SPEAKER_00: We study through books of the Bible here at the village chapel.
SPEAKER_00: We've got extra copies.
SPEAKER_00: If you didn't bring one, you'd like one to follow along, just raise your hand up real high.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody will drop one off.
SPEAKER_00: We've got somebody up front, and I think somebody in the back as well.
SPEAKER_00: Just keep your hands up high till uh till somebody comes around and then we can we can get a copy to you.
SPEAKER_00: Uh awesome.
SPEAKER_00: So we're in 2 Samuel, and uh we're reaching back 3,000 years in history.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody else need a copy?
SPEAKER_00: Anybody?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I think we have one here, one over there.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00: Uh 3,000 years in history, we don't want to, in doing the work of good, good historical work, what we don't want to do is try and drag the people forward into our time with our sensibilities and our understanding and the way we do stuff.
SPEAKER_00: We, if we're gonna do the good, you know, good history, what we have to do is try to our best to go back into their time frame, into the situation, the context, the uh sitzim, I think it's called, the setting in life that they actually had.
SPEAKER_00: So 3,000 years is a big jump, right?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah?
SPEAKER_00: Um how many of you were live when uh all there was was black and white television?
SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, how many of you were live when there wasn't such a thing as a cell phone?
SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand.
SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, okay, good.
SPEAKER_00: So the world has changed big time, right?
SPEAKER_00: And uh and that's not even a little tip of the iceberg compared to what we're trying to do today, which is go back 3,000 years.
SPEAKER_00: So we're going back into what's uh typically called the early iron age.
SPEAKER_00: I'll put this up on the screen for you.
SPEAKER_00: It's sort of a chart of Israel's history.
SPEAKER_00: The monarchy period as follows on the heels of the period of the time period of the Judges.
SPEAKER_00: We've studied the book of Judges.
SPEAKER_00: We studied the book of Joshua here.
SPEAKER_00: You can go back and re uh listen to all that stuff online if you would like to.
SPEAKER_00: Um the monarchy ran about 1050 BC to about 586 BC.
SPEAKER_00: Somewhere in the middle there, 722 BC, the Assyrians come and literally uh capture and dismantle the northern uh tribes of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: So that's about 722 BC.
SPEAKER_00: Around 586 BC, a guy from Babylon named Nebuchadnezzar comes and he runs over top of Judah and Jerusalem and all that, carries off all the brightest and best, and and and so you hear the story of Daniel and Shadrach, Ameshach, Abednego, and all that stuff as a result of what happened there in 586.
SPEAKER_00: So this is the monarchy, as it's typically called, the period in Israel's history.
SPEAKER_00: And we're at the uh we're we're at the mark of about a thousand BC right now, so a long time ago.
SPEAKER_00: And and a lot about it is gonna be different.
SPEAKER_00: Um I don't know if you've noticed, but stuff in our world tends to uh uh uh be assimilated assimilated pretty uh slowly and easily.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and before you know it, um something becomes norm.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we we you know there are kids that are being raised right now that that don't know what life without a smartphone is.
SPEAKER_00: Uh they they they can't imagine that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't I don't know if how many of you have how many of you would raise your hand if you have a security system at your house?
SPEAKER_00: Just raise your hand.
SPEAKER_00: And don't worry, the people aren't watching to see who doesn't have one.
SPEAKER_00: So it's it's really okay.
SPEAKER_00: All right, how many of you last night locked your doors when you went to sleep?
SPEAKER_00: You you locked your doors of your house pretty much?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you, your car's locked out in the in the parking lot out here?
SPEAKER_00: Your cars locked, okay, that's good.
SPEAKER_00: Now that says something about our world and about the whether or not we can trust people, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: If we could completely trust everybody, if everybody was altruistic, if everybody was good, aren't we all good, basically?
SPEAKER_00: No, we aren't.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we lock our cars.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we lock our houses at night.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we have to have contracts that are legally binding that say you will live up to your responsibilities in this area or that area.
SPEAKER_00: Um and so the world is that way, and and security is one of the things when you look back 3,000 years, they still are they're struggling for security back in David's time, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Um there are people who will willfully do bad things to one another, and where we cannot trust others, and where we won't be safe unless we take precautionary measures, this is exactly what we're gonna read about in chapter 8.
SPEAKER_00: They are taking some precautionary measures.
SPEAKER_00: Again, it's gonna be a bit of a jump for some of us to read some of this, and some of it's gonna seem really strange.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but there is something wrong in this world, and it's not as simplistic as some would believe.
SPEAKER_00: But I do think it's more basic and fundamental than others are willing to believe, if you catch my drift, okay?
SPEAKER_00: So maybe we'll see this as we go through.
SPEAKER_00: I remember years and years and years ago reading about how G.K.
SPEAKER_00: Chesterton, that great, you know, that that witty sort of guy that uh uh around the turn of the century, back in the 19th to 20th century, and uh he was uh he had a made a big impression on C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis.
SPEAKER_00: He was he was asked once to write an essay, What is wrong with the world?
SPEAKER_00: He was one of several that were going to write these essays, right?
SPEAKER_00: What is wrong with the world?
SPEAKER_00: And he didn't write an essay, he just wrote two words on a piece of paper and sent it back in.
SPEAKER_00: I am.
SPEAKER_00: I'm what's wrong with the world, is what he was saying.
SPEAKER_00: And and that's an honest admission of the fact that we the reason we have to lock our doors, lock our cars, and all those sort of things is because people aren't trustworthy.
SPEAKER_00: The reason we have to make commitments and contracts and all this sort of thing is people aren't trustworthy.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have a natural tendency to be trustworthy, and that's one of the cool things about this ancient text we call the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: 66 books, written by you know, like 40 plus different authors of all stages and ages, doctors, you know, kings, paupers, you know.
SPEAKER_00: I mean we got you know, there's Jew and Gentile, even Gentile, the largest text in the New Testament is written by a guy named Luke.
SPEAKER_00: If you add Luke and Acts together, the guy was a Gentile.
SPEAKER_00: So it's fascinating to me that you see all of this come together in this 66-book library we call the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Different kinds of literature, there's poetry, there, there's historical narrative.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of it's historical narrative, which I like because that tells stories.
SPEAKER_00: And stories I think can we we can understand, we can, we can we can take in a little bit better when it's a story than we can than we would if somebody's just standing up front going, here, believe this, and you know, dropping down a list of rules to follow and all that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_00: I love the stories that are here.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're in one of those right now.
SPEAKER_00: And David has been uh God has arranged things so that David would become the king of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And uh what we're seeing in chapter 8 is what what I'd call a summary uh chapter in a historical narrative.
SPEAKER_00: So he's this the author or authors of 2 Samuel, and we don't know who wrote it.
SPEAKER_00: Um uh 1 Samuel, you could credit a guy named Samuel with having written the first 25 chapters, but since it records his death in chapter 25, I don't think he wrote chapter 26 and following.
SPEAKER_00: And so somebody else wrote that, might be Nathan the prophet, might be Gad the prophet.
SPEAKER_00: They were on the ground at that time.
SPEAKER_00: They were they seemed to be dialed in and tuned in and all that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_00: But we come to chapter 8 here, and the the kingdom has come back together after a bit of civil war, and David is now the one who is the king.
SPEAKER_00: And what he's going to do is try to protect the borders, and we're gonna see a summary statement of that.
SPEAKER_00: Look with me, if you will, 2 Samuel chapter 8.
SPEAKER_00: After this, it came about that David defeated the Philistines and subdued them.
SPEAKER_00: And David took control of the chief city from the hand of the Philistines.
SPEAKER_00: The Philistines are that that perennial enemy of the children of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so they were the folks that lived, and I'm gonna put up on the screen here so you can kind of see the map and the way that Israel was uh somewhat surrounded.
SPEAKER_00: The green area to the south and west there.
SPEAKER_00: You see Jerusalem in white, and then you see Ashgod and Gaza, those are two of the Philistine cities, and that green splop right there, that patch, is where the five Philistine cities were.
SPEAKER_00: Um they were uh quite a violent group of people who kept marauding into Israel, and just perennially, every year, every year there'd be some some story where they're coming in and they're burning villages and raping and pillaging and stealing uh livestock and ruining the so what has happened is they become these enemies for for all of Israel during Saul's time as king and during David's time as king.
SPEAKER_00: But verse one here is sort of the last of the summary statements of how they now have come to be defeated and subdued ultimately under David's rule, who he he's now taken even the chief city uh from the hand of the Philistines.
SPEAKER_00: And some of your English translations, I think I think it might say, instead of the chief city, it might have a what looks like a proper name, but that name actually means chief city.
SPEAKER_00: So, okay, then we're gonna go with chief city, and I think the chief city was Gath.
SPEAKER_00: And don't be bothered by that.
SPEAKER_00: We what do we what do we call Nashville?
SPEAKER_00: Music City, okay?
SPEAKER_00: So it can have multiple names.
SPEAKER_00: It's really okay.
SPEAKER_00: It's just a way of referring to it.
SPEAKER_00: David also defeated verse 2, Moab.
SPEAKER_00: All right, so if Philistia was to the south and west, Moab, look look at the map.
SPEAKER_00: Moab is to the south and east.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that's where the nation and the people group called the Moabites are from.
SPEAKER_00: And he measured them with a line.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: This is a little bit shocking.
SPEAKER_00: Making them lie down on the ground, and he measured two lines to put to death and one full line to keep alive.
SPEAKER_00: And the Moabites became servants to David, bringing tribute.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if that uh if you read that like I have done all week long, and that that bothers you just a little bit, uh, get in line behind me, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Uh it bothers me a little bit when I read that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I want I want to remind you that the this is reportage, it isn't a prescription.
SPEAKER_00: This is descriptive, not prescriptive.
SPEAKER_00: This is what happened.
SPEAKER_00: And David is not a perfect man.
SPEAKER_00: And frankly, that gives me comfort because Jim is not a perfect man either.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm I'm struggling and wrestling with my overreactions to a lot of things all the time.
SPEAKER_00: And if you were honest about yourself, you would be as well.
SPEAKER_00: I can't even imagine what it's like, though, to live in their day and time.
SPEAKER_00: I can't imagine what it's like to be on the run for so many years from King Saul, fearful of my own life being taken by some archer, you know, shooting at me because King Saul is trying to kill David.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what that's like.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what it's like to live on the run.
SPEAKER_00: There are people in this world that do experience that right now.
SPEAKER_00: We are pretty much removed from it here in the West, especially in the United States.
SPEAKER_00: Thankfully, I'm glad to not be living under that kind of pressure.
SPEAKER_00: But when we read this, we have to try to imagine what it was like in their time.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't make it right or proportional the way he beats out the response to the Moabites.
SPEAKER_00: And it's even more confounding to me because remember, David's great-grandmother, what was her name?
SPEAKER_00: Anybody?
SPEAKER_00: Ruth?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, whatnot a trick question.
SPEAKER_00: Ruth, she was a Moabitus.
SPEAKER_00: So you would think, hey, you know, we do Thanksgiving together or whatever, you know?
SPEAKER_00: Um but one side of the family doesn't like the other side of the family.
SPEAKER_00: And so his great-grandmother is a Moabitus, her name's Ruth.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we read elsewhere earlier in 1 Samuel, we read about how David entrusted his own parents.
SPEAKER_00: When Saul was chasing them around the country trying to kill them, David entrusted his own parents to the Moabites.
SPEAKER_00: So during that season, everything was okay in Moab.
SPEAKER_00: But during this season, things have changed.
SPEAKER_00: Can things change inside of a nation?
SPEAKER_00: Of course they can.
SPEAKER_00: We all know that.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so here we don't know what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know why.
SPEAKER_00: Is he mad?
SPEAKER_00: Because they there's one Jewish tradition that says that his parents were killed by the Moabites after he entrusted them to.
SPEAKER_00: Is that is that tradition true or not?
SPEAKER_00: I I honestly don't know.
SPEAKER_00: We have to be honest when we're speculating, it's history.
SPEAKER_00: We're we we we're not given the full details right here.
SPEAKER_00: All we know is that he did this, and it it should unsettle us when we read it, and that's okay.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, like I say, get by get in line behind me if it bothers you.
SPEAKER_00: David defeated Hadadezer, the son of Rehab, king of Zobah, as he went to restore his rule at the river.
SPEAKER_00: That would be the river Euphrates.
SPEAKER_00: This is probably more on the northern side, up on the map.
SPEAKER_00: David captured from him 1,700 horsemen, 20,000 foot soldiers.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, does this not sound like an epic battle?
SPEAKER_00: David hamstrung the chariot horses, but reserved enough of them for 100 chariots.
SPEAKER_00: How many horses would 100 chariots be?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: One to four horses is my guess.
SPEAKER_00: So 100 to 400 horses are not hamstrung.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, hamstrung in this case, from the research I've done, does not mean killed.
SPEAKER_00: It simply means those horses were no longer able to be engaged in pulling chariots quickly.
SPEAKER_00: And they could still be useful as horses in agricultural uses, like plowing or whatever it might be, but not so much so for chariots.
SPEAKER_00: And so what he's trying to do there is render the military use of these animals ineffective.
SPEAKER_00: He's trying to protect, he's trying to secure his own country, his own people.
SPEAKER_00: David put garrisons in Syria of Damascus, and the Syrians became servants to David, bringing tribute.
SPEAKER_00: And this is worth underlining this last phrase of verse 6, because it's repeated in verse uh 14.
SPEAKER_00: It says, And the Lord helped David wherever he went.
SPEAKER_00: Man, that's great.
SPEAKER_00: I would like that to be said.
SPEAKER_00: I would like to experience that myself.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord helped Jim wherever he went.
SPEAKER_00: And it's said again, like I said in 14.
SPEAKER_00: We'll come back to it in a second.
SPEAKER_00: But David took the shields of gold which were carried by the servants of Hadadezer and brought them to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: See that?
SPEAKER_00: That's physical.
SPEAKER_00: He's marching into Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: He's got these shields of gold that are glistening in the sun.
SPEAKER_00: And you know how something, when light, the sun reflects off of something too bright, and it's like, whoa, you know, it hits you right in the eye.
SPEAKER_00: And it it's the sign of victory, man.
SPEAKER_00: They're coming back, and this sign to reassure the people of Jerusalem that they're safe, that that Hadadezer, who might have been a potential enemy to come and run over top of them, has been uh neutralized.
SPEAKER_00: And so from Betta and from uh Baratai, cities of Hadadezer, King David took a large amount of bronze.
SPEAKER_00: And remember, this is the Iron Age.
SPEAKER_00: So there was bronze was everywhere because the bronze age preceded the Iron Age, those of you who are history buffs.
SPEAKER_00: And iron is a stronger metal than bronze, and so the people with the better technology have iron.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: And so they have the better technology, the better weaponry if they have iron, the better agricultural tools if they have iron, right?
SPEAKER_00: And yet there still would be a lot of bronze around, and still very useful, especially if you can't afford the nicer, you know, weaponry or agricultural tools.
SPEAKER_00: When Toy, king of Hamath, and that's to the far north up there on the map, heard that David had defeated all the army of Hadadezer, Toy sent Joram his son to King David to greet him and to bless him because he had fought against Hadadezer and defeated him.
SPEAKER_00: For Hadadezer had been at war with Toy.
SPEAKER_00: So the the enemy of my enemy is my friend, is what Toy starts to think, yeah?
SPEAKER_00: And so he is gonna uh show that there's really more than one response that somebody could have had in that day and time.
SPEAKER_00: Uh in other words, the response isn't let's fight against that, or the response isn't, well, let's just let him run over top of us.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's you find a way to work with somebody.
SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what he does.
SPEAKER_00: He sends his son Joram to King David to greet him and bless him because he's fought against Hadadezer and defeated him, for Hadadezer had been at war with Toy.
SPEAKER_00: And Joram brought with him articles of silver, of gold, and of bronze.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's he's he's bringing gifts, he's showing that we have the best of intentions to be uh good neighbors with you, and uh that should give David some courage and the whole thing.
SPEAKER_00: David, his response, verse 11, this is worth underlining, David also dedicated these to the Lord with the silver and gold that he had dedicated from the nations which he had subdued.
SPEAKER_00: So what David does is not just fill his own coffers.
SPEAKER_00: What David does is not just fill his own bank account with the spoils of war, but he dedicates them to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And for Jews of that period of time, especially with what we know about David, that he had plans to build a temple for the Lord, he is saving up, amassing this wealth that will be used later in the building of the temple.
SPEAKER_00: Even though God's already told him, no, you're not the one that's going to build the temple.
SPEAKER_00: No, not now.
SPEAKER_00: David's sitting in the middle of a no from God, continuing, though, to save up for when the yes might come to Solomon, his son.
SPEAKER_00: God had we we studied that before in the previous chapter.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's he's still, he's not mad that God didn't let him do it.
SPEAKER_00: He's not angry, and if you're gonna be that way, then I'm gonna be this.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: He starts to save up the gold, the bronze, and the silver.
SPEAKER_00: He's resolved to God's will, and so he dedicates these spoils of war, including the ones that came from Troy, so much in the uh way of trying to uh establish a relationship and a working relationship, he dedicates all that to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 12.
SPEAKER_00: Uh so he all these nations that he subdued from Syria and Moab, the sons of Amon and the Philistines and Amalek, and from the spoil of Hadadezer, son of Rehob, uh king of Zobah, um had it the Amalek uh the Amalekites would have been to the south.
SPEAKER_00: Some of these others are to the south and east, some of these are from the north and east.
SPEAKER_00: So you really see, as you see up on the map, that these are from all the surrounding nations.
SPEAKER_00: And what David is doing is building a security margin for his country, basically.
SPEAKER_00: So David made a name for himself, verse 13, when he returned from killing 18,000 Syrians in the valley of the Salt, and that would be below the Dead Sea.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, some of us have been there when we've gone to Israel before.
SPEAKER_00: Uh pretty much every every time Kim and I have gone all five times.
SPEAKER_00: We've we've gone down to Masada, which is uh to the south, and into the Negev or the desert area, and down there, it is so dry, it is all desert-like, and and the the Dead Sea is there, and it's it's it's the saline in that water is so intense.
SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, there are all kinds of spas around the southern end of the Dead Sea because it's so good for people's skin.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people come from around the world to go to those spas now because the minerals in the water are so rich and wonderful for it for their skin.
SPEAKER_00: But that's the valley of salt, and so he's uh from the farthest north, all the way to Hamath, all the way down to the sea of salt, or the valley of salt, he has um he has sort of created this this buffer, this region where he can attempt to secure uh his own nation.
SPEAKER_00: Wherever he went, the Lord helped him.
SPEAKER_00: We're reminded of that a couple of times.
SPEAKER_00: And then verse 15, which I think is really important, or 14 rather, he put garrisons in Edom.
SPEAKER_00: In all Edom he put garrisons.
SPEAKER_00: It says it twice.
SPEAKER_00: It takes you have to make a peace, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Pretty honest about this.
SPEAKER_00: Um for the same reason you gotta lock your car, the same reason I gotta lock my house.
SPEAKER_00: We as a species just aren't trustworthy.
SPEAKER_00: We we sometimes do things in reaction and in response to others, or sometimes we we we we want what someone else has, and and we'll we'll rationalize all kinds of mischief to take what someone else has, or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: So so he he put some garrisons in Edom, and Edom he put some garrisons, and all the Edomites became servants to David, and the Lord helped David wherever he went.
SPEAKER_00: There it is again, verse 14 at the end.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 15, David reigned over all Israel.
SPEAKER_00: So now we know the scope of his reign.
SPEAKER_00: He reigned over all Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what about the character of this king?
SPEAKER_00: The scope is he reigned over all Israel.
SPEAKER_00: The character is here, David administered justice and righteousness for all his people.
SPEAKER_00: So we've been reading about in verse 8, or chapter 8, how he waged war.
SPEAKER_00: Now I would like to point out he waged peace.
SPEAKER_00: How did he do that?
SPEAKER_00: He ruled with justice and righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: And when you have justice and righteousness, you can have peace.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because there isn't injustice.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because there isn't unrighteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I think I get paid to state the obvious.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of crazy.
SPEAKER_00: All right, but he he administered injustice and right.
SPEAKER_00: Most of us would say we want justice in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Most of us would say we want justice not only globally and internationally, but we want justice in our marriages.
SPEAKER_00: We want justice in our workplace.
SPEAKER_00: We want justice.
SPEAKER_00: And most of us would say that, right?
SPEAKER_00: I think even people who aren't even believers in God would say that.
SPEAKER_00: Um but what's the summary here is that David, even though he had to go out there and do all this warfare and all this stuff and get that get that security zone going around his God, he still came.
SPEAKER_00: And when he when it got down to doing the business of ruling, he administered with justice and righteousness, was important to him.
SPEAKER_00: And then we get a little bit, 16 through 18, a little bit of his uh sort of the people on his council or in his administration, if you will.
SPEAKER_00: Joab, the son of Zariah, was over the army.
SPEAKER_00: Jehoshaphat, the son of Ahilid, was recorder.
SPEAKER_00: What's a recorder?
SPEAKER_00: You know, I thought about that when I was thinking about these positions in the administration.
SPEAKER_00: Well, who's the recorder and what does a recorder do?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he's like the historian.
SPEAKER_00: He's the one keeping track of things, you know.
SPEAKER_00: Or if he's keeping track of things, he could also be the IRS of that day.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know who he was.
SPEAKER_00: But he's the recorder.
SPEAKER_00: Zadok, the son of Ahitub, and Ahimelech, the son of Abiathar, were priests, and Sarah was secretary.
SPEAKER_00: Benea, the son of Jehoida, was over the Cherithites and the Pedahites.
SPEAKER_00: Who are the cherithites and the Pelothites?
SPEAKER_00: I had to look that one up, you guys.
SPEAKER_00: Because I love some of these Old Testament names.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we love to, you know, I'm always making, you know, there's the Perithites, the Jebusites, the Hittites, the Termites, and the Inspectorites.
SPEAKER_00: But the Cherithes and the Pelothites evidently were like the Secret Service.
SPEAKER_00: They're the royal guards.
SPEAKER_00: Bodyguards is what they were.
SPEAKER_00: And so Benea, the son of Jehoiada, was over to the royal bodyguards.
SPEAKER_00: That's cool.
SPEAKER_00: And David's sons were the chief, I love this.
SPEAKER_00: David's sons were the chief ministers.
SPEAKER_00: David's sons were the chief servants.
SPEAKER_00: David the king.
SPEAKER_00: Notice the irony here?
SPEAKER_00: David the king, his sons, what he taught his sons to be?
SPEAKER_00: Servants.
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
SPEAKER_00: We call our church council here, the servant leadership council.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because we want to remind them and ourselves that the people that lead this church, which is not just not just me, but this group of people are servant leaders.
SPEAKER_00: Their job is to serve God and serve the people, not just do whatever they want, you know, not just do whatever they feel, but to actually try and find out what's the highest good that we can accomplish for God's glory and for the good of uh God's church.
SPEAKER_00: Alright, so this is a great chapter.
SPEAKER_00: I I uh I had a wonderful week studying it, being able to uh marinate it in it a little bit, and I I do want to I do want to point out just a couple of things for you.
SPEAKER_00: I've got three things that I like to highlight from this particular chapter, if that'd be all right with you.
SPEAKER_00: Um Dale Ralph Davis in his commentary, which I think is excellent on 1st and 2 Samuel, he has commentaries on both.
SPEAKER_00: He says this is both reportage and preview.
SPEAKER_00: That is what we read here is a reported, it's a report on what happened in sp in space-time history in a real geographic region with a real group of people.
SPEAKER_00: And and you how do you tell that?
SPEAKER_00: Well, look at look at how messy it is.
SPEAKER_00: People are messy.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody say amen.
SPEAKER_00: Say amen.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, people are messy.
SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand if you're sitting next to somebody that's messy.
SPEAKER_00: Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: People are messy, man.
SPEAKER_00: We are messy.
SPEAKER_00: And I love that, uh, the honesty of that in our Bibles.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I love that it teaches us that.
SPEAKER_00: And and and and and as soon as we get to the place where we understand that, we can start to take ourselves lightly enough, not so serious all the time about how we look at ourselves, but take ourselves a little more lightly.
SPEAKER_00: And and and then we don't get so prickly and offended by, and then we don't get so, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00: Then all of a sudden, we start to see our lives like David saw his.
SPEAKER_00: I really believe David saw his life in the hands of God.
SPEAKER_00: But if you live your life as if God doesn't matter or if God doesn't exist, it's going to cost you something.
SPEAKER_00: The world as it thinks and acts apart from God, up on the screen, will remain in turmoil and will become increasingly hostile.
SPEAKER_00: That's Jim, you're such a negative Nancy.
SPEAKER_00: What is wrong with you?
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm I'm I I think it's important for us to get the proper diagnosis of what is wrong with the world.
SPEAKER_00: I am.
SPEAKER_00: And if I want to live my life as if God doesn't matter, or as God doesn't exist, or whatever, there's going to be a cost and a price to be paid for that very belief system.
SPEAKER_00: I went to a lecture this week down at Lipscomb University by the social psychologist, New York Times bestseller Jonathan Haidt.
SPEAKER_00: His most recent books are The Righteous Mind, Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion.
SPEAKER_00: And another book called The Coddling of the American Mind, How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure.
SPEAKER_00: It's a really impressive lecture.
SPEAKER_00: It was held at Lipscomb, like I said, quite well attended.
SPEAKER_00: Haidt is Jewish by descent, but he currently identifies as a non-believer.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why I was really curious to hear what he has to say, because he happens to write a lot about intuitive foundations of morality, and I'm just the kind of geek that likes those kinds of phrases.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, the intuitive aspects of morality.
SPEAKER_00: I want to hear about that, you know?
SPEAKER_00: I'm all about that.
SPEAKER_00: In spite of his atheistic leanings, Haidt does acknowledge the benefits of religion and it and variety of religions and the uh benefits that uh they may have on the moral health of a culture.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's I think that's proper and right for even an atheist.
SPEAKER_00: Especially if you're if he's not just an agnostic, but actually a consistent atheist.
SPEAKER_00: A consistent atheist says there is no supernatural realm, the physical world is all that exists.
SPEAKER_00: If you're consistent with that, then you you have to deny the existence of God, the existence of anything immaterial, everything's material.
SPEAKER_00: And so everything can be explained in terms of the material.
SPEAKER_00: So your love or honor, courage, these things have some physical explanation, merely physical explanation.
SPEAKER_00: So if you say you love your spouse or whatever, that all you're doing is moving chemicals and things around.
SPEAKER_00: You're you're not really, there isn't something significant about that person.
SPEAKER_00: It's just that they move your chemicals.
SPEAKER_00: And you I know I know most of you want to do, when you're loved, you want to have more than that happening.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm I'm pretty positive of that, after having been married for 41 years.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody say amen in the front row.
SPEAKER_00: So the world as it takes an act apart from God will remain in turmoil and become increasingly hostile.
SPEAKER_00: This guy at the lecture that I was at really, I thought I was fascinated that he recognized the benefits of religious belief and the moral health of culture.
SPEAKER_00: I'll be really curious to see how his books unfold and how his worldview continues to evolve as he sees the impact, and the good impact for good.
SPEAKER_00: So?
SPEAKER_00: That's redundant.
SPEAKER_00: The good impact for good.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the impact for good that belief systems like Christianity, uh, Judaism, whatever, Islam, whatever, has what the impact for good that they can have on the world in which we live.
SPEAKER_00: Here at Village Chapel, we have held and teach to the belief that what you believe about God is the most important thing about you.
SPEAKER_00: Because it affects every other area of your life.
SPEAKER_00: If God exists and is the source of all things, then we are more than the accidental collocation of atoms and chemicals.
SPEAKER_00: Human life has real value, and the loss of human life is a tragic thing.
SPEAKER_00: There's a real right and wrong that's universally right and wrong, no matter what.
SPEAKER_00: We would be quick, all of us.
SPEAKER_00: When somebody shows us some sign of heinous injustice, we would all rise up and say no, no to that.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because in general we like justice.
SPEAKER_00: At least we say we do.
SPEAKER_00: But do we like it enough for it to actually encroach upon our marriages, our family life, our citizenship?
SPEAKER_00: Do we like it that much?
SPEAKER_00: Or do we only like it when it's on a global scale, talking about people who are over there?
SPEAKER_00: And perhaps in a cultural scale, when as as Haight talks about, or Hait talks about in his books, when when I want justice for those people who are the uh RCOs in my life, the repugnant cultural others in my life.
SPEAKER_00: I want justice for them, but not for me.
SPEAKER_00: I want I want grace for me, I want justice for them.
SPEAKER_00: And with that, that's that's how we're getting divided over these kinds of things.
SPEAKER_00: And I think he's it's very interesting to listen to somebody like him.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Keller says we all live as if it were better to seek peace instead of war, tell the truth instead of lying, care or nurture, or care and nurture rather than to destroy.
SPEAKER_00: We believe that these choices are not pointless, then it matters which way we choose to live.
SPEAKER_00: Yet if the cosmic bench is truly empty, in other words, there's no God, then who says that one choice is better than others?
SPEAKER_00: It's is it possible then for humans to be good without God?
SPEAKER_00: I would say because of common grace, it is to some degree, under certain conditions, but not consistently, not completely, and not for the right motives.
SPEAKER_00: Even the best of us are like David here in verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: Even the best of us, if you had done us wrong, would retaliate.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you do that on I-65 occasionally?
SPEAKER_00: In your heart.
SPEAKER_00: I'm only talking about in your heart, okay?
SPEAKER_00: But in my heart, I, yeah, I want to bless people with a brick sometimes for the way they behave or the way they drive.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, the world as it thinks and acts apart from God will remain in turmoil and will become increasingly hostile.
SPEAKER_00: We need something more than we have on our own.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, the people of God are meant to trust in the promises of God and to rest in the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: I love our song service.
SPEAKER_00: I love the richness of the lyrics.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't know the songs, drink in the lyrics.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they're just, but then as you as you as you're here and as you begin to sing, and I love watching and listening.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I'm up here and sometimes Kim and I will literally stop and listen to you all sing, and just it just moves us, man.
SPEAKER_00: Because when we when a people sing together, the things that we believe together, it starts to take root in our hearts together.
SPEAKER_00: And it begins to change us and to transform us.
SPEAKER_00: And the people of God are meant to trust in the promises of God and rest in the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: I think David's starting to exhibit that and continues to exhibit it more and more.
SPEAKER_00: And then I think when he falls down, and we haven't read it yet, but you all know what's coming.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the story of Bathsheba, the story of David, you know, literally taking her.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and I would argue she had no choice in this.
SPEAKER_00: And and and and then mur arranging for the murder of her husband.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there this guy is not, he's so far from perfect.
SPEAKER_00: And yet I would say he overall is called a man with a heart after God.
SPEAKER_00: He's got a heart that wants what God wants ultimately.
SPEAKER_00: And he's resolved to the outcomes being in God's hands.
SPEAKER_00: The people of God are meant to trust in the promises of God and rest in the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: What would it look like if we trusted every outcome to God and rested in the love and grace of God in every situation?
SPEAKER_00: What would that happen?
SPEAKER_00: What would happen if you and I began to trust God for the outcome?
SPEAKER_00: And granted, we're not, we're none of us are, or I'm assuming none of us are dealing with the world's international issues.
SPEAKER_00: But what about in our own lives?
SPEAKER_00: What if we trusted God for the outcome?
SPEAKER_00: How would that affect the way we go through an interaction with somebody in an inner personal relationship?
SPEAKER_00: If we trusted God for the outcome.
SPEAKER_00: Now we can think to ourselves, how would Jesus respond to this person if Jesus were here and he were me?
SPEAKER_00: How can I express what I'm thinking to this person in love, in patience, with grace, and kindness as Jesus would?
SPEAKER_00: These are really important.
SPEAKER_00: How would that eclipse our fear when it comes to outcomes that we really trust the promises of God?
SPEAKER_00: That we rest in the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: How would that affect our fear?
SPEAKER_00: Because some of us are afraid.
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, all of us are afraid.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us admit it.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: What are you afraid of?
SPEAKER_00: It could be so many things.
SPEAKER_00: What am I afraid of?
SPEAKER_00: It could be so many things.
SPEAKER_00: You know?
SPEAKER_00: Some of us are afraid our lives aren't significant.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us are afraid that we're irrelevant.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us are afraid that we're going to get a bad report.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us are afraid something bad's going to happen to us or just somebody we love.
SPEAKER_00: There's so many things.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us are just afraid of the way the world is out there.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of fear and timidity.
SPEAKER_00: But what would happen if we completely trusted the promises of God and rested in the presence of God?
SPEAKER_00: How would that change our demeanor and our ability to navigate each and every day?
SPEAKER_00: What would it look like for us, like David, to dedicate everything to God, like he did here in verse 11, to see everything as belonging to the Lord, so that even if we lose all of the worldly goods in our possession, if we lost our job, our house or car, if we lost our health, even still, because we've dedicated everything to God and we trust the outcome to God, we continue to have a song of praise on our lips somehow.
SPEAKER_00: In the New Testament, it's always Paul and Silas in that prison cell that just, I continue to marvel every time I think about those guys in the Philippian jail.
SPEAKER_00: You know?
SPEAKER_00: And they're thrown in jail for their faith.
SPEAKER_00: They're in jail, and they're literally at midnight, they start singing hymns, you know.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know what hymns they sang.
SPEAKER_00: I would love to know what hymns they sang.
SPEAKER_00: But but, you know, let's just say, amazing grace, how sweet.
SPEAKER_00: That wasn't even written then, but they're let's pretend they were singing that.
SPEAKER_00: And then the God shakes the foundations of the place, and they get let go, and it's just this amazing trust in a very dark time, in a God who can do amazing things in our hearts and our lives.
SPEAKER_00: What would that look like for us to trust God for the outcome in each and every situation?
SPEAKER_00: How would it change the way we treat our family or our roommates, our spouse, our employers, our employees, our elected officials, our church?
SPEAKER_00: The people of God are meant to trust in the promises of God and to rest in the presence of God, no matter what's going on around us.
SPEAKER_00: Jackie Hill Perry, uh, she is a writer, a poet, a hip art, a hip hop artist.
SPEAKER_00: Um she's the author of a book recently called Gay Girl Good God, the story of who I was and who God has always been.
SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
SPEAKER_00: Like she's got an incredible mind.
SPEAKER_00: She says, confidence is acknowledging your ability to do a particular thing, but arrogance is forgetting that the ability came from above and not primarily from within.
SPEAKER_00: And we're told here in chapter 8 that the Lord was with David, that it was God in verse um uh four here.
SPEAKER_00: No, excuse me, it is God over and over again in verse 6, the Lord helped David with wherever he went.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 11, the Lord, or verse 14, the Lord helped David wherever he went.
SPEAKER_00: So just like Jackie Hill Perry, she's picking up on that as well and recognizing that it's God who ultimately gives her the strength.
SPEAKER_00: And let me tell you, her life has been turned inside out and upside down by Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: What was at the very core of who she thought she was has been radically transformed.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't get much press when something like that happens, but it's pretty fascinating to me to watch that kind of change and that kind of beautiful soul and spirit that she has.
SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, the ultimate fulfillment of the kingdom of Jesus will display God's perfect love for justice and righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, the world as it thinks and acts apart from God will be in turmoil and increasingly hostile.
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, the people of God are meant to trust in the promises and the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: But I think we look forward just like we do in chapter 8 here.
SPEAKER_00: All of this finds its fulfillment in Christ, the greater son of David.
SPEAKER_00: You know, he's in the line of David, he's one of the descendants of David, but he's also the greater king than David is.
SPEAKER_00: Israel thinks of David as its greatest king.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus is a king of another kind of kingdom, and it's broader than just one nation or one people group.
SPEAKER_00: And the gospel goes out as a universal offer to people, whether they're Moabites, Israelites, or from America or from Russia.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel is a universal offer.
SPEAKER_00: Now, how do you respond to that offer?
SPEAKER_00: How do I respond to that offer?
SPEAKER_00: That's a real important question for us.
SPEAKER_00: The ultimate fulfillment of the kingdom of Jesus will display God's perfect love for justice and righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: While David tried, and domestically, it seems like the summary is that, yeah, he he he reigned in just with justice and righteousness locally there.
SPEAKER_00: But in verse 2, man, that thing with the Moabites really made me scratch my head.
SPEAKER_00: It seems like he blew his lid.
SPEAKER_00: Seems like it was a little disproportional, his response to the Moabites, killing two-thirds of them, literally executing them.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think humans can bear the weight of real, uh, the final word on justice.
SPEAKER_00: Let me say that again.
SPEAKER_00: Our Bibles say, vengeance is mine, says the Lord, and I think that's because human beings can't bear the weight of vengeance without their personal uh problems coming into the mix.
SPEAKER_00: God's the only one that can actually deal in real justice with real righteousness governing his decisions and his choice for what ends up being justice.
SPEAKER_00: Martin Luther King used to quote this passage all the time.
SPEAKER_00: Take away from me, the Lord says through the prophet Amos, take away from me the noise of your songs.
SPEAKER_00: I will not even listen to the sound of your harps, but let justice roll down like waters.
SPEAKER_00: Righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, all of our religious goings on, all of our religious doings, we gather together, we sing our songs, they sound really good.
SPEAKER_00: I love the way you sound.
SPEAKER_00: But it's a stench to God if we aren't living out justice and righteousness in our relationships and in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, he doesn't, God's not just interested in little performers on the stage doing religious stuff.
SPEAKER_00: What God's interested in people who are willing to dedicate their hearts and their souls and their lives and their relationships and show the watching world that this King Jesus is the only one that can actually offer us a life where our hearts are changed and transformed, to where we do like Jesus does, we come for our enemies.
SPEAKER_00: We come to love our enemies, we come to sacrificially lay down our lives for even those who think of themselves as our enemies.
SPEAKER_00: And there are a lot of people in the culture right now that think that those religious people, that's the problem.
SPEAKER_00: Get rid of them and you can clean things up.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think that's right at all.
SPEAKER_00: Has there been some some have there been some bad things done in the name of religion?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, there have been.
SPEAKER_00: And we need to be honest about that.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I've said the most important thing about you is what you believe about God.
SPEAKER_00: If you have a wrong-headed view about God, you will fly airplanes into buildings.
SPEAKER_00: You will hate people just because they don't believe what you believe.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity, the gospel, is really the only of the world religions that actually tells you to love your enemies.
SPEAKER_00: It actually tells you to lay down your life for those who don't believe like you believe, or look like you look, or live the way you live.
SPEAKER_00: They don't measure justice and righteousness the same way you do, but you're still supposed to love them.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because they're your neighbors.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why God has put you here on this planet to be a conduit of his love to a world that's so desperately dark and longing for, hoping for someday that there might be something called justice.
SPEAKER_00: Redeeming love and retributive justice have joined hands at the cross in Calvary, Packer says.
SPEAKER_00: God showed himself there to be just and the justifier of them that have faith in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Christopher Wright, I won't put it up on the screen, but he says the death of Christ in utter weakness would turn out to be the demonstration of the saving power of God that will ultimately destroy all powers of evil and violence.
SPEAKER_00: What a paradox.
SPEAKER_00: But it lies at the heart of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And there at the cross, we have this symbol, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: And it notice it's not the measuring scales.
SPEAKER_00: It's not you balance it out, and if you do enough, a little few more good things compared to your bad things, then God will accept you.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the symbol of the Christian faith, it's not the measuring scales.
SPEAKER_00: It's the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Where the love, the justice, the mercy, and the wisdom of God all intersect at the corner right at the center in the heart of Jesus, where he gives his life for a world of lost sinners like me and like you as well.
SPEAKER_00: I'll close with this thought.
SPEAKER_00: It becomes practical.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just us sitting around congratulating ourselves on our worship services or on the you know the pithy quotes on the screen or the how well the music is done or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: But here we here we here we come to respond.
SPEAKER_00: Our task, Dale Ralph Davis says, is not to leave doing what is just and right to David, or you know, or just leave it as a sort of a concept, but to peel off that kingdom ideal and stick it over the circumstances of our own lives.
SPEAKER_00: We've got to be doing what is just and right for all your people.
SPEAKER_00: All right?
SPEAKER_00: So it's in your world, in my world, that I start to look for what is just and what is right.
SPEAKER_00: How can I have more justice and righteousness in my life?
SPEAKER_00: The way God defines it.
SPEAKER_00: Not the way I define it, not the way the culture defines it, but the way why?
SPEAKER_00: Because I ultimately belong to God.
SPEAKER_00: I don't ultimately belong to the culture.
SPEAKER_00: I don't ultimately even belong to myself.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us are under the mistaken notion we belong to ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta get past that.
SPEAKER_00: How much did you have to do with your coming into being?
SPEAKER_00: Zero.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: And you keep going back, keep going back all the way to the first persons that ever existed.
SPEAKER_00: We all had zero to do with our coming into being.
SPEAKER_00: So we belong to somebody else, and that's why we're haunted by this longing for something bigger than we are, someone bigger than we are, some love that is so beautiful that it would sacrifice itself for even me.
SPEAKER_00: Sinner that I am, sinner that we are.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, thank you for your gift of grace and mercy.
SPEAKER_00: I thank you that this good news is that it's not about us balancing out the moral scales, but trusting you.
SPEAKER_00: Trusting you, Lord Christ, for the work that you've already done and accomplished.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to walk in the freedom of that grace now that we might then be able to go out and love others well, because we've been so well loved ourselves by you.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that justice and righteousness would mark your people, that the love of God would mark your people, that the wisdom of God would be seen in our lives as well.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, that we wouldn't take ourselves so seriously, but that we would take you seriously and your gospel seriously, and trust you and rest in your beautiful promises and your presence.
SPEAKER_00: We pray all this in Jesus' name, amen and amen.