It turns out in your Bibles to 2nd Samuel 20, using the Bibles here in your seats at the page 230. I'm sure you're using your Bible at home, that's another page somewhere. Roughly in the middle of your Old Testaments. It's before Psalms, so if Psalms is roughly in the middle of your Bible, turn leftward toward the front from Psalms and you'll arrive. You'll see things like Nehemiah and Ezra and Chronicles and Kings, and then right before Kings, the 2nd Samuel. We'll take a look this morning at all the 2nd Samuel 20. This is the account of Sheba's Rebellion against David. It looked like everything was going to be fine for David. Everyone was coming together for him, and then last week we saw that division happened again, and the people had started arguing as they came together around David, and then Sheba, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, takes advantage of this and creates a division among God's people. 2nd Samuel, chapter 20, beginning in verse 1. This is God's Word, eternally true. Now a troublemaker named Sheba, son of Bikri, and a Benjamin, happened to be there. He sounded the trumpet and shouted, we have no share in David, no part in Jesse's son. Every man to his tent, oh Israel. So all the men of Israel deserted David to follow Sheba's son of Bikri, but the men of Judah stayed by their king all the way from the Jordan to Jerusalem. When David returned to his palace in Jerusalem, he took the 10 concubines he had left to take care of the palace, and put them in a house under guard. He provided for them, but did not lie with them. They were kept in confinement till the day of their death, living as widows. Then the king said to Amasa, some in the men of Judah to come to me within three days and be here yourself. But when Amasa went to some in Judah, he was longer than the time the king had set for him. David said to Abasai, now Sheba, son of Bikri, will do more harm to us than Absalom did. Take your master's men and pursue him, or he will find fortified cities and escape from us. So the Joads, men and the Caratheites and palathites and all the mighty warriors went out under the command of Abasai. They marched out from Jerusalem to pursue Sheba, son of Bikri. While they were at the great rock and gibion, Amasa came to meet them. Joad was wearing his military tunic and strapped over it. At his waist was a belt with a dagger in its sheath. As he stepped forward, it dropped out of his sheath. Joad said to Amasa, how are you, my brother? Then Joad took Amasa by the beard with his right hand to kiss him. Amasa was not on his guard against the dagger and Joad's hand. And Joad plunged it into his belly and his intestines spilled out on the ground. Without being stabbed again, Amasa died. Then Joad and his brother Abasai pursued Sheba, son of Bikri. One of Joad's men stood beside Amasa and said, whoever favors Joad and whoever is for David, let him follow Joad. Amasa lay wallowing in his blood in the middle of the road and the man saw that all the troops came to a halt there. When he realized that everyone who came up to Amasa stopped, he dragged him from the road into a field and threw a garment over him. After Amasa had been removed from the road, all the men went on with Joad to pursue Sheba, son of Bikri. Sheba passed through all the tribes of Israel to Abel Bethmaaka and through the entire region of the bearites, who gathered together and followed him. All the troops of Joad came and besieged Sheba in Abel Bethmaaka. They built a siege ramp up to the city and it stood against the outer fortifications. While they were battering the walls to bring it down, a wise woman called from the city. Listen, listen, tell Joad to come here so I can speak with him. He went towards her and she asked, are you Joad? I am, he answered. She said, listen to what your servant has to say. I'm listening, he said. She continued, long ago they used to say, get your answer at Abel and that settled it. We're the peaceful and faithful in Israel. You're trying to destroy a city that is a mother in Israel. Why do you want to swallow up the Lord's inheritance? Far be it for me, Joad, replied. Far be it for me to swallow up or destroy. That is not the case. A man named Sheba, son of Victory, from the hill country of Ephraim has lifted up his hand against the king, against David. Hand over this one man and all withdrawal from the city. The woman said, Joad, his head will be thrown to you from the wall. Then the woman went to all the people with her wise advice and then cut off the head of Sheba, son of Victory, and threw it out to Joad. So he sounded the trumpet and his men dispersed from the city, each returning to his home. And Joad went back to the king in Jerusalem. Joad was over Israel's entire army. Benaya, son of Jehoyeda, was over the Caratheites and Palatheites. Adonim was in charge of forced labor. Jehoshapheth, son of Ahalud, was recorded. Sheva was secretary. Zadik and Abaithar were priests. And Ira, the Jair, right, was David's priest. Hereins, our reading, you have a response of thankfulness. It's printed for you in your bulletin. The word of the Lord. Thanks indeed. Let's pray. In our lives, things don't always go well in our relationships, in churches, things don't always go well there. We've all experienced disunity in a group that we've been in. We've experienced disunity in personal relationships that we've had with a friend. And then we're united and just two peas in a pod and then something happens. I have a friend where I was telling my daughters where that happened to him a number of times. Relationships, relationships get broken. But these things, disunity and broken relationships can happen outside the church certainly, but they can happen inside the church as well. The scripture is often talking about the necessity of unity in the church among God's people. And so as we look at this today, this account of Sheba here, we get from God direction on how to proceed when relationships are broken, or more specifically what this text is talking about is how when things are broken and a church or disunity happens, how do we deal with that? What's God's direction for us? So if you'd like to fill out blanks in an outline, you're welcome to do that here. And here we go with number one. If you want to just listen, that's fine as well. And you can just sit there and listen if you take it in that way better. But God says just number one, first of all, we've been talking about much as we've been in these chapters. Don't divide. Don't divide the church. We see this in verses one and two and six here in this section. Everyone's together and it's good. And we talked about last week how when Sheba arrives and when these guys start arguing before Sheba arrives or at least before he speaks up, our response as readers is to be like, oh no, everyone just got together under David. Israel's united. They're strong again. They're under the right, the correct king. And we say, oh no, this is going on. This is not a positive thing that God presents for us in the scriptures. That's one of the reasons that we have confidence in the scriptures. It doesn't present everything. It's just peachy. It's just everything's fine. If you're one of God's people, everything's going to work out. God shows us just how bad things can get. You know, Peter denying Jesus three times. Not exactly something he'd put in there if the Holy Spirit weren't directing you to write that text, right? To put the leader of the church after Jesus' death as the one who denied Jesus three times. And so scripture gives us these ugly pictures of things that really happened among his people. And this is one, this disunity of his people during this time. And Jesus prays before he goes to the cross the night before John 17-11. And he says, holy Father, protect them by the power of your name. The name you gave me so that they may be one as we are one. This was Jesus' prayer for us. This is Jesus' prayer for the church. This is why we hate denominations, right? I mean, we love our brothers in denominations, but we hate the fact that there are denominations that we're not just all together and that things like pride and lack of patience for listening and understanding and standing around the scriptures and saying, let's together understand what these scriptures say and let's never part because we're all part of one body, the church, right? But in a local church, we don't want to divide either. This is a bad thing. Jesus prays for unity. Bob read for us this morning from Ephesians 2. What was Jesus' purpose in Ephesians 2, 14, 15? That Jesus would create one new man. That the church would be like one man. Not two men at the time that Paul was writing, the Gentiles as one man and the Jews as another man. But Jesus came to create out of the two, one, that there'd be no racial distinction whatsoever within the church. This is God's design for the church, that there'd be unity. So we don't divide the church. Never be someone who divides the church. God wants us to know that very clearly. Don't divide. Why does division happen? A, they're in your outline. Division sometimes happens when persons want power or popularity. Those are your two blanks. Power or popularity. That's one of the reasons divisions sometimes happen. Some people want power or popularity or both. It's probably the case with Shiba here wanting power and popularity. We see this in verse 1, verse 14, again in verse 4, verses 8 to 13. We see a Joab was tied up in power and in position and popularity with God's people too. Remember what happens in the previous chapter here. When David was winning over the parts of the people, he says, goes in, he says, it's in chapter 19 verse 11. King David sent this message to Zedok in a by the other priest, asked the elders of Judah, come get me. And then verse 13, he says, and say to Amasa. Now, Amasa had been the chief general under Absalom. The chief general in rebellion against David and David's troops. But David says, go tell Amasa, are you not my own flesh and blood? He was his nephew. Are you not my own flesh and blood? May God deal with me, be it ever so severely from now on, you are not the commander of my army in place of Joab. So you see what's happening in chapter 20? He's not content with just serving David like Mephibasheth, right? Mephibasheth says, I don't care if I have any land. I don't deserve to be at your table. I'm just glad you're my king. Whatever you want to do with me, that's fine with me. You're the king. When you speak, it's like the voice of an angel of God. So Mephibasheth, but that's not Joab's attitude. Joab says, what? Amasa has made commander of the army instead of me. You know, we've seen Joab just keeps getting it wrong. And David has to keep rebuking Joab time after time after time, through these earlier chapters and second Samuel. And so when Joab gets the opportunity, Amasa has been placed his head of the troops. Who's David go to at the beginning of chapter 20? Amasa. Amasa, you go and you gather all this real to me, and we're going to go all my people to me who are loyal to me, and we're going to go after Shiba or he's going to do more harm to me than Absalom did. But Amasa takes a little bit more time, more than the three days that David had prescribed, and perhaps Joab was there saying, see, Amasa is unfaithful. We don't know. But anyway, Joab goes out and leads the troops, and shortly, they're not too far from Jerusalem. Amasa meets up with them. So Amasa wasn't too far behind the three days, but immediately Joab goes, and he pretends like he's Amasa's friend, grabs him by the beard and thrusts his dagger in him. And one of these wonderful scenes in Scripture, where the intestines spill out, and then Amasa is laying in the middle of the road and the pool of his own blood. And so Joab was out for power, for position, for popularity within God's people, too, as Shiba had been, for Samuel 15, Absalom, same thing. In chapter 15, that was Absalom's popularity winning. He stands at the gate of Jerusalem, and people are coming to get a decision on a dispute from David, and Absalom tells the people, all David's too busy for you. Here, I'll judge your case. And whoever is speaking to you, he said, oh, yeah, your cause is just. Right? He just, he was a yes man, to whoever came, and he earned the people's favor, and he showed off his wonderful hair, which weighed five pounds. Part of it cut off, weighed five pounds. He had COVID-19 hair, cut it off, and it weighed five pounds. But he earned popularity with the people, and that's what he was about, popularity with the people. David's other son would come along in First Kings 1, Adonizah, and he would say, literally, this is what he says, I want to be king instead of Solomon, and this is how First Kings opens up. And so you have all kinds of people wanting popularity and power who are not content to just be a servant of David, just be a servant of the one that God has chosen and appointed, anointed Messiah to be king. So that's true of the New Testament too. Second Corinthians is all about divisions in the church, and people bragging to each other. I'm of a Paul. I'm of a Pauler. I'm of Cephas. I'm of Jesus that won the argument, right? But Paul writes a whole book on that. And Second Corinthians is full. That's First Corinthians. Second Corinthians is full of, there's this group that calls the super apostles. That's sarcastic. They're not apostles. They hadn't seen Jesus. Paul makes that point. You've got to have seen Jesus and been appointed to the task to be called an apostle. It makes that point to the Corinthians. And he says, these guys are not super. These guys are values are in the things of this world. And what things look like. And they're coming along, and they've told you that I'm a bad guy. And you shouldn't view me as a bad guy. I'm the one who brought the gospel to you. I'm the one who worked among you, and never took a penny from you. I worked as a tent maker when I was in court, so you have never any reason to accuse me of any wrong doing. But the super apostles were there for the glory, the fame, the attention. So, that can happen. Our third John diatrophies, famous diatrophies, he wants the attention over John the apostle. And he tells the church there in Corinth, or sorry, they're in Ephesus. Don't even follow somebody who's one of John's guys. Or I'll put you out of the church. I'll see to it that you're excommunicated. That's what diatrophies said. And in third John, nine, we say in ten there. So, sometimes division happens over power and popularity. In seminary one of my professors Steve Brown is something you know him from the radio, a big deep voice. They call these power brokers. Power brokers in the church. Those who are there, they may or may not be officers, but they hold power and sway over people. And that's why they're there. And if you take power from them, they throw a fit like a two-year-old. They have a tantrum. And they either go after those who have taken power from them, or they stomp out mad. And that's what we find out diatrophies ends up doing. A time John writes first John, which is probably written after third John. Third John is first. But when he writes first John, we find out that this group is left with diatrophies. They've gone out from the church. So, diatrophies got mad and stomped out mad and took as many people with them as he could. Another reason division happens, besides people, persons wanting power or popularity, sometimes it happens over doctrine. Sometimes it happens over doctrine when persons advocate wrong doctrine. Now, doctrine's not a bad word. It's a bad word in American evangelicalism. It shouldn't be a bad word in American evangelicalism. Everyone has doctrine. Doctrine is just what you believe. If you believe doctrine is bad, that's a doctrine. Right? You know, it's like not believing in absolutes. You say, is that absolute too? Yeah. So, the doctrine is just what you believe. And sometimes division happens over what you believe. Or what you don't believe. And so, that can happen too. And we see this in verse 1. What's the doctrine? You realize this, Shiva has bad doctrine. Shiva has bad doctrine. What's the doctrine? Well, the doctrine comes from 1 Samuel 16 and 2 Samuel 7, which Bob read for us. Remember 2 Samuel 7? The doctrine is this. David and his sons. And only David and his sons. Whatever, forever, forever be king over God's people. That's a doctrine. And if you're one of God's people, you're to believe that. I should never have a king over me. But one of David's David or one of his sons. And Shiva abandons this doctrine and the people understood this doctrine they had anointed David as their king and said, you're the guy. Right? Like Mox. Right? He's the guy. But Shiva has bad doctrine. He leads people away. And what's he say there? We have no share in David. And we remember from last week the discussion was at the end of chapter 19 that Israelite said, oh, yeah. Well, David's really our king because there are 10 tribes of us from Israel. So we have 10 shares in David. You only have one men of Judah. You're just one tribe. And Shiva comes up and look there in your text, verse 1. We have no share in David. Shiva said when he sounded the alarm. It says nobody should have David as their king. We have no share in David. No part in Jesse's son. Every man to his tent is Israel. So yes, he wants power and popularity. But also he has bad doctrine. And this bad doctrine establishes the split in the church of the Old Testament. The split in the church among God's people. So today, of course, that can happen. Church splits are not always about personality, power, or worship style. The splits can be about doctrinal things. Theological and liberal denominations have broken off from those who believed what the churches believed through the centuries. They say, no, we don't believe Jesus did the miracles. No, we don't believe that the Bible is inspired by God and without error. That's fundamental for theologically liberal churches today. We don't believe that Jesus is the son of God. I'm glad some of you are looking at me with puzzlement because I grew up in this. It's true, and it's real. And this is the heart of theological liberalism from the 1700s on, or these kind of things. And so some splits have occurred just based on most splits. But some splits have occurred based on doctrine. What's believed, and what's not, and what's not believed. Theological liberalism is really a hell and do people go there? The answer among theological liberalism is no. There's not, and no one goes there. Okay, and so I remember being with my girls when they were very young in a theological liberal church and the pastor during the children's sermon that they had up front saying, you know, all people are God's people. You see, with them in heaven, the Buddhists and the Muslims and you know, the atheists and all that kind of thing. And so I had to do, you know, so if you don't believe the Bible's tree, you can say anything you want. Right, so don't believe one little thing, and then, you know, the floodgates are open, and so that's that. And so, the truth splits happen by doctrinal reasons too, and we see that here in this text. They didn't believe that they need to have David or one of his sons as their king. And we find out that as the book of kings starts and goes in chapter 12, then Northern Israel splits permanently after Solomon's son with Rahabboam. Northern Israel splits permanently from Judah. And they're separated from each other. And Northern Israel never has a son of David as its king. And all these other people and lots of assassinations and dynasties and new families ruling some for one guy and some for a few. But division sometimes happens when persons advocate wrong doctrine. So these doctrinal issues have brought division to Christ's church, are all officers of the church that to be women, or to be men, or be a mix. Those things have brought doctrinal, those are doctrinal things that have brought division to the church. But God says, don't divide, look at the scriptures, stick with the scriptures, and go with them regardless what the culture happens to be saying. But when someone leads a division and the people follow, how do we handle it? So sometimes there's a sheba, right? Who wants power or popularity or who has bad doctrine and people follow. Because sometimes these dividers are very charismatic people or sometimes they're manipulators. Sometimes they, you know, just take a bit, they look for, you know, if you ever watch nature videos, you know, the lions look for the old and the young will the beast. They don't go for the strongest ones. They go for the injured, the old, the young, those who are stranded or aren't with the group, right? And that's what dividers do. They go, they go for the ones who have trouble getting to the worship service every week. They go for the one who, you know, just as young in his faith or her faith. So things can happen like this. And so there's pressure, pure pressure, popularity, all kinds of things that go on. But what about these folks? These young will to be, so to speak, who have followed. About all northern Israel, who follows sheba. What about when people for a time get caught up in some charismatic church divider that Jesus is against. But they don't know it yet. How do we deal with them? That's number two. Number two. When division begins, don't destroy the dividers, the bad doctrine persons, followers. As when division begins, don't destroy the dividers, followers. Okay, verses eight through thirteen. Amasa was a follower of Absalom. David doesn't destroy him, does he? Calls him back, says, come back to me, Amasa. We're flesh and blood. You're my nephew. I'll make you commander of my army. And he's repentant. Like the people of Israel were when they heard Absalom was dead. They said, you know what? That was a really dumb choice we made. And they said, David was the one who fought all our battles. He was the one who defeated our enemies. He conquered the Philistines. How stupid have we been? Let's go grab David from Al-Nam and get him back and make him mark him. Okay, so Amasa is repentant. But he's murdered. And this is a great evil that even the soldiers recognize. Okay, so how do we deal with followers? Those who followed an evil person like Shiba? With Grace and with Mercy? Like David does. And if we annihilate those people, like Joab did, right? Remember, Joab always is doing this. We should, you know, remember he does that with Shema? Shema comes back and is prostrate before David in chapter 19. Joab and Aba Shai says, let's kill him. That's always Joab and Aba Shai's solution. Let's kill him. And David says, how are we even related? Right? What do we have to do with each other? And so that's why it gets Amasa, you know, probably to take over for him. But we don't annihilate people. And we see it in this passage as well in verse 15. Joab is trying to not only annihilate Amasa, which is the wrong thing to do, which even the soldiers recognize. Right? They see Amasa in the middle of the road. And they're not like, yeah, stepping on him and kicking dust on his body. They stop. And, you know, there's this sense, this is wrong. What's, where are we if this has happened? This is the one David made commander. And we just, like between commanders, kill each other. And everybody stops. Right? And Joab, Aba Shai has to get Amasa off the road and put a blanket over him. So people that soldiers will keep walking because the soldiers themselves who aren't the most sensitive of guys, they recognize that this is wrong. Just to annihilate the follower, Amasa. He was a follower of Absalom. But we see this in verse 15 as well as we go along here. Joab comes and he finds the city that Shiba is in. And he's kind of ripped down the whole city. He's got sea draps built up against it. He's trying to knock down the fortified walls. He's just going to flatten this place. And that's not the way to go. God shows us here in this passage. Verse 19. Though he's going to destroy the whole city, it's pointing out to him. This city had peaceful and faithful people on it. What's the wise woman says to him? The city's been a place of peace and faithful people. They were temporarily aligned with the wrong later. They were harboring a terrorist, so to speak. But she speaks to Joab and Joab is confronted, verse 20. Look there. He's confronted. You're swallowing up God's inheritance. You're destroying God's people. Right? This wise woman, this is a city in Israel. You don't want to destroy yourself in your own cities. Right? It's like the Nazis bombing London. And then the Allies bombing Dresden. I mean, these beautiful cities just destroyed by all these bombs and war. And if the city belongs to you, you don't want to destroy it. Because then you have to rebuild it. Right? That's her advice. Don't destroy it. Don't destroy part of God's inheritance in the promised land here. Right? And so Joab says, good response. Joab repents. He says, far be it for me. Just swallow up God's inheritance. Far be it for me to destroy those who have followed a bad guy. Okay? We're going to give them grace. We're going to give them mercy. Second Peter 3.9 says, the Lord is patient with you, the church. It's a letter written to the church. Second Peter. Why hasn't Jesus come back yet? Because there are people in a church who haven't believed in Jesus yet. They're just sitting there and they're not yet of saving faith. So Peter writes, why hasn't Jesus come back? Because the Lord is patient with you, not wanting any in the church to perish. But for all in the church to come to repentance. This is a measure of patience that we bring to people who are God's people who have gotten errant for a while. We say, these are God's people. And so even though they're errant now, we treat them with mercy and with grace. And we treat them with gentleness because God is patient. So Jesus hasn't come back yet. Their people in this church who are hearing the gospel then believed it yet. So a church, a local denomination, or a local church and a denomination, should not, I love this word, raise, R-A-Z-E, raise, just flatten. It shouldn't flatten those who have temporarily followed a bad guy. Either someone who's out for power and popularity or somebody who's into doctrine that's not biblically accurate. So don't flatten everybody who's followed. Number three, rather when division begins, whether over false beliefs or by desire for someone to be king and have a following, like Absalom, in chapters 15 through 18, or like David's fourth son at an Isha in 1 Kings 1. When division begins, here's what we do. And here's what this passage shows us. We oust, O-U-S-T, we oust. We oust the leaders of the division. We oust the leaders of division and we do it decisively, kind of decisive in this passage, isn't it? Hard to lead when your head's off and thrown over the wall, right? That's decisive ousting. Now we don't cut off heads or throw them over the wall, that might be fun. We might feel like doing that. Sometimes people have made things terrible for us in the church and such, but we don't do that. But we decisively oust whether officially or unofficially, we oust the leaders of such division if they remain unrepentant. If they remain unrepentant. So that's your line there, rather when division begins oust the leaders of it and decisively should they remain unrepentant. And this is what happens in verses 21 and 22. Drop says, okay, we're not going to raise just the city. We're not going to annihilate everyone who's followed Shiba. Rather, what we're going to do is just give us that one man. Just give us Shiba. And the wise woman says, good idea. And she goes back and she persuades her fellow citizens and those who followed Shiba, hey, we're going to get it. Unless we give over Shiba. And they all agree. The walk is head off and throw it over to your head. And jobs people say, excellent. Objectives met. Everybody goes home. Everyone's at peace. Everyone's under David again. So get this. How does God feel about dividers? He lost their heads off. Okay? Don't be squeamish about this. How does God feel about dividers in the church today? He lost their heads off. They're in much more danger than atheists. Okay? You know, atheists haven't been in gospel preaching every week. They have less responsibility, right? Jesus says to whom much is given, much is required. To those who know they're part of the body of Christ and that there's unity in the body of Christ. And they divide it. They're in trouble. They're aching. They're, um, uh, uh, Korah, number 16. They're the ones, the leaders of God's people say, everybody get away. Because God's wrath is coming. And you don't have what, you don't want to have one foot in that big hole when it opens up. Just get away. Um, because these people who have been given much with the much, you know, this is Judas, right? With the much they've been given, they've created great trouble for God's people. It's better to just not believe and be out there and not, not give trouble to my people, Jesus says. Then to be in my people and give trouble. And so this is a visual demonstration of how God feels about those who divide his church. Those who cause trouble to his people from within. Um, and, and, you know, he doesn't, he doesn't say when they're battling the Moabites, lock their heads off and throw it over the wall. But he says it when someone does that among his people. When someone advocates, uh, uh, uh, that central doctrinal point for God's people back then, follow David and his sons. And he'll lead you in faithful temple worship. And, and today, you know, somebody says, Jesus is not the one to follow. Jesus is not God's son. Then we don't lock the person's head off, but, but decisively, that leader would lead people into disfaith in Jesus. We oust, uh, from the church, whether it be official excommunication done by the elders of the church, or whether just being by the person, by some circumstances, just being chased out, whether by themselves or, or by not being welcomed anymore. Um, so first Kings 18, we read this morning, Elijah and the prophets of Bale. The prophets of Bale are in the promised land. Aren't they? And what are they doing? They're advocating false doctrine. Bale is God. Bale is the one who brings the rain for our crops. Bale was the rain God. It was a canonite God. And the belief was that he brought rain on the crops. And so that's why people kept going back to him because they thought, well, if Bale's here, he'll bring rain on our, rain on our crops. And so these, these priests of Bale were advocating bad doctrine. And what's Elijah, the man with God's words in his mouth, saved you with the prophets of Bale, after he persuades those who were to come back into the worship of the one true God. After he, he persuades them and they say, Yahweh, Lord, all caps, LLR, the all caps, he is God. He is God. The Lord is God. After he persuades them back in, like this wise woman has done, persuades the people. No, let's follow David, not Shiva. After he persuades them away from Bale, what does he do? Elijah. He says, put these priests of Bale to the sword. Get rid of them. They're nothing but trouble in Israel. Nothing but trouble among God's people. So, upon Jesus' ascension, we see in Revelation 5, this thing that you don't mess with leadership of David and his sons. Verse 1, Shiba had done that. Verse 21, we see what the result of that is. David had been anointed to be king in 1st Samuel 16. 2nd Samuel 716. It spoke to us about how always David and his sons would be kings over God's people. And then Matthew 317, God speaks from heaven when Jesus is baptized by John the Baptist and he says, this is the king. This is my son, which was the language of 2nd Samuel 714. The king of God's people was God's special son. And God communicates that with the baptism, John the Baptist, baptism of Jesus. God communicates that again and the amount of transfigurations we call it, Matthew 17-5. They are listed for you. Pilate as well says, are you the king? Matthew 27-11. And Jesus says, I am. But my kingdom is not of this world. Revelation 5, Jesus goes up and lets you do. Takes the throne. See, he's king. Hebrews 1-3. Jesus, when he had made purification for sins, sat down at the right hand of God. Okay, this is the doctrine we follow. Jesus is his king who has made purification for us for our sins so we don't mess with whose leader in the church. Who is the leader of the church? The king in head of the church is Jesus. And all elders who are sub-leaders, under-leaders, under-shepherds in the church, all they ever do is figure out what Jesus is saying in Scripture. And they lead according to what Jesus has said in Scripture. Okay, and so that's what we have here in our 1-2 and 3. How does Jesus lead us? How is Jesus our king today? This great son of David Jesus. How is he our king? 1, Jesus leads us by the Bible. Okay, the Bible is his words. John the Apostle, and the gospel of John 1 says, get it. Jesus is the Word. He's the communicator of God. He's the one who explains God. This is all John 1's stuff. Jesus is the Word, and he has seen God and explains God to us. He's made God clear to us. Jesus says to us disciples in John 16. I am more to say to you, but you're not ready for it. You can't handle it all now. You don't need to understand why I'm going to the cross yet. And they didn't. They were distraught when Jesus was dead up there in the cross. And so he says, but I'll send you the Holy Spirit, the Comforter. And he will speak my words to you. Okay, and that's in Scripture in the New Testament. So we understand all of Scripture to be Jesus' words to us. And that's how Jesus reigns over us as King. The laws of Scripture are the laws of Jesus. The commands of Scripture are the commands of Jesus our King. So you do this, don't do this, have this attitude. Okay? And so Jesus is our King as we listen to Scripture. Then number two, Jesus leads us by His Spirit. And His Spirit moves us to obedience to His words, which are the Bible. So how are we led by King Jesus? Well, by the Bible's words, and by His Spirit, which gives us the ability to follow, to walk into obey the words of Jesus, which are printed there in the Scriptures. John's, sorry, Paul says in Galatians 5-16, lived by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. The Spirit helps us not gratify the desires of the flesh. He helps us to walk in God's ways, not our ways. And then three, Jesus leads us by His ordained elders. Okay, so Jesus leads us by His ordained elders who rule and shepherd in the ways, in the ways of His words of the Bible. Okay, so elders lead you according to the Bible. That's what they're to do. They lead you in another way. I have to tell you that more than one wife. Head out of there. You're in wake, oh baby. You're in a provo, you talk. You know, if that's going on, get out, get out. Okay, that's not something that Scripture says that we should do. That's called adultery in Scripture. Okay, so elders lead according to the words of the Bible. And that's their job to really understand the Bible so that they can lead you by it. Because the Bible is Jesus' kingly rule over us. And Jesus has given us sent us His Spirit so that we can walk in His ways and as we have questions in Scripture, we can go to our elders to help us out in that. And then be, so first of all, you don't mess with the leadership of David and his sons. And then be, you don't mess with biblical doctrine. You don't mess with biblical doctrine either. So second Samuel 7, that the biblical doctrine is David as king. First king's 18, the biblical doctrine is the Lord as God, not Bale. Titus 1 verses 9 through 11. Paul has left the island of Crete. And he's gone up to probably my leaders in Ephesus, Ephesius, into Ephesus. And he writes this letter back to Titus. And he says, Titus, the whole reason I left you back in Crete was to appoint elders in every town. So every town in Crete on this island, which was in the Mediterranean Sea, just kind of off of the coast of Israel. So appoint elders in every town, every church needs to have elders. That's a plurality of elders in the church. And what's their job primarily? And so Bob read to us that they know what sound doctrine is, and that they silence those who are proclaiming otherwise. Those who have doctrine that's wrong, the circumcision group. They have to be circumcised in order to be eternally saved. What you do, Paul says, you appoint elders. And elders need to be able to silence people who have bad doctrine. So elders themselves have good doctrine, good understanding of the Bible. And elders silence those in the church who have bad doctrine and advocate in trying to lead people in bad doctrine as sheba had done here. Elijah's day, he silenced the bringers of bad doctrine in me. He said, put them to the sword. Joav and the wise woman, they silenced like the one of bad doctrine in their day, sheba, they locked off his head through it over the wall. So bad teaching, and this is why bad teaching ruins Paul says it in Titus. Bad teaching bad doctrine ruins whole families. If there's bad doctrine in the dad and the mom, it ruins whole families. I think all the things you could believe it's destructive. Okay? Well, if you believe there's a father, you're going to be harsh to your kids. You're never smile. You're never show them love or kindness or tenderness. And every time they disobey, they're going to face harsh treatment, grounded for three weeks. You know, that's, you're going to, that's going to be the rest of your life. Everyone around you will know that had happened when you were growing up. And they'll have to shoulder that burden of you being mistreated in that way, and not loved in that way for the rest of their lives. Right? Bad doctrine ruins whole families. Doctrine has consequences. If we know that our father is tender and loving and patient with us, if you know that our father just is ready to forgive us, and just to move on, say, hey, do you understand this now? Now, let's move on. You know, if we, if our fathers, if we know our father in heaven is like that, then we as human fathers can be like that with their own kids. And then our kids are blessed by that. But bad doctrine ruins whole families. So it's very, very important. It's not in the church. You know, anyone outside the church can believe anything they want. They'll be wrong, but they can believe anything they want. Right? We just leave them alone. But inside the church, in the promised land, you can't be Shiva. You can't say, we have no Sharon David. No, not in the promised land. Right? You can say that in Babylon. We have no Sharon David. But you can't say that here. If you say that here, there are consequences. Repent or perish as Jesus said. I think look 13. So bad teaching ruins whole families. We don't want bad teaching in the church. And that's what elders are there. That's our Paul's as tight as get elders in place. Because whole families are going to be ruined if there's false doctrine. Okay. No number four. With people who followed. With the people who had followed a divider or a heretic. What's our, we don't raise them. We don't destroy them. What's our, our method with them? What's our attitude toward them? And it's this, we reason with them. We reason with them in love. And that's, we see this in verses 16 through 22. We reason with them in love. Even Elijah in that very dramatic scene, right? In the first Kings 18. He doesn't just go and have everyone put to the sword. He reasons with God's people who are worshiping bail. How does he do it? He, he reasons with them through this great dramatic, sacramental show, right? It's like a, it's like the Lord's supper, right? It's this visual presentation to them. Who is God? Is bail the rain God? Can he bring rain? Can he bring fire? Or is Yahweh the Lord? Is he God? And so Elijah convinces. He persuades. He reasons with God's people so they can repent and say, oh, we should be following the Lord, not bail. Or this wise woman, why is she called wise? Twice in this passage. Why the Holy Spirit directs this author to call this woman not just a woman of the city, but a wise woman? He's telling us. Follow her. He gets it. You don't destroy God's people who are temporarily wrong. Rather, you reason with them. First of all, the wise woman reasons with Joab, who's going to raise the people. And then she goes and turns around, and she reasons with her own people in the city. And she wins them both over. She persuades them both over. And what's the end of that? Everyone's happy. Everyone's under David. There's peace in Israel again. And that city known for being peaceful and faithful is now faithful again. And at peace, again, as is the whole land. So how do we do this? Look at your next line there, calmly. When someone's off, when someone's followed someone who's wrong, don't go guns blazing. Don't go guns blazing like Joab. Don't build ramparts against the walls. Seize ramps against the walls. Don't have that be your first act. Go to them and reason with them. In love. Remember what we talked about at the beginning. Christ wants unity. Damn, we don't divide. We say, these are God's people. And they've gotten off track. How come we win them back? Solomon says in Proverbs with a soft word. A gentle word wins back the one who's your enemy. Not harshness. Right? That was Reha Balm's mistake. The people come and say, hey, can you lighten up the taxes? And the older people who have been Solomon's advisors say, yeah, lighten up the taxes. And they'll be loyal to all the rest of your kingship. But he goes to the young ones. And the young ones are the hot heads like I was. Ever in the 20s is a hot head. Right? Yeah, that's wrong. You should be this way. We've got all the answers, right? And that's not just early 70s, late 60s. That's every person in their 20s all the time for the history of all humanity. It's just hot heads. We have new young pastors in our denomination. They're in their 20s. Yeah, it shouldn't be like that. All this stuff. And we need to calm down and listen to the older folks, we say, you know, the steepest, some of you know, the steepest, the steepest of the world, who approach with calmness and gentleness and win us over. And so that's how we approach people. Calmly. And here's your next blank with love. Calmly and with love and a desire. I know that's a long sentence. We're getting a lot of stuff in. Calmly and with love for those we're talking to. Not with, I'm right, you're wrong. Not with your in trouble. Not without my angry because you've left. But with love. Say, you know, the most important thing in our heads, the most important thing is that this person comes back. Now, what they've done, no matter what trouble they've caused in leaving, the most important things they come back. And so with love and a desire for the mistaken, to get back under Jesus and for here's your blank for unity, for unity in the church to be reestablished. That's our goal. Christ prayed to the Father that they may be one, as you and I, Father, are one. So that unity in the church might be reestablished. We've reasoned with them that they might come back. That's your blank. Come back to the truth. That's scripture teaches. So again, we don't say, hey, come on back, we'll believe anything you want to believe. You want someone else be your king? Great. We'll be united and someone else be your king. Now we say, no, David's the king. Remember, Samuel annoyed you in this king. Samuel came to David with through Nathan the prophet and said, David and his sons will be king forever. Remember, we came to David and said, David, you defeated all our enemies. You're our king. Remember this? And persuade them to come back under Jesus. And so we are united under truth. Or as Ephesians says, Ephesians four, we speak the truth. We speak the truth in love. Both things are in play. It's not love without truth. But it's not truth without love. And so when people had been errant, when they followed a wrong person, we speak to them in truth, but with love, and a desire for their best, and a desire for the unity of the body of Christ. This woman is wise, wise indeed. This is what Paul does all through Acts as he goes from synagogue to synagogue. Acts 184, every Sabbath, Paul reasoned in the synagogue. These were people who were God's people who were errant. Paul went to a new city and went to the synagogue. He was going to God's people, old testament people, the Jews, and they were now errant because they didn't have Jesus as their king. And so what's Paul's? He goes from synagogue to synagogue. Acts 184, he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks. He reasoned with them. He answered, you guys were the enemies. You guys weren't Jerusalem, and you were yelling for Christ's crucifixion there. Rather he reasonsed with them. He persuades them that Jesus is the Christ using the Old Testament to do that. Last layer of part is individuals. What keeps unity under Jesus in the church? As Christians, as Christians, we must always be ready to repent. This is crucial for us. And something we see in this passage. So we've seen how should leaders react toward this? How should those who have been, how should we as a church who have stayed with the church? How should we react toward those who have left? We talk about those things, we're gentleness and all, but we shouldn't put up with leaders who are errant and out for power. But now, if we find ourselves in the midst of being errant, what should be our setup, our demeanor, our constant low rumbling in our soul, of who we are, of what kind of person we are, of our posture as we go through life. So as Christians, we must always be ready to repent. Verse 22, What saves the city? They repent. They say, she was the bad guy, David's the good guy, off with his head. It's brought over to Joab. Yeah, so they're ready to repent. Now, we won't throw heads over the wall, but we'll repent. And we need to recognize, A, in your outline there, our sin natures, our sin natures, and fallen minds clearly have the ability to go astray. Verse 2 in this passage, they had just all agreed for the previous chapter of the David with the right king for them to follow. And then they get an argument and they forget. And she says, ooh, here's my chance. He says 10 shares, two shares, one share. We have no sharing, David. Right? And they forget. And we read it, and we can read it in 10 minutes, and we say, how this happened. You know, but this is happening over, I don't know, two weeks or something like that. And we just recognize this is us. We're the ones who say, yeah, we have no sharing, David. And go our own way, because we have sin natures. We have fallen minds. And so we, some doctrine sounds neat to us. And we like it. The person presenting it is doing it with all of a flash and charisma, and he sounds convincing to us. But we always need to be in the posture if someone comes up to us with the Bible. And it says, this doctrine that you've been taught in the last week, it's not true, because this is here in Scripture. We always need to be in this posture and this readiness to repent. To say, ooh, my sin nature got a hold of me there. Or my fallen mind got a hold of me there. So Roman 7 is all about that. Paul says, me, a Apostle Paul, I'm always in this constant battle with my sin nature. I want to do what's right, but I do the wrong. And that's sin within me. Oh, what a wretched man I am. And that's what we need to understand about ourselves as Christians. We can easily get errant. We can easily go in the wrong way. And so we need to be ready to repent, ready to be corrected by Scripture. And so that's your viewpoint there. One of the basic functions, that's your blank there. One of the basic functions of biblical text is to rebuke and correct us. Right, we had that in our preparation for the reading of God's word today. Second, 2 Timothy 3, 16. It says, the word of God is inspired by the spirit of God for teaching. Well, okay, I'm ready to be taught. You know, if we're not too prideful, we're ready to be taught. But then it says, for rebuke, that's bad boy. That's a rebuke. Quit that. That's rebuke. Stop. And then correcting. And it's like, no, don't go over there. Get over here. That's correcting. Get in the right path. The Bible itself tells us, here's why I'm here. To rebuke you and to correct you because you have a sin nature and you have a fallen mind. I have a sin nature. I have a fallen mind. Why is it so important that we read Scripture? Because we're always getting off track. And we need Scripture to call us back to rebuke us, to say, no, not there. To correct us and say, and get over here instead. Don't express anger. Don't flander that person. Instead treat that person with love and kindness and patience. Get on that road. That's the correction of Scripture. Okay? I always need to be in this posture because the word of God itself is always rebukeing and correcting us. And then see, note this. Sometimes we wonder, why did God love David so much? You know, someone texted me I think last week or the week before and it's like, man, it's like David was so awesome. Now we're getting into this stuff. He's so bad. Right? He's so bad at all this. And that's what you have here down for his second Samuel 11. David was so serious. David was loved and favored by the Lord, loved and favored by the Lord, and held up by him in Scripture as exemplary, not because he obeyed perfectly. David's not loved by the Lord and helped up as the example of all kings besides Jesus. As our example, because he obeyed perfectly. David's sinned. That's your next blank. David's sinned greatly. Okay? Bathsheba, all kinds of stuff. Miss Handling of Absalom. David's sinned greatly. But, Dee, David was loved and favored by the Lord because he repented greatly. That's the thing about David that the Lord loves. The Lord knows we're going to sin all through our lives. What he's looking for are people who, when they're confronted with their sin, as David was by Nathan the Prophet after a sin with Bathsheba, who are not only guilt-stricken but take action about the guilt and say, what have I done? How can I repair all the damage that I am wrong? And so we see in Psalm 32 and Psalm 51, David's repent. There are all psalms of repentance where David says, against you and you, oh Lord, I've sinned. This is not just a sin with my lust. All everyone does it. Not just a sin against Bathsheba's husband. Not just a sin against Bathsheba. This is a sin against you. David was a great repenter and that's why he's called a man after God's own heart. And we want to be great repenters. That's what makes us great in the eyes of the Lord that we repent greatly. And we say, oh, I did this wrong. I'm sorry. Would you forgive me for doing that? You saw me, St, when we say in a spiritual posture being ready to repent of God's word, when we say, in a spiritual sense, there's a constant thing, ready to be regrouped and corrected. Because as we say in our church often, we don't want to prove ourselves as having been right. That's the response of pride. We want to get right through repenting over the things that we've done now. So don't prove yourself right, Get right through repentance and changing your ways, okay? So when we stay in the spiritual posture being ready to repent at God's word, broken relationships, that's your blank, broken relationships can be re-unified and a temporary divided church can come together again, unified, unified under Jesus' kingship. And that's what we see in verses 22 through 26. There's repentance over following Shiva and the church is unified, again under Him. First Corinthians, the whole book is about unity being restored. It's what Paul writes at 2nd Timothy 4, 11. We get this little thing. You know, Paul and
not Barnabas, Mark, John Mark had been divided. John Mark abandoned Paul and Barnabas on the first missionary journey in X 13. And in X 15, when Paul's ready to go out from Antioch again, Barnabas wants to take John Mark again with him, and Paul says, nope, he abandoned us last time we went. He went home early. And so Barnabas ends up taking Mark with him and Paul takes with him and Silas, and they go out. But we find out at the end of Paul's life, which is 2nd Timothy, Paul's about to die. He tells Timothy, bring Mark with you. There's reconciliation, there's repentance. Perhaps Paul said, maybe I overwrapped it there. Mark goes on to write the gospel in a couple of years after Paul's death. So division in the church, division in relationships that you have, if you're in a posture of being ready to repent. When someone says to you outside the church, you know, when you did this, that really hurt me. Say, I'm sorry. Just stop it. Don't defend yourself. Say, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that. Boy, I was only thinking to myself, will you forgive me? Don't worry. Don't justify yourself. You're justified by Jesus. So don't worry about it. Don't justify yourself. See, that person was hurt. Whether you meant it or not, that person was hurt, and you should feel sorry about that. That you did something, whether by intent or not, that hurt that person. You should feel sorrow over your presence in that guy's life, or that girl's life caused her pain. So just repent. I didn't consider you when I did that. And that'll heal the relationship. Be ready to repent. I remember I had a good friend named Mike on the soccer team, and he's always given snide comments to me. He's my year in school, and that kind of thing. And one time after a captain's practice where the coach wasn't present, he said some snide comments, and so I turned around, and I was ready to run him over. I was, I said, wouldn't you say to me? He's like, why? Like that. And it had been three years of just little smart comments behind my back, just enough so I could hear him. And you know what happened? He repented. We're great friends that whole senior year. We sat next to each other by choice in classes. And we've been good friends ever since. And that was because he was willing to say, you know what? What am I doing this? And he was kind of a bigger person, and he turned. And so that can heal relationships when we repent. So God here in this passage teaches us of his desire for the church's unity, shows us how to word a proceed when that's disrupted, how to deal with unrepentant causers of disunity in the church, how to deal with their misguided followers. These directives even spill out outside the church and our relationships with non-believers. I'm so summary. Division of the church is sinful. God wants us to know that we stay united under Jesus, just like God's people were to stay united under David. But then, but then also through the definitive outing of dividers, that is, heretics, those who are teaching wrong things and power seekers through the outsting of them, and through a readiness on our part to repent at God's word, through readiness on our part to repent at God's word, church unity under Jesus as King can be restored. The church won't always be unified, but it can be restored to unity. And we're to always prioritize this unity, not at the expense of truth, but with truth in our hands, in our hearts and in our minds, and reaching out in love at the same time with those who have left. Let's pray.