2 Samuel 16:1-4

2 Samuel chapter 16 in the first four verses. And when David was a little past the top of the hill, behold Zyba, the servant of Maphibibeth, met him. The couple of asses saddled, and upon them 200 loaves of bread, and a hundred bunches of raisins, and a hundred of summer fruits, and a bottle of wine. And the king said unto Ziba, what meanest thou by these? And Ziba said, these are the asses be for the king’s household to ride upon, and the bread and summer fruit for the young men to eat, and the wine that such as be faint in the wilderness may drink. And the king said, and where is thy master’s son? Ziba said unto the king, behold, he abideth at Jerusalem, for he said, Today shall the house of Israel restore me the kingdom of my father. Then said the king to Ziba, behold. thine are all that pertained unto Maphiseth. Zyva said, I humbly beseech thee, that I may find grace in thy sight, my lord, O king. May God bless to us his sacred and holy word. This evening. There was a conductor who was collecting tickets on a train going from Zurich to Brussels, and he concluded that something was very. wrong. So he made the announcement, everybody, please get out at the next stop. You’re all on the wrong train. Well, the passengers looked at one another, confused and amazed, and thinking, well, how could this happen? Finally, it turned out that it was not the passengers were wrong. The conductor was on the wrong train. And we have a proneness to misjudge others at times, and he certainly did so in that case. But we see that is the case here in our text. Absalon David’s son is attempting to take over the kingdom, as we saw in chapter 15 of 2 Samuel. David and those loyal to him are forced to flee from the capital city of Jerusalem so that he’s not entrapped inside the city and they don’t besiege it and destroy it and so forth. And so David flees over the Mount of all. and he prays for God’s intervention that he might somehow thwart the counsel of Hithrafel, who is advising Absalon, and he was the brilliant counselor of David, who now has sided with David’s son. So David and his followers are headed for Baruum, as verse 5 indicates to us in this chapter, which was a low-lying village. in the descent from Mount of Olives to the Jordan River. Evidently, he’s going to go across the Jordan River. He’s going to try to get some distance and protection away from Absalon, who is heading into Jerusalem. And thus they’re passing through the tribe of Benjamin at this particular time. It’s Benjamin territory. And he encounters two people here, Ziba and Shiba, both of them, or Shimiyei. Both of them are Shimiye. Both of the. these are Benjaminites. And we’re going to look at the encounter with Zyba here tonight in verses 1 to 4. Zyba, you recall, was the servant appointed to till the land, bring forth the harvest for Jonathan’s son, Maphisovic. Because he was lame on his feet, he needed help, and he was appointed to do that for his master. Zyber here cleverly manipulates David into giving him all the land of Maphibibibib. At this particular time. And so we want to talk about the proneness to misjudge others from this text. I’ll begin by saying this. You find David’s misjudgment here of Maphisat. Now, you should realize, as you read this, Zyber’s, covetous nature. Mephissette was the grandson of Saul, and certainly Saul was an enemy of King David. And yet David showed great kindness to him because of the covenant that he made with Jonathan, the son of Saul. He promised to show kindness to David’s offspring. So David, to Jonathan’s offspring, so David prudently entrusted Saul’s surrogens, so David prudently entrusted Saul’s servant Ziba with the management of Saul’s estate on behalf of Jonathan’s son. Zyba was a man of importance, it seems. He had 15 sons. He had 20 servants to aid him in the task. He had quite a group here of people that worked under him. However, he was not content just to be the manager of Saul’s estate. He wanted to be the master of it. we see what he does here. He thinks it’s time for this to occur. He thinks the time is ripe for him to take over and to make his move and get a grant of Saul’s estate from the crown. Whether David or Absalom wins the war isn’t really going to matter as long as he has his desire secured. So he wins David’s favor by a gift of provisions. from the vivacest land, no less, but doesn’t join in with David’s band. He keeps his distance, but he does provide provisions. So you should realize Zyba’s covetous nature. This is what he’s up to. Now, you should notice how Zyba manipulates David. He uses two ways. He uses flattery, and he uses a gift to manipulate David here. Zyba knew that David possessed a generous spirit, and that that he often rewarded those who helped him. So he intercepts David on his flight here from Jerusalem. He provides this lavish gift of provisions for the people. The donkeys he has are for the king’s household. The royal household can ride on those. But he has the summer fruits, and he has the wine for those who are faint and so forth and the bread. He hasn’t overlooked everything. He’s provided just with David and his people. need at this time. He pretends to be motivated by a genuine desire to help the king in a time of distress. But his real motivation is to win the king’s favor and steal Maphivis’ land for himself. So he flatters the king, as we see in the last part here of verse four, and we find that he acts as if he were a loyal subject but actually I think he’s only playing it safe. He has no intentions, as I said, of joining the band of David. And he wants to keep his distance in case Absalon is the one who is successful. Now, you should recognize that Ziba slanders Maphethers Meph. You’ll notice in verse 3. This is what he says about Maphiseth. Behold, he abided the Jerusalem, for he said today, shall the house of Israel restore me the kingdom of my father? Zyba is asked about his master. This is the response that he gives the king. He says that basically Zibis, or that Mephivis-S-st stays behind expecting that the kingdom is now going to be restored to him. Bill revert back to Saul’s family line. In other words, what we have him saying basically is that Maphizeth is a traitor to you. He’s not loyal to you, king. So Zyba here blackened the character of his master in order to turn King David against him. So Mapheth here is portrayed as I’m grateful, treacherous, even covetousness, a covetous, while Zyba, of course, is faithful and helpful and generous to the king. Only after Absalom’s rebellion has been put down. And David returns to the land and to Jerusalem. Does the truth come out? Let’s look at 2nd Samuel chapter 19 a moment. And now we’ll see what really happened in this situation. Beginning with verse 24. 2 Samuel 1924. in Maphetheth, the son of Saul, came down to meet the king. And that neither dressed his feet, nor trimmed his beard, nor washed his clothes from the day the king departed until the day he came again in peace. And it came to pass when he was come to Jerusalem to meet the king, that the king said unto him, wherefore, whenest thou not with me, Mephibisat? And he said, O Lord, my king, my lord, O king, my servant deceived me. For thy servant said, I will saddle me and ask that I may ride thereon and go to the king because thy servant is lame. and he has slandered thy servant unto my lord the king. But my lord the king is as an angel of God, do therefore what is good in thine eyes. For all of my father’s house were but dead men before my lord the king. Yet didst thou set thy servant among them that did eat at thine own table, what right therefore have I yet to cry any more under the king? The king said unto him, why speakest thou any more of thy matters? I have said, thou and Ziba divide the land. And Maphibis said unto the king, yea, let him take all. For as much as my lord the king has come again in peace under his own house. If you read these two accounts, you see who’s telling the truth. You see who’s covetous and who isn’t. And you see who’s really loyal to David and who is not. And so we see in this other passage the truth of the matter. Ziba lied through his teeth. It was a bit risky, but in this time of distress, who’s going to be able to check what’s happening? It’s hard to check his story immediately. So, you should recognize that Ziba slanders Mapheth here. You should see Ziba achieving what he desires because of David’s rash judgment. In verse four of our tax tier, The king says, Behold, thine are all that pertained unto Mephibisat. Sadly, David here does not weigh the issue properly, and he just turns everything over to Zyba. He takes the story as the truth. He convicts Mephbifibiseth of treason, seizes his land as forfeited, and gives those lands to Zyba. This was a rash judgment. This was based solely on appearance and certainly must have made David ashamed later when the truth was really revealed. But Zyba, using his wiles and his craftiness, has secretly stolen the land. When you think about David, he should have really seen through this slander. David knew that Mephiviseth was not an ambitious man. He was not a man that was out to reestablish the kingdom or anything of that nature. He was at ease with his place. He was supportive of David and his government. It seems ludicrous from Maphetheth to suppose that Saul’s line somehow is going to be reestablished. I mean, the first thing, people were claiming for Absalon to be the king. Not for Maphiseth. I mean, this doesn’t even make any sense to me at all. The line that Ziba uses here, that somehow wrote her he thinks he’s going to get the kingdom. I don’t even understand that at all, why David would swallow that. But David knew Mapheth was lame on both feet. He knew he had to have help in order to move about. Surely, he couldn’t easily travel. David should have been, I think, more careful in this situation and taken more care before he took a drastic step here of stripping all the property away from Ephibisat. He doesn’t check the story out. He acts rashly here, I think. You have probably heard of the horrible winter. The Continental Army suffered at Valley Forge. Most of you are probably aware of the story and the account that took place in western Pennsylvania or excuse me, eastern Pennsylvania. Clothes were so threadbare and blankets were so rare that the troops often sat up all night to stay awake because they were afraid if they fell asleep, they would freeze the day. Lafayette saw these soldiers whose legs were frozen black and sent them off to the hospitals for amputation. Why such suffering? It actually wasn’t that severe of a winter in Pennsylvania at this time. It was mild by Pennsylvania’s standards, but the soldiers went hungry because nearby farmers preferred to sell the British to the British in Philadelphia for hard cash. And the army was half naked because Boston merchants refused to move government clothing off their shelves unless they made at least 1,000 to 1,800% on the pricing of the clothing. So the colonies were swarming with Zyvas. The hardship of others was an opportunity for success. And that’s what Zyba does here. He takes this opportunity and exploits. other people. So you find David’s misjudgment of Maphibisat. Now the practical application of the text here is this. We have to be careful that we’re not prone to misjudge people ourselves. It’s easy to do. I’ve done it, and I’m sure you’ve done it, in your lifetime. You should realize a person is entitled to a righteous judgment. Now, look with me at the book of Deuteronomy. if you would, chapter 19 and verse 15. Here is what the law of God says. Deuteronomy 19 and verse 15. One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity or for any sin and any sin that he sinneth. At the mouth of two witnesses or at the mouth of three witnesses shall the matter be established. This is the principle of law. It’s repeated in the New Testament so we know how this application is one of those laws that we have a general equity on because you find it that Paul saying don’t bring an accusation against an elder or less or two or three witnesses and so forth. And many times you’ll mention that about having more than one witness regarding something in the epistles. But the principle of the law, and David should have this is we shouldn’t just take the word of one person to condemn someone of doing something evil. Now in the New Testament, look what Jesus says about judgment, if you would, in the book of John chapter 7 and verse 24. John 7 and 24. Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment. So you should realize a person is entitled to righteous judgment. Jesus doesn’t say here, never judge anybody. That’s not what he says. He commands you to be careful and balanced in your judgments so that it is a righteous judgment that you are making. From the mouths of two or three witnesses, reliable witnesses, is an accusation against another to be given a serious hearing. Backstabbing is cowardly because the person doesn’t get a chance to defend himself. And so Ziba here doesn’t give Maviseth a chance. He has no opportunity to say, hey, wait a minute, that’s not what happened. A safe rule is that we should never say something behind someone’s back that we’re not willing to say to their face. Sadly, Christians too frequently violate this basic rule. David did not need to disbelieve Ziba’s word, but the law required him to get more information on it. In other words, okay, Ziva is one person, is there someone else who can collaborate this message of what Mapheth is doing. He should have reserved judgment. This is a serious charge. This he failed to do. And as things turned out, we find that Zyba was lying. and Mephiviseth was maligned. Even if your most trustworthy friend tells you you something, we have no business to convict someone on that basis alone. It’s not a matter of distrusting your friend, but it is a matter of God honoring justice to the other party involved, the one accused. I think a lot of pain and agony could be avoided in the church if we were careful. about this very matter. And we took this matter of having witnesses seriously. Remember in the church discipline, you go to the person first by yourself, and then you’re supposed to take two or three witnesses with you. The second time you meet with the person to try to resolve the issue, why? So that there are two or three witnesses to what is being said. Before you it to the church as a whole. There is someone who can can agree and corroborate what is being said. So there is a fine line between sharing and gossip. Gossip is just sharing translated to one-sided prejudicial judgment of others. So we have to be careful in this regard. Remember when Nehemi was building the wall. He was rebuilding the wall. He was rebuilding the wall, actually, of Jerusalem. He was. He found that these enemies had spread a false rumor about him. Sandballot had sent out an open letter to Nehemiah. It said this. It is reported among the heath and the Gentiles. And Gashmoo saith it. Oh yeah, Gashmoo, he’s reliable. That thou and the Jews think to rebel. For which cause thou builtest the wall. That thou mayest be their king, according to these words. Now this accusation was not just made. to Nehemiah. They sent this to the king of Persia. They went ahead and maligned Nehemiah to the king of Persia, Amito Persia, in order to stop Nehemiah rebuilding the wall. Nehemiah’s response was, there is no such things done as thou sayest, but thou feignest them out of thine own heart. You’ve made this all up. But Sambal caused all kinds of grief for Nehemiah, based on a completely false rumor that one person Gashmoo says it’s true. This is the danger we get into when we have no backing of witnesses behind what the charge is. So you should realize a person is entitled to a righteous judgment. But notice what Jesus also says. Your judgment should not be based on mere appearance. Not only judge righteous judgment, but judge not according to appearance. The appearance is that Nephemiseth didn’t come out because he wasn’t loyal to David. But that really wasn’t the truth. It might appear that way, but it wasn’t the truth. Jesus, in our text here, if you read the chapter, has just healed a man on a Sabbath day. His enemies, ever seeking some pretext against him, said, well, you are violating the Sabbath law, the Fourth Commandment. Jesus was guilty in their eyes because he disregarded their ideas about what it means to keep the Sabbath. Jesus pointed out that their verdict was both an arbitrary and a superficial one. Circumstances, older cases. He says, now, what about a case where a person is circumcised on the eighth day? What happens if that falls on a Sabbath day. Do not the priests circumcise that child on the eighth day? Of course they do. Acts of necessity or mercy do not desecrate the Sabbath. They are not wrong. So that the healing of the sick is not a violation of the Sabbath day. David, however, was unwarrantably influenced by appearances. David, however, was unwarrantedably influenced by appearances. David allowed himself to jump to the wrong conclusion and pronounce this royal edict against Maphibibiseth. As you go through this life, you’re going to find sometimes appearances are deceiving. We can easily jump to the wrong conclusion by what we observe. So we have to be careful. We have to be biblically controlled in our judgments of others. We don’t know a person’s motives. We can’t read their hearts. We can only judge their actions. And God never calls you to judge the hearts of men. That’s his domain. But he does, however, indicate that we can evaluate deeds. But we have to be careful here because sometimes actions can be interpreted in more than one way. Righteous judgment often requires you to hear a person’s explanation before passing judgment as in the case of Maphibisat. It would have been nice if Maphisat could have given his explanation first. Obviously, it was a clear violation of the law of God. Now, if someone is committing an obvious sin, we can certainly condemn that. If you see adultery, or we see theft or lying or something of that nature, and it’s commonly reported, as 1 Corinthians 5 says, you know, this is a commonly report. I hear reports from more to one person about this situation of this man living in incest. Yet some matters have to be more carefully investigated. I’m reminded of the story in Joshua 22. When the tribes given the land east of the Jordan, there were two and a half tribes, remember, Ruben Gadd and the half tribe of Manassah had land on the east of the Jordan. They crossed over the Jordan and they helped the Israelites conquer the rest of the land. When that was all done, they were sent back to go back to their families who were on the other side of the Jordan. So they went back and then a problem arose because these tribes, when they got to the border of the Jordan, built this huge altar. And when the children of Israel heard about this altar, when the word got back to them, they assumed that these three tribes were now worshipping another God, that they were sacrificing to some other God and not at the appointed worship place where the tabernacle would reside. So the rest of the Israelites, we read, are strapped on their swords. And they plan to go out and wipe out these two and a half tribes to keep apostasy from spreading. But first, and wisely, they sent a delegation headed by Phenius, who was the high priest’s son and he was accompanied by a prince from each of the other ten tribes. And they came to appeal to two and a half tribes and they were thinking, well, see if we can talk them out of, you know, breaking off their sins so we don’t have to go through this execution of the people. And to this point, the real reason for this huge altar is revealed. It certainly looked like these tribes were engaging in false worship, but actually the altar was built only as a witness. And the witness was this, that the two and a half tribes, even though they were on the other side of the Jordan, were part of Israel. And they didn’t want later on for the Israelites to say on the west side of the Jordan, oh, you have no connection with us. You’re over there on the other side. They said, this altar was there to show that we do have a connection with you. and that’s why we built it. Once they heard the explanation, the anger dissipated, the swords didn’t need to be used, and everything was back to normal. It’s a good thing, though, that they saw an explanation before they just started wielding the sword and killing people and shedding blood because those people would have died for the wrong reason. So your judgment should not be based on mere appearance. You should not allow yourself to be manipulated into a rash judgment. Two things manipulated David, as we talked about. Flattery and gifts. Scripture declares a wicked man takeeth a gift out of the bosom to pervert the ways of judgment. Proverbs 1723. This is exactly what Zyba did. He brought a gift, and the gift was for the purpose of getting in good graces with the king so that he could get what he wanted. He expected favoritism in return. It’s a subtle way to bribe someone. This is notoriously done in politics all the time to get someone’s vote. However, you must not be manipulated in this manner. Your judgments need to be fair and honest. You know, it’s commonly said that flattery will get you nowhere, but the truth of the matter is flattery often gets people somewhere. They use it. And flattery, flattery he certainly worked for Zyva. A man that flattereth his neighbor, spreadeth a net for his feet, Proverbs 29-5. People will butter you up, say nice things about you, in order to manipulate you in some fashion. And unweary souls are misled by it. They fall into the net, and they are entrapped. In Pilgrim’s progress, remember Mr. Christian and his companion are warned, beware of the flatterer. And yet they fell into the flatterers’ net. They weren’t as cautious as they should be. They didn’t realize this guy was the flatterer. And he misled them. Remember, King Darius of the Medes and the Persians was flattered into being king for a month in order that the princes of the Medes and Persians may use him as a tool to get at Daniel. Throw him in the lion’s death. May the Lord grant you the spirit of integrity so that your judgments are righteous judgment and you’re not guilty here of a rash judgment and not manipulated into a rash judgment. Well, the conductor rashly judged that everybody on that train was on the wrong train. When it really was he that was on the wrong train. There is a proneness to misjudge others. So care have to be taken in this regard. She realized a person is entitled to a righteous judgment, should realize that you should not judge according to appearances only. You should also not allow yourself to be manipulated into a rash judgment. I think these principles we can draw from our text tonight. Let’s have a word of prayers.