Justice and Mercy

In Psalm 37, David wrote these very powerful words and he needed those truths because Joab had deceptively and maliciously killed Abner. That threw a monkey wrench into David's plans. For David and Abner had joined together in a peace treaty and they had joined together and Abner had promised him that he was going to remove Ishmael the king that was the king of Israel.

He was going to remove him from the throne and he was going to bring the other 11 tribes of Israel under the reign of David and David would not have to lift a finger. But now Joab has killed Abner and he has killed him to avenge the death of his brother. And so David is doing everything he can to try to soothe the feelings of the people of Israel because they loved Abner. He has rebuked Joab in public. He has given Abner an honorable burial. He has even spoke the eulogy at Abner's funeral. He has done everything he could to try to rectify the murder of Joab, of Abner by Joab. He has done all he could.

But here was the problem. Abner had plans to remove Ishmael from the throne and to bring David to the throne of Israel. That would have been a very easy transition for David. But now Abner has died. And when Abner died, Ishmael stood up and said, I'm not leaving the throne.

I'm staying right where I am. This would have been a perfect opportunity for Ishmael to have done what was right. Ishmael at this point in time could have come and said, Hey, I resign. I turned the throne over to David.

This was not right to begin with. And David had been anointed by the prophet Samuel 20 years ago. And I should have never stepped forward and gotten on the throne of Israel. And now David, I am sorry. And I turned the throne over to you.

I resign. And if you will let me live, I will serve you for the rest of my life. He could have done that, but he did not do it. And so now what was David to do? David could have attacked Israel and he could have won very easily.

But that would have left a bad taste in the mouth of Israel. What David wanted was this. David wanted Israel to want him as king.

He wanted Israel to come to him and say, David, we love you and we respect you. And we are giving you the crown. We're giving you the throne. We want you to be the king over us.

And so we surrender to you and we praise God that you will be our new king. David decided to wait. He decided to pray about this. And then just let God bring all these things to pass. David followed the advice of his own psalm.

The psalm that David had written. Delight yourself in the Lord your God and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way unto him. Trust also in him and he will bring it to pass. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him.

Folks, I'm going to be honest with you. I need those verses every single day of my life. I need to meditate on them every single morning before I get going for my day. I need to delight myself in him. I need to get my joy from Jesus. I need to trust in him.

I need to wait upon him. Now I have been sharing with you for the last several weeks that I believe that persecution is coming to the church in the U.S. And I believe that we very much need to prepare ourselves for this persecution. Some people have asked me the question, Well, Doug, how do we prepare? Well, I'm not telling you to prepare by going out and selling your house and moving up to a cave in the mountains. And I'm not telling you that we prepare for persecution by going out and getting a fist fight with a liberal.

I am telling you this. To prepare yourself for persecution is to delight yourself in the Lord your God. It is to come to grips with this fact that this world is not our home. I remember back in 1986, I was walking through a bookstore, Baptist bookstore in Charlotte, and I was just kind of checking out the new books that had just come in. And I saw a title of a book that intrigued me. It was Desiring God by John Piper. At that time, I'd never heard of John Piper, never heard of the book. But the title intrigued me, so I took the book off the shelf and I read the first page. After reading the first page, I ran up to the counter and I bought the book.

I absolutely devoured that book. For John Piper, whoever he was, was telling me that God was deeply concerned about my joy and that God does not want me serving him out of a sense of duty and out of a sense of drudgery. That God absolutely, truly wanted me to be happy. Not happy in the world, not happy with the things of the flesh, but happy in God. And the closer that I would get to Jesus, the more joy I would have and the sweeter and the deeper that joy would be.

John's ministry is built on this truth, that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. God wants me to seek joy in him. Over and over again in that book, Desiring God, Piper went back to that great verse in Psalm 37 verse 4, Delight yourself in the Lord your God, and he will give you the desires of your heart. And I remember thinking to myself, well, oftentimes the desires of my heart are not good. Oftentimes I desire something that is fleshly or something that is of the world.

But here's the key. If I delight myself in the Lord my God, he's going to change my desires so that his desires will become my desires. Brothers and sisters, this is the greatest way to fight sin. When you're fighting sin, how do you do it? Let me tell you how most of us do it. We say, well, I'm just going to suck it up and I'm going to really try harder. How does that work out?

Not very well, does it? Why? Because our willpower is so weak.

Here's the best way to do it. We replace our sin with a superior pleasure. We replace lust or greed or selfishness or self-righteousness or covetousness. We replace it with joy in God.

Folks, this does not happen automatically. It happens as we obey Romans chapter 12 verses 1 and 2. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

There it is. It is the renewing of your mind. You quit thinking your way and you start thinking God's way. What is God's way?

Here's how God would have us to think. Enjoying the presence of Jesus is better than getting revenge. Enjoying the presence of Jesus is better than alcohol buzz. Enjoying the presence of Jesus is better than lusting that for a beautiful woman. Enjoying the presence of Jesus is better than coveting someone's new house. Folks, delighting yourself in God is accomplished by getting your fellowship and your joy out of Jesus Christ. It is replacing your sin with a superior pleasure. Waiting on the Lord doesn't mean twiddling your thumbs and doing nothing. Waiting on the Lord, while you're waiting, you are praying, you're meditating on God's Word, you are seeking joy from Him. So here, in this passage, that's exactly what David is doing. He rested in the Lord and waited patiently on Him. There are three points I want to share with you today.

Number one, a horrible murder. Look at verses one through seven. When Ishmael, Saul's son, heard that Abner had died at Hebron, his courage failed and all Israel was dismayed. Now Saul's sons had two men who were captains of raiding bands. The name of one was Banah. The name of the other was Rechab. Sons of Reman, a man of Benjamin from Baroth. For Baroth also is counted part of Benjamin.

The Barathites fled to Getain 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.

As she fled in her haste, he fell and became lame. His name was Mephibosheth. Now the sons of Reman, the Barathite, Rechab and Banah, set out and about the heat of the day, they came to the house of Ishibesheth 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 Banah, his brother, escaped. Now in the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, there is a statement that is added here that gives a lot of clarification.

Let me read you that statement. And behold, the doorkeeper of the house had been cleaning wheat, but she grew drowsy and slept, so Rechab and Banah, his brother, slipped in. Then verse 7. 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. In verse 1, the scripture says that Ishibesheth heard that Abner had died and that his courage failed him. It's interesting to read that in the Hebrew, for what it actually literally means is that his hands dropped.

In other words, he just lost hope, totally lost all of hope, and he was absolutely scared to death. I want to share with you a moment what John Calvin said about Ishibesheth folding up under this pressure. John Calvin is saying in this passage that we're looking at right now, that he's using these verses to remind us of three important things. Number one, that God is big. Number two, that truth is important. And number three is that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church.

Listen to what Calvin said. Ishibesheth and his followers show 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 broken people who will not know which way to turn and why, because they do not have God on their side.

They cannot call on Him. Jesus once said that the true faith has revealed its perseverance under trial, whereas a false faith, having no root, withers under tribulation. David had his unwise and unbelieving moments, but in the darkest trials, his faith bore him to safety. He was like a brave soldier who is sometimes taken by surprise and driven back or sometimes weary so as to halt the advance, but who always recovers and returns undaunted to the battle.

Ishibesheth, in contrast, was like a braggart who boasts when the enemy is running away but shrinks in the face of determined opposition. What made David different? David was upheld by the consciousness of a higher strength.

Being able to turn in prayer to the secret place of the Most High, taking hold of him as his covenant God, unlike Ishibesheth, David had true faith that gave him the inspiration and strength that he needed to prevail under trial. Ishibesheth had two men who were military leaders that were under his power, and these men were Barathites. They were not truly Israelites, but they were in and officers of the Israelite army. Their names were Rechab and Baanah. And Rechab and Baanah had come to understand what Abner knew with all of his heart, and that is that Ishibesheth was a weak king and that there was really no future in following him. And so Rechab and Baanah decided that they would turn their allegiance away from Ishibesheth and they would go to David and give him his allegiance.

And they believed that the best way to get his approval was to try to make a straight path for him to the throne of Israel. So what did they do? They went to the house of Ishibesheth.

When they got there, the house was unguarded. They went into his bedroom and he was taking a nap. They took a knife and they stabbed him in the stomach and they killed him. And then they took a sword and they severed his head from his body. They walked out of his house with his head as a trophy holding in their hand and they headed to the home of David. What these two rascals did was wrong and it deserved judgment and they would get judgment.

But I want you to see this. It was also a judgment on Ishibesheth. Ishibesheth had been on the throne of Israel for seven and a half years. He had no right on that throne. God had said that David would be the next king of Israel and Ishibesheth took it upon himself.

Having given himself to a sinful cause, he was slain by very wicked hands. Over the last several years, I have found myself terribly frustrated with politicians doing wicked, horrible things, committing crimes, and then it comes out, people know it, and nothing happens. They get away with it. They just do what they want to do and it's like there's no punishment. There's no getting dealt with.

Nothing happens. And so I get very frustrated with that. Something ought to be done with this. Somebody ought to have to be punished for this. They need to be dealt with.

It was like the Lord just slapped me in the face. I said, Doug, they will be dealt with. They will be dealt with powerfully, totally, and eternally. For Hebrews chapter 1 verse 27 says, For there is appointed unto men once to die and after that the judgment. In Psalm 37 verses 1 and 2, the scripture says this, Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity, for they shall soon be cut down like the grass and wither as the green herb. We should understand that we don't need to fret over the victories of the wicked, for the victories of the wicked are very short-lived, but their judgment is eternal.

Instead of fretting over them and envying them, we need to pray for them. Point 2 is a just vengeance. Look at verses 8 through 12. And they brought the head of Ishma-sheth to David at Hebron, and they said to the king, Here is the head of Ishma-sheth, the son of Saul your enemy, who sought your life. The Lord has avenged my lord the king this day on Saul and all his offspring. But David answered Rechab and Banah, his brothers, the sons of Rem and the Berethite, 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, shall I not now require his blood at your hand and destroy you from this 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 Ishma-sheth, buried it in the tomb of Abner at Hebron.

Very interesting situation. Rechab and Banah show up at David's house. One of them is holding the head of Ishma-sheth in his hand like a trophy. And they have this idea that David's going to be really happy with what they've done. They think that David's going to be really greatly appreciative of what they have done. And so they are very excited about that. They thought David would be pleased. And so they were all proud. And they thought David would either give them monetary blessing or military privilege.

So they're standing there just all excited and pumped up with pride. And what does David say? Evidently they had not heard what had happened with the Amalekite. For you remember when the Amalekite came to David and told David that he was responsible for the death of Saul. What did David do? David had him executed immediately. The Amalekite said, Saul was trying to commit suicide.

I just helped him out. I pushed him down on the sword and I killed him. And David said, how dare you lift your hand against God's anointed. And he had him executed there on the spot. And now David says to Rechab and Banah, what they did was a horrible thing. What he did was a horrible thing. But what you have done is much, much worse. Your sin is a more horrible sin.

Your sin is a much deeper sin. You murdered an innocent king while he was sleeping and while he was helpless. In verse 8, Rechab and Banah said this, Here is the head of Ishmael 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 offering. What did Rechab and Banah do wrong? Number one, they were seeking an unjust reward. And number two, they were using God's name to do a very wicked thing.

This was the justice of God that David would execute these wicked murderers. All right, how is this applicable to us? Folks, I look at what's going on in America today and I can't help but to believe that any judgment that comes on America is most certainly deserved judgment. We've killed over 60 million babies in the womb. We've exalted perversion and mocked God's law.

We have forbidden school children to pray and to read the scriptures in the classroom. We've legalized gay marriage and we've made that which God calls an abomination. We've exalted that. What should we expect but judgment? I go over into the book of Isaiah. There are two passages I'm going to read to you very quickly where the nation of Israel has been thumping their nose in God's face.

They've been sinning and just rolling around in their sin like a pig rolls around in the mud. And the Lord speaks to them. And in Isaiah chapter 5, the Lord said this, Woe unto them who call good evil and evil good, who put light for darkness and darkness for light, who put sweet for bitter and bitter for sweet, who are wise in their own eyes and shrewd in their own sight. And then in chapter 1 verses 2 through 7, Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken.

Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its master and the donkey its master's crib, but Israel does not know my people do not understand. Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly, they have forsaken the Lord. They have despised the Holy One of Israel.

They are utterly estranged. Why will you still be struck down? Why will you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick and the whole heart faint. For the sole of the foot, even to the head, there's no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and raw wounds.

They are not pressed out or bound up or softened with oil. Your country lies desolate. Your cities are burned with fire. In your very presence, foreigners devour your land.

It is desolate as overthrown by foreigners. Now folks, we are covenantal Presbyterians. We believe that the Old Testament Israel is a picture of the New Testament church. So in these passages, in the Old Testament, God was speaking specifically to Israel, but how do they relate to us? Does this mean that God is speaking specifically to spiritually dead America?

I don't think so. I think it means that God is speaking specifically to spiritually lethargic church in America. The church in America is losing its witness because our standard has become the culture instead of the Word of God. The church used to influence the culture. Now the culture influences the church. The church used to permeate the culture with truth and love and Christ-likeness, but now the tables have turned.

Why? Because of compromise, because of liberalism, because of wishy-washy preaching, because of lack of clarity in the pulpit. And so the church today is filled with lies and licentiousness and lust. Folks, the church in America today has become the Woke Church. God help us.

How has this happened so quickly? In his book, Chaos, Corruption, and the Christian Response, John MacArthur said this, In their rebellion against God, Israel had flipped morality on its head. Their opposition to the Lord had turned their view of truth, righteousness, and virtue upside down. That is, in essence, the nature of fallen humanity, to believe lies, to overturn right and wrong, and to replace God's holy standard. Much like Israel in Isaiah's day, we are living in another historic manifestation of the compromising, perverting influence of sin. We're watching the same upending of morality happen every day, with the hearty applause of a rebellious culture fully convinced of its own merit and virtue.

Look no further than the recent headlines to see how sinners currently call good evil an evil good. Peaceful protest results in riot, looting, destruction, and death. Those who claim to be anti-fascist shout down and violently suppress opposing viewpoints. Anti-racists argue for ethnic segregation, hiring quotas, and other forms of organizational and financial partiality.

Law-abiding citizens are ordered to stay home while the mayhem of violent mobs is indulged and encouraged. Protesters pour into the streets to proclaim that black lives matter, while proudly in an organization that slaughters nearly a thousand black babies every day. Others demand a self-styled justice based on scant facts and snap judgments.

Criminals are mourned as martyrs while the police are routinely vilified. On top of the endless chaos surrounding us, our society is drowning in a sea of lies, such that the culture is permeated by a sense of devastating insecurity. We no longer have confidence in politicians, health experts, social activists, academics, or the media. All of them have lost credibility by pursuing an agenda over honesty. Even religious leaders have shown a knack for doublespeak and outright deception when it suits their purposes. We have been lied to so routinely that we treat every claim as dubious.

Living in that constant state of doubt and suspicion is both exhausting and exasperating. Folks, who can we trust? We can trust Jesus, and we can trust His Word. Jesus said in John 17, 17, Sanctify them in their truth.

Thy word is truth. I had a man call me last week. I don't know him, but he called me and asked me if I'd talk with him a moment. He said that he's going to a church where he has just been terribly frustrated. He said, Pastor, he said, I don't know where our preachers stand. He said, the main topic of their sermons now is all about unity. He said, it's like unity is all that really matters. And if we have to compromise, if we have to step on our convictions in order that we might have unity, he said, that's where these preachers say we have to go. He says, I don't know where our preachers stand. And I said to him, unity is not the most important thing in the church. The lordship of Christ is the most important thing in the church. And you cannot have godly unity without truth. Brothers and sisters, our culture is stealing truth. And it's time for the church to stand up and say, that's enough.

That's enough. The souls of our children, our grandchildren, and our great grandchildren are in danger. So how do we fight?

Paul gives us this encouragement. He says this, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. We don't fight with physical weapons, we fight with spiritual weapons. We don't fight with cannons and AK-47s. We fight with the Word of God.

We put on a defense first, then we take up our offensive weapons. Paul said in Ephesians chapter 6, put on the whole armor of God that you may stand against the wiles of the devil. We put on the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness. We put on the helmet of salvation, the shield of faith, the shoes that carry the gospel. And then we take up our offensive weapons, which is prayer. And the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.

Alright, point three is a serious mercy. Verse four, and I'll get to that in just a moment. But we've just seen Ish-besheth removed from the throne of Israel. He was killed by two wicked men, Rechab and Banah.

He was stabbed to death and his head was severed from his body. That was a wicked thing and these men were judged for it. But yet, what we see is that God is so sovereign that he takes this wicked thing and he uses it for his own purpose. It reminds me a lot of what took place in Genesis chapter 50 verse 20. When Joseph's brothers came to Joseph after their dad had died, they were scared that Joseph was going to enact revenge on them and they were scared. And what had they done to Joseph? Well, they had sold Joseph into slavery when he was a teenage boy. Joseph was bought by an Egyptian politician, a very wealthy man, a man very high in the political world. And he became a servant, a slave for this man.

He worked out well. He became the manager of Potiphar's household. And then Potiphar's wife tried to seduce Joseph and Joseph would have none of it. And he ran from her and so she accused him falsely of sexual molestation. Joseph was thrown in prison and he was there in this horrible prison, there for several years, having been accused and sentenced unjustly. This was a terrible, horrible thing that Joseph had to go through. But while he was there, it was found out by the Pharaoh that Joseph had the ability to interpret dreams. So the Pharaoh called on him. He interpreted his dream. And when he interpreted his dream, the Pharaoh lifted him up and he became the prime minister of Egypt, had the second most powerful position in all of Egypt. And it was because of that that he was able to save the lives of his family, of his brothers and their wives and their children. And because of that, the Jewish line was able to continue to live. And Joseph said to his brothers, you meant this for evil, but God meant this for good. Folks, Rechab and Bena meant what they were doing. They meant that murder for evil, but God meant it for good.

For now David could ascend to the throne and be the throne of Israel, and David never had to lift a finger against Ishmael. That is serious mercy there, folks. But I want to show you an even more serious mercy. I want you to look with me at verse four. And verse four is a very intriguing verse.

It breaks right in the middle of the story, and it seems weirdly out of place. Look at verse four. 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. His name was Mephibosheth. Now what in the world has that got to do with the death of Ishmael?

It has nothing to do with that. It was like God put this verse right in the middle of this story as a wake-up call. It was like God said, look, in the midst of all this chaos, in the midst of all the death, in the midst of all this judgment, he said, I want you to see my grace. And he tells us a story about Jonathan's son, a young boy named Mephibosheth. At this point in time, David does not know that Mephibosheth even exists. But Mephibosheth, when he was five years old, was picked up by his nurse.

They were running away, fleeing from danger. And the nurse fell on him, broke both of his legs, and he was crippled for the rest of his life. He started growing up, became a teenage boy, and people started talking to him. He said, Mephibosheth, you are the heir to the throne because you are the grandson of King Saul. David is going to be after you. David is going to kill you.

You don't have a chance. David is going to end your life. And so he ran down to a place called Lodibar.

As a young man, he's living there with a bunch of thugs. David finally hears that Jonathan had a son and that he's actually living. And so David sends to Lodibar to get Mephibosheth and bring him back. And so the soldiers go, they get him, and they bring him back, and Mephibosheth is scared to death. He comes right before the throne, and he's down before David's feet, trembling and shaking, just picture him there. David looks down at Mephibosheth. He's Jonathan's son. He looks down and he sees Mephibosheth's face, and it looks so much like Jonathan.

I can imagine the tears rolling down David's face. And he says to Mephibosheth, son, son, do not fear, for I loved your daddy. I was in a covenant with your daddy. I made a promise to your daddy that I would protect all of his children, and that promise I'm going to keep to you. Now you will eat at my table, and you will fellowship with my children. You will be part of my family because I loved your daddy.

Folks, what is that? That's amazing grace. That's the gospel. Jonathan became part of David's family.

I mean, Mephibosheth became part of David's family, not because of what Mephibosheth had done, but because of David's covenant with Jonathan. Is that not the gospel? Folks, we have become part of the family of God.

God the Father took us in to his family, not because of what we did for Jesus, but because of what Jesus did for us, because of the covenant of redemption that took place before the foundation of the world when God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit entered into this covenant and so that we could enter into the family of God, not because of what we did for Jesus, but because of what Jesus did for us. Right here in the middle of this story about the life of David, we have the cross, the cross, the cross. In a time like we are living in today, as tough as it may be, no matter whether the persecution comes or not, we can look to the cross, and the cross is our hope. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the cross. It is our hope. It is our anchor.

It is our joy. David lived a thousand years before Jesus was born. David killed the giant Goliath. He defeated Philistines. He destroyed the Amalekites. He united the twelve tribes of Israel. He was a great mighty king. He did many wonderful things, but he was a sinner, and he needed the cross.

So do we. I pray that this study on David would be more than a history lesson, that it would be more than a biography. May it point us to Jesus, and may we run to the cross. In this time of turmoil, may we not fear man, but may we trust God. May we pray David's words in Psalm 56 verse 3, O God, when I am afraid, I put my trust in you. For it is in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.