[0:00] Bible's going into the book of 2 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 2 Samuel chapter 5, 2 Samuel chapter 5, as we just continue to make our way through the Word of God together, and we've made our way this far, so 2 Samuel chapter 5, our text this evening will be verse 6 to verse 25, verse 6 to verse 25.
[0:25] We have a number that are traveling, we have a number that are sick, and we have others that aren't here, so much to be in prayer for. So let's open up with a word of prayer before we get to the Word of God together, and then we'll just get right into our text.
[0:38] Lord, so thankful to have the opportunity, thankful to build together together, Lord, just to look at your Word with one another, and pray, Lord, as we come together, you would speak to our hearts and minds that the truthfulness of Scripture would resonate, Lord, that it would help us to come to a greater understanding of you, Lord, even as we look at your history and your interactions with your people.
[1:01] We pray that what we learn of you would find application in our lives, and Lord, help us to draw closer to you, help us to walk in faithful obedience to your leading and guiding each and every day.
[1:12] Lord, we pray that you be glorified and magnified in this, and we ask it all in Jesus' name, and amen, amen. 2 Samuel chapter 5, starting in verse 6.
[1:26] Let's put it in context. A lot has happened so far in 2 Samuel, if you remember. The end of 1 Samuel, in the last chapter, Saul and three of his sons, including Jonathan, die in the battle with the Philistines on Mount Geboa.
[1:42] So, the news is brought to David in the first chapter of 2 Samuel. David avenges the blood of the Lord's anointed upon the one who thought he was bringing good news.
[1:54] There's a lot that happens in these few chapters. And then writes this song of lament and really exalts Saul and Jonathan, and really he's not exalting the person, he's exalting the fact that this is the Lord's anointed, right?
[2:07] And even in the death of his enemy, he did not sin. He prays and asks the Lord to lead him. The Lord tells him to move back to Hebron. He moves back to Hebron, goes to the cities there. The men of Hebron came and make him king, and he reigns seven and a half years there.
[2:23] Abner takes Ish-bosheth, the remaining son of Saul, and makes him king, and he reigns two years. He's king over Israel. Fast forward really quick. Abner and Ish-bosheth have a falling out.
[2:36] Abner goes and tries to make an agreement and a pact with David. He does. Then Joab comes on the scene and murders Abner, and there's all this civil unrest, all this turmoil.
[2:46] And we really look at what it looked like for a nation to be in disarray. Because you have the Lord's anointed, who is David, and then you have man's forced, which is Ish-bosheth.
[2:57] And then Ish-bosheth is killed by two men thinking, again, that they're doing David a favor. They murder Ish-bosheth in the middle of the day when he's taking his midday rest, the Bible says in them.
[3:08] They go to David and report this, and David issues their slaughter as well, because he avenges again the fact that, you know, he was waiting on God's leading, God's timing, and knew he did not need anybody to work things out for him, because God was working all this out in perfect time.
[3:27] And God did redeem that. So by the time we get into the fifth chapter, David is made king over all of Israel. And he is now really on the throne of David.
[3:37] He is setting, he's the right man for the right time. He's going to do wonderful things. He's going to fail miserably in some areas. We understand that. He's not, he's the man for that time.
[3:49] If you remember Sunday night when we looked at it, in the first five verses of the fifth chapter, he's the man for that time. God had the right man for that time, but he's not the man for all time, because he's pointing to the one who is Christ, who is going to be the one who sits up on that throne, who is the man for all time.
[4:07] So God's got a purpose and plan, he's working it out, and we see that. And that leaves us in the sixth verse of this fifth chapter, and then we'll read to the end of the chapter, which gets us down to verse 25.
[4:19] It says, Now the king and his men went to Jerusalem against the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, and they said to David, that is the Jebusites, you shall not come in here, but the blind and the lame will turn you away, thinking David cannot enter here.
[4:35] Nevertheless, David captured the stronghold of Zion, that is the city of David. And David said, On that day, whoever would strike the Jebusites, let him reach the lame and the blind, who are hated by David's soul, through the water tunnel.
[4:50] Therefore they say, the blind or the lame shall not come into the house. So David lived in the stronghold, and called it the city of David. And David built all around it from the millow and inward.
[5:01] David became greater and greater, for the Lord God of hosts was with him. Then Hiram, king of Tyre, sent messengers to David with cedar trees and carpenters and stone masons, and they built a house for David.
[5:14] And David realized that the Lord had established him as king over Israel, and that he had exalted his kingdom for the sake of his people Israel. Meanwhile, David took more concubines and wives from Jerusalem after he came from Heron, and more sons and daughters were born to David.
[5:32] Now these are the names of those who were born to him in Jerusalem. Shemua, Shobab, Nathan, Solomon, Ibar, Elishua, Nepheg, Japhia, Elishamah, Eliadah, and Eliphelet.
[5:45] When the Philistines heard that they had anointed David king over Israel, all the Philistines went up to seek out David. And when David heard of it, he went down to the stronghold, for the Philistines came and spread themselves out in the valley of Rephim.
[6:00] Then David inquired of the Lord, saying, Shall I go up against the Philistines, and will you give them into my hand? And the Lord said to David, Go up, for I will certainly give the Philistines into your hand.
[6:11] So David came to Belperazim and defeated them there. And he said, The Lord has broken through my enemies before me like the breakthrough of waters. Therefore he named the place Belperazim.
[6:24] They abandoned their idols there. So David and his men carried them away. Now the Philistines came up once again and spread themselves out in the valley of Rephim.
[6:35] When David inquired of the Lord, he said, You shall not go directly up, circle around behind them and come at them in front of the balsam trees. It shall be when you hear the sound of the marching in the tops of the balsam trees, then you shall act promptly, for then the Lord will have gone out before you to strike the army of the Philistines.
[6:54] Then David did so, just as the Lord had commanded him and struck down the Philistines from Gobeah as far as Gezer. We see this here in 2 Samuel 5, verses 6 through 25.
[7:05] I want you to see this evening, the strengthening of the kingdom, a strengthened kingdom. The king is on his throne. He's the right man for the right time. He is there. God is going to use him in a mighty way.
[7:16] God had anointed him and appointed him 10 years prior to this. Actually, about this time, 17 years prior to this. Some time has transpired and now the fullness of what God had ordained all the way back when Samuel anoints David, when he comes in from the field.
[7:31] All these things are coming about and we see the fullness of God's purposes and plans working themselves out. David's kingdom is going to be strengthened and it's going to increase not only in its expanse and land mass, but also increase in its prosperity.
[7:47] He brings security and comfort to the people unlike no other. Even Solomon who comes and kind of builds upon what his father did. That kingdom falls very quickly after Solomon's death.
[8:00] But what we see here is David's kingdom being strengthened. And we see God really working things out according to his purposes and plans. There are a number of things that are happening.
[8:11] I know it doesn't seem to, but it happens very quickly here. And we see some really instrumental locations and some instrumental people that just work themselves out through the rest of scripture.
[8:24] The first thing that we notice about this strengthened kingdom is that there is the removal of the enemy. There is a removed enemy. It says, then David came to Jerusalem.
[8:35] Now Jerusalem, really awesome place. Actually, throughout biblical history, the first man that we ever meet from Jerusalem, it's not referred to as Jerusalem, it's Salem, and we meet a man named Mechizedek. And Mechizedek should kind of captivate your attention just a little bit because we have a priest who is according to the order of Mechizedek.
[8:52] Remember that mysterious figure, Mechizedek, prince and king of Salem, who shows up and Abram gives him a tenth. He pays a tithe to Mechizedek. And we don't know where he came from.
[9:03] We don't, he just kind of appears out of nowhere. The Bible says in the book of Hebrews, without beginning and without end, because according to scripture, he just is there and he's never, his birth is never recorded, his genealogy is never recorded, and his death is never recorded, but that he is a priest forever because he's a foreshadow of one coming.
[9:20] And he is the king of Salem, which later will be called Jebus, and then it will also be called Jerusalem. So we see here this place of Jerusalem. David comes to this place and he says, I want to take it.
[9:33] Now, what you need to understand about Jerusalem, it was instrumental in many respects. It's instrumental because it sets on the border between Judah and Benjamin.
[9:44] Now, David is from the tribe of Judah. It's the right lineage. It's the right family. It's the lion from the tribe of Judah, right? It's the kingly tribe. He's from the tribe of Judah.
[9:56] Judah, the men of Hebron, had made him king first. Saul is from the tribe of Benjamin, just to the north of Judah. And so in order to kind of bring the nation together, to merge this divided nation that has all of this unrest and this civil war, David's going to move his kingdom out of Judah, or the seat of his kingdom out of Judah, but he's not going to put it in Benjamin.
[10:19] He puts it right on the border, which is Jerusalem. It's right in the middle of it. So, politically, this makes sense. Spiritually, it makes a lot more sense because what we find when we open up the book of Judges in the first chapter, the book of Judges, Judges 1, verse 21, makes this statement that the tribe of Benjamin could not push out the Jebusites from Jerusalem for they were too strong for them.
[10:43] So, what you have is a foothold of the enemy in the land of the people of God. Remember that grand theme in the book of Judges, how the book of Judges starts out? It starts out with all the compromises that the people of God made.
[10:56] For they could not, for they could not, for they could not. And then there's these statements, and they did not. Now, I have a problem with the could nots. The problem that I have with the could nots is because God had made a promise to them that if they were to be faithful to Him and to walk in obedience to Him, that nobody would be able to stand in their path, that they would be the head, they would not be the tail, and that the Lord would go before them and that they would put to flee everyone that they ever came into contact with.
[11:20] So, when we come upon an enemy that they could not remove, it's definitely not the weakness of God, but the failure of man. So, when the sons of Benjamin could not drive out the Jebusites from Jerusalem for they were too strong for them, the enemy is allowed to have a foothold inside the promised land, which is where the people of God live.
[11:38] And let's just go ahead and be honest. Anytime the enemy has a foothold, the enemy gets control. And we see that, right? The reason the book of Judges seems to be such a downward spiral is because they are going more the way of the enemy than they are the way of God.
[11:52] And sin gets worse and worse and worse and worse and worse. Paul says it this way in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, it's the stronghold of the mind, that we're destroying the strongholds that Satan has in our mind.
[12:04] Because when he has a foothold, some area that we cannot, or more correctly, we will not remove, then they still have control. And the enemy is so ingrained in this land at this time that when David goes to Jerusalem, the Jebusites look at him and say, you can't come in here because even the blind and the lame can protect this place.
[12:26] Jerusalem is so situated between three valleys. And on the other side, there's this hill. It really was thought to be impenetrable, that you could not come in. It's well defended, well defined.
[12:36] It's really a strategic location. You have the valleys all around it. You have the hill behind it. There wasn't but one way to come in. And the enemy is so sure of himself, he says, there's no way.
[12:47] The problem is the enemy doesn't realize there's another king in the land. Because Saul hasn't done anything about it. We've never seen that. Because it was Saul's people, the tribe of Benjamin, who could not remove it.
[12:59] But now all of a sudden, David goes to it and says, I want that city. Now if we turn into 1 Chronicles, we'll see that it's Joab who leads the attack. But we are reminded in 2 Samuel, Joab has promised, David makes a promise that whoever goes in and takes Jerusalem, he will make him commander of his army.
[13:18] And Joab does that. But David gives him the battle plan. And he says, he who's going to go up and take the blind and lame, he's kind of mocking the Jebusites, let him go up by the way of the water tunnel. Now there's this very difficult water shaft that went in.
[13:32] The archaeologists have later found that most people believe this is the way they went in. It's difficult but not impossible. But the problem, and the good news is, is that once Joab went up the water shaft, all they did was open the door and David walked in.
[13:46] So this enemy that we could not remove all of a sudden now becomes easily removed because someone's intentional. One area we know that there's a strengthened kingdom is because the enemy is being removed more and more from the land.
[14:02] We know that the king of kings rules and reigns over our life because the strongholds, which once seemed so impenetrable, which seemed so set that the blind and the lame could protect, all of a sudden the way end is found and the new king in that area begins to push the enemy further and further out.
[14:21] It's never good when the enemy has a fortress in the land. And David not only takes the city, he remakes the city because it's referred to as the city of David.
[14:34] This is Zion. Now this is really so instrumental in all of biblical history because if you think about it, the enemy was in possession of the king of Melchizedek's reign.
[14:47] Most people agree that this is also where Abraham offered up his son Isaac. Also understand that Arunah's threshing floor, which David purchases because of one of his sins of counting the people, and he stays the hand of the Lord upon the people of Israel by offering his sacrifices, where David makes one of the greatest statements that David ever made.
[15:06] I will not offer to the Lord that which costs me nothing. And he buys the threshing floor of Arunah, the Jebusite, by the way, because he's now a defeated enemy, so now he becomes the one with the people. And so when he buys the threshing floor of Arunah, the Jebusite, many people, many Bible scholars, and I tend to be the same way, agree that that's the same location where Abraham had offered up his son Isaac.
[15:26] Same hill, may not be the same exact spot, but the same hill, right? So he goes there and he buys this purchase, which if we follow at hilltop throughout history, is also where Solomon builds the temple.
[15:39] It's also where Jesus walks in. And that is so important because Abraham had made this declaration, right? That in the mount of the Lord, the Lord will provide, right? That God would provide the lamb.
[15:52] Remember that? When Abraham and Isaac are on their way up the hill, and Isaac says, I see the fire, I see the wood, I see the night, but where is the lamb? And Abraham makes this declaration, the Lord will provide the lamb, Jehovah Jireh, right?
[16:03] He will provide the lamb. But the problem is, if we're reading scripture, we tend to look over it too much. He didn't see a lamb caught in a thicket. He saw a goat or a ram. Because that wasn't the lamb that was provided.
[16:16] Because in the mount of the Lord, the Lord will provide the lamb. The lamb showed up many, many years later when Jesus stands on that same hilltop and says, I am the lamb of God. See, the prominence of this place, and the enemy had it, but God had a man that would redeem it and take it back, and now all of a sudden it becomes the city of David.
[16:35] Now, we don't worship that place because we were looking for one to stand on that place, and that one is Jesus. Now, we know that Islam is now worshiped there. The Dome of the Rock is on that same location, right?
[16:47] And there's all this false worship and false idolatry going on there. And quite frankly, while we need to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, we need to pray for all those things, that's okay.
[16:57] Because I'm looking for a city whose builders and its foundations are laid not of this world. Right? But at that time, at that place, it needed to happen.
[17:08] But what we see is a removed enemy. Because when the king strengthened, the enemy is removed. The second thing we notice is a recognition from others. There's a recognized rule.
[17:19] We meet Hiram, king of Tyre, who recognizes that David's authority and prosperity are legitimate. This Hiram, we kind of have to ask ourselves, is this the same one or is this the father of the one who also comes along beside Solomon?
[17:38] So this is either Josephus, the Jewish historian, tends to think that, or makes the declaration that Hiram did not begin his reign until after the reign of David. But that's okay if that is actually accurate, because this would have been the Hiram who supported the construction of the temple by sending lumber to Solomon.
[17:57] This would have been his father. So either way, what we notice is the king of Tyre recognizes David's rule. And it could have, quite frankly, didn't have to happen in this chronological order, just for our biblical understanding.
[18:10] These facts could have happened at the end of David's reign, and then transitioned into the beginning of Solomon's reign. But what's kind of catching our attention when we read this is now outsiders are noticing the new king.
[18:26] Hiram, the king of Tyre. Now, Tyre is a commercial trade town. So there's reasonings for that, right? They want to keep trade open. They want to make sure everything is going right. They want to make sure that they can go through Jerusalem, go through the land of God's people, because all the trade routes go through there.
[18:41] Again, God is very instrumental in putting his people in place, in the right place, at the right time. And he wanted to make sure, Hiram wanted to make sure, he could continue to trade with the people on the other side of the land of Israel.
[18:53] So he was making a pact, an agreement. But he was recognizing there was this king of prominence here that he needed to work with. We don't really read of anybody doing this with Saul, but we do see them doing it with David.
[19:05] Now, this shouldn't be too out of the ordinary for us, because what God has done, when we look at his people, and we see this, this is the theme of Scripture, I believe, or one of the themes of Scripture, I believe.
[19:18] God has called his people to be a billboard to a watching world, right? The reason God called Abram out of the land of the Ur of the Chaldeans and raised up a people, which we refer to as the nation of Israel, was not just so that God could pick favorites.
[19:30] God chose a people to put himself on display. And the best way for the world to know who he is would be to put himself on display in a particular peculiar people group.
[19:40] That's why we have all these different rules, all these different regulations, all this different standard. What better way to put them on display than to give them a land in the middle of the trade routes? Right?
[19:52] He put them in the public square, so to say. And all of a sudden, Hiram is beginning to recognize, here's this King David over here. Now, he probably was real happy because David defeats the Philistines, and that makes him really happy because nobody likes the Philistines.
[20:04] They're also the enemies of Tyre. And so he's real happy here, but he begins to notice this, and he sends these gifts because when the legitimate king reigns, other people notice. Right?
[20:16] When the true king is on the throne, other people notice. But what stands out to me are these two, really, declarations that we have of David, because when he captures Jerusalem, he makes this sense that David became, he makes this statement that David became greater and greater for the Lord God of hosts was with him, because the God of hosts that is with us is greater than the enemy that's in the land.
[20:38] And then when Hiram, king of Tyre, begins to send him gifts and presents and lumber to build his house, David comes to this realization. Look at this realization, and this to me is so important.
[20:48] And David realized that the Lord had established him as king over Israel. What caused him to realize that? Other people are now reaching out to me. I'm not having to reach out to them.
[20:59] They're reaching out to me to make agreements. So God has now established me. But look at this. It wasn't, David doesn't realize that the Lord had established him so that he may become popular, so that he may become, even though he is.
[21:11] But look, let's go a little further. And that he, that is God, had established his kingdom, that's David's kingdom, that God had established David's kingdom for the sake of his people, Israel.
[21:26] So you notice that the strengthened kingdom is not that David may be exalted, but that God's people may be more visible.
[21:39] Now, if we stay consistent with our theme, God has put a king there in a kingdom that is strong so that the world would take notice of his people, Israel.
[21:53] Why? Because God is drawing the world to himself, through his ambassadors to the world, who is Israel. That's their whole purpose.
[22:04] Now, we need to realize that and understand that, or we just think that God is just raising up a people to defeat everybody else. And this is where we get in that whole, well, that's not fair.
[22:14] God's not fair. He's picking favorites. He's doing all this. And all God is doing is chastising and rebuking. And he's a big, mean God to everybody but the people of Israel. No, it's a loving and gracious and an awesome God who so chooses to exalt a people that the world may be attracted to him.
[22:32] Right? And he establishes the throne and the kingdom of David so that his people may be made known because his people were called to live differently than everybody else.
[22:46] And in living differently, they were to show the world what it looks like to live in relation with a holy God. Now, they fail miserably at that. But God's given them the opportunity.
[22:58] And the way he gives them the opportunity is through strength and kingdom and David on the throne. He doesn't do it so that David can become popular. It's not for David's sake.
[23:10] It's for the nation of Israel's sake. Because the nation of Israel has a job. And that job is to display a holy God to a watching world.
[23:22] What better way to do that than to take this small group of people and make them astoundingly strong? I mean, we read later, the kingdoms are literally coming to the doorstep of Solomon to search out his wisdom and to bring him gifts and riches.
[23:40] God's drawing people to himself. Solomon doesn't use that the way he should, but the opportunity's there, right? When the king is on the throne in our lives, God so positions us, Jesus says this way, you are a city set on a hill, you are the salt of the earth.
[24:00] God exalts us, not for our sake, but though that we may display what it looks like to live in a relation with a holy God for his namesake.
[24:16] And we see this going on here where there's this recognized rule. People have a tendency to recognize true legitimate rule.
[24:26] And when David was on the throne, the world took notice. The third thing that we see here with this strengthened kingdom is a continued reliance upon the Lord. The Philistines hear that David is ruling over all of Israel.
[24:43] David has been king for seven and a half years. The Philistines haven't paid any attention to that because up to this point, the Philistines are okay with David being king of Judah because if you remember, the last thing the Philistines knew of him, he was living in Ziklag.
[24:56] He was living in their land and he had kind of entered into this agreement with them and Judah was kind of on their border. So they kind of looked at it as like, we have a vassal over here who's kind of acquiring some of the land of Israel.
[25:07] But when all of Israel makes him king, now all of a sudden he becomes an enemy to the Philistines. And the Philistines said, well, we're going to go fight him. Now, at this point, David has seen God fulfill all these promises.
[25:20] David has seen God bring all this about. We don't know if this is before he took Jerusalem or after. Some Bible scholars seem to think that these battles happened prior to the capture of Jerusalem.
[25:32] If we read it just as it comes to us in Scripture, it's after he takes Jerusalem. And many people believe that it was before because it says he went to the stronghold, which would have been to the south down in Judah where he kind of hung out before taking Jerusalem, before he took the capital of Jerusalem because that would have been the stronghold.
[25:49] But either way, he has seen the faithfulness of God. And when the Philistines come and they draw up in battle of Ra, this is something that we notice. This is so starkly different than what Saul does. It says, So David sought the Lord and said, Should I go up?
[26:04] Should I go fight the Philistines? And God says, Yes, go. Go fight them. And he goes straight ahead and he says he defeated them. He defeats the Philistines so much so that he renames the place.
[26:16] And the name that he gives the place, which is Belpirazim, means great breakthrough. And he makes this declaration, The Lord has caused a great breakthrough or a gushing out through my enemies.
[26:30] So he doesn't even take credit for the battle. Why? Because he knows that he is relying upon the Lord with all of his strength, with all of his might. He's still got his mighty men. Now he's the king of all of Israel. And if you remember, what it tells us in Chronicles is that all the men of Israel who came who could draw up and battle a ray, so it's not like it's just this vagabond of people anymore.
[26:49] These are true soldiers whose hearts and minds were set on the fact that David was their king. And it tells us in Chronicles these men could fight. David had the means and the ability and he even had the hearts of his people and he could lead them.
[27:03] But he relied upon the Lord to give him guidance. Because just because we think we're established, I think Paul says it this way. Let he who thinks he stands take he lest he fall.
[27:18] And when we find David falling is when he is not relying upon the Lord but he's relying upon himself. But a kingdom strengthened is one that continues to live in reliance.
[27:29] So much so that when the Philistines come back, David again, I mean think about this, he has just broke through them so much that he renames the place because God had caused this great victory and they come back and David cries out again, says, Lord, should I go again?
[27:43] And God says, yes, but don't do it the same way. Don't sin the way Joshua sinned thinking that yesterday's victory leads to today's victory, right? Don't sin thinking that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for today because you need strength today.
[27:58] You need leading today because the way I led you yesterday may not be the way I lead you today. As a matter of fact, God changed battle plans. God says, don't go at them straight ahead, go at them from behind. And when you go at them from behind, wait till you hear the sound of the balsam trees because that's me going before you.
[28:15] Now think about that. This is dependence, right? How easy it would have been when we say, well, just yesterday, we went straight at them and we burst through them. You know, we had to rename the place that victory was so great.
[28:27] But today, God says, do it this way. That's reliance. Reliance. We get in great trouble as the people of God just because we experienced victory today or yesterday or a few days ago by making the assumption that yesterday's victory is all we need for today's battle.
[28:46] And that's simply not the case. Because God has not just given us one time saying, okay, yeah, you're going to be fine. God's calling us to live in that relationship of reliance.
[28:58] And the strengthened kingdom is a kingdom that is being displayed and exhibited in the individual, and we see it in David, that is completely reliant upon the Lord's guidance for every battle faced.
[29:11] And David's going to him and saying, I know that you've given me the means. I know that you've given me the opportunity. And I know that I have the power. And I know I won yesterday. But what do you want me to do today? And that's, to me, I mean, he's the king, right?
[29:25] He's on the throne. If this is after he has taken Jerusalem, he has just defeated what the enemy of the land thought was the most impenetrable city. But yet he's still sitting here going, God, how do you want me to fight this battle?
[29:38] I wonder if we do that in our lives. God, what do you want me to do today? What do you want me to do today? Today, do I go head on? Or today, do I walk around behind?
[29:49] Or how do I fight the battle today? See, that's a dependency, which is just so, just to be honest, it's so vulnerable and so humbling. It's this realization that it was God who broke through the front lines and it's God who's marching in the trees on the back line, right?
[30:06] David couldn't claim these victories other than giving all praise and glory and honor to God. But yet what we see him doing is leaning upon God, which leads us to this fourth thing, which is so amazing in this strengthened kingdom.
[30:19] This fourth and final thing is there's regained position. There's a regained position. If you remember the last battle that Saul fought, Saul was so desperate to hear a word from God.
[30:36] He never heard anything from God. He was so, he just wanted a word. He didn't necessarily want a word from God. Saul's desperation is he wanted a word from Samuel, right? He just wanted to hear something. He wanted something.
[30:46] He was scared. The Philistines were drawing up and everything there. So he goes and he consults this medium and he finds this medium, this lady that will call up the dead and something amazing happens.
[30:56] Actually, Samuel appears. God lets Samuel show up and it scares the medium to death because that's not supposed to happen. We're supposed to be cloak and dagger here. Samuel's not actually supposed to show up. He shows up and he tells Saul, yeah, you're going to die in battle.
[31:08] That's what's going to happen, you know, because you're just not following the Lord. You're not trusting upon the Lord here. The Lord's going to bring these things about. So Saul goes and fights the battle and they get down in this same valley and they realize the Philistines rule the valley because they have chariots.
[31:20] So they think they're going to run up to Mount Geboa because that should give the upper hand to the nation of Israel because we can get them off their chariots. And it says that Saul and his men fall Mount Geboa. And we keep reading there in 1 Samuel, the last chapter, and it says, and the Philistines inhabited the land and took the cities because when the people of that area heard that Saul and his sons had fallen, everybody fled the cities.
[31:41] And this is one of the things that we saw. It was one of the great tragedies that with the failure of the king, it cost the nation land. Right? The failure of the king, and the failure of the individual always has a ripple effect.
[31:53] And so now they gave up part of the promised land. And if you remember, in that last chapter, the Philistines went back home and they took these spoils and plunder from the battle and put it in the temples of their false gods.
[32:12] They praised their false gods, Dagon, and they praised all their idols. In the song of lament that David writes concerning Saul and the death of Jonathan in the first chapter of 2 Samuel, he says, may you not offer praise to your false gods.
[32:33] He calls out asking that the Philistines would not be able to praise their gods. When David becomes king and his kingdom is strengthened and he fights the Philistines, it says here in the end of this, then David did so just as the Lord had commanded and he struck down the Philistines in the verse 25 from Gebeah as far as Gezer.
[32:56] He regained much of the land that Saul lost. He will gain it all back and expand it actually. But in one battle, he regained much of what Saul lost.
[33:14] He will go back and fight the battles and regain all the cities and he will expand into the land of the Philistines and he will take it all. So we see that geographically speaking, there's a regained position.
[33:30] But the reality is is that the people of God aren't always about geography. Because one of the great tragedies that happened when Saul failed was not that they lost land, it's that God lost his position in the world.
[33:51] Because God had limited his testimony. Now, God can manifest himself in any way whatsoever, right? God is free. He is omnipotent. Omnipotent. He's omniscient. So I don't want to ever say that man created this problem because then that makes God smaller than man.
[34:07] But God had limited his testimony to a watching world to the obedience of his people. He's bringing out his purposes. When Saul fails, the testimony of God is hindered because Dagon, the false god, is praised.
[34:24] And any time the enemy wins, false gods are praised. The God of reason, the God of knowledge, the God of...
[34:35] You claim it, whatever. I mean, read your history. When the church fails, false gods are praised. It just happens. But the wonderful thing is is when the right king is on the throne, that king goes and fights a battle.
[34:51] And there's one line here that if we're not careful, we miss it. That when the right king is on the throne, walking in faithful obedience, when the king that God has anointed and appointed is ruling, it says in verse 21, they, that is the Philistines, they abandoned their idols there.
[35:16] You know why that's so important? Because you don't leave behind an idol. You think it's strong. When David walked in faithful obedience and the Lord burst through the front line of the Philistines, the Philistines realized their idols were not stronger than the God they faced.
[35:34] They had carried their idols to battle, much like the nation of Israel had carried the Ark of the Covenant upon the sons of Eli and ended up losing it, right? Much like they thought, well, these idols, we've praised Dagon because we defeated Saul.
[35:49] We've praised Dagon because of the land we've acquired. Now let's take them with us into battle. It took one battle with the right king to cause them to forsake their idols because then the true king was manifesting his power and God was regaining his position.
[36:05] no longer will Dagon be stronger than God because the Philistines couldn't stand before him.
[36:18] Now the testimony of God is resonating that the idols were forsaken because they were useless in comparison to the God they face.
[36:30] When the true king is given the right to rule and the kingdom is strengthened, then the idols of humanity are cast aside because God's people are walking in obedience.
[36:46] Much like you can read church history and you can read world history and you can see that when the church fails, idols are exalted. On the other side of that coin, when the church is faithful, idols are cast aside.
[37:00] It is an amazing thing. It is an amazing thing to see when the people of God walk in faithful obedience to the Lord God, how the idols of the world are forsaken and cast aside.
[37:19] When the king of kings and lord of lords is setting up on the throne and the kingdom is strengthened for his glory. It's a wonderful thing. It's a wonderful thing.
[37:34] I'm reading a book right now. It's a very scholarly book. I have to really read it in stages. It's one of those that makes your brain smoke, but it's okay. It's amazing.
[37:46] As far as technological advances happen in the world, Islamic monasteries, Hindu monasteries, Buddhist shrines were so much further technologically advanced in any other part of the world.
[38:01] They had revolving bookcases in Hindu temples long before the mechanics of the spinning wheel were ever developed in European countries.
[38:12] They had these bookcases full of books and some would say when you'd go into that land you could just hear the constant rotation of these spinning bookcases in the Hindu temples.
[38:23] The problem is they weren't spinning them so that they could read the books that were on the shelves. They were spinning them because the Hindus think that just the sound of nothing, the repeated sound of nothing would lead them to a stateful place of bliss.
[38:37] So just the sound of the bookcases being spun was all they wanted to listen to. Contrast that to when you go into the land of Europe and people have a book and they read the book and they begin to think that this book gives us reason in the mind to think and gives us an opportunity to do and they take the ingenuity that was over there being used to lead you to nothing and begin to do something and all of a sudden the world takes notice because now the western world seems to advance militaristically, politically, economically, socially and some of the atrocities that are still evident in all the world are no longer evident in these countries.
[39:13] Why? Because the right king got up on the throne and the world began to take notice. Now we're not just trying to get to a nothingness now we're trying to serve a living and loving God who created us for a purpose and we begin to see this and the reality and presupposition is this is you cannot separate the prominence and advancement of the western hemisphere of the world from their Christian roots because Christianity and the practical living out of that is what led them in every advancement politically economically scientifically socially because when the right king got on the throne idols began to be cast away.
[40:06] There was a regained position because now all of a sudden this makes sense. We're not just trying to listen to spinning wheels. We have the will to do something. We can use it to advance.
[40:19] We can use it to go further. When they were spinning the wheels over here in the Hindu temples to listen to the sounds, the Europeans saw the wheel and put it on the front of a plow and began to plow the land. All of a sudden their crops started sprouting like crazy.
[40:33] All of a sudden starvation was no longer a problem. Economics began to be began to rise. All these things started happening. People are still listening to spinning wheels over here but they're using them over here.
[40:46] Why? Because their word told them that they were to labor and to work and to serve and to trust the Lord God to do things for his glory. And idols began to be cast aside.
[41:00] It's the same thing we see here when the kingdom is strengthened. And we see it in 2 Samuel chapter 5 verses 6 to 25. Thank you my brothers.
[41:16] so so so Thank you.