2 Samuel 20

We're going to pick up right where you left off.

We're in 2 Samuel 20.

We'll be going through it.

There are copies of a Bible that are available to you.

If you do not have one, they're coming down the aisle.

Just raise a hand and someone will hand you one.

But we're in 2 Samuel 20, chapter 20, the whole chapter today, 26 verses, and we will look selectively at those 26 as we go, but I want to invite you into this story and this series that has been appropriately titled The Story of Unlikely Redemption.

And the story of unlikely redemption is filled with all kinds of head scratchers.

It gets bloody again today.

And the blood and the intrigue and the and the and the brokenness of the characters that we encounter is a wake-up call in a reality.

You know, we read these stories and we think, how could they be that way?

And then we reminemise, oh, that's how we are.

It may not be with blades, it may be with bombs in certain parts of the world, but it's but it may be with words, the way we destroy others and advance our own causes and purposes.

Eugene Peterson has reminded us that this is a story of God's ways with men and women the way they are, not the way they're supposed to be.

That's what we love about the scriptures, that they meet this world in the reality in which we live it and experience it.

And it doesn't sugarcoat it, it doesn't pretend that it's otherwise, but it meets the brokenness of this world and says there's something better.

And when we long and we read this story, we long for something better, and that's exactly what we find.

We will go through this narrative, this ancient narrative, and as we do, we're gonna see, we're gonna learn from the characters in this part of the story why we need a savior.

We're gonna learn from them, we're gonna see it in them, and we're gonna learn our own need for the Savior that they show us.

And we're gonna see it as we look at, in this case, we begin with the story of a man named Sheba.

We read about him in verses one and two.

There happened to be a there are a worthless man, worthless is his description, whose name was Sheba, the son of Bikri, a Benjamite.

That actually, what we know is that that Sheba then comes from the camp of a Saul loyalist party.

Uh if you've been with this story, you you know that David and Saul, with the exchange, there's been a continual sort of uh pursuit of how are we going to do this?

How are we gonna do this king thing?

And and David has been run off.

He has returned to Jerusalem.

You you saw that last week.

But here's Sheba, who's still on the scene, the loyalist party that was never quite integrated into David's kingdom.

So David is on the throne, and then there's this other band, this other party, we'll say.

And they're looking at the throne occupied by David and saying, eh, maybe that's not what we want.

Maybe, just maybe not.

Sheba's rebellion against David comes really on the heels of another rebellion, Absalom.

You were there just a couple of weeks ago, where Absalom revolts against David.

Now, Sheba's watched this and said, hmm, there's an idea.

That one didn't quite work, but maybe this time, maybe it will work.

Um He's attempting, you see, to build on a rift that already exists between the northern tribes and Judah.

That's a part of the story of Israel.

There's the northern tribes called Israel, then there's Judah, and that tension continues.

It's never been quite mended.

And so the rift is there.

And so when Sheba sees an opportunity to seize the day, he says, Maybe I could align myself with some from the north and come to Jerusalem and take the throne.

That's what he's doing when we read in verse 2 that he actually at the end of verse 1, and he blew the trumpet.

And then he said, We have no portion in David, and we have no inheritance in the sons of Jesse.

Every man to his tents, O Israel.

He's calling Israel to follow him at the sound of the trumpet.

That's where the revolt begins.

So all the men of Israel, verse 2 we read, withdrew from David and followed Sheba, and the men of Judah followed their king steadfastly from the Jordan of Jerusalem.

So the rift is there, and the parties are lining up on two different sides of this pursuit of the kingdom and the installation of a king that they want to love and serve.

That's how this revolt begins.

We look at that and we say, Well, Sheba, what are you thinking?

And then we realize that there really are only two kinds of people in the world.

That's what C.S.

Lewis suggests when he says, I willingly believe that the damned are in one sense rebels to the end.

They enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded.

Only two kinds of people in the end, those who say to God, Thy will be done, and those to whom God says in the end, Thy will be done.

This rebel that we see in Sheba makes us scratch our head until we realize, wait, I know him.

I recognize that because that is me.

It may not be rallying a rebel force to take the throne that belongs to someone else, but how many times and ways have I taken things into my own hands, wanting not God's will, but my own.

That rebellion that we see in Sheba is all too familiar.

Before this story unfolds, though, David does something surprising.

David is back in Jerusalem.

His his um his reign has been, he's about to lose, it appears, the northern tier of the kingdom, but he's on the throne, and he does two things.

The first one we see in verse 3, when we run into these the ten women that are we've seen before.

If you've been in the story, you've we've met these ten concubines.

Actually, uh that makes us scratch our heads a bit too, doesn't it?

These concubines, these women that were the possession of a king, make us scratch our heads and we wonder about that.

But it's part of the cultural landscape of David's world that we know little about.

It's part of the trappings of royalty in the ancient Near East.

And by having concubines, David was doing what other kings did.

The text never sanctions or validates that, it just describes the reality.

It's meeting men and kings where they are, not where they might, maybe should be.

So these ten concubines, we've run into them before.

The first time was when we saw David taking them to himself, and he left them in Jerusalem as he ran for protection of his own life in chapter 15.

David left them there.

And then when Solomon, I'm sorry, Absalom, came along to usurp the throne in his rebellion, you may remember that event and scene where David looks at the ten concubines and his way of throwing his weight around or demonstrating that he was now the man, takes the ten concubines to himself, violates them, defiles them as a way of saying, I'm the king, not David.

It's these same ten.

So when David now returns to King, Absalom is dead.

You remember that?

David returns and he takes those ten concubines, and we read in the text that he puts them away.

He left them, he took the ten concubines, verse three, whom he had left to care for the house, and put them in a house under guard and provided for them, but he did not go into them.

He was going to treat this as a new day, and he sets them aside.

So they were shut up until the day of their death, living as if in widowhood.

If that sounds sad, it's supposed to.

We're supposed to recognize that there's something sad about that.

But there's a sadness of the concubines that describes the sadness that you and I know in a world that is broken.

It may be quite different from sexual abuse or ownership, but we know what it is to be sad in a world that is not what it will one day be.

You've experienced a sadness in your own life, in your own family, in your own story.

And something of the sadness of the concubines helps us to recognize why we need a savior.

You know, the text could have, but it doesn't say why David put them away.

And we're left to wonder, maybe it was sensitivity to the dignity of these ten women.

We don't really know.

All we do know is that the sadness is left before us.

We're left to consider the sadness of a world that is broken.

We need a savior not just because of rebellion.

We need a savior not merely because of the sadness that we experience, but we need a savior because of what we find in this character, Joab, as well.

You've met him before.

He's been on the scene, he's been ready to do whatever the king wanted and often more.

Joab, the commander of the army, doesn't appear at the beginning of this episode.

He's inserted into the middle of it.

So let me walk you through and see how Joab gets to the place that he does.

When David was back on the throne in Jerusalem, he did two things.

He put the concubines away, and then he also did something that was military.

He responded to the situation by dealing with the concubines, and then he takes action.

He looks around and dispatches Amasa to pursue the rebel leader Sheba.

Now that he Amasa was the commander of the army.

He says, Sheba is on the loose, we don't know where this is going.

Go get him.

You've got three days to rally the troops and be back here yourself with the army ready to go.

And Amasa takes off to round up the troops, and three days come and he is not there.

And we're not told why.

It could be insubordination, it could be incompetence.

Maybe this is a bigger job or a harder job than he anticipated.

We don't know.

But what we do know is that David grew impatient.

And in verse 6, he says, Abishai, you are the one now.

I had asked Amasa to do it, but I'm turning to you to get the job done.

David is recognizing there's a clock ticking and there's an army building, and a remedy is needed.

And so Abishai takes off.

He's the one who said, you may remember from maybe it was last week or the week before, I'll take care of Shemiah, the one who was making fun of King David, and David says, No, let him go.

That's the same one.

So Abishai goes off, and then Amasa does appear.

Look in verse 8 with me, verses 8 through 10, for a uh are you ready for this?

Another bloody sting.

When they are at the great stone that is in Gibeon, Amasa came to meet them.

Now Joab, there he is, was wearing a soldier's garment, and over it was a belt with a sword in its sheath fastened on his thigh.

And as he went forward, the sword fell out.

And Joab said to Amasa, Is it well with you, my brother?

Beware of words like that.

Is it well with you, my brother?

And Joab took Amasa by the beard with his right hand to kiss him, but Amasa did not observe the sword that was in Joab's hand.

So Joab struck him with it in the stomach and spilled his entrails to the ground without striking a second blow, and he died.

This is Joab, the man of action, who takes upon the Lord's chosen representative and says, Away with you, I'm taking over.

This is Joab.

What we're talking about here is what we see in his character.

What we see is an autonomy where Joab maybe acknowledges the king's authority, but he does his own, does things his own way.

He murders David's captain to take over.

And take over, he does.

He's the one who continues on.

Job has taken over in spite of the fact that God he has diverted, he's diverted his own, he's inserted his own plan into the plan of God.

Dale Ralph Davis comments and acknowledges that there is such a thing as acknowledging the king's sovereignty and disregarding his will.

And I look at Joab and I say, Joab, what are you thinking?

Until I realize there is such a thing as acknowledging the king's sovereignty and disregarding his will.

And maybe, like me, you find yourself there, not with a bloody dagger, but with other ways to acknowledge the king's sovereignty.

But to disregard his will and assert my own.

We need a savior because like Sheba, we know what it is to rebel.

Like the concubines, we know what it is to be saddened.

And like Joab, we know what it is like to take matters into our own hands.

But the great truth, the great reality and the wonder of this ancient narrative that makes us scratch our head, and you wonder how would this be R-rated?

Yes, obviously, obviously, this is an R-rated ancient narrative.

We're to make the screens.

But this story is a window into a larger story.

A story that is enduring, and a story in which we do find ourselves.

You see, if we need a savior, the bigger story is that God provides the savior that we need.

We see this, first of all, in the very plan of God.

We see it that there is a place where wisdom and a righteous wrath converge.

Wisdom.

That's an interesting part of the story.

Look at verse as we watch that.

Actually, what happened was Sheba took off, and he took off to the northern reaches of Israel and found refuge in a city.

And they closed the walls of the city off, and it wasn't long before Joab had Sheba cornered in this walled city.

We don't know how many people were inside, but we do know that there was one woman who's called a wise woman, who was apparently a leader, who was able to say, when she learned that Joab was outside with swords and a mighty force, and a siege had begun, they would build a ramp up against the closed walls of the city.

And up that ramp, they would eventually make their way and over the walls.

And the siege had begun, and the wise woman says, wait.

She says, Wait, Joab, listen to this.

Come talk with me and let's reason our way forward into a remedy.

She says, Would you really take the lives of all of us behind this wall when there is one man that you are after?

And he says, Well, no, it is Sheba that I'm after.

Turn him over and I will leave.

And the woman in her wisdom goes to the people of the town and the village, and they determine a plan to hand Sheba over.

But once again, it is a bloody and a violent handing over.

And what we read in this account in verse 20 and beyond, the woman went to all the people, verse 22, in her wisdom, and they cut off the head of Sheba and threw it out to Joab.

So the picture is the army is watching, and figures appear at the top of the wall, and two or three figures at the top of the city walls above, standing on a ramp, toss Sheba's head over the wall, and it rolls down the hill to the waiting army.

And what we see is Sheba reaching for his trumpet.

He sounds the trumpet, at this time a victorious trumpet, and with Sheba's head in toe, they return to Jerusalem victorious.

We're supposed to catch something here.

There is such a striking contrast between Joab's murderous ruthlessness and this woman's peaceable wisdom.

Wisdom is pitted against violence, and wisdom wins.

So one man loses his life, but a city is saved.

And that's where the peaceable wisdom prevails.

But I want to ask a question.

Could there ever be a time, an instance, that rather than pitted against wrath, could there be a wisdom that issues in wrath?

Rather than pitted against wrath, could there ever be a wisdom that issues in wrath?

We know something of how to answer that question when we think about what happens when someone we love is injured, when someone is harmed by others.

This is how Tim Keller in his writings on the Gospel of Mark puts it.

If you want to have a loving God, you have to have an angry God.

I mean, we hear I, you know, the God I believe in is a God of love.

And I could never believe in a God of anger.

That's not the God I believe in.

But Keller pushes that and causes us to think about that when he says, loving people can get angry.

If you're a loving person, you can get angry, not in spite of their love, but because of it.

In fact, the more closely and deeply you love people in your life, the angrier you can get.

When you see people who are harmed or abused, you get mad.

If you see people abusing themselves, you get mad at them out of love.

Your senses of love and justice are activated together, not in opposition to each other.

If you see people destroying themselves or destroying other people around them, and you don't get mad, it's because you don't care.

The more loving you are, the more ferociously angry you will be at whatever harms your beloved, and the greater the harm, the more resolute your opposition will be.

That, friends, explains why a God of love is also a God of a righteous wrath against that which harms.

Because in his love for us, God responds with wrath toward that which harms his beloved.

He comes to the things that would undo us.

In this case, our sin.

And it was my sin and yours that led to the righteous wrath of God poured out on one.

And here we get to the second part of how God provides the Savior that we need.

He has a plan from all.

Eternity, and that is to deal with what's broken and wrong in this world, and he does it with a death.

We saw in this passage that the death of one worthless man, that's what he's called, verse 1, the death of one worthless man resolved the matter of rebellion.

When his head came tumbling over the wall, Joab and his armies go home.

The rebellion's over.

One man was sought, and a people was spared.

And while the death of a worthless man resolved the matter of that rebellion, the death of a fully worthy, perfect man resolves the matter of our rebellion.

In this case, one who was not cornered and murdered, but who willingly gave his life.

The Apostle Paul tells us that while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly, the rebels, the autonomous, the saddened ones in our midst.

He died for those things that make us sad.

He died for our rebellion.

He died for our autonomy.

While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

The Apostle Peter puts it like this Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.

Christ died a death and put to death the rebellion, the sadness, and the end of all things.

Christopher Wright captures it and summarizes it in his book to the Cross, where he says, the death of Christ in utter weakness would turn out to be the demonstration of the saving power of God that will ultimately destroy all powers of evil and violence.

What a paradox.

But it lies at the heart of the gospel.

At the heart of the gospel is a paradox that the death of Christ would be the end of death, that it would end all of the things that are broken in this world.

And as we learn from a head tossed down a hill into the waiting hands of an army, Christ gave his life willingly to rescue and redeem.

He's the redeemer, the savior that we need.

And we're summoned by a trumpet.

You did notice the two trumpets, right?

This story begins and ends.

It's like bookends.

We're supposed to catch that.

That Sheba's rebellious trumpet calls for Israelites to leave, and with the words, every man to his tent, Israel.

And his rebellion ends with Joab's victorious trumpet calling men to leave the city, each returning to his home.

We're supposed to catch that parallel.

But I would venture to say we're supposed to catch another parallel.

It's not found in 2 Samuel 20.

The first one is in Isaiah 27, where the prophet anticipates things with his own trumpet, which calls Israel to worship in Jerusalem.

Isaiah 27, 13 reads, and in that day, meaning the final day, a great trumpet will be blown, and those who were lost in the land of Assyria, and those who were driven out to the land of Egypt will come and worship the Lord on the holy mountain at Jerusalem.

The prophet anticipates that, but what he anticipates is the angel's final trumpet.

In Revelation, we read these words that call the church into the presence of the living God.

Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven saying, The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.

And later in Revelation, on his robe and on his thigh, he is a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Sheba pretended to the throne.

David prefigured the owner of the throne.

And Jesus fulfills that.

And until then the kingdom of God grows quietly in our midst.

This passage, this strange passage ends with some strange words.

Look at the last few verses of chapter 20.

And I'll read these, beginning with verse 23.

Now Joab was in, this is after it's all said and done.

The trumpets have been blown, Joab has returned, and these words read like the credits at the end of a film.

I mean, that's how they read.

Now Joab was in command of all the army of Israel, and Benea the son of Jehoida was in command of the Cherithites and the Pelothites, and Adoram was in charge of the forced labor, and Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud was the recorder, and Shiva was secretary, and Zadok and Abiethar were priests, and Ira the Jerite was also David's priest.

Those words quietly whisper when it's all said and done, that the kingdom of David is still intact.

And while those words quietly whisper, an empty tomb and a resurrected Christ shout that the kingdom of David, fulfilled in Christ, has been fulfilled.

It's not merely intact.

It is true.

It is the truer the truer story.

It's the true, eternal, everlasting story that this ancient narrative points us to.

That there's another trumpet to be heard.

And when that trumpet sounds, it's calling you, church, into the presence of the living God.

Because you, church, have a Savior who has come to rescue you from the rebellion that marks your life and mine, to undo the saddenness that we experience in this world, and to replace our autonomy with the true King, whose will and ways are good and perfect.

And we, as his followers, who've come to faith in Christ, have come to place our trust in him as the king of all kings, is the one who works in us to want to want the will of the God.

To desire things that don't come from within us, but come when he comes within inside of us.

Taking our self-will and replacing it with his will, and taking our attempts to redeem ourselves and make something of our lives to say, no, I can't do that.

I've tried it, it doesn't work.

But he can.

So I'm looking to him.

We look to him, church, as the one, the true redeemer, the true Savior, who comes to undo our rebellion, to replace our sadness with joy, and to work into us, to work into will, as the Apostle Paul says, for his good pleasure.

That is the one to whom we belong.

Close with these words.

This is Eugene Peterson reflecting on this story.

This narrative trains us in perceiving and responding to God as God is, not as we would wish or fear is the case, unforced, attentive to details, ever present, but mostly hidden, sure and sovereign.

That's the king to whom we belong.

The kingdom grows quietly in our midst.

It's real, it's true, mostly hidden, but it is sure and it is sovereign.

And it is your story, church.

It's the story that we mark, we celebrate when we come to this table.

That we are his.

And strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow isn't something that we work up because that doesn't work.

The strength for today and the bright hope for tomorrow comes for the one who has come to us and who has done for us what we could never do, but what we were made for.

Life with the true King, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Pray with me.

Father, we do pray that you would take these words spoken in your presence and aimed at your glory, landing in our sluggish hearts, that you would take your word, plant it in us, that it would bear fruit, that you would give us the eyes to see what we will not see until you open our eyes.

In a heart formed by your love to serve your purposes in this world through Christ our Lord, the true King, our great high priest, we pray.

Amen.