Scripture: 2 Samuel 4:1-12
Sermons Series: 2 Samuel: When God is Your King! – Sermon 04
Please turn in your Bible to 2 Samuel 4 (p. 240) or grab a chair one. At Grace we’re committed to what the Reformers called Sola Scriptura. That simply means that the Bible is our sole authority for what we believe and practice here. Something else that’s vital connected to that is that at Grace, we do not interpret Scripture. We let the Bible speak for Itself. We’re committed to understanding what God has written in His Word. It’s why we encourage you to bring a Bible with you as you worship with us and follow along. Wonderfully, in our technological age you can download a free Bible app for your phone. Let’s read 2 Samuel 4. (Prayer).
“Conspiracy theory” has become a popular term as well as a loaded one. Politicians use it to mock and dismiss allegations. Sociologists warn that it can be used as a weapon to foment dissent. If you study history, you’ll find that there have been true conspiracies. One of the more famous was made into a movie, Valkyrie, with Tom Cruise (picture).
Adolf Hitler (picture) dodged several assassination attempts during World War II. The most famous—and the one closest to succeeding—came in 1944 in the weeks after D-Day. Convinced “Der Führer” was leading Germany to its doom, several top Nazi military leaders conspired to assassinate him. The plan was dubbed “Operation Valkyrie.” They plotted to kill Hitler and then use Germany’s reserve army to seize Berlin’s supreme command headquarters and stage a coup against the Nazi high command.
On July 20, 1944, Lieutenant Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (picture) attended a military conference in Hitler’s “Wolf’s Lair” armed with a bomb hidden in a briefcase. After placing the case near Hitler, he excused himself to make a phone call. The bomb successfully detonated but another officer had shifted the case behind a chair leg only moments before the explosion. While four other people were killed, Hitler escaped with only minor injuries.
Operation Valkyrie crumbled with the news of Hitler’s survival. Von Stauffenberg and other conspirators were quickly captured and shot. Others committed suicide. In the investigation that followed, some 5,000 conspirators and suspected subversives were executed, many of them hung with piano wire as a gruesome warning against future assassination plots.
2 Samuel 4 is about a conspiracy. While I don’t know what I would have done if I’d lived under a Hitler, the assassins in 2 Samuel 4 murder an innocent man and thought they’d be rewarded by David. They were so wrong. While David was waiting and trusting God’s promise and timing to put him on Israel’s throne, these men took God’s responsibility into their own hands. We always blow it When we try to help God out.
Much of the Bible is the sad history of individuals who won’t wait on God and try to help God out. The outcome is always a disaster. From Abraham to Jesus’ disciples, we lose when we try to rush God’s plan. God is never in a hurry and always on time. Did you know the reference to waiting is found in 116 instances within our Bible? Waiting is frequently God’s plan, but we humans hate to wait. We do the same thing these two thugs do. We try to force God’s plan.
For example, someone rushes into a relationship with someone they know that they shouldn’t be with because they’re weary of being single and alone. Instead of committing a need to God, we grab Mastercard or Visa. Why pray and wait when you can charge it? Instead of committing our marital frustrations to God, we go for an easy divorce. We’re in a tough job. We don’t pray. We look for greener grass. Problems at church because they’re sinners (just like us), and we’re bailing. We want success so bad that we’re willing to cut ethical corners. The list goes on and on.
Are you struggling today with waiting on God’s timing and plan? This passage has truths for us, the spiritually impatient.
In Psalm 37, David wrote about what we’re to do when we don’t have any good options in front of us. Psalm 37 tells us to pray, trust, wait on the Lord, and avoid sinful choices to get good results when we have no good ways to turn. Let me read a few verses and you’ll see what I mean. “Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and He will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices!” (Psalm 37:5-7). When there is no god-honoring way to move forward, pray and trust God’s timing and that He’ll make a way. David does that. Most of us don’t. The evil men in this account don’t. If you’re taking notes…
1.Everyone faces times when they must wait on God’s timing. If you have a favorite show on television, then you know how the creators will often start with a recap of what’s taken place in previous episodes. We want to do that this morning as we return to II Samuel.
Saul, the first king of Israel is dead. God’s next king, David, has been anointed as king over his own tribe, the tribe of Judah. But the general of Saul’s army, a masterful powerbroker named Abner, wasn’t ready to give up his position just yet. Instead of acknowledging David as king over all of Israel, Abner set up one of Saul’s surviving sons as the new king in his father’s place. But this son, Ish-bosheth, is a weakling and begins to resent Abner’s power. So, a bitter Abner went to throw his support behind David as the new king. But the general of David’s army, Joab, had a personal score to settle with Abner, and kills him in cold blood, much to David’s displeasure. That’s where we pick up the story in chapter 4. Listen to what the writer tells us is happening in the rest of Israel in the wake of Abner’s death, verses 1-4.
“When Ish-bosheth, Saul’s son, heard that Abner had died at Hebron, his courage failed, and all Israel was dismayed. Now Saul’s son had two men who were captains of raiding bands; the name of the one was Baanah, and the name of the other Rechab, sons of Rimmon a man of Benjamin from Beeroth (for Beeroth also is counted part of Benjamin; the Beerothites fled to Gittaim and have been sojourners there to this day). Jonathan, the son of Saul, had a son who was crippled in his feet. He was five years old when the news about Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel, and his nurse took him up and fled, and as she fled in her haste, he fell and became lame. And his name was Mephibosheth.”
The writer wants to impress us with the total weakness of Saul’s house. It’s a mess. And God uses an unlikely quartet – a puppet king, the terrified nation, a nurse and two gangsters to all play a part, unbeknownst to them, in moving God’s plan forward. They all seem small, fairly insignificant but it’s the little things that can have a huge impact.
Satan rarely tempts us with the big things. None of us are going to leave here and hold up a bank or assault someone. Song of Solomon 2:15 warns us, “Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom.” He snagged our first parents with disobedience over a piece of fruit. It’s usually small like not consistently being in God’s Word or in prayer. It’s a morsel of gossip or a bit of grumbling.
I know in my own heart what a big difference seemingly small spiritual things make. I desperately need time with the Lord daily and time with God’s people each Sunday. If I miss it, I can too quickly degenerate where I get so infuriated over the minute that I could mug a Girl Scout. And you have the same kind of heart that I do, a sinful one that needs Jesus as my Savior and the King of my life every moment of every day. So, we observe that…
Ish-bosheth is paralyzed. When John Balliol (picture) abdicated as king of Scotland in 1296, the arms were torn from the robe he wore over his armor, giving him the name “Toom Tabard,” or “empty suit.” That’s Ish-bosheth without Abner propping up the puppet king. He’s an “empty suit.”
With the world crashing down around him, Ish-Bosheth’s “courage failed.” The original literally means “his hands fell down.” It’s the picture of a boxer in a fight who becomes so discouraged and defeated that he drops his hands down in the middle of the fight and takes a pounding because he gives up. Ish-Bosheth has no fight left in him. He lost all his courage.
Undoubtedly, Ish-bosheth was aware of what Abner was doing when he went to meet with King David. I think Ish-bosheth was anxiously waiting for the news of this meeting but is shocked to learn that Abner was murdered.
Ish-bosheth had been ignoring God for years, living against God’s revealed will and in rebellion against God. Abner had propped him up and kept him in power, but news of Abner’s death caused Ish-bosheth’s courage to plummet.
Fear is never from God. It’s why courage fails when we ignore God. Difficulties come into our lives, and the ones on whom we’ve been depending for help are gone, so we’re dismayed. But when we trust in the Lord, we have courage in Him. Without Abner, Ish-bosheth is paralyzed.
The nation of Israel is anxious. The NIV translates this, “all Israel became alarmed.” “Terrified” might be a better rendering.
With General Abner dead, the nation is defenseless. The primary role of a king was to lead his army in battle against their enemies. Abner fulfilled that role. Now he’s dead.
When a nation doesn’t have strong leaders, there’s a sense of anxiety. Have you ever worked at a place with a lack of leadership? It’s miserable. Workers are insecure. It’s one of the results today of emasculating men where men are fearful of being courageous leaders. Anxiety in a family is often the outcome.
John Calvin (picture) said of this verse: “Ish-Bosheth and his followers show us how easily overthrown are the wicked who seem to pose a deadly threat to God’s people. Let us not doubt, when we see the enemies of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, that it will take nothing to make them a broken people, who do not know which way to turn because they do not have God on their side and they can not call on Him.”
Baanah and Rechab are opportunists. These weren’t military leaders. Apparently, they led raiding parties. They’d be similar today to Afghani warlords. The writer, by identifying them, even their father and where they’re from, wants to make sure that there’s no question that David had nothing to do with their evil deeds. They were from the tribe of Benjamin, so they were relatives of Ish-bosheth. These guys came from Ish-Bosheth’s bloodline. This means you’d expect them to be ultra-loyal. They’re family. As we’ll see, it’s not what happens. It’s how bad Ish-bosheth’s armed forces have become that these thugs are leaders.
Mephibosheth’s nurse panicked. In addition to Ish-bosheth, whose life is about to end, there remains another descendant of King Saul, but he’s crippled. Just as impressive physical features confirmed the right of Saul and David to rule, Mephibosheth’s disability disqualifies him from being king, adding to a time of political uncertainty.
This accident had happened when Saul and Mephibosheth’s father, Jonathan, were killed by the Philistines seven years before. Conquering armies exterminated all relatives, so this nurse has a legitimate fear.
Mephibosheth is now twelve. He’s too young to rule and too physically incapacitated. He’s not on anyone’s radar as a future king or replacement for Ish-bosheth.
Physical attributes are often found in leaders even today. The average height of the 45 men who’ve served as President is approximately 5’11”. That’s roughly two inches taller than the average U.S. male in 2020. One study found that male CEOs are an average height of 6 feet. Even in our day of social understanding, it’s rare to have a disabled leader. We’ll return to and learn more about Mephibosheth later in 2 Samuel.
2. Evil individuals refuse to wait on God and cut corners. Dale Ralph Davis (picture) calls this chapter, “The Gore of Man Does Not Work the Righteousness of God.”
So, how impatient are you? Patience is a virtue that few seem to have. In an impatience poll a few years ago, 1,000 adults were surveyed about Americans’ attitudes and behavior regarding impatience. Some of the findings include *While waiting in line at an office or store, it takes an average of 17 minutes for most people to lose their patience. *On the phone, it takes about 9 minutes for most people to lose their patience. *Women lost their patience after waiting in line for about 18 minutes. For men, it was an average of 15 minutes. *People with lower income and less education are more patient than those with a college education and a high income.
But the all-time impatience trophy winner was a raging mom in Cleveland, Ohio, Andrea Smith (picture). Smith was exasperated at a slow barber who was cutting her 7-year-old son’s hair. After complaining several times about how long the haircut was taking, she’d had enough. She pulled out a gun and told the barber, “I got two clips. I’ll pop you.” Needless to say, the barber promptly finished the cut. Smith then took her son and ran from the shop. Marilyn Medina, an employee at the shop, said, “For a $6 haircut? You’re doing all this?” She was later arrested. Wow! If she did all that over a slow haircut, I can’t imagine what she might do in line at the DMV.
“Now the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, Rechab and Baanah, set out, and about the heat of the day they came to the house of Ish-bosheth as he was taking his noonday rest. And they came into the midst of the house as if to get wheat, and they stabbed him in the stomach. Then Rechab and Baanah his brother escaped. When they came into the house, as he lay on his bed in his bedroom, they struck him and put him to death and beheaded him. They took his head and went by the way of the Arabah all night” (2 Samuel 4:5-7).
These two thugs reach Ish-Bosheth’s house at the perfect time, right when he was taking his well-known afternoon nap. They came into the house as if to get wheat and stab him in the stomach. Nobody suspected anything. They appear to be getting wheat from the storage room inside. Once inside they carried out the real reason they came, assassinating Ish-Bosheth.
Interestingly, there are parallels. In 2 Samuel 3, two brothers, Joab and Abishai, assassinated Abner. Now two brothers Rechab and Baanah assassinate Ish-Bosheth. They assassinate him with a gut wound, which was the same way Asahel, Abner, and now Ish-Bosheth die.
The Septuagint has some details not found in the original Hebrew manuscripts. The ESV includes them as a footnote in your Bible. The Septuagint is a Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament used at the time of Jesus for Jews who spoke Greek but didn’t know Hebrew. It helped them read their Bible in the common language of their day. It’s unlikely these words were in the original manuscripts but may have been a true part of the story, or the Septuagint wouldn’t have added them as commentary.
“And behold, the doorkeeper of the house had been cleaning wheat, but she grew drowsy and slept. So Rechab and Baanah his brother slipped in.” In other words, for being king of the northern 11 tribes, Ish-Bosheth’s kingdom is so weak that the only person working security was a woman who also served as the cook. She’s terrible security and is asleep when Rechab and Baanah arrive. Their assassination is carried out without a hitch. They exit carrying what’s assumed to be a sack of wheat, but really contains the head of Ish-bosheth. They then travel all night to reach David at Hebron and proudly present the head of Ish-bosheth, the son of Saul, “David’s enemy.”
This moment is the pivotal event of chapters 2 through 4 of 2 Samuel. Ish-Bosheth, the rival king, is finally no longer in power. He’s dead and David’s moment has arrived. All opposition to David’s kingship is gone.
But these two evil men are spiritually obtuse with God’s plan and who David is. They can’t understand David’s submission to God and his refusal to raise his hand against God’s anointed (or even one who has by political maneuvering been made king). They don’t understand David’s love and loyalty to Saul, or his commitment to protect the lives of Saul’s family and honoring his name. They also don’t learn from David’s previous actions that David is willing to wait on God’s timing to gain the throne. But what about us? Are we willing to wait on God’s timing? Or do we cut corners? How far are we willing to go to push through our own agenda?
3. God’s people wait on Him and will not be part of evil even if it benefits them. “[They] and brought the head of Ish-bosheth to David at Hebron. And they said to the king, “Here is the head of Ish-bosheth, the son of Saul, your enemy, who sought your life. The Lord has avenged my lord the king this day on Saul and on his offspring.” But David answered Rechab and Baanah his brother, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, “As the Lord lives, who has redeemed my life out of every adversity, when one told me, ‘Behold, Saul is dead,’ and thought he was bringing good news, I seized him and killed him at Ziklag, which was the reward I gave him for his news. How much more, when wicked men have killed a righteous man in his own house on his bed, shall I not now require his blood at your hand and destroy you from the earth?” And David commanded his young men, and they killed them and cut off their hands and feet and hanged them beside the pool at Hebron. But they took the head of Ish-bosheth and buried it in the tomb of Abner at Hebron” (2 Samuel 4:8-12).
This scene is the ultimate “not what I was expecting” for these two brothers. Why did they do this? I’m sure there were several reasons. They saw the decay of Ish-bosheth’s kingdom and, like Abner, wanted to be on a winning team. Perhaps they thought that they would be financially rewarded or given leadership positions in David’s kingdom.
But let me suggest what I believe is the #1 reason that they did this – They thought that David was just like them. Many of you may have experienced this. Someone with a pagan worldview expects that you’ll join them in their plans or actions. They’re shocked that you don’t see the world as they see it. Or they accuse you of doing something or thinking something that’s abhorrent to you as a Christ-follower. But they believe that you must be that way because they’re that way and that’s their worldview of life.
In the David narratives King Saul is continually shocked that David doesn’t seek revenge or to kill Saul, as Saul has sought to kill David. If you’re a cheater, you think everyone else is a cheater. If you’re a liar, you think everyone else is a liar. If you’re a bitter person, you think that everyone else is a bitter person. Yet you and I are to be like David. He serves God, not his own agenda. As Christ-followers, we’re to be distinctly different in every sphere of our being from a Christless world.
They thought that they were giving David a gift and even spiritualized it, “The Lord has avenged my lord.” Evil people are great at sprinkling holy water on evil. The ones who crucified Jesus did that. As John Woodhouse (picture) writes, “An opportunity to do evil is never a gift from God.” Proverbs 14:12 says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.”
This situation reminds David of the Amalekite who came to him from the battlefield after Saul lost his life. The Amalekite claimed he killed Saul and brought David the crown and armband. We learn later that the Amalekite embellished his story a bit. He’d really found Saul dead on the battlefield and took his crown and armband. But he claimed he’d killed Saul because he was trying to get a reward for killing David’s nemesis. At that time, David had the Amalekite executed. There was no reason for him to put his hand out against God’s king. God would give David the throne without the need for someone murdering Saul.
David saw a parallel between Rechab and Baanah and the situation with the Amalekite seven years before. Rechab and Baanah thought they’d be heroes. David saw them as murderers. It was an evil and cowardly deed.
David hung the bodies of these guys as billboards in the town square to make the message clear. David is not the kind of king who celebrates evil, even if you think you’ve done evil for the right reasons. Righteous men do not advance God’s kingdom in sinful ways. It was true then. It’s true now.
A quick sidebar. In our culture David’s punishment seems cruel and harsh. These two were guilty of murder, confessed to it and executed for it. If you study the Bible, I believe that you’ll discover that the Bible allows capital punishment for murder. Human government is ordained by God and since it was instituted, the penalty for murder has always been execution. Romans 13 is one of the New Testament’s great essays on human government. “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God… for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain” (Romans 13:1, 4). A sword is not for slapping wrists. It’s for execution and death. A government without power over the life of a citizen when he/she commits evil is impotent.
The lesson for us here is that God can even use the acts of wicked men to advance His purposes, but the wicked acts of sinful people are still sinful choices, and they will be judged by God for those choices, even if their sinful choice seems to have achieved a good result. It’s never right to try and achieve good results in a sinful way.
Think about Jesus. Judas betrayed Jesus. He was responsible for his sinful choice to condemn an innocent man. Speaking of the severity of that choice, the Bible says it’d have been better if he’d never been born. Yet God still used Judas’ evil choice as how Jesus would end up on the cross to die for our sins. But those who sent Jesus to the cross are still responsible for their sin.
David didn’t need assassins to get him the kingdom in an evil way. It was difficult but he could wait. God would get him the kingdom in His timing and His way without sin. All David needed to do was trust the Lord. The sovereign God used even the vile actions of evil men to accomplish His will, clearing the way for David to be anointed king over all Israel.
God knows His plans for our life. He’ll get us where He wants us to be in His timing and in His way. We don’t need to sin to get a good thing. Instead, we must focus on doing the right thing and waiting for God to take care of the details and right results. It may not be as soon as we want, but God’s will will always be done.
Conclusion: One of the great Christian heroes of the last century was Dietrich Bonhoeffer (picture). Bonhoeffer knowingly joined the German resistance movement, was a spy against the Nazis and ultimately was arrested for actively assisting in an assassination plot against Hitler. He was ultimately executed for it.
I can’t begin to imagine how horrible it was to live under Hitler. Yet, personally, based on Scripture, I believe Bonhoeffer was wrong to try to kill Hitler, though I can certainly understand it. As God was going to take out Saul, as He took out Nero, Stalin, and so many other evil leaders, He was going to take out Hitler. Bonhoeffer wasn’t serving in the military. He was a pastor. As Christ-followers, even in the face of horrible evil, God doesn’t need us to help Him out in accomplishing His will. David’s coming into kingship powerfully demonstrates that.
What can we learn? What are the Take-Home Truths?
We must avoid sinful choices to achieve good goals. When we think of a good thing we can do, but it involves a sinful choice, we know that it’s not God’s way. Most of us won’t be tempted to assassinate someone to advance the kingdom of God. But we’re tempted to cheat on an exam to get better grades. We’re tempted to not report all of our income and cheat on our taxes. We are tempted to tell “white lies” to avoid conflict. It’s the wrong way to get the right results. It’s not the way God’s kingdom works.
Waiting is often God’s will for our lives. God works in our lives as He did in David’s during the waiting. When there is no good way forward, we’re to pray, wait, trust, and avoid sin. God will eventually make a way. Just as it was God’s responsibility to remove the obstacles that kept David from the throne, it’s God’s responsibility to remove obstacles that keep us from the work He has given us to do.
While people are fully responsible for their sinful choices, God overrules sinful choices and incorporates them as part of His good plan to establish His kingdom. This is a mind-bender. In God’s infinite wisdom, while not being responsible for sin, God incorporates the sinful actions of people into His good plans. They’re sinful actions that He hates and will judge. The murder of Ish-Bosheth was used by God to clear the path to put David into power, but these thugs are still responsible for their evil.
God will always judge sin but will give His grace to those who repent. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick.” Whose heart? Everybody’s. That’s the verdict of the Bible. Since sin entered the world, the good which God has made for the enjoyment of His creation has been marred as a result of the rebellion of man. The heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart. As David judged these two murderers, there’s a certainty that a final day is coming when God will descend upon the human scene and execute His perfect justice. On that day, all matters will be settled, and perfect justice will be done.
That’s why we desperately need the gospel. The just God who will make all matters right on that day is the God who, in the person of Jesus, has stepped into human history in the Incarnation so that the judgment that we all rightfully deserve should not be ours to experience. God loved us and paid for our sin and won us from Satan’s kingdom in the person of His Son. You can’t make sense of the love of God without the wrath of God. You can’t understand the wrath of God except in the light of the love of God.
Why would God sacrifice His Son if our sin wasn’t so deadly, if there was any other way to save us? God judges sinners and will judge us unless we repent and turn to Christ, accepting His free gift of salvation. God poured out His wrath on His own Son in our place so He could be just in forgiving us.
God loves us so much that He will extend severe mercy to motivate us to turn to Him. Sometimes He cripples His people to turn them back to Him. Abner, Ish-Bosheth, and others in the northern kingdom didn’t want David to be their king. God, in his mercy, slowly weakened Saul’s house and crippled Saul’s family to bring God’s people to the point that the only place left to turn was to David as their king. Theologians call this God’s harsh mercy.
In a similar way, when we wander away from God, He may choose to cripple us. He takes away our comforts and props so we stop looking to everything else in our life for significance, and turn to Jesus, who is the only one that can save us.
This morning, maybe you’re here and are facing a time of severe mercy. God has brought you into a hard season of life. This is not because He hates us. It’s because He loves us. When our life falls apart, we will turn to Jesus, the only One who can save us and hold us together. He wants you to turn to Him. Will you?
David had to wait on God’s will and timing. Are you having difficulty waiting on God’s will and timing? Have you been taking matters into your own hands? Do you need to surrender it all to Him? My friend, please surrender it to Him and trust Him today!