2 Samuel 4 False Redeemers

You're listening to a podcast 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. Welcome to Recast Church.

I'm glad that you're here. And I want to start off by welcoming you and pointing right off the bat to our

Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. How many of you are glad that you have a Savior? Amen.

We have a Redeemer, and that's going to factor in quite a bit to the message this morning. I'm going to introduce the message, then we're going to read the text, then we're going to go to a time of singing some songs, and then we're going to really walk through this text more carefully.

But there is one who has loved you more than you can imagine. There is one who has known all of your sin, and not just all of your sin, but he has known every ounce of your crazy.

He has known all of your doubts, all of your rebelliousness and sin against him, and he has chosen to love you anyway.

Wow. We have a Redeemer who does not merely ignore all the bad things about us, not just kind of brushing it under the rug, and I'll deal with that later, but he came here to rescue us from it.

And I want to start and end our time together this morning with reflections on our Redeemer, because throughout the heart of this sermon this morning in Second Samuel, we're going to be contemplating and considering false

Redeemers. False Redeemers. There are those who will come forward and propose that they are the ones who will rescue us.

If we just dance to their tune, if we dance to the beat of their drum, then they will save us, or they're the secret.

They've got something extra for you. Yeah, Jesus is okay, but what I have is what you need.

And we'll see that the guys in the text bring something kind of strange in an attempt to try to redeem somebody else.

It's a little bit of a strange text. But there are ones who will give us what they think we want and what they think we need.

Our text this morning is a gruesome text. I want to clarify that. And before we read it, I actually just want to give this.

I didn't plan this in advance. It's not in my notes. But as I look out and I see some kids in here, I just want everybody in here to be clear that if this was a movie, if it was depicted in a movie, it would be rated

R. Now, not because of any sexual content, but primarily because it's graphic and gruesome. So if there's anybody here who's just like,

I think my kid's pretty, pretty sensitive to hearing that kind of stuff, you might just feel free to step out in the lobby for just a minute while I read it, and then

I'll tell you when I'm going to read it, and then you can just decide that accordingly. But now that I mentioned it, I certainly have every kid's attention in the room.

Why did I do that? I don't know. Maybe God knows. I don't know. But it's gruesome.

It's gruesome what happens in this text, and you'll see it, as a lot of things are in the Old Testament. You guys notice that before?

It doesn't pull any punches about people's inhumanity towards one another. In the ancient world, kingdoms didn't form without at least a little bloodshed and a little bit of betrayal.

And in these biblical histories and historical accounts, we see God steering the ship, even as humanity is acting poorly, even as humanity is doing things our way, which is a sinful way.

We're going to see two guys named Rechab and Banna in our text this morning. We're going to read about them here in a moment.

And they will prove to be attempted false saviors, bringing false hopes, and bringing with them even false theology in their words.

And David, who looked at his life through the worldview of God's sovereign grace, God's sovereignty, he saw through the falsehood, because he knew that God was the one

Redeemer of his life. He didn't need more than God. When someone came to him and said,

Look, how God has used me to save you, he has looked at the deliverances of the past as the work of God.

He's seen how God has worked in his past, and he's seen that as his deliverance. And he knows that it is God who is his

Redeemer. And so, let's open our Bibles to 2 Samuel 4. And if you've got a device, feel free to navigate on your device or the

Scripture Journal. Maybe you have one of those that you're taking notes in. But let's follow along, church, in the very word of God.

I mentioned that it's gruesome, but I also recognize that it is a holy word that rightly reflects what we're like.

Starting in 2 Samuel, and we'll read the entirety of chapter 4. When Ish -bosheth, Saul's son heard that Abner had died at Hebron.

His courage failed, and all Israel was dismayed. Now Saul's son had two men who were captains of raiding bands.

The name of the one was Banna, and the name of the other Rechab. Sons of Rimmon, a man of Benjamin from Beeroth.

For Beeroth also is counted part of Benjamin. The Beerothites fled to Getaim and have been sojourners there to this day.

Jonathan, the son of Saul, had a son who was crippled in his feet. He was five years old when the news about Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel.

And his nurse took him up and fled. And as she fled in her haste, he fell and became lame, and his name was

Mephibosheth. Now the sons of Rimmon, the Beerothite, Rechab and Banna, set out in about the heat of the day, and they came to the house of Ish -bosheth as he was taking his noonday rest.

And they came into the midst of the house as if to get wheat, and they stabbed him in the stomach. Then Rechab and Banna, his brother, escaped.

When they came into the house, as he lay on his bed in his bedroom, they struck him, put him to death, and beheaded him. They took his head and went by the way of the

Araba all night, and brought the head of Ish -bosheth to David at Hebron. And they said to the king,

Here is the head of Ish -bosheth, the son of Saul, your enemy, who sought your life. The Lord has avenged my lord, the king, this day on Saul and on his offspring.

But David answered Rechab and Banna, his brother, the sons of Rimmon, the Beerothite, As the

Lord lives, who has redeemed my life out of every adversity? When one told me,

Behold, Saul is dead, and thought he was bringing good news, I seized him and killed him at Ziklag, which was the reward

I gave him for his news. How much more, when wicked men have killed a righteous man in his own home on his bed, shall

I not now require his blood at your hand to destroy you from the earth? And David commanded his young men, and they killed them, and cut off their hands and feet, and hanged them beside the pool at Hebron.

But they took the head of Ish -bosheth and buried it in the tomb of Abner at Hebron.

Let's pray. Father, we can look at these ancient texts, and we can look at the gruesomeness that we see here, and a bit of gore, and a lot of violence.

And it might make our civil and modern minds real a little bit.

It might make our sensibilities pressed a bit. But then we recognize the sinfulness of our own hearts, and I pray that you would press within us the reality of the way that we work and manipulate situations, usually not with daggers, and not with blades, but with our own form of cutting.

So, Father, I pray that you would bring conviction to us, but also bring a sense of trust in the Redeemer, just as David here expresses that no trust in Rechab, no trust in Banna, no trust in their proposed salvation, but in the salvation that he had experienced time and time again that came from you.

So, Father, I pray that you would press that in our hearts. Thank you for a Redeemer. Thank you for the hope that we have in Jesus Christ.

Our one Redeemer who has done it all for us. We thank you that there is no more to be accomplished.

There is no more for us to do in terms of our salvation, but it has been won by Jesus Christ at the cross for us.

And so I ask that you would help us to sing songs with hearts set free because of what

Jesus Christ has done for us. That is the unifying factor in this church, and we thank you for it.

We thank you that we gather together under Jesus Christ with hope in Him. As people who have gone through all kinds of difficulties and joys this week, united under this one common banner that we are saved by the blood of Jesus Christ.

And we thank you for that in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thanks a lot to the band for leading us in worship.

And I want to point out something. How many of you notice that occasionally we drop a slide up there?

Like it just doesn't show up up there. Did you notice that, that first song? How many of you noticed that, that first song? Go ahead and just raise your hand if you noticed that.

We are trying our best to fix that. We cannot replicate that during the week.

That happens on Sunday morning. So maybe this is a prayer issue and we need to just pray for that. Because it really honestly, seriously, it happens on Sunday morning.

And then we practice it during the week and it doesn't do that. Let's go ahead and give a hand to the person that's sitting up there right now who is the one who's going, why won't it go, why won't it go?

Okay, thank you for doing that. I appreciate that because honestly that is stressful when you're sitting there pressing the right button and it doesn't advance the slide.

So I feel bad for her up there. But glad that we can be patient. And were you able to worship

God? Okay, praise God for that. I want you to get as comfortable as possible and keep your

Bibles open to 2 Samuel chapter 4. I say as comfortable as possible because this could be a potentially uncomfortable passage, right?

Like I read it and you guys go, ooh, there's a lot to it. But let me start with some comparisons this morning.

I intend for these comparisons to help us to recognize that when we come to these Old Testament texts, there are some things we can relate to and some things we can't.

So let me just share some of these contrasts. First of all, we know that David is a king and we are not.

Okay, David's a king and we're not. So there's a difference there in the way that he, the things that he does as king are not like things that we ought to do as just followers of Christ.

The second contrast is that David lives under Jewish law. We do not. The third is that David has the power to execute justice because he's king, obviously.

We do not. So I want to clarify those three things as contrasts.

But now here are some things that are similar to David and us so that we can kind of go, well, there are some places that we draw near.

David has been given a promise by God, and it's a promise that he has to lean on God to fulfill.

God has said, I'm going to make you king, and he has to lean on God to fulfill that. So have we.

We've been given promises by God that are completely in his hands. We have to lean on him to fulfill the promises that he has given.

The second thing that's a common ground between us and David is that David has been rescued many times over by God, and so have we.

If we just have eyes to see the blessings, the gifts, the things that he's given to us, the way that he rescues, we ought to be filled with gratitude just like David.

The third thing is that David must use discernment to determine what is and is not from God. How many of you have had to do that this week?

Things have come at you and you're like, is this God or is this not God? Is this something that he wants me to lean into, or is this something he wants me to walk away from?

Opportunities, options, all different kinds of things. Is this from God? And we must discern.

And so I'm going to give a bit of an outline this morning to the text just to help provide a loose framework. These are not going to be the takeaway points.

This is just to show you the flow and structure of the text. The first is the setting, verses 1 through 4. So 1 through 4 just basically give us kind of the context.

And then verses 5 through 7, the second point is the attempted sacrifice. Verse 8 stands alone as an introduction and kind of an explanation of false redeemers.

Verses 9 through 12 are the judgment, the judgment. And so that's our outline setting, attempted sacrifice, the false redeemers, and the judgment.

Verses 1 through 4 do a really good job of reminding us of the context and setting of what's going on here and what's been kind of going on.

And it introduces us to some of those main things that we need to be reminded of in order to understand what's going on in the text.

Abner had been King Saul's military commander. So he was King Saul's second in command.

And when Saul died, Abner took it upon himself to set up a new king, Saul's youngest son,

Ish -bosheth. Now I want to point out that there's always been, in case you didn't know this or you're not a student of history, there's always been a potential tension historically between government and their military.

There's always been a risk at where the power lies. Does the power lie with Congress or does it rest with our generals?

Does it rest with our military? And historically, in any power vacuum left by the death of a leader, there is the potential for a military commander to take over.

As a matter of fact, as recently as just a couple decades ago, that happened in the country of Pakistan, where a general literally rose to power and ended up taking over the government.

So that kind of stuff still happens, where within the military structure is the power of the military complex that can be kind of dangerous.

And so we see that over and over in history, and that's what's happened. Abner, the military guy, has taken over the leadership, but he has put in place a puppet king.

Abner set up the youngest of King Saul's sons, Ish -bosheth, and he's just a puppet. But the real power rests in the military leader,

Abner. Now Abner was the one really in charge, and that's shown in verse 1, because Abner was killed last week, in the text last week.

Not literally last week, but he was killed in the text, in the sermon last week. And so Saul's son Ish -bosheth, at the death of his military commander, who was really the one propping him up, he's now lost courage.

In the text, the Hebrew phrase is that his hands fell. Picture him flexing, and then

Abner's gone, and his arms are weak, they fall. And all of Israel was dismayed at the power vacuum of this gap of leadership.

So at a snapshot in time in verse 1, to kind of give us this setting, Ish -bosheth, he now remains as a weak, fearful king over the 11 northern tribes of Israel, the big chunk of Israel.

David is the rising star as king over the one southern -most tribe called

Judah. And God has promised David that he will be king over all Israel. And all of this first four chapters of 2

Samuel has been driving towards God fulfilling his promise to King David. Now how many of you are glad that God is a

God who both promises things, but then fulfills those promises? I'm glad, and that's what we're seeing here.

We're seeing God demonstrating his faithfulness to keep his promises, even these kinds of promises to this

Old Testament character David. God has promised that he will be king over all Israel, and all of Israel is moving toward preferring

David as their ruler in this snapshot of verse 1. And in this setting we're introduced to two captains that would have served under Abner.

Abner's died, but two of his captains, and they're captains of raiding parties for the king.

Captains of raiding parties, the text tells us, which immediately makes them sound more like scoundrels than anything, right?

And they prove to be, they do indeed prove to be scoundrels. I'm a scoundrel.

Yeah, there you go. You can tell what kind of geek I am right away. They are brothers of a man, it says in the text, a man named

Rimen. So these two are brothers, Barna and Rechab, and they are of the tribe of Benjamin.

That is pretty significant. The significance of them being from the tribe of Benjamin is demonstrated in verses 2 through 3, and it's clearly communicated.

These two men are of the same tribe of King Saul. The significance here is that this makes their attempted defection to David all the more powerful in the narrative.

If anyone was going to be loyal to King Saul and his royal line in his household, it would be one from his own tribe, a

Benjaminite. But these two guys from the tribe of Benjamin, from the very tribe of King Saul, probably the most loyal bond there, they're going to oppose him, and oppose him heavily.

One further minor note is that I love the way that Scripture makes sure we know that we're not reading mythology.

The author breaks from the story to clear up any confusion for the audience in his current context as of the writing of this.

So the guy with the pen and the parchment, the guy who's writing this down, he wants to clarify that, don't forget, that Beeroth is indeed included in part of Benjamin.

Now why would he do that? Well, he wants to clarify for his readers, because obviously Beeroth was not included in Benjamin in their minds.

And so they're like, wait, why are you saying that Beeroth is part of Benjamin? It's not. Much like we might say, wait, Pluto was a planet.

And someone might remind us, no, Pluto was relegated to lesser status back in that fateful, tragic year, 2006.

Poor, poor Pluto. How many of you were raised to think of Pluto as one of the planets?

Should we reinstate it? Are we going to have a vote right now? I mean, this just seems unfair. All those years as a planet and not anymore.

But anyways, so you can see how somebody might say it's a planet and then it has to be corrected, and that's what he's doing here in the text.

He's like, no, don't forget that the Beerothites moved to Getaim, but they're still, they moved out of Benjamin.

They moved to an area called Getaim, but they're still part of Benjamin, even though they're outside of the boundaries of it now. So that's what he's getting at there.

Just to demonstrate to us that these are real people. This is a real context. These are real humans living in real time in real villages in this ancient time.

And verse 4 rounds out the setting for us with what may seem like a strange insertion about the one remaining grandson of King Saul, but it's got significance here in the text.

The son of Jonathan, David's best friend on the planet, who died in battle with his father,

King Saul, had a son. That son's name was Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son, the crown prince of Israel who died in battle.

Mephibosheth was five years old when his father and his grandfather died in that same battle, and the news came to the household of King Saul, Jonathan's household, that Saul and Jonathan were dead.

The expectation was immediate and swift transfer of power. In other words, the assumption was somebody's already claimed to be king.

The king is dead. Somebody else will immediately claim that kingdom, and they're probably already on their way to kill all potential heirs to King Saul.

You get that? That would be the thought. That would be the mindset in this ancient time. Why in the world does the nurse pick up Mephibosheth and run?

Why is she fleeing? The expectation is that somebody's coming for his life immediately. We've got to go hide him.

We've got to go hide all the sons of Jonathan. Go hide all the sons of Saul because somebody is coming to kill them to claim the throne for themselves.

That power vacuum was a dangerous time in any era, in any government in ancient history.

The nurse took up Mephibosheth, but in her haste, it says, she dropped him and he became lame. We don't know in what way she drops a five -year -old to the point where he can't move his legs anymore, but that's what the text tells us.

Mephibosheth is going to feature in a very tender story of compassion that's coming up in a few weeks. Again, a little teaser trailer on a message that's coming up in chapter 9 of this.

He features pretty significantly in that. He is mentioned here to demonstrate what is about to be left of Saul's household.

His only living descendant to the throne is right now Ish -bosheth, a weak king, who says his strength is gone, his hands have fallen, and a seven -year -old grandson.

We know this is about approximately two years after the death of Saul that these things are transpiring.

His only descendant to the throne is a seven -year -old grandson who is paralyzed and has to be carried everywhere.

This, by the way, is setting us up for a Davidic coronation coming soon. The story of Mephibosheth is where we get one of our songs.

I don't know if you realize this or not. You might just think it's kind of a creative metaphor, but we sing the song carried to the table.

We sing that regularly during communion or listen to it during communion. We're going to see where that song comes from in the story of Mephibosheth in chapter 9, a tender story.

That's the setting, and now we get to the attempted sacrifice. This is where it starts to get gruesome.

Rechab and Banna have been introduced in the context as captains of Ish -bosheth's raiding parties. I mentioned scoundrels of sorts.

They set out from Beeroth in the middle of the day, kind of the cover of the middle of the day, where everybody is going to be having siesta.

They arrive at Ish -bosheth's house, palace, or whatever you want to call it, in the middle of the day.

Verses 6 and 7 give us a parallelism that is usually reserved for Hebrew poetry. It's not super common in Hebrew prose, but I think it's here for an intention.

In poetry, in the Hebrew mindset, in their culture, they like to repeat lines.

It would be repetition with a little bit added to the second line or a nuance or a change to the second line to draw distinctions.

What do we do with our rhyming? What is English poetry? We like to rhyme with our poetry.

They like to state things over and over again. They like cycles like that. The reason that I think he includes that parallelism that's common in poetry in the prose here, in the narrative here, is for that same effect.

He wants it to have dramatic effect on the reader. He wants you to hear what happened and then hear it again in more detail.

Ew. That's intentional, though. What happens here is a big deal, and the author doesn't want us to brush over it.

He wants us to rest in how evil these men truly are. They pretend to be there to purchase wheat, the text tells us, which somehow would have given them greater access to the inner places of the house.

You don't really know the nuances of why going to pretend to obtain wheat was going to get them access to the king's bedchambers, but it did.

They're able to get deeper into the palace, deeper into the house, somehow, by saying, we're here as wheat traders.

Something gets them more access. They enter the bedchamber of Ish -bosheth, and the first round of the cycle just tells us they stabbed him in the stomach.

That would be enough, but the second cycle gets more detail. Again, that symmetry, and that poetry, and that nuance.

Verse 7 tells us the grisly details. They stabbed him, they killed him, they beheaded him. The text tells us that they escaped.

The way that the Hebrew language works there, that they escaped the house implies that there may have been some notice to what they have done.

It's implied that they probably set off some alarms. There was probably some kind of like, they tripped a corridor across the laser pointer thing, and the alarms are sounding, and they're escaping, and they have to get out.

We're given brevity in this account, but enough detail to know, this is gross. Two of his own military captains, two of Ish -bosheth's own military captains, have killed him while he was in the middle of afternoon siesta on his bed.

They escaped south, traveling all night long along the Jordan Valley, and headed up towards Hebron.

They're heading south, but when we say up in the biblical accounts, it's elevation. They head up into Hebron, where David ruled over Judah.

They're carrying their grisly treasure, the head of the king of the northern tribes.

Now, I call this in the text an attempted sacrifice, and it might not be apparent to you, but these guys have done this with motivation.

They have some kind of a motive in what they're attempting to accomplish here. They are sacrificing their king.

They're from the tribe of Benjamin. They're sacrificing their king with the hope of increased favor in the new kingdom coming under David.

Do you see that? They have hope to gain as a result of doing this act. They have every intention of endearing themselves to the new king,

David. He will surely reward them, right? You guys know where it's going. They remind me, though, spiritually thinking this through, they remind me of many in our own time, and many potentially even here, who in our own hearts assume that we know what the king wants.

We assume that we know what the king wants. But what kind of things do you assume that the king wants from you?

Well, he wants me to give money. He wants me to give him his time. He wants me to offer my sacrifices in order to gain a place by his side in his kingdom.

Won't he surely reward me for my sacrifices, for the things that I have brought to him, for the things that I have done for him?

Will he not reward us? That's the way our fallen minds work, right? How many of you are used to earning things?

Are you glad your employer pays you? We think of God that way, do we not? He's going to reward us.

He's going to give us good things. Look what we've brought to him. Look at the head, the head of his enemy that we've brought to him.

We may assume that what God wants of us, figuratively speaking, is to slay his enemies. Now in the darker moments and in the darker headlines of our real world, we know that there are people who have literally killed abortion doctors in the name of Christ.

Did you know that that's happened? That's history, that's news. Where they thought they were honoring

God and that God wanted them to murder. That's what these guys have done. We may assume, figuratively though, that what

God wants us to do is slay his enemies and bring them to him on a silver platter. A head's like sexual immorality or like greed or like lust.

Slay it, kill it, and bring it to God. Look at what I've done. Look at the way that I have put down this sin.

Look at the way that I've put this thing to death. Isn't this what

God desires of us, we might think? But what does it take for Jesus to include you in his eternal kingdom?

He promises to return and he does indeed have an eternal kingdom. He's going to set up an eternal kingdom where there will be no more sin, no more death, no more suffering, no more tears.

How many of you want to sign up for that? How do I get there? It's not going to be by bringing the head of his enemies.

Not at all. He does not accept our sacrifices in exchange for a place in his kingdom, just like David won't hear.

What does he ask of us? To trust him. To trust him.

He wants us to come empty -handed, acknowledging his sacrifice that he has given to deal with our sin.

No, church, we don't come to our king to give him something. We come to the king to receive something.

It's the only way to come to our king. Not with something in a bag to offer him.

Not something grisly and gruesome. Not some victory we have achieved. Not some sacrifice we have made.

No, we come to him to receive. The only thing I have is my empty hands and a list of sins against me.

Would you forgive me? Would you be gracious to me? Would you accept me? And he says, yeah, I will. But Rechab and Banna do not come empty -handed.

They come like cats with a mouse in their mouth. Look what I brought you. And nobody wants that mouse, do they?

You don't really want that. Do you? No, you don't.

But the cat didn't ask, did it? The cat didn't ask what you wanted. What you wanted was for it to curl.

And I'm stretching this metaphor a little too far. But what you wanted it to do was curl up on your lap. Right? Yeah, that's a stretch metaphor.

I was trying to think of where to go from there. I'll just go to the third point. The third point in the text.

Third movement in the text is false redeemers. False redeemers. Rechab and Banna come to David as false, as I think a representative type for us of false redeemers.

I say this because of their own declaration, their own words of what they think they're doing in verse 8. Verse 8 clarifies for us what they think they have done.

They arrive not with empty hands, but they arrive with what they think the new king would want. They are inventing in their own minds some strange level of devotion to him without ever asking him what he wants.

They come into his presence in Hebron and reveal the head of Ish -bosheth. That would be grisly, right?

And they declare to him, here is the head of the son of Saul, your enemy, the one who sought your life.

And then they make this extremely interesting statement at the end of verse 8. The Lord has avenged my lord, that's

David, the Lord God has avenged David, the king, this day on Saul and his offspring.

What are they saying? Well, I like the way that Dale Davis says this in his commentary. He says, these two,

Rechab and Banna, these two come to David with blood on their hands, but theology on their lips.

Blood on their hands, but theology on their lips. They think they have just murdered for God.

That's what they say. And God was in it. And let's sit here on this point for a bit until it sets heavier on those areas where we might be guilty of doing the same thing.

Where we might know what God desires of us. We might know that he would never want us to murder, but we might come up with excuses why we murdered today, why we did that sin, why we did that wrong yesterday.

We're a culture that is increasingly bringing to God what we think he wants while we're ignoring his word.

How many of you know that that's going on right now? And if we're not careful, it'll go on in our own hearts, right?

Where we will not take his word, but we will take what we assume he wants. How many of you know that right now, our world is just really all about love without letting the

Bible define love? What does God desire of you? Just love everyone. Just love everyone.

Well, what does that mean? That means accept everyone. That means accept them in their sin. That means let them be condemned on the last day with never judging them.

Is that what our culture is telling us right now? It is. That's the voice.

That's what we're hearing. To think we know what to bring God when we're not paying attention to his word.

But further, I believe, that many in the church are at risk of being won over to the thinking and logic of Rehoboam Bonham.

They tell David, look, we killed the guy, but God was in it. We murdered, but look at the benefits.

He was working through us to avenge all the hardships Saul put you through. We're heroes. And further, they would say

God has used us, King, to bless you. That's a subtle shift from saying things like God wants us to love all and approving of homosexual practices.

The first is true, is it not? Does God want us to love all? But does he want us to approve of homosexual practices?

No. It's also a subtle shift from saying that women are very capable leaders.

I said capable, but I meant capable leaders. And they are at least as wise as men.

How many men would give a hearty amen to that? They're very capable leaders. Very wise.

But there's a distinction between making that statement and saying a woman should be a pastor. The reason

I pick on these two is only because they are both hard parts of the Bible to follow in a culture that is so clearly disagreeing with scripture on those points.

Does the world tell us something different than that? Oh, you better believe it. Are there churches now that will tell you something different than that?

Absolutely. And there are issues where the church is falling left and right in terms of taking

God at his word and instead assuming that we can give something different to God than what he tells us to bring to him in his word.

Listening to him and hearing what he wants and what he values. How many of you are finding that increasingly difficult?

To drown out all the other voices and go, I'm going to stick here. I'm going to listen to this. And by the way, what's getting tricky about this, and I've said this in some previous sermons, is what's getting tricky about this is understanding this.

I would almost guarantee that if you look up a difficult passage in the Bible and then you Google that passage, the first 10 hits are going to be worldly wisdom about what the

Bible has to say. Do you know what I'm talking about? Have you tried it? You get all kinds of opinions and thoughts.

Don't use Google as your theological source. Don't. Don't do that.

Caution you about that. Rechab and Banna went exactly against God while claiming they were working for God.

You see it. And how in the world could we ever oppose God on something that he has so clearly revealed in his scripture?

Don't murder while saying we are serving God by showing his love to the world. Do you see in this text what

I'm talking about? And it's in us. Every time that we've ever self -justified our own sin, any time that we've said, yeah, but this one's okay.

Any time that we've had that attitude about our own sin, we've been in line with these men. These men are false redeemers.

They claim they have brought to David the deliverance of God. Look, they say, the head of your enemy.

But in verses 9 through 12, we get to David's judgment. The judgment is our final movement in the text. And his statement in verse 9 is a powerful rebuke to these guys who think that they have been the tool of God for the deliverance of David.

Look, we've saved you today. We've saved you from your enemy, your northern enemy that's holding 11 of the 12 tribes against you right now.

No more. We've delivered you, David. And David says, in essence, you think you're my avenger on the family of Saul, but the living

God, he has redeemed my life out of every adversity. You think you're my redeemer?

I already have one. I'm not taking applications for that role right now. I already have a redeemer.

The response shows that David disagrees with their assessment of what they have just done. They ascribe to themselves redeemer status.

They've rescued David from the family of wicked Saul. But David says, no applications for redeemer.

I already have one, and he is the Lord. His name is Yahweh. The Lord has proven himself faithful time and time and time and time again to deliver me.

He doesn't need your wicked assistance. What is at work here in the text has proven to be a powerful reminder to me personally this week.

It's David's gratitude to God. I want you to see this. It's David's gratitude to God for past deliverances that proved to be a protection against false saviors.

It's his gratitude, his thankfulness, his recognition that God's hand has been in it. People will present you with all kinds of things they think will save you.

Can you reflect on God's deliverance? What kind of things would people bring to us?

Well, I mean, we have all kinds of things we tempt ourselves with, right? That we could put our hope in, we could put our trust in, we could start with health plans and diets and exercise plans, face creams to stop the aging process, whatever.

You name it. Whatever it is that calls for us to trust it to fix us. But in gratitude,

I consider the hope I have been given that places absolutely zero trust in this body of death.

When you would just acknowledge your body is slowing down, it's getting older, my body will increasingly betray me until one day it stops working altogether.

I've accepted that. And I have a savior, and he has promised me the real hope.

Resurrection. That's where the hope is. Resurrection. Or maybe it isn't health that calls out to you, but it's the other side of the equation.

There's kind of the health and the wealth and prosperity gospel. Maybe it's the wealth that calls to you instead.

There are plenty of voices that will speak loudly on this subject. God wants you to have your best life now.

He wants you to be wealthy. He wants you to have nice things. But the prosperity gospel is indeed a false redeemer.

Rechab and Banna came declaring that God had used them to avenge David. The prosperity preachers come declaring

God is using them to increase your kingdom. Rechab and Banna say, well, we're the ones who get credit for bringing you into the kingdom, right?

And they will do the same. The prosperity preachers will do the same with you. And if you would just sow a seed of faith, be it $500, $1 ,000, or $5 ,000 today, you will have your blessing from God.

But it is in the connection to the good news of Jesus Christ and the hope that we, church, have found there that we can see this for what it is, a false redemption.

Not true in any way, shape, or form. We live under a gospel that tells us that in this world we will have trouble.

But also a gospel that tells us Jesus is our redeemer and will deliver all of his children to an eternal kingdom of joy and gladness.

David was able to see through these false redeemers. Not only are they presenting a false narrative of God's deliverance, but further, and here comes the judgment, they are murderers.

They're not just misrepresenting God in their theology. They are murderers. And David reflects back on a moment of justice in which he put to death another self -professed murderer.

In verse 10, he rehearses events from back in chapter one. A messenger came to him. Of course, he doesn't cover the

Joab. I'm barely scratching the surface of that. He doesn't talk about Joab. He goes back a little bit further and say, well, I know another murderer, but I let him go.

He's gonna go back to when he was a little bit tougher. In verse 10, he talks about chapter one. A messenger came to him saying,

Saul is dead. When David asked him, how do you know that Saul is dead? He says, well, I came upon Saul badly wounded by archers in the battle, and Saul said, run me through and put me out of my misery.

Don't let me fall into the hands of these uncircumcised Philistines. And so the messenger says, so I obliged the king and I put him to death.

I ran him through, and David had that murderer put to death on the spot, on his own testimony, saying,

I killed King Saul. How much more, asks David, will he now put these guys to death?

They have killed an innocent man, a righteous man, the text tells us in the English Standard Version. They have killed a righteous man asleep on his bed.

I wanna give you a quick point about the word righteous in verse 11, because it's a word that I think we misapply a lot as Christians.

And we tend to go to the fullest extent of the word righteous every time we see it in Scripture. So we assume that this is conveying more about Ish -bosheth than it's really saying.

Righteous does not always mean completely sinless. When you see it in Scripture, that's not always what it means.

Sometimes it means just, like as in upstanding and right and fair in their business dealings.

Sometimes it means socially civil or upstanding. In this context, it means innocent of a crime deserving of the death penalty.

That's all that he's stating about Ish -bosheth. He's not saying the guy was an upstanding individual who deserved salvation without Jesus or something like that.

He's not saying this guy is righteous and he's completely without sin. No, of course we know Ish -bosheth was not without sin.

But he was innocent of a crime deserving of death as he laid there on his bed that afternoon. David commanded his young men to judge

Rechab and Banan on the spot they are put to death and displayed in a way that would remind others that the king doesn't want murderous false redeemers.

I think people would get the message. They'd get the message with what he does with these two guys that this is not a game he's gonna play.

So how do we land the plane? And let me suggest three applications before we come to the tables of communion this morning.

The first is consider whether you are trying to bring something to God. Consider whether or not you are trying to bring something to God.

I know that nobody in the room is trying to bring the head of one of his enemies. I'm pretty confident of that.

But I think many people, if we're honest and if we really, if push comes to shove, I'm fearful that many people,

I don't think there's a lot here, but it's worth mentioning that some people have in the back of their minds a plan

B in case the blood of Christ isn't enough. I can at least fall back on my good works.

I can at least fall back on this that I've brought to the king. I can at least fall back on the money I've given. I can at least fall back.

No, there's no plan B. It's Christ or nothing. I've got no hope. I know I'm not righteous. I know

I haven't given enough. I know I haven't given enough of my time or my energy or my love for others or any of that.

Of course, we usually don't state it that crassly. Well, I've got a plan B on the backside in case Christ doesn't work.

But what do we think that we are giving to God that makes him love us more? That's another way to ask the same question. We can bring, hear me carefully church, we can bring no sacrifice to him.

We come to him as the needy party. David needed no help from Rechab and Banna.

Jesus needs no help from you or me. So application one, here it is.

It's kind of an anti -application. Rest. Rest.

Rest this week. If you belong to Jesus Christ by faith in his sacrifice for you, then rest in that finished work.

Make sure that all of your weight is on Christ. Make sure that all of your hope is placed in Christ and his work on the cross for you.

The application of resting in Christ can be one of the hardest things that's asked of us, right? We want to work for it.

We want to bring it. We want to sacrifice something for him. We want to be needed.

It is hard for the independent American heart to admit its own neediness. We come to the cross as beggars or else we're not coming to the cross.

We're either beggars there or we're nothing. We're not even there. The second application is put away all false redeemers through gratitude, through thankfulness, through recognizing what

Christ has done for you. Those of us who know the good news live out of gratitude, live a life of thankfulness to him.

We came to God with empty hands and a list of sins against us. And he has exchanged it for the righteousness of Christ and the promise of eternal blessings and joy.

So don't let anyone convince you that there's anything more to bring. Don't let anyone convince you there is anything more to give.

There is no head of your enemy to be delivered. There is no further deliverance needed. There are no riches yet to be won for you.

There is no hope anywhere in anyone outside of Christ. Jesus is truly all you need.

He's all you need. Application, as you rest this week, rest on that.

Let that sink in. And then when the guy on a podcast tells you that he has what you need, if you just do things his way, if you'd give to his ministry, if you'd do this, then

God will love you more. You can tell him, no, I've already got everything

I need in Christ. Off. Stop that thing. You'll be ready.

You'll be ready to face that kind of false redeemer if you are reflecting on Christ as all that you need.

And lastly, consider what Christ has rescued you from. We see a pretty harsh judgment here at the end of the text.

David applies capital punishment to these murderers. But I think it would be wise for us as we consider others under judgment to consider the reality of the judgment in a sin -cursed world that was coming for us.

Now, none of us want to live without justice, right? We all want there to be justice. We just don't want it to start with us, right?

We don't want to be first in line. See how it goes for somebody else. But the testimony of Scripture is that our sin is worthy of condemnation to a person.

And for the one who has trust in Jesus, we can celebrate that there is, therefore, now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for those who have believed in his work on the cross to forgive us and to reconcile us to God no more condemnation.

He died on the cross to pay the penalty our sins deserved. It's already covered. And he now rules and reigns in the hearts of his people.

So we take communion together every week to land every Sunday morning service at the remembrance of what

Christ has done for us to rescue us. We take the cracker to remember his body broken in our place.

We take the juice to remember his blood that was shed for us. So as we come to communion this morning, start right here, right now, maybe in your seat.

If you belong to Jesus, take a moment to pray and say, help me to rest in your sacrifice for me today.

You need not bring any sacrifice of your own. And let me encourage you also throughout this week, express thankfulness that he is now your redeemer.

And lastly, give thanks that he has removed the condemnation you deserved by taking that punishment on himself at the cross.

Church, I hope that you walk away here refreshed with this one truth echoing in your ears.

There is only one redeemer, and his name is Jesus Christ. Let's pray.

Father, I thank you for the redeemer that we have that pushes all others aside. I pray that you would help us to live a life out of gratitude.

I pray that you would give us a life of resting in the hope that we have, the only hope in Jesus, and that that hope would then propel us out to live for you, to love you well.

Not as sacrifices, not as attempts to appease you, not as attempts to make up for the wrong that we did last week, but just purely out of love, purely out of gratitude.

You have done it. There's nothing more to be done. And now we have the freedom to be used by you as your ambassadors in the lives of others here, as well as in the lives of our community out there.

Father, I pray that you would ignite us first by resting in you, and that that would create within us a love that transforms us.

Thank you that there is no condemnation over any who belong to you, and that we can walk free without that weight of our own sin on our shoulders now because of what

Christ has done for us. I pray as we reflect on that during communion that you would drive that deep into every heart, every person that's gathered here, every person who goes to one of these tables and takes communion,

I pray that you would help us to remember well what Christ has done for us. In Jesus' name.