Brother Nelms has wisely opted
not to come up and read tonight. So I will read our text in 2
Samuel chapter 19. 2 Samuel 19. Just the last three
verses, verse 41. This is an interesting passage.
See if you can see what we're gonna talk
about tonight. And behold, all the men of Israel came to the
king and said unto the king, why have our brethren, the men
of Judah, stolen thee away and have brought the king and his
household and all David's men with him
Jordan And all the men of Judah answered
the men of Israel because the king is near of kin to us Wherefore
then? Be angry for this matter Have we eaten at all of the king's
cost Or have he given us any gift? And the men of Israel answered
the men of Judah and said we have ten parts in the king and
And we have also more right in David than you. Why then did
you despise us that our advice should not be first had in bringing
back our king? And the words of the men of Judah
were fiercer than the words of the men of Israel. Let's pray. Thank you, Lord, for your precious
word. Thank you for the great privilege
it is to meet in your name. May we never take for granted this precious honor. Thank you
for this family. Thank you for this precious church.
You loved your church and gave yourself for us. May we honor you tonight, Lord.
May we worship how worthy you are of our worship. In Christ's
name, amen. Now, clearly there's a dispute. Not surprising. Discord. The title of the message tonight
is Discord. There's resentment on the part
of the tribes of Israel, and there's a division among the
people. David, think about the occasion
upon which this happens. It's a joyous time. David has
been restored the throne, and he's come back to Jerusalem,
and you remember how Mephibosheth met him and said, you've been deceived, you've
been lied to about me. And he was just happy that David
was home. Barzillai, that had helped David
when he was in exile, came and greeted him. And Shimei, the
one who had cursed him, came and begged for mercy. And David, there was a lot of
mercy that day. David was was very gracious to everybody
and everybody, most people, were glad that he was back. Even his
enemies, many of them, were glad, apparently, to see him come back. But here, these men of Israel
raise a fuss. And David has been through so
much already, you can imagine. There's a moment or two of victory The king is honored for a little
time with a happy glimpse of good things, and then we see
the ugliness of our hearts again. And I say our hearts, because
this is us. If it wasn't us, there wouldn't be much use talking
about it tonight, would it? So let's see some key aspects
of this, and may the Lord teach us to honor him and see the petty
nonsense of our flesh for what it is. First of all, why is there even
an Israel and a Judah? Most of you are, I'm sure, familiar
with this, but we're talking about Israel and Judah, and Israel's
talking about, we got ten parts, and you're thinking, well, I
thought there were twelve tribes of Israel. There are. And if
it's Israel and Judah, if Judah is one tribe, then what happened
to the other one, you know? So, that's not that complicated,
but it's- It's a monument to the fact right
there that there will always be division among men. There's
always going to be. The very fact that there's an
Israel and a Judah shows that there's division among those
where there ought not to be any. You think about it. These are
all Israelites. They all have the same king.
They all have the same God. They all have the same privileges.
They all have the same word. They all have the same advantages.
But they can't be the same. There can't be unity. Isn't Judah part of Israel? Well,
yes and no. I'm not going to get into a history
lesson tonight, but suffice it to say that there was division
that caused two of the tribes of Israel to break off from the
other ten. Judah and Benjamin were considered
Judah. And ultimately it was an official
break. It was separate kingdoms. It
was the southern kingdom and the northern kingdom of Israel
and it was official much later than this. But you already see
it beginning to happen as early as our text when it wasn't really
official until the death of Solomon, David's son, much later. But
that's the reason for Israel saying, you know, we have ten
parts because there were ten tribes that made up what was
called Israel. And then there were the other
two tribes that were just called Judah, though it was Judah and
Benjamin. So this is inevitable with sinful men. And it's why
our Lord warned us and taught us over and over again in the
scripture about this. It's no mystery, is it? He taught
us over and over, didn't he? Listen to Ephesians 4. I'm having
you turn to some scripture tonight, but I'm gonna read quite a bit,
too. Listen to this. I, therefore,
the prisoner of the Lord, Paul, beseech you that you walk worthy
of the calling, the vocation, or the calling wherewith you're
called. Walk worthy. Walk like you're one of his. God's called you out of darkness
into his marvelous light. Now act like it. How do we do
that, Paul? With all lowliness and meekness,
with longsuffering. The gospel doesn't allow any
boasting, does it? For by grace are you saved through
faith, and that's not of yourselves, it's the gift of God. Not of
works lest any man should boast. So to walk worthy of that calling,
is to walk in meekness and loneliness and long-suffering, forbearing
one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit
in the bond of peace. Is it gonna be that hard? Yes,
endeavor. You know what I've noticed about
forgiveness is that everybody's for it until there's something
to forgive. When there's actually something that you have to forgive,
it gets a lot harder. And that's me and you. Forbearing one another, that
means suffering long with one another, putting up with one
another. And then he says this, after
he says endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit, something
that God's gonna, he's gonna cause you to keep it. There's
gonna be an effort made. And here's why. There's one body,
one spirit, even as you are called in one hope of your calling.
What's our hope? The mercy of God, not what we
did. So why are we boasting about us? Why are we bragging on ourselves? Why are we getting offended?
One Lord. One faith, one baptism, one God
and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in you
all, the one that you're having a problem with, God Almighty's
in them. He forgave them, and we can't. You don't have anything to forgive.
The only one that really, it's called forgiveness when we forgive
one another, but really it's all sins against God, isn't it?
He forgives, how easy it ought to be. I'm not even the one really
offended when sin happens. I feel like I am, I can be slighted,
I can be misused or something. I can't be sinned against, because
I'm a sinner. And considering that all of these
ones, one, one, one, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one hope, What else matters? Listen to 1 Corinthians 1 9,
God is faithful by whom you were called unto the fellowship of
his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. God called us unto the fellowship
of his son. It's the fellowship of his son,
not a country club. Now I beseech you, brethren,
by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the
same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that
you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same
judgment. Listen to 1 Corinthians 3.3,
Paul said, to that Corinthian church, he said, you're yet carnal.
You're fleshly. For whereas there is among you
envying and strife and divisions. And isn't that what it was in
our text? It was just envy. David, you hog David to yourself. We deserve David more than you
deserve David. Envying and strife and division.
Are you not carnal and walk as men? Isn't that just stupid?
In other words, you act like you don't even know God. That's
what he's saying to them. Of the six things that the Lord
openly declares that he hates in Proverbs 16 through 19, two
of them are a proud look and he that soweth discord among
brethren. Turn with me to Colossians chapter
three. verse eight. But now you also put off all
these anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy,
filthy communication out of your mouth, lie not one to another,
seeing that you have put off the old man with his deeds. and
have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after
the image of him that created him, where there is neither Greek
nor Jew." That's one of the greatest prejudices and hatreds between
men that has ever existed, the Jews and the Greeks. In Christ,
there ain't no such thing. No such thing. Circumcision,
nor uncirc, barbarian, scythian, bond, nor free, but why are these
distinctions meaningless? Because Christ is all. It's kind
of weird reading it if you don't look at it that way, isn't it?
Because, wait a minute. What does Christ be in all? How
does that make there not be any Greek or Jew? Because for His
glory, none of that matters. None of it matters. No distinctions
of men make any difference. If you're in Christ, if you're
one in Him, then how can there be division? Put on, therefore, as the elect
of God, as the chosen of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies,
kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing
one another and forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel
against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye." Well, that
sounds simple, doesn't it? It sounds kind of simple. Christ
forgave you, so here's what you do when somebody does you wrong.
Forgive them. And above all these things, put
on love, which is the bond of perfectness, and let the peace
of God rule in your hearts, to which also you're called in one
body, and be ye thankful. Be thankful it's that way. Oh,
I don't want to spend a long time on the specific characteristics
of discord that we see quite a bit in this little three-verse
passage here, but they kind of stand out. It's worth talking
about that pride is always prevalent when there's division. Verse
43, we have more right than ye. You see that? It's about my rights. What rights do you have, honestly,
now, as a sinner before God? The whole idea of that is foreign
to the gospel, is it not? My rights. That's what people
say that don't know God. When God said, I'll have mercy
on him, they'll say, what about, that ain't fair, what about my
right, what about this? That's what people who don't
know God say, but if you know God, If you believed His Gospel,
if you believed on Christ and He's all of your righteousness
and all of your sin offering before God, how can you talk
about having any rights? It just doesn't add up, does
it? And yet we do. We have more right than ye. And
you didn't take our advice. You see that in verse 43. We,
you should have had us advise you. We know more than you. It's pride. Nevermind that it was the 10
tribes particularly very recently that had rejected David outright.
And will again. In the next chapter. You see, that's how it is with
sinful, especially religious man. And everybody's religious,
let's face it. Whatever they say, the more noise
they're making, the less true it is. And think about that. We have
more right than you. In other words, we have 10 parts
in there. We have more right today. They didn't even want
David. Isn't that how people are? The doctrine of election,
that ain't fair. You know, God ought to choose.
You don't even want God. You don't want nothing to do
with God. What are you talking about? Why didn't God choose me? It's hypocritical. Never forgetting your own true
nature. would go a long way in keeping us from having a problem
with other sinners. Notice that they said, you have
despised us. That's not true. You know what
the people of Judah did? They didn't even have anything
to do with the 10 tribes. They just showed up and welcomed
David home. That's all they did. They said, you've despised us.
That's not true. You know, a lot of deep disagreements
and hurt, feelings and division and things like that are over
things that aren't even true. You hate me. That person hates
me. No, they don't. That's your perception
of things. That was their perce- you've
despised a- no, they just love David. They love David. When I moved here, my family,
my earthly family, they had a problem with that. The actual words were
spoken. What are we, chopped liver? I
don't hate you, I just love the Lord. I know that sounds religious
for me to say that, but that's just the truth. I'm just gonna
have to do what he wants me to do. It's got nothing to do. You've despised us. That was
their perception. Judah just did, they just did
what was in their heart. I don't read anywhere where anyone
was excluded by law or force from bringing David home. Do
you? I didn't see that anywhere in our text. I suspect the 10 tribes could
have shown up and had a presence there and rejoiced with David
just like everybody else. Even Shimei, the one that cursed
him to his face, got in on it. And you're telling me you couldn't
get in on it? I suspect that the ten tribes
that were probably meeting together somewhere, having some kind of
a confab, trying to figure out whether they wanted David to
come back or not, you know, what are the ramifications of this?
How is this going to benefit or hurt us? While David was coming
back and they missed it. I highly suspect that. And now they're blaming those
who love David and that was all that was on their plate. When
David come back, what's more important than that? If Shimei could get in on it,
what's your excuse? Ten tribes. The question is,
where were they? That's the question. So the truth
is always distorted in order to make it fit the narrative
of the offended. Always. Oh, may God keep us. You see yourself here? May God keep us from this. Notice that it says in verse
43 that the words of Judah were more fierce. That word, it means
they were harder, they were more severe, they were more difficult.
And I don't think it means that they shouted louder than the
ten tribes of Israel did. It doesn't seem that way, does
it? That's not what it says. It says their words were harder. They were more difficult. They
were more convincing. They're harder to refute. More
difficult to argue with. And if you look at the language
of what was said, it seems like it's the other way around. Doesn't
it? Don't the 10 tribes seem to be
way more fierce? We have 10 parts, you didn't
consult. Boy, they were really laying
into it. Judah, they just said, he's one of us. And we didn't come here for personal
gain. How can you have a problem with that? That doesn't sound
very fierce, does it? The truth is fierce, isn't it?
The truth is powerful. It's hard. When the Lord said,
no man can come unto me except my father, which has sent me
dry, they said, that's a hard saying. What's hard about it? What's hard about that, really?
The truth is powerful. It's quick and sharper than any
two-edged sword. And they just told the truth. He's one of us, that's why we're
here. Not for anything else. He didn't promise us, he didn't
promise these two tribes any special, you know, bestowments
of the country's treasure or anything, no strings. We're just here because he's
our family. We love him. Just two points on their side,
a positive and a negative. The positive is relationship.
He's one of us, he's of the tribe of Judah. And the negative side,
we're not here for any personal gain. In other words, they're saying
we just came out because we love him. That's it, there's no other
reason, there's no ulterior motive. We're just real excited our king
is home. Judah's argument echoes the message
of this whole chapter. Mephibosheth and Barzillai, Shimei,
in verse 30, when Mephibosheth is given again a staggering bestowment
by King David. After all the deception from
Ziba, you remember all that? And David finally just says,
look, why are we talking about this anymore? You and Ziba will
split the inheritance. It's still, It's more than anybody
in their lifetime could ever dream of. And you remember what Mephibosheth
said? Let Ziba, the one who cheated me and lied about me, let him
have all of it. I'm just glad you're home. And then Barzillai, he was the
one that helped David, you remember, with great substance. He bought
all those goods and supplied the army. of David with all those,
not only necessities, but some wonderful luxuries too. And the king said, come on to
Jerusalem with me. You can live with me from now
on. And Barzilla said, I'm old. I'd just be a burden to you,
David. I'd just be a burden to you. Just let me live in your
kingdom now. in my own place and let my son
serve you. That's all I want. And here in Judah's argument,
we see the same sentiment exactly. We serve and honor the king because
he's one of us and not for any personal gain. We didn't come
here to get something out of him. We just come here because
he's the king. He's one of us. And notice what they said in
verse 42. And think about this question. Think about this when
you have a problem and you just can't get over it. And look,
I can speak from experience with this. I used to be, I think,
worse than I am now about this, about not letting anything go,
not anything. Nothing, nothing gets by me.
I'll lay at night and I'll curse you a thousand times without
you even knowing it. And I may let you know it. Eventually. Remember this? Judah said. He's one of us. We're not getting anything else
out of this except. David's our king now. And they
asked this question, how can you possibly have a problem with
that? That's a good question, isn't
it? You see that in verse 42? How in the world can you be mad
about that? You see, the truth always asks that question. The Lord Jesus said, well, are
you stoned? For which good work are you stoning
me today? How can you have a problem? The
gospel demands an answer to that, doesn't it? How can you have
a problem with free grace? That's the thing that sinners
hate the most. What about that makes you mad?
You ever thought about that? And you think about all the blessings
that God has poured on your head since the day you were born. It's overwhelming, isn't it?
In his providence, in the good things of his earth, in just
advantages and blessings in this life. And how can little things like do
get so stuck in our crawl that we would dishonor him, harm
his church in some cases? I've seen it throughout my life.
And do so without a thought. I've seen people do it apparently
without a thought. How can you have a problem if
you look at your whole life? How can we ever complain about
anything? I'm stoked. And yet, I'll be
the first one to complain. Oneness with Christ, unity in
Him, the fellowship of God's Son that we read about a while
ago precludes this nonsense. It precludes it. It does away
with it. It makes it so that it cannot be. It just can't be. It precludes our rights and our
feelings. What does that have to do with
anything? Paul said to the Corinthians, again, we read quite a bit from
1 Corinthians there, because the Corinthian church, while
gifted, greatly gifted of the Lord in many things, they had
a lot of problems too. And this was one of them. And
he said, Paul found out that they were suing one another at
law. that there were disputes in the church so deep that they
were suing one another. And listen to what he said. I
want you to turn over there with me. I think this is kind of important
to our text. And I'm gonna be brief tonight
because you know I don't have any energy much tonight. But look at 1 Corinthians 6.4. Now this is just the truth. This
is the blunt truth from the apostle. Kind of puts a little perspective
on things when there's problems in the church. Now this was an
extreme. I don't know of anybody that in any of the churches that
we're familiar with that have actually sued one another at
law. But I'll tell you what's even
worse than that is if you have such a problem that it causes
division in the whole church. That's a whole lot worse. it's
not about the lawsuit part of this, but you'll see what I'm
saying. 1 Corinthians 6, 4, if you then have judgments of things
pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed
in the church. Now listen, if you read the whole
context of this, he's not saying that, you know, just pick somebody,
necessarily particularly that is least esteemed in the church
and make them the judge. What he's saying is before you
go to the world to settle your disputes, the very least believer,
the very least one now, If we have an eight-year-old child
in our midst that honestly, truly believes on Christ and confesses
Christ, he'd be a better judge of spiritual things than anybody
in this world. That's what Paul is saying. I speak to your shame, verse
five. Is it so that there's not a wise
man among you? You see why I say he's not saying
pick the least qualified person to judge. That's not a directive
of church government or something that, you know, I imagine religion
probably might think so. But he said, isn't there a wise
man among you? No one that shall be able to
judge between his brethren? There are disputes among people
that sometimes, you know, you lose your perspective. You're
in the middle of it. Sometimes somebody needs to make a judgment
about it. Isn't there a wise man, no, not
one, that shall be able to judge between his brethren? But brother
goeth to law with brother, and that before unbelievers. And
again, it's not this specific circumstance. I don't know a
case of this. Do you? I mean, maybe there are some.
I know some people that claim to be believers have had some
real problems with others. I don't know about all that.
It's not about the specific case of that. It's about the principles
involved here. You've got a problem with somebody
in the church, a brother or sister. To go to law and before unbelievers. Now, therefore, there is utterly
a fault among you because you go to law with one another. Here's
a novel idea. Why do you not rather take wrong?
How about just sucking it up and saying, what difference does
it make? and letting it go. Did anybody
ever think of that? And I say it that way because
we don't, do we? That's not an option. It's God's
option. My pastor in Texas used to say
that a lot. He would use these three words
a lot. Let it go. And I don't know if I learned
it or not, but I hope I will. I hope I will. Why do you not
rather take wrong? Why do you not rather? Rather,
rather, it would be better than to cause division in the church
and to dishonor our Savior. It would be better to be defrauded. Maybe you're right. Maybe you're
the one that's right and somebody else, doesn't matter. It's better
to take it and get over it and let it go. And, but he said,
no, you do wrong. Even if you're right now, I want
you to notice this. This is important. If you're,
if you, if he's saying you, you should be defrauded would be
better. That means you had some right here that was not pressed. But to press it makes you wrong. You do wrong. And defraud. Maybe you have the proper position
in the case. If you press it to the division,
to the detriment of Christ and his church, you're the defrauder. And that, your brethren. Your
brethren. Well, look at the first two verses
of chapter 20, back in our text, and we'll close. This shows the true colors. Here's
Israel saying we have 10 parts. We have more right than you.
You didn't take our advice. You should have listened. You
should have come to you should have. Respected us. And listen to that. And there happened to be there
a man of Belial, a son of the devil. Whose name was Sheba,
the son of Bikri. a Benjamite, and he blew a trumpet
and said, We have no part in David, neither have we inheritance
in the son of Jesse. Every man to his tents, O Israel. He presumes to speak for all
of the ten tribes of Israel, and he's a man of Belial. And
they listened to him, so they had promoted this idiot. So every man of Israel went up
from after David. Remember, David's Christ in all
of this. In our text tonight, all of it,
he's Christ. We just wanted to honor our king,
Judah said. And how can you have a problem
with that? I love that question. So every man of Israel went up
from after David, just like that. I mean, here's these ones who
seemed even more fierce than Judah in their work. Boy, this,
this, this, and this. And just like that, we don't
want any part in David. And followed Sheba, the son of
Bichri, but God said he's the son of the devil. You can call
him whatever you want to. He's the son of the devil. But
the men of Judah, clave unto their king. Now the true colors are showing,
aren't they? You see, it's all been words
up till now. It's all been words. But a man's justified by his
words, and a man's condemned by his words, because actions
follow. They always do. They claimed under their king
from Jordan even to Jerusalem and David came to his house at
Jerusalem Well, that's the rest of so we'll look at the next
chapter next time But you see in those first two verses the
true colors of these men Those who said we have ten parts in
David were soon saying we have no part in David And the ones
who claimed to David though were the ones who counted him as their
family, and as their king, and did not follow him because of
any personal gain, but simply because they loved him. And they showed it. They proved
it, didn't they? By the grace of God, may we do
the same. Let's pray. Thank you, gracious Lord, for
your gospel. Lord, we see ourselves as we are by nature, full of
pride and hatred and condescension and the pettiest of foolish things
ruling our wicked hearts. But we also see ourselves by
your grace Those who by nature are children
of wrath, even as others. We see ourselves as your sons.
Behold what manner of love is bestowed upon us that we should
be called the sons of God. Loving you, not for personal
gain, but because of who you are. because you've showed us
who you are and what you've done for us. Lord, I pray tonight that we
would, in gratitude and being compelled by the love of Christ
himself, that we would honor you, Lord,
in all that we do, honor you in our lives, honor you in our
worship, honor you with all that we are and have, and not the
least part of which, Lord, is to simply bow to your will in
forgiving one another, loving one another, forbearing one another, endeavoring always to keep the
unity of your spirit and the bond of your peace. Thank you
for each other. And Lord, I pray You would put down our evil natures
and the passions of our wretched, sinful hearts. Cause us to forgive as you did. To love one another more and
more and to love you more and more. In Christ's precious name. Well, it's good to see you tonight.