Gooding, David: 2 - David’s Early Years as King (1:1–8:18)

Next week, God willing, we shall be surveying the chapters of Second Samuel that begin in chapter nine and extend through to chapter fifteen. Those chapters in the book of Samuel are in the first place marked by a series of love stories, if that is indeed the appropriate label to put upon them, love stories. They are there because second Samuel is going to analyze for us in its middle chapters, what are the problems that lie at the center of government? And therefore, these chapters introduce us to certain stories in the king's court that superficially taken are love stories, but stories of such sort as will make us begin to question. What is the true nature of love? What would be worthy of being designated by that lovely word? Then those chapters will tell us of Absalom's murder of his brother Amnon, and the beginning of the problems that that raised for King David, his father, and in particular the problem of whether or not to allow Absalom back to the court. And we shall hear argued before us permissive arguments in favor of Absalom's return. Permissive arguments that argue that the whole idea of punishment is out of date, and that punishment anyway is a nonsense of a thing because it doesn't do any good, and that people ought to know better than to continue the barbarity of punishment. And we shall see that argument prevail, and Absalom brought back without any repentance, and in consequence, with a reconciliation with the king that is sadly inadequate. The whole passage will therefore deal with, as I say, what is the central problem with any government and with the divine government more than any others? The relationship of sin to punishment and of punishment to love. But this evening, let's begin our study with a passage that may well prove to serve as a climax for the early chapters of the book. Let's read from chapter seven beginning in verse eighteen. Two Samuel seven verse eighteen. Then David the king went in and sat before the Lord, and he said, Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that thou hast brought me thus far. And this was yet a small thing in thine eyes, O Lord God, but thou hast spoken also of thy servant's house for a great while yet to come. This too, after the manner of men. O Lord God, and what can David any more say unto thee? For thou knowest thy servant, O Lord God. For thy word's sake, and according to thine own heart, hast thou wrought all this greatness, to make thy servant know it. Wherefore thou art great, O Lord God, for there is none like thee, neither is there any God beside thee, according to all that we have heard with our ears. What one nation in the earth is like thy people, even like Israel, whom God went to redeem unto himself for a people, and to make him a name, and to do great things for you, and terrible things for thy land, before thy people, which thou redeemedst to thee out of Egypt, from the nations and their gods. And thou did establish to thyself thy people Israel to be a people unto thee forever. And thou, Lord, becameest their God. And now, O Lord God, the word that thou hast spoken concerning thy servant and concerning his house, confirm thou it forever and do as thou hast spoken. Let thy name be magnified forever, saying, the Lord of hosts is God over Israel, and the house of thy servant David shall be established before thee. For thou, O Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, hast revealed to thy servant, saying, I will build thee an house. Therefore hath thy servant found in his heart to pray this prayer unto thee. Now, O Lord God, thou art God, and thy words are truth, and thou hast promised this good thing unto thy servant. Now, therefore, let it please thee to bless the house of thy servant, that it may continue forever before thee. For thou, O Lord God, hast spoken it, with thy blessing, let the house of thy servant be blessed forever. God give us good understanding of his word. In our preliminary study of the book of second Samuel last week, we made the simple observation that its story covers three major parts of David's life. All are concerned with David's reign as king. But the first part deals with the period in which he was beginning to get the power into his hands, and deals therefore with the problems associated with the source of power and how do you get power? And how do you consolidate your power? Why should you want to have power anyway? The middle chapters of the book very naturally deal then with David's middle age, his middle age as a man, and the middle period of his kingdom. When the central problem of the government was not how to get power into its hands, but how to hold on to it. And how to deal with all the summary rebellions that raised their head against the power of the throne. And what you did when you had a civil war on your hands, and how you treated people. They are the problems of middle age at any time, but particularly of the middle age of David the King. The last period of the book very naturally devotes itself to the final years of David's life and of his government. It tells us of what was perhaps the most grievous mistake that David ever made, which he made in his comparative old age, and therefore stands as a warning to those of us whose hairs begin to gray. We are not past the danger line. The older we get, the more serious are our sins. And yet this last passage of the book of Samuel is also full of the treasures of experience gained in David's long life, both as an individual and as a king of his nation. They will fill us with hope at the, for the coming of a greater king, who alone shall be able to solve Earth's problems of government. Tonight, however, we must attempt a bird's eye view of the first section. Our studies only comprise five in all, and therefore all we can do, of course, is to try and get a bird's eye view of this territory and notice its leading features that might entice us to study its detail on another occasion. So if you care to take your Bible in hand, we can begin. And I'm going to ask you this evening to keep your Bible in your hand and to follow me, for what I shall be doing is to be offering comments on the stories that fill these early chapters. You will find it convenient, therefore, now and again to look down at the text and to see where I've got to and what the next story is. It will also have the practical benefit of helping every one of us to keep awake. We shall notice then, to begin with, that in this first part of David's, uh, uh, reign, uh, there were three different places in which he had his headquarters. They correspond, of course, to the rising tide of the power that came into his hand. Notice, please, then, in chapter one and verse one. It came to pass after the death of Saul, when David was returned from the slaughter of the Amalekites, and David had abode two days in Ziklag. There he was in the city that the Philistines had given him. That had been his headquarters in the time when he was rejected by the nation of Israel, where he lived with his faithful, believing, and loyal remnant of retainers in Ziklag. He was there still when he heard the news of the death of Saul. And the first chapter of second Samuel deals with two major matters that happened after the death of Saul, while David was still in Ziklag, still very little more than an armed band of a few men with David as their chieftain. Then in chapter two, we find the next stage forward. It came to pass that David inquired of the Lord, shall I go up into any of the cities of Judah? And the Lord said unto him, go up. And David said, whither shall I go up? And he said, unto Hebron. Now he moves from the comparative obscurity of Ziklag to Hebron, which he now makes his capital city for the next seven years, as the men of Judah breaking away from King Saul's descendants, transfer their allegiance to David, and he becomes king of them and reigned in Hebron over Judah. The succeeding chapters naturally tell us a whole ray, uh, array of stories of events that happened while David was still in Hebron, king of Judah, whereas all the other tribes of Israel still adhered to Saul's son Ish-bosheth. Then in chapter five we move the next big stage forward. For the opening verses of that chapter tell us how the tribes of Israel, all of them now at this juncture, came over to David, so that David, uh, became king of all twelve tribes, and the house and dynasty of of of Saul came to its end. And the first thing David did upon coming king of the whole nation is told us in cha- in chapter five and verse five. in Hebron he reigned over Judah seven years and six months, and in Jerusalem he reigned thirty and three years over all Israel and Judah. In other words, as the record will now relate, David took his army, went to Jebus, a city still in the hands of the Canaanites, stormed the city and took it, and set up Jerusalem as his capital city, capital now not only of the tribe of Judah, but capital city for all the twelve tribes of Israel that were now under his government. And the rest of the first section of the book deals with the events that happened when David had now at last got to himself the power of all twelve tribes and reigned, uh, in Jerusalem. Let us follow then these stories and note their stages as we go by. The problems of securing power. How do you get hold of it? The question of the source of power. Does it matter where you get the power from and from whom you get it? And does it matter by what means you get the power into your hand? The first stories are going to be then about the source of power, and in David's estimation, about the sacredness of power. And to highlight the question, our first story is of David still in Ziklag, a while after Saul had been defeated by the Philistines. And now there comes into Ziklag, into David's present, an Amalekite, if you please, with the crown of Saul in his hand, and he offered it to David. My boy, said David, where do you get that from? If I mistake not and my eyes deceive me not, that's, that's Saul's crown, isn't it you've got? Yes, sir, he said, that's Saul's crown. And pray, where did you get Saul's crown from? Oh, he said, I, I happened to be in Mount Gilboa, you know, the other day when the battle took place, and I was walking among the corpses. I leave you to guess what for, when I spotted a particularly bright crown, and and there was Saul, and he'd fallen on his sword, trying to commit suicide to avoid capture by the Philistines. And as I went by, he called me, for his life was still in him, and he asked me to slay him, so I stood over him and I slayed him, you see, I slew the man. And here, David for you? It is crown. What would you have said to that? I remember just at this moment that Saul had been David's sworn enemy. What with outright attack, attempted assassination, personally in the house. What with undermining or trying to his own wife's loyalty to him and trying to get her to connive at his arrest and destruction? What with Saul's perfidious slaughter of all the priests for helping David? Not to speak of the times when he brought the whole army in full power, marching through the wilderness, hunting David, as David said, like a flea on a mountain. Saul willingly, any day of the week, would have murdered David, and many times tried to. And now Saul is dead, and here is Saul's crown being offered to David. What would you have said? Oh, praise the Lord. Isn't it marvelous how God guides in life? My dear Amalekite, I can see the Lord's hand in bringing you along to that battle scene. Uh, just at the right time, you know, somebody else might have grabbed it. It might have fallen off the man's head, might have tumbled down a ditch, and somebody else like Ishbosheth might have got hold of it. Oh, how does God guide in our life? Oh, thank the Lord for bringing you that way and bringing me the crown. He said nothing of the sword. He said, who are you? Standing there with that crown in your hand, who are you? I'm a Malachite. I'm a Malachite indeed. To understand the significance of that, we better just try and remember who Amalekites were. They are consistently represented in Old Testament as the outright, downright, deliberate opponents of God that had defied God and tried to prevent God bringing his people through the wilderness from Egypt to the Promised Land. People that had tried to prevent the very throne of heaven from carrying out its plan. Rebels against God. It was these very Amalekites that God had sent Saul to destroy because of their opposition to the purposes of God. And alas, it was on that very occasion when Saul had been called upon to eradicate Amalek and its rebellion against the throne of God, that Saul himself had turned rebel and disobeyed God. And in the manner of disobedience, when disobedience has been allowed for whatever specious excuse or other, and we have toyed with it and allowed it and not eradicated it. Disobedience in the end proved Saul's own destruction. It does, it commonly will. Disobedience to God may seem on the odd Wednesday or Friday afternoon to be a rather charming thing and, uh, full of excitement and allurement. Disobedience to God, cherished, allowed, endowed, excused, will in the end turn round like a baby lion cub that you've played with, but now it's grown up, and one day it will turn round and divide. As the Amalekite, if you please, stood there offering the crown to David. David said, no, thank you very much indeed. I am very choosy from whose hand I accept royal power. The power may be glittering and attractive to take power from the hand of a rebel against God. Will ultimately put you in the camp of the rebel and prove your own destruction. And as you ponder the principle of the thing, your mind may well travel forward many centuries to a desert place. Jesus Christ, our Lord, stood to be tempted of the devil, and he took him out to high mountain, and he said, as he showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, said he, all these will I give you, for they're mine, and I give them to whomsoever I will. All these will I give you, if you will fall down and worship me. And Christ that day could have had universal dominion, but if he take, had he taken it from that source, you and I would have perished as slaves in Satan's darkness forever. Power. Power. The very first thing we must consider is who it is that's offering it. The source of power. How many a man in business, how many a man in politics has sold his very soul for power. How many a Christian preacher, let me say it with fear, has compromised with doctrinal or moral evil for the sake of support and power. And if it were given to me, and it isn't to advise elders of churches, I would say... that if in your desire to be an elder, you allow yourself to be swept into position by people who have no intention whatsoever of obeying Holy Scripture. Your true function of an elder, to get people to obey God, will be ruined before you start. The sacredness then... of power. And then David narrowed his eyes a little bit and had another look at the man standing in front of him with the crown. And you tell me, he said, you actually killed Thor. How weren't you afraid to do it? Everybody was doing it on Mount Gilboa. Thousands of them dead, carcasses all over the place. You mean, how was I not afraid to do it? I merely joined in and gave the man a coup de grâce. He was the Lord's anointed, says David. How weren't you afraid to kill him? Well, that was a new slant on power as far as the Amalekite was concerned, that there was anything sacred about people. He was brought up in a world where it's the biggest animal rules the jungle. The idea that power comes from God, and if God has bestowed his power, this is a sacred thing that we must respect with awe. That was far from the Amalekites. In some countries still, notably in our own, at least in the formal ritual of the coronation of the sovereign, acknowledgement is made that power actually comes from God. Whatever people normally think when they go to the elections, formal acknowledgement, at least on that occasion, is made that power comes from God. Happy those nations that have some concept of the sacredness of power. That it is not, or that it should not be simply, that the biggest bully with the biggest bomb automatically qualifies to be the boss. Not till this world is brought to the acknowledgement that power comes from God and is a sacred thing, shall the world be free from stuff. That the thought of an Amalekite, of all people, putting forth his hand and slaying the Lord's anointed. David could not contain himself and ordered the man. What would you have done next, had you been David? Here you are in Ziklag. Well, Ziklag, you may not know Ziklag, you may not have been there very often or not, I don't know, but Ziklag isn't exactly in the center of the world. It wasn't even in the center of the map of ancient Israel. A one-eyed show in the middle of nowhere, kind of a place that the Philistine would give, um, to a, a, a political refugee that happened to be in his midst, you know? Get him out of the way of the establishment. Now it's falling dead. And you've eyes, yeah, you've eyes on the firm. Notions that perhaps God has got the firm for you somewhere one of these days. Now, but of course, then you've got to use a common sense angel. Now, now, wouldn't you agree with me? What you want is a ca- a a a propaganda campaign. There are some very good firms about, so I've recently been informed. They'll take on anybody. Anybody. And make your visit a success, or your whatever it is that you know. Are you a politician? Are you a radio announcer? Are you who you are? Ah, but you'll need their services to, to, to put the propaganda across to bring you to the nation's, uh, attention. You do a little propaganda, couldn't you? David thought so too. And he hadn't got television in the wireless then, nor daily newspapers. So he did what they did in the ancient world, he composed a poem. And he taught it to the people so that everybody sang it, and as they learned it, and the tune was good, uh, and it spread through the nation, it carried its message by the fireside, people hundreds at work, hoeing the beat, uh, uh, brushing on the fire, feeding the camel. They, they sang it because it was a good tune, you see, and uh, of course it was David's signature tune, and uh, then they heard a lot about David, you see, and they got the political message. Yes? Here I say, had you been writing David's uh, propaganda poem, what would you have put in it? Look how the previous government has led us to disaster. Look how the Philistines have everywhere overrun our land. This is the incompetence of that silly chap, Saul, and, uh, his policies. Now, if you would, uh, come over to my side. If you'd have written that kind of stuff, you would have been no good for, for David's publicity department. Poem is altogether different. He wrote a poem. He taught it, carefully taught it to his contemporaries, and it went like this. Oh, how lovely Saul and Jonathan. Saul and Jonathan? David, but... they were your enemies, man. And David, you can't afford that kind of stuff because John, uh, Saul's high leaf boshet is still alive and breathing, and ten of the tribes, if not eleven of them, feel an allegiance to him. If you go paging up Saul and Jonathan like that, well, everybody will say, well, they're jolly good chaps. Yes, David says so. Well, why not keep them in the government? You'll have to pick holes in them, David. You'll have to run them down to the earth. Can't be good if they oppose you. Look at the terrible things they've done. I'm going to get power by running down people that have opposed me. Not even. Enemies they had been. Terrible, dark deeds. They had imagined and tried to put into action against David. How about Jonathan was lovely and saw the Lord's anointed. There was another side to their character, said David, you know, they did the nation a tremendous lot of good, didn't they? And he taught the people to love his enemy. My brother, is that how you do in your church? Or do you sometimes yield to the temptation that when somebody's done you a dirty trick? Then Then you... you can't imagine that anything that he could do would be right, running down to the lowest. But careful. The man who sits on God's throne at this moment, and one day shall sit on his own throne, governing the universe, is the man who not only taught people to love his enemies, he loved them himself, and he died for them. David could see the good, even in Saul and John, and made poetry out of it. Just you imagine. Making poetry out of the lives of his personal enemies and taught Israel to value even the mistaken and wayward members of the nation. And I think I needn't belabor the point, but whether you sit on an ornate king's throne or occupy an elder's seat, or are like me, just an ordinary person in the Church of God, or a trader down the street, or a housewife. Let us learn from these Old Testament men a standard of behavior towards their enemies that sometimes is better than the behavior of one Christian to another. We come then to chapter two and uh, David now comes to Hebron, and uh, there Judah makes him king. What now then will be the problem and the lessons to be learned. Now that he is king of Judah, has more power, he has at least one side behind him by their consent, yet still at this time Ish-bosheth, Saul's son, is alive and breathing, and humanly speaking, he's the more powerful man because he has eleven of the tribes of Israel on his side. And on his side also that capable warrior, Abner the son of Ner, field marshal of the eleven tribes. David with just one tribe. Very much in the minority. So what were they to do? And what are the lessons to be learned now? First of all, we read that, uh, it was told David that the men of Jebuskelion were those that, uh, buried Saul. They indeed. Indeed. What would you have said to them? These were the men of Jabes Gilead. They had been, um, Saul's servants, of course. When Saul had, uh, fallen on the battlefield, the men of Jabes Gilead risked their lives out of loyalty to Saul, and they went and collected Saul and gave him decent bed. And David heard it. David say, what? Tell me, you better come and have a word with me, good man. Now come, pray, explain your action, will you? Do you not know Saul is my great enemy? Saul tried to kill me. And now the very king in heaven, you tell me that you've gone and honored Saul and given him decent and public error. You suppose you're doing? This is nothing less than high treason against me. I must be construed as deliberate enmity against me, and a slap in the face that you've gone and honored my enemy is even better. Of course, he didn't say anything of the sort. There he was a wise man. He knew loyalty when he saw it. And loyalty in itself is a quality whose value you could guess the exactly. Loyalty is the thing that makes the universe hold together. Loyalty is the thing that stops the universe flying into ten million pieces. All for the loyalty of God to us, his creatures, even when we sinned against him. Loyalty to... And that's so that he'd rather that he perish, that he give his own son for us, rather than we perish. Thus loyal is God. And David wasn't going to smash the sense of loyalty in those men's hearts. Suppose they felt loyal to his one-time enemy. If he smashed the sense of loyalty, then even if they came over to him, they wouldn't necessarily be loyal to him either, would they? And sometimes we do misconstrue people. They're friends with the people that just have just offended us. And because they're friends of them, they stick up for them. What would you expect them to do? Will you count them their enemy because they show loyalty? Now look, said David, I am king. I'd like you to know that. Judah is elect to be king now. More than a hint there, one of these days I should be delighted to receive you in loyalty to myself. But insofar as you have shown loyalty to your sovereign, well done, gentlemen, well done. You'll have nothing but praise from me. Let me never to get anybody over to what I think is my side. Destroy the man's sense of loyalty. Then there's the story of Abner and Joab. They went out on a day with some of their troops to the great pool at Gibeon. Some of you may have stood by the pool. It isn't a pool, really, it's a water shaft, Canaanite, magnificent piece of civil engineering, but that by the by. And there they were, Joab and his men on one side, and Abner and his men on the other side. It was a nice day, the sun was shining, and Joab had his lunch, and so had Abner, and there's nothing else to do. You know, it gets boring sometimes when you've got a whole army of weapons and no chance to use them. Boring, isn't it? Learning it out of a textbook at Sandhurst or whatever, and you've got whole armies, and you deal with them. That gets terribly boring. So Abner said to Joab, or was it Joab to Abner? Come, they said, let the young men arise and play before us. Play? What do you mean? Play? What, football? No. It's a little bit of the war game. Real manly stuff. I don't know. Spears with no corks on the end. Ah, say this philo- philologian. No, ah, yes, but the Hebrew word pray really should be understood in the military sense, conduct maneuvers. All right, conduct maneuvers then, I don't mind. People learn me to play. See how I got around to being maneuvered. So Joab and Abner didn't make the mistake of getting up and playing, as they called it. No. Might have been a bit dangerous. They had to sit in the background. Oh, now come on. We get the young men get out and play for the plays. And they rose up both of them on each side, and they grabbed each his man opposite number by the beard and put his bare feet in it, and they all fell down together in one thing. Now. Bad. Well, that led to the general blackout, actually, for the peace of the Middle East. And in the end, Joab and Abner had told each other very wisely, you know, we better not take this too far, or it will end in bitterness in the end, you know, spoil our afternoons and evenings where we can't have time to get back to the club and enjoy our, our drinks, you know. Don't take this too far. But a little pain. There's new smile. I wish at this moment you could hear the dying groans of millions and millions and millions of men that walked behind Alexander the Great, that walked behind Antiochus Epiphanes, that walked behind Julius Caesar, that walked behind the Conan. In the days when the leaders of nations played their little war games and carved up Europe, but if it cost a few thousand soldiers, what were soldiers for anyway? Power games, war games. Is that all human life value, matter, cost? Men's lives mere pawns in the chess struggle of international power politics. Oh, thank God for a king who even in those ancient days disapproved of it. Thank God for a greater king, who shed blood indeed, but first shed his own blood for his sons, rather than that they should perish. If you be a Christian, you serve a Christ, you serve a king who holds your life to be valued with infinite worth. Gave his life for it. He will never play power games with your life. Nice to know, isn't it? Oh, if you didn't know Jesus Christ. What is this whole planet about, with its teeming millions of men? Just an afternoon sport? For a creator or two. When he's had his sport, will abandon the whole show and go off to some other galaxy. No, indeed not. In Jesus Christ, the greater than David, we have the very heart of God revealed, loyal to you, my friend, not playing games with your life, not rising to power simply by regarding you as expendable, but regards you as one for whom he willingly died himself. And so we move on to another long story. It need not now to taint us long because its principle is very much similar. Joab's assassination of Abner. It was like this, of course, that at one stage, Abner, who was a commander in chief of the eleven tribes and their armies, had put Ish-bosheth, Saul's son, on the throne, and none again saw fit to remind him of the fact. One day, Ish-bosheth happened to say a few remarks that didn't please Abner, and he said, right, my good man, now I'm telling you, I put you on this throne, I'm now about to take you off it. God do so to me and more also, if I don't transfer the whole kingdom to David. And off we went to open negotiations with David. To cut a long story short, on certain conditions, David opened negotiations with him. And Abner was going to bring over the whole of the eleven tribes to serve David as king. So they made this tentative arrangement, the agreement was initialed, and uh, off uh, Abner went to arrange the details. When Joab came in and read it in the evening press, or from court gossip, that Abner had been about the place that day when Joab had been off on a raid somewhere. And discovering that Abner had had negotiations with the king, uh, Joab went in to protest to David. Said, David is going to bring over the whole ten tribes u- u- under my rule. Nonsense, nonsense, said Joab, you think he's going to do anything of the sort? Came here merely to spy, you know. It's no good, this whole thing. It's not in your interest, David. I wouldn't trust him not an inch, David, if I were you. He's not in your interest, man, bringing over the ten tribes. Oh, it sounded good. So, Joab went and sent and called back Abner, and Abner came back all unsuspecting and said, I said, Joab, I want a word with you, Abner, my boy. And as they stood in the middle of the gate, Joab put his sword through his belly. That was the end of that. Which had the effect? Well, there wasn't another commander about to. So Joab kept on in the job of commander. That was good for David, wasn't it? Or... or wasn't it? Tell me. When Joab assassinated Abner, did you suppose that Joab was really thinking what was good for David? Joab with an army of the one little tribe as commander in chief, or shall we have Abner, commander of the eleven tribes and their armies, come over to David? Well, Joab could see what that would lead to. If you had one commander with eleven tribes of armies, and you had one commander with only one tribe of armies, it was evident there was going to be commander change, and Joab knew better than to let it happen. His interest was? For David? Of course not. For Joab? Couldn't care tons what happened to David, really. Do you know, you'll think I'm odd and I've been in some funny places. Well, I have been in some extraordinarily funny places in my life. Not to descend from high international politics to small things, I've known it happened like this in a church, that once upon a time there was a church and it had an organ, and there was a good man played it who did his best to take the Lord and was good. Well, in a way good. He got seven notes out of ten right most of the time. Nobody else could do better. The dear man did it to the very best of his ability, will get a reward when he gets home to heaven. Then there happened to come to the district somebody who had a degree in music. Of course, playing organ. And the elders had the temerity to suggest that organist number one might give way to organist number two. What a humozle! What an ungodly thing to do! Ungodly? Why ungodly? Well, it ought to be done. Why not? Because it wouldn't be good for the Lord's cause. You'd hardly say that, could you, because the Lord's cause had gone a bit better if a better man paid the oil than that. Ah, but sometimes... our eyes get blinded, don't they? We all thought like that. Whether it be arranging the flowers or giving out the hymn books or doing the preaching, uh. We sometimes are serving the Lord, but sometimes we're serving ourselves and our own ambition takes the place of the Lord's interest. Joab shed the blood of peace, uh, blood of war in peace and went down to his grave at long last as a murderer. There came at length another two men into David's presence. If this wasn't sad, it would border on a comic. They came, as they entered the presence. What have we here? They got the man's head, holding a violent curl in their hand, walked into David. All shades of past history. They had been dying when David had come into the presence of Saul, king of Israel, with the head of Goliath the giant in his hand. And all Israel had sung his praises. But this day it wasn't quite like that. Well, there was a head. I suppose it was beautiful, but here these chaps coming in, beaming all over their faces, they got a man's head to bring to David. They thought it was wonderful. They were two of Ish-bosheth's captains. Ish-bosheth now king of Israel in the place of his father Saul. And two of his captains, seeing how things were going and David was getting stronger, decided to jump ship and change over. And they thought they would ingratiate themselves to David by going into Ish-bosheth's bedroom on the summer, summer afternoon when he was taking his siesta and just cutting his head off. We brought it to David, proud of the fact. Well, to say no more. When David came to Saul with a head in his hand, it was the head of one of God's enemies, wasn't he? When these two fellas came in, it was with the head of one of God's people. And they hadn't got the sense to see the difference between an enemy of God and one of God's people. Come, come. But then God give us the grace, so that we shall always see it clearly. If we're going to cut off, cut off anybody's heads or cut down their characters or whatever we're going to do, shall we first make sure that they're the enemies of God and not one of God's own dear people. Well, such treatment for captains in Ish-bosheth's own household army, to assassinate the man in bed when he was asleep, if you please, that rotten, dirty trick. You wouldn't find it in the world, you wouldn't. The world would despise it. David would have none of it, and he executed them for their. Running through these chapters is stress, the sanctity of human life. David would come to power, but not at the cost of devaluing human life. You think I don't, I'm, I'm all on the gloomy side tonight, aren't you? And then we're dealing with gloomy chapters. I have known older folks in churches of God. I've known older folks quarrel and fight until the young folks spiritually have been ruined. I didn't care so long as they were proved right. All the dangers that beset the question, how do you get hold of the power? Well, how do you then? At long length, that second bit tells us how that all the tribes came to David, and they said, David, you are bone of our bone, we're bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh. In times past, when Saul was king over us, it was thou that ledest us out and broughtest in Israel, and the Lord said unto me, unto thee, thou shalt feed my people Israel, and though thou shalt be prince. Three lovely things there. The whole nation at last came and made him king. Why did they make him king? Ah, they said, David, you're one of us, man. One of us. Bone of our bone, wrapped up in our very life you are. Not somebody imposed from the outside, somebody who doesn't care, somebody the rather that is involved in our very living, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. And they made him king because he wasn't an outsider imposed on them, but one of them says. If I ask you why you obey the Lord Jesus and to make him king of your life, I wonder what you'd say. I wonder, I wonder if you'd quote me that delightful verse from Hebrews chapter two. For as much as he that sanctifies and they who are sanctified are all of one. He is not ashamed to call them present. Ah, the great transcendent Lord of time and space. He came down and became one of us, and because the children were partakers in flesh and blood, he himself partook of the same. He was born in a stable and died on a cross that he might be one of us. You love him for it, don't you? Not all the glories of heaven will bow your heart in obedience to Christ like the fact that he became one with you. And anyway, they said, David, you let us out. Actually, that was Saul, you know. He did a few good things in his early days, but for a great part of his life there was he sitting upon his throne under the old tree, spear in his hand, while other people got on with the job of the title. He was going to be the man that gave the, the commands. He didn't go out and fight Goliath, though, kept at a safe distance from him. But you know, it is a thing about governing, folks. You don't get really very far if you just sit upon a golden throne and don't do anything and expect other people to lead the people, because in the end the people will love the people that lead them to victory. Yes? Of course, if I were an elder, I would say, God help me to keep doing the job, wouldn't you? The elders that just sit on their seat and don't actually lead the people of God in their spiritual follies, in their spiritual work, in their spiritual conflict. But imagine ruling in a church to be simply sitting on your seat and giving out the orders and letting the other people do the work. That folk in the end lose their follies. It's the people that actually lead God's people and do the work and win the victory that the people love and want. How that applies to our Lord, I needn't tell you. And anyway, they said, God said you were going to be king. It's about time we submitted to the Lord and made you king. So that as they obeyed him, they felt they were obeying God. The third section deals with a number of important things, and asks us to consider the relation, therefore, of David and his use of power to To God God. and God's power. That is always the question with human government, at whatever level you meet it, even with our Lord. I am to obey somebody and acknowledge his power and authority over me. Pray, what is his re- the relation of his power and authority to God's ultimate power and authority? Which way around is it? So David had to be taught two lovely lessons. I must skimp over them very briefly to allow you home at a respectable hour. The first great lesson was taught David on the occasion when he tried to bring up the Ark of the Lord on the first occasion and did it the wrong way round. David rightly thought that it would be a good thing to have the Ark symbol of the very presence of God among them. He thought it would be a good thing to have it with him in Jerusalem, the very power of God. That would make the people sit up and take notice, wouldn't it? The very Ark of God in his capital city. Yeah. If you put God on the side of the mountain, surely that will impress the people. So David sent, and we're going to bring up the ark, the ark of the presence of the almighty transcendent Lord of creation. And they put it on a cart, and the bullocks began to draw it, and as they went down the road, one of the old bullocks stumbled on a stone or something, the cart wobbled a bit, and the ark looked a bit shaky, and a man with the name of Uzza, seeing the ark look a bit shaky, instinctively ran, put his hand to the ark to hold it up. He thought the throne of God was about to fall over. And God smote him dead. You say, that was unkind of God, wasn't it? Not really. For this is an exceedingly important lesson. Anyway, to start with, a little practical advice. If one of these days you get home to heaven, I hope you do. And coming near the throne of God one of these days in heaven, you should get the impression it's wobbling a bit and about to fall over. Let me give you a bit of advice. Don't you don't try and hold it up. Run! Run as hard as you can run! Why? Because if it falls over on top of you, that'll be the end of you. The end of the whole universe, anyway, if God can't keep himself up. You know, that's the idea that idolaters have about gods, isn't it? They think they have to carry their gods, and they think they have to manipulate their gods and control their gods. In the old pagan world, if it wanted the gods to bless their harvest, they think, now what do you have to do to a god to get the god to, you know, to to bless your harvest? You have to give him a little cash or an offering or two or something, and if you can bribe the god, give him a little slush money, somehow or other get him over onto your side, then you'll enjoy his power. And idolatry is a question of trying to use God for your end. God, how many a politician has done it, there you are, when he's going to start out on these battles, he'll get the whole bench of bishops, say a lot of prayers, because he wants to be sure God's on his side. Unfortunately, the enemy is doing it with the same God the other side. The object. Using God. The next step in that procedure is to try when you think that you've got to hold God up. Oh, what a slavery that would be. Isn't that way round? Look to me, says God. You don't have to carry me. The reverse is true. I carry you. And in that delightful passage through Isaiah, God reminds us again and again, O Israel, even from the womb until four hairs I have made, I will carry you. The question of David using God is the question of God using David. I don't know what job God has given you to do. Bring up a family, govern teenagers, govern a factory, or a shop? May be careful not to fall into the mistake of thinking we've got a job to do, so we better try and persuade God to be on our side to help us. We might fall into the notion of thinking God wasn't too willing or wasn't doing it very well or something or the other. It is not so. God is not there to be used. But God is there to use us and to carry us as we are willing to fulfill the task to which he has appointed us. So David learned his lesson and finally came to the climax of this section. Having seen a little bit of the wonder of God, the God that was prepared to carry him, David made a suggestion to the prophet that he should build God a house. The prophet said, okay, go ahead. But God, uh, said to the prophet, now go and tell David, no, thank you very much, David. David, he said, did I ever ask you to build me a house? I didn't, I think, did I? No. I see. That's because I don't want you to build me a house, David. See? You see, David? When you were little in your own sight, as a little shepherd boy, I chose you. Was that your suggestion? Did you come hammering on my door one Wednesday afternoon saying, God, look, I, I think, I think I ought to be king in Israel, make me king. David, you hadn't such a notion in all your head, had you? No. It was God's idea. And I chose you when you were a little shepherd lad, and I made you king, David. You never dreamed you'll be here as our king, did you? King of Israel, crowned on your head in the lot. Never dreamed of it, did you, David? Whose idea was that, yours or mine? That was God's idea, wasn't it? Long before David had thought about it, God had been planning it, a plan for David's life. And it was a plan bigger than anything David could have dreamed of in his wildest dreams. Now, let me tell you, says God, David, I, I don't want you to build me a house. The fact is, I'm going to build you a house. You get it, David? You think it's marvelous sitting here on your throne, don't you? Now let me tell you something more. I not only brought you here, I'm going to do for you what I never did for Saul. I'm now going to consolidate not only your power, but your dynasty, and I'm going to build you a house. And your throne shall never fail all down the ages, David. Get out your telescopes and look down history, David. For the plan I had in mind when I chose you as a shepherd boy is a plan that will go right to the remotest bounds of history, David. I'm going to build you a dynasty and consolidate your house, and you shall have a son, David. I shall not take my mercy from him like I took it from Saul. Saul's dynasty was never established. Yours will be. If your son offends, I shall discipline him. I shall never reject him. You're going to have a son. He shall be to me a son, and I will be to him a father, and he shall build me a house. Now get it, David? Why do you think you're sitting on the throne? Because that was your idea? No, indeed not. It was my plan. You're sitting on this throne because I had a plan from all eternity, and I planned one day to have a house which a son of yours would build. David, I give you a part in it. Be content with that, my God. When David heard it, he was overwhelmed, and he went in and he sat before the Lord. It was a bit too much to take in. As it began to dawn on him why he had been made king at all. Why would you want to be king? Why would you want to play the organ anyway? Why would you want to be an elder in the church or a parent in a family? Why? Because you like the feel of power and your feeling. What's the whole scheme about? Oh, if we were to get it into our heads that it is some little scheme we cooked up according to our own private ambitions, dangers galore would lurk in our path. If we ask the ultimate question, why has God placed me and gifted me and given me to do what he has, then let's sit back a moment and consider it. Way back in eternity. Before you'd ever begun to think of any such thing, because you weren't there to think it. God had a plan that one day he would have a son, his own blessed son. Who entering our time and space would in this universe create a house for God made up of men of every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation, where God might come and dwell among them. He determined to have a house. And he got you when you were little, when you were rebel, and began the work. And you're delighted with what you've come through so far, yes? You have no clue yet, surely, or have you? Of what still lies ahead in the great purpose of God. David, as he began to get hold of it, said, oh Lord, not only have you brought me hitherto, but you've spoken of me for a great while yet to come, he says. All the wonder of it down the centuries, I have a purpose that will go beyond life history. My son will build your house. Why have you done it, God, he says. Why have you done it? I see why you've done it. For your own sake, you've done it. For your own purpose, you've done it. For your own will, you did it. And you've just told me now what your purpose is. God, he said, half a minute. You will do it, won't you? I mean, what you've just said, you will do it. Therefore, thy servant has found it in his heart to pray according to your word. You've revealed it. You've said it. Now, Lord, all I'm asking is, it sounds so good, you say, that's why I ask it. You will do it, Lord, won't you? And let your servant's house be blessed. David was thinking of a son, his name was Solomon, and how Solomon would build a house, and God would be Solomon's father, and Solomon would be God's son. And that was wonderful. David was thinking of a long line of kings, old Hezekiah and Josiah and a few more like that, yeah? And he thought it was wonderful, but it was wonderful. I wonder, did he know, as God spoke of his purpose, why he'd made David king, I wonder did he catch that there was more in it than even he began to imagine, that there would one day come a son of David that would be son of God in the absolute sense, and he would build God an eternal house. Well, he knows it now anyway. He knows it now. Yes. And so do you, don't you? Well, we're not too small, but what God may apply the lesson to us as we sit back now at the end of this long lecture, sit back in our seats to take it in. Oh Lord, who am I? Whoever you chose me, and you brought me thus far, redeemed and forgiven. I can't be an ancestor of the Messiah. I'm called to be a member of his house, and I'm called one day to sit upon his very throne with him. When God's great purpose of having a cosmic house is complete, and our Lord has built the house, and God indwells, and we reign with Christ. Just imagine that true of you. They say, why God, why has God done it? He's done it according to the purpose of his own will. And that's the end of the matter. How does that leave you? I know how it leaves me. Lord, I'm, it sounds so good, I'm just a little bit afraid. It's too good to ha- ha- to happen. So, Lord, you've said it. If you want to know where, it's in Ephesians. Lord, you said it. My prayer be this, do it according to your word, and I shall be content with whatever part you give me to play in that. Shall we pray? Lord, we thank thee for thy holy word. We thank thee for these ancient stories and their practical lessons. We thank thee more that ever and again they remind us of Jesus Christ, thy son, and the attractiveness of his person, and the glory of his kingship, and the riches of his principles. And now we thank thee above all that thou hast made known to us thy purpose of having an eternal house, built for thee by Jesus Christ, thy son. And for the consciousness that thou hast taken us up into that great purpose of thine own will and volition, this consciousness overwhelms us here this evening. And humbly now we pray, Lord, that thou wilt go on to reveal to us the implication of thy purpose, and that in thy good time thou wilt in all thy faithfulness fulfill thy word that thou hast made known to thyself. And so send us home in thy peace, with thy word in our hearts, and help us, Lord, to commune with thee as we go. Draw near to us, for the day declines, and the coming of the Lord is near. Draw near, Lord, we beseech thee. Cause us to know what thou hast in store for us, by thy grace, through Jesus Christ, thy Son. Amen.