So this little lesson today is
called Vengeance for the Gibeonites and we're reading from 2 Samuel
chapter 21 and verse 1. And we're back thinking about the
life of David. Then there was a famine in the
days of David, three years, year after year. And David inquired
of the Lord, and the Lord answered, it is for Saul and for his bloody
house, because he slew the Gibeonites. And the king called the Gibeonites,
and said unto them, Now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel,
but of the remnant of the Amorites. And the children of Israel had
sworn unto them, and Saul sought to slay them in his zeal to the
children of Israel and Judah. Wherefore David said unto the
Gibeonites, What shall I do for you? And wherewith shall I make
the atonement that ye may bless the inheritance of the Lord? And the Gibeonites said unto
him, We will have no silver nor gold of Saul, nor of his house,
neither for us shalt thou kill any man in Israel. And he said,
What ye shall say, that will I do for you. And they answered
the king, the man that consumed us and that devised against us
that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the coasts
of Israel, let seven men of his sons be delivered unto us, and
we will hang them up unto the Lord in Gibeah of Saul, whom
the Lord did choose. And the king said, I will give
them. But the king spared Mephibosheth,
the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of the Lord's
oath that was between them, between David and Jonathan, the son of
Saul. But the king took the two sons
of Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, whom she bare unto Saul, Armoni
and Mephibosheth. So this is another Mephibosheth.
Armoni and Mephibosheth, and the five sons of Michael, the
daughter of Saul, whom she brought up for Adriel, the son of Barzillai,
or the Meholathite. And he delivered them into the
hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill
before the Lord. And they fell all seven together,
and were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first
days, in the beginning of barley harvest. And Rispa the daughter
of Aya took sackcloth and spread it for her upon the rock from
the beginning of harvest until water dropped upon them out of
heaven and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them
by day nor the beasts of the field by night and it was told
David what Rispa the daughter of Aya the concubine of Saul
had done And David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones
of Jonathan, his son, from the men of Jabesh Gilead, which had
stolen them from the street of Bethshan, where the Philistines
had hanged them, when the Philistines had slain Saul in Gilboa. And
he brought up from thence the bones of Saul and the bones of
Jonathan his son, and they gathered the bones of them that were hanged.
And the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son buried they in the country
of Benjamin in Zella, in the sepulchre of Kish his father.
and they performed all that the king commanded. And after that,
God was entreated for the land. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. A long, long time before this
three-year famine took place in Israel, David is now back
in Jerusalem. This is after the rebellion of
Absalom and the other activities, the rebellion of Sheba. This
is after these had taken place. David is back in Jerusalem and
there is a famine that lasts for three years. David had lived
in such peace and prosperity for so so long and these final
years of his life were filled with trauma and difficulty and
hardship. Not least three years of famine. But a long long time before this
incident there was another incident in the history of Israel that
had big consequences. And this takes us back to the
days when Israel first came in to the promised land, first came
into the land of Canaan, and they fought. This was a long
time ago that we were thinking about these things. The children
of Israel had left Egypt, they had spent 40 years in the wilderness,
and now Moses was dead, and Joshua was the new commander of the
children of Israel. And he led the children of Israel
over the river, or through the river Jordan, and into the land
of Canaan. And the first city that they
encountered was the city of Jericho. They fought against Jericho and
defeated it. Then they fought against Ai.
You'll remember they lost that battle, and then they won it
again on another occasion. But what happened then was very
interesting. Joshua had been told to completely
remove all the Canaanites from the land for the wickedness that
they practiced. Now, we talk about the Canaanites,
but in fact, they were five or six different groupings of Canaanites. And there were a variety of these
people, the Amorites, the Amalekites, the Hittites, a variety of groups
in the land. Joshua was to get rid of them
all. However, after the battle of
Ai, a small group of men from a few cities near Jericho realized
that God was with the people of Israel and that they would
not be able to withstand the might of the children of Israel
who worshipped the Lord. And these were Gibeonites. And
they sent a delegation to Joshua, dressed up in old clothes, carrying
moldy bread, and pretending to be from a nation very far away. And they asked Joshua and the
children of Israel to make a pact, to be in league with them. And the deception worked. Now
it was discovered shortly after it, I think three days later,
this deception was discovered. But by then, Joshua and the princes
of Israel had sworn by the Lord God, had sworn by Jehovah, the
Lord God of Israel, that they would keep the lives of the Gibeonites. And they were spared. They were,
because of their deception, they were brought into servitude and
they were made to work for the priests, collecting and carrying
wood and water for the tabernacle and for the sanctuary of God.
We read all about that history in Joshua chapter nine. That all happened about 400 years
before this famine in Israel. But God did not forget the solemn
promise that had been made to these people by Joshua. Later,
some 350 years later, so about 40 years before, so I'm saying
360 years, about 40 years before this three years of drought and famine. About 40 years before that, Saul,
who was king of Israel at that time before David, tried to exterminate
the Gibeonites. And the Lord, remembering the
promise that had been made by Joshua, preserved them so that
although many of them were slain, not all of them were completely
wiped out. And now, all these years later,
about 450 years later, The Lord brought a famine upon
Israel for the betrayal and the slaughter that the Gibeonites
had endured. And David learned that this was
God's punishment on Israel for Saul's betrayal of the Gibeonites
and that the famine had been brought because of that crime. David went to the priest, and
probably by the use of the Urim and Thummim, applied to the priest
that he would intercede with God and find out why this famine
was taking place. And to rectify, when he discovered
it was to do with Saul and the Gibeonites, to rectify the offence,
David called the Gibeonites, who remained, the ones who hadn't
been completely slain and wiped out, he called them and asked,
what could be done to atone for the wrong that had been done
to them so that the famine would break, the rains would come and
the famine would be over. The Gibeonites asked blood for
blood. They demanded the public execution
of Saul's remaining family, two sons and five grandsons, as retribution
for the murder of their people. Only Mephibosheth, who was under
David's protection for his own oath to Jonathan, was to be saved. And this sentence was carried
out and the seven were hanged. It might even be that they were
crucified, but since they fell down, let's continue to use the
words in the authorised version, which is hanged. And they were
hanged before the Lord. Rispa, Saul's concubine, we're
told that she was the mother of the two sons. She pitched a tent where the
bodies of her sons were hanged. And she stopped the birds and
the animals from feeding on the bodies as long as they remained
there. It seems that they hung there
until the Lord sent rain to break the famine. And this was the
way in which it was expressed and revealed to Israel the purpose
of the deaths of these men. Rispa's actions seemed to have
moved David with some compassion, and he then recovered the bones
of Saul and Jonathan, who were buried elsewhere in Jabesh Gilead. And he gathered the bones of
these seven men, and he brought them together for burial in their
own land. So this is basically the narrative
that we have before us today. And I think that there are some
lessons that we can learn from this passage. First one to note
is this. It took David three years to
ask the Lord for advice and help. Sometimes this man, David, who
wrote so many beautiful Psalms, who was so used of God as a champion
in Israel, who had so many great and precious promises given to
him, especially about the Messiah and the coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ. This man who was appointed king over Israel and given many
blessings and who was himself a prophet. Sometimes he makes
us wonder as to the way in which his mind worked. Why did it take
him three years to go to the Lord and ask for advice and ask
for help? Why so long? I wonder if it was because he
assumed that famine was just a normal event in life, just
a normal occurrence, and he waited until the harvest failed, and
then he thought to himself, ah well, the rains will come next
year. And then when they didn't come
the next year, he thought to himself, well, that's two years
in a row Surely they're going to come next year. And it was
only after three years that David realized he had such a problem
on his hands. It took the third year before
he realized things were not right. And I think that there's a wee
lesson here for us. It's good practice for us to
tell the Lord about the little things in life that concern us
and not to wait until they become big things. Had David taken his
concerns to the Lord, Israel would have been spared two years
of famine. And it's to our shame and likely
to our cost that we only take our big troubles to the Lord
when they get out of control and we become desperate and we
find or we feel that we can't cope with them anymore or we
don't have the patience to wait them out anymore. So this is
a good lesson for us, to take our troubles to the Lord in prayer
and to take them to him in a timely manner and in a timely fashion. And yet we discover that David
did, in the end, take his prayers to the Lord. So that's a good
example as well. David was a prophet in his own
right, as we've mentioned, but he still had to use the means
that God had put in place for worship and for seeking his will. And it may well be that we are
wise in spiritual things that we are experienced believers
as far as the Word of God is concerned. But here's the thing
that the Lord is telling us through David's experience in this chapter
today. We still need to hear God's word
by the ordinary means that he has established. And the ordinary
means that the Lord has established today for us is to attend church
and to hear the gospel preached. David had to go to the priest
and had to lay before the priest his questions, his needs and
the priest had to intercede for him before God. That was the
ordinary pattern of that day. For all David was a prophet in
his own right, he still needed to use the ordinary means of
God's revelation. And that is true for us as well. That's why hearing the gospel
is so important. That's why hearing God's word
preached is important, and why fellowshipping together is important
for us. It is the way God uses, it is
the way that God has designed that his will and his purpose
for our lives will unfold before us. The Lord speaks to his church
and his people through the preaching of his word and the worship of
his name. And we should apply ourselves
and dedicate ourselves to hearing the word of God and being in
attendance when it is preached. Here's the second thing that
I want to draw your attention to, and I suspect that every
one of us is asking this question right now. Was it not unfair to hang these
men, these seven men who did not commit the sin for which
they were punished? And that's a very good question.
And some people will at once say that you should not punish
the children for the sins of their fathers. And I can understand that. And
indeed, that is the way in which the Lord's will has been revealed
in these New Testament days. But that wasn't always the case,
and the Lord made it that way because he was showing the awfulness
of sin and the importance that God places on truth and integrity. A long, long time ago, we spent
some time thinking about the Lord's Ten Commandments. And
in the Ten Commandments, he told the people of Israel when he
gave them the law that punishment for sin would be visited upon
the children to the third and fourth generation. And that's still the case in
many ways, even in our own society to this day. Because not for
legal reasons, but for experience reasons and for moral reasons,
the sins that parents commit often have a terrible effect
on the domestic circumstances of their children and their family
for years to come. And also we might think that
simply because a person is dead, that doesn't mean that their
obligations disappear. For example, debts still have
to be paid, taxes still have to be paid from the estate of
the deceased person, even at the expense of their children.
Still, these men were slain and there's a difference between
that and paying taxes, and that's right. But the point here in
this passage, and that's not to justify it, as far as our
own society is concerned. But the point here in this passage
is that it was a just retaliation. It was an eye for an eye and
a tooth for a tooth. It was the way in which the Old
Testament judicial system was structured. And it shows us that
God remembered the promises that had been made even 400 years
before. And he remembered the sins that
had been committed 40 years before. during Saul's murderous campaign. It reminds us that God is aware
of all things and that he stores up all things. He remembers all
things and that men and women will be accountable for the sins
that they have committed. Saul punished the Gibeonites
40 years previously for the sins
that their ancestors had committed. 350 years before that. And now his descendants would
pay for his crimes. And also because it was a national
and a public crime that Saul had committed, for which God
held the nation of Israel accountable, hence the famine. This was a
famine that came on the whole nation because God was displeased
at what Saul had done. And this offence required a public
demonstration of retribution and atonement. Privately, Saul was now paying
for his sins in hell. And in eternity, each will pay
his own debt of sin. However, in time, some may be
called to recompense and make good sins committed by their
forefathers, especially if they benefited from them. God does
not forget sin until it is forgiven and atoned for. And that is what
the Lord Jesus Christ did on the cross for his church. As
we trust in Christ, God forgives our sin and forgets our sin against
him. And here's my final thought for
today. These Gibeonites were not children
of Israel. Remember, Joshua had been told
that they should all be expelled from the land, and the Gibeonites
had tricked Joshua into allowing them to stay. But here in the
Old Testament, I think we have an example of God's faithful
care and protection, even for these Gentile people, Canaanites
at that, to whom the promises of good had been made by Joshua. And I think that it's lovely
to think that these Gibeonites are a type of salvation of the
Gentile church. Christ made promises in the everlasting
covenant of grace to bring Gentile sinners into the blessings of
grace. And Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah,
he tells us Christ is a light to lighten the Gentiles. Now
that's you and me today. We are not the children of Israel
as far as the 12 tribes were concerned. We were the Gentile
peoples that were in the rest of the world. But we have been
brought into the family of God. We have been made spiritual Israel
because of the love of the Lord Jesus Christ for us and the promises
that Christ made in the covenant of grace to bring us into the
family of God. And here we see that in Israel's
own history, There is a precious type, an example if you like,
of God showing mercy to undeserving sinners based on the promises,
not of Joshua, but of our mighty Jesus to preserve and deliver
his people. We may solemnly ponder the seven
deaths of these men. But we cannot deny the love and
mercy that brought the Lord Jesus Christ into this world to die
for the sins of his people, sins that he did not commit, and to
deliver people who had no reason for hope except in the free grace
of God their Saviour. May these old histories point
us to an ever-present Christ and Saviour. Amen.