2 Samuel 2 (Part 2) Bible Study (The Battle of Gibeon) | Pastor Daniel Batarseh

Eager to go into the bible with you. Second Samuel chapter two is where we were last time together, and we were at verse 12 before we stopped. And so let's meet together at verse 12 of chapter two of second Samuel. And our brother just prayed, but why don't we pray one more time as we have the word of God open before us. Oh, lord, we thank you.

We thank you for the word. We love your word. It is our delight. It is our joy. It is sweet to the taste.

It is strength to the bones. We thank you, Lord, that it is the window by which we can see you. It is your invitation for us to know you. And, Lord, we just sit at your feet today as a family, and we just ask, Lord, as this is a study that you would help us learn of you, about you, and that, Lord, it would get into our blood so that we can live like you and we can answer the call that you have for us in this text. We ask, Lord, that there'd be a special touch from the power of the Holy Spirit upon our hearts.

We thank you, Lord, that these doors are open every Friday night. We bless you by your grace, Lord. One service a week is not enough. We long for more of you, oh God, and we are blessed by a people who want to gather together to receive from your voice. We give you all glory and thanks in Jesus' name.

Amen. The most profitable thing that you and I can do before we continue in this chapter is to try to understand where we are at this point in this story before completing this chapter. So let's recollect what we learned last week. Let's summarize it. Saul died.

He's no longer on the scene. David becomes king. He's anointed by certain men from a certain tribe, namely the tribe of Judah, his own people. And so they recognize him, they acknowledge him, and they they clothe him with their approval that you are indeed God's anointed. You will become our king.

Now unfortunately, David is not king over all of Israel. And from the human standpoint, the reason for that is because there is another man who had a different agenda. His name was Abner. He was related to Saul. He was the commander of his army.

And realizing that his position was threatened because of David's exaltation, he takes Saul's last son, the remaining son, the living son, because the other ones died in battle, Ish Bosheth, and elevates him and allures the rest of the tribes to be convinced that he is the right heir to the throne. And so what you have here is Abner using Ishbosheth as a puppet to really satisfy his own ambition, and this is in a way declaring war on the dynasty of David. This is a resistance to God's plan, and Abner knew that himself. This is not because he cared about Saul's name. This is not because he wanted Saul's descendants to be honored.

This was because he had a desire of his own, and I wanna prove that to you very briefly. Go to chapter three in the bible. Look at verse six of second Samuel two. You scroll down to verse six of chapter three. What do you read?

While there was war between the house of Saul and the house of David, Abner was making who? Making himself strong in the house of Saul. So this man was so consumed with self that he was even willing to make Ishbosheth king, but he was really trying to keep his position. He was trying to nurture his pride, his prosperity, his name. And so with that background as our context, we come now to verse 12 to understand what will take place between these two kings.

What is going to happen? And as I personally studied these verses that will conclude chapter two, I could not help but realize there is a thread of a theme, and it is intensely practical. And the theme really is the great need for wisdom. That despite your strengths and my abilities and your way of thinking and my cleverness, no matter what would be even positive, no matter what our efforts might even be towards, even if it's towards ministry and God's work, if wisdom is not there to guide us, to lead us, to instruct us, we are setting ourselves up for great failure in many ways. And you will see that in different illustrations in this portion of our bible study.

It is going to be intensely practical, but that is what our faith is. And so we come to this verse, and the first thing that I wanna mention concerning wisdom is this. Wisdom encourages us to be on guard at all times. That's the first thought. There's four total in this study.

The first one is this, wisdom teaches us to be on guard, not sometimes, not when it's dangerous, not when the devil is right at your front door, but at all times to be alert. Let's read in verse 12. Abner the son of Ner, and the servants of Ishbosheth the son of Saul, went out from Mahanaim to Gibeon. And Joab, the son of Zaria, and the servants of David went out and met them at the Pool Of Gibeon. And they sat down, the one on the one side of the pool and the other on the other side of the pool.

What's happening here? Abner, the son of Ner, is making his way in towards a certain direction, and his movements here should not be seen as casual. They not should not be seen as nonsuspicious. They're actually extremely suspicious. And the reason why is because headquarters for Saul was Mahanaim.

We learned that in the former verses. We learned that here back in verse verse eight at the end of it that Mahanaim was where he put Ishbosheth and where their headquarters was. He is leaving headquarters, and he's actually heading towards Judean territory. This is concerning enough for David to call his commander in his army, Joab, and a few of his men to go and to see what Abner was up to. He wants him to to bring back news, to learn what it is that he is doing in his neighborhood.

And what's incredible here is that Abner making this kind of move, is declaring something. What he is trying to show here is that he is hungry for all of Israel. He already has a majority of the tribes by his side. The only tribe that's really not on his side is Judah. And Abner is so ambitious that he is convinced that he can actually make way to overthrow David and to bring Judah on his side.

You see, when Abner made this decision to make Ishbosheth king, he essentially declared war on David. That's in verse one of chapter three. Look at it again. There was a long war between the house of Saul and the house of David. So in that seven year and six months period while David was king over Hebron in Judah, there was a war between the house of Saul and the house of David.

And he's making his way to try to, planning somehow, someway to usurp the authority that God has placed in his servant David. Now what did you learn from this? I believe Abner's ambition here, his attitude is a wonderful reflection of the ambition that sin has in the life of a believer. The flesh is never satisfied with only having part of you. The lust of the flesh, the pride of life, the things that god says no to want to dominate you and I, and that varies for all of us.

But one thing is for certain, sin longs to kill you. Sin longs to veer you off the will of God completely, not partially, but completely. And what we see with Abner here is that he was not satisfied with 11 tribes. He wanted all of them. And sin has the same attitude for you individually and not just on an individual scale, but on a macro level.

Sin longs to corrupt everything. If you want proof of that, just take a peek down history and realize that with every major invention, with with every scientific development, somehow it is corrupted by evil. That is true politically. That is true technologically. That is true scientifically.

With everything that we develop as the human race, sin somehow comes in and seeks to hijack it for the devil's purposes. Every think about it. Everything. We come up we discover these chemicals and these things, and what we make nuclear bombs. Why?

We have the ability to communicate with somebody across the world and instead now the Internet has 30 something percent of its downloads and visits on website to be pornographic. And so what you see here is that there's an infiltration of sin in anything in anything from an individual level to even a global level. And what I find fascinating is that this is a good place to mention how Satan is not satisfied with only having control of part of the world. Satan is not satisfied just having China being communist. Satan is not satisfied making the gospel difficult to share in the Middle East.

If Satan has his way, he would love to turn this lovely nation into a wasteland. And that's what he's been trying to do. And we have to understand here that what we experienced in the past two years was not a simple experiment of political overreach. As I said earlier, it was a slick attempt. This might shock you.

Welcome to bible study. It has been a slick attempt from the evil one to try to render the church ineffective. Now that might be hard for you to believe if if you don't have a biblical worldview. But if you have biblical worldview, then you understand that we don't war against flesh and blood. We wrestle against principality, cosmic powers, spiritual beings.

And demons are not just interested in possessing bodies and making them do strange things. They are sophisticated. They create doctrines and teaching. They hate the idea of freedom. They hate the idea of their being access to the gospel so easily.

And so what you and I saw was a great bold attempt from the evil one to try to shut down the church. Oh, yeah. And it was very clever because it looked like a health crisis, so it looked like everything blended with it. But I wanna say this, just because things are quiet now, if you and I do not learn from what we saw in the past two years, we will not be prepared for what's coming down the pike. I'm telling you.

Let let me say this, and I'm gonna try not to raise my voice. I get very passionate sometimes. Most of the church is asleep. Most of the church in the West is asleep. They're asleep in the light.

And they've reduced their Christianity to one Sunday, and let me get out of here so I can clear my conscience. I have things to do after the service. I have my own plans. I have my own agendas. I'm not and you don't even realize that in your lifetime, you won't be able to go to church even once a week.

You won't have those freedoms. You you won't have those luxuries. And so we have to see the writing on the wall. We have to understand that as we believe that these are signs of the end of the age, Hebrews tells us that as you see the day drawing near, you don't meet less. He says encourage one another and meet even more.

And and so I'm I'm really concerned, generally speaking, of the indifference and the lack of alertness from many, many believers who don't realize, as one quote has been shared so many times, it's not my own, normal is not coming back. Jesus is. That's the difference. And so we have to I don't mean to go on a tangent. I'm trying to come back to this.

I'm trying to come back to this. But what we have to understand here is that there is an agenda. There is an agenda and just as much as there are servants of God in this life and in this generation in this world, there are agents of Satan that have the complete opposite goal that we do. They wanna accelerate what the antichrist wants to do, and that is to dominate this world, to bring worship away from God into himself, and lure as many souls into the depths of hell as he can. So we come back to this, and I wanna say though we do not have remember our first point, wisdom keeps us alert at all times.

Though we do not have as much ability to protect the streams of life from being poisoned, we do have a call from God to be responsible for that which he has entrusted to us, and that is the temple of the Holy Spirit. That's you and I individually, and that is the local church that God has called us to be a part of. And our attitude towards the relentless pursuit of the evil one should be the same of David's. What does David do in verse 13? When he when he learns and these are early signs that he's going to be a wonderful king over Israel, when he learns that there is strange behavior coming from Abner, he sends Joab, because he seems to have a great intelligence agency, he sends Joab early on before there's any obvious threat or danger to be able to study and see what is actually happening.

And to prevent he's acting pre preemptively here. He is he is coming with an awareness on his radar that there is something potentially dangerous here, and we wanna stop it in its larva form. We wanna stop it as early as possible before Abner comes into Judah, into Hebron, not, and creates havoc that will be much more difficult to control than if we just come at this point. Here's what I wanna say. A true soldier of Jesus Christ, a true soldier of Jesus Christ is a watchful Christian.

They are constantly on guard. It's not they don't become spiritual on Sunday. They don't get they don't get oh, they don't become aware of God and his word and work it doesn't just turn on and off one day a week. They're constantly having the radar on. Constantly having the radar on.

And they are strengthened, and they are nourished, and they are watching, and they are seeking, and they are they are they are armed at all times. And that's exactly what David is doing here. He's not waiting And that's exactly what David is doing here. He's not waiting for day for Abner to cause trouble. He wants to even prevent the trouble to even begin with.

And what does that look like for the Christian? Because we have a different war. It's not against flesh and blood. But what does it look like? Our main enemy is sin.

Our main enemy is the flesh. And what that looks like, if I can give practical insight, is that when a believer identifies a common thought pattern and he knows that it's wrong, and he knows that it's it's it's entertaining sin, that believer doesn't just allow his thoughts to wander with. He he sees the potential direction that this is going into, and he stops it at the bud. He deals with it. He faces it.

When he sees and feels that his emotions begin to provoke and cause unrighteous behavior, he deals with it right there at the emotional level. When that believer sees that the crowd that I'm in and the crowd that I'm with is is now removing me from relishing in spiritual things, and is now dominating the things of God in my in my desires and my pursuits, I'm going to do something about it early on. They act preemptively. They they act before things become disastrous. They are able to see past what's may seem innocent on the surface and see the actual harm that it can produce.

If that was true of many believers, there'd be a lot less remorse in their lives, a lot less counseling meetings. Because like David, they are playing it safe. They see the subtle activity, they identify it, and they take measures to face it before it gains more ground over your will, over your mind, over your resources, over your relationships. And David's vigilance here is a wonderful example of how to be on guard, giving you vision, seeing the potential hazard of these things that may seem harmless at the beginning, which brings us to our second point. Wisdom is not just the necessity to being alert at all times.

It takes into account future consequences of present compliances. Wisdom takes into account future consequences of present compliances. Where do I get that from? Look at verse 14. Here's the scene.

You have Abner with his men, and they're sitting at this large pool, maybe a well. You have Joab and his men sitting on the other side. And look what Abner does, he breaks the silence and he says to Joab, let the young men arise and compete before us. And Joab said, let him arise. Abner has some goal here in mind.

Right? And so he sees the opportunity and he says, let them compete. Some translations say, let them play. And the Hebrew word has different shades of meaning depending on its context. That word can be used when David played instruments, played instruments before the Lord.

That word was also used when Samson was apprehended by the Philistines. And when they realized that they got enemy number one, they wanted him to come out and entertain them. It's the same Hebrew word. And and there was laughing and mocking there. They they were scorning him as he was almost like a clown and acting as though he was jesting for them in humiliation.

When we come to this word here, when he says let the young man arise and compete before us, it's almost as though he is calling them to to have some kind of a match to prove which side is stronger. He's not he's not he's not looking to initiate a bloodbath at this point. What he's really wanting to do is is to make a statement by creating less casualties to say, look at look at us. We prevailed over David. And to convince somehow through that that they should join his side because David's side is inferior.

They are weaker. And so that's what he is proposing here. And regardless of the motive, one thing is for certain. Abner is the aggressor. Abner is the one trying to stir the nest.

Abner is the one who wants to kinda cause trouble. Joab is not entertaining this. He's not initiating this. But unfortunately, where Joab failed was where he complied. He hears this, and instead of rejecting the senseless idea, he actually bites.

He says, okay. Let them arise. Now listen. It doesn't take much intellect to realize that when you have two opposing people coming to some kind of a wrestling match, that that's gonna fuel the tension. This isn't a friendly competition here.

This is a way of flexing your muscle at the expense of young men who are going to become casualties for no reason. But Joab here gives in. And my question is why? Joab, why would you do this? And if you've studied Joab's life before, if you've studied this text before, you know what kind of character he is.

Joab was tough. Job was relentless. He was ruthless, actually. He was a never backed down kind of fellow. And so when this was proposed, this challenge was brought before him, those who know Job say, okay.

It's kinda we kinda saw this coming. Yeah. He's he's gonna give into this. And he does. But for what reason?

Remember, Joab is the commander of David's army. Abder is the commander of Saul's son's army. I wonder if Joab feels threatened. I wonder if Joab wants to make a point. I wonder if Joab here is allowing his pride to override his reason.

Oh, you wanna challenge me and my men? Okay. Let us move. Guys, get up. And he selected 12 of his best, and Abner did the same, and they went at it.

And it didn't last very long before swords were taken out, and they were thrusted in each other's sides. And 24 young men died for no reason. And I look at this, and I see Job's failure to take the higher road, to take the higher road. Because of that, there would be an open door for unnecessary tragedy. What did you and I learn?

This is remember, this is intensely practical tonight. We wanna be servants of God. We wanna be effective. We want our testimonies to shine bright. We wanna be used by God.

Well, then understand this, wisdom takes into account future consequences of present compliances. And so here's a word from the book of wisdom in Proverbs. In Proverbs seventeen fourteen. Here's what this verse says. In Proverbs seventeen fourteen.

The beginning of strife is like letting out water. So quit before the quarrel breaks out. The beginning of strife is like letting out water, so quit before quarrel breaks out. So what's the teaching there? Well, when you begin to see sparks of contention fly, and one heated word is exchanged for another, and, one blow of accusation is served after one was received, and there begins to be some kind of brewing of tension between two parties.

You know what this calls us to do? Be the better man. Be the true representative of your master and Jesus Christ in humility and back down. Pull back. Quit.

Press the eject button. Let him get the last word. Let her have the last word. Don't even try to defend yourself. Don't even try to go back.

You did this. I'm gonna quit before it becomes worse. It is much easier to fix a small leak than it is to deal with a broken dam. And that's the wisdom here. Once you have a mass of water that gushes out, it becomes incalculable in its destruction and much more difficult to control when it is in its forms of drops.

That's much more easy to handle. And wisdom in the Christian life where you will deal with many characters, wisdom will often whisper in your ear and encourage you to realize that this tension, these issues with others, or somebody who's trying to cause you and invite you into some kind of a battle, wisdom will say it will become way worse if you entertain it, so pull out while you can because this battle can lead to a war. This is so appropriate for our church context. This is so appropriate for us as a family in Jesus Christ. If you're not part of this church, take this with you to your local church.

The personal feud be between Abner and Joab would actually lead to other people dying. And if we are serious about the health of the local church, if we are serious about the testimony of the church, then we have to understand what wisdom teaches us, and that's my personal problem with another brother or sister in Christ can actually lead to collateral damage, can actually create much more difficulty and friction to those who are not even necessarily involved to begin with. And this verse among many verses calls you and I to die to ourselves, to die to ourselves. Let me give you a new testament example. Okay?

I love verses like this because I always think, Lord, you didn't have to put a verse in like that. I mean, you could have filled every epistle from the beginning to the end with wonderful descriptions and theological truths about the person and glory of Jesus Christ. But then you come to verses like this. Turn your bibles with me to Philippians chapter four and look at this in verse two. Philippians four two.

Paul writes to this church in Philippi, and he gets to a certain point where he addresses a couple of women. And this is what he says, I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord. Full stop. Why is that in the bible? Why is that in the bible?

Well, for Paul to write this in this epistle as a public letter surely means that he has learned about a contention, a conflict between two women that was actually causing problems to the church as a whole. It was causing issues from from them, and he wanted to deal with it head on. And we don't know the exact nature of the issue because he doesn't tell us. But one thing we know for certain is that it's not doctrinal. Because if it was a doctrinal issue, then Paul would obviously side with the person who wasn't right, the person who was teaching the truth.

With that being eliminated as a possibility, what is the strongest possibility is that these two women had personal issues between each other. It was totally personal. But it has come to a point where now sides are being taken. There's there's, there's a heaviness in the meetings. And as believers are coming together, there's awkwardness, and there's there's a sense of walls being built up because of emotional conflict and disruption.

And Paul's like, I'm hearing about this, and I can see where this is going. And Paul as a great pastor to pastors and church planter says, agree in the Lord. Agree in the Lord. That tells me something very very important. One of the reasons, no matter what the nature of the problem is, one of the reasons why conflicts between people are not solved amongst Christians is because the Lord is not included in their reasoning.

You get so consumed with self that you forget to see that you and that fellow believer have common ground in the kingdom of God, and that you have a greater cause that is bigger than the issue that you guys had between one another. But see, problems arise more and more the more we become self absorbed. And the more self absorbed we become, the more we push out God from our thinking, and from our planning, and and from our life goals. And that's exactly what is taking place here. And in the case of Abner and Joab who were brothers, Abner is gonna say that later on, they were brothers.

They're of the same people, the same kingdom. They serve the same God. Apparently, twenty four young men are going to die and more later on. Just because of two guys who had ego issues. It's because of two guys, mainly one who had more of under the other, who had selfish ambition.

That was more Abner than it was Joab. I have to give Joab credit. And how many have suffered suffered within the church? How many churches have lost love and lost that fervency and lost focus for the gospel because of personal issues? Listen, the church is not a glorified nursery.

K? It's it's an army. It's an army. And we have to be careful because little things like this can actually erode and weaken the body of Jesus Christ. And what I find so amazing about what we see in Philippians four two is what you read in the next verse.

Look at Philippians four three. He continues with this thought. Yes. I ask you also, true companion, help these women. So now he's addressing somebody and there's debate who he's addressing.

Help these women who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life. What stands out to you from that verse? What stands out to you? Let me ask this question. What is the quality of these women?

What do they contribute? Paul says they have labored with me side by side. So these weren't carnal women that came into church because it was a social thing. These were genuine servants of the gospel. These were women who contributed to the ministry of the Apostle Paul.

These were these were women who who evidently had some kind of spiritual maturity. Now here's the warning, but even such women of such caliber were overcome by selfishness. That's how power the flesh can be. That's how powerful the flesh can be that even women of such standards in the church can succumb to self to such a degree that it overrides their ministries, it overrides what they were contributing for the kingdom of God to the point where they don't even care if it's creating disunity among the people of God. Isn't that like if you're scared good, I hope you're even more scared.

There's a healthy fear of what this flesh can bring us to unless we subject it to the word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. These are these are good women. These are holy women, and yet still they could not agree because of a personal issue. And it was creating issues within the church. And so you see Paul here is addressing something at its seed form.

Because as a leader, he realizes where this can go. And what Paul has in mind is the gospel, the advancement of the kingdom through the church. And so I invite you today that if you have an issue with somebody, you be the higher person and die to yourself. Die to yourself. Die to yourself for the sake of the gospel.

Well, what if they don't? Don't worry about them. You do it. You do it. Don't worry if they agree.

Don't worry if they see eye to eye. Don't worry if they clap back. You die to yourself. And you see Paul's solution to this conflict? Look what he says in verse three.

Yes. I ask you also true companion. Help these women. He's calling the church. He's calling somebody else in the church, but you can say he's calling the church.

He's calling someone from within to to help these women who are in the same church to come to a place of solution. And I love that. You know why I love that? Because God designed the local church to have a measure of influence upon selfishness in someone's life. Can I tell you something?

I've seen so many relationships destroyed, not just between people, like on a French level, mainly even in marriage. And you know what many of those marriages have in common, if not all of them? I'll tell you what. Either both or one are not part of a local church. For years I've seen it.

And they may come, like, to hear a message, but I'm saying they're not plugged in. They're not like, this is my church. I'm a member here. These are my elders. I'm accountable to these men.

I'm accountable to this body. I can't think of one relationship that's not having great problems, where they don't share the same common denominator. Either one or both are not seriously devoted to a local church. Because Paul here sees a solution to these two going to war with each other. He sees the church who is outside of them, who is unbiased, who stands for what is right to come in and to quench the fire.

And so we all struggle with selfishness, but what you and I need in God's wisdom is a is a body of believers who love us enough to say, smarten up. Snap out of it. Do you do you realize how you are actually hindering the work of Christ? Do you realize how you are actually damaging the ministry that you are a part of because of a personal issue with someone else? Wake up.

Wake up. And that's what Paul is doing here. You and I need to see that because wisdom wisdom foresees future consequences to present compromises and compliances. And sometimes we are so blinded by our own selfishness and our own desires that we need other eyes of the same body, the body of Jesus Christ, to call it out for us and to speak up. Thirdly, wisdom teaches us to take advice.

It's a perfect transition. So look at verse 15 of second Samuel two. Then they arose and passed over by number 12 for Benjamin and Ish bosheth, the son of Saul, and 12 of the servants of David, and each caught his opponent by the head and thrust his sword in his opponent's side, so they fell down together. It was a draw. And then we come down here to verse 18.

And the three sons of Zaria were there, Joab, Abishai, and Asahel. Now Asahel was as swift as foot, as a wild gazelle. So now we're being introduced to this set of brothers. Does anybody know how they are related to David? They're his nephews.

When you go to first Chronicles in chapter two, you realize that Uriah here is actually David's sister. David's sister had three sons. These three sons joined David's camp. They trusted that he was the Lord's anointed, and they were warriors. And what's interesting here is that we're gonna learn not just something about Joab, but of another brother, and that is Asahel.

All we are told about Asahel is that he was as swift of foot as a wild gazelle. In other words, he was really fast. He was he he had agility. He was known for his swiftness. But as you read on, you realize that Asahel had something in common with his brother Joab, and it is this, that though he had great ability, and in his case, he had a great zeal, He lacked what his brother had.

Or rather, he also lacked what his brother lacked, and that is wisdom. Joab was known for his great courage. He was fearless. He would take up any challenge, and you're gonna see that throughout second Samuel. But what you see here with his brother is that he actually had the same problem, great gifting, great ability, but it wasn't guided and protected by wisdom.

Here's what's so fascinating. I was reading this today and I thought to myself, up to this point, David stands out from his family in so many ways. Like, though he is related by blood, he differs so vastly in character. I mean, realize who David was in light of his parents, especially his dad. Realize who David was in light of his brothers.

His brothers were not the same as him. Realize who David was in light of his nephews. He really stood out. And the point is this, that though you may share the same blood, it doesn't mean you have the same spirit. Though you may have a certain lineage, even if it's a spiritual lineage, does not mean necessarily that you will share in that.

But here's the encouraging thing, that even though David came from a family that wasn't necessarily the most admirable and the most exemplary, God still chose David. God still would use David. He didn't come from a Polish family. He came from a family where his dad didn't even recognize him as his son when Samuel asked for all his sons. He came from he came from brothers who had issues.

He came from nephews who had issues. He he had issues all around. And if you're thinking that God recruits those who have a certain pedigree in their family, you're you're sadly mistaken, and you should be encouraged. Salvation and true walk with God comes from an individual sense of who he is, an individual responsibility of submitting to him. And I praise God for that.

God won't hold me accountable because of my parents, because of my uncles, because of anybody else. You and I have this walk, and it's a one on one walk with the Lord. And that is deeply, deeply encouraging to me. But Asahel, look what he does here. Verse 19, Asahel pursued Abner as he went.

He turned neither to the right hand nor to the left from following Abner. He's running after him, not to give him just a little beating. He wants to kill him. He wants to destroy Abner, and he thinks this would be a wonderful trophy for the kingdom of David. And what we see here is that this is a great zeal.

This is a great passion. This is great fervency. There is great dedication here. I mean, he's running way ahead of everybody else. But again, as I said earlier, he's clearly demonstrating a great lack of wisdom.

And the great lack of wisdom is this, he was warned. He was warned by Abner to stop, and he would not stop. And because of that, he would hurt himself. It would actually lead to his own demise. And when I looked at that I thought to myself, zeal without knowledge is not good.

Even if your zeal is targeted towards that which aims to glorify God. And I was looking at this, and I was reflecting on my own life when I first got saved. And if I can give a description about those early days of walking with the Lord. There was a lot of zeal. Maybe a need for more wisdom.

It was it was it was in the name of God. It was witnessing for God. It was sharing the gospel. It was helping people. Common for many people who become born again.

They become very, very zealous. But even in our evangelistic efforts, Jesus tells us to be wise as serpents. He wants us to exercise wisdom in all things, even those things that are good. And I think here what we see with with Asahel is that he had a zeal, he lacked the wisdom, and something that he wanted to do in his mind could perhaps could have been right would actually turn out to his to his own harm. God is so patient with us.

He teaches us. And I think that's why he's extremely patient with all of us when we first get saved. But here's the thing. The solution to his zeal early on in our walk with the Lord, as we grow older in the Lord, is not less zeal. It's not less zeal for the Lord.

It's more wisdom. Right? So you have people who grow in the Lord over the years, and they become less zealous, and they think that's more wisdom. That's not true. It's like, I remember when I was zealous for the Lord.

I used to do it. Well, what happened? You don't do anything anymore. That's not wisdom. Wisdom is the ability to learn from your mistakes and learn from those who have went on ahead of you to be able to teach you how you can channel that zeal for maximum effectiveness and minimizing of issues and problems.

Nothing can be worse for your spiritual success or mine than stubbornness. It doesn't matter how gifted you are. It doesn't matter who you're who you're referred to as. You're the next this. You're the next that.

If you and I do not have a teachable spirit, if you and I do not know how to submit to the word of God and the word of God applied by others who know how to apply it to your life, then then we will fall and fail in serious ways. I've seen it myself over the years. People who had great zeal crashed when they could have avoided those walls if they had simply just listened to those who had enough sense to say, you gotta do it this way or you gotta be like this or you gotta be careful how you do this. And that's what happened to Asahel. Look what happens here.

Verse 20. Then Abner looked behind him and said, is it you, Asahel? And he answered, it is I. Abner said to him, turn aside to your right hand or to your left and seize one of the young men and take his spoil. But Asahel would not turn aside from following him, and Abner said again to Asahel, turn aside from following me.

Why should I strike you to the ground? How then can I lift up my face to your brother Joab? But he refused to turn aside. Therefore, Abner struck him in the stomach with the butt of his spear so that the spear came out of his back. And he fell there and died where he was, and all who came to the place where Asahel had fallen and died stood still.

So do you see what happened? Asahel is pursuing him. Abner looks back. He warns him, turn aside, and he doesn't. Again, he says, turn aside, and he doesn't.

And finally, he takes out his spear, and he thrust it in such a way that with the speed of Asahel's running, it literally penetrated him through his frame and the spear came out the other side of his back. And so I wanna say that the greatest thing that you and I have to protect ourselves from harming ourselves or harming others is to be teachable, is to take heed of warnings. Again, especially for younger believers, Something happens often with younger believers and and in their zeal they can become very critical. Very critical of authority, very critical of older believers because in their minds they are so zealous and they look at those who might be more controlled in their emotions or may do things in a certain way and it it conflicts with what you think and you begin to criticize and you begin to this is what happens. You have people become lone wolf Christians and they despise authority.

They don't think they should be part of the local church because the local church is dead and pastors just don't get it and this and that and I'm on fire and my band of brothers, my band of sisters are on fire. Listen, you are setting yourself up for great danger. And you may not be a younger believer here, but if you know a younger believer, listen to what I'm saying. Encourage those and encourage your own heart that even though you may feel like you are gifted or you have a certain way of thinking or you have a better strategy to continue to remain open to being instructed and taught. Now listen.

That's not just true for younger believers. I'm just I'm just saying that because that's especially true with younger believers, but it can certainly be true with those who mature in the faith. But that was not the case of a man in the New Testament who was mature in his knowledge of the scripture and his ability to communicate it. Can you think of that man with me? Who is he in the New Testament in the book of Acts?

Close. Who was who was a man who was known as competent in the scriptures and powerfully refuted the Jews. Apollos. I'm encouraged by by Apollos' life, the the the little window that we have of his life, the little snippet, not because of his ability to to teach or preach, not in his might in the scriptures, but because when he was approached with correction, he humbled himself and he received it. And I wanna show you that.

And we're almost done here. I know we're running a little bit overtime with the remaining verses that we have here, but it's worth going there. Go to Acts 18 very quickly in verse 26. Wisdom teaches us to take advice. Wisdom teaches us to take advice and to be open to correction.

In acts eighteen twenty six, we learn of Apollos. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. So think about it. This man was a traveling apologist, a traveling speaker, and he would go into synagogues, and he would just dismantle people's arguments. And he would proclaim Jesus with the knowledge that he had, and one day in the congregation you had a couple, Priscilla and Aquila.

And they heard Apollos, and they were they were they were moved. And they were obviously aware of this man, this young man's gifting, but they they they can they can tell that he did not have the full understanding of the message and the person of Jesus Christ. And so what do they do? They take him aside and they instruct him. Now here's what's so significant about that.

What did Priscilla and Aquila do as a trade? They made tents. They made tents. Okay? They weren't famous, a famous couple in a ministry.

They didn't have their own TV station, a Christian TV station. They were those who had a normal job that helped Paul later on, helped plant a church, but they were just average people who loved God, but knew a lot about his word. So you have to understand that. It is that kind of a couple that's approaching the pastor after the service and saying, we are so touched and blessed by but can we can we just take you a sec? Can we just we want to tell you some things.

And Apollo says, okay. Sure. And he's willing to receive he's like, who are you? What do you guys do? Where where's your business going?

I don't know where ten maker nothing like that. He's willing to hear from these people and he's willing to sit with them and receive what they have to say. He's willing to be open to their correction. Now mind you, look at how they're doing it. They don't stand up.

Apollos, evangelist Apollos, you got it wrong. You you don't understand what that means, actually. You don't understand what Jesus actually meant they weren't doing that. They weren't putting him on blast on Facebook. They weren't exposing him.

They knew how to take him aside privately and to be able to sit down with him and to correct him in gentleness and in humility and with respect. K? If you're gonna ever correct anybody, please do it in a certain way where you will win their affection and win their trust. Okay? Apollos receives it.

Now here's here's the beauty about this. He humbles himself, though he was a preacher. Though he could have said, okay, okay, just get it over with. No. He doesn't do that.

He sits with them as long as he needs to sit with them. He builds these relationships, and look at the result. This is a direct result of the humility of Apollos. Look at verse 27. And when he wished to to cross to Achaia, the brothers encouraged them and wrote to the disciples to welcome him.

So he's like, I would love to go to Achaia. I would love to go and minister there. And the the the family that he built while in Ephesus recommended him to the believers there, and they received him. I believe that as a result of Apollos' willingness to receive instruction, and be teachable, and be humble. In other words, humility opens greater doors for us.

Humility expands our influence. Pride suffocates it, sabotages it. And Apollo here says, I would love to go. And they said, gladly. Hey, this brother, yeah, he knows, he grew, and he is a wonderful person to serve God with.

Would you receive him and look at the next part? When he arrived, he greatly helped those through grace who through grace had believed. Wisdom teaches to take advice. Asahel did not take advice, and he suffered for it. He did not he take heed to warning, and he actually died.

And not only did he die, but look what happened. Those who saw him die stood still. You know what that did? That gave Abder more time to gain ground and to have his troops surround him on the top of a hill. And so many people suffered because of because of this man's unwillingness to take heed.

Now we come to the last point. Wisdom doesn't only tell us to take advice. Wisdom reminds us that hypocrisy will never succeed. Look at verse 25. We'll skip a couple verses here.

And the people of Benjamin gathered themselves together behind Abner and became one group and took their stand on the top of a hill. So there was enough time now because of Asahel's death that they go on a top of a hill, which is a strategy. You you have an advantage there. And the men of Benjamin came and surrounded Abner, and Abner now is ready to confront Joab and the men that followed Asahel. Verse 26.

Then Abner called to Joab, shall the sword devour forever? Do you not know that the end will be bitter? How long will it be before you tell your people to turn from the pursuit of their brothers? Impressive. You read that at first and you think Abner learned his lesson.

He realized the foolishness of his ways. He saw that this was becoming way worse than it could have if he had just if he had just humbled himself from the beginning. And so maybe he did learn. Right? Shall the sword devour forever?

Do you not know that the end will be bitter? That's good stuff. And he goes on to even say, how long will it be before you tell your people to turn from the pursuit of who? Their brothers. Here's my question.

Is he sincere? Well, one, he's saying the right things, but is he sincere? Is he being genuine? Do you think he actually learned his lesson at this point? He saw saw the the mistakes that he has made, that he's contributed to, so he wants to put an end to this foolishness and this senseless death?

I have a hunch that this is all just a show. Look at verse 31. But the servants of David had struck down of Benjamin 03/1960 at Abner's men of Abner's men. And we look at verse 30. Joab returned from the pursuit of Abner, and you see here in the second part, there were missing from David's servants 19 men besides Asahel.

So at the end of the whole ordeal, David loses 19 men besides Asahel. Joab, or rather Abner loses 360. He was losing. He was losing, and he realized that he was probably going to die that day. And so he decides to put a stop to this before it gets worse for him.

How do I know that he's not sincere? Well, go to verse one of chapter three again. There was a long war between the house of Saul and the house of David. War only continued after this. And so he's trying to save himself at this time.

And the reason why he speaks in this way is because he's being very clever. He's putting on a righteous mask. He's putting on this pious display so that he can seem as though he's in the right and Joab is in the wrong. And if Joab refuses, then he's the one who's gonna be in the wrong. It's very, very smart.

But what's so scary about this is that he's only doing this for himself. He's not doing this because of righteousness. He's not doing this because he wants to honor God. He's doing this because he knows that he will lose if he doesn't. And those who operate in hypocrisy, this is so important to understand, know the right things to say.

Those who know how to put on a mask know what to say, when to say it, and who to say it to. And the ugliness of hypocrisy is that it unashamedly attempts to try to put the blame that was caused by self on others so that self can look like they are in the right. And that is essentially what Abner is trying to do here. Because if Joab refuses this, then Joab will look like the one who is actually causing war between the brothers. And he's the one that wants the the sword to devour.

And he he doesn't mind things becoming becoming bitter. And that is frustrating. Right? That is extremely frustrating to see somebody who's able to switch on godliness and switch off when it's convenient or when it's profitable. Listen, but a wise person, a wise person will find it very difficult to be tempted to be a hypocrite in any sphere of life.

Because they are convinced through wisdom, by understanding God's word and his law, that in the long term, hypocrisy will never succeed. And whatever gain is retrieved through hypocritical means will ultimately fail. And that's exactly what you see. Look at look at verse one of chapter three again. And David grew stronger and stronger while the house of Saul became weaker and weaker.

Right? He was gonna lose. If he thought he won that day, if he thought he escaped because of his lies and his deception, he was actually headed towards loss anyway. And I think that is that is helpful for us as believers because what we need to understand is that you and I will experience hypocrisy. You know, you and I may become victims of hypocrisy, where somebody's able to not only pretend to be something or someone, but even project wrong on you and me and our names and our reputations in order to make themselves look like they are they are righteous and they are in the right.

But there's no reason to fear that and here's why. Because Jesus himself promised that hypocrisy will never succeed. Will never succeed. I want to read this to you. You don't have to turn there.

This is my last scripture for the bible study. In Luke twelve one, Jesus says something so astounding. In the meantime, when so many thousands of people had gathered together that they were trampling one another, he began to say to his disciples first. It's so important to read our Bible slowly. He he looks at his own disciples first.

He doesn't look to the thousands that are coming to hear him preach. He looks to his own disciples at first. And what comes out of Jesus' mouth towards his disciples? Something incredible. Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.

He's not warning the world of hypocrisy. He's looking at his followers and he's saying I'm calling you my disciples to beware because all it takes why would he say why would he say the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy? All you need is a little bit of it. All you need is a little bit of leaven and bread for it to to for it to inflate. All you need is a little hypocrisy in your life for it to corrupt your whole being.

Beware of this. He's warning his own people. Don't let this come in because of what I'm about to tell you. Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed or hidden that will not be known. Therefore, whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light and what you have whispered whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the house stops.

So when I am tempted to put on something that makes me seem some way so that I can either advance in my personal agenda or try to evade something that I've done wrong, Jesus assures and wisdom says, don't even go there because it's it's just not gonna work out anyway. And whatever relief comes, it is temporal. And Abner Abner did not believe that, but he would learn it and he's going to learn it in the next chapter. Wisdom teaches us many things. And tonight, we got a fresh batch of what wisdom offers us.

Wisdom tells us to be alert at all times. Wisdom teaches us to consider future consequences of present compliances. Wisdom encourages us to take advice. Wisdom convinces us that hypocrisy will never succeed. Oh, there's so much more in these verses, but we don't have time tonight.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for the word. Father, we ask you that these things would be true in our lives. We wanna be wise. We wanna be effective.

We wanna we wanna bear fruit. We want people to see Christ. Lord, we ask that you would impart wisdom into our hearts. Thank you for these illustrations in your word to take these principles that we read of and know about, but see them lived out successfully and unfortunately in failure. But to our benefit, Lord, you have given us these things.

Lord, we worship you. We thank you that your word is so pure and so direct and so clear. There's no confusion in it. Even a child can understand what was said tonight. And Lord, we receive it with childlike faith.

And we ask you oh Lord to to to just make us more like Jesus. And Lord, as a church, we pray that we would be a wise people. That foolishness would not reign here. That it would not be even in one heart. It would not dominate one person.

We would all exercise wisdom in how we treat one another, and how we see temptation, and how we deal with our own pursuits that try to creep in and override your purposes in our lives. Lord, we bless you and we give you all glory and honor as we sing to you because you have spoken to our hearts. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.