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Tag: Saul

Integrity & Promises

We are currently in the last part of chapter 3 as we study the book of 2 Samuel. And this week, as I was preparing for this message, I was just thinking about how long David had to wait for God’s promise to be fulfilled. Way back when David was just a young boy tending his father’s sheep – the prophet Samuel had anointed him as the King of Israel. But it would be a long, long road for David before that promise would finally come to fruition. David had to spend years serving as a commander in King Saul’s army, many more years fleeing as a fugitive from King Saul who was trying to kill him, and then even more years fighting in a civil war against the supporters of Saul after Saul’s death.

But in all that time – David never seemed to resist or resent God’s timeline. He never rushed to put himself in the position of King. He never tried to manipulate the circumstances in order to hurry God’s promise along! He just trusted that God would fulfill his promise in his own good time.

And I think that’s one of the character traits of David that I admire most! Even when he had clear and abundant opportunity to move himself closer to the throne of Israel (a position that was promised to Him by God!) – he never chose to sin against God by taking matters into his own hands. 

David even declared this when he spared Saul’s life back in 1 Samuel chapter 24 when Saul was hunting for him to kill him! David said to Saul…

9 Then he shouted to Saul, “Why do you listen to the people who say I am trying to harm you? 10 This very day you can see with your own eyes it isn’t true. For the Lord placed you at my mercy back there in the cave. Some of my men told me to kill you, but I spared you. For I said, ‘I will never harm the king—he is the Lord’s anointed one.’

1 Samuel 24:9-10

And this was a guiding principle for David – he would not lift his hand against King Saul. God had put Saul in power and David would wait patiently for God to remove him. And this also applied to Saul’s son, Ishbosheth as well. Actually, just a little further in this very chapter where David spared Saul’s life, we see that Saul asked David to show this same kindness to the rest of his family. Saul says to David in verse 19…

19 Who else would let his enemy get away when he had him in his power? May the Lord reward you well for the kindness you have shown me today. 20 And now I realize that you are surely going to be king, and that the kingdom of Israel will flourish under your rule. 21 Now swear to me by the Lord that when that happens you will not kill my family and destroy my line of descendants!”

22 So David promised this to Saul with an oath. 

1 Samuel 24:19-22a

So not only has David vowed never to harm the King – he has also vowed not to kill his descendants after him (as many kings would have done!) It was not uncommon back then for the new king to destroy the whole family and close friends of the old king – so they would never posse a threat to the kingdom. But David promised he would not do that. He would never lay a hand on Saul or his family – and he would just trust God with the outcome!

However, not everyone in David’s camp agreed with that policy! We’ve already mentioned in previous messages how there were several occasions when David’s men urged him kill Saul when he had the opportunity. 

And today we’re going to see, that even now with Saul dead, the people loyal to David – on more than one occasion – resorted to going behind David’s back to attack and destroy Saul’s family.

And actually, we already saw that happen last week – as David’s army commander Joab murdered Abner – who was Saul’s cousin and the commander of Israel’s armies. So we’re going to start today by looking at how David responses to that – and then we’ll look at yet another incident of David’s supporters harming the family of Saul – and how David responded to that. 

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Abner’s Quest for Power and Control

When we last left off, David was just beginning to establish his rule over Israel. In fact, at this point, he was king over just one tribe of Israel – the tribe of Judah. The rest of Israel had chosen to follow King Saul’s son, Ishbosheth. However, it wasn’t really Ishbosheth that was calling the shots. Abner, the commander of Saul’s army (who also happened to be Saul’s cousin) had established Ishbosheth as King after Saul’s death. And while Ishbosheth had the title of king, as we’re going to see today, Abner was really the one in charge. But we’ll talk more about that in a minute.

So at this point, there is a civil war within Israel: The house of Saul – led by Saul’s son Ishbosheth is at war the house of David to determine who will be the rightful king of Israel. But the story doesn’t really revolve around David or Ishbosheth as much as it revolves around their army commanders.

As I’ve already mentioned, Abner was the commander of Ishbosheth’s army and Joab was the commander of David’s army.

To make this all a bit more complicated, we read in 2 Samuel chapter 2 that Abner had killed Joab’s brother in battle! Of course, this was very much in self-defence – Abner even told Joab’s brother to go fight someone else, but he refused and so – in the end, Abner was forced to defend himself and Joab’s brother was killed! 

So Joab now holds a grudge and is seeking revenge against Abner for killing his brother. And as you might imagine, this grudge-match between these two army commanders had grown into a full blown civil war! The first verse of chapter 3 sums this up by saying:

That was the beginning of a long war between those who were loyal to Saul and those loyal to David.

2 Samuel 3:1a

That’s certainly not the kind of succession plan any kingdom wants to have! The transition from King Saul to King David was not going smoothly – and sadly, as we pointed out in our last message, Abner really was the driving force behind all this conflict. Had he accepted God’s choice of David to be King – this entire civil war could probably have been avoided! But as it was, Abner’s selfish ambition plunged the nation into a needless war that resulted in great bloodshed, and as we will see next week, ultimately his own demise.

So we’ll pick up today where we left off last time. Chapter 3, verse 1.

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The Sordid Tale of Abner

Two weeks ago we began our study of 2 Samuel – which is really just a continuation of our study of 1 Samuel which we concluded back in 2021! So in a lot of ways, we’re jumping right into the middle of the story – a story that many of us either missed the first half or have forgotten how it all started. But don’t worry – even if you don’t remember part one of this story, I’ll do my best to remind us of the key details as we go along.

For now, probably the key thing you need to know is that the nation Israel is currently in a bit of a state of civil war. In our passage today, Israel is still a very young nation – it’s had only one king thus far in it’s history and that king has just died. So now Israel is at a crucial conjuction. Who will lead Israel next?

One of the twelve tribes of Israel (Judah) has chosen David to be their new King – while all the rest of Israel has pledged their loyalties to King’s Saul’s son, Ishbosheth.

However, our passage today doesn’t really revolve around either David or Ishbosheth – but rather around their respective army commanders – Joab (the commander of David’s army) & Abner (the commander of Ishbosheth’s army).

Now before we read today’s passage, let me just re-read the last verses we looked at last week. This is kinda the setup for today’s story. 2 Samuel chapter 2, verses 8-11.

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David Waits for the Lord

So last Sunday we either started a new series or continued an old one – both statements are true – it just depends on how you think about it! We began working through the book of 2 Samuel – which is really just a continuation of 1 Samuel.

Back in 2020/2021, we worked our way through the book of 1 Samuel – looking at characters like Hannah, Eli, Samuel, Saul, eventually David. We concluded that book with the death of Saul after he was mortally wounded in a battle against the Philistines.

Now of course, years before Saul’s death, David had been chosen by God and anointed by Samuel to be the future king of Israel. That had happened when David was still a boy. But now David had grown up, had risen through the ranks of the armies of Israel (very successfully, I might add), and was now quite famous throughout the land of Israel. However, King Saul was so jealous of David’s success and popularity, that he had become determined to kill David. And so David and a band of his faithful men had been on the run from Saul that for the last several years – hiding out in Philistine territory – pretending to be allied with them so that Saul would leave them alone!

But now, the Philistines had just defeated Saul’s army at Mount Gilboa and both Saul and his three sons were killed. And that’s about where 1 Samuel concludes and 2 Samuel begins.

We read in 2 Samuel chapter 1 last Sunday how an Amalekite had brought David the news that Saul and his sons were killed in battle. This Amalekite even claimed to be the guy to put Saul out of his misery after he had been mortally wounded by the Philistines. Of course, we’re not entire sure if that was true, since 1 Samuel 31 says that Saul fell on his own sword and died – while this Amalekite claimed that he killed Saul after Saul asked him end his suffering and spare him from being captured by the Philistines.

But however it actually happened, this young Amalekite man tells David that he was the one to end the life of Saul and that he has now brought to David King Saul’s crown and royal armband.

And this is where we’re going to pick up the story today.

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David Learns of Saul’s Death

This morning I am excited to begin a new sermon series – although technically, we are not starting a new one as much as we are continuing an old one!

Way back in September of 2020 we began working our way through the book of 1 Samuel – studying the characters of Samuel, Saul, and David. Well, that series lasted just over a year and we concluded First Samuel just before Christmas of 2021.

Well, this morning, I’d like to continue working through that story – starting today in the book of Second Samuel. Now originally, 1 & 2 Samuel were written as one book. They were really only divided because, back when things were written on scrolls, they couldn’t fit the whole story on one scroll and so they cut it in half and thus we got first and second Samuel.

But that means, as we begin 2 Samuel today, we really are jumping right into the middle of the story. It’s like skipping the first half of a movie!

Now if you’re like me, you may not remember what you had for breakfast this morning – let alone what the preacher talked about 3 years ago, so I understand if your memory of some of the characters and events of 1 Samuel are a little fuzzy. What’s more, many of you weren’t even part of our church yet back in 2020 – so you might not have any idea about who these people are or what they did.

So before we jump into Second Samuel today, I want to give you a quick recap of 1 Samuel. And to do that, I want to show you the Bible Project’s overview video of 1 Samuel. This will give you at least the big picture of the story – and will roughly explain where we are in the story as we begin part 2 today. So we’ll start with that video and then we’ll get going into our passage this morning.

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The Power of the Word

This morning we want to tackle a fairly large passage of Scripture – approximately two chapters in the book of Acts – but we are going to go through it fairly quickly. Today we want to take a bird’s eye view of the first official missions trip recorded in the Bible.

You’ll recall from a couple of weeks ago, the church in Antioch was told by the Holy Spirit to appoint two men – Barnabas and Saul – for the special work that God had called them to. At this point, we’re not told exactly what this special work would be, but as we read on, we discover that it would include traveling over 1400 miles to visit dozens of towns and cities, preaching the Gospel and planting churches all along the way.

This would be no small task, so to assist them in their journey, they would take along John Mark – who was a cousin of Barnabas and the eventual author of the Gospel of Mark.

This first missionary journey is recorded for us in Acts chapters 13 and 14 – and as I said, that is a lot of Scripture to cover in one sermon, so we are going to go though it fairly quickly. We won’t be looking at each verse in detail, but rather, we want to zoom out and try to see the big picture. What are the themes and what are the principles that we can learn about life and ministry as we look at this first missionary effort?

So naturally, there will be lots of good bits in these verses that we just won’t get a chance to look at today, but that just means there are lots of great things for you discover in your own personal study of these chapters later on!

Now we have already looked at some parts of Acts chapter 13. Two weeks ago, we went through the first 5 verses that talk about Barnabas and Saul’s commissioning as missionaries. Then last Sunday, Mike took us through a big chunk of Paul’s sermon in the middle of chapter 13. So we won’t rehash all that stuff. But there are four main stories that come out of these two chapters, and so that’s what I want to look at today.

The first story takes place in Paphos, so let’s begin reading in Acts chapter 13, starting at verse 4, as Barnabas and Saul first leave Antioch. It reads like this:

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