So we are going to 2 Samuel chapter
5 and we're going to read from verse 1. Then came all the tribes of Israel
to David and to Hebron and spake, saying, Behold, we are thy bone
and thy flesh. Also in time past, when Saul
was king over us, thou wast he that leadest out and broughtest
in Israel. And the Lord said to thee, Thou
shalt feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be a captain over
Israel. So all the elders of Israel came
to the king to Hebron, and King David made a league with them
in Hebron before the Lord, and they anointed David king over
Israel. David was 30 years old when he
began to reign, and he reigned 40 years. In Hebron he reigned
over Judah 7 years and 6 months, and in Jerusalem he reigned 30
and 3 years over all Israel and Judah. And the king and his men
went to Jerusalem unto the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land,
which spake unto David, saying, Except thou take away the blind
and the lame, thou shalt not come in hither, thinking, David
cannot come in hither. Nevertheless, David took the
stronghold of Zion, the same as the city of David. And David
said on that day, whosoever getteth up to the gutter and smiteth
the Jebusites, and the lame and the blind, that are hated of
David's soul, he shall be chief and captain. Wherefore they said,
the blind and the lame shall not come into the house. So David
dwelt in the fort, and called it the city of David. And David
built round about, from Milo and inward. And David went on,
and grew great, and the Lord God of hosts was with him. And
Hiram, king of Tyre, sent messengers to David, and cedar trees, and
carpenters, and masons, And they built David an house. And David
perceived that the Lord had established him king over Israel, and that
he had exalted his kingdom for his people Israel's sake. And
David took him more concubines and wives out of Jerusalem, after
he was come from Hebron. And there were born yet sons
and daughters, and there were yet sons and daughters born to
David. And these be the names of those
that were born unto him in Jerusalem. Shammuah and Shobab and Nathan
and Solomon, Eparh also and Elishua and Nepheg and Japhia and Elishu-shamah
and Eli-idah and Eliapheth. But when the Philistines heard
that they had anointed David king over Israel, all the Philistines
came up to seek David, and David heard of it and went down to
the hold. The Philistines also came and
spread themselves in the valley of Rephaim. And David inquired
of the Lord, saying, Shall I go up to the Philistines? Wilt thou
deliver them into mine hand? And the Lord said unto David,
Go up, for I will doubtless deliver the Philistines into thine hand.
And David came to Baal-per-Azim, and David smote them there, and
said, The LORD hath broken forth upon mine enemies before me,
as the breach of waters. Therefore he called the name
of that place Baal-per-Azim. And there they left their images,
and David and his men burned them. The Philistines came up
yet again and spread themselves in the valley of Rephatim. And
when David inquired of the Lord, he said, Thou shalt not go up,
but fetch a compass behind them, and come upon them over against
the mulberry trees. And let it be, when thou hearest
the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees, that then
thou shalt bestir thyself. For then shall the Lord go out
before thee to smite the host of the Philistines. And David
did so, as the Lord had commanded him, and smote the Philistines
from Geba until thou come to Gaza. Amen. May the Lord bless
to us this reading from his word. David had been king of Judah. his own tribe for seven and a
half years. Ish-bosheth, supported by Abner,
had reigned in Israel. And now with the death of both
of these men, the hurdle that they represented had been removed
and the elders of the 11 tribes came to David and invited him
to be king over the United Nations. David agreed to this, he made
a league, he made a covenant with Israel and he was anointed
king over the reunited nation so that Judah and the 11 tribes
of Israel were once again formed in the nation of Israel. so that we call David the king
of Israel because he was the king of the combined nations,
the combined tribes once again. Up until that time when David
had ruled exclusively over Judah, he had lived in Hebron, which
was a city of Judah. But now, as the king of all Israel,
he looked for a more central location from which he could
rule the whole nation. And that location was to be Jerusalem. Now Jerusalem was in a mountainous
part of the country and at that time it was the dwelling place,
it was the home of a group of people called the Jebusites. Now, these Jebusites were Canaanites. They were not Hebrews. They were
not of the tribes of Israel. And in fact, they had stayed
in that part of the land because it was mountainous. They had
retained a foothold in Israel because their city was a strongly
fortified city. It was easily defended and the
children of Israel when they came into the land under Joshua
had not been able to fully possess the land in certain little strongholds
and this was one of them. David selected this as his new
residence. and he went against and he took
the fortified Mount Zion. Now as we were reading there
I'm sure you noticed this reference to the blind and the lame. and we might wonder what that
meant, especially because it's used in a kind of odd way when
it is spoken of in our chapter. The suggestion is that the blind
and the lame might be the idols that the Jebusites worshipped
and they were called blind and lame idols by the Hebrews, by
the children of Israel because they were just pieces of wood
and pieces of stone and pieces of brass. Another possibility
is that the Jebusites were so full of pride and so confident
that their city would not be taken that they said The blind
and the lame could defend this city against David and against
the children of Israel. And to the Jebusites, the taking
away of the blind and the lame would be evidence that David
had control over the city. David nevertheless was able to
take the city despite the fact that the Jebusites mocked him
in this way. And David made Zion his home
city. And there, with the help of Hiram,
king of Tyre, he built a palace for himself. and Hiram supplied
the cedar from Lebanon and carpenters and masons who were builders
to complete the building of David's palace. And this actually forged
a strong alliance between the two nations, Hiram, the king
of Tyre, and David, who was then located in Jerusalem and king
of all Israel. It was an alliance which lasted
many years. We learn from our passage that
David at this time also took more wives, or concubines, as
they were called, a sort of second level of wife, and he had many
more children. Let me just say that again, this
was not a blessing for David, but it was a source of shame
and sadness to him. David was constantly troubled
by his own family in later life. During all this time, the Philistines
seemed to have remained largely quiet. After defeating Saul,
they probably hoped that the divided Kingdom of Israel Israel,
the 11 tribes and Judah would weaken themselves continuously
with constant warring together. But when they heard that David
had been made king over the combined nation and also how that he was
now friends with Hiram, the king of Tyre, they felt that they
had to stop Israel from becoming strong again. And at the end
of our chapter, we read that the two nations fought, that
there were two invasions of the land by the Philistines, and
that David's forces were victorious over the Philistines on both
occasions. Here's a few points that I want
to leave with you from this chapter. A few lessons that perhaps we
can learn from it. Firstly, We will note that it
had been a long time from when David was first anointed by Samuel
as King of Israel until he finally was recognised by all the tribes
and given the throne. I say it was a long time, perhaps
it is almost 20 years. David was 30 when he was anointed
King of Judah, which just coincidentally is the same age of the Lord Jesus
when he began his ministry. But he was nearly 38 when he
became King of the combined nation and he reigned for 40 years in
all David had to learn patience. He was just a young man, perhaps
no more than a late teenager when he was told that he would
be king of Israel. But now he was nearly 40. David had been enticed several
times during those years to seize the opportunity, to seize the
crown by killing Saul. But David was content to wait
upon the Lord. There's a wee lesson there for
us, I think. Sometimes as believers, we feel
that God's promises are slow in coming. We feel that trials
last too long. We feel that we have periods
of coldness in our heart and in our soul that outweigh the
times of comfort from the Lord and we think to ourselves, why
should it be this? Why does the Lord put me through
all these difficult experiences and trials? For some believers, even life
itself can seem extended beyond what we might wish. I have known
some who said that they were living in God's waiting room
and desiring rather to be finished with this old world of sin. their weak body of flesh, that
their weak body of flesh might be taken home to glory. But this is certain. In our case,
as it was in David's, the Lord's timing is best. And let us take
that simple statement, the Lord's timing is best, and hold it close
even in the times when we feel that we are being stretched and
strained. There is no delay on God's part. There's simply an appointed time. And if the things that are to
happen happened any sooner, than the appointed time, then they
would not answer our need, nor would they serve God's glory. It is good for us to wait upon
the Lord. Here's another lesson from this
passage. David's battle with the Jebusites
for the city of Zion and for the city of Jerusalem is a lovely
type of the Lord Jesus Christ's battle to win his church, which
in fact, in scripture, is often prefigured by and called Mount
Zion, or just Zion. Israel had allowed the Jebusites
to remain in the land contrary to the Lord's commandment. and
the Jebusites had become a snare to Israel. God had said they
would and that's how it had developed. But upon his accession to the
throne, David immediately came to Jerusalem to throw out this
heathen, idolatrous people. and to throw out the blind and
the lame, their idols with them, and to make the city of God,
the city of Zion, his home, and to establish his rule there. And just so, the Lord Jesus came
to fight for his beloved people, came to fight for his church,
came to overcome the strong man armed that is spoken of in the
New Testament and to claim his inheritance. And Christ comes
to each of us for whom he died. those that are the redeemed and
the purchased by blood and he takes possession of our lives
as is his right and at God's command. These Jebusites should
not have been in Israel at all. God had given the land to Israel
The Jebusites were entrenched and established. Neither the
tribe of Judah nor the tribe of Benjamin could shift them.
They had located themselves in a mountainous region on the edge
of the border of Judah and Benjamin. And especially while the nations
were split in two different kingdoms, there was no desire or even ability
to depose them from that area. But that changed. It took a mighty
king. It took David. And it is the
Lord Jesus, our mighty king, who is needed to come and open
the eyes of the blind and to make the lame to walk and to
bring in that spiritual life where before idols reigned. It's lovely to see these types,
to see these pictures in the Word of God, how that these Old
Testament narratives give way to a lovelier, a more beautiful
picture of the saving goodness of God and the saving work and
the redeeming work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we should not
simply read, here's the lesson too, we should not simply read
scripture as history or literature or poetry, but as the living
word of God that opens up to us, that blossoms before us as
we search for Christ in these chapters and discover pictures
of him in the events of the past. One of the psalmists, one of
the writers of the book of the Psalms was a man called Asaph. David wrote many, many psalms,
but there were others as well, other psalmists, and Asaph is
one of them. And he says in a prayer in Psalm
74, remember thy congregation, which thou hast purchased of
old, the rod of thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed, this
Mount Zion wherein thou hast dwelt. And seeing Mount Zion
that David captured here from the Jebusites, seeing Mount Zion
as a type of the church makes this request of Asaph from the
time of David become a lively prayer for the Church of Christ. Our Lord Jesus Christ has redeemed
with his own blood all who will be given to him, all who will
be saved. He dwells in the heart of each
one to whom faith is given. Peter tells us that these old
men, like Asaph and David and Samuel, testified beforehand
the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow.
Testified of Christ's redeeming work and the establishment and
growth of the Church of Jesus Christ. And we are blessed to
see Christ in their words. And one point more, finally. The battles with the Philistines
round off this chapter. And it's good to see David returning
frequently to the Lord, seeking his direction concerning these
battles. As we mentioned before, there
were times in David's life when he seemed to forget the Lord. But at other times, he recognised
the Lord's hand in extraordinary ways. One of those times is in verse
12. We are told, David perceived that the Lord had established
him king over Israel and that he had exalted his kingdom for
his people Israel's sake. And here's the point. God's purpose
will always be done, but when we seek his will, we shall be
blessed with his guidance and his presence. And when we don't
seek his will, we shall be frustrated and confused and anxious. Let us be like David in those
times when he sought the Lord's will and when he went to the
Lord seeking his guidance and his help. David asked the Lord
if he should go up against the Philistines and the Lord said,
yes, go. and David was victorious, and
in burning the idols of the heathen Philistines, he dedicated the
victory to the Lord, and he thanked the Lord thereby. Perhaps surprised
by this shock defeat, the Philistines returned, likely with an even
larger army, seeking revenge against David. This time the
Lord directed David not to face the enemy on the open field but
to go around, to make a compass, to go around and to hide amongst
the mulberry trees on the hillside and to launch a surprise attack. David was again successful. The
little reference at the end of the chapter to the sound of the
going in the tops of the mulberry trees is really quite prosaic. Perhaps the sound of the going
in the tops of the mulberry trees was a breeze sent by the Lord
to disguise the footsteps of the Israelite army as they approached
the Philistine camp. allowing them to gain a surprise
against their enemies. Or perhaps it was the sound of
the angel of the Lord as Christ went out before his servant Israel
and fought for his people and delivered them out of the hands
of all their foes. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us today. Amen.