In verse 12 it says, And Abner
the son of Ner and the servants of Ishbetheth the son of Saul
went out from Mahanaim to Gibeon. And Joab the son of Zariah and
the servants of David went out and met together by the pool
of Gibeon. And they sat down, the one on
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 rise and
play before us. And Joab said, Let them rise.
Then there arose and went over by number twelve of Benjamin,
which pertaineth to Ispritheth, and 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 Helcathazizrim, 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 Zariah there, Joab, and Abishai, and Asahel. And Asahel was light of foot
as a wild roe. And Asahel 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 Asahel? And he said, I am. And Abner
said to him, Turn thee aside to thy right hand or thy left,
and lay thee hold upon one of the young men, and take thee
his armor. But Asahel would not turn aside from following him.
And Abner said again, Asahel, 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 his hind 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 Azahel
fell, and died, they stood still. Joab and Abishai pursued after
Abner, and some went down, when they were come to the hill of
Ammah, that lieth before Giah. 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 top of
the hill. Then Abner called to Joab and said, Shall the sword
devour forever? knowest thou not that it will
be bitterness in the latter end? How shall it be then, ere thou
bid the people return from following thy brethren? And Joab said,
As God liveth, unless thou had 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 down to 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 servant nineteen men and Asahel. But the servants of David had
smitten of Benjamin and of Abner's men, so that three hundred and
three score men died. And they took up Asahel and buried
him in the sepulchre of his father, which is in Bethlehem. And Joab
and his men went all night, and they came to Hebron at break
of day." Let us pray. Our Father, we thank You for
Your Word and for the fact that You have left us Your Word and
have not left Yourself without a witness. We thank You, Father, that as
we look at this Word, we know what the key of knowledge is,
that You have given Your children spiritual understanding, and
they know that it is about Jesus Christ and His work for His people. We thank you, Father, that we
can come into your presence tonight and speak to you from our hearts.
Help us, Lord, to worship you. Help us to see, as we look at
this passage of Scripture, the truth. Help us to fall upon our
Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, knowing He is our only hope.
Let us also learn from this passage those things which we should
guard against. and those things which will not change while we
live upon this earth. Help us, Lord, now to look to
Christ alone for help. He is our King and our Master. We pray for those who are sick
and going through trials. We ask, Lord, your help for them.
Undergird them with your strength. Give them faith to look in the
face of Christ and know that you have blessed us with all
spiritual blessings in Him. and calls us now to bow down
before you in true worship, giving praise and honor and glory to
your name alone. For it is in the name of Jesus
Christ, the only name under heaven given among men, whereby we might
be saved, that we pray. Amen. The title of the message tonight
is, The Battle Continues. We saw the battle last week or
two weeks ago when we looked at the two kingdoms as representative
of the great battle that's ongoing in our life and the life of every
child of God, that battle of the struggle between the flesh
and the spirit, between Satan and Christ, between the truth
and between error. And it was in that last lesson
we saw the true source of trouble. The trouble really only begins
one place. It may seem to have a lot of
avenues to come, but it doesn't. It only really begins one place.
Truth and error and the flesh and the spirit have a source
of trouble. And the source of the trouble is always the same.
It is the clear, precise declaration of the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. I can say this to you. If you're
not clear on the gospel, then you won't have trouble with anybody.
It's not until you become clear on the gospel that trouble begins. The source is always the gospel.
When the gospel is declared, when the gospel is declared,
the first thing proclaimed and acknowledged is that Jesus Christ,
Jesus Christ is the rightful sovereign and king. That's the
first thing declared. The sovereignty of God and the
sovereignty of our Lord Jesus Christ, Him being Lord over all,
supersedes and precedes all that follows in the declaration of
the gospel. If he is not sovereign, then
none of the stuff that we talk about him doing is of value.
His sovereignty is what it's all about. And we saw that once
David was acknowledged as the sovereign in Judah, immediately
the enemies of David raised up another king to oppose him. So when the gospel is preached,
you can count on that taking place. Jesus Christ is Lord.
What does that mean? That means He is in control of
all things and out of control of anything. Nobody controls
Him. He controls all things. He is
sovereign in creation. Scripture declares in John 1
that nothing was made that He didn't make. He's sovereign in
the new creation, for in Christ we are created anew. He's sovereign
in providence. That means all the workings of
the things that go on in this world and the interconnections
and the intricacies of all of them are all planned and purposed
and brought about by Jesus Christ. for the singular purpose to bring
all things to their appointed end. Now whether you know Him
or not, you have a purpose. When people say God loves you
and has a wonderful plan for your life, that's probably not
true for everybody. That's certainly not true for
everybody, but I'm going to tell you this, God is your sovereign and He has
a purpose for your life. Whether it's in salvation or
in damnation, you will fulfill your purpose because Jesus Christ
is Lord of providence. He's Lord of providence. But
primarily, and this is where people have difficulty. They
will say, yes, we believe He's the creator. Yes, we believe
He controls all these incidents that go on in the world. But
the primary thing where men stumble and where men carp is that Jesus
Christ is Lord of salvation. He's in absolute control of who
has been saved, how they will come to know Him, and that they
will come to know Him, and their final end in preservation of
the saints. All of that's taken care of by
Jesus Christ. He's sovereign in salvation.
Ultimately, that one place is the thing that sticks in the
crawl of any and all that feels that they have something to do
with their salvation. That truth sticks in the cross,
and that truth is basically, Jesus Christ is King. Back here,
that truth was David is the King that God has anointed. That's
what's being taught, and we've learned thus far. And the damage
that that truth does to those who hold themselves in such high
esteem, It causes a visceral, immediate response. It happens. You know this when
you've told people the truth and told them about Christ and
what Christ has done. There's an immediate visceral
response. It's like when somebody lies
about God to you, there's something immediately twists inside you.
Something immediately goes on. You all immediately tense up
inside. And that's the reaction that
religion gets when the truth of Christ is set forth in no
uncertain terms. They come against the truth with
a king of their own making. We've seen that when Saul was
raised up. We've seen it here with Abner
raising up Isabeth, Saul's son. What is their problem? They refuse
to acknowledge that Jesus is the King. What was Abner's problem?
He refused to acknowledge that David was the appointed king. He refused to acknowledge that,
so he raised up a king of his own making. Now they may apply,
men do apply the title of Lord to Jesus Christ and King to Him,
but their words and their methods and their means betray them.
No matter how much they may claim to follow Christ, no matter how
much they invoke His name and what they do. It is they themselves
who by their own power make Him to be what He is. They say that. I made Jesus Lord. Won't you
make Jesus your Lord? If you can make Him Lord, then
you're His maker. Anybody understand English at
all? If you can make Him king, then you're His maker. He's not
your maker. It is they who make the decision,
they say, as to whether or not they'll be saved. It is they
who can give Jesus power to save them by their will. It is they
who control salvation as to its efficaciousness. It is they who
rip accomplished salvation from the past and deposit squarely
in the present. Salvation is not in the present. Now we are being delivered daily
by Jesus Christ, but our salvation, the salvation of our souls is
an accomplished and finished work and brothers and sisters,
it is not a present thing, it is a historical thing. Now what
religion does is take it from that historical fact that took
place on the cross 2,000 years ago when Jesus Christ himself
said it is finished and bring it over into time and say it's
not finished unless I say it's finished. I heard a preacher
at a funeral a couple of years ago, I think it was at John A. Lambert's funeral. I went with
George because George was kind of alone with anybody, nobody
believed him. So I went with him and sat down
with him. And this preacher got up there and he said, Jesus Christ
said it is finished. And what that means is that he
finished his part. He said, now you've got to finish
your part. Now I looked at George and he looked at me and he said,
that guy's stupid, ain't he? I said, yes he is. He's a fool.
But he is a religious fool. And he's a fool that takes that
once accomplished act wherein Christ actually redeemed His
people and finished their salvation. And makes it a present day happening. That's when they do that, that
gives them the ability to make you do something. To have you
do something. To have you take part in this.
You don't have a part in salvation. Jesus Christ is the Lord of salvation. It is they themselves who are
described in Scripture by their words, their works, and message,
and methods. They oppose and exalt themselves
above all that is called God or that is worshipped, and as
if they were God, sit in the temple of God, showing themselves
that they are God. That's what it says in II Thessalonians
when it talks about those who oppose God. In Romans chapter
1, it simply says that they would not acknowledge God as God. Oh, they'll acknowledge God. Everybody talks about God and
Jesus. Everybody has something on their
bumper sticker. I saw Bill O'Reilly the other
day. He's got a bumper sticker saying, you've got to say Merry
Christmas. You know, you can't say Happy Holiday. I'll say it
if I want to. Most of the time when I send
a card that says Merry X-mas, I just do it just to aggravate
people. What they don't realize, the Greek letter X is what was
used to spell the name Christ. It's cheap. But that don't matter. But you
know, they think, well, taking Jesus out of Christmas, He was
never there to start with. the actual rendering Merry Christmas
was actually Merry, M-A-R-Y, Christ, C-H-R-I-S-T, Mass, M-A-S-S. It was a rite of the Roman Church
for many years. Merry, Christ, Mass. It was held
on December 25th. But we won't get into that right
now. Nonetheless, the issue is always this. It will always come
down to this. Is God, God? is the king the king. And if you will not bow to him
as king, I'll guarantee you're going to raise up a king because
all men by nature are servants. We were made to serve God. And that part of us, even though
we've fallen into sin, we can't help but be a servant of something.
Bob Dylan even knew that. He wrote, everybody's going to
serve somebody. You're going to serve the devil
or you're going to serve the Lord, but you're going to serve
somebody because we are that way. So if we refuse the king
that God has anointed, we will raise up a king just like Abner
did of our own making and our own choice. We see this in this
first part of the chapter when David was named king, the followers
of the former false king. He's dead now. He's buried now. He's been beheaded now. He's
dead, and lifeless, and impotent, and buried, and under the dirt.
But they refuse to let him go. Abner anoints Saul's son, and
his name is Esh-baal. That's his name that Saul gave
him. He's here called Esh-basheth, and that simply means the man
of shame, the son of Baal. the false god, and he anoints
him as king. Adner is an Israelite. Adner knows that David is the
rightful king. Adner knows that David is king. His problem is not that he is
ignorant of that truth, he simply cannot stomach that truth. And false religionists may claim
that they are confused. People like to say, well, I don't
understand election. That's a lie. That's just a lie. It just means to choose. Everybody
understands that. I don't understand predestination.
Everybody's lying with it. It's not a confusing principle.
Not a confusing principle. They simply can't stand the thought
of it. Because election removes your
will and salvation. Predestination removes your ability
in salvation, having anything to do with it. And men hate that,
they're not confused about it. I've said for many years, it's
not what people don't understand that make them mad at those who
tell the truth, it's what they do understand. They understand
fully, it just makes them mad, they don't want it to be that
way. The doctrine of grace and the sovereignty of God, people
say, well that's complicated, but that's just a smokescreen.
That's a smokescreen in efforts to hide the fact that they cannot
abide the truth. You see, the truth, the gospel,
is offensive to men. Paul said, all I would have to
do is tell you to do one little thing, lift a finger maybe. All
I'd have to do is tell you one little thing and I'd stop being
persecuted for preaching the gospel. And what he was saying
is, and I would remove the offense of the gospel. What's the offense
of the gospel then? You can't even lift one little finger.
That offends me. There is a King, one God-anointed,
who is Lord over all. He's your King and your Lord.
Now, whether you bow to Him or not now, you're going to bow
to Him one day because He's the King. He's the King. God has
made it to be so. Men cannot naturally, and I use
the word cannot because that's the case. They are unable naturally
to receive the truth. Men cannot naturally receive
it. So don't browbeat yourself when you tell somebody the truth
and act like you're a fool. It's by a work of sovereign grace
that a person receives the truth. God must give that person faith
to believe what God has declared. If God don't do it and all men
have not faith, Scripture says that, If they have it, it's because
God gave it to them. If they don't have it, it's because
God didn't give it to them. It's as simple as that. It's
not available to buy at the Walmart. It's a thing God gives sovereignly
to whom He will. Our Lord said to very religious
men who were Jews, who had kept the law, who had done the ceremonies,
who applied to the priest with the lamb for the priest to make
the sacrifices for them. They had sat and waited every
year for the priest to come out behind the veil to say that they
were safe for another year. They had done all of that. They
were very religious. Very fine people, but our Lord
said to them, Why don't you hear what I say? Now He wasn't saying
that so they'd answer it. That's a rhetorical question.
Look over John chapter 8. John chapter 8. Here our Lord
is speaking to the Pharisees, the religionists of the day.
And He says in verse 42, If, and here's a measure, you want
something to measure? Here's a good measure right here.
If God were your Father, you would love me. Boy, you can't
get no clearer than that is. There's a real measure in it.
There's a standard. And he goes on to say, For I
proceeded forth and came from God, neither came I myself, but
He sent me. Why do you not understand my
speech? And again, this is a rhetorical
question. Even because you cannot hear
Now, weren't they actually physically hearing what he had to say? He
was talking right in their ears. What was he talking about? There's
an inability to receive the gospel in man, in nature. And he says
this, "...ye are of your father the devil." and the lust of your
father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning,
and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When
he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar,
and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth,
you believe not." What does that mean? If I told you a lie, you'd
go right along with me. You'd go right along with me.
That's the case. Look over at John chapter 14. Here our Lord talks about sending
the Holy Spirit when He goes to be at the right hand of the
Father. In John chapter 14 verse 16 He says, And I will pray the
Father that He will give you another Comforter, that He may
abide with you forever, even the Spirit of truth. Look at
the next phrase, Whom the world cannot receive. whom the world
cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him,
but you know him, for he dwelleth in you, and shall be in you."
How come you know the Holy Spirit? How come you know Christ? Because
He's in you. Isn't that what Paul said? When it pleased the
Father, who separated me from my brother's womb, to reveal
His Son in me, immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood, and
went about in preaching the gospel. Look at one other passage of
Scripture, John chapter 15, and verses 18 and 19. If the world
hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you
were of the world, the world would love his own. But because
you are not of the world, but I've chosen you out of the world,
therefore the world hateth you." The fact is, when I preach the
gospel, I want everybody who hears me to know Christ. I do. Everybody I tell it, I think
in the back of my mind, Maybe this person will come to know
Christ, what a glorious thing. Not for my glory, I don't care
about me, but that they might know Christ. Spurgeon said, and
he preached to 5,000 people every Sunday morning. He said, every
time I get in the pulpit, I preach for the conversion of my hearers.
I want people to know Christ. I want them to know Christ. But
my wants ain't going to make anything happen. It's what God has purposed that
will come to pass. And I know this, and I've seen
it here, seen it many times, I've seen it preaching in other
places. Some believe and some don't. I've preached the gospel
for over 31 years now. Close to 33 years I've been preaching
the gospel. Some have believed and some haven't. Some haven't. And that's the
way it's always going to be. Why does anyone believe? Because
God works a work of grace and mercy and faith in that person's
heart. You can blame it on anything
else, then you don't know God to start with. The Lord is the
author and finisher of faith. Now what follows in our text
here, in the last part of this chapter, is the account of Abner
pursuing the exaltation of his choice of king. the one He made. And the things that occur are
accurately reported here, and I say accurately not in the sense
that anything in the Bible is not accurately reported, but
sometimes When you read things, they're hard to understand because
of the way the English language, but this is fairly understandable
in the way it's written. Abner is the aggressor. There's
no doubt about that. He's the aggressive one. His
goal is to have his king be victorious and for David to go down in defeat.
However, the words of Abner, and we'll look at this next week
or the week after next, we'll look at the words of Abner here
in this, seem to hint that he believes David is king, and he
realizes this is a futile thing, but he can't give it up. Why?
Because he's a human being, and he's in the flesh. But he's the
aggressor. Of the twelve tribes, only Judah
stands with David. Adner has an apparent numerical
superior advantage. And in the visible world, that
would be an obvious thing, but in the spiritual world, Mathematics
is an entirely different equation in the spiritual world. You remember
the story of Elijah's servant, don't you? When the army of Syria,
Elijah and just his servant, that's all it was, camped down
at the bottom of this valley. And Syria's army found out about
it. They spied it out and they had them completely surrounded.
Thousands of hosts. Had them completely surrounded,
10, 20 deep. Two people down at the bottom
of the hill. Two people. And Elijah's servant goes out
to get water for Elijah to make breakfast, make him some oatmeal
or porridge or something or whatever it is. He comes back and he looks
up and there on the hill he sees the entire Syrian army, chariots,
horses, spears, bows, and he knows they want to kill Elijah.
And he runs back into the tent and said, Master, what will we
do? We're in an awful fix. And Elijah
said, no problem. There's more of us than there
are of them. He said, what are you talking
about? He said, Lord, open his eyes. And the Lord opened his
eyes and he saw in between the Syrian army and them a host of
heavenly angels surrounding them, knowing There were more of them. There's more of us. The math
don't add up. People say, well, you're a little group over here
and you're a little group over there. Look, we've got these
mega churches with 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 people. We have to buy
football stadiums to see all the people we've got in our church.
Well, then why do they worry about us? Have you ever thought
about that? The church got five or six hundred
people in it, you know, and they're growing and they're building
and they have all this money and they tell the people, don't
dare listen to what those people say down there at Sequoyah. Don't listen to them. Why? They're
scared to death. You know why? Because they know
we're telling the truth. And they know if they told the
truth, those five hundred would dwindle down to about twenty
or thirty people. That's what would happen. Overnight. I've
seen it happen. I've seen it happen in church.
The truth will set the believer free, but scare the Lord out
of every unbeliever in the religious business. Numerically, Abner's
won. David has a troop out of the
tribe of Judah. Abner has the rest of Israel,
the other 11 tribes. Abner's words about the young
men playing listening while I read, they met across from the pool
of Gibeon, and Abner says to Joab, now these are enemies,
Joab's king is David, Abner's king is the one, he's made him
to be the king, and he said to Abner, let's let the kids play,
now he's talking about the young men, now probably there was a,
and I've tried to find some history on this, Josephus and a couple
others said some things like occasionally that this is the
way battles were settled, they'd pick out Ten or twelve young
men, and they'd fight among whoever won. That was the end of the
battle. Others say it was like gladiator
games, where they would actually go out and do sword play without
actually killing anyone. But Abner said, let the children
play, but his design was to kill. His design is to destroy, and
we know that. And so he uses that word. It
was a challenge, and the language reveals that Abner's men were
the ones who were the aggressors. If you read it, they went out
immediately out against those men of Judah. They went out immediately. And the playing, so called, is
more akin to what gladiators do, or what we might think of
as war games. But the intent was to kill David's
men, and though the outcome is not perfectly clear, I believe,
and I believe this is reported by the latter part of the chapter,
I believe that all 24 men died right there that day. Not 12 of one group and 12 of
another, but they went out and played. And both went into the
battle mode. Both grabbed the other by the
hair of the head and they shoved their swords through their body
because it said all of them fell down. They all fell down dead.
I think it's safe to say by Joab's reaction to these deaths that
he was surprised at what took place and was incensed, which
indicates that he probably was fooled by Abner's misuse of the
word play. Twenty-four lives were lost that
day and immediately Joab routed Abner. That's the response to
what went on. There is a very basic lesson
to be learned here for believers, a very basic lesson. If we engage
the enemy on their terms, Everybody loses. Remember that. If you engage the enemy on their
terms, nobody will win. Our battles are fought with words. They are fought with words. Or
better, they are fought with the word, the sword of the Lord. That two-edged sword will never
know defeat. It will never know defeat. Our
Lord promised Simon Peter concerning his church that the gates of
hell would not prevail against it. This Word is more powerful
than anything. It's the power of God unto salvation.
We hold in our hand that which changes men's lives, that which
opens eyes and minds. This thing, how God uses it,
we're not privy to the inner workings of it, but we know this
is the Word that He births His people into His Kingdom. This
blessed Gospel. Our battles are fought with words.
The gates of hell not prevail. The enemies misuses words, like
play, and like peace, and like fellowship, when their agenda
is really to destroy. That's their agenda. Then we
come to the death of Azahel. And that teaches us also several
lessons here. The first lesson is very important.
Asahel was a gallant warrior. That's what it says in 2 Chronicles
concerning him. He was a gallant warrior and
he was really fast. He was as fast as a deer. That's
what it says. A wild deer. This guy could trot.
He could run. So he was a man who was a strong
gallant warrior and you couldn't outrun him. He was going to run
you down. He was going to run you down. Abner couldn't outrun
him, but Abner killed him in the end. Abner thrust his spear
through it. Now believers, because they are
human beings, often fall victim to their own self-esteem. We
often fall victim to that. Ashel was not a malleable person. He was confident. He was single-minded. He neither turned to the right
nor to the left, even when he was given opportunity to do so.
He knew he was on the side of that which was right. David was
the true king. He was the true king. He believed
that by his skills he could win the day. He believed that. That's why he went after him.
And he outrun Joab and his brother Abishai. Outrun both of them.
He was after Abner. He went after him. He believed. God had given him skills. He
was a great warrior. He was fleet of foot. The problem was he looked to
those things to win the battle. Every one of you here has gifts
and talents given to you by God. Every one of you. You have a
function in this body. and a function in the entire
body of the Church of the Living God. But never look to what He's
gifted you for your function in the church as having anything
to do with victory. It has to do with functioning
in the church. That's what it has to do with.
The battle is the Lord's. It's always the Lord's. Now,
He may give and does give His people skills and gifts, but
no battle is ever won by what they have. The gifts and skills
are for our function in the church. Scripture declares that we overcome
the world by faith in the Lord. Well, that just don't seem plausible.
It's the only way it takes place. You mean I win the battle by
believing? Yeah, you win the battle by believing
in the Lord who wins the battle. Do we know in Deuteronomy our
Lord said, I'm going to go out and fight for you. I'm going
to wipe out your enemy. And after you've defeated them.
That's the way He put it in Deuteronomy chapter 8. After you've defeated
them. Now wait a minute. He just said, I'm going out and
win the battle. It is. It's His victory. But glory to
His name. He gives you credit for it. When
you defeat them. When you defeat them. But you're
not going to do it by your gifts and by your skills, though they
may be manifold. not by the abilities you've been
given. Not to the strong is the battle, nor to the swift is the
race. Our Lord is a man of war, and
the victory belongs to Him. He said, I will fight for you. Well, what are we to do then? Believe Him. That's right. We overcome the world by faith,
it says in 1 John chapter 4. Another thing about Ashael's
death is that it stupefied many of David's men. It did. It stopped them in their tracks.
The last phrase of verse 23 declares that when Joab's men came to
the place where Ashael fell, that they just stood still. It
stopped them in their tracks. After all, he was a great warrior.
He could probably outrun anybody in the camp. He'd run every foot
race. He was looked up to and held
in high esteem. He was Joab's son. And when they
saw him laying dead, they just stopped. They just stopped. This is another difficulty that
a believer often faces. We are tempted to invest too
much in other human beings. We are tempted. I've done it. Much to my chagrin and much to
my defeat. I've seen many a church fold
because their pastor died or because he made some error. Now,
every pastor in God's church is loved and cherished for the
gospel sake. He is. But that should always
be the center of it for the gospel sake. I'm glad you love me. And I know you love me in spite
of what I am. That's how we love each other.
And you've shown your love to me for years. But make sure that
your love is centered where it needs to be centered. Not on
me, but on the gospel I preach. Because I'm going to die. I am. You might be alive to bury me.
Then what are you going to do? This is not my ministry. This
is the Lord's ministry. And like every man, pastors pass
off the scene. He must increase and I must decrease,
John said. And shortly his head was on a
platter. The Lord employs a man for a
time and replaces him when his purpose is fulfilled. My greatest
desire as a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that when
I go off the scene, nothing changes. Another man will stand in this
place, declare the gospel of grace, and the church will go
on, because it doesn't have anything to do with me. You may esteem
my office, and you should, but not me. Not me. You say, well, pastor, we follow
you. Only follow me as I follow Christ. If I veer, don't veer
with me. Stay on the path. These men,
great warriors, were out to finish Abner off, but when they got
to where their hero fell, they were stopped in their tracks.
Don't let it happen. Don't let it happen. Finally, in the end,
we find Abner, his back against the wall, though at the point
when he makes his statement, he really has the military advantage,
and Joab realizes this, being at the bottom of the hill and
Abner at the top of the hill with an army of Benjamites. He
knows that Abner has the thing, so it was a politically and militarily
smart thing for Joab to pull back. Because when you've got
the high ground, it's just hard to beat anybody. You've got to
climb a hill and they're shooting down and bullets go down and
arrows go down faster with gravity. They just do. The way Abner speaks to Joab
is very important. Abner sues for peace. He sues
for the end of conflict and that is very revealing. Let's read
those words in the latter part of chapter 2 beginning with verse
26. And Abner called to Joab and
said, Shall the sword devour forever? 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 after their
brethren? Now do you get the gist here? Do you get the sense
of what is being said and how it's being spoken? Adner puts
the onus for ending the fighting upon Joab. It was Adner who despised
Joab's king and raised up another. It was Adner who started the
battle with his challenge to play. It was Adner who killed
Asahel. It was Adner who was running
for his life, yet he blamed Joab for the conflict, and it was
Adner who invoked the Rodney King defense of why can't we
all get along? He's the one that's done all
the bad things, and yet he calls down to Joab, how much longer
are we going to fight? Don't you know all you got to
say is, let's go home and we'll all go home? How long are you
going to make your men pursue after your brother? How long
are you going to do that? That sounds so familiar to me. How many people have you... Crow
told me one time that he was at a funeral and a fella says,
how come you folks at Sequoia don't seem to get along with
anybody? We do. Are y'all mean to people?
I've never met a sweeter bunch of people in my life, more giving
bunch of people in my life. I mean, when people in the community
are hurting, we don't ask questions, whether they're sots or drug
addicts or whatever. We give them the money. If they
need money, we try to help them out. We try to be kind and gentle
to people. Why can't we get along? Well,
we could. But you see, they put the onus
on us. They put the onus on us. False religion seeks a kind of
peace. the kind of peace that can be
attained if only two things take place. First of all, religion
will let us get along with them if we forget that they hate our
king. That's all we've got to do. Just
forget that. I know, sadly, I know some men
who stood for things for a long time, who think it's alright
to get involved with folks who hate our king. If you hate my
wife, I ain't going to have nothing to do with you. If somebody hates
one of you, we're not going to be friends. I mean any one of
you. As a church or any one individual,
if somebody comes and I can't stand that person, I tell them,
that person is my friend. We don't need to talk anymore.
We don't need to talk anymore. That's all we have to do. Forget
that you hate my king. Forget that you've raised up
a king to kill my king, to put my king out of bed. That's all
we have to do. We'd get along. Isn't that what he said? How
long are you going to draw the sword? Well, how come he drew
the sword? Because he drew the sword against
his king. Because he raised up another
king against the true king. And he drew his sword. Yet the
onus falls on Joab. The second thing is, We'll get
along if we promise not to acknowledge Christ as the Sovereign King. We'll get along. It's all we've
got to do. People have actually told me
this. You know, you're hard. I have a very dear friend, I
have family who tells me, you're a hard head. My granddaddy used
to call me hard rock. I am a hard head. I'm hard headed
about some things. Most stuff, I could care less.
I'm really a liberal kind of fellow when it comes to other
things. But on this, I'm a hard head. And I'm hard. I'm not as
hard as the Bible is, but I'm pretty hard. I've had people
actually say, you know, you'd get along if you just didn't
talk about these things. And that's true. You know what
Abner said? We can get along. We're really
brothers. Don't be mad at me. Let's get
along. Y'all going home, we're going
home. That's what happens. The problem is they can't keep
their mouth shut about their religion. See, I don't even care. I've
had people, had a fellow come up to me one time after I preached
and he said, I want to ask you something. And I said, well,
let me ask you something first. He said, okay. I said, are you
asking me something so you can tell me what you think after
I tell you what I think? He got kind of quiet and I said,
you was, wasn't you? you really want to correct me in something
I say." I said, so I'm not going to answer your question, because
I don't want to hear what you have to say. I don't care what
you have to say. He wanted to tell me what he
believed, but didn't want me to tell him what I believed. Religion puts the blame for the
conflict on those who refuse to have any king but Jesus. Christ
alone, grace alone, scriptures alone. Faith alone. God's glory alone. That was the theme of the Reformation. That was the theme. Christ alone.
He's my King. I love Him. I love Him. I can't keep shut up about Him.
How could I? He saved my soul. He made me
whole. He's my friend. And the only way we can get along,
if I don't talk about that, we ain't never gonna get along.
And if you want me to do that, you have now. And I'm Joe Abner. It's just that simple. Father,
bless us for understanding. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.