Keep Your Vows - Even When They Hurt - 2 Samuel 5-9

2 Samuel 9:9-13 (ESV)

Then the king called Ziba, Saul’s servant, and said to him, “All that belonged to Saul and to all his house I have given to your master’s grandson. And you and your sons and your servants shall till the land for him and shall bring in the produce, that your master’s grandson may have bread to eat. But Mephibosheth your master’s grandson shall always eat at my table.” Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants. Then Ziba said to the king, “According to all that my lord the king commands his servant, so will your servant do.” So Mephibosheth ate at David’s table, like one of the king’s sons. And Mephibosheth had a young son, whose name was Mica. And all who lived in Ziba’s house became Mephibosheth’s servants. So Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, for he ate always at the king’s table. Now he was lame in both his feet.

In ancient days the courts of kings were a complex systems of relationships, interwoven for political, military and financial reasons.   When a new king came into the power the typical approach was to destroy all the members of the old king’s remaining family.   However, David had made a promise to his friend Jonathon, Saul’s son, that he would always care for his family (1 Samuel 20).  In the above passage we are finally seeing the culmination of David’s promise to Jonathon, by taking care of his son, Mephibosheth.   David appoints one of his servants, Ziba, to care for all of Mephibosheth’s property.  The fact that he had property, or was now restored to his property by David, is a gracious act by David. Remember, most leaders just killed their predecessor’s family.   Ziba would now serve Mephibosheth as an act of kindness to King David.  However, this relationship between David, Mephibosheth and Ziba will become increasingly complex as David’s reign unfolds.  When David is run out of his kingdome by his son, Absalmon, Ziba comes to David’s aide and reports that Mephibosheth was taking advantage of the situation:

2 Samuel 16:3-4 (ESV)

And the king said, “And where is your master’s son?” Ziba said to the king, “Behold, he remains in Jerusalem, for he said, ‘Today the house of Israel will give me back the kingdom of my father.’” Then the king said to Ziba, “Behold, all that belonged to Mephibosheth is now yours.” And Ziba said, “I pay homage; let me ever find favor in your sight, my lord the king.”

However, upon David’s return to leadership and to being king after Absalom is defeated, we are told another version of the events:

2 Samuel 19:25-27 (ESV)

And when he came to Jerusalem to meet the king, the king said to him, “Why did you not go with me, Mephibosheth?” He answered, “My lord, O king, my servant deceived me, for your servant said to him, ‘I will saddle a donkey for myself, that I may ride on it and go with the king.’ For your servant is lame. He has slandered your servant to my lord the king. But my lord the king is like the angel of God; do therefore what seems good to you.

This is the dynamics in the royal court in those days.   David is trying to show grace.   He will eventually divide the riches between Ziba and Mephibosheth.   Being king was hard.  David’s act of grace to care for Jonathon’s son would cause, perhaps, more trouble than it was worth. But, it was David himself who wrote that the person who will seek God and never be moved will:

Psalms 15:4 (ESV)

...

who swears to his own hurt and does not change;

He made a commitment, a vow, to Jonathon and despite the trouble that Mephibosheth would cause him, David kept his oath, to his own hurt.   We are to keep our vows ... even when it hurts.  

Himpossible - Exodus 17-20

Exodus 17:5-7 (ESV)

And the LORD said to Moses, “Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the LORD by saying, “Is the LORD among us or not?”

We have a mindset of how things in life should work.   We use our logic to our advantage and find ways to maneuver through the terrain of life hoping to limit our loses and to find much gain.  However, when we come up against a problem we can’t physically solve, we are lost as to what to do.   Our logic seems to take over. When we can’t make sense of something we freeze or flight. 

This is the situation we find ourselves in the above passage.  The nation of Israel had been rescued out of Egypt.  This was done by some ten outlandish miracles by the hand of God through the rod of the Moses.   Our logic should be changed at this point.  Our human logic should be submissive to our spiritual logic that God can do anything on this planet.  He can even do things contrary to the laws He created for the planet.    Yet, here we find ourselves, in a place where human logic was taking over our faith in God’s logic.   God had brought them out of Egypt and now they had no water.  Human logic tells us to complain and be frightful.   But spiritual logic, based upon what we now know about the character of God, should take over.  But it does not.  So the nation complains toward Moses.   To solve this problem God does not simply allow Moses to strategically guide them to a lake.  Instead God makes a hard rock flow with a rapid of weather.  That is illogical based upon man’s logic.  But thinking about how God works that is perfectly logical.   This was God’s method to solve the thirst in their mouth and the doubt in their minds.   God is always stretching His people to learn more about Him and to take down their own human arguments and logic. 

2 Corinthians 10:4-6 (ESV)

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.

God wants us to cast down anything that is in our logic and begin to replace it with His logic.  That is not illogical.   When being guided, directed and cared for by God, why would we continue to think like we naturally think?  Instead why don’t we think like God thinks and realize that whatever we come up against is possible in the mind and power of God.    It is not impossible, it is Himpossible.  God will continue to do miracle after miracle in their sight but the nation of Israel will continue to think in man’s weak logic about their condition and situation. It is only when, by faith, we understand our situations in the logic of God do we have a way out of the human logic box we put ourselves in.  

Isaiah 26:3 (ESV)

3 You keep him in perfect peace

whose mind is stayed on you,

because he trusts in you.

Failing to Forgive is a Dart of Satan’s Designs - 2 Corinthians 1-3

 2 Corinthians 2:10-11 (ESV)

Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ, so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.

Paul wrote a letter to the church at Corinth that sternly chastised a young man who was living in an impure sexual relationship with his step-mother.    He claimed to be a believer in Christ and that brought shame to the church.  Paul wrote many things in that first letter that brought about correction.  Apparently this young man repented and now, in this letter to the church, Paul is telling them to forgive the young man.   In the context of the above two verses we read that the majority of the church did what Paul told them.  He told them to have no company with the young man.  Here are the words of Paul from the first letter:

1 Corinthians 5:9-12 (ESV)

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?

Sexual impurity in the church was not to be tolerated.   But now that the young man had repented Paul wants to make sure they forgive him.   Why? Because the lack of forgiveness for an offense committed in the Body of Christ is a tool Satan uses to separate us.   This is such a powerful takeaway from this entire situation.    The young man sinned.  The young man failed to repent.  The church must practice discipline of the young man.  The young man repents.  The church must practice forgiveness of the young man.  If they fail to forgive, Satan will use this to cause great harm and division in the church.   We should know this about Satan. We are not to be ignorant of his devices and designs.   While telling the Ephesian church to put on the armor of God, Paul stated this about Satan and his designs:

Ephesians 6:16 (ESV)

In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one;

By faith we forgive.  Our unwillingness to forgive is a fiery dart of Satan’s work.   We don’t wait until we feel like forgiving.  We take up the shield of faith and forgive by faith out of obedience to Christ.   That stops the designs and devices of Satan.   An unforgiving heart is a tool Satan uses to divide the church.  

Unconditional Love - Mark 13-14

 Mark 14:17-21 (ESV)

And when it was evening, he came with the twelve. And as they were reclining at table and eating, Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.” They began to be sorrowful and to say to him one after another, “Is it I?” He said to them, “It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the dish with me. For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.”

In John’s account we read the above narrative right after Jesus washes the disciples’ feet.   Imagine what type of unconditional love must flow from the heart of Jesus to be able to first wash their feet and second wash the feet of someone who would betray Him within just a short time frame from this moment.   Jesus came into the world because He so loved the world that He gave His life for the world’s sin.   He even came to give is life for those who would reject Him and who would hate Him.   As Jesus tells the disciples these things they all begin to wonder, “Is it I?”   Why?  Remember, they will all run and hide and forsake Him.  Even Peter.  Yet, one will betray and they all looked inside their souls and wondered if they could be the one.   It was one who fellowships with them.   It was one who was sent out to cast out demons in previous chapters.  It was one who passed out food to fee the 5,000 and the 4,000.  It was one who saw Lazarus raised from the dead.   This is one who was along side the others at the Sermon on the Mount and learned the deep truths in private sessions with Jesus.   Yet, this is one who for 30 pieces of silver would betray him later in this chapter with a kiss.   Yet, Jesus would wash his feet and eat with him during the Passover supper.    Would we show this much unconditional love?  

Disobedience Produces Discipline - Jeremiah 22-26

Jeremiah 25:8-14 (ESV)

“Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts: Because you have not obeyed my words, behold, I will send for all the tribes of the north, declares the LORD, and for Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants, and against all these surrounding nations. I will devote them to destruction, and make them a horror, a hissing, and an everlasting desolation. Moreover, I will banish from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the grinding of the millstones and the light of the lamp. This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. Then after seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, declares the LORD, making the land an everlasting waste. I will bring upon that land all the words that I have uttered against it, everything written in this book, which Jeremiah prophesied against all the nations. For many nations and great kings shall make slaves even of them, and I will recompense them according to their deeds and the work of their hands.”

This is a long paragraph but it carries, in essence, the entire message of the book of Jeremiah.   The people of God had disobeyed God’s word.  Therefore God is going to bring upon them an evil nation (Babylon) to punish them.   But in the end God will restore them after a time.   At that point God will punish the evil nation He brought to punish them.  

Here are some key thoughts about this passage:

1. It starts out giving the reason for the discipline of Israel:  They disobeyed God’s Word. If you want to avoid discipline in any arena of life, obey the rules and the laws and the words of those above you.   They disobeyed their God and that is the reason for the upcoming discipline. It is that simple. 

2. God calls Nebuchadnezzar my servant.  It would be doubtful that Nebuchadnezzar would consider himself a servant of God.   But God uses the leaders of this world to accomplish His will.   

3.  God is not limited in the type of discipline He will and can give to His children.  In the above text He speaks of utter destruction and making them a horror, a hissing to the nations around them.  God is going to shame them.  

4.  God discipline is not just the bad but He also removes the good.  He tells them that He will remove the voice of gladness, the voice of the weeding feast, the voice of the pleasure of working, and remove the simple provision of light.   When we disobey Him, God not only allows the bad He also hinders the good. 

5. Even the land will suffer for their disobedience.  When we fail to carry out God’s Word there is ancillary fallout that impacts the world around us.  

6.  God’s discipline is not forever.  In this case, God puts a limit on His own discipline.   

7.  Eventually God punishes all evil even though He might use evil men to punish those He loves and has chosen.   

God did a great work through the prophet Jeremiah and the words He gave him to speak.  So too today through the Word of God.  We disobey are our own peril.  

Job’s Fourth Friends - Job 32-34

Job 33:8-11 (ESV)

“Surely you have spoken in my ears,

and I have heard the sound of your words.

You say, ‘I am pure, without transgression;

I am clean, and there is no iniquity in me.

Behold, he finds occasions against me,

he counts me as his enemy,

he puts my feet in the stocks

and watches all my paths.’

In chapters 33-37 Job’s fourth friend speaks up.   He is younger than Job and the other three friends.  As a result he felt compelled to remain silent during the last 30+ chapters.   His respect for the aged controlled the desire of his tongue to speak.  He did need to speak, however:

Job 32:18-19 (ESV)

For I am full of words;

the spirit within me constrains me.

Behold, my belly is like wine that has no vent; like new wineskins ready to burst.

He now begins to burst with his opinion:  

Job 32:10 (ESV)

Therefore I say, ‘Listen to me;

let me also declare my opinion.’

A portion of his opinion is seen in the above passage.  Elihu’s main thought was that in his defense, Job forgot one main point.  Job forget that the reason he is righteous (chapter 1) is not because of his own works but because he was declared righteous by God.   The entire first 30+ chapters are about Job justifying himself that his performance proves his righteousness.  However, that is not why he was righteous.   Righteousness ONLY comes from God’s grace.   This young, fire in his bosom, theologian/counselor and fourth friend of Job, was able to tell Job and the others something they all had missed.   It was not about the suffering.  It was about his defense of himself.  Like Job, most of us in suffering try to figure out the why behind it and believe we are not deserving of it.   Yet, what is man that he complains about how God deals with him? 

Lamentations 3:37-39 (ESV)

Who has spoken and it came to pass,

unless the Lord has commanded it?

Is it not from the mouth of the Most High

that good and bad come?

Why should a living man complain,

a man, about the punishment of his sins?

Job, of course, would say he did not sin to cause this suffering.   But in his defense about the suffering, Job did.   He was so bent on providing his other three friends wrong regarding their accusations that he actually fell into the vein of their accusations.    In his defense he declared his righteousness based upon his performance.   That was their entire argument to him.  Later God will bring them all into check.  But for the moment it is a young man with fire in his belly.  Job’s fourth friend.  

Worship the Creator, Not the Creation - Psalms 48-50

Psalms 48:9-10 (ESV)

We have thought on your steadfast love, O God,

in the midst of your temple.

As your name, O God,

so your praise reaches to the ends of the earth.

Your right hand is filled with righteousness.

Psalm 48 is a song about Jerusalem.   But it goes be young Jerusalem to the founder and maker of Jerusalem, Yahweh.   As the writer(s) move from the stability of what God made (a city) he moves to who God is.   The city is a picture of the stability of God in our lives.   As the writer thinks about the strength and the safety of the city he moves to thinking about the steadfast love and righteousness of God.   God has given us this world for the sole purpose of using it to display His glory.    King David said it this way:

Psalms 19:1-3 (ESV)

The Law of the LORD Is Perfect

TO THE CHOIRMASTER. A PSALM OF DAVID.

The heavens declare the glory of God,

and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

Day to day pours out speech,

and night to night reveals knowledge.

There is no speech, nor are there words,

whose voice is not heard.

We can rejoice in the beauty, power and strength of created things.  We can see their value to us.   But if we do not see the Creator behind the creation we have so missed the point of God’s message to us.  God gave the nation of Israel, Jerusalem.   This is the there physical place of refuge.   But it is ONLY a symbol of the bigger and personal God, their true hope and strength and refuge.   

Succession Planning - 2 Samuel 1-4

 2 Samuel 3:1-5 (ESV)

There was a long war between the house of Saul and the house of David. And David grew stronger and stronger, while the house of Saul became weaker and weaker.

And sons were born to David at Hebron: his firstborn was Amnon, of Ahinoam of Jezreel; and his second, Chileab, of Abigail the widow of Nabal of Carmel; and the third, Absalom the son of Maacah the daughter of Talmai king of Geshur; and the fourth, Adonijah the son of Haggith; and the fifth, Shephatiah the son of Abital; and the sixth, Ithream, of Eglah, David’s wife. These were born to David in Hebron.

The first four chapters of 2 Samuel are all about the transition from King Saul who reigned over all Israel to King David, who would reign after Saul’s death.   The transition was not an orderly transfer of power. It was a bloody ordeal and one that had little blessings.  People jockeyed for power and favor.   Vengeance was more meaningful in those days than honor.   David, however, is portrayed in this section as an honorable and benevolent king to both those who were loyal and those who were also his enemies.   God honored David in this transfer of power.   For seven and one-half years he was king of Hebron.  Not only did God use that time to strengthen David and weaken Saul’s remaining loyalist, God provided a stable kingdom and sons.  Sons in this era were the social sign of God’s blessing on the leader.   What the writer of 2 Samuel is telling us is that David grew stronger and one way that was evident was the brith of these six sons.    God saw David’s heart and rewarded him for his honorable treatment of his enemies.  

Celebrate - Exodus 13-16

 Exodus 15:4-10 (ESV)

“Pharaoh’s chariots and his host he cast into the sea,

and his chosen officers were sunk in the Red Sea.

The floods covered them;

they went down into the depths like a stone.

Your right hand, O LORD, glorious in power,

your right hand, O LORD, shatters the enemy.

In the greatness of your majesty you overthrow your adversaries;

you send out your fury; it consumes them like stubble.

At the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up;

the floods stood up in a heap;

the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea.

The enemy said, ‘I will pursue, I will overtake,

I will divide the spoil, my desire shall have its fill of them.

I will draw my sword; my hand shall destroy them.’

You blew with your wind; the sea covered them;

they sank like lead in the mighty waters.

The nation of Israel has just crossed the Red Sea.   The Egyptian army has been destroyed in the Red Sea.  They pursued after Israel to crush them. Instead they were crushed.  The previous chapter ends:

Exodus 14:30-31 (ESV)

Thus the LORD saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. Israel saw the great power that the LORD used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the LORD, and they believed in the LORD and in his servant Moses.

Moses now breaks out in song.  The above passage is a portion of the song Moses wrote to commemorate this occasion.  He wanted the nation to know the great thing that God had done for them.   This was a moment of celebration.  Moses took time to celebrate God’s miracle in their lives.   He did not simply move on.  This was a great moment for the nation to see the power and the faithfulness of God.   Note the two times Moses refers to the right hand of God.  Remember, it is the Son who sits at God’s right hand.   The victory God gave them was a picture of the saving nature of God’s right hand, the Son!   They are to rejoice.  They are to sing.  They are to celebrate what God did.   It might seem odd to celebrate the death of another.   This would not be a socially accepted normative in today’s world.   But to Moses the Egyptians were the enemy of God and wanted their annihilation.    It was less of a celebration of death, however, and more of a celebration of God’s power and their new life.  The crossing of the Red Sea is used as a picture of the newness we have in Christ as we are baptized into His Body.    The Red Sea crossing is a picture of baptism.   They were redeem by the blood coming out of Egypt and they were baptize by the water’s of the Red Sea.  This entire scene is a picture of God’s redemption.   We should celebrate that.