FBC Daily Devotional – October 13, 2021

Faith Baptist Church

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and we're confronted with a little bit of a civil war. Saul and his son

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Jonathan have died in war, Saul was the king. David has been named the king to take

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Saul's place, but so far only the tribe of Judah has acknowledged

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David as their king. And David has a military leader serving under him, his name is

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Joab, and Saul had another son that was still surviving, and his name was

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Ish -bosheth. And Saul's army, his surviving army, had a leader, military leader, and his name was

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Abner. And Abner said, well, you know, it's only right that the descendant of Saul should be the king to take

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Saul's place. So he, Abner, made Ish -bosheth to be the king. So now we've got in the nation of Israel a little bit of a civil war.

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God had promised David that he would be the king over all Israel after Saul, but, you know,

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Abner wasn't so sure that should be the way it is, and Ish -bosheth, Saul's son, is more than happy to accept the honor of being the king.

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And so there's this strife, here's this conflict. And not necessarily to settle all the conflict, but as a means of expressing the conflict, the men of each side are at this one location, and they're on opposing sides of this area.

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And the leaders say, let's send out 12 men from each side to wrestle, and say, okay, this will be a great sport.

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You know, it's like a little wrestling match here going on. So they each send out their men, and no sooner did the men get out in the middle of this arena to do battle, to wrestle, than each man pulled out his sword, and they all killed each other.

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You can't make this stuff up, right? They all killed each other, and then that caused more of an uprising.

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And Joab and his men start chasing after Abner and his men.

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So the men of David start chasing after the men of Ish -bosheth. And it seems like Joab's men could take over and defeat them.

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And so you've got this strife, you've got this conflict going on. Until finally,

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Abner and his men, they're kind of in a position, it's a strategic position, it's got some fortification, they're fairly well protected, but they're also vulnerable.

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But from that place of fortification and vantage point, being able to look down and call out to Joab, Abner does that very thing.

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And in verse 26 of chapter 2, Abner calls out to Joab and he says,

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Shall the sword devour forever? Do you not know that it will be bitter in the latter end?

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How long will it be then, till you tell your people to return from pursuing their brethren?

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And they were all brothers, in the sense they're all descendants of Jacob, sons of Jacob, and they're all fighting each other.

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So Abner says, Listen, we need to stop this fighting. And Joab said, As God lives, unless you had spoken, surely then by morning all the people would have given up pursuing their brethren.

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We would have fought you until we killed you. So Joab blew a trumpet and all the people stood still and did not pursue

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Israel anymore, nor did they fight anymore. So the conflict was abated.

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Now, what I wanted to just mention briefly here is just this idea that when internal strife is tearing apart a family, a church, a business, an institution, have you ever noticed how one person speaking with a voice of calm reason can bring an end to the conflict and avert horrible disaster?

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I wish it happened more often, but sometimes it does.

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And that's what happened here. Abner was the voice of reason and he caused the conflict to cease.

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Surely it took a Joab who was willing to listen, who was willing to hear and to accept and recognize the wisdom of what was spoken.

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So let's think about this. Are you somehow in the middle of some kind of conflict in your home, in your workplace or whatever?

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Can you be the voice of reason? Is there a voice of reason that perhaps you need to be humble enough to listen to?

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I hope that the Lord will use this passage to get us to think about our role when times of conflict like this come up so that the strife between brethren can be squashed.

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It can dissipate and disappear. Well, Heavenly Father, give us a spirit of humility to listen to the voice of reason, to be a voice of reason so that needless conflict can be put down and can cease.

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And that, well, brethren can dwell together in unity and peace.

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And we pray your blessing as we are those kinds of people. In Jesus' name, amen.

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Well, all right. Have a good rest of your Wednesday. Hope your middle of the week goes well today.