Saved by Justice and Grace • 2 Samuel 21
54:44 Teaching begins
Notes
This is one of those chapters in which we see God set forth the gospel 1000 years before Jesus.
We see the effects of unfaithfulness to God. Sin destroys nations and it destroys families.
God sends a Messiah to faithfully reconcile man and God. That’s the gospel. Sin destroys the relationship between God and man resulting in a curse. The curse is removed by justice and grace. And a covenant of the Lord makes the difference between life and death.
David is unique and irreplaceable as the anointed of God, but what’s interesting is that David’s men imitate him, and find that they too can do great exploits through God.
Imitate a man of God, and you will walk with God.
Let’s read in 2 Samuel 21 (to v. 6).
1. God gets David’s attention by causing a famine for three years, vv. 1-6.
A. God could speak directly, by a prophet, or send an angel. He’s done things like that before. That’s direct, quick.
B. God chooses a slow, indirect way. Not enough food from the harvest is a crisis. People are in danger of starvation, the nation is weakened and open to being oppressed by someone taking advantage of the situation. One year is bad, two is really bad, three years is desperate.
C. Everything God does has purpose and meaning.
1. When bad things happen you can ask, is this a wake-up call? Am I right before God? Is there anything I need to pay attention to?
2. If God is humbling you, you can humble yourself before God and seek Him because God gives grace to the humble. God is about to give Israel grace.
2. David seeks the Lord and finds this is because of Saul’s unfaithfulness.
A. This is something not written about elsewhere in the Bible. We learn here only that Saul tried to completely wipe out the Gibeonites.
B. The Gibeonites were not from Israel but were from a Canaanite city that should have been destroyed along with the rest of Canaan.
1. Instead of fighting Israel they deceived Israel. They sent men pretending to be from a far-off city, and they asked for a covenant of peace. Joshua and the elders of Israel did not inquire of the Lord, they swore a covenant of the Lord with them and made peace.
2. It was only afterwards that Joshua found out they were from the nearby city of Gibeon. It was a trick to save their lives.
3. Israel was angry and didn’t like being deceived, but Gibeon had a covenant of the Lord. Israel couldn’t do anything to them. Joshua made them woodcutters and water-bringers for the house of God.
C. Four hundred years later Saul was unfaithful to God and broke that covenant of the Lord.
1. He was zealous for Judah and for Israel. He wanted Israel for the Israelis. They were to control all the land.
2. Zeal for the nation of Israel is not the same as zeal for God. If Saul had zeal for God he would have been faithful to God, and God would not have fired him. He would have obeyed God.
3. Saul didn’t listen to God, he didn’t obey God, so God fired him.
4. You can bet Gibeon tried to protest to Saul, “What are you doing? We have a covenant of the Lord for four hundred years! You can’t do this!” But Saul didn’t listen. If you’re not listening to God, you won’t listen to people, either.
D. Saul sinned both against the Gibeonites and God. All sin is against God first.
3. Now God wants David to make atonement for Saul’s unfaithfulness.
A. Atonement means to so reconcile two estranged parties so that there is no more resentment.
1. For the Gibeonites it means to make it up to you so you actually bless Israel instead of cursing them. Take away all the bitterness, all the loss, the lives wiped out, genocide towards a whole people, the unfairness, the wickedness.
2. It also means making it up to God for Saul’s blasphemy and misrepresenting God. God is faithful to a thousand generations. When He makes a covenant that is to be valid forever. Doesn’t matter how many centuries have gone by, He stands by His covenant. His nature of unchanging faithfulness was blasphemed among the Gentiles by the breaking of this covenant.
B. David has listened to God, now he listens to the Gibeonites.
1. They wouldn’t be satisfied with money. Today if a person has a grievance, they lose a family member, they say, “Would a million pounds make you feel better?” They say, “Yes.” The Gibeonites say, no. No amount of money can repair what Saul did. Money can’t bring back from the dead.
2. We can’t say if any man is to die in Israel. That’s not our place.
3. David follows up on that statement and they say, “Let Saul’s family be wiped out like we were wiped out.” A symbolic number of seven meaning completeness. Let them be hanged before the Lord in Saul’s hometown Gibeah in Benjamin. When they are hanged, they are cursed. That is the most dishonorable of deaths. That’s how wicked this unfaithfulness is.
4. David says, “I will give them.” David is listening to God, listening to man. He’s going to make this right.
4. Unlike Saul, David keeps faith with God & man.
A. Even as he gives over seven descendants of Saul, he protects Mephibosheth the son of Jonathan, Saul’s son. He has a covenant of the Lord with David.
1. Mephibosheth had nothing to do with this. The covenant was made before he was born between his father and David.
2. David went looking for him and brought him to eat at his own table and restore all the possessions of his grandfather and blessed him because of that covenant of the Lord.
3. He is a descendant of Saul, Saul’s descendants must die for Saul’s unfaithfulness, and yet he is protected by a covenant of the Lord. David will not break faith with Jonathan nor God.
B. The difference between life and death is a covenant of the Lord!
5. The Gibeonites carry out the sentence against seven men from Saul’s descendants.
6. After the sons are dead, cursed, hanged on trees, Aiah, Saul’s concubine, shows them unchanging faithfulness.
A. She spreads sackcloth on a rock and keeps the animals from eating them.
1. You wear coarse, scratchy sackcloth when you mourn and repent. You humble yourself before God.
2. The final indignity is to have animals eat your flesh and not have a proper burial. According to Deuteronomy 21:22 bodies hung on a tree are cursed by God, but even then the law says they are to be buried that evening. This is exceptional, continues for six months, from the beginning of barley harvest in March, till the rains begin in September. This shows how serious the unfaithfulness of Saul was.
B. Aiah has no power to change what has happened. She can’t change what Saul did. She can’t bring back the dead. She can’t do anything about the curse. She can’t bury them. But she can keep the animals off them, so she does that for six months. She shows faithfulness, grace, and love.
C. David hears about it. He’s heard from God, from the Gibeonites, and now he listens to what Aiah is doing.
D. Her love and faithfulness moves him to be gracious to her and to end her mourning. He gets Jonathan and Saul’s bones from Jabesh-Gilead, and these bones, and buries them in the tomb of Saul’s father Kish. He shows them all grace and honor. I can imagine Aiah saying to David, “Thank you.” Grace relieves suffering.
E. This shows a principle: If you want God to be gracious to you, look to be gracious to others. You can’t be asking God for grace while you treat others badly.
F. God is pleased with that gracious act, and He answers prayer for a good harvest.
7. David’s men have been watching him, and they imitate him, vv. 15-22.
A. There’s war with the Philistines and David almost gets killed. Abishai kills that son of the giant Goliath. They tell David you can’t go out anymore. You’re the light of Israel, but you’re too old for this sort of thing.
B. What’s interesting is that Abishai got right in there to save David. He wasn’t intimidated by Ishbi-benob’s size or the size of his weapons.
1. The Philistines always think that size and strength decides the fight. Get the biggest guy you can and he will win every time.
2. David proved that is not true. When every man in Israel was paralyzed with fear he went to fight one-on-one with Goliath. He said, “You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have taunted. This day the LORD will deliver you up into my hands, and I will strike you down and remove your head from you. And I will give the dead bodies of the army of the Philistines this day to the birds of the sky and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the LORD does not deliver by sword or by spear; for the battle is the LORD’S and He will give you into our hands.” 1 Samuel 17:45-47 Then he knocks out Goliath with a slingshot and cuts off his head.
3. Abishai came to Ishbi-benob in the name of the Lord of hosts and killed him.
C. So did these three other guys.
1. Sibbecai was one of David’s mighty men, the Thirty.
2. Who are these other guys? Elhanan? Jonathan, David’s nephew?
3. They learned what David demonstrated: It’s not size, weight, power, or personality that determines a battle. There is a God in Israel, and the battle is His.
8. So what?
A. Sin is real and destroys people, families, and nations.Unfaithfulness to God, not listening to Him, results in zeal for self that destroys everything. You get brutality at home, in the workplace, and in whole nations.
B. God will deal with sin in judgment, with justice.
1. He is going to make everything right, pay back to every person as they have done. So it will be done to him, plus, what you plant comes up 30, 60, 100 times what you plant. You will harvest what you have done plus all the increase. It is just. What a man sows, he reaps.
2. Every living being will be judged. No one can escape this judgment. No one can get away with anything.
C. God has made an atonement before the judgment. He has satisfied His own wrath and made things right for everyone. He has made a covenant of the Lord.
1. When God judges the world, only a covenant of the Lord will save you from eternal judgment and punishment.
2. You get a covenant of the Lord by receiving it. Mephibosheth did nothing to make that covenant. He wasn’t even born yet. His father made it with David and the Lord, and he became the beneficiary when he received it. “This is for me?” He said, “Yeah!”
C. Jesus Himself is that covenant of the Lord who delivers us from the judgment to come.
1. He said, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.” Luke 22:20
2. On Him the sentence of death was carried out. Instead of the sons of Saul or you, it was on Him that all the wrath of God was poured out.
3. The Father is satisfied for all the sin against Him. The punishment is carried out. No one has to die for their sins. You can receive that covenant of the Lord made before you were born. You can be saved through judgment.
4. Do you have Jesus, the covenant of God? Aren’t you glad right now? What a relief! Most importantly, God is going to make up to you all that you have suffered. Just like David relieved Aiah’s suffering, Jesus will relieve you, dry your tears, and they will stay wiped.
D. If you have received Jesus your life will show it.
1. Just like David’s men watched him and said, if he can do it, so can I. They imitated him. Paul says, “Imitate me as I also imitate Christ.”
2. You say, I’m not Jesus! David’s men knew they weren’t David. But David showed them there is a God in Israel and the battle is His.
3. If you receive Jesus you can live like Jesus because He is in you. The devil believes power and size wins battles. Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. The battle is His, and He will work through you.
Let’s pray.