The Speak Life Podcast, sharing Jesus in everyday life. This week the Speak Life Livecast did not record uh quite up to our high standards, and uh so instead of uh giving you some poor audio from the live cast, uh instead we've got a sermon uh preached by myself at All Souls Eastbourne uh a couple of Sundays ago. A sermon on 2 Samuel chapters 2 to 5, really about the clash of kingdoms between Saul and David and how that's fulfilled in the Clash of Kingdoms between Adam and Christ. Hope you enjoy it, and uh next week stay tuned because uh we will have the live cast back up and running. Cheers! So please do have uh 2 Samuel open in front of you. It's on page uh 304. 2 Samuel on page 304, and we'll be looking at a sweep of chapters from chapter 2 to chapter 5 this morning. As I begin, let me ask a question, and maybe someone's asked you this question if you're a Christian this morning. Perhaps somebody's asked you why doesn't God just end all the evil and all the suffering like that. Why doesn't he? Yes. Yes, you're you are giving the full answer there. Yes. That's an answer that will take the next 25 minutes to unpack. Brilliant. That's that's exactly right. That's exactly right. Why does God not end all evil with a magic wand? Why does he not snap his celestial fingers? Why isn't there just an instant end to all evil and an instant end to all suffering? Well, interestingly, in the Bible, that's not the way God does things. For a start, we have this Old Testament, these books that were written before Jesus came as a man, and these books are preparing us for the coming of the true king. And even as they prepare us for the coming of the true king, they give us a picture of what it looks like to have a true king in our midst, but false power plays all around us. It gives us a picture of what it's like to have a Messiah figure who reigns, but also to have kingdoms that are set against that Messiah figure. It shows us what it's like to have light shining in the world, but for there to be darkness around as well. And we see in the figures of David and Saul this interaction. We see a true king, God's anointed one, the Messiah, King David. And he is God's true champion here in 2 Samuel. He is the one who will bring the kingdom of God, and he will reign in peace and bring in the happily ever after. But before King David comes, there's another king. And the book of 1 Samuel tells us about that king, King Saul. Saul, we saw in Neiler time, he was this great giant. He was this great ruler, this great king, who was a head taller than anyone else in all Israel. He's the kind of king who you would vote for, though you never get to vote for kings. But if you could vote for a king, you'd vote for Saul because he embodied worldly strength. He was all about the powers of the flesh. And you would think surely Saul is going to get the job done through might, through the exercise of his power. But what we see in 2 Samuel is that no, God's true king is not the Saul figure. God's true king is the Christ figure, who operates in a completely different way, not by the powers of the flesh, but by the power of the Spirit. And his way of establishing his kingdom is very different. What we're about to see in these chapters are the way in which the Christ's reign of peace interacts with this human scrabble for power. And how does the reign of peace of the Messiah, how does that actually triumph and win in the end? It's not straightforward. It's not the snap of the fingers, it's not a magic wand. And perhaps if we think that God would end all evil with the wave of a magic wand or the snap of some celestial fingers, perhaps we don't really understand the true nature of evil. And perhaps we don't understand the true nature of the human heart. 2 Samuel's going to give us a picture of these two kingdoms represented by two messiahs. Do you know what the word messiah means? We kind of know it in everyday common parlance, don't we? The word messiah. If you work with someone who has a messiah complex, what are they like? They think they're God, don't they, right? They think they're the savior. They think they are the one who's going to sort everything out. If somebody has a Messiah complex, they think they are the Messiah, they think they are the savior, they think they are God, right? And actually, that's that's pretty biblical. That's pretty much in the Bible what the Messiah is. The true Messiah is God's king, who is himself divine and who will save the world. That's who the Messiah is. And actually, in God's way of dealing with things, the Messiah was always promised to the Old Testament people. So on the screen there's Genesis chapter 49. Right in the very first book of the Bible, what we have is this coming sense that there will be a king, a divine king, who will be a universal ruler. In Genesis 49, it says this the scepter, that is the ruling staff, the scepter will not depart from Judah, the tribe of Judah, uh within Israel. Nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until he to whom it belongs shall come, and the obedience of the nations shall be his. Okay, so that's that's the coming Messiah, the coming king. And notice it will be a king of the Jews, and notice it'll be a king specifically of the tribe of Judah. And one day, even back in Genesis, they're all waiting. One day there will be a king who will be a king of Judah, and there'll be the king of the Jews, and they'll be the king of the whole world. But of course, there's going to be a lot of kings in between the first king of the Jews and the final king of the world. There'll be a lot of kings in between. Did you notice the scepter would be passed from king to king to king to king? So that if you were in the Old Testament looking up at an Old Testament king of the Jews, you're looking at a throne warmer for Christ, a throne warmer for the true Messiah. A pencil sketch of Jesus, the Savior of the world. That's what the Messiah was. And so when we come to the book of Deuteronomy, we get to hear more about what the king should be like, this pencil sketch of Jesus, this throne warmer for Christ. In Deuteronomy 17, we are told that their kind of kingship will be different from every other kingship. The people are told through Moses, When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, Let us set a king over us, like all the nations around us, be sure to appoint over you a king the Lord your God chooses. He must be from among your fellow Israelites. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not an Israelite. The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself, that's military might, right? Horses, military firepower, or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them. For the Lord has told you, you are not to go back that way again. Notice this, he must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold. When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the Levitical priests. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God, and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees, and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites, and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel. So the people are being told, you're gonna have these little pencil sketches of Jesus in the Old Testament. You're gonna have these throne warmers for Christ, but they've got to be totally different from all the other kings of the nations. They are not to invest in military firepower. It's not that kind of kingdom. They're not to take many wives. Taking many wives in the ancient world, it was not a romantic thing. It was a political maneuver. You want to politically unite your clan with somebody else's clan, right? And taking many wives is a political maneuver, but it's using these women as pawns. And what does God say? He says, no, not that way. That's not the way of my kingdom. So here we have the preparation for the book of Samuel, the two books of Samuel. And then it's a great surprise when we come to the books of Samuel, and the very first king that is put on the throne of Israel, well, he's not actually from the tribe of Judah. Instantly you're thinking, oh, this is not even a proper pencil sketch. This Saul, he's not the one, and this Saul figure who is put onto the throne of Israel, he is a head taller than everybody else. He very much is this embodiment of earthly power. As soon as we see Saul, we're thinking, oh, this is not the one, this is a murky Messiah. Okay? This is not the Messiah that we've been hoping for and praying for. He's not even a good pencil sketch of Jesus. In 1 Samuel 13, on the next slide, uh, in that chapter, Saul does a foolish thing, and Samuel the prophet calls him out. You have done a foolish thing, Samuel said. You have not kept the command of the Lord that the Lord your God gave you. If you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. But now your kingdom will not endure. The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him ruler of his people, because you have not kept the Lord's command. So there's Saul, the giant, the embodiment of worldly strength, this Adam-like figure. And the Lord has rejected him, and instead chosen little David. Little teenager David, the shepherd boy, a man after the Lord's own heart, a very different kingdom. Actually, we see the character of Saul and David perfectly expressed in the story of David and Goliath. On the next slide, we've got to, let's go to the next slide. And uh here is this great picture of the two kings and the two kinds of kingdoms. In 1 Samuel 17, then the Philistine, Goliath, said, This day I defy the armies of Israel. Give me a man and let us fight each other. They wanted to have this mano emano battle to settle scores between the Philistines and the Israelites. Verse 11 on hearing the Philistines' words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified. Do you see how Saul is meant to be leading his people in courage and victory? Instead, how is he leading his people? In cowardice and failure. That is Saul, and very much like Adam, isn't he? Very much like Adam, the first king of the world. That one who should have stood up against our enemy, Satan. That one who should have protected his bride. That one who should have been courageous and victorious in the temptation, and yet Adam fell and took the kingdom of humanity with him. Saul is very much like Adam, and therefore, as we're looking at Saul, we're looking at a picture of the world. You know, that the world is the kingdom of Saul, if you like. We are the children of Adam. We believe in human strength. We believe in the powers of the flesh. We believe in raising ourselves up, but actually, when it comes down to it, we are cowards and we are failures. That's the world. That's the kingdom of Saul. Praise God for another Messiah. Praise God for a true Messiah, a king after the Lord's own heart. On the next slide we see what David is like. David said to Saul, let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine. Your servant will go and fight him. Saul replied, You're not able to go out against the Philistine and fight him. You're only a young man, and he's been a warrior from his youth. But David said to Saul, Your servant, he's talking about himself, your servant has been keeping his father's sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it, and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair. Imagine him, this teenager, David, seized it by its hair, struck it, and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear with his bare hands. Oh my goodness. This uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. Don't you want David fighting for you, right? Though he is so small, though he he does not look like a great man in the eyes of the world. And yet, what does Saul do? Saul incredibly says, Alright, you go and fight Goliath then. That's a measure of the man Saul, isn't it? Alright, you go and fight him. Saul was a head taller than anyone else in Israel. Saul was Israel's giant. He should have been Israel's champion. Instead, he lets a teenager fight for him. Ridiculous. But again, that is the clash of our kingdoms. One kingdom praises earthly power. The other looks to its Messiah, its champion, its David. So here we have in the books of 1st and 2 Samuel, we see this comparison between the two rulers. The first ruler is Saul, who led the people in failure. The second ruler is David, who won his people their victory. And on the next slide, in the next slide, we'll see what David's rule is like. To begin with, in 1 Samuel, David's rule is undercover. He is first secretly anointed as God's Messiah in 1 Samuel chapter 16. And to begin with, only a few people know that David has been anointed by God. He is a secret Messiah. And it's the same with Jesus, isn't it? You know, Jesus steps on to the earthly stage, and very few people know that he is God's king, right? Very few people know. And so that the first part of David's rule is undercover. He is God's undercover Messiah. And then in the chapters that we're going to look at here this morning, David is under fire. Because as he rises to prominence and Saul is defeated, there becomes a clash between the house of Saul and the house of David. Just like the clash between the house of Christ and Adam's kingdom. And only from chapter 5 onwards do we have David's undisputed rule. And that's the way it is with God's defeat of evil, too. God's defeat of evil is not instantaneous, it is not the click of the fingers. It is the establishment first of Christ and then of his kingdom in the midst of this world. First as a secret king and a secret kingdom, and then evermore as a kingdom that establishes and expresses the way of Jesus in this world. Only at the end will we see the undisputed kingship of Jesus, where all people will recognize who Jesus is. Then the kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ. That's where we're heading. And so in 2 Samuel 2, we see that the beginning of David starting to be recognized in the world. So in 2 Samuel chapter 2 on page 305, in the course of time David inquired of the Lord, Shall I go up to one of the towns of Judah? He asked. So David went up there with his two wives, Ahinoim of Jezreel, and Abigail, the widow of Nabal of Carmel. Oh, two wives. Hmm, interesting. Remember what we read in Deuteronomy 17? Two wives. Interesting. Anyway. David also took the men who were with him, each with his family, and they settled in Hebron and its towns. Then the men of Judah came to Hebron, and there they anointed David king over the tribe of Judah. This is the second anointing that we see of David. The first anointing was by Samuel back in 1 Samuel 16, and that's the anointing of God, and it's a secret anointing. And now we have an anointing by the men of Judah, and it's more public. Now the tribe of Judah are owning David as their Messiah. Then by the time we get to 2 Samuel chapter 5, if you fling over, flip over to 2 Samuel chapter 5 and verse 1, we see that it's it's it's expanded. More and more people are recognizing David the Messiah. All the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron and said, We are your own flesh and blood. In the past, while Saul was king over us, you were the one who led Israel on their military campaigns. And the Lord said to you, You shall shepherd my people Israel, and you shall become their ruler. Then all the elders of Israel had come to King David at Hebron. The king made a covenant with them at Hebron before the Lord, and they anointed David king over Israel. So you see, first he's the secret king, and only really his family know about it. And then he's acknowledged to be the king of Judah, and then he's the king of Israel. And in the following chapters we start to see how his reign extends to the nations. But that is the way that God does things. First, the secret king and the secret kingdom, and then things get established. And the way that things get established is not smoothly. In chapters 2 to 5, we see this fight between the house of David and the house of Saul. So on the next slide, we'll see the main figures in these chapters. David is king of the house of David. Joab is his military commander. And then in the house of Saul, Ishbashev is Saul's son. He is king, and he has a military commander called Abna. And we'll see in these chapters that actually the way in which David's kingdom gets established is with bloodshed. And with the marrying of many wives, actually. So in 2 Samuel and 2 Samuel and chapter 2, what we start to see from verse 8 is the bloodshed of the fights between these two kingdoms. Abner says to Joab, let's do a David and Goliath thing. But it turns out to be a very macabre parody of David and Goliath. What he does is he gets 12 men from the house of Saul, and he says, Joab, you get 12 men from the house of David, and let's fight together. And it'll be a kind of a champion's battle, 12 against 12. And yet this is nothing like the David and Goliath story. This is civil war among God's people, and all 24 men die. What a horrific amount of bloodshed. And then Joab's brother, Azahel, starts chasing Abner, and Abner, to get him away, kind of accidentally on purpose, thrusts his spear towards Azahel, Joab's brother, and kills him at the end of 2 Samuel chapter 2. This horrendous bloodshed as these two kingdoms are battling it out. In chapter 3 and verse 1, we see that the war between the house of Saul and the house of David lasted a long time. David grew stronger and stronger, while the house of Saul grew weaker and weaker. That is how it works, but again, it's not this smooth transition of power. No, you'll see the heading above verse 6. Abner goes over to David. So Abner says, Look, I can bring Israel with me if we form an alliance. And at that point, David says, All right, let's form an alliance. But I want Mikal, Saul's daughter. She was promised to me as a wife. I want her. And so as part of these political machinations, she is brought to David. Look at verse 14. Then David sent messengers to Ishbasheth, son of Saul, demanding, give me my wife, Mikal, whom I betrothed to myself for the price of a hundred Philistine foreskins. That's another story for another time. So Ishbasheth gave orders and had her taken away from her husband, Paltiel, son of Laish. Her husband, however, went with her, weeping behind her all the way to Baharim. Do you ever feel for Paltiel? I feel for Paltiel. Every time I read this story, poor Paltiel. He's been married to Michal, the daughter of Saul. And then David wants her. Not because there's any romance involved, but because he wants to shore up his kingdom. And so he he has to give over his wife to David. And you can see him kind of begging the soldiers, don't take her away, don't take her away. And in the end, Abner says, just run along home. Poor Paltiel. I resonate with Paltiel, I don't know why, but poor Paltiel, right? And it's making you think, you know what? Even as David is establishing his kingdom, this is a bit murky too, isn't it? Actually, David's kingdom, it's not meant to be one of great bloodshed, and it's not meant to be one of the accumulation of many wives. We've been told that. So David, he's a pencil sketch of Jesus, but he's certainly not a he's not he's no oil painting, is he? This David. There's bloodshed, there's many wives. You'll see the heading above verse 22 in chapter 3, Joab murders Abner. Remember, Abner had killed Joab's brother Azahel, and so he gets his revenge. More bloodshed. And then over in chapter 4, Ishbasheth, the king of the house of Saul, he is murdered by a couple of fellows who think they're doing David a favor and think they'll be rewarded for it. Well, David rewards them the same way he rewarded the Amalekite back in chapter 1, and he executes them for that murder. In one sense, it's the establishment of this reign of peace. In another sense, it's full of bloodshed and the accumulation of many wives. Now, David, throughout these chapters, it's many times said about the innocence of David. He's innocent in the case of the murder of Abner. He's innocent in the case of the murder of Ishbasheth, and yet there is bloodshed surrounding his throne. And within the book of Chronicles, they look back on David's reign. And God says to David, Because of your bloodshed, you could not hold on to this kingdom. So when we think about a murky Messiah and our true hope, in one sense we're thinking about the murky Messiah is Saul, and the true hope of the people is David. And that's true within this pencil sketch of the Old Testament. But as we look back on this with New Testament eyes, we start to see that there are murky things about David as well. He's not the true Messiah. And in fact, he could never have been the true Messiah. He was only the first king from Judah. And we know that the scepter was going to be passed from king to king to king in the tribes of Judah. We know that David could not be the one. He could not be God's true king, the universal ruler. For that, we need to wait for the Lord Jesus. And for that reason, isn't it wonderful to turn to Isaiah chapter 9? And we see, even within the Old Testaments, the way they look on David. Let's have a look at Isaiah chapter 9, a wonderful Christmas reading. And yet it should be on the screen as well. In the midst of battles and bloodshed, what does the prophet Isaiah say? He looks forward to the future. The future when the Messiah will reign in total peace. And he says, every warrior's boot used in battle, and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire. Don't you long for that day? It's imagining that there'll be a bonfire one day. And on it we will throw every military uniform, every weapon of war, everything to do with military might goes onto that bonfire. Can you imagine this massive bonfire? And all the nations are gathered around the bonfire. And we are toasting the death of death. Why? Who could possibly bring in this reign of peace? We've seen what the kingdom of Saul is like. We will see what the kingdom of David becomes like. We know what the kingdom of this world is like in all its bloodshed. Who could possibly bring about such a peace? Verse 6 of Isaiah 9. For to us a child is born. That's surprising, isn't it? In the midst of bloodshed, and there's a great enemy against us. Who's God going to choose to defeat our enemy and bring in a reign of peace? Who's God going to choose? It's this David figure, right? Just this child. This boy. To us, a child is born. To us, the Son is given. And praise God, the government will be on his shoulders. It won't be on the shoulders of Saul. It won't be on the shoulders of David. It won't be on any earthly shoulders. It won't be about earthly might. The government of this world will be on Christ's shoulders, and he will be called wonderful counselor. You know, in 1st and 2 Samuel, there are so many counselors to the kings, and they are so devious, so deceptive. They only make things worse. Here comes Jesus, he's a wonderful counselor. And he's a mighty God. He really has the power to eradicate evil. He really has the power to defeat Goliath, the great enemy that brings us down into ruin. He's the mighty God. He brings us to the everlasting Father. This Son of the Father brings us to know a family that we can belong to. Not just a nation that we can fight for or march with. He brings us to a Father who we can know, a family of love. And he is the Prince of Peace. What David was unable to do as a man of bloodshed, Jesus is able to do because he shed his own blood. His kingdom is established only on one killing. His kingdom is established only with the shedding of his own blood on that cross. And through that blood he wins peace for the world. He is the wonderful counselor. He's the mighty God, he's the everlasting Father. He's the Prince of Peace. And of the greatness of his government, or you could even say of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end. That's good to know, isn't it? We might feel like we're just a secret little kingdom of the people who know who Jesus is, right? We're just sort of the mighty men gathering around David. Not the whole world, the whole of Eastbourne doesn't know who David is. We're just this little secret community of those who gather around the Messiah. Well, of the increase of his government, there will be no end. 2 Samuel 3 verse 1 will be true of the house of Jesus, that it will continue to rise and rise and rise in strength. And that's been true, you know. There are more people worshipping Jesus this Sunday morning than there were last Sunday morning. And next Sunday we're going to beat the record again. And the next Sunday we'll beat the record again. And the next Sunday we will beat the record again. Of the increase of his government, there will be no end. And he will reign on David's throne. See, he is the oil painting to which the pencil sketch has always pointed. He is the oil painting. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this. So in a world that prizes the way of Saul, the way of the flesh, the way of human strength, renounce that. In these chapters, we see people who they bury Saul. They bury Saul. They draw a line under the way of Saul. And in chapter two, they come across to David. That's what we are meant to be like. We are those who put to death the old, draw a line under the way of Saul, come over to the way of the true David, the wonderful counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Let's pray. Father, this week, if we are tempted to trust in the ways of the flesh, of human strength and might, show us Jesus again. May we trust in him, our champion. May we know him as our wonderful counselor, our mighty God, our everlasting Father, and our Prince of Peace. Amen.