 15.
You know, a lot of things have transpired since the writer of
Second Samuel told told us back in Chapter 8 about David
reigning over all of Israel, administering justice and equity
to all his people. You know, those days are gone.
Those days have passed. His Kingdom is now fragile.
It's unstable. There's going to be another 1000
years before the one whom this Kingdom points finally arrives.
When the wise men's questions ring out, you know, where is
this, that he's born king of the Jews?
We're looking for him as we read in Matthew 2 and two, kind of
paraphrased and here, David 1000 years before Christ.
His crown is now tarnished. His leadership is faltered, his
attempts to put things back together and failed.
But why would we be surprised? Why would be be surprised?
It's not a unique story in any way.
It's actually the story of all earthly kingdoms.
It's the story of all empires. It's just.
And that's why we need to make sure that what we affirm about
the word of God is being the light in the darkness and the
hope for the hopeless and so on, that we actually truly believe
that because here we are in the final weeks of a year, a period
of time that's gone. You know, we've seen so much
turmoil in our country and we have people in communities that
always saying no, is this thing going to be fixed?
Is the economy going to be right?
All these things that are happening.
Has the world spun off its its access?
Is this thing broken for any forever?
Is there anybody that can repair the brokenness that we find in
our living? And see, that's our human
nature. Our human nature is always
looking for a solution to our social problems.
We're always looking for a solution.
Maybe if it was education that would cure us, we would think
that it would be cured by now. Maybe science can fix us.
But some, most of the time, science can't agree with itself.
Perhaps we're able even to find, you know, great political
Nirvana as it will. You know, maybe everything kind
of everybody kind of finally works everything out.
After all the Founding fathers, you know, we got rid of King
George the Third during the Revolutionary War.
We thought that would be the answer for America.
And little did we realize that others would emerge just as bad
as him or, or many times not as good as him or as good as him.
And church, sometimes, you know, we get question, you know, why
aren't we teaching on the the political things or the things
in the social? Why are we teaching on those
things? Because a voice needs to be
heard. You know, we need that stuff in
America. We need to be teaching on that
to solve these these issues. You know, things are crumbling.
We've got you guys are just you're talking about the same
thing all the time. Because Simply put, the reason
what we teach on what the Bible teaches and we're always in the
word and we're always going back to the word every single time
and not getting involved in politics, not getting involved
in social issues is because the answer is in the book.
It's in the scriptures. Simply put, it's actually in a
very specific way in Second Samuel because it's the promise
that God had first made to Abraham.
It's now reinforced to David in Second Samuel 12 that speaks to
the answer of the longings of the human heart, one who can
save and rule the world, who can reign.
So what we're actually doing in studying the Old Testament and
the Bible as a whole is at the very heart of the matter.
And it's the promise of God that is sustained the people of God
all the way through the history of their lives.
For example, when Nebuchadnezzar came in the vastest of
Nebuchadnezzar's power, when Babylon seemed to crush
everything that the people of Israel knew.
And they took away elements of the temple when they paralyzed
the people, people were paralyzed when they took their
best into exile, when they were tempted to maybe quit rejoicing
or quit singing their songs and and they thought it was an end
of it. You know, what does God do?
Well, he raises up a few young men and Daniel and Nebanezer, he
can't sleep. We can read about it and and
Daniel and and he can't even remember the dreams that he has.
So he goes to his soothsayers and he has the soothsayers, the
first tell him the dream that he had and then interpret the
dreams. Well, who could do that?
Nobody could do that. Not one of us could do that, but
God could. God could, God's man.
And the dream that he had, it was this great big statue.
And Daniel said, well, I can tell you exactly what that is.
Daniel explains the dream to Nebuchadnezzar and and it's
simple. Daniel said, it's simple.
All the kings, all the empires that are represented in that
great statue are actually going to be destroyed one day is what
Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar. And we're not here to study
Daniel, but in Daniel 2 verse 44, it's in case we're you're
wondering where it says it. He says, and in those days, in
the days of those kings, insert any Kingdom you want, Alexander
the Great, the Roman Empire, any empire, the USSR, Hitler's Third
Reich in Germany, the British Empire, the American Empire as
we live in it. Put any of them in there and
listen to what it says. It says the God of heaven will
set up a Kingdom that shall never be destroyed.
It shall break the pieces of all these kingdoms and bring them to
an end, and it shall stand forever, forever.
Now, here's the question that's posed to us by that statement.
Do we believe that? Do we believe that?
It's a rhetorical question. And if we're saying yes, then we
need to encourage ourselves. We need to encourage ourselves
to say, you know, you know, we need to help our we can even
pray, Lord, help me to believe what I believe.
Help me to be reaffirmed in what our belief is on the Bible.
Help me to doubt my doubts and believe my beliefs.
And that's what I want to say to you as a study of ancient kings,
all the Israel kings that we see up to date and and could
possibly consider and that may be in front of us.
There's one king that's going to stand forever, forever.
And we need to have that in our mind as we kind of go through
the Old Testament, seeing King David and all his predecessors
and those that are ruling at that point.
Now, I plan to go through this chapter just a couple different
ways here. Number one, considering the
rebellion of Sheba. It's there in the text.
And then secondly, by considering an intervention of a
wise woman. And there's much more in between
all those things as we go through this chapter, one of the
things that the Old Testament does for us, it kind of leaves
us with unanswered questions. And it's intentional like that.
In many ways, it's kind of like an unfinished Symphony or
unfinished harmony. You know, you're waiting for the
grand finale to to come to place, but the But the Old
Testament isn't the grand finale because we look forward to the
New Testament, which is the grand finale.
So let's understand it as we move forward and try to get
through this. So first of all, let's see what
the Bible says. These things were written down
for us so that through our encouragement of the Scriptures
that we may have hope, as stated in Romans 15, verse 4.
So first of all, the rebellion of Sheba.
Now there happened to be a rebel whose name was Sheba.
So here we have Sheba. Absalom's rebellion has been put
down. At the end of 19, chapter 19, it
was made clear to us that all is not well.
There's, there's tribal tension if you want to say with Israel
and Judah. There's quarreling, there's
jealousy, there's instability. And in that context, Sheba, this
guy from Victory, sees this as an opportunity to for himself to
do what Absalom has not been able to do.
It's kind of, he's kind of riding the coattails of Absalom.
He's not, it's not a separate insurrection in and of itself.
It's kind of him just taking over what where Absalom left off
to remove the Kingdom from the control of David, a continuing
attempt rather than a separate attempt.
He's a troublemaker. And he rallies some of the
others who are not quite happy of whom were.
There's quite a few, it seems like, with a blast of a trumpet.
And you'll notice when we get to the end of the trumpet blow,
blow. Actually, there's a beginning in
the chapters of Trump blow of a trumpet.
At the end there's a blow of a trumpet.
Basically we're starting the insurrection and at the end of
the chapter says we're concluded.
And so he sends out the word and he says in verse one, we've got
nothing to do with David. There's no future for us with
the son of Jesse. Every man to his tents.
O Israel, let's get out of here. Let's get on here.
We're not going to live under the control of David, is what
Sheba is saying to everybody. And as a result, we find in
verse 2 that all the men of Israel with withdrew from David,
basically a wholesale collapse, if you want to say.
So they go and they follow Sheba.
But the men of Judah, which is a smaller number, followed their
King David steadfastly. So we have Sheba and his guys.
They they leave and Judah and the followers of the king cling
to David steadfastly. And then we have verse 3 just
kind of right in our faces here, verse 3.
It's really kind of fascinating that this statement is right
here. I would think if it was me
writing something, I would think maybe this is going to be at the
end where he's kind of listening to where everybody's at, all the
all the government officials and then what they were the
concubines are AT and so on. But he doesn't do that.
The writer wants us to come face to face with this right here.
I believe he says, and David came to his house at Jerusalem.
David was coming home. There's just something about
being able to go home after maybe what David went through or
any of us, we want to go home after a long trip or travelling
or whatever it may be. You're somehow going home.
But it's a little different this time for David going home.
There's no celebration that he's back ruling.
There's no music playing for him, there's no trumpets,
anything like that. You know, how would you think
that David maybe would have walked up to his home?
You know, it was his home, but wasn't really a house after the
things that had gone on When we studied earlier, I mentioned
that, that David's decision to leave the concubines back to
look after his house would prove a really bad decision.
And we remember that. And if you want to go back and
read that in, in the 16th chapter of Second Samuel, you
can read it on your own. But if if he would have never
taken these concubines in the 1st place, Absalom would have
never been able to do what he did to them.
And so he would not be returning to the sad, sorry place.
I don't want to spend a whole lot of time on this, but there's
something I want to say about it.
You know, we can drive around and we can see sometimes
billboards of what is being referred to as human
trafficking. You know, the movement of women
and girls. The great focus on the media has
has right now, they're they're getting ready to focus again on
the whole Epstein debacle that's going on and everything that
goes on with that. And we could say to ourselves,
you know, how could our world ever descend into such a thing,
into such a place? How could somebody ever do such
a thing? Murder, incest, chaos is a
result of the fall, and it is a result of the heart of man.
And what did it mean for these women?
Look at what it says here. Did he did for them?
He says he put them in seclusion and supported them, imprisoned
them. Did he imprison them?
No, it didn't say that. It says he protected them.
He took care of them. After all.
We look at what happened when he was gone.
He provided for them, but he didn't see these things kind of
play out the way as as he hoped, it says.
And they were shut up until the day of their death, living in
widowhood. It's been taught here, we've
taught on this year what it means to be beautiful or
handsome. And I think, you know, on this
occasion, do you think that they may have wanted to curse their
beauty? You think of what they had in
their hearts. Maybe they this would have been
an occasion for them to curse their beauty.
I came upon a quote from somebody who is a very prominent
in the world of politics of years ago and she commented on
the fact she said that not being beautiful was a blessing because
she said the pretty girl has a handicap to overcome.
And it's a reminder to us that it is one thing to make
ourselves look attractive, but it's another thing to make
ourselves look seductive. And women know the difference
and men know the difference. And let us learn a lesson that
the picture of purity and beauty provided in first Peter is the
one for which we strive for for which we long for our children
and our grandchildren. And that is it should be that
your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet
spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight.
This surely this verse 3 is one of the saddest pictures in the
entire story. But life goes on.
It goes on for these women. They live in widowhood until the
day they die. And now David has to make sure
that what is before him in terms of Sheba gets dealt with
quickly. And so we'll notice that the
urgency that David has is he's he's he's going to address it
here quickly. In verses 4 through 6, he
assigns A Massa to call together the men of Judah and to do it
within a three day period and and to get here himself.
And Massa does not manage to do so for whatever reason.
We don't know why, we're not given the reason why.
So David goes to Plan B and he decides, well then if a mass is
unable to get here in time, we're going to go ahead and ABBA
Shy, you're going to go ahead and do what I want you to do.
And so he tells ABBA Shy, he says this guy Sheba, he's
actually going to do more harm to us than Absalom has ever
done. And So what I want you to do is
get to the people, all the people together, pursue him, and
prevent him from being able to hold himself up in a fortified
city. Paraphrasing what's being said
there. But that's what David's telling
Abishai to do. And that gets us through verse
6. And then in verse 7, the
following, first of all were introduced to the men, of
course, and then they are described as Joab's men.
Joab may have been set aside in preference for a Massa by David,
but Joab is really at the very heart of things here as he's
always been, and the combined forces appear to be determined
by his influence. The mission in verse 7 is
stated, is stated to pursue, pursue Sheba.
And then in verse 8 there's a meeting that takes place at a
stone, which is obviously significant meeting point in
Gibeon and Amasa came to meet them.
Now we don't know whether it was a scheduled meeting between
Amassa and those men or if they just happen to meet there.
We don't know. And he could have never known.
Amassa could have never have known that he was walking to his
death. He could have never have known,
but he was. And then we have the record of
his murder that set up the set up is described there.
We don't have the description of a soldiers garments here, the
clothing and everything and all by large.
But you don't, we don't have all the details of that.
But here the soldiers garment had a belt and there was a sword
fastened to his thigh. And as he went forward, as it
fell out. And we can't tell from the text
whether it fell out purposefully or whether it fell out
inadvertently. But there's no question here
that if it happened inadvertently, Joab scooped it
up and took advantage of what was presented before him.
You see, Joab didn't think Amasa was worthy of being in charge.
So Joab took it upon himself and he reached down and grabbed that
sword and at the same time he went to grab the beard of Amasa.
As an Eastern fashion, you would take hold of the beard as to
give him a kiss and say, how's it going, Amasa, how are you?
How's your health? We Fast forward 1000 years to
the Garden of Gethsemane and the traitor comes and he embraces
Jesus and he said and Jesus the King says, would you betray me
with a kiss? Job says how are you doing?
Job doesn't care how he's doing. Job doesn't care how a mass is
doing. Joab has a plan, his very own
reasons that he wanted to eliminate a masa and he does it
so swiftly, swiftly and silently and mercilessly.
And they're a massive lies in a pool of blood. 1 of Joab's men
is given the responsibility to try and make sure that all the
people that are in pursuit of Shiva to just keep following
Joab and Abishai. And then notice the sentence
there at the end, it says then Joab and Abishai's brother
pursued Shiva, the son of Bickery.
I mean, you talk about cold heart.
Cold heart brutality is quite immense in this passage.
You know, he kills him on on in one blow.
It's a devastating impact. And he turns around.
He says his brother, OK, now that's taken care of.
Let's go ahead and keep on pursuing Shiva.
Meanwhile, what happens next is that is what we see and we know
as. Rubbernecking.
This is going to be happening right here, says meanwhile.
So Joab leaves and one of he leaves one of his voices.
If you're on the side of Joab, which puts you on the side of
David, just keep moving and you'll be fine.
But the people stop to look to see a mass on the side of the
road wallowing in his own blood. And then what happens is he
realizes that he's got to get a Massa off the road, he's got to
get him out of the way so these people can keep on following
Joab and Abishai to take care of Sheba.
So 1 of Joab men pulls Amasa off the road, throws something over
him to cover him. And now the people aren't
distracted by what's happening at that moment.
And that's exactly what's there in verse 13.
They moved him out of the road and all the people went after
Joab to pursue Sheba, the son of Bashir.
So they knew all. They knew what they were doing.
And then verses 14 and 15, it says in Joab, Joab once again
stays true. You know, Joab, he's a very
consistent guy, to say the least.
He stays true to himself. He seeks to advance his cause by
attacking the city of Abel, of Beth McCaw.
You know, Joab knows what he's doing.
This is not his first rodeo. If you want to say he's done
this before, he's good at it. He's a military man.
Job is an interesting man in really a lot of ways, since I've
been kind of picking up on him through these studies.
Really an interesting guy because his commitment is where
his commitment is to King David and to the the growth and the
security of the Kingdom of David.
His commitment is to the anointed king of God.
His motive seems to be largely right, but his method is so
bizarre on how he goes about this.
He's already left a trail behind him of death and he continues to
do it. It's basically a warning.
He's warning each to each person who was tempted to say, you
know, I think I can advance the Kingdom of God by military might
or by muscle, by power. And if we think about it, that
notion is still alive and well today.
We see that happen, the advancement of the Kingdom of
God by fighting by by brutality, by whatever means may be
possible, by human nature. That's the Joab way.
And Jesus says in John 18, verse 36, my Kingdom is not of this
world. If my Kingdom were of this
world, my servants would fight. But we don't fight.
You see, we're not involved in a building of an American empire,
or any empire for that matter. You see, we're the servants of a
humble king who's a friend of the US broken people who receive
all kinds. We, we receive everything that
we have coming to us. Jesus received far more interest
from prostitutes than he did from religious professors.
He welcomed people into his fold, some most unlikely people
that we could ever imagine. His own family tree is riddled
with messed up people because he came to save all those types of
people that had all, all kinds of issues, each one of us.
So let's not be, let's be careful when maybe we see the
Joab come out in us. If you want to say we want to
make sure we check ourselves. If we're getting a little too
aggressive with things or pushing on somebody too hard or
whatever it may be, then we have a wise woman.
Time to hear from a wise woman. OK, a wise woman.
Maybe she can help us out. Maybe she can help Joab decide
which way to go on this. A shrewd woman, a woman who's
able to think outside the box. You see, Joab had previously
used a wise woman. If we remember, we tried to, he
tried to bring reconciliation between David and Absalom.
We see that in Chapter 14. We're not told of the woman's
name, but we know Sheba's name, and he's a troublemaker, but we
don't have her name. But her influence is powerful,
as we're going to see here. Very, very powerful.
And I started thinking about women who may be wise women that
Wayne we may be Privy to or know of in our history.
You know, we think of wise women.
I thought about maybe Margaret Thatcher.
She was a wise woman, Rosa Parks, she was a wise woman.
And the things that she did seemed to be pretty wise Mother
Teresa, wise in her ways, wise women.
But then I came across a woman who her name is Golda Mere, and
she was actually the first Prime Minister woman of Israel and the
only woman prime Prime Minister on Israel.
I had no idea who she was until I found a couple of her quotes.
Some may remember who she is, but she was able to be bold
enough to think outside the box and to say things that were on
her mind. A couple of the quotes that I
came across really struck stuck stuck with me.
One, she says 1 cannot and must not try to erase the past
because it does not fit the present.
It's a wise saying. Another one, she said old age is
like a plane flying through a storm.
Once you're on board, there's nothing you can do.
A pretty good one. So listen to the woman as she
shouts. She says here, here or listen,
listen to tell Joab. Let's try to think about this
for a moment. Let's paint this picture in our
mind. Here the city is being besieged.
The city Abel of Beth Macaws being besieged by Joab and all
of his men. Maybe they built a ramp.
They're going to get battering ramps to take the walls down.
So it's not some sort of like quiet a sneaky attack.
If you want to say it's kind of like noise, banging, clanking,
hammers, nails, everything, armor and Shields and Spears and
everything just making a racket trying to take this this city
walls down. It's not quite in any way.
And Joabs down there, he's on the mountain, He tells and she
tells them, tell him to come here so I can speak to him.
And he came near and the women said, are you Joab?
And he said, yeah. And she said, we'll listen to
the words of your servant. He said, I'm listening.
And then she said, you know, they used to say that Abel that
you're trying to destroy was the place where there was answers.
It's kind of like a mother city to Israel.
People used to come here so they can get answers to their
question. You're just trying to destroy
it. Now.
You want to tear this thing down.
You know, this is a historic place in Israel for Israel's
people. Why would you want to do this?
Why would you want to swallow up the heritage of the Lord?
And you know, it's really surprising that that Joab
responds the way he does. Joab answered.
He said, far be it from me, far be it from me.
I mean, are you kidding me, Joab?
We can see right through that. You know, this guy has left a
trail of destruction and he's saying I would never do such a
thing. Well, give me a break.
Job. We we know who you are.
We know what he's about to do and he's able to do Mr.
Destruction, if you want to call him that when it comes to his
dealings. But of course, he's he's
actually the swinging, swinging. He's trying to tell him the
point of what what's really going on.
He said that's not true. I'm not going to destroy the
city. I'm here to get a hold of Sheba,
the son of Mercury, because he's lifted his hand up against the
king and he deserves to be destroyed.
And you can't do that woman is what he's telling her.
And the woman says to Joab, watch, his head will be thrown
to you over the wall. Well, if we heard that, if any
of us heard that, I kind of wonder how Joel responded here
and looked at his guys went, well, OK, let's see if she can
do that or if he was like, yeah, we got someone on the inside
who's going to take care of him for me.
I don't know how he responded, but what it went like.
But I think he looked, as guys say, well, I wasn't expecting
that to come out of her mouth, but it did.
So she's up on the wall and she and they're down and job's not
going in. And we find out she was not
going to be coming out and they're all waiting to see if
his head comes flying over the wall.
I could only imagine one of the soldiers saying, you know, well,
she going to be able to do this. Where'd she go?
Is she going to take care of this like she said?
And you know, I think, you know, what was it?
Tell us there It says in in her wisdom there in the text, she
went to share her wisdom with the people.
She's a wise woman. So she went to talk her wisdom
to them. In other words, she went to tell
the other people in the city their plan, her plan.
And again, I, you know, I could think of maybe Job and this
guy's kind of conversing back and forth.
One of Job's guys asked Job, Well, they do you think they're
really going to go ahead and with this and deliver like she
said she was. And you know, I think Job may
have said, well, we're going to find our answer soon enough.
Well, the head come flying over the wall landed.
The trumpet sounded as we can read there and the men have went
home and Joab returned to Jerusalem to King David.
So we got the rebellion of Sheba taken care of another murder,
two more murders that we read about.
So can we say at this point that everybody's going to live
happily ever after? Well, there's still more to
come. David's going to suffer the
results of his old age. His life is going to continue to
tumble and ruin. He wasn't wise enough or good
enough to establish a Kingdom that would last forever.
There's only one. There's only one wise enough,
good enough to establish the Kingdom that lasts forever.
And it's not by might, it's not by power, but it's by my spirit,
as God says in Zechariah 46, says the Lord.
You know, we see today throughout the world today, all
the children of the Kingdom are meeting all kinds of places,
sharing the same songs, declaring the same king, namely
Jesus. That's why you see the.
The Old Testament ends with a period of 400 years of silence
and darkness where generations simply are left with just the
promises of God and that's it. And when their grandchildren or
their children ask for, you know, when, when are all these
promises going to be fulfilled? When is it going to happen?
When are we going to see the fulfillment of the Messiah?
When are we going to see all this?
These things come to you know, we've been taught that God keeps
his promises. Why are we seeing those promises
kept? Well, that's the cry of the new,
new chest, you know, it's, it's the cry of us as well, you know.
But there's a longing, there's a waiting.
God hasn't fulfilled all of his promises yet, but we believe his
promises are going to be fulfilled by the coming of Jesus
at one of these days, The final promise.
He comes to save, He comes to rule, and he comes to reign.
So we see a rebellion of Sheba, a worthless man, and then an
intervention that came by the way of an unnamed woman who
exercise great wisdom in her circumstance.
And that leaves us with the concluding few verses.
Here, 23 through 25, it says. And Joab was over all the army
of Israel, Ben and I, the son of Jehoiadai was over the
Cherithites and the Pelathites. Adiram was in charge of revenue
and interesting enough, Adiram was in charge of revenue instead
of revenue. It says.
In some other translations it says forced labor.
Jehoshaphat the son of Ahila was a recorder, Shiva was a scribe,
Zadok and Abby Athar were the priests and Ira the Jairite was
a chief minister under David. Seems almost kind of anti
climactic, right? We're just going to go ahead and
read the officers and the government officials in.
Well, what do we have here? It's simply appears to be simply
just a list of members, if you like, David's Cabinet, the
crucial people within the structure of the government
that's going to proceed from there.
And the way in which we need to think about this is in
relationship to the fact that this is the second occasion in
Second Samuel where we see such a list provided to us on
previous occasion, Second Samuel.
You can read it and in chapter 8 of Second Samuel, I believe in
verse 15 or so there at the it's familiar in length, largely the
same, but there's some differences.
For example, we're told immediately here that Joab was
in command of the army of Israel.
In Chapter 8, it says what Joab was identified as being command
of the army of Israel. And I think there's an
indication in a way that falls to the very fact that Joab had
really ascended in his military might, in his military ways.
Now he's in command over all the armies of Israel.
Joab, I think, also took into account maybe in his own mind
that he was kind of filling in the gaps for David that David
could not do. In his own mind, Joab was taking
care of those underlying battles that needed to happen in order
for the advancement of King David.
We have an important distinction, though.
It's in verse from verse 15, in chapter 8.
The rider wants us to understand, I think, one thing.
It says David reigned over all Israel, and as he did so, he
administered justice and equity to all the people.
So his position as king was, is significant.
And, and the implications of his kingship were not seen only as
in the decisions that he made, but in the way that he conducted
his life and in the way that he organized everything that was
going on. And by the time we get to
chapter 20 in this list that we read here, things have changed a
little bit. For example, we'll notice in
verse 24 that this man Adoram was in charge of the revenue or
in charge as some transitions say, forced labor.
We don't have any record record of that before there was nobody
in charge of forced labour or force Rep or revenue.
If you want to say people could sustain themselves by just
helping each other during that for early part of David's reign.
But now things have changed to where that role is necessary.
See the Kingdom of David is no longer as it was when it was
back then. The highlights of his rule have
been overshadowed. If you want to say they've taken
a less the the kingdom's not as remarkable as it used to have
been. Just like Saul's dynasty failed,
David's dynasty is failing as well as Solomon's that will read
on in in further will also fade. Saul faded politically, Solomon
is going to collapse religiously and of course David we knew his
failure was a moral failure. It's actually impossible to read
this without recognizing even if we start back, I think about
Chapter 11 all the way through verse 20.
We read this story of painfully aware that the fact that
everything is on a decline in David's rule.
It can be traced to the one offence David did on that one
afternoon that he stayed home and all of his men went out to
war and he and he and he took that offence with Bathsheba.
You see choices have significance.
The choice that David made was significant.
The choices we make are significant and the choice that
he made on that one occasion not only impacted him, but it
impacted Bathsheba, it impacted the future of his reign and
impacted Uriah and everything that is wrapped around all that.
So the consequence of his sin has really undermined the
goodness of his Kingdom. I think David could look back
and say, man, if I could just do it all over again, if I could
just have that moment again, I'd do it all over.
If I could just turn back the clock just a little bit and redo
things. And I don't think there's a
person here that has the same thought about anything in their
lives. If we could just turn back the
clock a little bit and redo things a little different than
we did years ago, or maybe just some recently, whatever it may
be, if there's a way I could go back and deal with that
differently. Well, it was dealt with in
David's case. And if we believe Christ is
dealt in our case as well. Because on account of God's
immense mercy and his Amazing Grace, David was forgiven and he
was forgiven and he was restored.
But he wasn't restored to the wonder in the and, and what had
gone on before to who he was originally.
He was handicapped, if you want to say.
And the prophecy of Nathan in chapter 12 was fulfilled in
graphic detail that we can read about.
We read it. And when you read in chapter 12
the prophecy there in light of all that we've been through and
realized, it was quite the statement.
If you want to say, Nathan said to him, thus says the Lord,
Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own
house, and I will take your wives before your eyes and give
them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the
side of the sun. For you did it secretly, but I
do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.
And we read these things and we recognize that this is a warning
to us, if you want to say. And as the story goes on from
here, what happens, of course, is again and again and again.
And it's represented a way that we see through all kings, all
all the kings and judges, all the every kings in the Old
Testament that, you know, the people of Israel wanted a nice
big, handsome man to be king, King Saul, someone who stood
head and shoulders ever everybody.
That didn't work. Maybe when we think of kings
like David, the ideal king, a man after God's own heart, well,
that didn't work either. And then perhaps Solomon and all
of his glory who asked for wisdom and that wisdom was
granted to him, but yet he got married to 700 times and had 300
concubines. It doesn't sound like wisdom to
me. And so eventually the people are
not simply looking for a king, they're not even looking for a
better king. They're actually looking for a
perfect king. They're looking for perfection.
And that's the question, where can we find a perfect ruler?
That's the question people are asking then, and that's what
we're asking now. Where can we find the perfect
ruler? Who's going to take care of
everything? Who is this king?
Where might he come from? And that answer is actually
found in the opening sentence of the New Testament in Matthew 11,
the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David,
the son of Abraham, the son of man.
So here is a point that is not stated, but we look, we, we, we
understand and I hope that we can see just through the
imperfections of man of themselves, the way they try to
rule sin that affects all the rule and reign of every king
that we read about and will read about in the future.
There's only one who's going to be able to restore everything,
to restore a relationship with God and it's found only solely
in our Lord Jesus Christ, period.
And we thank God for that. So are we able to say, and they
lived happily ever after? Well, we're not able to say that
yet, except in the completion of God's work.
When the King of King, Lord Jesus Christ, comes in return
and calls it all to a limb to an end.
We will then all live happily ever after.
Is there one here who needs to follow the gospel set forth
before us in the Scriptures? We are to hear the Word of God,
believe the Word of God. Believe is an action word.
It takes action. Once we believe, it's just not a
belief in our heart. The demons believe.
A belief demands a response. We're going to change the way
that we've been doing things. We're going to change the way
we've been living. Living.
We're not going to live in sin anymore.
We're going to live for Jesus now.
We're going to repent of our old ways.
Then we understand that we need to confess the name of Christ,
recognizing that Jesus is the Son of God.
And then we are baptized for the remission of our sins, as we
have examples in the Bible. And then, and only then, we
can't contact the blood of Jesus and are forgiven of our sins.
And that's the beginning of our Christian life.
Maybe you need to do that today. And we can accommodate that
today. We had two great baptisms
yesterday. Wonderful 2 New brother and
sister in Christ, new life, new transformation.
Maybe you're here and you have believed the word of God but
have slipped in some way publicly.
You need to make a public confession in any manner to make
it right with God. Or you just need the prayers of
the congregation. We actually come at this time,
while we stand and while we sing.