The Rebellion of Sheba | Chris Osburn

Well, if you haven't been with us for the past few months, I've

been going through some of the chapters in Second Samuel,

beginning with Absalom. David's sons revolt against him

beginning in about chapter 15. And we've been kind of going

through that, just kind of continued on going through these

chapters and the chaos. We've seen all the all the

things that have happened, all the turmoil that's in David's

rule, if you want to say have really disrupted his his reign

being disrupted. We might tend to ask ourselves,

you know, is this thing going to end well?

Is there going to be a happily ever after?

If you want to say to all that David is trying to achieve and

all the things that have gone on, I mean, how many more deaths

and how many more murders are going to take place?

And, and, or we just, you know, in five chapters have that many

deaths already. And we're not done because we're

just going to be two more deaths that we're going to study about

here in chapter 20. So the return of David to

Jerusalem after he left there, he had fled to escape his wicked

son, Absalom, as we mentioned. And all these things have

happened in, in that short period of time.

Absalom's rebellion actually ended with Absalom's death.

And here the people are getting him back across the Jordan to

Jerusalem. But it's not a return to peace

and tranquility as he would have hoped in Second Samuel 8 and 15.

You know, a lot of things have transpired since the writer of

Second Samuel told told us back in Chapter 8 about David

reigning over all of Israel, administering justice and equity

to all his people. You know, those days are gone.

Those days have passed. His Kingdom is now fragile.

It's unstable. There's going to be another 1000

years before the one whom this Kingdom points finally arrives.

When the wise men's questions ring out, you know, where is

this, that he's born king of the Jews?

We're looking for him as we read in Matthew 2 and two, kind of

paraphrased and here, David 1000 years before Christ.

His crown is now tarnished. His leadership is faltered, his

attempts to put things back together and failed.

But why would we be surprised? Why would be be surprised?

It's not a unique story in any way.

It's actually the story of all earthly kingdoms.

It's the story of all empires. It's just.

And that's why we need to make sure that what we affirm about

the word of God is being the light in the darkness and the

hope for the hopeless and so on, that we actually truly believe

that because here we are in the final weeks of a year, a period

of time that's gone. You know, we've seen so much

turmoil in our country and we have people in communities that

always saying no, is this thing going to be fixed?

Is the economy going to be right?

All these things that are happening.

Has the world spun off its its access?

Is this thing broken for any forever?

Is there anybody that can repair the brokenness that we find in

our living? And see, that's our human

nature. Our human nature is always

looking for a solution to our social problems.

We're always looking for a solution.

Maybe if it was education that would cure us, we would think

that it would be cured by now. Maybe science can fix us.

But some, most of the time, science can't agree with itself.

Perhaps we're able even to find, you know, great political

Nirvana as it will. You know, maybe everything kind

of everybody kind of finally works everything out.

After all the Founding fathers, you know, we got rid of King

George the Third during the Revolutionary War.

We thought that would be the answer for America.

And little did we realize that others would emerge just as bad

as him or, or many times not as good as him or as good as him.

And church, sometimes, you know, we get question, you know, why

aren't we teaching on the the political things or the things

in the social? Why are we teaching on those

things? Because a voice needs to be

heard. You know, we need that stuff in

America. We need to be teaching on that

to solve these these issues. You know, things are crumbling.

We've got you guys are just you're talking about the same

thing all the time. Because Simply put, the reason

what we teach on what the Bible teaches and we're always in the

word and we're always going back to the word every single time

and not getting involved in politics, not getting involved

in social issues is because the answer is in the book.

It's in the scriptures. Simply put, it's actually in a

very specific way in Second Samuel because it's the promise

that God had first made to Abraham.

It's now reinforced to David in Second Samuel 12 that speaks to

the answer of the longings of the human heart, one who can

save and rule the world, who can reign.

So what we're actually doing in studying the Old Testament and

the Bible as a whole is at the very heart of the matter.

And it's the promise of God that is sustained the people of God

all the way through the history of their lives.

For example, when Nebuchadnezzar came in the vastest of

Nebuchadnezzar's power, when Babylon seemed to crush

everything that the people of Israel knew.

And they took away elements of the temple when they paralyzed

the people, people were paralyzed when they took their

best into exile, when they were tempted to maybe quit rejoicing

or quit singing their songs and and they thought it was an end

of it. You know, what does God do?

Well, he raises up a few young men and Daniel and Nebanezer, he

can't sleep. We can read about it and and

Daniel and and he can't even remember the dreams that he has.

So he goes to his soothsayers and he has the soothsayers, the

first tell him the dream that he had and then interpret the

dreams. Well, who could do that?

Nobody could do that. Not one of us could do that, but

God could. God could, God's man.

And the dream that he had, it was this great big statue.

And Daniel said, well, I can tell you exactly what that is.

Daniel explains the dream to Nebuchadnezzar and and it's

simple. Daniel said, it's simple.

All the kings, all the empires that are represented in that

great statue are actually going to be destroyed one day is what

Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar. And we're not here to study

Daniel, but in Daniel 2 verse 44, it's in case we're you're

Daniel 2:44

wondering where it says it. He says, and in those days, in

the days of those kings, insert any Kingdom you want, Alexander

the Great, the Roman Empire, any empire, the USSR, Hitler's Third

Reich in Germany, the British Empire, the American Empire as

we live in it. Put any of them in there and

listen to what it says. It says the God of heaven will

set up a Kingdom that shall never be destroyed.

It shall break the pieces of all these kingdoms and bring them to

an end, and it shall stand forever, forever.

Now, here's the question that's posed to us by that statement.

Do we believe that? Do we believe that?

It's a rhetorical question. And if we're saying yes, then we

need to encourage ourselves. We need to encourage ourselves

to say, you know, you know, we need to help our we can even

pray, Lord, help me to believe what I believe.

Help me to be reaffirmed in what our belief is on the Bible.

Help me to doubt my doubts and believe my beliefs.

And that's what I want to say to you as a study of ancient kings,

all the Israel kings that we see up to date and and could

possibly consider and that may be in front of us.

There's one king that's going to stand forever, forever.

And we need to have that in our mind as we kind of go through

the Old Testament, seeing King David and all his predecessors

and those that are ruling at that point.

Now, I plan to go through this chapter just a couple different

ways here. Number one, considering the

rebellion of Sheba. It's there in the text.

And then secondly, by considering an intervention of a

wise woman. And there's much more in between

all those things as we go through this chapter, one of the

things that the Old Testament does for us, it kind of leaves

us with unanswered questions. And it's intentional like that.

In many ways, it's kind of like an unfinished Symphony or

unfinished harmony. You know, you're waiting for the

grand finale to to come to place, but the But the Old

Testament isn't the grand finale because we look forward to the

New Testament, which is the grand finale.

So let's understand it as we move forward and try to get

through this. So first of all, let's see what

the Bible says. These things were written down

for us so that through our encouragement of the Scriptures

that we may have hope, as stated in Romans 15, verse 4.

Romans 15:4

So first of all, the rebellion of Sheba.

Now there happened to be a rebel whose name was Sheba.

So here we have Sheba. Absalom's rebellion has been put

down. At the end of 19, chapter 19, it

was made clear to us that all is not well.

There's, there's tribal tension if you want to say with Israel

and Judah. There's quarreling, there's

jealousy, there's instability. And in that context, Sheba, this

guy from Victory, sees this as an opportunity to for himself to

do what Absalom has not been able to do.

It's kind of, he's kind of riding the coattails of Absalom.

He's not, it's not a separate insurrection in and of itself.

It's kind of him just taking over what where Absalom left off

to remove the Kingdom from the control of David, a continuing

attempt rather than a separate attempt.

He's a troublemaker. And he rallies some of the

others who are not quite happy of whom were.

There's quite a few, it seems like, with a blast of a trumpet.

And you'll notice when we get to the end of the trumpet blow,

blow. Actually, there's a beginning in

the chapters of Trump blow of a trumpet.

At the end there's a blow of a trumpet.

Basically we're starting the insurrection and at the end of

the chapter says we're concluded.

And so he sends out the word and he says in verse one, we've got

nothing to do with David. There's no future for us with

the son of Jesse. Every man to his tents.

O Israel, let's get out of here. Let's get on here.

We're not going to live under the control of David, is what

Sheba is saying to everybody. And as a result, we find in

verse 2 that all the men of Israel with withdrew from David,

basically a wholesale collapse, if you want to say.

So they go and they follow Sheba.

But the men of Judah, which is a smaller number, followed their

King David steadfastly. So we have Sheba and his guys.

They they leave and Judah and the followers of the king cling

to David steadfastly. And then we have verse 3 just

kind of right in our faces here, verse 3.

It's really kind of fascinating that this statement is right

here. I would think if it was me

writing something, I would think maybe this is going to be at the

end where he's kind of listening to where everybody's at, all the

all the government officials and then what they were the

concubines are AT and so on. But he doesn't do that.

The writer wants us to come face to face with this right here.

I believe he says, and David came to his house at Jerusalem.

David was coming home. There's just something about

being able to go home after maybe what David went through or

any of us, we want to go home after a long trip or travelling

or whatever it may be. You're somehow going home.

But it's a little different this time for David going home.

There's no celebration that he's back ruling.

There's no music playing for him, there's no trumpets,

anything like that. You know, how would you think

that David maybe would have walked up to his home?

You know, it was his home, but wasn't really a house after the

things that had gone on When we studied earlier, I mentioned

that, that David's decision to leave the concubines back to

look after his house would prove a really bad decision.

And we remember that. And if you want to go back and

read that in, in the 16th chapter of Second Samuel, you

can read it on your own. But if if he would have never

taken these concubines in the 1st place, Absalom would have

never been able to do what he did to them.

And so he would not be returning to the sad, sorry place.

I don't want to spend a whole lot of time on this, but there's

something I want to say about it.

You know, we can drive around and we can see sometimes

billboards of what is being referred to as human

trafficking. You know, the movement of women

and girls. The great focus on the media has

has right now, they're they're getting ready to focus again on

the whole Epstein debacle that's going on and everything that

goes on with that. And we could say to ourselves,

you know, how could our world ever descend into such a thing,

into such a place? How could somebody ever do such

a thing? Murder, incest, chaos is a

result of the fall, and it is a result of the heart of man.

And what did it mean for these women?

Look at what it says here. Did he did for them?

He says he put them in seclusion and supported them, imprisoned

them. Did he imprison them?

No, it didn't say that. It says he protected them.

He took care of them. After all.

We look at what happened when he was gone.

He provided for them, but he didn't see these things kind of

play out the way as as he hoped, it says.

And they were shut up until the day of their death, living in

widowhood. It's been taught here, we've

taught on this year what it means to be beautiful or

handsome. And I think, you know, on this

occasion, do you think that they may have wanted to curse their

beauty? You think of what they had in

their hearts. Maybe they this would have been

an occasion for them to curse their beauty.

I came upon a quote from somebody who is a very prominent

in the world of politics of years ago and she commented on

the fact she said that not being beautiful was a blessing because

she said the pretty girl has a handicap to overcome.

And it's a reminder to us that it is one thing to make

ourselves look attractive, but it's another thing to make

ourselves look seductive. And women know the difference

and men know the difference. And let us learn a lesson that

the picture of purity and beauty provided in first Peter is the

one for which we strive for for which we long for our children

and our grandchildren. And that is it should be that

your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet

spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight.

This surely this verse 3 is one of the saddest pictures in the

entire story. But life goes on.

It goes on for these women. They live in widowhood until the

day they die. And now David has to make sure

that what is before him in terms of Sheba gets dealt with

quickly. And so we'll notice that the

urgency that David has is he's he's he's going to address it

here quickly. In verses 4 through 6, he

assigns A Massa to call together the men of Judah and to do it

within a three day period and and to get here himself.

And Massa does not manage to do so for whatever reason.

We don't know why, we're not given the reason why.

So David goes to Plan B and he decides, well then if a mass is

unable to get here in time, we're going to go ahead and ABBA

Shy, you're going to go ahead and do what I want you to do.

And so he tells ABBA Shy, he says this guy Sheba, he's

actually going to do more harm to us than Absalom has ever

done. And So what I want you to do is

get to the people, all the people together, pursue him, and

prevent him from being able to hold himself up in a fortified

city. Paraphrasing what's being said

there. But that's what David's telling

Abishai to do. And that gets us through verse

6. And then in verse 7, the

following, first of all were introduced to the men, of

course, and then they are described as Joab's men.

Joab may have been set aside in preference for a Massa by David,

but Joab is really at the very heart of things here as he's

always been, and the combined forces appear to be determined

by his influence. The mission in verse 7 is

stated, is stated to pursue, pursue Sheba.

And then in verse 8 there's a meeting that takes place at a

stone, which is obviously significant meeting point in

Gibeon and Amasa came to meet them.

Now we don't know whether it was a scheduled meeting between

Amassa and those men or if they just happen to meet there.

We don't know. And he could have never known.

Amassa could have never have known that he was walking to his

death. He could have never have known,

but he was. And then we have the record of

his murder that set up the set up is described there.

We don't have the description of a soldiers garments here, the

clothing and everything and all by large.

But you don't, we don't have all the details of that.

But here the soldiers garment had a belt and there was a sword

fastened to his thigh. And as he went forward, as it

fell out. And we can't tell from the text

whether it fell out purposefully or whether it fell out

inadvertently. But there's no question here

that if it happened inadvertently, Joab scooped it

up and took advantage of what was presented before him.

You see, Joab didn't think Amasa was worthy of being in charge.

So Joab took it upon himself and he reached down and grabbed that

sword and at the same time he went to grab the beard of Amasa.

As an Eastern fashion, you would take hold of the beard as to

give him a kiss and say, how's it going, Amasa, how are you?

How's your health? We Fast forward 1000 years to

the Garden of Gethsemane and the traitor comes and he embraces

Jesus and he said and Jesus the King says, would you betray me

with a kiss? Job says how are you doing?

Job doesn't care how he's doing. Job doesn't care how a mass is

doing. Joab has a plan, his very own

reasons that he wanted to eliminate a masa and he does it

so swiftly, swiftly and silently and mercilessly.

And they're a massive lies in a pool of blood. 1 of Joab's men

is given the responsibility to try and make sure that all the

people that are in pursuit of Shiva to just keep following

Joab and Abishai. And then notice the sentence

there at the end, it says then Joab and Abishai's brother

pursued Shiva, the son of Bickery.

I mean, you talk about cold heart.

Cold heart brutality is quite immense in this passage.

You know, he kills him on on in one blow.

It's a devastating impact. And he turns around.

He says his brother, OK, now that's taken care of.

Let's go ahead and keep on pursuing Shiva.

Meanwhile, what happens next is that is what we see and we know

as. Rubbernecking.

This is going to be happening right here, says meanwhile.

So Joab leaves and one of he leaves one of his voices.

If you're on the side of Joab, which puts you on the side of

David, just keep moving and you'll be fine.

But the people stop to look to see a mass on the side of the

road wallowing in his own blood. And then what happens is he

realizes that he's got to get a Massa off the road, he's got to

get him out of the way so these people can keep on following

Joab and Abishai to take care of Sheba.

So 1 of Joab men pulls Amasa off the road, throws something over

him to cover him. And now the people aren't

distracted by what's happening at that moment.

And that's exactly what's there in verse 13.

They moved him out of the road and all the people went after

Joab to pursue Sheba, the son of Bashir.

So they knew all. They knew what they were doing.

And then verses 14 and 15, it says in Joab, Joab once again

stays true. You know, Joab, he's a very

consistent guy, to say the least.

He stays true to himself. He seeks to advance his cause by

attacking the city of Abel, of Beth McCaw.

You know, Joab knows what he's doing.

This is not his first rodeo. If you want to say he's done

this before, he's good at it. He's a military man.

Job is an interesting man in really a lot of ways, since I've

been kind of picking up on him through these studies.

Really an interesting guy because his commitment is where

his commitment is to King David and to the the growth and the

security of the Kingdom of David.

His commitment is to the anointed king of God.

His motive seems to be largely right, but his method is so

bizarre on how he goes about this.

He's already left a trail behind him of death and he continues to

do it. It's basically a warning.

He's warning each to each person who was tempted to say, you

know, I think I can advance the Kingdom of God by military might

or by muscle, by power. And if we think about it, that

notion is still alive and well today.

We see that happen, the advancement of the Kingdom of

God by fighting by by brutality, by whatever means may be

possible, by human nature. That's the Joab way.

And Jesus says in John 18, verse 36, my Kingdom is not of this

John 18:36

world. If my Kingdom were of this

world, my servants would fight. But we don't fight.

You see, we're not involved in a building of an American empire,

or any empire for that matter. You see, we're the servants of a

humble king who's a friend of the US broken people who receive

all kinds. We, we receive everything that

we have coming to us. Jesus received far more interest

from prostitutes than he did from religious professors.

He welcomed people into his fold, some most unlikely people

that we could ever imagine. His own family tree is riddled

with messed up people because he came to save all those types of

people that had all, all kinds of issues, each one of us.

So let's not be, let's be careful when maybe we see the

Joab come out in us. If you want to say we want to

make sure we check ourselves. If we're getting a little too

aggressive with things or pushing on somebody too hard or

whatever it may be, then we have a wise woman.

Time to hear from a wise woman. OK, a wise woman.

Maybe she can help us out. Maybe she can help Joab decide

which way to go on this. A shrewd woman, a woman who's

able to think outside the box. You see, Joab had previously

used a wise woman. If we remember, we tried to, he

tried to bring reconciliation between David and Absalom.

We see that in Chapter 14. We're not told of the woman's

name, but we know Sheba's name, and he's a troublemaker, but we

don't have her name. But her influence is powerful,

as we're going to see here. Very, very powerful.

And I started thinking about women who may be wise women that

Wayne we may be Privy to or know of in our history.

You know, we think of wise women.

I thought about maybe Margaret Thatcher.

She was a wise woman, Rosa Parks, she was a wise woman.

And the things that she did seemed to be pretty wise Mother

Teresa, wise in her ways, wise women.

But then I came across a woman who her name is Golda Mere, and

she was actually the first Prime Minister woman of Israel and the

only woman prime Prime Minister on Israel.

I had no idea who she was until I found a couple of her quotes.

Some may remember who she is, but she was able to be bold

enough to think outside the box and to say things that were on

her mind. A couple of the quotes that I

came across really struck stuck stuck with me.

One, she says 1 cannot and must not try to erase the past

because it does not fit the present.

It's a wise saying. Another one, she said old age is

like a plane flying through a storm.

Once you're on board, there's nothing you can do.

A pretty good one. So listen to the woman as she

shouts. She says here, here or listen,

listen to tell Joab. Let's try to think about this

for a moment. Let's paint this picture in our

mind. Here the city is being besieged.

The city Abel of Beth Macaws being besieged by Joab and all

of his men. Maybe they built a ramp.

They're going to get battering ramps to take the walls down.

So it's not some sort of like quiet a sneaky attack.

If you want to say it's kind of like noise, banging, clanking,

hammers, nails, everything, armor and Shields and Spears and

everything just making a racket trying to take this this city

walls down. It's not quite in any way.

And Joabs down there, he's on the mountain, He tells and she

tells them, tell him to come here so I can speak to him.

And he came near and the women said, are you Joab?

And he said, yeah. And she said, we'll listen to

the words of your servant. He said, I'm listening.

And then she said, you know, they used to say that Abel that

you're trying to destroy was the place where there was answers.

It's kind of like a mother city to Israel.

People used to come here so they can get answers to their

question. You're just trying to destroy

it. Now.

You want to tear this thing down.

You know, this is a historic place in Israel for Israel's

people. Why would you want to do this?

Why would you want to swallow up the heritage of the Lord?

And you know, it's really surprising that that Joab

responds the way he does. Joab answered.

He said, far be it from me, far be it from me.

I mean, are you kidding me, Joab?

We can see right through that. You know, this guy has left a

trail of destruction and he's saying I would never do such a

thing. Well, give me a break.

Job. We we know who you are.

We know what he's about to do and he's able to do Mr.

Destruction, if you want to call him that when it comes to his

dealings. But of course, he's he's

actually the swinging, swinging. He's trying to tell him the

point of what what's really going on.

He said that's not true. I'm not going to destroy the

city. I'm here to get a hold of Sheba,

the son of Mercury, because he's lifted his hand up against the

king and he deserves to be destroyed.

And you can't do that woman is what he's telling her.

And the woman says to Joab, watch, his head will be thrown

to you over the wall. Well, if we heard that, if any

of us heard that, I kind of wonder how Joel responded here

and looked at his guys went, well, OK, let's see if she can

do that or if he was like, yeah, we got someone on the inside

who's going to take care of him for me.

I don't know how he responded, but what it went like.

But I think he looked, as guys say, well, I wasn't expecting

that to come out of her mouth, but it did.

So she's up on the wall and she and they're down and job's not

going in. And we find out she was not

going to be coming out and they're all waiting to see if

his head comes flying over the wall.

I could only imagine one of the soldiers saying, you know, well,

she going to be able to do this. Where'd she go?

Is she going to take care of this like she said?

And you know, I think, you know, what was it?

Tell us there It says in in her wisdom there in the text, she

went to share her wisdom with the people.

She's a wise woman. So she went to talk her wisdom

to them. In other words, she went to tell

the other people in the city their plan, her plan.

And again, I, you know, I could think of maybe Job and this

guy's kind of conversing back and forth.

One of Job's guys asked Job, Well, they do you think they're

really going to go ahead and with this and deliver like she

said she was. And you know, I think Job may

have said, well, we're going to find our answer soon enough.

Well, the head come flying over the wall landed.

The trumpet sounded as we can read there and the men have went

home and Joab returned to Jerusalem to King David.

So we got the rebellion of Sheba taken care of another murder,

two more murders that we read about.

So can we say at this point that everybody's going to live

happily ever after? Well, there's still more to

come. David's going to suffer the

results of his old age. His life is going to continue to

tumble and ruin. He wasn't wise enough or good

enough to establish a Kingdom that would last forever.

There's only one. There's only one wise enough,

good enough to establish the Kingdom that lasts forever.

And it's not by might, it's not by power, but it's by my spirit,

as God says in Zechariah 46, says the Lord.

You know, we see today throughout the world today, all

the children of the Kingdom are meeting all kinds of places,

sharing the same songs, declaring the same king, namely

Jesus. That's why you see the.

The Old Testament ends with a period of 400 years of silence

and darkness where generations simply are left with just the

promises of God and that's it. And when their grandchildren or

their children ask for, you know, when, when are all these

promises going to be fulfilled? When is it going to happen?

When are we going to see the fulfillment of the Messiah?

When are we going to see all this?

These things come to you know, we've been taught that God keeps

his promises. Why are we seeing those promises

kept? Well, that's the cry of the new,

new chest, you know, it's, it's the cry of us as well, you know.

But there's a longing, there's a waiting.

God hasn't fulfilled all of his promises yet, but we believe his

promises are going to be fulfilled by the coming of Jesus

at one of these days, The final promise.

He comes to save, He comes to rule, and he comes to reign.

So we see a rebellion of Sheba, a worthless man, and then an

intervention that came by the way of an unnamed woman who

exercise great wisdom in her circumstance.

And that leaves us with the concluding few verses.

Here, 23 through 25, it says. And Joab was over all the army

of Israel, Ben and I, the son of Jehoiadai was over the

Cherithites and the Pelathites. Adiram was in charge of revenue

and interesting enough, Adiram was in charge of revenue instead

of revenue. It says.

In some other translations it says forced labor.

Jehoshaphat the son of Ahila was a recorder, Shiva was a scribe,

Zadok and Abby Athar were the priests and Ira the Jairite was

a chief minister under David. Seems almost kind of anti

climactic, right? We're just going to go ahead and

read the officers and the government officials in.

Well, what do we have here? It's simply appears to be simply

just a list of members, if you like, David's Cabinet, the

crucial people within the structure of the government

that's going to proceed from there.

And the way in which we need to think about this is in

relationship to the fact that this is the second occasion in

Second Samuel where we see such a list provided to us on

previous occasion, Second Samuel.

You can read it and in chapter 8 of Second Samuel, I believe in

verse 15 or so there at the it's familiar in length, largely the

same, but there's some differences.

For example, we're told immediately here that Joab was

in command of the army of Israel.

In Chapter 8, it says what Joab was identified as being command

of the army of Israel. And I think there's an

indication in a way that falls to the very fact that Joab had

really ascended in his military might, in his military ways.

Now he's in command over all the armies of Israel.

Joab, I think, also took into account maybe in his own mind

that he was kind of filling in the gaps for David that David

could not do. In his own mind, Joab was taking

care of those underlying battles that needed to happen in order

for the advancement of King David.

We have an important distinction, though.

It's in verse from verse 15, in chapter 8.

The rider wants us to understand, I think, one thing.

It says David reigned over all Israel, and as he did so, he

administered justice and equity to all the people.

So his position as king was, is significant.

And, and the implications of his kingship were not seen only as

in the decisions that he made, but in the way that he conducted

his life and in the way that he organized everything that was

going on. And by the time we get to

chapter 20 in this list that we read here, things have changed a

little bit. For example, we'll notice in

verse 24 that this man Adoram was in charge of the revenue or

in charge as some transitions say, forced labor.

We don't have any record record of that before there was nobody

in charge of forced labour or force Rep or revenue.

If you want to say people could sustain themselves by just

helping each other during that for early part of David's reign.

But now things have changed to where that role is necessary.

See the Kingdom of David is no longer as it was when it was

back then. The highlights of his rule have

been overshadowed. If you want to say they've taken

a less the the kingdom's not as remarkable as it used to have

been. Just like Saul's dynasty failed,

David's dynasty is failing as well as Solomon's that will read

on in in further will also fade. Saul faded politically, Solomon

is going to collapse religiously and of course David we knew his

failure was a moral failure. It's actually impossible to read

this without recognizing even if we start back, I think about

Chapter 11 all the way through verse 20.

We read this story of painfully aware that the fact that

everything is on a decline in David's rule.

It can be traced to the one offence David did on that one

afternoon that he stayed home and all of his men went out to

war and he and he and he took that offence with Bathsheba.

You see choices have significance.

The choice that David made was significant.

The choices we make are significant and the choice that

he made on that one occasion not only impacted him, but it

impacted Bathsheba, it impacted the future of his reign and

impacted Uriah and everything that is wrapped around all that.

So the consequence of his sin has really undermined the

goodness of his Kingdom. I think David could look back

and say, man, if I could just do it all over again, if I could

just have that moment again, I'd do it all over.

If I could just turn back the clock just a little bit and redo

things. And I don't think there's a

person here that has the same thought about anything in their

lives. If we could just turn back the

clock a little bit and redo things a little different than

we did years ago, or maybe just some recently, whatever it may

be, if there's a way I could go back and deal with that

differently. Well, it was dealt with in

David's case. And if we believe Christ is

dealt in our case as well. Because on account of God's

immense mercy and his Amazing Grace, David was forgiven and he

was forgiven and he was restored.

But he wasn't restored to the wonder in the and, and what had

gone on before to who he was originally.

He was handicapped, if you want to say.

And the prophecy of Nathan in chapter 12 was fulfilled in

graphic detail that we can read about.

We read it. And when you read in chapter 12

the prophecy there in light of all that we've been through and

realized, it was quite the statement.

If you want to say, Nathan said to him, thus says the Lord,

Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own

house, and I will take your wives before your eyes and give

them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the

side of the sun. For you did it secretly, but I

do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.

And we read these things and we recognize that this is a warning

to us, if you want to say. And as the story goes on from

here, what happens, of course, is again and again and again.

And it's represented a way that we see through all kings, all

all the kings and judges, all the every kings in the Old

Testament that, you know, the people of Israel wanted a nice

big, handsome man to be king, King Saul, someone who stood

head and shoulders ever everybody.

That didn't work. Maybe when we think of kings

like David, the ideal king, a man after God's own heart, well,

that didn't work either. And then perhaps Solomon and all

of his glory who asked for wisdom and that wisdom was

granted to him, but yet he got married to 700 times and had 300

concubines. It doesn't sound like wisdom to

me. And so eventually the people are

not simply looking for a king, they're not even looking for a

better king. They're actually looking for a

perfect king. They're looking for perfection.

And that's the question, where can we find a perfect ruler?

That's the question people are asking then, and that's what

we're asking now. Where can we find the perfect

ruler? Who's going to take care of

everything? Who is this king?

Where might he come from? And that answer is actually

found in the opening sentence of the New Testament in Matthew 11,

the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David,

the son of Abraham, the son of man.

So here is a point that is not stated, but we look, we, we, we

understand and I hope that we can see just through the

imperfections of man of themselves, the way they try to

rule sin that affects all the rule and reign of every king

that we read about and will read about in the future.

There's only one who's going to be able to restore everything,

to restore a relationship with God and it's found only solely

in our Lord Jesus Christ, period.

And we thank God for that. So are we able to say, and they

lived happily ever after? Well, we're not able to say that

yet, except in the completion of God's work.

When the King of King, Lord Jesus Christ, comes in return

and calls it all to a limb to an end.

We will then all live happily ever after.

Is there one here who needs to follow the gospel set forth

before us in the Scriptures? We are to hear the Word of God,

believe the Word of God. Believe is an action word.

It takes action. Once we believe, it's just not a

belief in our heart. The demons believe.

A belief demands a response. We're going to change the way

that we've been doing things. We're going to change the way

we've been living. Living.

We're not going to live in sin anymore.

We're going to live for Jesus now.

We're going to repent of our old ways.

Then we understand that we need to confess the name of Christ,

recognizing that Jesus is the Son of God.

And then we are baptized for the remission of our sins, as we

have examples in the Bible. And then, and only then, we

can't contact the blood of Jesus and are forgiven of our sins.

And that's the beginning of our Christian life.

Maybe you need to do that today. And we can accommodate that

today. We had two great baptisms

yesterday. Wonderful 2 New brother and

sister in Christ, new life, new transformation.

Maybe you're here and you have believed the word of God but

have slipped in some way publicly.

You need to make a public confession in any manner to make

it right with God. Or you just need the prayers of

the congregation. We actually come at this time,

while we stand and while we sing.