2 Samuel 21 - Getting rid of blood stains

Great, let me read 2 Samuel 21 for us.

During the reign of David,

there was a famine for three successive years.

So David sought the face of the Lord.

The Lord said, it is on account of Saul

and his blood-stained house.

It's because he put the Gibeonites to death.

The king summoned the Gibeonites and spoke to them.

Now, the Gibeonites were not part of Israel,

but were survivors of the Amorites.

The Israelites had sworn to spare them,

but Saul, in his zeal for Israel and Judah,

had tried to annihilate them.

David asked the Gibeonites, what shall I do for you?

How shall I make atonement

so that you will bless the Lord's inheritance?

The Gibeonites answered him,

we have no right to demand silver or gold

from Saul or his family,

nor do we have the right to put anyone in Israel to death.

What do you want me to do for you?

David asked.

They answered the king,

as for the man who destroyed us and plotted against us

so that we have been decimated

and have no place anywhere in Israel,

let seven of his male descendants be given to us

to be killed and their bodies exposed

before the Lord at Gibeah of Saul,

the Lord's chosen one.

So the king said,

I will give them to you.

The king spared Mephibosheth, son of Jonathan,

the son of Saul,

because of the oath before the Lord

between David and Jonathan, son of Saul.

But the king took Armoni and Mephibosheth,

the two sons of Ai's daughter, Rizpa,

whom she had born to Saul,

together with the five sons of Saul's daughter, Merab,

whom she had born to Adriel, son of Barzilia,

the Mephalonites.

He handed them over to the Gibeonites

who killed them and exposed their bodies

on a hill before the Lord.

All seven of them fell together.

They were put to death during the first days of harvest,

just as the barley harvest was beginning.

Rizpa, daughter of Ai's,

took sackcloth and spread it out for herself on a rock.

From the beginning of the harvest

till the rain poured down from the heavens on the bodies,

she did not let the birds touch them by day

or the wild animals by night.

When David was told what Ai's daughter Rizpa,

Saul's concubine, had done,

he went and took the bones of Saul

and his son Jonathan from the citizens of Jabesh-Gilead.

They had stolen their bodies

from the public square at Beth-Shan

where the Philistines had hung them

after they struck Saul down on Gilboa.

David brought the bones of Saul

and his son Jonathan from there

and the bones of those who had been killed

and exposed were gathered up.

They buried the bones of Saul

and his son Jonathan in the tomb

of Saul's father Kish at Zela in Benjamin

and did everything the king commanded.

After that, God answered prayer on behalf of the land.

Once again, there was a battle between the Philistines and Israel.

David went down with his men to fight against the Philistines

and he became exhausted.

And Ishbi Benob, one of the descendants of Raphah,

whose bronze spearhead weighed 300 shekels

and who was armed with a new sword,

said he would kill David.

But Abishai, son of Zariah, came to David's rescue.

He struck the Philistine down and killed him.

And David's men swore to him, saying,

Never again will you go out with us to battle

so that the lamp of Israel will not be extinguished.

In the course of time, there was another battle

with the Philistines at Gob.

At that time, Sibikai, the Hushite,

killed Saph, one of the descendants of Raphah.

In another battle with the Philistines at Gob,

Elhan, the son of Jair, the Bethlehemite,

killed the brother of Goliath, the Gittite,

who had a spear with a shaft like a weaver's rod.

In still another battle, which took place at Gath,

there was a huge man, six fingers on each hand

and six toes on each foot, 24 in all.

He was also descended from Raphah.

When he taunted Israel, Jonathan, son of Shimei,

David's brother, killed him.

These four were descendants of Raphah in Gath,

and they fell at the hands of David and his men.

Well, this is the word of the Lord,

and we're going to consider it together.

So let me pray very briefly and ask for the Lord's help.

Father, as we come to look at this passage of the Bible,

we recognise with all its complexities and confusions for us,

it is your word, and you do speak clearly from it.

So please help us this morning, both me as I speak,

all of us as we listen, to be good at listening to you.

We pray.

Speak, O Lord, we ask in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Now, if you've been with us before this morning,

you will know that we are working our way through the book of 2 Samuel,

and we've come to what essentially is the final lap of the book.

We've come to what is the writer's conclusion.

So let me just point out to you as we start off

that the material here is not chronological.

In other words, chapter 21 does not follow chapter 20 in chronology.

It's not a history order in that sense.

Rather, what you've got in chapters 21,

right to the end of the book in chapter 24,

is a conclusion, a summary or summing up of the book.

You can see that in a few ways.

So I think probably, although the NIV tries to fudge it a little bit,

I think it's probably Goliath's death in verse 19 that gets mentioned,

and where Elhan is a family name for David and Jar is another name for Jesse, probably.

Another way, though, that you can see it is the really careful way that the writer has arranged his material.

So you'll notice, because we just read it, that it starts with Saul's sin.

This chapter is all about Saul's sin, and then it ends with some fighting men

and a list of their mighty victories with this defeat of the giant with 12 fingers and 12 tones.

Then at the end of the book, in chapter 24, you have, at the end, David's sin,

in that he counted the people of Israel.

And then before that, you get a list of David's mighty men as well.

So you've got a symmetry between what's going on in chapter 21, what goes on in chapter 24.

And then right in the middle of all of that is David's song and his last words.

And that is the sort of summing up of the book of 2 Samuel.

What I want to do with our time this morning is really just to zoom in on those opening 15 verses of chapter 21

and look at what they teach us about sin and salvation.

So the first thing to do is just to make sure we get the story straight in our minds.

You'll find in verse 1 that there is a famine that's been going on for three years.

Year after year after year, the crops have failed, there's been no rain.

And so David, we're told, seeks the face of the Lord.

Presumably here, David instinctively understands that this is more than just a bit of bad luck, right?

He understands that the crop failure is God trying to tell him something and say he seeks the Lord.

It feels like to David a covenant curse, a curse from God.

And he's right because God tells him that there is a blood stain or blood guilt on Saul for killing the Gibeonites.

Now, hopefully, in case you don't know, it's OK if you don't know, the Gibeonites, we are told who they are in verse 2.

The Gibeonites were a group of people who way back in Joshua's day,

so Joshua led the people in the conquest of the land of Israel.

The Gibeonites came to Joshua pretending to be from a really long way away.

The Gibeonites recognized that Joshua was conquering the land and defeating and destroying all the people there.

So they put moldy bread in their bags and broken wineskins,

pretend that they'd traveled a long, long way and said to Joshua,

listen, I know that you're going to conquer this land and we're from a really long way away away,

but please make peace with us.

And so Joshua did and he made a covenant with them not to wipe them out.

But really, as it turns out, the Gibeonites had tricked Joshua and they were from close by,

but still the covenant promise stood.

And here what you find out is that Saul had broken the covenant promise.

His zeal for Israel led him to try and kill the foreigners, the Gibeonites,

who were amongst God's people because of that covenant.

And that covenant breaking by Saul led to a bloodstain, which led to a famine,

which had been sent as divine punishment or curse for breaking the covenant.

Now, all that means that in the rest of the story,

David tries to make atonement, as he calls it in verse three,

and asked the Gibeonites, what can be done for you?

How can we deal with this guilt of Saul?

Gibeonites recognize that this kind of sin can't be bought off lightly.

You can't pretend that it didn't exist.

And as essentially slaves in Israel, the Gibeonites had no authority to exact any punishment.

They couldn't demand money.

They couldn't demand life for life or anything like that.

So they had to go through David.

And so after a bit of encouragement from David at the end of verse four,

they summon the courage to suggest the plan that seven sons of Saul

be hung on trees in Gibeah, the ancestral home of King Saul.

David agrees to the plan at the end of verse six,

and he spares Mephibosheth, who you might have met if you were with us several chapters ago,

in earlier on in the book of 2 Samuel.

David suggests that two sons of Saul's concubine, Risper,

including confusingly one who is also called Mephibosheth,

and also five grandsons from Saul's daughter Merab.

They are hung on trees on the mountain, exposed before the Lord,

and they die together at the beginning of the barley harvest.

Risper, we're told, sets up a kind of mini camp on sackcloth

while she waits for the redemption from the famine and the arrival of the rains.

When, in verse 11, that David finds out what Risper has done,

he rewards her and honours her two sons and the other five men with a burial.

And he collects Saul and Jonathan's bones

and buries them in the tomb of Saul's father in Zela.

And the story is wrapped up with those words

that after that God answered prayer on behalf of the land.

Now, that's a really super quick run through the story,

and I'm sure as you hear it, you think,

maybe if you're like me, you think,

what a crazy story.

What a crazy place.

And probably what you're thinking is,

is it right, is it even moral

that two sons and five grandsons are killed

for Saul's wickedness and not for their own?

How can that be fair?

Well, we will come to that,

but what I want us to do is just focus our time

on two words in the passage

and just see together how they unlock

what this story means for us

and why it's here in the Bible

and why we're looking at it this morning.

The first word to think about is this word,

bloodstain, bloodstains.

There in verse one, we looked at it briefly before, bloodstain.

Interestingly, in verse two,

we're told that it is Saul's zeal for the people,

which is presumably a good thing for a king to have,

that leads him to doing a wrong thing of breaking this promise.

Bloodstain comes from the passion

that led to an action of breaking a promise,

killing a group of people who he was supposed to protect.

He was bound by a covenant to protect them.

And the breaking of that covenant means then

that there is bloodstain on Saul's house

and the land is experiencing the curse as a result.

Now, it's worth thinking about this word some more

because really the word that our Bibles translate,

bloodstain, is really just the Hebrew word, blood.

Bloods, bloods.

The word bloodstain or blood guilt,

as it might appear in other versions of the English Bible,

was a word that was made up by the earliest translators

of our English Bibles.

It was there in 1535 in Coverdale's Bible.

It was probably invented by Tyndale himself

as an English word to translate this Hebrew word, blood,

when it's used in this kind of way.

And he famously used it in Psalm 51,

where David says, having killed Uriah the Hittite,

he says, deliver me from blood guiltiness,

O God, O God of my salvation, Psalm 51.

Now, the reason, you might be thinking,

why would you make up a word?

Well, the reason is that the English word blood

doesn't really cover what the Hebrew word blood

means in this context.

You see, in the ancient world,

blood is not just the red stuff

that flows through your veins,

and that's the extent of my medical knowledge about blood.

Rather, blood in ancient times was your life.

It represented your life.

Life was in the blood.

Life and death are symbolized by blood.

The blood carries your life.

So that the priest sacrificing at the altar in Leviticus,

he would collect the blood of the sacrifice

and use it to sprinkle and cleanse the people and the altar.

Not because the blood itself was magically in a sense,

but because the blood represented the life

of the sacrifice that was given.

They are parallel to one another.

Now, if you bring that back to verse one of our passage here,

you can see the point, can't you?

God's point in 2 Samuel 21 verse one

is that there is blood on the house of Saul

because the stains of the lives of the Gibeonites

are hanging over Saul and his household

and over the people.

The death blood has stained the moral standing

of the people in the land.

Now, back in Numbers 35,

God warned people about this.

It'll come up on the screen behind me.

Let me read it to you.

Numbers 35 verse 33.

Numbers 35:33

Do not pollute the land where you are.

Bloodshed pollutes the land.

Not because blood is like a dirty substance on the floor.

No, because it's the guilt,

the life contained in the blood,

which pollutes the land.

And atonement cannot be made for the land

on which blood has been shed,

except by the blood of the one who shed it.

Do not defile the land where you live

and where I dwell,

for I, the Lord, dwell among the Israelites.

Now, the context in Numbers is about individual murders

and a thing called cities of refuge,

but you can see how it links to our passage this morning,

can't you?

Saul had effectively murdered the Gibeonites

and the bloodstain was on his house

and the land and the people,

and that was a problem.

Now, I realise that as you talk about this this morning,

we are now in the language of the ancient Israel, aren't we?

We're in the language of the Bible,

we're outside of our own context,

and this might sound a little bit strange to us,

but we don't talk like this, do we?

And so maybe you're sitting here this morning thinking,

well, this is all very interesting, Steve.

You maybe don't think that.

You maybe think this is all not very interesting, Steve.

But imagine that you're thinking,

this is a very interesting, Steve,

but what on earth does this have to do with us?

Perhaps this is just a historical quirk,

an interesting fact of history.

But I want to suggest to you

that though we might not use this language,

we all do know what bloodstain is.

We all know what blood guilt is.

This whole case for reparations

that has been in the news recently

is because there's a sense in which,

and a right way to put it would be

that there is a bloodstain on Britain

for what happened in the slave trade.

There is a guiltiness for the lives

that were taken advantage of and killed,

and now calling out for justice.

You could use the same idea

to speak of the bloodstain on the Harrods store

for the action of their boss

in his serial abuse of female staff and guests,

abusing his power,

taking away their dignity,

bringing bloodstain, to use this language,

on the company itself.

And we know that, don't we?

We might not use this word,

bloodstain or blood guilt,

but we instinctively know, don't we,

that when life is treated

as less than what it is worth,

it leaves a stain, a mark,

or a guilt on the people who did it.

Lives call out for justice.

But here's the pinch for us

in 2 Samuel chapter 21,

2 Samuel 21 · chapter mention

is that we're not so much to see this

as a condemnation of the slave trade,

as wicked as that was,

or Mohammed al-Fayed as wicked as he was,

but we are to read it incredibly

as our own bloodstain.

You see, if you read 2 Samuel 21

in the light of the New Testament,

you see that this kind of language

is not just used of kings and nations,

it's used of individuals,

people like you,

and people like me,

where we cover ourselves in blood guilt,

not just for the heinous sin

of murder or slave trading,

I guess that none of us

have been involved in that,

but for the regular everyday sin

of selfishness,

pride, lust, anger,

disobedience to our parents,

lying,

refusal to take the worship

of our God seriously.

all of those,

Paul says in Romans 6 verse 23,

Romans 6:23

he says,

the wages of sin is death.

We are blood guilty

because of our sin.

Now maybe this morning,

you think,

wow, that's way too serious, right?

How can we get blood guilt

for lying,

or disobedience to our parents,

or just losing my temper

in a totally rational way

when something happened?

How can that leave me

with the kind of blood guilt

that you're talking about

from 2 Samuel chapter 21?

2 Samuel 21 · chapter mention

Well, really,

that is because lying,

anger,

lust,

disobedience to our parents

is what?

A symptom.

A symptom of a deeper problem,

which is our sin.

Sin,

which is the inclination

of our hearts

to live for ourselves,

to do our own thing,

to disregard our maker.

That brings blood guilt.

Not so much

because we've taken

the life of another,

but because we've taken

our own lives

which have been given to us,

and we've used them

for ourselves.

We have robbed God

of the lives

that he has given us,

and lived them for ourselves

when they were meant

to be lived for him,

and therefore,

the wages of sin

is death.

This is really,

really important.

Let me try and illustrate

what I mean here

with a slightly silly illustration,

but hopefully it will help.

I want you to imagine with me

that you've been given a job

as an Asda grocery delivery driver.

Okay?

So,

you turn up at the depot,

and you are handed the keys

of a brand new,

not yet dented,

Mercedes van

to deliver groceries

around northwest London.

And they hand you the keys,

and they load up the van

with all sorts of different

kinds of groceries,

and they say,

right, here's a list of places

that you're to go

with this van

that we've given to you

so that you might deliver

these groceries.

And you need to go

down the list

and work your way around

and deliver these groceries.

You know the drill.

You know what's going on.

But then what you do

is you sit in the van

and you start the engine.

You think,

do you know what?

I've got a Mercedes van

full of food.

I'm going to drive to Brighton.

I'm going to sit on the beach

and have the picnic of my life.

Right?

So,

that's exactly what you do.

And then as you drive back,

you've had this great picnic

on the beach at Brighton.

Then you drive back

and you think,

well,

I'm on the A406.

Everyone races on the A406.

I wonder what this Mercedes van

is capable of,

right?

And so you crunch it down

a few gears

and you absolutely rag it

on the A406

trying to burn off

Jeff and his Skoda.

And,

you know,

you spin the wheels up.

The gearbox is making

a really funny whine

because you've absolutely

thrashed this van.

And then you,

then you pull back up

in the depot.

Okay?

So you've,

you've been out

for your day's work.

You've eaten all the food

and you've ragged the van

on the A406

and you pull up at the depot.

What do you expect them to say?

You expect them to tell you off,

don't you?

More than that,

you expect them

to take the van off you

and never give it back.

Don't you?

Because you have taken

what was given to you

for a purpose

and have used it

for a completely different one.

For your own

selfish

indulgement.

and the Bible says

that is exactly

what we have done

with the lives

that God has given us.

That we have taken

what God has given us,

the life that he has given us,

that has been handed to us

by God

for a specific purpose.

You know,

none of us this morning

chose to be born,

did we?

None of us did.

None of us gave ourselves life.

None of us own ourselves

in that way.

The truth is

that lives are given to us

that we might live

for the glory of him

who made us

and live for his glory

in all things.

Not because that spoils our joy,

but because that's joy defined.

Considering God

our highest good,

our greatest joy.

But instead,

we take the blood,

the life,

the van,

if you like,

of our lives

and in zeal

for our own joy.

We use it

for the moral equivalent

of having a beach

for ourselves

on Brighton Beach

and doing races

up the 406.

You know,

we're more interested,

aren't we,

with our own glory

than we are with God's.

We take his purpose

for work

and we make it about us

and our fulfillment

and our identity.

You know,

we say that we're motivated,

but really what we are

is addicted

to our own glory.

We take sex,

which God has given to us

for our joy

within the marriage

of a man and a woman

and we use it

for our own selfish self-expression

and satisfaction.

We take the material blessing

of stuff

and we hoard it

as if it's trophies

of our own self-interest.

We take the blessing

of family

and of friendships

and we make it an idol

that prevents us

from attending

the worship of our Creator

or gathering with His people.

And because of that,

our van,

if you like,

or our blood,

our lives

are stained with guilt

and are due to another,

to the one

who gave them to us.

We must give them back.

Let me say this morning,

if you will not,

if you don't understand this,

the message of the Bible

will remain mysterious to you.

The message of the Bible

is that what's wrong

with the world

is not so much

just a bit of immorality,

right?

The fact that you lost

your temper with your mum

and you swore at her,

right,

that did not break

the universe.

The fact that you

have got a speeding ticket,

that is not the problem

in the universe.

That the problem

in the universe,

the reason that

we,

as humanity,

are destined

to death,

hell,

judgment,

is because

those things

that we do wrong

are a symptom

of the fact

that we have taken

the lives

which have been

given to us by God

and have used them

for ourselves.

And in zeal

for our own pleasure

and joy,

we have lived

for our own glory.

And all of us

are in the same boat.

And I don't know

how you read these stories

of the Old Testament

for yourself,

but when you read it,

I wonder who you

imagine you're like,

right?

I always imagine myself

to be the great hero

in these stories.

You know,

I'm the guy

who slayed the guy

with six fingers

on each hand,

right?

That's who I want to be.

But actually,

the story of 2 Samuel

is that I'm sore

and I have stained

my life with blood guilt.

And while there might not

be three years of famine

to make me wonder about it,

still the carnage

of the world around me,

the carnage of the city

that we live in,

screams to us

that a covenant

has been broken.

All is not well.

And 2 Samuel 21

invites you

to be wise enough

to go,

what's wrong

with the world?

What's the promise

that we've broken?

What's wrong?

Where's the blood guilt?

Where's the blood stain?

And the Bible says

it's here.

It's in our hearts.

Now that leads us

on to the second word

of the passage

to think about,

which is this word,

atonement.

Atonement.

The word is there

in verse 3

if you look down,

and David instinctively

knows that blood stain

requires atonement.

In other words,

to remove the stain

of Saul's guilt,

it needs justice.

It needs a putting

of the record right.

It can't just be

like a kind of cover-up.

Rather,

before God the judge,

something needs to happen.

Now,

we saw, didn't we,

that the Gibeonites

are slow to ask

what they know

needs to happen

because they know

that blood guilt

can't be removed

by a payment of money,

but only by

the shedding of blood.

In other words,

legal justice,

as we've been considering

already,

legal justice

for blood guilt

is the payment of blood.

Life for life.

Just like Numbers 35 said,

only blood can wash away blood.

Only a life surrendered

can pay for a life taken.

You know,

anything less

is just legal fiction, right?

It's just trying

to cover it up.

Now,

I said before

that you might have

some questions

about the way

this ends up being done

in 2 Samuel 21.

You know,

I think the question

that we're asking,

isn't it,

is it right

for these seven innocent sons

or grandsons

to die for the sin

of their father

or their grandfather?

You know,

after all,

doesn't the Old Testament

tell us that children

shouldn't be made to pay

for the sins

of their parents?

Now,

in a way,

that's one of those situations

where our big question

as we come to the Bible

is not really the question

the passage is answering,

so we need to just be cautious.

Really,

there isn't,

I don't think,

an answer to that question.

Some people,

some scholars,

you read and they tell you

this is absolutely

the right thing to do.

Others are less convinced.

You know,

some people argue

that maybe these seven sons,

grandsons,

were involved in the slaughter

of the Gibeonites

in some way.

Others say there's no reason

to think that God

approves of their death

and that David was just

trying to knock off

a few more of Saul's household.

Now,

what are you supposed to think?

Well,

it's worth bearing in mind

that as horrific

as the death of these

seven innocent sons

might sound,

it's likely that Saul

and his men

killed more Gibeonites

than seven.

Probably more died

in the famine as well.

It's also worth remembering

that we do still believe,

don't we,

in guilt by association.

It's why,

say,

for example,

Putin's family

are being sanctioned

even though they're not

directly responsible

for the war in Ukraine.

But the reality is

that actually that question

is not really answered

in the passage.

And that's not because

the Bible is deliberately vague

or doesn't anticipate

that you might ask it.

The reason that that question

is not answered

in your passage

this morning

is because

it's not the point.

It's not the point.

But what is the point?

Well,

the point is that

the blood of the seven sons

is,

as it turns out,

effective.

It works.

So Rizpah sits

and waits for the fruits

of the atonement

as she waits

for the rain to come

and the rain does come.

And God is referenced

throughout the passage

as being the one

in front of whom

the atonement is made.

God is the one

who is withholding the rains

and God is the one

who sends the rains

at the end.

God is the one

who responds

to the plea

made in the bodies

of these seven men.

You see,

this is the point.

Atonement for blood guilt

in 2 Samuel 21

can only be made

by the shedding of blood.

The wages of sin

is death.

Now,

ponder on that

for a moment.

If what we have said

is true,

if you and I

stand on the brink

of eternal death,

of hell

in judgment

for the crime

of stealing our lives

and living them

for our own glory,

then atonement,

cleansing,

forgiveness,

redemption,

reconciliation,

all those wonderful things

can only be found

if you can find

someone who is willing

to spill their blood

for you.

Because anything less

is not justice.

Let me tell you this morning,

this is why religion

is so mad.

It's crazy, isn't it?

Can you imagine

the idea

that God would be satisfied

with you praying

five times a day

to cover over

the sin

of stealing your life?

Wouldn't that be ridiculous?

You know,

that'd be like pulling up

in the Mercedes van

having ragged it down

the A406

and eaten all the food

in the back of it

and say,

don't worry,

I polished the number plate

at the back.

What?

Is that going to atone

for what you've done?

Don't be utterly ridiculous.

That's not justice.

Oh, you know,

I attended church.

I read my Bible.

I tried to be good.

I was culturally a Christian.

Anyone who asked me,

I said I'm a Christian.

Well, of course,

that doesn't cover it,

does it?

If you are guilty

of a bloodstain,

you need to find someone

who can spill

their blood for you.

Which brings us

to the good news,

doesn't it,

of the passage?

Which is that

1,500 years

after these events,

you find a bleeding man

on a cross.

The truly innocent son

from heaven,

God in human flesh.

Not standing in a place

of legal fiction

or questionable justice,

but planned in the mind

of God

from eternity past,

where the sins

of his people,

their blood guilt,

would be handed over

to him.

Literally,

imputed,

counted to,

given to,

Jesus Christ,

so that the innocent son,

the one who knew no sin,

might on the cross

be made sin for us,

so that in him

we might know

righteousness,

forgiveness,

grace,

and mercy,

that the reins

of God's blessing

might fall on us,

so that while the wages

of sin is death,

the gift of God

is eternal life

in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This is what

the hymn writer means

when he says,

what riches of kindness

he lavished on us.

His blood was the payment,

his life was the cost.

We stood neath a debt

we could never afford.

Our sins,

they are many,

his mercy is more.

What can wash away my sin?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

What can make me whole again?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

It's why when we come

in a moment

to celebrate the Lord's Supper,

we will say,

this cup is the new covenant

in my blood,

says Jesus.

I spilt my blood for you

to wash you

of your blood guilt.

The blood speaks of good news,

atonement and forgiveness,

the way back from guilt.

This then is the point

for us, isn't it?

2 Samuel 21

sort of jars on us

because of the innocent death

of these seven sons

for sins they didn't commit

and it doesn't seem right.

But the big story of the Bible,

the story of the universe

is of a true innocent son

spilling his blood

for you and me

that we might be forgiven.

That's the story.

It was my sin

that held him there

until it was accomplished.

His dying breath

has brought me life.

I know that it is finished.

Here's blood for me.

Let me say this morning,

if you have never trusted Christ,

if you've never turned to him

and said,

Lord Jesus,

please wash me clean

with your blood.

Please take away my sin

that I might know you

and love you

and live for you.

If you've never done that,

can I invite you

to do that this morning?

Don't delay

and don't hesitate

and don't pretend

that you've done it

when you've not.

Turn to Jesus

and trust in him,

his life for your life,

his death for yours.

And if you're a Christian

this morning,

2 Samuel 21

serves, doesn't it,

as a joyous reminder

that in the Lord Jesus

all your blood guilt is gone.

That in life and death

you have nothing to fear

because blood has been shed

to wash away

your blood guilt.

If you're a Christian

this morning

and you're trusting in Christ,

it is impossible

for God to condemn you

because it would be unjust

because blood has already been shed.

the payment has already been paid

in Christ

so you can be forgiven.

So great floods of mercy

and showers of goodness

might come down on us.

And do you know what,

Christian, this morning,

this isn't a message

that you're supposed

to keep to yourself.

This is the news

our world is desperate to hear

that there is freedom

and forgiveness found

in the innocent blood of Jesus

shed for us

on our behalf.

Let me pray

and then we'll sing together

as we respond.

Let's just take a moment of silence

and maybe you can respond

in your own hearts

to something you want to say

to the Lord

turning to him.

Amen.

Amen.

Heavenly Father,

Heavenly Father,

I don't want to pretend

that our sin doesn't matter,

that we're better

than we really are,

that we have any hope

in ourselves

or our goodness

or our good works.

But we thank you

for the Lord Jesus

who shed his blood for us

that we might be

fully,

freely,

forgiven,

that we might be able

to live lives

for your praise

and your glory.

Thank you

that Jesus

has treated

the cause,

not just the symptoms,

giving himself

for us

in our place

that he might make us

new people.

Please, Lord,

help us to continue

to delight

and find our joy

in Christ.

We rejoice

in what he's done

for us

and we thank you

for him.

Amen.