2 Samuel chapter 2, we looked
at last week the first seven verses. So now David had left
Ziklag and had come to Hebron and they had anointed him king. Remember that he's only reigning
over Judah. But Israel consisted, the whole
nation, you remember the twelve tribes. David was from the tribe
of Judah. and they're the only ones who
acknowledge him as king. The rest of the eleven tribes,
right now, they don't. Benjamin was one of those tribes,
that's the tribe that Saul was from, and that's what we're going
to see today. It's almost, there's like this civil war between those
eleven tribes and David. In verse 8 it says, Go back to verse 7, it says,
Now therefore let your hands be strengthened, and be ye valiant,
for your master Saul is dead, and also the house of Judah have
anointed me king over them. But notice the word but, that
transition, but, Adner the son of Ner, who was Saul's nephew,
captain of Saul's host, his right hand man, his general. When he
hears that David is king, that David is in Hebron, that David
is reigning, what does he do? He took his Bosheth, the son
of Saul, and brought him over to Maranaim, and made him king
over Gilead, and over the Asherites, and over Jezreel, and over Ephraim,
and over Benjamin, and over all Israel. His Bosheth, Saul's son,
was 40 years old when he began to reign, over Israel and reigned
two years. Here it is again, but the house
of Judah followed Saul. And the time that David was king
in Hebron over the house of Judah was seven years and six months. So what do we see here? We see
Abner, Saul's general. Now as I began to read this and
study this, I asked the question to myself, why wasn't Abner killed
in the battle with Saul? Why didn't Abner die with Jonathan
and the other two sons? And I also ask the question,
why wasn't this other son of Saul, why wasn't he in the battle?
Why wasn't he fighting? I figure he wasn't even worthy
to fight. That's the way I look at it. You know what his name
means? His name means man of shame. And this is who Abner
takes What he did is he took him, and he went across the Jordan,
so David's on this side, and on the other side of the Jordan
was the two, two tribes, two and a half tribes of the children
of Israel. He took him over there, away from David, and he says,
I'm gonna set him up and make him king. That's what he's doing. This is what man does today.
Man cannot stand the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ is the
rightful king. He's the king that God has made.
He's the king that God raised up. He's the king that God has
anointed. And when Abner hears it, he says,
I ain't going to Hebron. I'm not bowing to him. I'm going
to take Saul's other son. He's the rightful king by bloodline,
and I'm going to make him king, even though he is a man of shame. And that's what we see here.
He's setting him up. Setting him up. He takes him
to this place called Mayonalem. This was the city on the other
side of the Jordan. And he thought, I think it was
Gil said, you remember the people of Jabesh Gilead who did honor
unto Saul, went and took down his body, him and Saul and Jonathan's
body and brought it back and burned it and then buried their
ashes? What he said that Adenauer is trying to do is get those,
he's wanting those people to side with his bishop. Don't side
with David. And that's what religion is today.
They don't want you to bow to him. They say, we want you to
worship this king. You worship this Jesus. They'll
come preaching another Jesus, by another spirit, and by another
gospel. And what is that? They say that
their king is king. And it's the one that they've
made king. And the only time they will ever
give lip service and say, Lord, Lord, you know when they will
say that is when they've made him Lord. That's one of probably
the biggest statements that goes on in religion. Men think that
they made Jesus Lord. They think that they accept Him
as their personal Savior, and then whenever they decide to,
that they make Him Lord over their life. That is so far from
the truth, it's not even funny. It says in the book of Acts that
God hath raised Him, God anointed Him, God raised Him up, God set
Him on the throne, and God made Him Lord. You know what Lord
is, that means He rules over everything. Lord means that he's
sovereign. But the thing is, when Christ
is clearly presented to men in the preaching of the gospel,
in the declaration of the gospel, men will not have it. We're going
to make our own king. I'm not bowing to him. And if
God left us all alone, we would, every one of us, follow that
false king. That's what we're born doing.
It's the king of our making. It's the king of our choosing. I believe Abner knew that David
was rightful king. As I thought about this, I thought
about when David went into the camp of Israel, when they were
all asleep because a deep sleep from the Lord had came upon them,
and he took his spear and he took his cruise of water. And
David called back to him and he had both of them. And he said,
Abner, you need to be blamed. You were supposed to be protecting
the king. And he could have died. This
is Abner. The problem today, and the problem
with Abner, the problem with Abner is not that he didn't understand
that David was king. He understood. He just didn't
like it. People say, well, election and
predestination is hard to understand. That ain't hard to understand.
That's just a smokescreen. They know exactly what that means.
They just don't like it. And it's not election and predestination
that they don't like. It's the God of election and
the God of predestination. That's it. That's the issue.
And that's the issue right here. They don't like the fact that
David's king. That's what's going on in this
world today. Everything you see on the news, this is the underlying
thing. They do not want him to be king. You go back and read Romans chapter
1 again. They didn't like him to retain God in their mind.
That word changed there means they exchanged it. You can't
change the word of God, but they exchanged it for a lie. And they
worshiped and served the creature more than their creator. You
know what God does? God gives them over. He gives them over
to vile affections. He gives them over to a reprobate
mind. And they start doing all these things that you see going
on in the world today. That's it. It gets down to the
fact that they would not bow to the fact that God is God and
Christ is King. That's the issue. That's the
issue. Christ is God's anointed. Christ
is the one that God has sent forth as King. You'll notice
David didn't go rushing up trying to just take it. He said, Lord,
what do you want me to do? And he said, you go up to Hebron.
And there they anointed him king. Abner couldn't stomach the fact
that David's king. An actual man cannot stand the
fact that our Lord is the rightful king. They just can't stand it.
This is what makes a man. Makes a man. You know, this world
has no problem with Christ being Lord over creation. They have
no problem with him being Lord over Providence. But here's where
the issue is. They have a problem with him
being Lord over salvation. That he'll save whom he will,
and whom he will, he'll just leave them alone. Isn't that
right? That's where the rub's at. That's where the issue is. It's like when our Lord was born.
When King Herod heard that there's another king, What did he want
to do? He said, I'll kill every boy,
every little boy, two years old and under. Because I can't stand
the fact, and I won't stand for it, that there's another king
because I'm king. And this pulled the finger at
every one of us. This is our problem. You know what our problem
is? We don't want somebody else telling us what to do. Isn't
that right? I'll be my own boss. Don't tell
me what to do. Don't tell me what to do. I'm
my own boss. I'll do whatever I want to. Don't
tell me I can't get saved when I want to. I'll make the decision. It's in my hands. He's God's
chosen. I'll let him be God. Now that's
what's going on today, and that's us. Until God does something
about it, and God raises up his king, and he comes in, and you
know what he does? You know what he does? He comes
and he takes over. He subdues you. He conquers you. And He sets up His reign in your
heart. And He makes you a willing subject.
You willingly want Him to be king. You're glad of it now.
We was talking a few minutes ago. I'm glad He's an unchanging
God. I'm glad He's unchanging. I'm glad He runs the ship. I'm
glad. And all God's people are. The house of Israel followed
David. Admir couldn't stand it. Christ
is Lord. He's Lord. David is king whom
God has anointed. He's king. They have a king of
their own making. What's the problem here? They
refuse to acknowledge that David was the appointed king. They
say, we know he's king. But we ain't acknowledging it.
We're going to go make our own king. It's one we've made. The issue is, is the king the
king? And he is the king. All men by
nature are servants. That's why they have to have
a king. They said, we want us the king to tell us what to do. And all men by nature are servants
to sin. servants to sin. They are following this rejected
king. Saul's dead now. He's beheaded
and he's buried. But they want a new king. The
man of shame. The man of shame. Their self-made
king. Now look in verses 12-17. So you get the picture. They've made his bossship king.
And what's this verse 12? And Abner, the son of Ner, and
the servants of his bossship that served him, the son of Saul,
went from Maianem to Gibeon. He's moving now. He's making
an aggressive move. Abner he is. Not David. Remember
this. Not David's servants, but Abner's
men. And Joab the son of Zerui, that
word Zerui, what I understand is that's David's sister. So
Joab is David's nephew. And Joab the son of Zerui and
the servants of David went out and they met together by the
pool of Gibeon. And they sat down and went on
the one side of the pool and the other on the other side of
the pool. You see the picture? They've come together, they've
brought together these armies. David's servants, led by Joab,
and his Bosheth's servants, led by Abner. 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 his 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
in his fellow's side, so they fell down together. Wherefore,
that place was called Helcath-Hazorism, which is in Gideon. And there
was a very sore battle that day, and Abner was beaten, and the
men of Israel before the servants of David." What are we seeing
here? Well Abner is the aggressor and
this is how religion always did. They can't stand the fact that
David's king. They're not coming over to worship
David. They didn't bring their servants
to bow to David. They come to start a war. That's
what this is. They want to start a fight. That's
what this is. Notice the word in verse 14. Notice how Abner describes this.
He says, Joab, you pick out twelve men and I'll pick out twelve
men. They're going to act like gladiators.
They say, basically, we'll just let them, see what the word he
used, he said, let's let them play. He ain't going to let them play.
He wants Joab to think that they're just going to play. A fool makes
them off of sin. You know what he wants to do?
He means to kill them. He means to destroy them. Now
watch this. Abner has 11 tribes behind him. That's right, isn't it? Only
one tribe follows David. So David's men and Joab's men
are outnumbered. We look at it, and we look at
it by the world's standards, and they say, well, you're outnumbered.
Look at their megachurches. They have thousands. And they
say, well, it don't mean nothing. Because they worship in a man
of shame. But here's what Joab does, he's
using intimidation. He said, well just let them rise
and play. I think it was Gil who said that
Abner probably learned this from Saul. That probably had his men,
I can see him, let them just play. They ain't playing. Because
it says here they grabbed each one by the hair of the head and
they stuck their sword in their side and killed them. That ain't
playing. Do I have everybody's attention? Now listen to me. We're not playing
games this morning. They can call it play. They can
call it what they want to. We're not playing games. This
is serious business. Our God is king. That's right. We're not bowing to their king.
Now you notice, here's how we listen. They always take the
aggression, don't they? They're always attacking. Our Lord, we'll look at it in
a little bit, healed a man of his withered hand. You know what
they did? We're going to kill him. We're going to kill him. We can't stand it. We can't stand
the fact that he's king. We ain't going to let him do
that. And Joab says, I mean Abner says, let's just let him play.
It's not play. Fools make a mark of sin. In
Proverbs it says, talking about You, in Proverbs 26, 18, there's
a madman who casts us firebrands and arrows and death. So is the
man that deceives his neighbor and says, I'm not eyeing sport. I really didn't mean to hurt
you. I was just playing. You ever seen people do that?
Men, when you was in kids, there's probably a bully or somebody,
he'd come up and start picking on you. He'd say, I was just
playing. Well, no he wasn't. He wanted to humiliate you. Isn't
that it? And Abner, he might have pretended
he was playing, but that ain't what he wanted, that ain't what
he meant. They always work in deception. But these 24 men, 12 from each
tribe, his design was to destroy and kill them. Abner was the
aggressor. But when it was over, all 24
men lay dead. All 24 men lay dead. What are we going to learn here?
Joab maybe isn't fooled. I don't know. But what I want
you to see here, you know where they fought the battle? At Gibeon. You know whose tribe that was?
Benjamins. He says, I'll go where we're
like the best. We're going to play on our turf,
and we're going to play by our terms. What we've learned here,
when the enemy lures you in to fight on their terms, and on
their turf, nobody wins. Everybody loses. I heard somebody
told me one time, he said, if you ever get in a spitting contest
with a skunk, you may win, but you're going to come out smelling
just like a skunk. Nobody wins. I had somebody call me years
ago. We were on the radio back in North Carolina, and we were
just beginning to try to preach the gospel. There was a guy that
came on right after us on the radio. He was as Armenian as
they come. Well, about a month of us being
on the radio, I was listening to my broadcast with the next.
When it come on with this guy, he said, I'm going to preach
a series of messages on the era of election. He said, this is
what we're going to preach on. We're going to prove this man
wrong. I'm not trying to prove him wrong, but boy, he's going
to take it upon himself to prove me wrong. And then about a week
or so, I had this guy call me, and I don't know if this guy
thought he preached to get grace or whatever, I don't know. He
said, we want to invite you to come to our church, and we're
going to invite this other preacher, we're going to invite him to
come to our church, and we're going to have a little debate. I said, I'm not interested. You
see what I'm saying? We're not fighting on their ground.
This gospel, listen to me, this gospel's not up for debate. It's
up for declaration. He's king. You see what I'm saying? But you see what they want you
to do? They want to just get you in an argument. Isn't that
right? You ever been around families
before, maybe around Thanksgiving or Christmas And they start bringing
stuff up. And they just say, well, what
do you think? They don't really want to know
what you think. They want to tell you what they think. They
want to tell you who their king is. And if it ever gets around
for you to tell them who your king is, well, it's over now. You know how it usually works?
They are the aggressor. And you try to do everything
you can to keep the peace. So you love your family. And
you pray God opens their eyes. Just keep bringing it up, bringing
it up, bringing it up. If they can get you in an argument,
most of the time, what you do, you get mad. What good does it
do? Peter was willing to take a sword
and cut a man's head off. He wasn't trying to cut his ear
off. He meant to take his whole head off. He was willing to fight
for what he believed in. These men were willing to fight
for what they believed in and everybody lost. What have you
gained by getting into a spitting contest with an Armenian? Nothing. You're not going to win him.
You may think you've won the battle. You've proven your point. What have you done then? Our
God's king. But this is how It's not up for debate. Jesus
Christ is King. And God's the only one who can
convince them of that. You can't do it. I've been down that road.
I've made that mistake. I've been there. Unless God opens their understanding,
they'll never see. They'll never understand. The
only reason you know who David is, God gave you faith. The only
reason you bowed to Christ is because God gave you faith to
believe Him. If he didn't, we'd all be following that false king. Now verse 18. So you see the picture. We've
got 24 men dead. And there were three sons of
Uriah, Zeriah. Joab, Abishai, and Asahel. Three of Joab's other two brothers. They're in David's army. And
Asahel was as light a foot as a wild roe. What's that say?
He could run like a deer. Then Abner, he's chasing Abner.
And Asahel, verse 19, pursued after Abner. And in going, he
turned not to the right hand, nor to the left from following
Abner. He's this man. He doesn't have his eyes set
on anybody else but Abner. He can outrun anybody. He's not
looking to the right hand. He's not looking to the left.
His sights are set on Abner. And Abner looked behind him and
said, Art thou Abishel? And he answered, I am. And Abner
said to him, turn thee aside to thy right hand or to the left,
and lay thee hold on one of the young men, and take thee his
armor. But Abishel would not turn aside
from following him. And Abner said to Abishel, turn
thee aside from following me, wherefore should I smite thee
to the ground? How then should I hold my face
to Joab thy brother? You need to quit running after
me. You need to remember who Joab was. I'd say he's a pretty
fierce man. I'd say if he saw his right-hand
man, he's pretty tough. This is a man's man. And he looks
back to Abishai, and he said, Abishai, you better quit running
me. You better quit chasing me. I'm
telling you, I'm warning you. Go get one of them young men.
Don't pick on me. That's what he said. Howbeit, Abishel refused to turn
aside. Wherefore, what's this? I can
give you pictures. I can picture Abishel, man, he's
focused. I'm going to get him. I'm going
to get him. I'm going to get him. Abner,
with the hind of his spear, smote him under the fifth rib, that
the spear came out behind him, and he fell down there and died
in the same You see the picture? I'd say it's probably not the
first time Abner done this. About the time Abishel gets up
there to him, he just takes that spear and turns it like that
and drives it straight through him. The blood end of it. See, I told you I'd kill you.
Did he kill him? Who is this? This is Joab's brother.
This is a man that's swift as a deer. You know, what are we
to learn here? Don't you know that Abishel probably
put a lot of confidence in how fast he could run? Don't you
know he probably put a lot of confidence in his abilities,
his strength, and in his power. And about the time we put our
strength in ourself, this is what happened to us. We think,
I can overcome him. There's not a one of us in this
building that is a match. for our arch enemy. We're not
no match. We're not. He that thinks he
stands take he lest he... I mean, this is sad, isn't it?
I mean, here's this man. I can see him about the time,
you know, he's running wide open and about the time he gets there,
it happens. He dies. Here's what Solomon said. I returned
and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift. nor the battle to the strong. We all have gifts and talents.
God has given every one of us gifts and talents, but don't
you depend upon your gifts and talents to win the battle. You
see the picture here? Ain't we guilty of doing that?
It's not your wisdom. It's not your might. We should never look to these
things and depend upon our talents to do anything to win. He can
outrun everybody! But he can also fall into battle. When we are weak, then are we
strong. When we think that we are stronger
than ourself, we are truly. We win the battle by faith, not
in our talents and in our gifts, but by looking unto Jesus, the
author and finisher of our faith. It's by faith. Abishel failed in what he was
trying to do. He said, I'm going to capture,
I think he meant, I'm not only going to capture Abner, I'm going
to kill him. Because if I kill him, I'll be
done with him. I'll be done with him. Don't
you wish you could be done with your enemy? And don't you wish
you could be done with your flesh? And about the time you think
you've got him whooped, he'll kill you with his blunt end.
And that's all it takes. That's all it takes. He thought
he could defeat him. I want you to see, let me read
on. Now you picture this, now you
picture this man dead. I'd say he's probably, I'd say
he's no slouch. I wouldn't think Abashel was
a slouch by no means. I'd say he's a soldier. I'd say
he's mighty. I'd say he probably won a lot
of battles. Everybody knew him. He was probably
a lot of people's hero. And it said, and it came to pass,
that as many as it came to the place where Abishel fell down
and died, they just stood still. They don't pursue anymore. You
know what? It's basically that I just can't
believe it. I can't believe that man fell. I just can't believe it. Let
me tell you something. Every man of God is nothing more
than a mere man. The best of men are many best. You follow a man as he follows
the Lord, and that's it. He is a man, just like Abishel
was, and he can be subject to thaw. And when these people saw
him fell, they're going, I'd have never thought he'd have
died, especially like this. And God teaches us. to look to
Him and Him alone. You see the picture? They just,
I cannot, Jeff, I can't believe it. This really happened to him. God will teach us lessons like
this, to teach us to trust in Him and Him alone. The battle's
His. The battle's His. You pick me
out, anybody in the scriptures, anybody. Adam, Abraham, Moses,
Noah, David, Elijah, Elisha, Peter, David, anybody you want
to pick out. They everyone fell. How would you like to have been
Paul when Peter was there at Antioch and by what he was doing,
he was Teaching men that they were saved by words and Barnabas
was even carried away with what Peter was doing and Paul stood
him to the face and said Peter you're wrong We're all just men,
all just men Verse 24 So Abishel's dead Joab also and
Abishai pursued after Abner And the sun went down when they were
come to the hill of Ameah, the life before Gihah, and by the
way of the wilderness of Gibeon. And the children of Benjamin
gathered themselves together after Abner. They're going to
follow Abner because they worship Saul. And became one troop and
they stood on the top of the hill. They're all going to stand
together as one troop. You see all this stuff that's
going on on TV in the name of religion. I don't care whether
it's a Catholic, where it's an Islam, where it's a Baptist,
where it's a Methodist, where it's a Mormon, they all are saying,
we all just need to get along. And when it comes to getting
along, they can all get along when it comes to gathering together
against our Lord and against our Christ. The Pharisees and
Sadducees couldn't get along, but when it come to them gathering
together and crucifying our Lord, they all joined hands. And here,
they all joined together as one group now. They're all taking
sides. And they stood on top of a hill.
Now watch this. Then Abner called to Joab and
said, Shall the sword devour forever? Knowest thou not that
it will be bitterness in the latter end?" You know what he's
doing? His back's against the wall. He's got Joab after him. He's
running for his life. He said, "'How long shall it
be then, ere thou bid the people return from following their bread?'
You know what he's saying? He's saying, "'Joab, it's your
fault. It's all your fault that these
men have died. If you just wasn't such a troublemaker,
we wouldn't be dealing with this. Does that not sound familiar?
They say you're the troublemaker. If you'll just bow to their king,
everything will be fine. Who started this? Abner did.
Who said let's let them rise and let them play? Abner did.
But now he says Joe Abbott's sure fault. You're the one that
caused all this. How long are you going to chase
your brethren? Now remember, these are brethren. This is basically
a civil war. This is the 11 tribes of Israel
against the tribe of Judah. This is not the Philistines against
Judah or the Philistines against Israel. This is Israel against
Judah. And he said, how long are you
going to do this? It's all your fault. You know what they say? They say
you're just a troublemaker. Isn't that it? You ever heard
that before? You're just a troublemaker. It's
all your fault. Listen, if you would just acknowledge
that their man of shame is king, there won't be any issue. But I can tell you this. If you
know that David's king, and that he's rightful king, You will
never acknowledge their king. It's not going to happen. It
will never happen. You ain't acknowledging him because
he's not king. This is the issue. They say it's
your problem. It's your fault. Joab said, verse 27, as God delivered
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 they knew what that trumpet
meant. And when he blew the trumpet, all the people stood still. When the gospel
is proclaimed in the power of God's Spirit, it causes men to
stand still. They may not like it, they may
not bow to it, but they know that He's real, He's King. And pursued after Israel no more. Neither fought they anymore.
This is the end of it. Didn't chase them anymore. didn't
hunt them anymore. And I believe that Joab, I know
he would. He could have been outnumbered.
That doesn't matter. If God had intended for Joab to defeat Abner,
he could have defeated his whole army. That's wrong. Now I want you to see this. Now I don't
understand all these verses. But let's just look at them.
And Abner and his men walked all that night through the plains.
and passed over Jordan. It's night. It's dark. They're always in the dark. And
they passed over Jordan and went through Bithron, and they came
to Maanaum. They went back to the very place
where they came. What did Joab do? And Joab returned
from following Abner, and when he had gathered all the people
together, don't you see this? You know what they're doing?
They're going to bury these dead men. They bury them in the battlefield. And they gathered all the people
together, and their lack of David's servants, 19 men, and Asahel. 19 men besides that one man,
Asahel. But the servants of David had
smitten the Benjamin and Abner's men so that three score men died,
360 of their men died. And only 19 of David's. Like
I said, they could have whooped every one of them. Now watch this. And they took up Asahel. They
didn't bury him there in the battlefield. They took up Asahel
and buried him in the sepulchre of his father, which was in Bethlehem. Why? Because he was of the house
of Jesse. They bring this man back. And
they take him and they bury him. Can you imagine how they felt?
How their heart broke. This is our brother. This is
our brother. And when one member suffers,
all the members suffer with him. Isn't that it? We're his family. We're servants of David, our
king. And Joab and his men, they also
went all night. And you know where they came
to? And they came to Hebron at the break of day. They've been
marching all night. And you know where they're going
back to? They're going back to where their king is. And our
Lord, I don't care where you go, He will always bring you
back to Him. It may be at night, it may be
in the darkness, or maybe you have to bury some friends along
the way. But they came back to Hebron,
because that's where our king is. Let me read you one verse
of chapter 3. There was long war between the
house of Saul and the house of David. But David waxed stronger
and stronger. We may seem outnumbered. It may
seem like we lose one or two battles, doesn't it? We see a
lot of things happen. We get discouraged and we get
defeated. But you remember this, our God,
our Lord Jesus Christ, He's still sitting on the throne. He's reigning,
whether they like it or not. And we're not bowing to their
king. We're not bowing. You know, if the Apostle Paul had just
changed his message just a little bit, he would have never had
any trouble. You know, he's king because you've
made him king. You can be saved, but you've
got to be circumcised. Just mix a little works into
it. He said, and that will take away
the offense of the cross. But the cross, the preaching
of the cross, the preaching of the Lord Jesus Christ is offensive
to the natural man and it's never changed. Spurgeon said, I don't
know anything of sharpening off the rough corners of the gospel
just so man will like it. We're not trying to get men to
like our Lord. We're telling them who He is
and telling them they'll either bow now or they'll bow later.
He's King. We didn't make Him King. He's
not our king because we keep him king. He's king. And he rules, and I'm glad he
does. I'm glad he does.