There is Purpose in the Struggle: 2 Samuel 2:1-11

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Yeah, I can't go on to read Second Samuel too.

Yes, so, uh we've We're in Second Samuel now, which

is really cool. First Samuel covers the life of Samuel

covers the coronation of Saul. Saul gets derailed and starts

pursuing his own interests. David winds up being elevated anointed

to be king. He kills Goliath, he winds up building

a great army, he has to run away from Saul,

and finally, after Saul disobeying God and dishonoring God so

many times, God kills him.

Look at you. You just summarized the entire book of

her Samuel.

There you go. So then he is he's been killed.

David has been out with his army running around just

destroying the Malakites, and goes back to his hideout in Zicklag,

which is Philistine city, and he has Akish, the king

of the Philistines, thinking that he's an ally and he's not.

He's just hiding from Saul in enemy territory. So while

he's there, he finds out that Saul has been killed,

and he kills the messenger right guy brings him the message.

But then in Second Samuel, chapter two, it says after this,

David asked the Lord, should I move back to one

of the towns of Judah. Yes, the Lord replied. Then

David asked which town should I go to? To Hebron.

The Lord answered. David's two wives were a Hinnom from

Jezreel and Abigail, the widow of Nabel from Carmel. So

David and his wives and his men and their families

all moved to Judah and they settled in the villages

near Hebron. Then the men of Judah came to David

and annoyed him king over the people of Judah. When

David heard that the men of Jabesh Gilead had buried Saul,

he sent them this message. May the Lord bless you

for being so loyal to your master Saul and giving

him a decent burial. May the Lord be loyal to

you in return and reward you with his unfailing love.

And I, too, reward you for what you've done. Now

that Saul is dead, I ask you to be my

strong and loyal subjects, like the people of Judah who've

annoyed me as their new king. But Abner, son of Nr,

the commander of Saul's army, had already gone to Mahonaem

with Sal's son, Ishbosheth. There he proclaimed Ishbosheth king over Gilead, Jezrael, Ephraim, Benjamin,

and the land of the Asteurites and all the rest

of Israel. Ishbosheth, Sal's son was forty years old when

he became king, and he ruled from Mahonaem for two years. Meanwhile,

the people of Judah remained loyal to David. David made

Hebron his capital, and he ruled as king of Judah

for seven and a half years. Is that ry end

it is? That is where?

Yes?

Okay, So he's become the king of Judah and he

invites the people from Jabesh Gilia to follow him too.

But there's another pretender to the throne, Ishboshev. So what

a Sal's sons who didn't get killed?

So give us an explanation as to what is the

difference between Judah and Israel.

Doesn't Israel encompass Judah.

Yeah, so there's twelve tribes in Israel, and this comes

up in you know, Jacob's twelve sons or he had

thirteen sons, but the twelve tribes of Israel when they

come across the river with Joshua, then Joshua helps divide

the land into these twelve essentially like we would think

of states or counties. It's not a very big place,

only ninety miles north and south, so more like counties.

And the different tribes got land based on how big

their tribe was. And so Judah was the largest of

the tribes and was pretty powerful, and they have the

land around what is now Jerusalem, right, so hebron there

and Bethlehem, all that area is all in Judah, and

so what happened was this one tribe, Judah. They said, hey,

we're on your side, we think you're king. And then

he reaches out to Jabesh Gilead, which is in another region.

It says, hey, Judah is following me, want you guys

follow me too, And so he has two of the

tribes following him. The other ten or it doesn't even

say all ten, but a bunch of them follow five

of them, six of them follow ishbel Chef instead for

a little while to a half years, seven and a

half years.

Yeah, So it's interesting how in the Old Testament, how

you know, they would refer to Israel as all the

people of Israel, but then sometimes it's Judah and Israel,

and we'll see that they actually war with one another, right,

and so they're divided, and yet they're technically the same people.

They're just divided because they have, you know, different beliefs

in this case about who's king.

Right. So Abner, if you're curious, Abner was was Saul's

main general. It's interesting because David had served under Abner.

Remember David kills Goliath and then Saul sets him up

and he's a commander of one of Saul's armies. Well

that the top general of all of SAAL's armies is Abner.

Later on, when Saul is hunting down David, Abner is

the one hunting David, right, He's the one that's in

charge of trying to find David. And it's interesting because

they have a lot of respect for each other. They

see each other across the enemy lines often. But you know,

warriors recognize warriors. You know, there's some of those gangsters

recognize gangsters. Right. That's kind of the thing that there's

a certain amount of respect between these two guys, even

though they want it being on opposing sides. And so

during this time, then Saul dies and Abner jumps in

and goes, hey, isbel Chef is the last living son

of you know, the last healthy living son of Saul,

and so I think he should be king. And so

he takes the forces of Saul's army and he elevates

ishbol Chef and so now here they are, they're squaring

off against each other even then, so it's kind of

an interesting moment here where there's a lot of tension.

For seven a half years, you think, oh good, Saul's dead,

David gets to be king and even here for seven

and a half more years. He's not king of a

unified yeah nation.

It's crazy.

There's a little thing here in the Life Application of

Study Bible, which is so helpful to have a study Bible,

and it just gives a section about Abner itself and

talks all about him, and it says his weaknesses, he

had selfish motives and his efforts to reunite Judah in

Israel rather than godly conviction, and he slept with one

of the royal concubines after Saul's death.

Well, there you go.

And his lessons from life is that God requires more

than conditional, heartfelt cooperation. And so yeah, how about that?

So Abner is recognized as a as a key player

in this story for sure.

Yeah, And we'll see Abner more over the next several

several days. I think we'll see him pop up a

few times. But I think it's interesting to say, why

why would God let after all this time David has

waited maybe what thirteen fourteen, fifteen years?

Right?

Why would God make him wait seven and a half

more to have all of Israel follow him?

Right?

What do you think is the reasoning behind that?

You know, I don't know, probably consequence to Saul's disobedience, perhaps,

you know, just taking a nation that was once recognizing

God as the king. And then you know, part of

Samuel's prediction, right, didn't Samuel talk about how it would

be divided and how there would be you know, basically

almost almost nothing good coming from.

Wanting a king.

And so God said that he was just tired of

the nation of begging them and pleading to God for

a king. And so God just says, you know what,

I'm going to give him what they want. But Samuel,

before this happens, I want you to tell them everything

bad that's going to come from wanting a king. So

even though that God promised David to be the next king,

he technically did not promise David that he wasn't going

to inherit a mess right, right, David was just going

to be the best king, the most righteous king. David

was going to be a significant king in the line

of the Messiah. But you know, we can't necessarily figure

out why. But honestly, my guess is it's a consequence

of Saul.

I think you see God doing because I think you

see God developing David. David had tremendous potential as a

young man in those hidden valleys, as we've talked about,

learning to use his sling, learning to play the harp,

learning to write down these amazing prayers, learning to fight

the bears and the lions, and to have courage and

to be faithful in a man of integrity even when

nobody else was watching and he was alone with his sheep.

God's developing him. Then God goes, Okay, I can trust

this kid. I'm going to elevate him, and he makes

him famous. He goes out and kills a giant, and

they're singing, David's killed or you know, Saul killed his thousands,

David killed his ten thousands. They're giving him more credit

than he deserves at that time. And then he has

favor with Saul. You know, he's playing in Saul's palace,

and then Saul's hunting him, and then he has favorite

and then he's being hunted again and he's running, and

during that time he's gathering around himself these mighty men,

the fiercest warriors that Israel had ever really known, right,

not just one or two, like all of them, right,

all of the toughest guys. And during that time, David

is learning international diplomacy with the Philistines. He's figuring out

how to stay safe and coexist with his mortal enemies.

So he's learning international diplomacy for a few years on that,

he's learning how to navigate his men. He's being challenged

in his own integrity. Are you going to kill this

guy or no? Are you going to kill Abigail's husband

or no? He chooses integrity in that moment. He listens

to the advice of Abigail. You're seeing all this character

and these skill sets being developed over time. Hey, only

time can build wisdom into you. Time in God's word. Right,

And so he says, now he has he didn't touch Saul, right,

He left Saul, and he just let God's time work out,

which then demonstrated he has patience in God. He's going

to follow God's way. He's not going to be like Saul,

where he's just going to force his way all the time.

And so then he's not going to take matters into

his own hands. God sorts it out, and then he

only gets part of the kingdom, and it's going to

take over the next several years diplomacy and victory over

maybe the greatest warrior that he's going to have to

come against Abner.

Yeah.

Right, And so he's learning internal diplomacy. He learned international

diplomacy with the Philistines, cross cultural. Now he's got to

figure out diplomacy within his own people. How does he

lead well? And so this skill set. He's still a

pretty young man at this point, right, he's under forty,

and he's a young man who God is choosing. Hey, listen,

you will be king. That is set in stone. It

will happen. Not only that you will reign for a

very long time. That's set in stone. It's already a promise.

But just because God made a promise doesn't mean God

doesn't say, hey, I've got a lot of things to

develop in you before I set your set you loose

because there's a lot of responsibility. The more responsibility desire,

the more development it's going to take to get you there.

Yeah.

And you know, it's a reminder to us that God

never promises us a trouble free life. So you know,

we can look back to the Bible and we can

still see all the great promises that God has for us.

They're all still true. They're all where we find our hope.

But we have to understand that just because we follow Christ,

Christ doesn't guarantee us free from trouble. In fact, he

actually says, you know, in order to follow me, you're

gonna have to pay a price, because the world will

hate you at times. The world will persecute you, The

persecute you, the world will reject you at times times.

And so you know, you have to be committed to

follow Christ, and you know, to make your choice, to

understand that it's the best way, it's the only way

to which to whom other God shall we turn to.

You know what, God is as great as our God,

that type of thing. And and but at the same time, Jesus,

you know, he calls us to die, right, I mean,

isn't that Isn't that really what Christianity is. It's dying

to yourself, he says. He says, take up your cross

and follow me. And he says, if any man isn't

willing to forsake their own mother and father and everything

dear to them and follow me, he cannot be.

Worthy of being my true disciple.

So you know, God, God never promises a trouble free life,

but he does promise to always be with us. He

promises to never leave us, never forsake us. He promises

to give us strength and to give us power, to

give us the you know, ability to depend on him

every day, and honestly, the most powerful position that we

could be in, just like David, I'm sure right, he

has to remind himself like that every day. The most

powerful position to be in is to say, Okay, God,

I'm waking up today, and I got to tell you

I need you today, right, I need you today? Because

that's why Deuteronomy even says, he says, hey, get you're

going to get in the promised Land, and when the

things are going well, you're going to forget me, right, right,

So don't forget me when things are going well, you know,

because when things weren't going well, you woke up every

day depending on manna, depending on the wilderness, right, depending

on my daily provision.

And when things weren't going well.

Man, you had no choice but to depend on me, right,

And when you have blessings in your life, don't forget me.

And uh and so yeah, I think all of that

is sort of wrapped up into what we're seeing here.

You know, this question of hey, what's the deal.

God, you promised me to be a king, and yet

it doesn't feel like I'm fully a king.

Right, you know, and you're not yet.

You're not yet. But guess what it's going to come.

Yeah, But he could just manage. I think God gave

him what he could manage. He could manage Judah.

Yeah, and he.

Could manage maybe Jabesh, Gilead. That's it. Now, let's see

how you lead that, lead that for a while. Be

faithful there. You know you mentioned a big part of

the call of Christianity is to take up your cross.

And there's an old gospel song that says he never

promised that the cross would not get heavy or the

hill would not be hard to climb. Yeah, he never

offered victories without fighting, right, And there's something to that that.

What we want is we want the easiest way to

the greatest successes. That's our preference. Lord, if you're looking

what I would like, we'd like to open up the

menu of the Bible, right, we'd love to open up.

We want the Bible and God's word to be like

a big menu, and we want, let me see what's

the easiest way to the greatest success And that's what

I want from you God, and that's what we want

to order. We want to like we're talking to a

short order cook. He just whip it up real quick,

give it the big and instead, God says, no, I'm

going to use the events in your life and I'm

going to develop you into if you'll let me into

the greatest person that you can become for me. And

what you see is David is I don't know of

a person in the Bible who demonstrates more long term

patients with a promise established when he was a teenager. Right,

there's other patient people in the Bible. Yeah, but he

was promised to be king. Dude, if you were promised

to be king when you were fifteen and you had

to wait five years, you'd be losing it, right, I

would be too. But he waits for so long unbelievable patients,

and he also in that patience develops all the skills

to become the greatest king Israel had ever seen, right right.

Right, Yeah, it's a great point. Yeah. And you know

sometimes when we even think back, like I went to

New York and I saw just bear with me on

this one. I'm going this is a little bit of

a stretch. Okay, But when I went to New York,

you know, you see places where your forefathers were oh right,

and when you sometimes think of like, oh, Abraham Lincoln

did such great things, right, Abraham's Lincoln's life was rough.

Bro he was almost like he was assassinate.

He was people attempted to asassinate him almost every other day.

I mean, he absolutely had one of the worst existences ever.

And he fought and fought and fought and did and

did something great.

And and so we when we went to the place.

Where you know, Hamilton was in there and and uh

Aaron Burr and and uh George Washington, and we sat

down in the restaurant where they actually had, you know,

all the debate.

You know, Hamilton says, the room where it happened. I

was in the room where it happened.

Literally, and uh and uh, and I was thinking about, man,

this is where all greatness was. But guess what, back then,

I'm sure it didn't feel great. I'm sure it was hard.

Man.

You know, you read about just some of their hardships

for great things, and you know, and again it's just

a reminder that, you know, David, we look back now

and say Oh what a great king. He's the most

important king. He's in the line of Jesus, and everybody

refers to this anchor of kingship in the Old Testament.

Man David went through it.

Man, it was hard.

It was hard. Yeah. Yeah.

So time is one of those things that we just

hate to spend to develop the skills that we need.

But there are some skills and experiences, there are things

that you need to develop, and so I just want

to encourage, especially if you have not yet achieved what

it is that you're dreaming of or that you believe

that God wants to do in your life. I have

a conversation with some young adults recently just struggling financially

and losing something like, hey, I was there, You've been there, right,

And there's just something with regard to you know, we

get frustrated because we know Elon Musk made his billions

when he was thirty right, right, So oh man, I'm

not a billionaire yet and I'm already thirty five, So

what do I do?

Right?

But the average the normal people, normal people, usually wealth

begins to come if you manage well. Late forties early

fifties is when you start to come into Okay, I'm

figuring out how to make some money, and then you

get that like this fifteen year run of really making

some money. The top executives in America for the most part,

are in their fifties and early sixties. That's right. It

takes a whole lifetime to get this window of ten

or fifteen years of massive your peak productivity. Right. And

so take the time, develop the skills, learn the things.

You might feel frustrated in your faith right now that

you just don't know enough about God's word. Take the time,

lean into it, spend the time. God will give you eventually,

if you're faithful, a person of integrity that's faithful and

patient waiting on God, God will give you exactly what

he promises he'll give you, right. And that's what happens

in Dave's life. It's coming, it's coming. We're going to

read it. We're going to read some rough roads ahead

here for the next little while. But he gets there.

That's great, super exciting.

Well, hey, that's our time.

So we'll pick up tomorrow and hopefully we'll see there

on the Bible.

Guys,