Hadrian, the Roman emperor, renamed Israel Palestine after it's a Latin version of Philistines to stick it to the Jews, and so the devil has had his and and the people at the top of the pyramid know this. But it doesn't work unless they get the people at the bottom of the pyramid to drink the Kool-Aid and to believe whatever it is they're feeding them. And what they're feeding them is that Israel was the land of Israel was stolen by the Jews from these poor people that are there now, and that is a full-blown lie. This is Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville.
Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the Book of Second Samuel. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross Reference Radio. Specifically, how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in Second Samuel chapter eight as he begins his message: "Conquest and Kindness." Conquest and kindness—that's the title in Second Samuel chapter eight. Who would have thunk that chapters eight and nine would have so much rich information for us?
And hopefully, we'll see some of this. David's military victories are in chapter eight. As well as his saving for the temple to be built, which would be built by Solomon, he'd never get to see it while in this life. And then just a review of his administration, his leaders, which is quite an accomplishment, considering not very long ago he was running for his life from from Saul. God made good on his promises.
The ninth chapter is very special. Let's see if we can get to these things. A little bit more review on chapter eight or introduction. It summarizes the wars that occurred as David reigned in Israel over both the north and southern tribes, northern and southern tribes. More wars would follow.
They're not meant to be in chronological order, which makes it always tough to study. For example, we get to. Chapter 10, and we find that the historian goes back and covers more of the battles that took place in Chapter 8, and we are all grateful for that. 1 Chronicles 18, parallel section. Also covering these things, but he has in this eighth chapter for us victories at all points of the compass—north, south, east, and west.
He secures his borders and stabilizes the region in doing so, showing that Yahweh gave David success. And just for example, in verse six, and it will be repeated in verse fourteen.
So Yahweh preserved David wherever he went, and this is. What we're getting in this eighth chapter now, verse one. After this, it came to pass that David attacked the Philistines and subdued them, and David took Mephag Ammah from the hand of the Philistines.
Well, the after this was that incredible blessing that David received from God, that mapped out for him his destiny into the millennial kingdom. And so, having received God's blessings concerning his destiny, he appears to now have been inspired, and he attacks the enemy. He goes on the offensive. He takes the battles to them because he knows he waits. They're going to bring it to him, so he gets them first.
And he is, of course, very successful on this offensive spree that he goes engages the the kingdom in. He was dwelling in peace. You'd say, "Well, why did he do this?" Well, he needed peace of mind. Again, he knew the enemy was around him, surrounding him, and he was going to do something about it rather than waiting for them to come to him. And interestingly enough, the battle that Saul and Jonathan led against the Philistines—they were defeated, they were killed—but they inflicted heavy enough damage.
On the Philistines to cause the Philistines to halt their aggression, that allowed David to become king in Hebron and the southern kingdom, and then the northern kingdom. And they waited too long, licking their wounds. He regrouped, and so when David wrote in first the first chapter of Second Samuel, his ode. To Saul and Jonathan, he says, "The bow of Jonathan did not turn back. The sword of Saul did not return empty." Well, yeah, they were—they again—they inflicted heavy damage on the Philippines.
Philippines. It's just testing you, the Philistines. And so they goofed. They let David get strong. Brings to mind Romans eight: God causing all things to work together.
For the good, for those who love him and are called according to his purposes.
So, David he has, after this attack of the Philistines here in chapter eight, he is reducing and eliminating actually any significant threat from the Philistines, who were serious problems. Metheg ama—that was the secret ingredient to his Middle Eastern eggnog recipe. And it's probably Gath, or some city by Gath. We get that from First Chronicles eighteen, but you know, I like my interpretation better than. Verse two now.
Then he defeated Moab, forcing them down to the ground. He measured them off with a line, with two lines he measured off those to be put to death, and with one full line those to be kept alive.
So the Moabites became David's servants and brought tribute.
Well, David has distant family in Moab. We remember he took his parents there to hide them from Saul. This was a safe haven for his parents. The hostilities that evolved and involved the Moabites may have left out that particular clan. We're not told.
But what this is about here, where it mentions him forcing them down to the ground, he measured them off with a line. It's a it's an obscure criteria of selection for sure. We don't know all the details, but evidently it was a military method of handling prisoners of war and the the vanquished opponent. What do you do if you defeat an army and you've got you know twenty thousand men that survive?
Well, if you leave them strong, they're just going to fight. Meet them again on the battlefield, and so there is some system here, whether it was random or by stature. It's not clear, but he he killed he reduced their army significantly. Was not an uncommon practice in those days. In fact.
We read about Christ returning at the end of the Great Tribulation in great glory.
Well, what then? What then happens after that?
Well, part of it is the judgment. Two people will be in a field. One will be taken; the other taken to judgment. While there are similarities to the rapture, that's not what that is. Its first application is Matthew twenty-five, verse thirty-two and verse forty-six.
All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And these will go away to everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. And so the millennial reign, that thousand year or so reign of Christ, begins with believe as He purges earth, and then other people are born, and they have to then exercise free will and accept the authority of Christ or not. And in time, there will be those who will not accept His authority, and that is going to be the final. Rebellion, which Christ just deals with, sort of a flick of the finger, and that's over with, and a new heavens and new earth is created.
My point is, we see our King exercising a similar application. Of judgment, as David is is applying here to the Moabite army that is vanquished, he says, "Okay, this is how we're going to say who who lives and who does not get to live." If you consult commentaries, they'll say what I just said, just not as nicely as I did it, because they're not as humble as I am, and we know that this is a characteristic that you are blessed by. Anyway. And I hope there's nobody listening online saying, "Boy, that guy is really full of himself." Well, I can't get anybody else in me, anyway. A tribute that, of course, makes the defeated weaker.
And potentially more bitter, and it makes the the victor stronger and more possessive because he's not going to want to lose that money coming in, pays for the war, pays for future wars. That's significant to what's going on. Verse three, David also defeated Hadadezer, the son of Reob, king of Zobah. As he went to recover. His territory at the River Euphrates.
So here is his conquest to the north. We will again get some of this in the tenth chapter. It is unclear of who was trying to recover their territory, whether it was Hadadezer and David acted, or David went to recover something. Not a. Outstanding point, verse four.
David took from him one thousand chariots, seven hundred horsemen, and twenty thousand foot soldiers. Also, David hamstrung all the chariot horses, except he spared enough of them for one hundred chariots. And so here, David is saying, "I'm going to break their ability to wage war. He hamstrings their horses, which they can't pull chariots and be used as cavalry. But they can be used to breed other horses.
He spares enough of them here to leave them with a national defense, a national guard, 100 chariots." Verse five: When the Syrians of Damascus came to help Hadadezer, king of Zobah, David killed twenty-two thousand of the Syrians. He's dealing severe blows to those around him. You just didn't mess with David. He's going to make. He's making a name for himself.
He writes the sixtieth psalm based on this battle, and that is likely because it was a serious. Bit foreboding. These guys have all these chariots, this mechanized army at the time, and he was probably so relieved about the victory that he was inspired to write a psalm. Earlier, he or at some other point, he wrote Psalm 20, and in that psalm, he says, "Some trust in chariots, and some in horses, but we will remember the name of Yahweh our God." Well, that included developing techniques to neutralize chariots. Pick better battlefields would be one of them, where chariots could not roll well.
We have to say that because the Bible never supports magic. Any blessing we get, God involves us, and that getting us involved means work, and work means part of the curse by the sweat of the brow. The earth will yield its fruits, whether physical or spiritual. It is hard work. You younger believers understand that when you're young, laziness comes very easy to you because you've not yet had to pay your own mortgage and other things like that.
When you start needing gas money, you might have more inspiration. But don't fight laziness; it's not going to die a natural death. You you got to kill it for the rest of your life till it becomes your habit to. You know, I just can't sit here and do nothing until you've earned it. And the moms and dad, you know, you want to give a standing ovation at this point.
So we'll keep going to verse six. One more thing about you, younger Christians. Mom and dad probably say these things to you. I hope they do. And it's nice to hear your pastor say it with the authority of God.
So, amen. All right, verse six. Then David put garrisons in Syria and Damascus, and the Syrians became David's servants and brought tribute.
So Yahweh preserved David wherever he went. Garrisons—that's an occupying force. You defeat the enemy, so you know what—we're going to keep an eye on you, and we're going to keep enough troops here to hold you down. If you start an uprising, until we can get more troops here to finish you off.
Well, that's what the Roman's tenth legion was in Israel. There, it was a garrison of Rome, and Rome had them all over the world. This is brilliant of David. Had Israel done this in the days of Joshua, they would not have lost so many cities that they conquered. They they conquered Jabus and then they lost it because they moved on to other battles and did not leave a garrison behind.
You say you're being critical and I'm being factful. Read Judges chapter one. And you find out that they couldn't drive them back out because they came in, refortified themselves. Anyway, it is brilliant on David's part. I believe David is saying, you know, we have this mandate from God, this commandment to drive these people out.
Well, I can't drive them all out, but I can set the standard and begin the pace for kings who come behind me to finish this process, and they never did. Had they continued with their garrisons, they would have eventually purged the land. With garrisons comes your culture, and if you are obedient, you bring your God with you. The pagans did it all the time. Rome had their temple up in their Antonia fortress in Israel, and so did other peoples.
Anyway. Warren Wiersbe makes this comment. He says, quite frankly, it is much easier to win souls than to watch for souls. Amen. If you've ever evangelized and led someone to the Christ, you find you know when the Lord opens that door, it's really Him.
It's kind of easy when He's opening the door. But then what? There's a whole world of heresy out there for them to run off to. Does the ergo discipleship, and it is not easy because if the person you lead to Christ or a new believer likes what they're getting, even though it's heresy, it's really a serious opponent because now you're trying to give them truth, and truth is not always pleasant, and and. That's where you have to watch Ezekiel three seventeen.
Son of man, now he's talking to. He would refer to Ezekiel this way. I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Therefore, hear the word of my mouth and give them warning from me. And of course, Ezekiel had a difficult ministry.
He had people who were in captivity who really didn't want to hear what he had to say. And he would go out of his way with these bizarre presentations of the word. Ezekiel would—he's like this guy's borderline weirdo. But he was being dramatic because that's what he felt it took. And I side with Ezekiel as I believe believers do.
Anyway, being the nature of the sinful flesh to disobey. And go backwards from the spirit. Thus, a spiritual garrison needs to be put in place. Paul, writing or speaking to the Ephesian elders, said, "Therefore, watch and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone, night and day, with tears." Now, coming from Paul to these. Servants whom he invested in, you know that his voice echoed in their head with in the future as they went on about serving God.
They could hear Paul say, "Therefore watch, because you remember that I warned you night and day with tears. It was emotional. It was he knew what was coming." And so, what we're talking about here is then David put garrisons in Syria of Damascus because he knew that just because he conquered the territory did not guarantee it would remain subject to him. And we can draw many spiritual applications from that. Christianity is very hard work, even in the spirit.
Verse. It's it's easier in the spirit, of course, but it is otherwise. Prayer, everybody would be what we call prayer warriors, and prayer is hard work. The Syrians, it says here in verse seven, became David's servants and brought tribute.
So Yahweh preserved David wherever he went. So it paid off to put these garrisons there to watch what you had gained in victory. He made his enemies work for him is what he's doing. That it made perfect sense. Joshua, when he was deceived, he made those who deceived him work for Israel too.
Let them live, the Gibeonites, the Gideonites, but let them be woodcutters and water carriers for all the congregation.
So that was a wise move on Joshua's part, and David is doing the same thing. And this factors in to what's coming, because I mentioned in the introduction that David is going to conquer his enemies, and then he's going to use what he gains from these conquests to ready Solomon to give him the resources to build the temple.
So the house of God was built on the spoils of war, the conquest of David. Verse seven, and David took the shields of gold that had belonged to the servants of Hadadezer, and brought them to Jerusalem.
Well, it's a basic fact. Under the curse, to the victor go the spoils. You know, we have those you know Ben and Jerry goofballs running around saying, "We don't like Israel. They stole the land from the Palestinians." There are no Palestinians. They're Arabs.
They're mostly Jordanian Arabs. They are not Philistines. Hadrian, the Roman emperor, renamed Israel Palestine after it's a Latin version of Philistines to stick it to the Jews, and so the devil has had his and the people at the top of the pyramid know this. But it doesn't work unless they get the people at the bottom of the pyramid to drink the Kool Aid and to believe whatever it is they're feeding them. And what they're feeding them is that Israel was the land of Israel was stolen by the Jews from these poor people that are there now, and that is a full blown lie.
Israel conquered that land; it was a judgment of God. But by that same then. You know, then let's give everything west of the Mississippi back to the French who stole it from the Indians. I mean, let's just keep. Am I going on a rant?
Anyway, it's all a bunch of nonsense. We know these are lies, but you need to understand this and stand up to people in the workplace. There are no Palestinians. It's a lie. They are Jordanian Arabs mostly, and they are Muslims mostly.
And they are political pawns, and there's nobody getting Israel out of that land anyway.
So there, put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Well, so he takes the shields because the victor, he conquered them, and these are going to be—they were decorative and for special occasions. They certainly weren't for combat. I mean, gold is not a very strong metal; it's a heavy metal, but not the musical type, and it's. You wouldn't waste gold on the battlefield like that. Apparently Solomon liked this and enhanced it.
The idea of these decorative shields, Second Chronicles twelve.
Well, before I get to twelve, so Solomon he makes even better gold shields and puts them in the temple. But his fool of a son Rehoboam, these sons they just couldn't not. You know, walk in the steps of their father. Had Rehoboam been like more like Solomon and David, he would have been so much better. But he was such a noodlehead that he lost the kingdom and the shields.
The Egyptian king Shishak comes and he steals these golden shields. Second Chronicles twelve verse ten. Then King Rehoboam made bronze shields in their place. And committed them to the hands of the captains of the guard who guarded the doorway of the king's house. Fine, you take my gold shields; I'll make inferior ones to replace them.
It's kind of a monument to his folly. And not well—that was pretty ingenious of him. No, it was not. He should have never lost the gold ones. God would have been with him.
And so we read these lessons. We're supposed to walk away saying, "Okay, I'm not supposed to be like like Rehoboam." Anyway, David was storing up these things again for the building, transforming the nation or the kingdom of Israel into the most powerful kingdom in that region, and everybody would think twice before coming against David.
Now, Jerusalem is mentioned here; it is the most mentioned city in the Bible. And the second place is Mechanicsville, Virginia. Is Babylon, not Mechanicsville? That's so. Jerusalem, number one, Babylon, and that to me is significant by itself because it speaks of this war of the the kingdom of God and the kingdom of men, fallen men.
Verse eight, also from Bita and from Beratai. Cities of Hadadezer, King David took a large amount of bronze.
Now we fast forward to First Chronicles twenty nine.
Now for the house of my God, David speaking, I have prepared with all my might.
Now First Chronicles eighteen eight, David brought a large amount of bronze which. With which Solomon made the bronze, see the pillars and the articles of bronze, and so David was financing the temple through his conquest. Nebuchadnezzar will come along, and they will cut up all this bronze and haul it back to Babylon in time. Verse eight. When Toi, king of Hamath, heard that David had defeated all the army of Hadadezer, verse ten, then Toi sent Joam, his son, to King David to greet him and bless him because he had fought against Hadadezer and defeated him.
For Hadadezer had been at war with Toi, and Joam. Brought with him articles of silver, articles of gold, and articles of bronze.
So David is continuing to be enriched. Toi figured it out. He says, "Listen, it's better to be a vassal king of David than a dead king because Hadadizar." And he was delighted. He he was just wise, and his kingdom would be better off for this. We already saw that David was a gracious king.
By leaving them chariots, he could have just stripped them like everybody else did and left them defenseless. But he, he was wise, and and we're seeing this come out in this section, verse eleven. King David also dedicated these to Yahweh along with the silver and gold that he had dedicated from all the nations which he had subdued. Verse twelve, from Syria, from Moab, from the people of Ammon. From the Philistines, from Amalek, and from the spoil of Hadadezer, the son of Reob, king of Zobah.
This has been the latest edition of Cross Reference Radio. Pastor Rick Gaston is teaching through the Book of Second Samuel, which details the reign of David as king of Israel. There are so many life lessons to be learned during these years of David's life. We're glad you've tuned in to hear more from God's Word. This radio ministry comes to you from Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Mechanicsville, Virginia.
If you're interested in Accessing more messages, just like this one, you can listen online or download these messages at CrossReferenceRadio dot com. You can also subscribe to our podcast by going to your favorite podcast app. We can't wait for you to step into the next teaching that Pastor Rick has for us.
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