A Heart Sensitive to God • 2 Samuel 2

43:09 Teaching begins

Notes

We get to see a miracle and a tragedy in 2 Samuel 2.

The miracle is a man becoming a king without striving, without domineering and without pushing people around. His rule is peaceful.

The tragedy is a man making a king by: striving, domineering and pushing people around. He causes chaos and destruction to everyone around him and even to himself.

No one would ever want to be governed by that striving, domineering, pushy guy. But we are: the Bible says everyone lives in futility, darkened in understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their hearts.

You don’t want to end in destruction because of the hardness of your heart.

This chapter is written is so that you would want to live in that miracle of peaceful government, that doesn’t come as a result of selfish ambition but from a heart sensitive to the Lord.

I’m reading in 2 Samuel 2.

1. David seeks the Lord for his next move, vv. 1-3.

A. Because this is the question: David has been anointed to become king of Israel since he was a kid, the last of eight brothers. Now, how is he going to get where God called him to be?

B. So David asks, “God, shall I go up to Judah?” This is a practical point. David lives in Ziklag, which is still considered Philistine territory. He can’t govern Israel from there. So is this something that he should change?

C. The Lord says go. And David asks, “Where?” God says Hebron. It’s a very old city, Abraham lived there. It’s on a trade route. It would make a good capital city.

D. So David and his men move their families from Ziklag to Hebron and settle in.

1. Imagine all these families coming in, in peace. They don’t come in as soldiers, like they are there to take supplies from the people. They are families just like those living in Hebron. They want to be part of the people there. Families are the building block of society. David wants to build his kingdom, not conquer and dominate with force.

2. I can imagine there’s many conversations going on: what’s it like living with David? How’s it been for you? And the answers: he’s the best to work for. He worships God and really seeks Him, he expects us to know God as well. He’s fair, he handles the rough guys fairly. He’s great.

2. The men of Judah respond by asking David to be their king, vv. 4-7.

A. David doesn’t demand anything of these people. He doesn’t hardly say a word. He just moves there.

B. And the men of Judah, the whole tribe, not just the guys at Hebron, say, “If we can have him ruling over us, that would be great.” They ask him! “Would you mind ruling over us, please?”

C. David accepts, which shows humility.

1. He accepts kingship over a smaller portion. One tribe is not all of Israel. God said he was to be king over all Israel. What if he said, “Well, that’s not enough. It’s got to be all Israel or I’m not willing.”? A man can receive nothing except from above, said John the Baptist. So David will take what God is offering and leave it at that. God meant all Israel but how that works out is up to God.

2. David humbly waits on God’s working. The Lord is making David king slowly even now. Remember that he was anointed as a young boy. He has served King Saul. He has commanded battalions of troops. He has been on the run for years. And even now it’s still not the full promise. Why would God take so long? One reason is that when the gift becomes more important than the Giver it’s easy to take the gift and run away and lose the gift because you left God behind. An inheritance gained hastily will not be blessed in the end, Proverbs 20:21. David is content to go God’s pace. He accepts humbly.

3. David blesses the men of Jabesh-Gilead.

A. They showed chesed to their lord. That word is strong, faithful, covenant love. They remembered that Saul saved their city. They risked their lives in a nighttime raid and stole Saul and Jonathan’s bodies off the wall of Beth Shean and buried them properly. David commends them and says, “Well done.”

B. He blesses them.

1. The Lord show chesed and emeth to you. Strong, faithful covenant love and firmness, faithfulness that does not change.

2. If you can’t trust someone, you can’t have a relationship with them. If they treat you crummy you can’t bind yourself to them.

3. God revealed to Moses who He is, His name, and He said He is overflowing with chesed and emeth. They are the foundation of relationship, a bond of union with someone else. The Lord bonds with people in a relationship of unity, oneness.

C. David is connected with God—he’s the Messiah, the anointed one of God, so David acts the same way as God. He encourages them—though Saul your lord is dead, the house of Judah has anointed me king over them. It’s a gentle invitation. You can come under my rule, even as I am under the rule of God.

4. Abner has another way to build a kingdom: with personal influence and ambition, vv. 8-11.

A. Abner was Saul’s commander of the army. Somehow he escaped out of the battle on Mount Gilboa alive.

B. He’s used to being at the top of command. He sees that Israel is scattered and disorganised. He is going to regather Israel and pull the nation together. He takes Saul’s son Ish-bosheth and says, “I’m going to make you king over Israel.”

1. He begins in Mahanaim, north and east in Israel, far away from the centre of Philistine influence. He makes Ish-bosheth king over the northeast region of Gilead.

2. Then he brings in the Ashurites, Jezreel, Ephraim, Benjamin. That’s all the northern parts of Israel.

C. This reorganisation is a process that takes at least five years.

1. Notice that Ish-bosheth reigned over a re-organised Israel for two years. Meanwhile David ruled over Judah for seven and a half years. The difference is five years.

2. For five years Abner worked at expanding Ish-bosheth’s influence over the tribes of Israel. He built up Ish-bosheth’s authority and convinced people that here is the heir, he really is the king, get behind him. They acknowledge Ish-bosheth as the son of Saul and his heir.

D. But Abner is the power behind all this. It’s his force of personal influence and his ambition that is the real motivation. Ish-bosheth is really a puppet ruler.

5. Now Abner turns his eyes on the southern tribe of Judah, and he wants to subdue Judah to Ish-bosheth, vv. 12-32.

A. Abner knows better than to do this, in a lot of ways.

1. He’s known David as Saul’s musician before he killed Goliath. He knows that David is now king over Judah. He knows that David is anointed by God to rule all Israel.

2. David is leading Judah peacefully. He’s not demanding more territory. He’s not threatening Ish-bosheth, making demands or ultimatums. He’s not announcing, “I must be king over all Israel. It’s the will of God. Ish-bosheth is not legitimate. He’s not anointed by God! We’re going to conquer you!” David has been administering justice in Judah, he’s peaceful and he’s patient.

3. There is no reason for Abner to make an aggressive move against Judah. Maybe you could say that the twelve tribes need to be organised together under one king as the nation of God. Only Abner’s ambition says, “Ish-bosheth is the king, and I’m behind Ish-bosheth.”

B. So one day Abner goes out from Mahanaim with a large group of soldiers. He is going to lose 360 of them today, and still have survivors, so it was a pretty large group.

C. This is the first time that Joab son of Zeruiah appears in David’s history. He is David’s nephew, the son of his sister Zeruiah, and he’s the commander of David’s army. Joab is much more like Abner than David. He also is an influential, powerful man and he’s ambitious. He shows up to the pool in Gibeon with David’s soldiers.

D. There they are, on either side of the pool, primed for action. No small talk like, “Nice day, isn’t it? Think it’ll rain?” There are no questions like, “How are things going under David? Would you ever consider a merge into the rest of Israel? How does that look to you?” Abner doesn’t even try. Maybe he thinks it wouldn’t work. But here he is, pushing the envelope, looking for an excuse to fight. He trying to provoke a war.

E. Notice it’s Abner who suggests, “Let’s have the young men have a contest.” He doesn’t mean let’s do some sports. He means let’s let champions fight this out. Each side gets twelve men, and each man kills his counterpart.

F. Then everyone jumps into the fight and it’s all out battle.

G. Abner shows twice that he knows better than to provoke all this conflict.

1. Joab’s brother Asahel decides he’s going to get Abner and stop the whole conflict directly. Abner says, don’t do this, go hit on someone else, I don’t want to kill you. How can I face your brother Joab? This is all good and peaceful thinking but Asahel isn’t in a reasoning mood. Abner jams his spear butt right through Asahel and kills him on the spot.

2. After all this fighting, he regroups his men on a hill and says, “Shall the sword devour forever? Do you not know that it will be bitter in the end?” Great insight. Joab responds, “If you hadn’t spoken none of this would have happened. Everyone would have walked away this morning.” This is your fault, Abner.

H. Final result: 360 of his men dead, 19 of David’s men dead, one of whom is Asahel. Abner has started a war that he can’t win, and he’s started a blood feud with Joab that will end in his own death. And what he said shows he knew better but he did it anyway.

6. So what?

A. Here we have David peacefully receiving what God has promised him. He accepts what God gives and trusts in His timing. No one gets hurt. Abner knows what is right intellectually, but he still follows his ambition to his own destruction and other’s destruction.

B. David has a heart sensitive to the Lord. Abner has a heart insensitive to the Lord.

C. What we need to be sensitive to the Lord is to have our hearts’ insensitivity cut away.

1. God gave Abraham the sign of His covenant and that was to be circumcised. A man’s foreskin is to be cut away. The foreskin makes that area less sensitive, and it is naturally unclean because it provides a place to trap dirt and bacteria. When the foreskin is cut away that area is more sensitive and it naturally stays clean because there is no place for uncleanness to build up.

2. God applies this to our hearts figuratively. Deuteronomy 10:16 So circumcise your heart, and stiffen your neck no longer.

3. If the heart is not made sensitive to the Lord there will be arrogance, ignorance, and selfish ambition of every kind, stubbornness and insensitivity to God. Just like we read this morning in Jeremiah 17:1 The sin of Judah is written down with an iron stylus; with a diamond point it is engraved upon the tablet of their heart and on the horns of their altars.

D. But how do you circumcise your own heart? As Jeremiah said, The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9)

E. God makes a promise in Deuteronomy 30:6 “Moreover the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.” God Himself is going to make the heart sensitive so that all the righteous requirement of the law will be fulfilled in that heart.

F. This good news is that Jesus does this in our hearts. Colossians 2:11-12 and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.

1. The cross of Jesus cuts in the heart, putting to death that insensitive person we used to be.

2. He raises us with Him from the dead to be a new creation, with His mind so we think like Jesus.

G. But He still cuts us. I’ve been meditating on this in Psalm 119:67-71

1. Before I was afflicted I went astray. I did my own thing. I was not sensitive to you, I didn’t care. It mattered nothing to me.

2. But then You afflicted me. I caused my own problems and you increased that to the point that I cried out to You. You heard me and answered my prayers.

3. Now I keep Your word because I know Your way is the right way. When I go wrong You are faithful to let me know and I repent before You. I want Your way, not mine. I know You can establish Your will because You have saved me.

4. It is good for me that I was afflicted. I can look back and say You had mercy on me to cut away that blubber of insensitivity around my heart. I would be just as arrogant and insensitive as those arrogant people but You had mercy on me. Thank You for afflicting me. I will praise Your name forever and ever.

5. How do you know that God has circumcised you by the cross of Christ? Because now you delight in His word. Before you were insensitive to His word, now you tremble at His word. Do you tremble at God’s word? Do you delight in it?

H. Are you sensitive to God or insensitive? Ask Jesus to work in your heart and if He has to cut you, so be it. It’s worth it.

Let’s pray.