2 Samuel 16:1-14 Enemies Too

Of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsek is preaching from his series, The Warrior Poet King, Study of 2 Samuel.

Let's listen in. I pray that God would meet each and every one of us through his powerful word. My conviction, church, is that the word is what you need. You don't need to hear me get up and share a bunch of thoughts about the culture.

You don't need to hear my political views or my leanings or anything like that. What we need to hear is from God's word, and that's why we take off chunks of God's word, we walk through it, because I believe that this is the foundation of any meaningful growth that's gonna happen in your life regarding your relationship with God.

God has given us a lot of means to grow in him. He has given us his word by which we grow in faith. That's why we make that a central thing. We listen to his word, we believe it, then we go out from here to walk in it, to actually obey it, to live it out.

He has given us this gathering by which we grow in community. We need others, we're designed that way. It is only among others that our faith is tested as we love him by loving others. How do you show God that you love him?

By loving others well. And he has given us gifts so that we can grow in service. Grow in faith, grow in community, grow in service. We all have a role to play in serving our church and community. Every person is a vital part of the mission that God has for this church, to be a blessing to our community.

And I recognize that you all live in different places. Bless the place that God has planted you. Be a blessing there and within the church as well. This morning we're gonna see two enemies that would seek to get in the way of all of that.

All of the good stuff that God wants to get in our lives, there are some enemies out there. There truly are enemies in our lives and David will encounter two of them in our text this morning. David wrote the very well-known Psalm 23, the 23rd Psalm, but we are unsure of the timing of when he penned those words.

It may very well have been in his youth when he was very kind of like connected with agriculture, very shepherd-oriented and sheep were on his mind and being out in the fields were on his mind. And so therefore, what that would imply is that he wrote that in his youth, experienced it throughout his life as he grew.

So he wrote what he didn't know that much about at the time. Other people think and scholars believe it's possible that he wrote this later in life after experiencing God's shepherding hand over his life throughout the course.

But either way, the words of this Psalm reveal an impressive trust in God that shows a perspective that I'm sure was developed throughout his life, either starting with his words as a youth and culminating through a life of experience of the Almighty or resulting, the Psalm resulting from a life that experienced the Almighty.

He begins the Psalm with the words, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Yeah, hold on for a second because you're going, what's this got to do with 2 Samuel? We're gonna get there. What he says at the opening is, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

I have no lack because it is the Lord who takes care of me. God takes care of me. But there's one phrase in the middle of the song that has my attention this week that kind of frames David's understanding of the way that God rolls and works in his life.

David wrote this phrase in the middle of that very famous Psalm. You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies. You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies. Go ahead and give me some jazz hands or raise your hand if you've actually heard that phrase before.

Have you heard that phrase before? You prepare a table, by the way, I'm doing that, some of you are like, what is he doing? I got a little critique about asking everybody to raise their hands all the time.

So I just kind of threw out some jazz hands there. We may very well go back to just raising your hand just to identify, because we'll see if it kind of freaks people out. Especially if you're here for the first time, you're like, what did I just get into?

Jazz hands, are you kidding me? Yeah, just a joke. There is hardly anything more casual, there's hardly anything more routine than sitting at a table for a meal. Have you really considered what's meant in that phrase?

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies? It's probably one that we've heard before and not really given much depth of thought to before. Rarely would a person be concerned for taking the time for a sit-down meal at a table and eat when their enemies are close at hand.

What is David getting at by this phrase? I would suggest to you that David has experienced God's peace and provision, even at times when he has been most hard-pressed by enemies. We are not meant to think that as David was running out to meet the giant Goliath, that lo and behold, in the middle of the field was a table set out by God for him to eat.

With a place setting for one and a steaming hot meal of mutton, lettuce, and tomato just there ready for him. I don't think so. David did experience peace in God's care over him, even in times when he was beset by enemies.

We're gonna see him in our text beset by enemies. So let's open our Bibles, scripture journals, your devices. You can use the app to navigate there. You click on the faith tab at the bottom of the app and there's a place for sermon notes there and it'll pull the text right up for you, a place to take notes there.

But 2 Samuel 16, verses one through 14. Again, 2 Samuel 16, one through 14. We're gonna read this in its entirety together. Church, God's holy and precious word, a word that is gonna try to change us if we just open our hearts to what God and his spirit wants to say to us, we will not leave here the same.

2 Samuel 16, when David had passed a little beyond the summit, Ziba the servant of Mephibosheth met him with a couple of donkey saddled, bearing 200 loaves of bread, 100 bunches of raisins, 100 summer fruits, and a skin of wine.

And the king said to Ziba, why have you brought these? Ziba answered, the donkeys are for the king's household to ride on, the bread and summer fruits for the young men to eat and the wine for those who faint in the wilderness to drink.

And the king said, and where is your master's son? Ziba said to the king, behold, he remains in Jerusalem for he said, today the house of Israel will give me back the kingdom of my father. Then the king said to Ziba, behold, all that belongs to Mephibosheth is now yours.

And Ziba said, I pay homage. Let me ever find favor in your sight, my lord the king. When King David came to Behurim, there came out a man of the family of the house of Saul, whose name was Shammai, the son of Gerah.

And as he came, he cursed continually. And he threw stones at David and at all the servants of King David and all the people and all the mighty men were on his right hand and on his left. And Shammai said, as he cursed, get out, get out, you man of blood, you worthless man.

The Lord has avenged on you all the blood of the house of Saul in whose place you have reigned. And the Lord has given the kingdom into the hand of your son Absalom. See, your evil is on you for you are a man of blood.

Then Abishai, the son of Zariah said to the king, why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over and take off his head. But the king said, what have I to do with you, you sons of Zariah?

If he is cursing because the Lord has said to him, curse David, who then shall say, why have you done so? And David said to Abishai and to all his servants, behold, my own son seeks my life. How much more now may this Benjaminite leave him alone and let him curse for the Lord has told him to.

It may be that the Lord will look on the wrong done to me and that the Lord will repay me with good for his cursing today. So David and his men went on the road while Shammai went along on the hillside opposite him and cursed as he went and threw stones at him and flung dust.

And the king and all the people who were with him arrived weary at the Jordan. And there he refreshed himself. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for your word that has the power to transform us, has the power to change us.

And even here we read a historical account that at face value can be a bit difficult for us to know how to apply. And yet we see in Ziba an opportunist. I'll be clear in the sermon as we unfold that. And we see in Shammai the negative ranting troll, both spirits that are well alive in our culture, both spirits that are tempting to each one of us.

The opportunist who even at the pain of others would seek to get ahead, seek to use every means and squeeze out of every opportunity, self-gain, self-promotion. And then just the pull in our own hearts toward negativity, toward cursing instead of blessing.

Father, that's not the way you've designed us. That's not what you've saved us unto. You've saved us unto blessing others, not to be a cursing people. So Father, I pray that you would work in each heart here by the power of your grace, recognizing how the cross solves that.

I pray that by the end of this message, we would throw ourselves completely and wholeheartedly at the cross and recognizing the hope that we have in the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Victory over the spirit of Ziba, victory over the spirit of Shammai, victory over the opportunistic desire to come ahead and victory over the negativity that we see in our own hearts and in our own culture.

We have so much to be thankful for. And I pray that you would even now be working thankfulness and gratitude into your people as we have an opportunity to lift up our voices and praise together. What a glorious thing this is.

We may not even see fully all that you're doing here in our midst by bringing us together, but we rejoice together and we thank you for this congregation and for this gathering this morning. In Jesus name, amen.

All right, yeah, you can go ahead and be seated and make yourself comfortable. I would ask that you please do yourself a favor and reopen to 2 Samuel 16, one through 14. If you lost your place there, jump back in there so you've got that on your lap so that you can see the things I'm talking about are gonna just walk us through that text, 2 Samuel 16, one through 14.

And I say this every week, but if you, I mean it sincerely, if you need to get more coffee or juice or donut holes back there, if there's some left, you can take advantage of that. You're not gonna distract me if you get up during the middle of the message.

Anything short of shouting me down is probably gonna go whew. So, and even that might, I might miss that. But if you need the restrooms, those are out the double doors down the hallway on the left-hand side.

Ziba the Opportunist and the Danger of Self-Promotion

Our text is a bit strange this morning. I read it, and it's gonna cover two enemies that David faced, and that's gonna cause us to reflect on the operating factors in the heart of these two enemies. And I would say, suggest to you that these are two operating factors that are going on in their hearts that are very prevalent in our culture, and we might find them in our own hearts as well.

We will meet Ziba the opportunist, Ziba who is concerned for himself and for his own standing and trying to hedge himself into a better position. Ziba who will even do kindness as long as it pushes his own agenda ahead.

He may not look like an enemy at first blush, but Ziba is dangerous. He will do what he can to stay in favor with power, and I think we can kind of imagine how that could factor into an application point at the end about our own lives.

The second person we're gonna see is Shemai. Shemai is a blogger ranting and trolling everywhere. I think I've met him in the comments section of the interwebs. I think Shemai still lives today in the heart of everyone who is always a critic.

You've met him, you've known them, maybe some of us have been him. Everyone who speaks what he doesn't know is fact, but will still put anyone on blast who he has heard a rumor about, that is a Shemai.

The text is an ancient encounter. The attitudes are modern. They are imminently relevant. They are hopefully personally convicting. The most fundamental thing that we need to establish in order to understand where we're at in the book of 2 Samuel and what in the world is going on in this text, and really understanding the entirety of this movement of David's life where he's fleeing from his son Absalom, is to understand fundamentally that God is the one who has established him as his chosen king.

Without that understanding, we're missing a lot of this. What is this about, Absalom? Don't often kings end poorly? Doesn't this go the wrong direction? Is Absalom really sinning in this or is this kind of the way that sons gain the throne?

Well, God anointed David and his youth through the prophet Samuel, and nothing has removed that anointing. Not David's sin, not his messed up family, certainly not his own son's attempted coup that we are seeing in these several chapters where Absalom is trying to take over Daddy's kingdom, but it is a God-ordained kingdom.

David's oldest surviving son is trying to kill his father, straight up. He has already declared himself king, and just before Absalom marches into Jerusalem to kill Daddy and take the throne, David's squeezed out of the city to the east as Absalom is coming up from the south.

And so we see this plodding road east toward the wilderness, toward the other side of the Jordan River, out into the wilderness, the desert wilderness area, out into what is modern day, the country of modern day Jordan.

That's where he's heading, he's heading out east. Now, our text barely moves David down the road. As a matter of fact, between last week, we saw him leaving Jerusalem, this week we see him get to the Jordan by the end.

He's barely moving down the road at all, and instead what it does is our text camps out on two particular encounters that David has with two men, two guys, who have wrong intentions toward the king. The first we encounter is Ziba in the text, and he is a run-of-the-mill opportunist.

I think that most of us have encountered a person who wants to get ahead by any means possible, and they will use any means possible, they will even use people to try to get ahead. Just ask yourself this, like, is this alive today?

Well, why is it so often so difficult for families to settle estates when both parents pass away? Well, a family can be getting along really well until there's a lot of money involved, and it's because of the selfish desire to get ahead, even in dark times, and that's a reality of the human heart.

It's a real problem still today. Well, what you need to understand here in the text is that Ziba is the servant of a guy named Mephibosheth. Mephibosheth is over Ziba. Ziba is supposed to be serving this guy named Mephibosheth, and we probably need a little bit of history to understand that relationship, to really understand why in the world am I even saying Ziba's doing wrong?

Doesn't he bring out food? Isn't he, it looks in the text like he's bringing out good stuff for David, and why am I up here kind of talking bad about him? Like, I mean, it seems like he's a servant of David or something like that.

Well, he's a servant of Mephibosheth, and David had interacted with him back in chapter nine. You could go back and listen to that message if you want. I preached that a few weeks ago, but Mephibosheth was the crippled son of David's best friend, Jonathan.

So David had this best friend in life. His name was Jonathan. He was the son of the king at the time, the crown prince of Saul's kingdom, and a quick refresher on that, David had pledged to Jonathan, his best friend in life, that he would care for his family when he came into his kingdom.

It was revealed to Jonathan that he was not going to be the next king. He was next in line. His daddy was the king. He's the crown prince, and God somehow revealed to Jonathan, no, David's gonna be the next king, and Jonathan went with it.

That's the kind of character that Jonathan had, a humility that goes, I'm in line, but I'm not gonna be the next king. You are, and David, God has showed me so clearly that I'm asking of you a favor when you become king.

Take care of my kids. Take care of my family. Don't put them to death like the tradition of the kings are in our modern pagan culture. The tradition is you just kill everybody that could possibly claim the throne, then you get it.

That's the idea, and he says, please don't do that. So Jonathan and his father Saul were killed in one battle. We see that at the very beginning of 2 Samuel, and David became king over the course of a few chapters, and he remembered his covenant to Jonathan, and he took care of Jonathan's son, Mephibosheth, and he did so by assigning Ziba, this guy occurs in that text back there, as head over all of Mephibosheth's farms.

He is the head servant over all of Mephibosheth's holdings. Well, why is he put in charge? Well, Mephibosheth was injured in a strange event where Saul and Jonathan are killed in battle, and the assumption, like I just said, is the assumption is that somebody's coming to kill the kids.

That's the way it went in ancient times. The king is dead, scoop up all the kids that could possibly claim the throne, and head to the hills. So that's what the nurse does, the one, the nanny, who took care of the kids, scoops them all up and goes running, and as she runs, she drops Mephibosheth, and every indication is that from that point on, he was injured, likely a paraplegic.

His legs didn't work from that point on. And the text was clear back in chapter nine. And so David has been carrying Mephibosheth to his royal table to eat with his royal entourage and to eat the king's food every day for a long time when we get to our text here.

He has been taking care of Jonathan's son. He has been following through on a covenant of loyalty that he made to a dead guy, his best friend. Now if anyone should be loyal to David, it should be Mephibosheth, that's what you need to understand, that's why I'm going into this detail.

If anybody should be loyal to David, it should be Mephibosheth, who expected rightly death at the king's hands, and instead has been granted royal favor, tons of property from the dynasty of King Saul, his grandfather, and he is set for life, and David has cared for him.

But now in this moment of deep crisis for David, as his son is seeking to kill him, as I'm imagining he's a bit flustered and unclear about what's going on and he's just fleeing and trying to save his own skin, on the road out of Jerusalem, he's got a huge entourage, Ziba just conveniently happens to show up.

He comes with saddled donkeys bearing, according to the text, 200 loaves of bread, 100 cakes of raisins, and what is likely 100 baskets of summer fruits, and a skin of wine. Now this might sound to our ears like a ton of food, and it is quite possible and quite likely that the two donkeys had to pull a cart in order to bring all of this stuff.

And yet with David's entourage, we know that it includes at least 600 foreign fighters and all their families, that's a lot of people, and certainly many more who were not foreign fighters were with this entourage.

This is like bringing out coffee, and I will always say thanks if you bring me coffee, I'll always say thanks for that. But it isn't going to sustain this large mass exodus from Jerusalem, it's a gift, but it's a token gift, it's a nice gesture.

Don't get me wrong, what we see Ziba doing here is nice, but we get a vision of his motivations that are more dark. What's going on in his heart, and what he's doing on the outside is for his own personal gain.

Ziba appears thoughtful in verse two, and it certainly would have taken him some time and effort to pull together this gift from his master Mephibosheth's storehouse. What is he blessing David with? It's not his stuff, it's his master's stuff.

Are you starting to get a little glimpse of what's going on in Ziba's heart here? He's using his master's stuff to gain some blessing for himself, but further he goes on to actually slander his own master.

And so David asks the logical question in verse three, where is your master, where's he at? And this is where we depart from Ziba as a good guy. This is where his heart begins to be betrayed and show itself.

You might not see it right away, but Ziba has a wicked heart. He lies about his master here. Ziba says that his master Mephibosheth has remained in Jerusalem hoping to regain the kingdom of his grandfather Saul.

Mephibosheth has designs on your kingdom, David, always has. And now he sees in your departure a chance to become king himself, Mephibosheth. And here in this moment of high emotions, David, in a moment of weakness, gives to Ziba exactly what he was gunning for.

David takes all the possessions of Mephibosheth and gives them to Ziba there on the spot by fiat. The king's statement is the law. And he says, everything that was Mephibosheth's is now yours, Ziba, a turn of master to servant.

Just like that. Ziba was hoping to ingratiate himself to the king by his acts of conniving kindness, but I don't imagine that he even thought his plan would work this good. He's gotten everything that he wants, just like that.

He has taken all of these goods from his own master. He has given them to David in order to win his favor in a moment of weakness. And he is exploiting both Mephibosheth and David for his own gain. And David grants him all that once belonged to Mephibosheth.

Now the reason we know that Ziba's conniving is unfortunately you don't have the benefit of doing this, but I do, I've read the entire book multiple times in the preparation for this sermon. And we're gonna encounter Mephibosheth again later in chapter 19.

So you can, I mean, later on, if anything that I say here, you got a question mark over your mind, why do I think this guy's a bad guy? Well, you can go forward, read chapter 19 later and see what I see.

And he will explain that Mephibosheth says, I'm a victim of Ziba's plot. David is going, why, later in chapter 19, he's gonna say, Mephibosheth, why didn't you come out with me? And Mephibosheth's gonna go, look at my legs.

They don't work. And Ziba refused to put me on a horse and let me out of town with him. And see, I haven't shaved and I've got dust and ashes and I've ripped my clothes. And the only thing I wanted, David, was to go with you.

You're my king and I love you. You've treated me so kindly. And Ziba messed me over. Wouldn't let me get out of the city with you. I was dependent on him. He was my servant and he completely broke ranks and went out to you with my stuff.

That's the heart of Ziba, willing to even push aside somebody with special needs in order to gain for himself. Assigned as the servant by the king to this man, Mephibosheth, and says, nah, I'm gonna serve you myself.

Mephibosheth wanted to join David, but Ziba refused to help him. And his disability prevented him from departing the city with the king that he absolutely loved. I need to give Dale Davis credit for a phrase here.

In his commentary, I encountered it. I'm using it throughout this message. It's Ziba-ism. Ziba-ism. And that's what he says in his commentary on this passage. And I believe he rightly identifies that Ziba-ism is a significant problem in our culture and probably at times, even in our own hearts.

Americans have a radical desire to get ahead, do we not? It used to express itself, I think, in the worship of work and money. That's what we thought it meant to get ahead, was work and money and work and money and work and money and work, work, work some more.

But I think it expresses itself a little bit differently in the, as the generations move on, what we worship changes. The way we try to obtain it is still the same. And what we worship more now is entertainment and ease.

So you work only enough to make sure you've got the ease and entertainment that you need. And that's kind of what I think is developing in our culture today. But the spirit of Ziba is alive wherever we see dishonest schemes and deception in order to promote self.

Do you see it? Do you see it? Nod your head if you see it. We all see it. Wherever we see backstabbing and cutthroat exploitation of a crisis in order to gain financially, there is Zibaism. Many of us may deny that we have bought into it.

We would never do what Ziba did here. We would never push somebody aside in order to get ahead, would we? But I think this has more subtle applications in our lives in many facets and many fingers that it can reach into a soul.

We may have been guilty of the spiritual sin of Zibaism. When we try to make ourselves look better than others for some spiritual clout, try to put others down. Whenever we paint ourselves in a better light on social media to gain whatever social capital we believe is available.

Whenever we put another down to exalt ourself. Whenever we call into question the work of a coworker in subtle conversation, just to plant the seeds of our next promotion. We can be subtle manipulators in this regard, can we not?

We are working an unholy ambition when we do these things. We are seeking the favor of a superior at the expense of another for the purpose of unholy gain. God says, really, Jesus says, you can serve God or you can serve wealth.

You can serve God or you can serve money. But Jesus says definitively, you will not serve both. You won't be able to serve both. I'm gonna ask you to raise your hand. How many of you think he was right?

Jesus was right. You can't serve both. And Ziba made his choice. Ziba made his choice. I just need the money. Give me the goods. And he got a lot of land and a lot of lewd out of the deal. Ziba's gonna show up again, but his judgment will not be as strong as we might want because the king has now issued a command by fiat and it's hard to withdraw the words of a king.

He gave everything that belonged to Mephibosheth to Ziba in a moment of deception. The second enemy David faces is more overt. We see it in the text and you kind of hear it and we read it earlier. He's only about two miles east of Jerusalem at Beharim when he encounters Shammai according to verse five.

Now it's 20 miles down to the Jordan. We do not know how far Shammai followed this entourage, but we're gonna see David exhausted by the end of this day. He encounters him just a couple of miles out of Jerusalem.

He's gonna travel 18 more miles after he encounters Shammai. But Shammai is from the same family clan of King Saul, not just of the tribe of Benjamin. That's where King Saul comes from, but actually from the very clan, like the tribes were broken down into family clans and he's from that grouping.

So he was actually close in family relationship to King Saul and he is a troll, but there's no internet. So he's in real life. He follows David along the road, cursing him continually. Are you tired yet?

Are you annoyed yet? You ever have anybody who just is perpetually a burr under your saddle, is constantly an annoyance, is constantly a negative influence? That's what we've got going on here, cursing him nonstop.

This doesn't mean by the way that he's necessarily swearing. When we hear the word cursing, our minds likely go to swear words, naughty words, dirty words, whatever. But here he is just calling down judgment on King David.

He is cursing him like legitimately, like saying, may God like do bad things to you. Like that's what a curse means. And he's throwing stones at all the people surrounding David, including even his mighty men are there, it says in the text.

It wants to make an emphasis that like, this guy's that cracked. Like, do you read the exploits of David's mighty men? We're gonna see some of those exploits at the end of this book. And some of these guys are like, yeah, I just went down on a pit on a snowy day and killed a lion with my bare hands.

Like, what? What are you talking about? Like, yeah, there was this Egyptian. He had a spear like a weaver's beam, took it out of his hands and slew him with his own spear. He was about eight foot tall.

What? Are you kidding me? Like, these are David's mighty men here. And who am I pelting with rocks? These guys. Like, you gotta be a little like, whoa, like something's not here, right? Like talk about kicking a hornet's nest.

This guy is playing with fire here. Pelting the king and his entourage here with rocks. And he says some interesting things in verse seven that's worth thinking through. He called David a murderer, and he calls him a worthless man, shouting on the road continually, get out, get out, get out.

Well, David's trying to get out. He's walking down the road. But it is hard if you think about it. And I don't think we give much thought to this. And I just wanna encourage you because Jesus says if you call somebody fool, you've committed murder in your heart.

And what does he mean by that? Well, he means hatred and animosity in our heart is a bad thing. But let me just suggest to you that it is hard to state enough what an affront is found in the phrase worthless man.

Do you think of that as an affront? Well, I can think of worse things to call somebody. I can think of worse things to say, can you? Can you think of worse things to say? Because I don't think you can.

That is an oxymoron of the highest degree, worthless man. Those two words should never, ever, ever be put together. Worthless man, what is a man? What do you understand a human to be? That phrase, worthless man, can only be fueled by the pit of hell.

To call somebody worthless, to call one who bears the image of the almighty God worthless? Oh, we should be convicted. It is a serious thing. The fall has indeed, hear me carefully, church. The fall has indeed marred our worth because we don't live up to our potential.

But that potential remains in all of humanity. That's the point of the cross, church. Jesus didn't come to redeem junk and trinkets. He came to die for we who are broken mirrors designed to reflect God to each other in creation.

When I say I'm unworthy and I will say that all the time up here, I will say it frequently, I will say it regularly, I am indeed unworthy and I hope that you would say the same thing. You are unworthy, but it's only in relationship to our sin.

It's only in relationship to my sin that I am unworthy. And so David allows Shimei to go on cursing him in this way because he knows God has sent him to remind him of the unrealized potential that is wrapped up in his sin with Bathsheba and all of these consequences that he's facing here as he flees Jerusalem and his son is trying to kill him.

But it's valuable for us, church, to consider these two truths and keep them in tension. We are unworthy due to our rebellion against God's way just like David. But within our nature as beings created to carry the image of our creator and to glorify him forever, we have unimaginable value.

Unimaginable value just like David. But when we get to verse eight, we begin to see that the troll has his facts wrong. Anybody surprised? Trolls always have their facts wrong, right? But they don't care because they don't play on the same level playing field.

I mean, they don't need to use logic. They don't need to use rationality. They just have to get you angry. That's all they have to do. And so he's got his facts wrong. He's accusing David of the blood of the house of King Saul.

What's he getting at? You put to death the previous king and you took the throne by violence and blood. But the author of 2 Samuel has bent over backwards to clarify that David had nothing to do with the death of the descendants of Saul.

He has preserved Mephibosheth. He has gone to great lengths to be sure that no one could accuse him of lifting his hand up against the former king. He had him in a cave, remember? Saul's there relieving himself and his own leaders and his own military are like, God has put him in your hand today.

Just plunge the knife and be done with it. And then you can be king, David. And he says, no, I can't do this. How could I raise my hand up against the Lord's anointed? David refused to use any violence against King Saul's house but Shammai is accusing him of that.

Here's a man accusing him of the very thing that he has worked so unreasonably hard to be sure he couldn't be accused of. False accusation never feels good at all, right? It's never a good thing. And I'm guessing that likely all of us here have faced that at some point in various levels.

Go ahead and raise your hand if you've ever been accused of something. Keep your hand up if it was false. There you go. But I wanna point out the irony that we know something that Shammai doesn't. He has the right accusation.

He has the right accusation but the wrong deeds. He says at the end of verse eight, see, your evil is on you, David, for you are a man of blood. And what he means by this is you took the throne by bloody violence against my family, the family of King Saul, while we know that David's evil is indeed on him.

That's why he's fleeing the city. And he has indeed been a man of blood. And hear me carefully, church, it is the blood of Uriah the Hittite that is on his hands. He has blood on his hands. Shammai has merely misidentified whose blood it is.

Does he get the right accusation? Gets the right critique for the wrong reasons. And how often is that true of us? I asked you to raise your hand if you've been falsely accused, but bear with me for a second.