2 Samuel 3:26-39 In the Grip of Revenge

Of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak is preaching from his series, The Warrior Poet King, Study of Second Samuel. Let's listen in.

Well, good morning, everybody, and welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Filsak, I am the lead pastor here.

The Core Value of Authenticity

And most of you that have been around here for a while now probably know that our name, Recast, is an acronym for our core values. It's got kind of a double meaning to it. It's got the notion of recasting the nets of the disciples in Luke chapter four had been fishing all night, caught nothing, Jesus came to them in the morning and said, recast the nets to the other side, and if you do things my way and do what I tell you, then you're gonna catch more, and they do.

And so it's partly that, but then the secondary thing is that it's an acronym of our core values, replication, community, authenticity, simplicity, and truth. You see that above the donuts back there, so it's not, I mean, we strategically place that right by the donuts so that everybody can see the core values there.

You might want to add, maybe it should be decast with donuts being one of those core values, I don't know. But recasted, oh, how about that, okay. Oh, he could do all kinds of things with that. But I want to zero in on the core value of authenticity.

What do we mean when we talk about authenticity? I want to highlight that we value an honesty about ourselves that flows from the pages of scripture. So we take what the scriptures say to be true of us versus the things that the culture and the world around us say are true of us.

And that means that we want to lean into a humility in relationship with one another, an authenticity that says that we don't have to pretend that we had a great week. We can come together and say this week was terrible and encourage and ask other people to pray for us and let them know that in humility we need their encouragement.

Now those who read the Bible to honestly see what it conveys and not trying to bring your own opinions to it, but if you read it.

To see what it's saying to us,.

You're gonna quickly come to the conclusion that it has no interest in painting a rosy picture of humanity. It does not have an interest in showing humanity to be the heroes. It doesn't have an interest in demonstrating us to be super awesome and how great it is that God gets to work with people like us.

Not at all. We see a flow that begins right from the beginning,.

Adam and Eve eat from the tree.

That God expressly told them not to do. They obey God right away. How many of you knew that that's in the Bible? Like right out of the gate. And then it moves from eating fruit you're not supposed to to murder pretty quickly.

Did you notice that? Like it goes like, okay, wait,.

You're not supposed to eat this fruit.

You know, it's kinda like taking cookies.

Out of the cookie jar.

Mom said no, you do it anyways and then you get in trouble and then the next thing you know.

You murder your brother. It's, how many of you as parents have talked through that slippery slope with your kids, right? Like you're gonna be in prison if you keep stealing cookies out of the cookie jar.

No, sorry. None of this is in my notes, but this might be a long sermon, I don't know. But you know, Cain kills Abel. Noah gets drunk right after being rescued in the ark. And we don't tell the kids that story, by the way.

Have you noticed that?

We have like all the little kids books.

With the ark and the animals and the cute fluffy things.

But we don't get to the drunken part.

I wonder why.

Because the Bible goes there. The Bible does go there. And we obviously are betraying an agenda when we tell our kids that story without saying Noah was a bad person who needed a savior. We have an agenda behind that.

We wanna make Noah the hero. Well, he's not the hero. He shows fallenness after God makes a covenant with him, after God saves him. This is the kind of stuff that is in the Bible. Abraham lies, Abraham chosen by God,.

Promised and made a covenant by God, a unilateral covenant,. I'm gonna bless you.

Lies about his wife being his sister to save his own skin. Jacob is a swindler.

That's the name. The name means swindler.

His name's gonna be changed to Israel, like Israel, like the whole tribe, all the people. Joseph's brothers sell him into slavery out of jealousy. Moses murders two Egyptians and he's on the lam when he encounters God in the burning bush.

How in the world could we walk away from this start of this book and ever get the notion that the Bible is giving us a list of really good role models?

But how many of you at times have thought that.

At stages of your life, at stages of your history,.

You've been like, how in the world could David do that.

Because I thought this was the Bible? The Bible's telling us what's true of us. It's revealing in these historical accounts what real life looks like.

How many of you say that, that kinda sounds like my last week? Like the kinds of things that we encounter in the Bible.

Are the kinds of things that are speaking into our real day in and day out. No, it's not giving us role models. To the contrary, the Bible is giving us freedom to be honest. It's giving us freedom to be honest.

It is driving us toward admitting that we are busted and broken sinners in need of a savior, amen? And our text this morning is gonna give us another authentic view of David and his military commander.

And we're gonna see both of them do wrong in this passage. Again, we talked last week about the four kinds of sinners that God uses in that text. We're gonna see a couple more sins highlighted today. Our text is about revenge.

We will read together an accounting of a historical situation that reminds us that there really is nothing new under the sun. Cycles of revenge are very real. And I think all of us, to a person, have experienced them to some level, whether we are the giver or the receiver of revenge.

So let's open our Bibles, or your devices, or a scripture journal to 2 Samuel chapter three verses 26 through 39. So again, 2 Samuel three, 26 through 39. And recast, this is God's holy word. We have the privilege of hearing it together.

So let's listen in and follow along in your chosen way of following in the scriptures. When Joab came out from David's presence, he sent messengers after Abner, and they brought him back from the cistern of Sarai.

But David did not know about it. And when Abner returned to Hebron, Joab took him aside into the midst of the gate to speak with him privately. And there he struck him in the stomach so that he died for the blood of Asahelah's brother.

Afterward, when David heard of it, he said, I and my kingdom are forever guiltless before the Lord for the blood of Abner, the son of Ner. May it fall upon the head of Joab and upon all of his father's house.

And may the house of Joab never be without one who has discharged or who is leprous or who holds a spindle or who falls by the sword or who lacks bread. So Joab and Abishai, his brother, killed Abner because he had put their brother Asahel to death in the battle of Gibeon.

Then David said to Joab and to all the people.

Who were with him, tear your clothes.

And put on sackcloth and mourn before Abner. And King David followed the buyer. They buried Abner at Hebron, and the king lifted up his voice and wept at the grave of Abner. And all the people wept, and the king lamented for Abner, saying, should Abner die as a fool dies?

Your hands were not bound, your feet were not fettered, as one falls before the wicked you have fallen. And all the people wept again over him. Then all the people came to persuade David to eat bread while it was yet day, but David swore, saying, God, do so to me, and more also if I taste bread or anything else till the sun goes down.

And all the people took notice of it, and it pleased them, and everything that the king did pleased all the people. So all the people and all Israel understood that day it had not been the king's will to put to death Abner, the son of Ner.

And the king said to his servants, do you not know that a prince and a great man.

Has fallen this day in Israel?

And I was gentle to they, though anointed king. These men, the sons of Zariah, are more severe than I. The Lord repay the evildoer according to his wickedness. Let's pray before the band comes to lead us.

In worship this morning.

Confession, Forgiveness, and Worship

Father, it seems appropriate for us to take a posture of confession as we read accounts of sin, and we can easily look into these historical accounts and see the bad things done, and they really stand out when it's things like murder and killing somebody and betraying them.

And yet, we reflect on the type of vengeance that we seek in our own lives, and the type of retribution we exact of others who have hurt us. And we recognize that there is within all of us a brokenness and a variety of different sins that assail us.

So Father, I pray that you would lead us all into confession this morning. We are to a person broken, to a person sinful, to a person deserving condemnation before you, a righteous and holy God. So Father, we confess before you today our sin.

We confess to you today our self-centeredness. We confess to you today our narcissistic tendencies to make ourselves the center of every conversation, ourselves the center of every plot in our lives.

And then Father, I thank you that you are faithful to forgive us, to set us free so that our voices can now be raised in joy, not in sorrow, not in darkness, not in moping, not even in fear, but in joy because Christ has died for us.

And so Father, I pray that as your redeemed people, now we would lift our voices in thankfulness and gratitude and reflection on the great gift given to us through the cross of Jesus Christ. We praise you for our Lord and Savior, and I pray that you would help us to walk with him more and more each day, and even now as we lift our voices together in Jesus' name, amen.

Amen.

So yeah, you can go to be seated, but if at any time during the message you need to get up and get more coffee or water,.

Take advantage of that. Back there. You're not gonna distract me.

If you need to get up at any time.

And then the bathrooms are out the double doors.

Down the hallway on the left-hand side if you need those at all as well. And then I ask one more thing of you, and that's just to keep your Bibles open to 2 Samuel 3, verses 26 through 39, that passage that we read earlier, your scripture journal, your device, whatever.

So that you can follow along and see that the things that I'm saying are coming from God's word. They're not just stuff that I'm making up or things that I just wanted to share with you this morning, but things that God wanted to share with you.

Through his word.

Abner, Joab, and the Revenge Killing at Hebron

In a God-orchestrated twist of events, we need to catch up on the history of the events each week in part because in these historical things, they all connect. So we kind of left with a mild cliffhanger,.

But what happened last week.

Is that there's a twist of events and David's enemy, Abner, changed sides and vowed to do all that he could do to turn over the entire kingdom of Israel to David. Now, Abner is kind of in charge of 11 twelfths of Israel.

And I think about the 12 tribes. 11 of the tribes are following Abner and his puppet king that he set up, Ish-bosheth. And then one of the tribes, Judah, is following King David. Now, in David's youth, he was anointed by the prophet Samuel and told, you are God's chosen king to follow King Saul.

Abner had other plans. But through all of that twist of events that we saw last week, and you can go back and listen to the message last week if you missed it, but God worked to turn David's enemy into an advocate.

I discourage you from trying to listen to it now, by the way, don't tune in. Encourage you to listen to this one and then go back and listen to that one later if you need to. But when we come to verse 26 this morning, we pick up just shortly after David and Abner had met together and made a covenant together.

Now, at the start of 2 Samuel, they're enemies. By the end of the text last week, they have met together and covenanted together and Abner has said, I will bring the rest of Israel over to you, David.

So how many of you think that sounds like a good trajectory.

For David to become king over all Israel? He's on track. This is like God working through his enemy to make him an advocate to actually bring him along and give David the kingdom. And that's what we would kind of expect is coming up.

And then we get to verse 26 this morning and we pick up just shortly after they've met. And here are some bullet points that hopefully help you to catch up to speed.

Because sometimes I think,.

I wonder if you get lost in the names a little bit. So Abner was loyal to Saul. Abner was actually Saul's uncle. And he was his military commander and he has now switched sides to David. Some bullet points.

David's military commander, Joab, hates Abner, the two of them fighting together and warring against one another consistently. And he would never have wanted David to covenant together with Abner. That's because Abner, earlier in 2 Samuel, has killed Joab's little brother in battle, Asahel, that was at the Battle of Gibeon.

So the last thing that happened in our text last week is that Joab found out that David has met with Abner, his enemy, and sent him away in peace and made a covenant with him. So Joab, David's military man, thinks David is a fool for trusting Abner and letting him go in peace.

And that catches us up to where our text begins. Joab comes out of David's presence, angry and incensed that David would make a covenant with Abner, and he sent some messengers, without David's knowledge, he sent some messengers to catch up with Abner, reel him back in.

And we'll see, I've already read it, so you kind of know what's gonna happen here. Joab, it makes a point in the text to make sure that you understand, David did not have any knowledge that Joab is bringing Abner back into Hebron.

Abner, having just made a covenant with David, is feeling pretty secure. Now, why would he go back to his enemy's military commander while he's just made a covenant with David? So he's feeling secure, so he's like, oh, maybe I forgot something, and maybe David just wants to communicate something to me, or maybe he threw his military commander, he's got something for me to do, or whatever.

So he does indeed return with the messengers to speak with Joab, but Abner pulled Joab off, Joab pulled Abner off to the side for a private discussion, likely within an interior room inside the city gates.

So how many of you have been in an office, I know all of us have been in an office space, or a department store, where you walk through a set of double doors, and then you're in an entryway, but there's another set of double doors to get into a lobby.

Do you know what I'm talking about? So in that little area in there, picture that being a city gate. That's what it was like to have city gates, and so you went into one set of gates, now you're in a little smaller area, maybe the size of this room, or maybe a little bit larger, then there's another set of gates to actually get into the city.

So it's a protective extra layer, but off of that city gates, there's rooms, and that's what you need to picture where this whole thing is going down. He pulls him off to a side for a private discussion, within the side rooms of the city gates at Hebron, and there he betrayed Abner with a thrust of a dagger into his gut.

And there, the great and mighty Abner was betrayed and murdered. The story here doesn't lend itself to three points with clean transitions. The text has one primary focus throughout. We see in this act of revenge, from Joab to Abner, one more potential hurdle to David ever ruling over a united Israel.

Sinfulness is everywhere in this story of David's rise to the kingdom that God has promised to him. He is not the ideal king himself, and his rise to the throne is not without struggle and turmoil. The way that he gets there is not a straight line.

The death of Abner, who has just pledged to David to help him unite all of Israel is a major setback in David's movement towards the crown. And Joab has responded foolishly. You need to understand that, what's going on here in the text.

Joab has responded foolishly, sinfully, and selfishly. He has responded out of revenge, not for concern for his king, David, but out of concern for himself and his revenge. So we need not guess what motivated Joab to slay Abner in cold blood and murder him there within the city gates.

It says right in the text, he did so according to verse 27, for the blood of Asahel, his brother. It was revenge for the death of his little bro that he puts Abner to death. The rest of the text shows David distancing himself from the murder of Abner.

He doesn't want everybody to think that he's just conveniently killed and put to death his political rival. Many may assume, of course, within the kingdom that it was David's command that Joab kill Abner, and that's not the case at all.

Far from it. David had joined with Abner in alliance. We know that as readers. Not everybody in that context, not everybody in history would have known that. Not everybody in David's kingdom would have known that, so he needs to make it explicit.

I didn't kill Abner. Joab did. So in verse 28, David makes it clear that his kingdom is guiltless before the Lord for the blood of Abner, and he declares that he says it. And I want to pause for a moment of application here so that we kind of dig in, because I've given you a lot of history already, but David gets something right here in the text, and I want to pause on it for just a moment because he's about to get something really wrong.

So I want to at least commend what he does right here before we identify what he does wrong. We take the good before we take the bad. And in case what I'm saying is confusing, how many of you know that you can do some things at times that are really good moments away from doing something really bad?

And I think we can all relate to that. David's gonna do that here in the text. He's gonna do something that's good, that's wholesome, that is helpful, and understanding his heart just before he does something that is really, really bad.

We're a mixed up battle of spirit and flesh inside, and David is no different. God's spirit convicts, God's spirit empowers and brings truth to the mind of believers while we in our weakness still are tempted.

And enticed to sin, right?

And we all know that battle within. So first, David acknowledges that the most important, this is what he gets right. He acknowledges that the most important judge in his life is God. He says, I have this fundamental belief that it's before God, before the Lord, that it matters most whether I've sinned or not.

And how many of you think that's valuable? Like, that's a good starting point, to acknowledge that God is the one that we're responsible to. I mean, it's, you know, civility and kindness to people can only take us so far, right?

But understanding that God is the one that we're beholden to. He is the right judge. He is the one that we need to be thinking about and considering in our daily actions and behaviors. David's kingdom is guiltless before the Lord for the blood of Abner, he says in the text.

And I just wanna question each one of us here to plant this question in your mind. Do you, do we think of our most fundamental issue of guilt as before the Lord? Is that the way you think? Is that the way that your heart moves?

Or if we're honest with ourselves, are we more concerned with the eyes of others? More concerned for our reputation? More concerned about what others think of us and considering that as the fundamental motivation for why we don't murder?

Or why we don't have an affair or why we don't fill in the blank? Is it just merely social convention.

That keeps you on the straight and narrow?

Or is it that you recognize that there is a God who sees your behavior in the quiet moments where nobody else is around, sees your thoughts that nobody else can see? He is the judge, not others. Are you getting what I'm saying in that?

What God thinks of us should be our greatest concern. And let me, before the weight gets too heavy on your shoulders, let's let the gospel break into our discussion as we consider that there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

And that God is working all things together for good for those who love him and are called according to his purposes. The life of one who has been born again by a living hope in the cross of Christ, trusting in his sacrifice for us, bears no more guilt before the Father, amen?

We are forever guiltless before the Lord. That is the strength of our life. That is our hope for the future. And that is the power, that's the engine of our obedience in the present. A forgiveness and a love granted that we do not deserve.

But David descends from the lofty pronouncement that God's judgment is what matters most and it should matter in your life as well. What he judges of you is the most important and he says, you're my child, you're forgiven.

No more condemnation. Now go walk and live in that freedom to love me and obey me. David descends from that great understanding to verse 29 where he begins to curse Joab as military commander. And in this he sins.

You say, Don, how do you know? Well, let me walk you through it. Because it may not be apparent to everyone throughout this passage that David sins in regard to his treatment of Joab, but I'm convinced that he does.

You see, the standard that David is held to is the old covenant. It's the old law and so there are things that David is supposed to do right now that he's not doing. And there are things that David does that are just not found anywhere.

No instructions on this. You see, David curses Joab and he curses his father's house. He calls down on Joab's descendants, disease, leprosy, poverty, war, and hunger. And there's a little phrase in there that's kind of a little strange.

It was kind of interesting to study.

May there always be a man. These are all masculine in the construction. So may there always be a man who holds the spindle. In other words, may there always be a man who does household work in your family.

He's basically bringing down curses on him, saying may there always be a man who has to do the women's work in the household. May there always be a man who died in battle. May there always be a man who is injured.

May there always be a man who has disease.

How many of you think that sounds like.

A pretty stern curse?

He's leveling this at Joab. Is he upset at what Joab has done? Do you see it in the text? He's very upset.

And I want to explain something that's helpful.

Because we might misunderstand. In the Old Testament, wasn't there revenge killing?

Have you guys noticed that?

As you read the Old Testament,.

Anybody here that's a student of the Old Testament would know that there is indeed revenge killing that happens.

It seems like it's kind of sanctious.

That's okay, right? But David acknowledges in 1 Kings 2, verse five, talking about this exact same event. He says, Joab has sinned in that he avenged blood shed during war by shedding blood during peace.

That's what David says in 1 Kings 2, verse five. What is Joab's sin here? He has basically tried retribution for matters of war. He has sought revenge killing for a matter of war. In other words, killing in war is different than murder and that might melt our minds a little bit and you might have a follow-up question for me on that regarding ethics or something like that.

But if Abner had not killed Asahel on that battlefield, guess what Asahel was gonna do? Anybody? He was gonna kill Abner.

And if every death, think this through logically,.

If every death that occurs during war is open to revenge,.

Will there ever be peace?

Can there ever be treaties? Can there ever be two nations coming together and saying, no, we're okay, we're gonna chill for a minute?

Ever.

There would always be wars and wars and wars multiplied. But I contend that David's sin here is not, it's not in the harshness of his curse, not at all, but rather in a glaring favoritism toward Joab that keeps David from doing the harsher judgment, doing what God requires of him.

Did you see it?

If you know the Old Testament law, then you know what Joab deserves here.

He doesn't get it.

David is showing favoritism toward Joab and he is not following the law of God and putting Joab on trial for murder. David understood that the death penalty, he understood that well and he understood that from the Old Covenant as a requirement on him as king.

He is supposed to try him and put him to death. As a matter of fact, David understood this so well that just a couple of chapters ago, he put to death an Amalekite right then and there, judged him on the spot on the testimony of his own words.

The Amalekite comes rushing in and says, Saul's dead. David says, how do you know? The Amalekite says, I killed him. David says to one of his young men, kill him at his own words. He has just testified that he murdered the Lord's anointed.

Done.

He understood this.

He is showing favoritism. To the Amalekite, put him to death. To Joab, may your father have problems and your family. Do you see the difference? Do you see the favoritism in the text that David is showing?

I think I could even go so far as to say the injustice that David is showing as the king, the new up-and-coming king over Israel. He gives lip service to a murder committed by his closest military advisor while putting to death an Amalekite who is not a friend and therefore appears to be disposable.

David was not above favoritism. There are some deep-seated sins at work in this text. Sins that we maybe can relate to in lesser degrees that don't really swirl around murder but swirl around our own brands of sins and a little bit more passive-aggressive in our lives but sins nonetheless.

On Joab's part, we see a revenge that foments into murder. On David's side, we see a favoritism that leads to disobedience of God's law, both sins. By the way, it's God's law, a law that clearly states that if a man murders a man, then his blood must be shed.

And ultimately, what David is doing here, again I say, is injustice. David is still under this old covenant law and he doesn't fulfill his just responsibility toward God and his law. Instead, he takes upon himself the freedom to determine what God has already clearly prescribed and I think we can be guilty of this as well.

But nowhere in Scripture does the old covenant prescribe curses as a judgment for murder. You get what I'm saying? It never says, hey, if somebody murders somebody, go ahead and call down curses on them.

It's a good just punishment for it. So in what ways do we do the same things? Anytime we refuse the harder judgment and excuse the sins of others or kid-glove our friends while maligning or even judging those who do the same things that we and our friends do, we are following in line with David here.

When we're willingly and knowingly let our closest confidants off the hook for doing the same things that we would harshly judge our critics or our enemies for doing. Does that make any sense? I think we can do that.

If we're not careful, favoritism will seep even into the church. Now hear me carefully, I hope and I believe that we all should have friends within the church. We all should be growing together in community and that doesn't mean that when we gather together as 150 or 200 people here on a Sunday morning that everybody here is, you look around and everybody is equally your friend.

I mean, the goal of community groups is that we break into smaller groups and you connect more at a relational level with people. So I hope that everybody here, and I just encourage you to look around for just a second, maybe not the newest people here, but I hope that you can look around the room and find somebody you trust.

Look around, is there anybody here that you trust? Anybody here that you trust with sharing some of the real things that are going on in your heart, the real things that are going on in your life? I hope you can look around and see somebody you trust.

But the Proverbs make an interesting comment. When they declare that faithful are the wounds of a friend. Faithful are the wounds of a friend. A good friend is faithful to punch us in the soul when we sin.

They're faithful to punch us right in the soul. A true friend will take God's way over our way and will call us out on it, amen? That's a good friend. A good friend will lean into us in our sin and our brokenness and say, is that really the way you wanna live?

Is this really the way,.

You really wanna go down this road?

It would be understandably difficult for David to apply capital punishment to his own military commander. How many of you know that that would be a super tough call? You get it? But he's a murderer. In cold blood, he has wickedly slain another man.

And I honestly believe that David knows what God's law requires of him in this moment and he does not have the guts to do it. David required Joab, so what he does do is he curses Joab, curses his family.

And then he requires Joab and the military and shame to march in mourning before the coffin of Abner. While David followed immediately behind the buyer in torn clothes and sackcloth at the procession, while weeping, David weeping for the death of one who was just so recently his enemy, now turned friend, now turned advocate, now dead.

I wanna ask you a question. Do you think this is a show from David?

Is he putting on a show?

Are the tears fake? Is he actually thinking about back when he was a kid and the ice cream fell off in the middle of the summer and fell off his cone and was there melting? What's he thinking about in his head as he mourns and cries and weeps as he walks down the road behind the buyer of the man who set up an opponent over his kingdom?

What's he thinking? How can he be mourning? Is he secretly glad that Abner is dead and just a really good actor? While it's possible that David is faking sorrow, I don't see everything in his heart, I really don't think so from studying and reading this text, nor from history.

Nor from history do I think that he's faking tears. I think David has genuine cause for lament and sorrow and part of this is history, part of this is understanding. And again, understanding all the flow from 1 Samuel all the way through 2 Samuel, there's a much deeper history between Abner and David than what we've seen in these opening couple of chapters of 2 Samuel.

There's all of 1 Samuel too. And David has known Abner since a very particular event in his life. He was a youth with a sling and a giant sword in his hand and the giant's head in the other when he met Abner.

That's where David was when we first see Abner and David together. It's the first event in his life where the two of them met. And what was Abner's role? Abner, the commander of Saul's army, took this young man who had just been victorious in battle and took him with the head of the giant and the sword and the sling, it was in his pocket or wherever, took him into the presence of King Saul to introduce them.