Two Types of Rebels

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Don Filcek; 2 Samuel 20 Two Types of Rebels

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsek is preaching from his series,
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The Warrior Poet King, Study of 2 Samuel. Let's listen in. Well, good morning and welcome to Recast Church.
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I am so glad that you guys are here. And we are here this morning together in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
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He's the one who was promised in the Old Testament. He is the one promised to Eve who would crush the head of the serpent,
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Jesus Christ, our Lord. He is the one promised to Abraham who would be a blessing to all nations,
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Jesus. He is the royal offspring of King David who will sit on the throne of the kingdom of God forever and ever and ever.
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The Old Testament points to Jesus. And we are all about Jesus. I want to be clear that as confusing as religion can get, as confusing as the church can get, or things around us can be confusing, the
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Bible can at times be really confusing. But I want to remind you that it is all about Him and it is all for Him.
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It is all about Jesus and it is all for Jesus. We're not ashamed of the name Jesus.
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We're not ashamed to have His name on our lips. And we will gladly talk about Him and lift His name high in our gathering.
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He died for us and it is our goal as a result of this gathering that we go out from here living for Him.
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Amen? So when we're studying the life of David, we are studying the life of a man who received a promise from God.
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Back in chapter 7 of 2 Samuel, God spoke to David through the prophet Nathan. And He told
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David that His royal line would continue until the day that an eternal king would spring up.
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And that eternal king would spring up out of the royal line of David himself. And all the rest of the book of 2
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Samuel exists to show us that God keeps His promises. He keeps
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His promises, church, even when we screw up. This is the gospel in a nutshell, is it not?
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Isn't that the gospel? He is faithful even when we're not. David messed up his family and we see that and we've been kind of beat by wave after wave of that over the course of the study in 2
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Samuel. He messed up his family. He did all that he could. It seems like he does all that he could. It's unintentional, of course, but he tests
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God's patience with him. It's not that he set out to test God's patience. He just does because he's human like us.
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David committed adultery. David committed murder. David sat for seasons of deep discouragement and seasons of apathy where he doesn't even seem to care that God has made him king.
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And significant seasons, huge chunks, years of his life spent in self -focus and pity and self -loathing.
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And God just continues in the text, throughout the pages of Scripture, just keep remaining faithful to keep
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His promises to David. If you're experiencing a little of what I would call life of David fatigue,
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I would not be surprised. This is another tough message and it seems like tough message after tough message after tough message coming at us from the book of 2
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Samuel. One commentary I read this week started with this phrase. This is the opening phrase to this section of Scripture.
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Here we go again. Here we go again. The problems that confront
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David's kingdom are like waves crashing against the pier of South Haven. How many of you have ever gone over to the lake, maybe
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South Haven or St. Joe or someplace and just watched on a big wave day? Where the waves are coming up almost to the top of the lighthouse and it's crashing over the pier and it's astonishing to see.
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On a stormy day, it's really impressive. And they just keep pounding. And that's the way chapter after chapter after chapter is pounding against David's kingdom.
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This week we see the results of a gruesome and gory rebellion against David. A man named
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Sheba is next in line. It's like they're taking a number. Oh, your number's up. You get to try to rebel. That's what it feels like as you're going through this.
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Oh, it's Sheba's turn. His number's called. He's got 43. 43 is on the little red thing. Time for me to try to take over David's crown.
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But remember as we read that the overarching plot line in what is a complicated, even shocking passage is actually really quite simple.
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The plot line keeps ringing out over and over again. Nothing will get in the way of God's promises.
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He alone is faithful. He alone is faithful. He alone is faithful.
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Say that with me, church. He alone is faithful. Amen. He is the one.
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Either he's faithful and you're going to heaven because you've attached your life to him or you're not going to get there.
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That's the only hope. The only hope for humanity is that our lives are connected with him and he carries us there.
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Amen. That's what it's about. So God keeps sending wave after wave of deserved judgment.
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I want to point out it's deserved. Deserved judgment to David. All the while preserving his kingdom just as God promised he would.
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And why is God preserving David's kingdom in the end? Because he promised that he would come from his royal line, that one, the promised
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Messiah would come from his royal line. And that that one would be the final king overall. So let's open our apps, our scripture journals, our
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Bibles to 2 Samuel chapter 20. We're going to read the entire chapter but I do ask that you please open up to it so that you can follow along and see
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God's word itself and keep your focus on it while I'm reading. 2
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Samuel chapter 20. Now there happened to be there a worthless man whose name was
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Sheba the son of Bichri, a Benjaminite. And he blew the trumpet and said, We have no portion in David and we have no inheritance in the son of Jesse.
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Every man to his tent, so Israel. So all the men of Israel withdrew from David and followed
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Sheba the son of Bichri. But the men of Judah followed their king steadfastly from Jordan to Jerusalem.
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And David came to his house at Jerusalem and the king took the ten concubines whom he had left to care for the house and put them in a house under guard and provided for them.
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But did not go into them so that they were shut up until the day of their death, living as if in widowhood. Then the king said to Amasa, Call the men of Judah together to me within three days and be here yourself.
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So Amasa went to summon Judah but he delayed beyond the set time that had been appointed him. And David said to Abishai, Now Sheba the son of Bichri will do us more harm than Absalom.
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Take your Lord's servants and pursue him lest he get himself to fortified cities and escape from us.
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And there went out after him Joab's men and the Cherethites and the Pelethites and all the mighty men.
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They went out from Jerusalem to pursue Sheba the son of Bichri. When they were at the great stone that is in Gibeah, Amasa came to meet them.
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Now Joab was wearing a soldier's garment and over it was a belt with a sword in its sheath fastened on his thigh.
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And as he went forward it fell out. And Joab said to Amasa, Is it well with you my brother?
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And Joab took Amasa by the beard with his right hand to kiss him. But Amasa did not observe the sword that was in Joab's hand.
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So Joab struck him in the stomach and spilled his entrails to the ground without striking a second blow. And he died.
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Then Joab and Abishai, his brother, pursued Sheba the son of Bichri. And one of Joab's men took a stand by Amasa and said,
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Whoever favors Joab and whoever is for David, let him follow Joab. And Amasa lay wallowing in his blood in the highway and anyone who came by seeing him stopped.
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And when the man saw that all the people stopped, he carried Amasa out of the highway into the field and threw a garment over him.
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When he was taken out of the highway, all the people went on after Joab to pursue Sheba the son of Bichri. And Sheba passed through all the tribes of Israel to Abel of Bethmaka.
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And all the Bichrites assembled and followed him in. And all the men who were with Joab came and besieged him in Abel of Bethmaka.
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They cast up a mound against the city and it stood against the rampart. And they were battering the wall to throw it down.
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Then a wise woman called from the city, Listen, listen, tell Joab, come here that I may speak to you. And he came near her and the woman said,
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Are you Joab? And he answered, I am. Then she said to him, Listen to the words of your servant. And he answered, I'm listening.
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Then she said, They used to say in former times, Let them but ask counsel at Abel. And so they settled a matter.
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I am one of those who are peaceable and faithful in Israel. You seek to destroy a city that is a mother in Israel. Why will you swallow up the heritage of the
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Lord? Joab answered, Far be it from me. Far be it that I should swallow up or destroy. That is not true.
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But a man of the hill country of Ephraim called Sheba the son of Bichri has lifted up his hand against King David.
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Give up him alone and I will withdraw from the city. And the woman said to Joab, Behold, his head shall be thrown down to you over the wall.
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Then the woman went to the people in her wisdom and they cut off the head of Sheba the son of Bichri and threw it out to Joab. So he blew the trumpet and they dispersed from the city, every man to his home.
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And Joab returned to Jerusalem to the king. Now Joab was in command of all the army of Israel.
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And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was in command of the Cherethites and the Pelethites. And Adoram was in charge of the forced labor.
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And Jehoshaphat the son of Ahalud was the recorder. And Sheba the secretary. And Zadok and Abiathar were priests.
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And Ered the Jairite was also David's priest. Let's pray.
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Father, that very well may have been a shocking text to some. And it ought to be. We recognize within it loud, loud resounding echoes of sinfulness and brokenness and waywardness and rebellion.
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We know that this life on this fallen planet is busted and broken up.
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And we need salvation. We need help. To have any hope in this world and any hope in the here and now is to fail, is to falter.
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So Father, I pray that you would press on us the hope that goes beyond this life that one has entered from outside of us to come in to this broken and fallen system to save it from within.
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We thank you for Jesus Christ our Lord. We thank you for the hope that we have in Him. We know that what we experience here is nothing but mess after mess.
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And we have some glimpses of hope, glimpses of light, glimpses of sunrises and sunsets.
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But all of that is perforated with the reality of death. And so Father, I pray that you would allow your grace and your mercy to settle on us in a fresh way this morning that produces joy within us.
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We are those who are a colony of heaven here in this place.
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Because of people who shine your light, and I pray that you would infuse us even now despite the hardships, difficulties, frustrations, even the good things of this life that pale in comparison to the glories that await us.
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Father, ignite our hearts now in praise to you from glad hearts not settled on this place, not settled on the good, chintzy trinkets that we have here, but with our eyes fixed on the glory that is ours with Christ at your right hand where He intercedes for us now.
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Let our hearts be ignited with gladness this morning in Jesus' name. Amen. Now there are all kinds of things that can present themselves as hurdles to the promises of God in our lives, or apparent, what appear to be hurdles to the promises of God.
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There are health issues, there are accidents, there are losses, there are economic downturns, there are betrayals, family issues, catastrophes, wars, and really too many things to name that can be barriers that we think, how is
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God going to solve that? How is He going to fix that? It might even be some petty and small things in our lives that get in the way of our thoughts thinking rightly about God and His goodness.
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Things that can seem at times like insurmountable challenges to our faith and to our trust in God, really asking the question, is
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He really good? Is He really faithful? Our text follows what appears at face value to be a particular challenge in the life of David toward that question, is
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God really good? Is He really faithful? Is He really going to keep His promises? David faces another rebellion against his throne at a very inopportune time.
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They seem to be stacked on top of each other here. David is on his way back into Jerusalem after defending his crown against his own son.
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His son Absalom had tried to steal daddy's crown over the last few chapters of 2 Samuel and he's tried to take that kingdom for himself.
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But Absalom was killed by David's military commander Joab in the text last week. And the battle has ended.
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Last week, rather, two weeks ago. But last week we saw David attempting to reunite the various tribes of Israel and come back in as their king.
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And we saw at the end of the text of chapter 19 a lot of bickering and grumbling and complaining among the tribes of Israel.
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Everybody wants to be most important and position themselves in the best place as King David comes back in.
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So they're arguing for his priority. Everybody wants the ear of the leader, right?
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Everybody wants to matter and to be important and to be significant and so that's what we saw at the end of the text and that leads into where we're at today.
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In that context of David trying to reunite the tribes and trying to come back in, he's not yet even to his palace and a man named
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Sheba blows a trumpet for attention, raises his voice and declares himself the self -appointed spokesman for all ten of the northern tribes of Israel.
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And he shouts that they have no portion in David. We have no inheritance from him. David is not for them is what
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Sheba is getting at. You've got nothing to gain in other words from following David.
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That's what that means when he says you've got no portion in him. We have no inheritance from him.
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There's not good things coming to us from David. He's only going to take, take, take and so we're out.
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He's called a worthless man which I said earlier in a sermon are two words that really shouldn't be put together on our lips.
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No human is legitimately worthless. All of us have a significant worth based on being made in the image of God but the
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Hebrew phrase translated worthless man in this text means it's a translation from a phrase in Hebrew son of Belial.
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So you're like oh good now I get it. Son of Belial. Belial can be used for a man of destruction, a man set aside for destruction.
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He's a human that is not fulfilling the glory of God for which he was designed is the image that you have in that phrase worthless man.
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And in this sense he's a man of destruction and a man marked for the destruction of God. Every time he's mentioned you'll notice it's kind of repetitious but every time he's mentioned his father's name is mentioned too.
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Sheba the son of Bichri. Sheba the son of Bichri. And we find that that's only significant in that we're going to find out later in the text that only the
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Bichrites follow him while his dad's name is Bichri and it's basically saying that only his immediate family, only his father's clan are going to latch on to his rebellion.
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But according to verse two, Sheba the son of Bichri is initially successful. They're getting ready to bring
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David up and to march him in like procession and celebration up into the palace up from the
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Jordan Valley about 15 miles or so up into the palace. 15 to 20 miles actually.
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They're getting ready to do that and 10 of the tribes peel off and say we're out and they go home.
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He gets those northerners to withdraw support from David while the one substantial southern tribe of Judah and I say substantial because they've got a significant military fighting force.
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It's a large territory. It's David's tribe and they are the only ones who remain loyal to him during this text that we're reading here this morning.
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The rest of this narrative is worth a high level summary to try to make sense of the flow of it but that's only after we kind of zero in a little bit on verse three to clarify what's going on there because I think it grabs our attention.
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What we need to understand is David is brought into Jerusalem where he's forced to deal in verse three with a tragic consequence of his sin right away and not just his sin but the sin of his child, his son
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Absalom. He had left 10 ladies of his harem a pretty substantial harem but he left 10 ladies of that harem to take care of the house while he was away in exile and his own son
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Absalom in a very graphic play for his father's throne slept with all 10 of them. He pitched a tent on the roof of the palace and made sure that all of the people could see him going in and out of the tent and all of the ladies coming in and going out.
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Now the fact of the matter is they are no longer harem. It's a noun in our understanding harem is a group of ladies for the king or something like that which is just terrible.
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We're going to talk about that here in a second but it's a noun that comes from an adjective. Harem is an adjective and it actually takes the form of haram in the
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Arabic language today. Haram means off limits harem means off limits or forbidden so every time you've ever used the word harem you're actually referring to ladies that are off limits.
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It means these women were pledged to the king and the king alone. Absalom has broken that very significant ancient custom and these women are now the ones that will be the recipients of the consequences.
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They will suffer the consequences of these men's sins. There are compounding deep tragedies in the text here and obviously it's graphic in a bunch of different categories.
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There's gore. It's just like Hollywood wrote this. There's all of this tragedy here with these ladies.
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There's the gore. There's all of that. The first thing that David must deal with when he arrives back though at his household is the ongoing consequences of his own sin that is echoed down through generations to his kids now and Absalom's sin against his father in terms of these concubines or his harem.
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But I feel of course less sorrow for David. Oh poor David. He's got to come back and take care of these messy family businesses.
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I feel more sorrow for what proved to likely be quite young ladies in this text. Nobody appears to have sought their opinion.
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Nobody asks them, what do you want for your life? What are your hopes and dreams? What are your aspirations?
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How many kids would you like to have? Nobody asks their opinion. We just find out in verse three that they are to remain shut up in the harem, cared for but unloved for all of their days.
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And if this feels unfair, I want to ask you for just a second, raise your hand if this feels unfair.
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Go ahead and raise your hand. Please do that for me. I think it feels unfair. And I would suggest to you that your feelings are running in the right direction when we understand the human heart.
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I'm guessing you also, like me, have experienced and observed many things in your life that were unfair. I doubt that this reading of this text was like the first time you thought, wow, that sounds unfair.
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Like, oh my goodness, there's unfairness in the world? Are you kidding me? Look at the way that these ladies are treated. Are you kidding me?
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How in the world? Oh, surprise. I hope nobody was like blindsided by the fact that there are things in life that are messy, that are unfair, that are sinful.
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Right? You've experienced them. The Bible doesn't craft these historical characters as epic heroes who get it all right.
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Matter of fact, I think quite the opposite. The Bible shines a spotlight on the reality of God using fallen people who do fallen things in a fallen world.
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That's all he has to write about if he's writing about human history. That's all he has to write about.
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So he does faithfully record his faithful movement among sinful people.
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That's what we're seeing when we're reading the Bible. And he is glad for us, glad to help us, and glad for us when the light comes on and we realize we need someone to rescue us from outside of this broken system.
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David isn't your hero. Don't make David your hero. Don't make Noah your hero. Don't make Moses your hero.
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Don't make Joseph your hero. Don't make Peter your hero. Oh, I'm a Paul guy. I really love Paul. No, you need somebody from outside of the human system to break in and save us.
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And when you're ready to realize that this place is busted to a person, and that you are busted, and that the world needs to be saved from itself, then we're ready to start talking about Jesus.
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Then we're ready to start talking about why Jesus. Why did we need one to come from heaven to rescue us?
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Me. He is the one who came to provide a way out for people like these precious women bereft and hopeless and alone.
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There is a tragic reality that many women down through the ages have been merely used and cast off as pawns in the service of male egos.
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That's true. This is not merely an ancient problem. And this points to our deep, deep, deep need for a
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Savior. Well, so much for a mere summary, right? Like, that's just one verse. But we're going to summarize the movement of this text now and kind of just give you a higher level view.
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You can, I read it earlier. You can read it yourself. You can kind of see, hopefully, some of the things that are going on here.
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Some of it needs some explanation, but not much. David has fired Joab, his military commander, who killed his son
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Absalom. He fired him, and he has been... Oh, wow.
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I actually knew that was coming up there. Yikes. Okay. That's really close to getting political in here.
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Sorry. That's not good. Joab has been replaced.
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He was fired by King David. He's been replaced, or replaced him with a man named
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Amasa. It was a political appointment to try to win over the hearts of the tribe of Judah.
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And it seemed to work. So now the Judahites are loyal to David, in part because he's actually made his new military commander, fires
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Joab, says, Amasa's my man, and he's from the tribe of Judah. But Amasa fails at his very first assignment, and the text tells us that.
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He's told to go muster the troops of Judah, return in three days, hustle up. Sheba's got a head start, and he's running north through the countryside, rallying people to his cause, to rebel against King David.
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Time is of the essence. Rally all the troops of Judah. We are heading to take care of Sheba. He gives him three days to do so, and he three days pass, and he doesn't show up.
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And when he fails to turn up in three days, David realizes, I'm losing time here. We've got to get after Sheba.
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So this is three days head start for him, to stir up the north against David, not good. So David clearly wants this rebellion squashed, and David says, man, it's going to go worse for me than having my own son rebel against me here in a minute if we don't get him.
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So we are like all, APB, Israel's most wanted, go get
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Sheba. That's what it's all about right now. David's number one primary goal is he's coming back into Jerusalem, takes care of family business, and then let's get this rebellion squashed in a hurry.
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So in verse 6, David enacts plan B. Plan A was Amasa, he fails. Plan B, he enlists the help of a man he's always been able to rely on when violence is on the docket.
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If it comes to violence, you want Abishai on your team. You want Joab, his brother on your team, as we're going to see here in a minute.
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If all you're looking for is violence and putting somebody down, hire these guys. Abishai and his brother
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Joab have always been dependable to be hit men. And so David lets Abishai lead his elite special ops troops, his mighty men, and even his own bodyguard, the
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Cherethites and the Pelethites. He sends out the best of the best, the best troops that Israel has to offer to go pursue
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Sheba the son of Bichri. This is kind of like, everybody go and get it done. They're in hot pursuit when they encounter
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Amasa up, I love the text of scripture, up by the big rock. They encounter him up by the big rock.
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You know, the big rock. Some of these place names make me laugh when I'm reading scripture. And you realize just how local and small and provincial these times really were.
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You know, meet me up by the big rock around the corner, by the big oak tree. Yes, the one that's right across from the blackberry patch, that rock. You know what
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I'm talking about? Some of us give directions that way too. But what happens here is gruesome.
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In this location it appears to be an unplanned tragedy. I think that the text is driving us towards the unplanned nature of it, and yet it's tragedy nonetheless and it's violence and it's wickedness.
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Joab is joined with the forces of his brother Abishai. Now remember, Joab is the fired, terminated prior commander of David's military.
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He has not enlisted him. He enlisted his brother Abishai. Go get Sheba. But Joab is along all of a sudden.
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Now there's no indication that David wanted Joab there at all. He fired Joab back in 2
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Samuel 19 .13. If you're taking notes you can kind of glance back there. You might just be able to see it on the page of scripture that you're there on.
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Joab is here with David's forces in pursuit of Sheba, and he's joined with them, and he's trying to get back into David's good graces, but there is one hurdle between him and his former position.
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Who is it? Amasa. There's one hurdle between him getting back in the king's good graces from him getting his position back.
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He wants to be commander of David's armies. He wants to be
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David's number one military dude. Amasa holds that title right now. And you talk about cut throat kind of like leadership climbing on others to get up the rung of the ladder to the next leadership position, you're not going to beat
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Joab on that one. We're given enough detail to know that the author wants to slow down and give us an image, an image we don't want to have.
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But he gives it. And we're getting a gruesome image of Joab's impulsive opportunism in this moment.
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He had no reason, I want to clarify, he had no reason to expect to run into Amasa. He had no reason to have a short sword in his hand at that meeting.
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He did not wake up that morning and go, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to kill a man in cold blood.
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I don't think he did, and yet the circumstances seem to line up pretty quickly. They seem to line up perfectly.
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I've got the sword in my hand. I have to get close to greet him, right? So, might as well gut him.
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That's Joab's logic. That's the logic of a Joab. Seems logical. God happened to put the sword in my hand just at the right time.
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What am I to do? Isn't it God's fault? I don't know. He orchestrated this. He planned it.
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Here I am. There's my enemy. There's the guy that's standing in my way. Boom. Done. The fact that his sword falls out of its sheath is there to demonstrate the circumstantial nature of all of this.
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Joab may well have wanted Amasa dead, but he has not premeditated or orchestrated this event.
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And I just want to point out some things that are just kind of nuanced here that help you to understand how vile, I mean, it's a vile and terrible thing, but these guys are first cousins.
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They grew up together. As Joab greets Amasa, they draw close for a customary kiss on the cheek.
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We can make much of that, and that just loses the point. Just take for granted that that's a custom, you know, the whole grabbing the beard and stuff.
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Don't grab this beard. Nuh -uh. That's Off Limits. But... I did.
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I made a point of it, and I was not going to make a point of it. In this, this is a moment of hospitality.
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It's a moment of courtesy. It's a moment of greeting, and Joab betrays his first cousin.
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And he stabs him in the stomach, and Joab is, let's just say, skilled with a sharp edge.
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Skilled. And the results are graphic. Intentionally graphic. To demonstrate the cold, cold -calculated nature of Joab.
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Amasa dies a brutal death, and I really see no benefit in spelling out the details of this brutal murder.
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There's enough information given you there to just, yeah, go with it. It shows the completely cold -calculating and ruthless character of Joab.
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He's a butcher. He is no question. I hope that nobody's left here with a question of whether he did good or bad.
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Is this okay? No. He's a murderer. Cold -blood murderer. This is not the first man that we have recorded, by the way, in 2
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Samuel, that Joab is murdered. Well, Judah was mustered under Amasa, and so now what do they do?
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So Joab now has his spot. He has his opportunity. So he leaves a servant by the body of Amasa to show that Amasa is no longer in command, obviously.
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And the servant calls all who are loyal to David to follow in the pursuit. If you're loyal to David, follow
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Joab. He's back in. He's back in. If you're loyal to David, follow
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Joab. But the mess along the road was drawing so much attention that it was causing a traffic jam and hindering the main objective, go get
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Sheba. So the young man removed the body of Amasa from the road so the pursuit would speed up and people would start moving along the road faster.
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The practicality and precision of this account just shows how grotesque and callous a human heart can become.
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How acquainted could a person become with death? How acquainted could a person come with brutality or with gore?
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I think there's a caution there maybe for some of what we are eager to put before our eyes. I don't give you approved lists of things to watch, but I do think that my own,
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I can testify about myself, I am desensitized to violence in media.
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Anybody else? You want me on that? Six of you. We need to have maybe an accountability group or something for the six of us there,
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I don't know. How many of you just testified that there is a lot more gore in our media?
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It goes over the top at this point. By the way,
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I just want to clarify in case anybody's out there, as your pastor, I'm not out there looking for it. I just want to make sure you know
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I'm not looking for gore thrillers or anything like that. It just creeps up on you though, doesn't it? You got to be careful.
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The narrative speeds up in verse 14 and Sheba is cornered way up at a northern place called Abel of Bethmaka.
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Now, when you see that on the map here, we got the map? Yeah, so it is literally like the largest northern city of Israel is a place called
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Dan. This is further north than that. It's not a big city, but it is like on the edge of the frontier.
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This is a frontier town. It's not like you go through there on your way to somewhere. Jews wouldn't go there unless they were intentionally traveling to that location.
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We find out that even as Sheba has traveled, the reason he ends up there is he's gone through all the northern tribes trying to drum up and rouse the villages to his cause.
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He has only succeeded in drawing out his own clan, not even his own tribe.
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It doesn't say the tribe of Benjamin came along beside him. That's his tribe. But just one family unit within that larger tribe, now he's trying to drum up all ten northern tribes against David, he gets one single clan.
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In other words, who's with him on this day of rebellion? His family. Only his kin.
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That's the only ones following along with Sheba. And they're holed up in a fortified city in the north of Abel.
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Joab and company arrive to that location, and obviously they're just following him. They're probably talking to people.
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Hey, did you see a force coming through here? Did you hear Sheba? And they're pointing him out and saying he kept going north, he kept going north.
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So they end up finding him, and they immediately plan to tear the city to the ground. That's how desperate the orders must have been from David.
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Like, at any cost, get me Sheba. I need me some Sheba. So get him. They set up siege mounds to get up to the walls, and they are just about to batter the walls down when a wise woman seeks a parley with the commander.
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Well, notice who the commander is? Who's the spokesman for this military force? Joab's back in.
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They talk, and she highlights the blessings and benefit that the city has been to Israel. You don't want to destroy this one.
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Look, it's pretty. It's a nice city. We do good things. Don't tear our walls down. It's been a judicial center for ages, she says.
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It's proverbial. Go to Abel if you need a problem resolved, if you need wisdom, if you need to seek arbitration.
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We're a city of arbitrators. They've carved out a niche for themselves as a place where people could come for wisdom and knowledge and resolving matters.
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And even in this interchange, she's giving a sampling of the city's skills. Joab admits he has no interest in throwing down the city or destroying their heritage.
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All he wants is Sheba. He says, you give me Sheba, we're gone. We're done. We don't want to tear down your walls.
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We don't want to destroy your city. We will. We'll take care of it if you won't give us Sheba. So she agrees, meets with the city leaders.
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They kill Sheba, cut off his head, and throw it down to Joab. What? Okay.
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He blew the trumpet. The rebellion is summarily put down. The military forces under the command now of Joab return to the king in Jerusalem.
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And there's your story. What? And through craft and wiles and violence and wickedness,
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Joab has squirmed and wiggled his way back to the king's side.
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But there's something powerful at the ending of this passage that could be missed on us, and it just seems like filler. Oh, we're going to just mention who's in command and who's over what and all of that.
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What I want to point out is significant here. That's one of the main points of this text. Despite all of this intrigue, despite all of the violence of the men around King David, despite rebellions and insurrections even coming from within his own family, verses 23 through 26 remind us that David still has a kingdom.
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What? After all of this, David still has a kingdom. As the dust settles over a long, drawn -out section of the life of David that started all the way back in chapter 11 of 2
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Samuel, that looks like surely it's going to end. Surely David is going to fail. Surely his kingdom is going to falter.
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He still has a kingdom. David has been through miserable and real and gut -wrenching circumstances.
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But David has a military that needs a commander. He has the Cherethites and the Pelethites that need leadership.
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He has a massive workforce that needs command. He has a rule that needs to be recorded. He has administration that needs a secretary.
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And he has a relationship with God that needs priests to serve as mediators.
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God has been faithful to David in the midst of rebellions and intrigue.
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Why? Because our God is the faithful one. Our God is the faithful one.
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But I want to go back and clarify for us that you might have missed it. There are two rebels in this twisted text.
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I believe that it's fair to see in them, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say there are two ways in which our hearts will be prone to rebel against our king.
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I think it's in us. This is not just merely cautionary about those out there. We've got to beware of these things in us, but I'm going to talk to you pretty directly about keeping your eyes open for them.
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You see, Sheba is the obvious and clear rebel in our text, right? Did you see it? How many of you saw it?
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He's the clear and obvious rebel. Would you agree with me on that? Yeah. He declares it openly. He blows a trumpet.
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He blares it out loud. He wants everybody to know he's in rebellion against this king. He gathers a crowd, shouts at the top of his lungs, we have no portion in this king.
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We have no inheritance from him. And he sets about the goal of drawing as many with him away from the king as possible.
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It is his stated goal to rebel against this king and to bring as many along with him as possible.
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And his end is gruesome. His end is found in rejection and judgment and death.
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That's where that rebellion leads. And there are rebels in our day and age who will blow their trumpet to get attention.
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And they will raise their voices shouting, we have no portion in King Jesus. Inheritance from him.
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What? Live your life now. There is no inheritance. You heard it?
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Are you hearing it? Is it everywhere? There are many who will say even if there is a
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God, he is not good and he is not generous and you will receive nothing from him in the end.
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Or even just what's really common in our day and age, he won't let us live how we want.
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What inheritance? What goodness from him? He doesn't even care about the way I feel. We have no benefit in following him, some will say.
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And they will set about to draw others into their rebellion. These are the clear and overt enemies of our
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Lord and King. And what do we do? What do we do about that? We pray for them.
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We share the truth with them. And we shudder at the thought of their ending if they will not cease their warring and come under the love and care of our good and gracious King.
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A good and gracious King who gives equal portions, equal inheritance of love and grace and mercy and forgiveness and hope and joy and promise to all who come to him for mercy.
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There is, church, there is a glorious inheritance coming for all who throw in with King Jesus.
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Do you believe it? Do you trust it? Are you living it?
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Or are you kind of hedging your bets to like have your best life now just in case there's not one coming?
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Think about the way that you live. Are you living in a way that sacrifices in the here and now because you believe so firmly that there is a life to come?
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That's faith. That's trust in him. But there's another rebel hidden in our text, isn't there?
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You saw him, you just didn't think about his rebellion. Yes, Joab shows us another type of rebel. His type of rebellion is sinister and it's an undercurrent and yet it is all too common, maybe even the most insidious of rebellions.
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This is the guy who loves to be close to power at any cost. Why? Because he loves power, that's the only reason.
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And he will seek to appear loyal as long as it means that he gets what he wants. He has been fired by the
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King for not following orders and he appears to be loyal to the King all while disobeying the
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King's commands. That's Joab. He is a man that appears to be close to the
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King but in actuality he is only ever truly loyal to himself.
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He's a violent man who would tear others apart, literally, to get into power.
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And the New Testament makes it clear that this category exists in this church age as well.
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Where we live today there is an outside influence from the world that is opposed to our King. But be wary because it's coming to a church near you.
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It comes within the walls too. There are those like Sheba from without that rebel against our
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Lord with loud voices and fanfare and trumpets but there are those also from within that rebel against our
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Lord while sneaking in among the sheep. Jesus and Paul had a common phrase for them. Wolves in sheep's clothing.
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Jude describes this type of insider rebel in the church with the following scathing indictment. Speaking to a church he says this in Jude verses 12 -13.
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Speaking of real people, real category of people within the church. These are hidden reefs at your love feasts.
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As they feast with you without fear. Shepherds feeding themselves. Waterless clouds swept along by winds.
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Fruitless trees in late autumn twice dead, uprooted. Wild waves of the sea casting up the foam of their own shame.
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Wandering stars for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.
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Harsh words. Peter says of this type of rebel in 2
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Peter 2 verses 1 -3. False prophets also arose among the people.
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Talking about the Old Testament. Just as there will be false teachers among you church.
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Who will secretly bring in destructive heresies. Even denying the master who bought them.
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Bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality. And because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed.
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And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle.
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And their destruction is not asleep. It's gonna be a bad ending.
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So why am I saying this? Some of you are like, I thought I came to church to get encouraged and built up today.
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This isn't super encouraging. A better question to ask ourselves right now is why discuss wicked
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Joab? Why take the passages like this and put them in the Bible so that we get to talk about them?
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Why talk about wicked Joab who resides so close to God's chosen king? Why have this conversation?
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And once again it's about expectations but this time with a further edge of caution. It is about what we expect in this life but there's a cautionary edge to it.
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What do you expect from this life church? We've been asking that question a lot through 2 Samuel as we see the reality of scripture kind of blast at us messes, gore, brokenness.
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People scrambling for their own power and their own kingdoms here in this place even against God's chosen king.
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What do you expect from life? The Old Testament and the New Testament tells us we ought to expect betrayals, persecutions, persecutions from the world but also persecutions from within.
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We ought not to be surprised when we encounter wolves in sheep's clothing. And so there's a reasonable caution that we're all called to in the church.
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We should be vigilant and cautious. As wise as serpents and as innocent as doves as Jesus says it.
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And let me suggest to you a couple of ways that I believe you can develop in your vigilance as the pressures are going to increase from the culture outside as well as the culture within.
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I've said this a bunch of times and you're going to hear me. It's kind of becoming my catchphrase. I am no prophet but.
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I am no prophet but I do suggest to you that the voices from self -professed
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Christians will get louder in the coming years. They're going to get louder calling you and I to forsake this word for the cultural standard.
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Do you feel it already church? Do you think I'm off on that? Or do you think we're heading that way?
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More voices who say I love Jesus too and look at me. I can believe this, this, and this and I love
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Jesus. I can do this, this, and this and I share the gospel with other people.
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The gospel of good works or whatever. I share good news with people.
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Good news that you can be yourself. How many of you hear a bunch of different good news's out there?
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And it's going to increase. So what are we to do? Is this a Debbie Downer message?
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What's coming for us? Let me just tell you church. It's going to sound like church 101 here for just a second.
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When it comes to these applications. Are you ready for them? Number one, the only thing
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I can offer you to really help with this be a student of the word.
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Be a student of the word. We're past the time of being able to lean on somebody else in a
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Google search. We're past the time of being able to you have to get in it. You have to find sustenance from it.
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You have to draw your strength from it. You have to start your day with it. Not as a duty, not to fill your head with knowledge or not to check a box on a daily reading list.
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No, no, no, no. But to inform you about the great grace of God in the midst of this fallen world.
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Kind of like the idea of being encouraged about your day in the morning. Do you want that?
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Get in the word. Get in the word to see that God is faithful. Even passages like this where a guy's guts are hanging out and it's gross.
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God is faithful. That's what I get out of this. I walk through this and I go man, we're messed up.
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We're jacked up. And God is redeeming it. Praise Him.
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Rejoice. And that's available to you at the start of your day tomorrow. Starting tomorrow you can dig in for yourself and you can study it and you can come to know it.
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And honestly, if you struggle with it, and I've had some people over the years go, Don, you tell me to read the Bible and so I just opened up to Haggai.
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No idea what it's saying. Thanks for the suggestion. Don't know what I'm doing here.
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Ask for some help. I'm eager to help somebody who wants to get in the word and goes,
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I don't even know how to do this. Maybe don't start with Haggai. Just a suggestion. Kind of hold on a second.
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Let's go with John or something like that. Let's dig in. But I would love to provide spiritual direction for you.
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That's what God has given me to the church for. That's why I'm here. To help you in your spiritual walk.
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Set your alarm, church. Get up. And maybe it's going to require some adjustment of schedule.
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Maybe you've got a routine with the newspaper. Maybe you've got a routine. Don't cut the coffee out. You've got to have that, right?
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I'm praying while I'm making my coffee. Before I... Let your first thought be a prayer to God.
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What do you have for me from your word this morning? God has given that to me. I'm a pastor.
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I'm supposed to have that, but it's a gift. It's not something that I've drummed up myself. But more often than not, the first thought when my feet hit the floor...
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My alarm goes off at 5 o 'clock in the morning, but Linda can testify. The snooze has been hit relatively often recently.
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Maybe more like 5 .30 that I'm rolling out of bed. I'm on my watch, so it's really easy to just hit that.
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Often the first thought when my feet hit the floor is God, thanks for another day. What do you have for me from your word now?
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Go out and make a cup of coffee and sit down and read. What encouragement or challenge will you bring?
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That's a question to ask God. The second thing is draw close to God in prayer. You saw it coming. Like I said, it's
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Christian 101 here. But I want to ask you to pray for something specific. Lift up those who you know are in opposition to God.
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Make it a specific type of prayer. Are you talking to God about those who have animosity toward Him? You're acting like Jesus when you pray for loudmouth mockers like Sheba.
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When He was on the cross His religious enemies mocked Him and shouted at Him. If you are the Son of God then come down from that cross.
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And how did He respond? Prayer. He responded in prayer.
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He didn't talk to them. He talked to His Father and He said, Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.
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How close must Jesus have been in prayer with His Father during life for Him to be so mindful of prayer in those final moments?
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Constantly connecting with God. Lastly, let me encourage you love each other well.
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Look around the room. These are your brothers and sisters in Christ. Love each other well.
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A passage like this could be abused as an excuse to trust no one. Passages that give us the expectation of haters from without and haters from within and wolves in sheep's clothing can make us paranoid.
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I want to caution against that. My philosophy as a shepherd of the flock under the chief shepherd has been to love as well as I can moment by moment, day by day.
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To love well, which requires risk. How many of you know that if you love each other and there's a possibility that there's wolves in here, you might get bit from time to time?
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That's not an excuse to stop loving. It involves us really entering into lives and leaning into conflict and leaning into resolution.
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Real love doesn't assume the best of everyone with blinders on. It's not that you're not allowed to be cautious or careful.
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Real love here within the church looks like heading off conflict at the pass when you see it. Wolves have surfaced over the years.
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We've been at this for 13 years and it's happened. They come in to the light and it's interesting because what's happened, and I've seen this happen over the years, is that wolves have not had an easy time at Recast.
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And I praise God for that. I give Him the credit for it. But I also would just commend you for loving each other well.
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Because when somebody comes into a place where everybody is loving one another well and they're trying to fake it, it starts to show.
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Do you know what I'm talking about? Dave knows because he's been here. But it shows.
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And it's like, wait a minute. This isn't a safe place for me. Ow! I'm out. Right? And that's what we've seen.
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Linda can say that too. She's been here by my side this entire time. Those of you that have been kicking it at this church for years know that it's just been astonishing to see the wolves peel off.
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Why? Because we're tight. Because we fit well together. And when somebody tries to get in there and tell
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Dave at a lunch 10 years ago, Pastor Don doesn't know what he's talking about.
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You need my teaching. It literally happened. Dave goes, oh really? Is that so? Tell me more. Dave and I are tight.
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He picked the wrong guy to try to squeeze those bricks out and try to insert yourself into the base of that pyramid.
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If it's tight and we love each other well, nobody's getting in here. They're going to be like the wrong color in the it's just like the thumb that sticks out on, it just I don't know where that was going.
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I'm going to admit to you I had no clue what I was just saying. They stand out! That's what I was going to say. They stand out.
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You get it? Whatever metaphor you want to use there. I am so far off my notes and my time is up.
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Let's go ahead and wrap things up. Now we serve a glorious King Church.
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He has his share of enemies but he promises to bring his people through the fires into the presence of his
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Father for eternity. That's our hope. So let's come to communion and remember the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for us.
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Let's celebrate that together, church. If you're all in with Jesus and if you asked him to be your Lord and Savior then come to one of the tables and take the cup of juice to remember his blood shed for us and take the cracker to remember his body broken for us.
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Starting this morning we're going to have an opportunity up front after the service, after communion to pray with somebody.
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That's going to be down here on the drum side kind of just right in this area. If you have a prayer request, you want somebody to come and pray with you, we've got some people set aside to do that and we're going to start doing that most services just because we want to be a place where you can receive that solace of prayer with someone else and I think there's a big benefit to that.
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We were starting to do that before COVID. We stopped and we're getting back into it. Recast, let's head out into this next week.
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Drawing near to God in his word, drawing near to God in prayer and let's love one another well church.
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We serve a God who is faithful to keep his promises. Let's pray. Father we do thank you for your promises kept.
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We thank you for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ which secures those promises for those who are in him.
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Promises like there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ. One that I cling to and just rejoice in.
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The hope that there will be no further reference to sin for those who belong to you but instead a welcoming and a well done good and faithful servant.
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Father I pray that for all of us and I thank you for the fellowship and the unity that you've given us. I thank you that we have not had a hard time with rebellion within the church.
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We have not suffered at the hands of those from without yet. Father I pray that you would be preparing our hearts for truth through your word and through prayer and that you would meet all of us this week specifically even now during communion with what do we need to do differently?
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What do we need to take on to be better prepared for these rebellions that are going on in our culture and the rebellion that's going on within the church at large.