So we are in 2 Samuel chapter
2 and reading from verse 12. And Abner the son of Ner and
the servants of Ishbosheth the son of Saul went out from Nahammin
to Gibeon. And Joab the son of Zeruiah and
the servants of David went out and met together by the pool
of Gibeon. And they sat down, the one on
the one side of the pool and the other on the other side of
the pool. And Abner said to Joab, let the
young men now arise and play before us. And Joab said, let
them arise. Then there arose and went over
by number twelve of Benjamin, which pertained to Ish-bosheth,
the son of Saul, and twelve of the servants of David. And they
caught every one his fellow by the head, and thrust his sword
into his fellow's side. So they fell down together. Wherefore
that place was called Helkath Hazzum, which is in Gibeon. And there was a very sore battle
that day, and Abner was beaten, and the men of Israel before
the servants of David. And there were three sons of
Zeruiah there, Joab, and Abishai, and Asael. And Asael was as light
of foot as a wild roe. And Asael pursued after Abner,
and in going he turned not to the right hand nor to the left
from following Abner. Then Abner looked behind him
and said, Art thou Asael? And he answered, I am. And Abner
said to him, Turn thee aside to thy right hand or to thy left,
and lay thee hold on one of the young men, and take thee his
armour. But Asael would not turn aside
from following of him. And Abner said again to Asael,
Turn thee aside from following me. Wherefore should I smite
thee to the ground? How then should I hold up my
face to Joab thy brother? Howbeit he refused to turn aside,
wherefore Abner, with the hinder end of the spear, smote him under
the fifth rib, that the spear came out behind him, and he fell
down there, and died in the same place. And it came to pass, that
as many as came to the place where Asael fell down, and died,
stood still. Joab also and Abishai pursued
after Abner, and the sun went down when they were come to the
hill of Ammah, that lieth before Gihah, by the way of the wilderness
of Gibeon. And the children of Benjamin
gathered themselves together after Abner, and became one troop,
and stood on the top of an hill. Then Abner called to Joab and
said, Shall the sword devour for ever? Knowest thou not that
it will be bitterness in the latter end? How long shall it
be then, ere thou bid the people return from following their brethren? And Joab said, As God liveth,
unless thou hadst spoken, surely then in the morning the people
had gone up every one from following his brother. So Joab blew a trumpet,
and all the people stood still, and pursued after Israel no more,
neither fought they any more. And Abner and his men walked
all that night through the plain, and passed over Jordan, and went
through all Bithron, and they came to Mahanaim. And Joab returned
from following Abner. And when he had gathered all
the people together, there lacked of David's servants nineteen
men and Abishel. But the servants of David had
smitten of Benjamin and of Abner's men, so that three hundred and
threescore men died. And they took up Asael, and buried
him in the sepulchre of his father, which was in Bethlehem. And Joab
and his men went all night, and they came to Hebron at break
of day. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. Well, we have met Abner before. He is one of the key characters
in this passage, and we know a little bit about him, if you
can remember. He was Saul's uncle. So Saul, who is now dead, was
the king of Israel. He is now dead. And Abner was
Saul's general and his uncle. He was a man of great influence
and experience in Israel. It was he, if you again recall,
who encouraged Ish-bosheth, who was one of Saul's sons, to establish
his own claim to be king of Israel, despite it being generally known
that Samuel the prophet and God had anointed David to succeed
Saul upon his death. So it was Abner really who was
the power behind the throne to set up this alternative, set
up this competitive claim to the throne of Israel on the part
of Ish-bosheth. So that's Abner on one side,
the general of Ish-bosheth's army. And Joab is the general
of David's army. And we really don't know Joab
very much. We haven't encountered him very
much at all so far. But he is going to play quite
a big part in the rest of the history of David. He was, again,
a relation of David. He wasn't David's uncle this
time. He was David's nephew. Joab and his brethren were nephews
to David. We don't know his father's name
because it's his mother that he is called for. They are called
the sons of Zeruiah, and Zeruiah was David's sister. So Joab was
the eldest of three brothers. There's Joab, there's Abishai,
and there's Asael. So David's nephews, his three
nephews, stood by him, supported him, fought in his army and indeed
were leaders in his army and they were recognised for their
bravery. and their strength and their
determination. Actually, we're going to learn
something a little bit later as well, that they were recognised
for their bloodlust and their brutality, especially in the
case of Job. One of the things that we also
know about this trio is that Abishai, who is, so it's Joab
and Abishai and Asael. Abishai, the middle of the three
sons, he we have encountered before, and I'm sure you won't
remember, but he was the one who went into the camp of Saul
with David and took Saul's spear and his crews of water. So Abishai had been with David
when he was in the land of Judah being chased by Saul and probably
also in the land of the Philistines as well because David took all
his men with him into the land of the Philistines and as you
remember he brought them all back as well. So these were three
brothers, relatives of David, all brave and mighty men in their
own right. Now Abner, the general of Ishbasheth's
army, gathered a small contingent, a small company, and planned
to encroach upon the border of Judah. It's not entirely clear
what the purpose of this meeting was. Perhaps it was an attack
to see how far he could get into Judah and what the response would
be. But he certainly took this small
army to the borders of Judah. And Joab, who was David's general,
went out to meet him. And they met at Gibeon. And there
followed an incident which occurred at Abener's Urgen, where 12 young
men from each side got up to fight like gladiators. Abner called it play, but it
was a strange kind of game when the purpose was for these men
to fight to the death for the entertainment of the onlookers. In the end, all 24, 12 from Israel
and 12 from Judah, were slain at each other's hand. And this
provoked, it would appear, a full battle in which Job's troops
prevailed and Abner and his men fled. So this was not the end of the
killing. There had been this contest this
gladiatorial fight at the beginning. Then there was a full-scale confrontation
between the two armies in which Abner's army broke and ran away. And in the pursuit, we're told
another story. We're told of the death of Asael,
Joab and Abishai's younger brother. He was a brave young man. We don't know what age he was,
but it seems that he was relatively young and probably inexperienced. And we're also told that he was
fast. He was fast like a wild roe,
like a wild deer. And if you've ever seen a deer
running across a piece of land and jumping hedges and fences,
you know how fast they can be. As Abner's troops broke in the
fight, Asael fixed his eye on Abner
and he chased him relentlessly as Abner fled. Now Abner was
an experienced fighter and he saw Asael coming and running
after him. and Abner was also retreating
at this time. He recognised Asael as Joab's
brother and he did not want to kill the young man. Twice he
warned him to turn aside, he did not ask him to go back and
so that would have been an affront to Asael's honour to turn and
run away. So he said to him, go to the
right, go to the left, find yourself someone else to fight. Take that
man's weapons, take his armour, take his goods as your spoil. But Asiel would not. He pursued
Abner relentlessly. And as the young man finally
caught up with Abner, the old warrior, without even turning
around, plunged the sharpened end of his spear into Asael's
chest, who died where he fell. It was a solemn moment. As Abner's
troops continued to flee, Asiel's comrades reached the scene. They couldn't run as fast as
Asiel. They reached the scene and there
they stopped, perhaps stunned by the death of their young,
bold leader. And that little break was enough
time for Abner and his men to escape to the safety of a nearby
hill. As the sun began to set, the
two armies regrouped and faced each other. It seemed preparing
for another fight. Abner called out to Joab. He
said, shall the sword devour forever? Knowest thou not that
it will be bitterness in the latter end? He was probably aware
that he had caused Joab some great deal of sadness and bitterness. How long will we keep doing this
is what he is saying. How many more have to die? And
this sounded like a good opportunity to stop fighting, which Joab
was ready to take. After all, he was not the aggressor
in this matter, nor does it seem he had struck the first blow
on the field. However, to be clear, that everyone
knew where the blame lay. He shouted back that there would
have been no killing at all if Abner had not initiated the attack
that morning. And so the fighting ceased. The
armies separated. Job and Abishai took Asael's
body back to Bethlehem to be buried in his father's tomb. and Joab returned to David in
the south and Abner to Ish-bosheth in the north, across Jordan. And nothing really had been resolved. Here are a few lessons that we
might learn from this passage. Abner's pride and ambition cost
many men their lives that day. And these are brethren, remember.
These are all the children of Israel. Yes, it was Judah, one
of the tribes, and yes, it was all of the other tribes under
Ish-bosheth. But these were all the children
of Israel. We're not fighting the Amalekites,
or the Philistines, or the Midianites. These were all brethren, and
yet Abner's pride and ambition had cost many of these Israelites
their lives. These were husbands of wives,
these were fathers of children, and there would be much mourning
in the tribes of Israel as a result of this contention provoked by
Abner. Wickedness and greed in this
world causes untold misery. It was David who was God's appointed
heir. It was David who was Israel's
rightful king. Jonathan knew that. Saul knew
that. Undoubtedly, Abner knew that. They knew that Samuel had anointed
David before his death. They knew that Ish-bosheth should
not be the king. But Satan always enters the hearts
of men and women to oppose the kingdom of righteousness and
the people of God. And the death of one of David's
enemies, Saul, merely made space for another in the person of
Abner. The testimony of the Bible is
that we all are in a battle. The forces of this world will
constantly be against the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. However,
ours is not a battle with weapons of this world. It is a spiritual
battle, though it is real nevertheless. It is a fight between right and
wrong, between good and evil, between the spiritual power of
darkness and the spiritual kingdom of light. It is a battle primarily
fought in our own heart, between the pride and the ambition of
Abner in our flesh and the grace and faith of Christ in our soul. Here's another thing that we
can learn from this passage. It is important to be on the
right side of this battle. The Apostle Paul calls Timothy
to be ready to endure hardship, hardness he says, be ready to
endure hardness or hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. When we trust in the Lord Jesus,
when we are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, when we have
faith in Christ, we are soldiers of Jesus Christ, just as Ashael
was. Ashael was young and brave and
fast. Some would say his death was
unnecessary. He lost his life trying to gain
the glory of killing Abner. He knew he'd be famous if he
could take out Abner and so he pursued after Abner in the battle. He lost his life fighting for
what was right, the kingship of David, the side of the Lord. He had right on his side. And someone once said, it is
better to fail in a cause that will ultimately succeed than
to succeed in a cause that will ultimately fail. Unless the Lord Jesus Christ
comes back before, then we will all die someday. And for many of us it will be
someday soon. But it is better to have lived
and died for the glory of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ
than simply to go along with this world on its path to chaos
and destruction. It is better to be on the right
side, to be on the side of the armies of God, to be on the side
of truth and righteousness, to be in Christ's kingdom. Asael
ran, Asael fought for David his King. May the Lord enable each
of us, may the Lord count us worthy to run our race and to
fight the good fight of faith for the honour of our Saviour
and King, Jesus Christ. And finally, let me clarify something. in a day in which I fear there
is too much talk of physical fighting and dominating the forces
of evil with legislation and through political force. as though these people who speak
like this are trying to set up God's righteous kingdom on earth. We learned 2,000 years ago that
we are not to establish God's righteous kingdom upon earth. God's kingdom is a spiritual
kingdom. We are not militants. We are
not physical fighters in a physical army with physical weapons. We
are not looking to be combative, confrontational, or aggressive
to those that we perceive as being enemies of the gospel.
That is not our calling. These Old Testament narratives
are pictures They're types. We know what types are. They
are not to be followed literally as though we can kill and suppress
God's enemies out of existence or put people in prison who we
don't agree with or who don't agree with us. This is a different
kind of war. It's a different kind of battle.
We are engaged in a spiritual battle and the weapons of our
warfare are spiritual. So let us learn to pray. not
to use a sword. Let us learn to read our Bibles,
not to work out battlefield strategy. Let us not think about taking
the law to try and suppress those who live differently to us. There is how we will be true
servants and soldiers of Jesus Christ. By all means, seek to
be fast, seek to be bold, seek to be courageous like Asael. But let Paul, let Timothy be
our gospel pattern, not Joab and Abishai. We serve the Lord
by preaching the gospel. We serve the Lord by living according
to the pattern set forth in the New Testament, by witnessing
to our friends, by praying for our brothers and sisters in the
Lord, by loving our enemies, and even those who despitefully
use us. This is real strength, this is
real boldness, and this is real courage. We can only do this
when we live by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me challenge
you young people who are listening and any of the older ones who
yet feel young at heart. Let me challenge you. Trust in
the Lord. You are the next generation of
believers who will preach and teach and populate our churches
and support ministries in the future. Our lives are not about
what's best for me. It is about how can I best serve
the Lord with the gifts and the graces that he has given me. I hope you will all find your
pathway in life and your career and a good family. But I hope
more than anything else that you will find your spiritual
pathway in this way of grace and that you will run it with
the fleetness of foot and the courage of heart of an Asiel. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us today. Amen.