2 Samuel 19:41-20.2

2 Samuel chapter 19 beginning with verse 41 reading through chapter 20 and verse 2 And behold all the men of Israel came to the king and said unto the king Why have our brethren the men of Judah stolen the away? And have brought the king and his household and all David’s men with him over Jordan And all the men of Judah answered the men of Israel because the king is near of kin to us. Wherefore then be ye angry for this matter. Have we eaten at all of the king’s cost? Or have he given us any gift? And the men of Israel answered the men of Judah and said, We have ten parts in the king. And we have also more right in David than ye. Why then did ye despise us? that our advice should not be first had in bringing back our king. And the words of the men of Judah were fiercer than the words of the men of Israel. And there happened to be there a man of Belial whose name was Shiba, the son of Bikri, a Benjaminite. And he blew a trumpet and said, we have no part in David. Neither have we inherited. and the son of Jesse, every man to his tents, so Israel. So every man of Israel went up from after David and followed Sheba, the son of Bickri. But the men of Judah clave under their king from Jordan, even to Jerusalem. May God bless to us the reading of His sacred and holy word this evening. A pastor and his wife thought it was good. to be back home after being away for a whole week. The pastor had been involved in helping at a church camp. His wife was visiting her parents. And so they rendezvoused back home, and they arrived at the Presbyterian Mance in a small northeastern Kansas town, and they were ready to relax. And they walked in, and they got a whiff of something that smelled musty. Water was dripping. from the dining room ceiling and the living room ceiling. And they found upstairs that one of their toilets, the tank had cracked, and water had leaked out the whole week that they were gone. And because it leaked out, it never filled up. It just kept pumping the water into the tank and then out onto the floor. And so they had a total chaotic mess when they got home. and it took hours of work for their tired bones to clean up the mess and made them almost wish they had not come back. This is nearly the impression you get from our text here with regard to David’s return. You recall that Absalom has tried to steal the kingdom away from David. And there was a war between Absalom’s army and David’s army, and of course, David’s army, prevailed by God’s hand, prospering him. And after this weary exile, David here is returning to his royal home at Jerusalem. There have been some encouraging signs that perhaps the kingdom was going to now be reunited, and maybe they can get back to some harmony among the people of God, because the kingdom had been rather ruptured of late. Even David. David’s bitter enemy, Shimiye, has shown a willingness to be submissive to the king, and he meets the king at the Jordan. So as the royal possession reaches the Jordan and crosses, David had to be pleased with the apparent restoration of his kingdom. Things seem to be going in the right direction. However, another problem arises, which turns this joyful return into a complete disaster. Sadly, this account is all too familiar with regard to the church of Christ today, the visible church, as divisions often rip it apart. I want to talk tonight about the visions visions among the people God. And I’ll begin by saying this. Your pride and your jealousy are often the cause of division. Everything you do in this life is sort of a kind of an investment, if you would, in the future. Because what you do has an impact on what takes place in the future. When you indulge in an evil action, it’s going to have repercussions and have a bad effect on your future. The people of God should surely know this, yet somehow pride in jealousy, keep rearing their ugly heads, and misery comes. Nothing damages human relationships more than pride and envy or jealousy. The attitude of me first before others, and sometimes even before God, is what we find in many cases. As to the real substance, the dispute between Israel and Judy here was sort of on the level of grade school situation. It wasn’t, this is not something they really should have been dividing the kingdom again over. Who has brought the king back shouldn’t be the big issue at hand. Strangely enough, when you look at quarrels in the church, commonly, the quarrels are not normally about some important doctrinal issue like the deity of Christ or the virgin birth that could be the most simplest thing that creates division among the people of God. Notice the cause here of the division between Israel and Judah. The tribes of Judah were the first to speak about bringing the king back as we saw from chapter 19 verse 9 and 10, bringing him back from exile. They spoke about it first. David’s own tribe Judah seems to be reluctant. I don’t know, maybe they felt like because they had deserted him, and he was of their flesh and blood, that sort of shamed them. But they had to be persuaded a little bit. In chapter 19, verse 11, he has to say, hey, you know, you’re my flesh and blood. Why are you the last people? The last tribe to speak about bringing me back. Swayed by David’s overtures. Judah sort of jumps the gun a bid here. They didn’t wait for all their Israelite brethren to arrive so that they could do it together. When it was time to receive the king at Gilgall, all the people of Judah were there, but only half the people of Israel. Look at chapter 19 and verse 40. Then the king went on to Gilgale and Chim Chan went on with him, and all the people of Judah conducted the king and also half the people of Israel. So the people of Judah were full of people. pride. The king’s from our tribe. You have that kind of spirit that we have here. So they didn’t wait for all their Israelite brethren, the northern part of the kingdom, to assemble to be with them in this endeavor. Judah considered themselves the important ones when it came to escorting the king back. Israel is jealous because of the prominence given to Judah in the matter, and so a quarrel starts. Neither side seems to realize that how damaging this strife is to the kingdom of God at this time. It is portrayed in this situation with the kingdom of David, a foreshadlement, really, of the kingdom of God that we have in the New Testament under the son of David. After all, shouldn’t all the people of God be rejoicing? Isn’t the important thing is the king’s coming back and the kingdom is going to be reunited, but the problem was one of pride and image and suspicion and jealousy. Now, we can certainly apply this to modern life. It doesn’t take much effort to see how urgent and plain the situation is with regard to our own day. It’s urgent that we hear the same message, and it’s very obvious that Christians in church is often are guilty of doing something similar to this. The pride of Judah, the jealousy of Israel is still with us. Even when both sides say that they are embracing Jesus Christ as their king, more fellowship between Christians is broken because of pride-related personal animosity than probably anything else. Certainly more than, I think, doctrinal disagreements. consider the disciples of Christ. Think about what caused the most heated disputes among Christ’s band of disciples. Was it a doctrinal issue? Was it an important point of sanctification and how they were supposed to live their lives? Let’s look at this a minute. Let’s look at Mark chapter 9 in verses 33 and 34. And he, speaking of Jesus, came to Copernium, and being in the house, he asked them, what was it that you disputed among yourselves, by the way? But they held their peace, for by the way they had disputed among themselves, who should be the greatest? Now, the chapter opens with this magnificent event, the transfiguration of Christ. Three of the disciples of Christ are up on the mountainside. They have this view of Christ when he’s transfiguration. figured before them. What a magnificent start to the chapter. As we get through the chapter and we get toward the end of the chapter, we see there are other problems that arise here. Despite this glorious thing that they’ve been able to observe, as the disciples were traveling with the Lord to Copernium, they were disputing along the way. And Jesus, of course, was aware of the disputes. He mentions, though, and asks them, they were disputing, because he already knows why they were disputing. But he’s bringing it to light because he’s going to address the issue that is at hand. And of course, they were arguing about who is the greatest among them. It was about preeminence. It was about pride, self-exaltation, and how prone Christians are to sinful human behavior in this regard, to both. and exalt themselves even while they claim to be serving Christ and following him. And our king has to point out to our shame that we need to get our priorities straight. Now look with me at Matthew chapter 20. Here’s another occasion. The disciples were in a dispute. Beginning with verse 20 of chapter 20 of the book of Mark, or excuse me Matthew. then came to him, meaning to Jesus, the mother of Zebedee’s children with her sons, worshipping him and desiring a certain thing of him. He said unto her, what will thou? She saith unto him, grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on my right hand and the other on the left in thy kingdom. But Jesus answered and said, ye know not what ye ask. Are you able to drink of the cup that I drink of? And to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized? with? They say unto him, we are able, and he saith unto them, ye shall drink indeed of my cup and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with, but to sit on my right hand and on my left is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my father. And when the 10 heard it, they were moved with indignation against the two brethren. Here we have a very similar situation, and this time it’s the mother of James and John. It asked the request for the exaltation of her sons. And the kingdom at the given highest place, the other disciples are jealous. They’re indignant, they’re angry about it when they hear about it. This despite the fact that Jesus didn’t promise James and John that they would be given this position. The very fact that they asked for it angered the other ten. Well, how necessary it is to watch over your heart that the love of honor does not creep in. Notice how people will use any means necessary to exalt themselves. Even their mother, the love of a mother here comes along and tries to promote her sons. It’s interesting that people will be angry at others, like James and John, for a fault, which they are guilty of them. themselves because they wanted, everybody was arguing about who’s going to be the greatest. It’s not like this is something new. They sort of got a leg up on it by having their mother go to Jesus, I guess, and that upset the other disciples. You see how troubled Paul is when he writes the Corinthians in the first chapter he talks about the fact that there are contentions among him. He’s upset by all these contentions. The divisions, the strife, the schisms. some are of Paul, some of our Apollus, some of our Seifus, some following Seifus. Aren’t we all following Christ, he says? You and I are not immune to this problem. Pride and jealousy still cause a great deal of division in the church, and so we should be guarded against this very fact. So your pride and jealousy are often the cause of division. My second point tonight is this. You’re putting the worst possible construction on the actions of others is a cause of division. You notice in verse 41, all the men of Judah came to the king and said under the king, why have our brother and the men of Judah stolen thee away and have brought the king in his household and all the David’s men with him over Jordan? It seems that the men of Israel accused the men of Judah here of bad intentions. You have, you’re stealing away the king for your sons. There was no willingness to give him any benefit of the doubt to hear any explanation. You know, love does not think evil of the brethren that we have. It tries to think best of our brother and sister in Christ. But here, they’re putting the worst spin on the situation. There was no recognition of other factors may have played the part. Maybe the king had said, hey, let’s get moving here. Let’s go on to Jerusalem. and we don’t know what exactly happened. But certainly they weren’t considered innocent until proven guilty. Not even the slightest interest we see here in hearing Judah’s side of their actions. Again, we have the idea of prejudice here. Recrimination, condemnation. You’re guilty because we say you’re guilty. We think you should never have done this. Now, Scripture in the New Testament, Romans 14, verses 4 and verse 19 says this, Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? Why dost thou judge thy brother, or why dost thou said it not thy brother? We have to be careful in judging our brothers and sisters in Christ because we all are all answerable to the same master, the Lord Jesus Christ himself. How sad that all this that we see here is just as true today. as it was many years ago. People are still judging the secret motives of person’s hearts when they don’t know it, and only God knows it. We can judge people’s actions because we can see what they’re doing. But we can’t judge the motive behind those actions unless that is revealed to us by the individual. When suspicion rules in a person’s heart, then it seems like all of these. evidence that’s before them, it gets skewed. It gets tainted to fit the narrative that we want. Like Israel, you can attribute something, maybe that an evil motive to someone because you want to condemn them. I read a story about a sailing vessel many years ago, and the mate of the ship became drunk. And so the captain of the ship, when he was writing his log, he wrote in it, mate drunk today. The mate pleaded with the captain to remove this black mark on his name because if the owner of the ship read the log, he could lose his position. The captain said, this is the fact, and this goes into the record. Well, some days later, the mate was keeping the logbook, and after ending the ship’s position, and the course for the day and the wind direction, this state of the sea, the mate added this phrase, Captain sober today. The indignant captain protested that the entry would leave the altogether false impression that this was unusual for him to be sober, and that he was usually drunk. The mate said, well, this is the fact, and into the record it goes, just like he said, falsely painting the captain here in the worst possible light. Friends, people can do this with regard to. to their fellow believers in Christ, don’t care about the real truth. They just, you know, painted as black as they can. We have to be very careful about this. You know, Paul wrote letters to the Corinthians that were full of rebukes because they had a lot of things that were doing wrong in the church. Well, some of the people who belong to the church said that Paul was afraid to come to Corinth and say, these things to your face, so he writes these harsh letters to you. they put the worst possible construction on this. the truth is, speech, they is contemptible, his body is weak, and if he was here, wouldn’t be saying this to your face. would change his tune if had to stand before you. He wouldn’t be making these now, Paul responds and says the Lord knows that the spare you he said, when I come, I want to a joyous occasion meeting with my brothers and sisters in Christ, I don’t have to be there rebuking you. I want you to get this straight and out before I get there. He said, that’s why I wrote this letter to you. This is why I said these things to you. Not that I want to be harsh to you, but I want you to get it straightened out. He assures them that the Paul of the epistles are going to be the same Paul that arrives and talks to them when he comes to Corn. brothers and sisters in Christ, let us not be guilty then of putting the worst possible construction on the actions of others. We see that here in this text. Thirdly, tonight, you showing insensitivity toward others is a cause of division. Look at verse 42. And all the men of Judah answered the men of Israel, because the king is near of kin to us. wherefore then be angry for this matter. Have we eaten at all of the king’s cost or hath he given us any gift? Now what Judah says here is true, but they said it in such a way that they were rubbing salt into the wound here. And it stung the men of Israel. Judah wasn’t trying to steal the king for themselves. They weren’t seeking to gain some. advantage as if they were going to get possessions or food or provisions or something favors from the king. That’s not what they did it for. But it was just that the king was closely related to them. It seemed appropriate that they should lead this caravan. No reason to attribute a bad motive. There’s nothing sinister about what they were doing. But Judah here said these things in such an insensitive fashion. that it just sort of stirred the pot. It made things worse the way they responded. Their remarks were not geared to healing any wounds, but as I said, they were pouring salt into the womb. They appear resentfully spoken. How dare you make such a charge against us? Rather than trying to win them over. And their actions certainly showed a lack of respect for their brothers in Israel. They should have realized that not waiting for the other half of the Israelites to show up was really not the best thing to do and that could cause trouble. But they didn’t take that into account. They didn’t care, evidently. The men of Judah should have waited. The men of Israel should not have been so deeply offended. After all, good work was being done. It was good for God’s kingdom that the king was going to be restored here. C.H. Spurgeon once said that when he was traveling in France, that he saw a hooded cobra in a most vile temper. He went to a zoo. And there was this thick glass enclosement of the snake and a strong wire mesh between the serpent and the visitors. They said the cobra persisted in darting at them, with the utmost vehemence of malice. And soon the keeper requested that the people, the visitors, stay back, as he put it, it’s not good to irritate such a creature. Spursion drew this lesson from this zoo visit. He said, when you meet an irascible person on the lookout to pick a quarrel, ill-tempered, and out of sorts with the world, it’s best not to provoke him further and just move on. on. It’s never wise to irritate those who are in a bad temper to begin with. It just leads to more problems. And so you showing insensitivity toward others is a cause of division. Fourthly, tonight, you’re responding harshly to others is the cause of division. In verse 43, we see here that they both sides are arguing back and forth, but the words of the men of Jews, were fiercer than the words of the men of Israel. The men of Israel’s words were fierce, but the men of Judas were fiercer. Now, of course, the Proverbs tells us that the soft answer turns away wrath. And that is the wisdom that God has given us in dealing with situations such as this. But when there is a disagreement, it’s easy for your anger, the flare, for harsh words to spew up. out of your mouth. And when you’re driven by jealousy, as Israel was, by pride as Judah was, strife is inevitable. The tongue, the Bible says, is a world iniquity, it’s set on fire of hell. And so here they are going after one another, and, you know, one side gets a little bit more louder and more fierce. The other side responds, even further louder and more fierce. that. The men of Judah, or the men of Israel say that we have numbers on our side. We got ten tribes. The men of Judah claim that, well, you may have ten tribes, but we’re close to kin. And that was their argument. Israel says, well, we were the people that thought first about bringing the king back. How dare you leave us out? Judah responded with greater harshness. And back and forth it went, as it almost always is when we get into the quarreling situations. The original cause of the quarrel gets buried many times under harsh words and silly arguments. Christians are quite capable of this as Paul has to warn Christians about biting and deviring one another. Those are pretty strong words that he uses. There was a certain man who purchased a paper at the same newsstand every day. And he always greeted the newsman very courteous. but in return he received gruff and discourteous service. One day a friend of his happened to be along with him is when he went and bought his paper. The paper was rudely shoved in his face, and the customer smiled and wished the newsman a nice day and walked off with his paper. His friend observing all this asked, does the newspaper man always treat you so rudely? The customer says yes, unfortunately he does. and his friend said, are you always that polite to him? And the customer says, yes, I am. And their friend, why? Why are you so nice to him? He says, because I don’t want him to decide how I’m going to act. Harsh rhetoric always seems to bring out the worst in people and never solves any problems. And if we react just like they do, we’re not going to get anything done that’s useful for the kingdom of God. So you’re responding hard. to others is a cause of division. Fifthly to nine. Your failure to repent of previous sin is a cause of division. In the first two verses of chapter 20, we read this. And there happened to be there a man of Belial, whose name was Shiba, the son of Bickory, a Benjaminite, and he blew a trumpet and said, we have no part in David, neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse. Every man to his tents, O Israel. So every man man of Israel went up from after David, from following and followed Shiba, the son of Bickri. The men of Judah clave under their king from Judah even to Jerusalem. Chapter 20 now introduces a character named Shiba. Indeed, the whole chapter in some ways relates to him and his revolt against David. He was from the tribe of Benjamin, Menouet immediately tells us his sympathy certainly lie with the House of Saul, the first king of Israel. His rebellion, at least initially, it was more of a succession here than their rebellion, but at the same time, it leads to the same problem. There’s no doubt about the character of this man. He’s called a son of Belio here. He’s a son of wickedness. He’s a vileal, if you would. He’s a vile, if you would. So he was not a good person. Why is he evil? Well, he’s certainly evil because he’s rejecting Jehovah’s chosen king. And we talked about this before. God had made it clear that David was his chosen king. And the nation should have accepted him as the chosen king. But the northern kings, the northern tribes, the northern tribes, excuse me, had revolted as well as Judah in the past and went with Absalom. Now, the northern tribes did in an earlier chapter, chapter 3, and also chapter 5, embrace David. And then we talked about the sin of them embracing Absalom. And look at the character of Absalom, and here they embrace this man. And now we have the same situation, and who do they embrace this time? A man of belial, a scoundrel, an evil man. The words of Judah, the king is closely related to us now results in them saying, fine. We have no part in David at all. This is what Sheba incites in the spirit of the other people. So what Judah said, their harsh words, and even David’s supposed favoritism that’s been mentioned, don’t justify this action. but this is what happened. Here we find the sin of the nation in joining Absalom’s rebellion repeated. Now, I want you to think about this a moment. We talked about this in the past. This amounts to rebellion against God because it was God’s will that David became. Everybody knew it, as we mentioned from various passages scripture. This was well-known fact. And yet here the people of Israel goes storming off. after Shiba, thumbing their noses at the Lord’s revealed will. A large part of the whole problem was that the people who followed after Absalom never really repented of their sin in the first place. It’s almost as if, well, Absalon’s dead now, I guess we’ll just take David back as king. But we don’t see any remorse. We don’t see any repentance over their previous actions, and so it leads to what? The same action. action being repeated. When we don’t repent of our sins, what happens is we keep doing this, we keep falling in the same situation. We keep repeating them. The idea of repentance is the idea of truly being sorrowful for our sin and having our hearts moved to turn away from that action that we pursued in the past. Evidently, there was no renewed apprehension that David was God’s anointing king. And it was if they were thinking, well, we’ll just bring David back because our king is dead. This is hardly the stuff that makes for true commitment to God’s chosen king. Division among God’s people often is rooted in someone not being right with God. And when we’re not right with God, it leads to all kinds of division and strife. We’re not repentant about maybe a rebellious spirit that we have. The same revolt in principle commonly goes on in the so-called evangelical churches where there are unhumbled hearts and rebellious spirits. It’s interesting, and you, if you’re in the pastor long enough, you see there are people who will nod in agreement that the church ought to be following scripture until, of course, they want to do something contrary to scripture, and therefore, you know, they’re not happy with you telling them, wait a minute, you can’t do that. Let a married woman find another man that she prefers to her husband and she quickly departs from the church. When you tell her, wait a minute, you’re only to be married in the Lord. You’re not to leave your husband. Or let two members get into heated, dispute, and refuse to reconcile with one another. When the scripture commands us to be reconciled to one another, but it doesn’t matter. The authority of scripture, then all of a sudden doesn’t matter to them. When Jesus said, yeah, you got it, when you have a lot against your brother, you lay down your offering and go to him first and get it straightened out and then come and bring your offering. If you want to have your sins forgiven, you have to be willing to forgive your brother and sister in Christ their sins. And so what they’re doing here is they’re revolting against the king, because Jesus Christ has commanded these things of us. Let’s not be like that. Let’s not be like that. Let’s not have that same spirit in us. Well, Pastor Davis and his wife returned home for some needed rest after a week-long vacation only to find their house flooded and everything in disaster. David returns to Jerusalem, thinking the nation will now have some rest after Absalom’s revolt, and we have another disaster that comes along. And sadly, this is not just ancient text for us and this is not just something that happens in the past, but sadly, history repeats itself. And even among the Church of Christ today, we have the same kind of problems that arise. Divisions in the church for all the reasons we find in our text, pride and jealousy, putting the worst possible construction on the actions of others, showing insensitive. toward others, responding harshly to others, failure to repent of previous sins. Let us think about this in our own lives and let us avoid repeating history ourselves. Let’s go.