Music playing Now there happened to be there a worthless man.
Here we have the opposition of a worthless man. Absalom's rebellion has been put down, but the end of 19 has made it very clear to us that all is not well. There's tribal tension, there's squabbling, there's jealousy, there's instability. And in that context, Sheba, this fellow from Bikri, sees this as an open sesame for him. So, he is a troublemaker, and he rallies the disenfranchised folks—of whom there are quite a few—with the blast of a trumpet. You will notice that as we get to the end this evening, the trumpet blows again.
At the beginning, it blows in order to say, We're commencing, and the trumpet blows at the end to say, We've concluded. And so, he sends out the word. There in verse 1, we've got nothing to do with David. There's no future for us with this son of Jesse, which is a disparaging comment. Every man to his tents, O Israel, let's get out of here!
Let's get out of here! We're not going to live under this dominion. And as a result, we find in verse 2 that all the men of Israel withdrew from David—a wholesale collapse. They go to follow Sheba. But the men of Judah, which is a smaller number, followed their king steadfastly. So you have Sheba and his boys, they clear off, and Judah and the followers of the king cling steadfastly to him. And then, quite strikingly, you have verse 3. But you say verse 3 would naturally follow verse 2.
I get that. But isn't it fascinating that this little statement here is right in your face? In other words, what happened to these concubines could have been a P.S., couldn't it? It could have at the end, when he does that list, and he says, So-and-so was in charge of such-and-such and so-and-so.
And by the way, but he doesn't do that. So the narrator wants us to come face to face with this. And David came to his house at Jerusalem. Going home! Going home!
If you've been watching the Beatles thing by Peter Jackson, you've heard him singing again, two of us counting something, on our way back home. We're going home. We're going home. There's just something about being able to go home. I'll be home. Right?
For Christmas. He said, We're going home. But to go home and meet this, the music has stopped.
There's no band playing. How do you think it felt as he walked up to this place? Yeah, it was his home, but it was really a house. Remember, when we studied earlier, we said that his decision to leave the concubines behind to look after his house would prove to be a really bad decision. Some of you read ahead and discovered why. Others of us have only just followed it as we encountered it in the text.
But if he had never taken a harem, Absalom would never have been able to do what he did to the harem. And so he would not be returning to this sad, sorry place. Now, we can't delay on this, but I want to say something about it.
For when you drive to the airport, it says it doesn't add up on the right-hand side. Trafficking happens here too. The movement of women, girls, the great focus of the media on the residual impact of Epstein and whatever else is involved in that. You say, How could our world ever descend to such a thing? Our world was in it right here. Murder, incest, chaos is as a result of the fall. It's not as a result of the pressures of an alien world.
It is as a result of the heart of man. What did it mean for these women? Look at what it says he did for them. He put them in a house, under guard. Imprisoned them? No, I think maybe protected them. After all, look what had happened when he was gone. He provided for them. But he didn't use them as his playthings.
And they were shut up until the day of their death, living as if in Wudahut. We've talked in the past about what it is to be beautiful or handsome. Don't you think they would have occasioned to curse their beauty? I was reading this week somebody who was very prominent in the world of politics in an earlier era, and she commented on the fact, quite fascinatingly, she said that not being beautiful was a blessing, because she said the pretty girl has a handicap to overcome. It's a reminder, isn't it, that it is one thing to make yourself look attractive. It's another thing to make yourself look seductive.
And girls know the difference, and so do we men. Let us learn the lesson that the picture of purity and beauty provided in 1 Peter is the one for which we strive and for which we long for our children and our grandchildren. And that is the imperishable jewel of a gentle and a quiet spirit, a beauty that cannot be eroded by time or by the ravages of age or by the influences of a culture. This surely, verse 3, is one of the saddest pictures in the entire story. But life has to go on. It goes on for these women.
They live, essentially, in widowhood until the day they die. And now David has to make sure that what is before him in terms of Sheba gets dealt with. And so you will notice that urgently he addresses this uprising. He assigns Amasa to call together the men of Judah to do it within a three-day period and to get here himself. Amasa doesn't manage it for whatever reason—we don't know, we're not told—and David goes to plan B. He decides, well, then, let's use Abishai. And so he tells Abishai, this guy Sheba will actually do more harm to us than Absalom has ever done.
And so what I want you to do is get the people together and pursue him and prevent him from being able to hole himself up in a fortified city. That takes us to verse 6. In verse 7 and following, first of all, we're introduced to the men. The mission, in verse 7, is astated.
Pursue Sheba. And then in verse 8, there is a meeting that takes place at a stone, which obviously was a significant meeting point in Gibeon all those years ago. We could never find it today. And Amasa came to meet them. We don't know whether he went there by appointment or whether he just met them. But nevertheless, he arrived. And he could never have known—he could never have known—that he was walking to his death. He could never have been singing to himself, and that'll be the day that I die. But it was.
And then you have the record of this murder, the set-up described there. It's interesting how we don't really have description of clothing and everything, by and large, but here, the soldier's garment had a belt, there was a sword fastened on his thigh. As he went forward, it fell out.
But there is no question that if it happened inadvertently, he scooped it up quickly, and as he did so, he had it in his left hand, and with his right hand, he lays hold of Amasa. And in Eastern fashion, he takes hold of his beard, as if to give him a kiss. And he says, And how is it going with you? How are you? Fast forward a thousand years to a garden in Gethsemane, and the traitor comes, and he embraces Jesus the King, and the King says, Would you betray me with a kiss?
How are you doing? He doesn't care how he's doing. He has a plan. Joab has his own reasons for wanting to eliminate Amasa. He does so swiftly, silently, and mercilessly. And there he lies in a pool of blood. One of Joab's young men is given the responsibility to try and make sure that the people fall in in pursuit of Joab and Abishai. Notice the sentence there at the very end of verse 10, Then Joab and Abishai his brother pursued Sheba the son of Bichri.
I mean, the coldhearted brutality of it is quite immense, isn't it? That he kills him with one blow. It's a devastating impact, and he turns around and he says to his brother, Okay, let's go.
We've got to get Sheba. Meanwhile, what happens is the precursor to what we refer to now on the freeway as rubbernecking. And there he lies. And as he lies there, the people that are coming by are all stopping to have a look. And so he leaves one of his boys there to say, If you're on the side of Joab, which puts you on the side of David, just keep moving, please.
Just keep moving. But still they stop until he finally realizes that you have to do what happens on 480 on an average morning, and that is, you get somebody to pull the wreckage out of the way so that once it's gone, people will not have occasion to stop, because there's nothing to look at now. And they always say there on 1.4.9, that nice lady's voice in the morning, she always says, And the accident at such-and-such a road has now been cleared, and the traffic is moving along again. And then we all feel good. And that's exactly what is here.
Verse 13. They moved him out of the road, and all the people went on after Joab to pursue Sheba the son of Bichri. So they all knew what they were doing. And Joab once again acts true to form. He seeks to advance his cause by besieging the city. We've seen him do this before. He's good at it. He's a military man. He's an enigma, isn't he, in many ways? Because what is his commitment? His commitment is to the anointed King of God. His commitment is to David and to the establishing of his kingdom. His motive, it would seem to be largely right. His methodology is bizarre. He's already left a trail behind him of death, and he continues to do it.
Basically, he's a warning to each person who is tempted to say, You know, I think we can advance the kingdom of God by military might, by muscle, and by power. The fact is that such a notion is alive and well. If it's not alive and well, then I'm not reading the press.
I'm not reading the evangelical press. I say to you again, there's a constant refrain that comes my way that says, We take this on. Let's get up there. We're going to have to do this. There's not going to be another way to handle this.
Now, let's be going. That's the Joab way. And Jesus said, My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight. But they don't fight.
You see, we're not involved in building an American empire or a British empire or, frankly, any kind of empire. We are the servants of the humble King, who's the friend of the broken, who received far more interest from prostitutes than he did from religious professors, who welcomed into his fold some of the most unlikely people you could ever imagine. His own family tree is punctuated by messed-up, broken people, because he came to save messed-up, broken people. Oh, beware if you find the Joab coming out in you. Take yourself in hand. You say, Well, you're nearly done.
Yes, I am. But point two, we can do it very quickly. It's time to hear from a woman, don't you think? That's, I'm sure, what the women are saying. Then a wise woman called from the city. Oh, we just almost can take in a breath, can't we? Oh, this is good.
We don't have to listen to any more of this mayhem. Finally, let's have some wisdom. And certainly from a wise woman, a shrewd woman, a woman who is able to think outside the box. Joab had previously used a wise woman, remember, when he tried to bring reconciliation between David and Absalom?
You can read that in chapter 14. We're not told a woman's name. We know Sheba's name.
He's a troublemaker. We don't have her name. But her influence is powerful. Powerful. I got diverted on this during the week, because I sat there for a long time. You'd be surprised how long I was just staring. And I just was staring and staring and thinking about women. I started to think about Thatcher. I thought she was a pretty wise woman. And then I thought about a few others. And I said, You know the one I think of most? Golda Meir. Golda Meir.
Most of you are too young. But she died at the age of eighty, forty-three years ago, this coming Wednesday. Remarkable lady. Powerful in her influence.
Able to think outside the nine dots and bold enough to make tough decisions. In fact, I got so diverted that I started to write down quotes from her. I'll only give you two.
One. She says, One cannot and must not try to erase the past, because it does not fit the present. What?
What are we doing at the moment? Exactly what she said you shouldn't try to do. She's a wise woman. And shrewd. Here's another one.
Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you're on board, there's nothing you can do. That's pretty good. So, we just have to draw this to a close. Let's listen to the woman as she shouts out. Listen, listen, tell Joab.
Now, try and think about this for a moment. You've got… The city is being besieged. They've built a big ramp.
They're going to batter the walls down. So it's not like, sort of, Saturday afternoon in the park, and it's, Excuse me? No! It's like bam! Blah! Ding! Noise!
Everything. She goes, Quiet! Who said that? She did. Oh. Listen! Listen! Would somebody tell Joab I want to talk to him? She's up here. Joab's down there.
He's on the mound. Tell him to come here so that I can speak to him. And he came near. And the woman said, Are you Joab? And he said, Yeah. And she said, Listen to the words of your servant.
And he said, I'm listening. Then she said, You know, they used to say that Abel that you're trying to destroy was the place that held the answers. It's kind of like a mother city of Israel.
People used to come here so they could get answers to their questions. And you're just trying to destroy it. I am a peaceable and faithful servant. Why do you want to tear down God's heritage? Because this is the place of his people. This is the place of his presence.
What are you trying to do? Now, the irony in his response ought not to be missed by us. Why would you do this? Why would you swallow up the heritage of the Lord? And Joab answered, Far be it from me, far be it, that I should swallow up or destroy. Are you kidding? There's a pool of blood lying halfway down the street here that has got your name written on it. You are essentially Mr. Destruction when it comes to the deal.
But of course, he's actually distinguishing between that and what he's really on about. It's not true, he says. I'm not here to destroy the city. I'm here to get a hold of Sheba, the son of Bichri, because he has lifted up his hand against the king. He deserves to be destroyed.
You can't do that. And the woman said to Joab, Behold, his head shall be thrown to you over the wall. Well, I don't know whether he went like, or he went like, Yes!
Or I don't know what he went like. He must have looked at his guys and said, Well, I wasn't expecting that, but that'll do, you know. So she's up, they're down, Joab's not going in, Sheba's not coming out, and all they're waiting to see is if his head is coming.
It'd be funny if it wasn't so sad, wouldn't it? Because I can imagine one of his soldiers saying to him, Hey, where did the lady go? Because all of a sudden she's no longer up there. Where'd she go? Well, she went in her wisdom—notice in the text—she went to share her wisdom with the people. She's a wise woman, so she went to talk wisdom to them.
In other words, she went to tell them her plan. So he says to Joab, Do you think they'll go for it? Joab says, Well, we'll find out soon enough. And then as Sheba's head comes bouncing down at her feet, he says, Well, I guess we've got our answer. The head landed, the trumpet sounded, the men went home, Joab returned to Jerusalem to the king. So then I say to you again, Is it safe to conclude that all things finished well, that all lived happily ever after?
No. There's still more to come. David is going to suffer the indignities of old age.
His life is going to continue to tumble into ruin. He wasn't wise enough or good enough to establish a kingdom that would last forever. There is only one person wise enough, good enough, to establish a kingdom that lasts forever. And it's not by might, and it's not by power, but it is by my Spirit, says the Lord. Throughout the world today, the kids of the kingdom are meeting in all kinds of places, sharing the same songs, declaring the same King—namely, Jesus. That's why you see the Old Testament ends with a period of four hundred years of silence and darkness, where generations are left simply with the promise of God.
And when grandchildren would speak to their grandparents and say, But what in the world is going on here? What about when they were in the exile? I know we came back from that. What about those days?
What about the kings? What about—they said, Listen, listen, listen! God promised. He promised. He keeps his promises. Well, they seemed to be long delayed.
True. Come, come, thou long-expected Jesus. Come.
Where is the cry of the New Testament church? Come, thou long-expected Jesus. You are Israel's hope and consolation. You are the only hope for a broken world.
You are the only hope for my personal little broken world. He comes to save. He comes to rule. He comes to reign. That's tonight, the restoration of a weary world. You're listening to Truth for Life. Alistair Begg is reminding us that God uses many means to fulfill his purposes.
We'll hear more next time. We'll be wrapping up our series in 2 Samuel tomorrow. If you have benefited from our study and you'd like to hear Alistair teach all the way through this Old Testament narrative, all of the messages can be found or watched on our website or our mobile app. Simply search for a study in 1 and 2 Samuel.
The website is truthforlife.org. If you start this story at the beginning, you'll learn about the birth of Samuel, then trace through the reign of King Saul, then through the tumultuous reign of David. The foundational study sets the stage for the arrival of God's true king and his eternal kingdom. The complete series is also available for purchase on a USB for just $5.
You can put it right in your car's USB player and listen on your daily commute or on a road trip. Look for a study in 1 and 2 Samuel online at truthforlife.org. And as a reminder, we just have a couple more days for you to request the daily devotional New Testament with a donation to Truth for Life. You can give a gift and request the book using our mobile app or online at truthforlife.org slash donate.
Or if you prefer, you can call us at 888-588-7884. Thanks for studying God's Word with us today. You know, our choices really do matter. The decline of King David's integrity and his kingdom can ultimately be traced back to one particular bad decision. Join us tomorrow to hear more. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.
