Please turn with me in your copy of God's word now to the book of Second Samuel, chapter 10, verses one through 19. Second Samuel, chapter 10, verses one through 19. And if you're using the Blue Bibles that are provided there for you, you'll find that on page 261. We're continuing through Second Samuel this morning, last time and last week's passage, David showed. what our text calls kindness to Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, and that kindness had a happy result, as we saw last week. This week, David shows kindness, same word, to Hanun, king of Ammon, a country to the east of Israel, whose late father had shown kindness to David. This turned out to be a sort of misplaced kindness that David decided to show as sort of pearls before swine, if you will, because Hanun did not respect David as the Lord's anointed. He didn't seem to appreciate the kindness. And in fact, he went out of his way to provoke a war. So that's our text this week. Second Samuel, Chapter 10. Please follow along as I read God's holy word. After this, the king of the Ammonites died and Hanun, his son, reigned in his place. And David said, I will deal loyally with Hanun, the son of Nahash, as his father dealt loyally with me. So David sent by his servants to console him concerning his father. And David's servants came into the land of the Ammonites. But the princes of the Ammonites said to Hanun, their lord, do you think that because David has sent comforters to you that he is honoring your father? Has not David sent his servants to you to search the city and to spy it out and to overthrow it? So Hanun took David's servants and shaved off half the beard of each and cut off their garments in the middle at their hips and sent them away. When it was told David he sent to meet them for the men were greatly ashamed and the king said, remain at Jericho until your beards have grown and then return. When the Ammonites saw that they had become a stench to David, the Ammonites sent and hired the Syrians of Beth Rehob, and the Syrians of Zoba, 20,000 foot soldiers, and the king of Maacah with 1,000 men, and the men of Tob, 12,000 men. And when David heard of it, he sent Joab and all the host of the mighty men. And the Ammonites came out and drew up in battle array at the entrance of the gate. And the Syrians of Zobah and of Rehob and the men of Tob and Maakah were by themselves in the open country. When Joab saw that the battle was set against him both in front and in the rear, he chose some of the best men of Israel and arrayed them against the Syrians. The rest of his men he put in charge of Abishai, his brother, and he arrayed them against the Ammonites. And he said, if the Syrians are too strong for me, then you shall help me. But if the Ammonites are too strong for you, that I will come and help you be of good courage and let us be courageous for our people and for the cities of our God. And may the Lord do what seems good to him. So Joab and the people who are with him drew near to the battle against drew near to battle against the Syrians, and they fled before him. And when the Ammonites saw that the Syrians fled, they likewise fled before Abishai and entered the city. The Joab returned from fighting against the Ammonites and came to Jerusalem. But when the Syrians saw that they had been defeated by Israel, they gathered themselves together. And Hadadezer went, sent and brought out the Syrians who were beyond the Euphrates. They came to Helam with Shobak, the commander of the army of Hadadezer at their head. And when it was told David, he gathered all Israel together and crossed the Jordan and came to Helam. The Syrians arrayed themselves against David and fought with him, and the Syrians fled before Israel. And David killed of the Syrians the men of 700 chariots and 40,000 horsemen, and wounded Shobach, the commander of their army, so that he died there. And when all the kings who were servants of Hadadezer saw that they had been defeated by Israel, they made peace with Israel and became subject to them. So the Syrians were afraid to save the Ammonites anymore. Here ends the reading of God's holy word. Let's pray and ask for his blessing on it. Our gracious father in heaven, we give you glory that you saved your people Israel from an unprovoked attack. made by their enemies long ago. As we consider your word this morning, please strengthen us through the victory of our King, the Lord Jesus Christ, so that we ourselves might stand strong in every adversity. We ask it in his name. Amen. Well, there are plenty of ways, I suppose, to pick a fight. Tom Sawyer was fond of daring the other boy to knock a chip off his shoulder. That's the way he would do it. If two countries were going to pick a fight with one another, there could hardly be a more effective way to do it than what this king of the Ammonites, Hanun, did to David's diplomatic mission. He gave their robes a trim at the waist. Shocking. He also had half of their beards shaved. A little hard for us to grasp what all that meant, but if you can imagine in our own culture, if someone laid violent hands on a woman and shaved off half of her head. If you think about how degrading and insulting that would be, what an insult to her womanly dignity and grace. It would be a similar thing in this culture if someone took a man and shaved off half of his beard. A stunning event, a grave insult to his manly virtue and strength. Hanun was clearly signaling to David, I'm going to have a war with you. In this chapter of scripture, we have a little snapshot. A little snapshot of the dynamics of enemies attacking now in our day to day experience, when someone attacks us, whether a kind of personal sort of attack. Let's say, oftentimes we have knowingly or unknowingly contributed to the situation. We have perhaps incited them in some ways ourselves. And so we always have to ask the question, how did I contribute to this? What part in this do I need to own? And that complicates things for us, although it's very necessary to think that way. In this story, however, it's more simple than that. Here we have a case where you just have a plain old unprovoked, as far as I can see, attack. And so it gives us a very simple case to consider about dealing with others who act in an unfriendly way. When enemies attack, act with assurance that the battle belongs to the Lord. When enemies attack, act with assurance that the battle belongs to the Lord. That's the main thing we're going to see this morning. Here, God helps David, his anointed king, deal with a military threat against Israel. How much more will God help us who are joined to his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, when we are attacked and provoked? Three points this morning, which are really reflections on the significance of this passage for us in our situation. Three points. First, weigh your response. to provocation when you're provoked, be careful. By God's grace, do what's wise, weigh your response. Secondly, put your cause in God's hand and then thirdly, see even the opportunity in desperate attacks. So weigh your response to provocation, put your cause in God's hands and then see even the opportunity when you're attacked. First of all, since Jesus is your king, weigh your response to provocation very carefully. The Ammonites provoked David. What sort of people were these Ammonites? We could just call them bad people and leave it at that. We could kind of leave them as a sort of cardboard cut out of the wicked. But this chapter actually gives us it fills out the picture of the Ammonites just a bit. And we should see how how that so and what their character was like, because in life we will deal with people like this. And in fact, in life, we will find ourselves sometimes dealing with others like this. We ourselves, at times, can find a bit too much ammonite in ourselves. So let's look at what God is telling us about these people here. The Ammonites had what we could call a prideful and impetuous disposition, they were rash. Notice how quickly they forgot the historic goodwill between their late king and the King David. They either forgot it or they just don't regard it here. And notice the hastiness with which they come to this ill considered decision. To humiliate this embassy from David, I mean, just imagine if they had been just as evil But smarter, they could have, say, turned these turned these spies away as they thought they were with a courteous excuse, or they could have fed them some misinformation that would have served their purposes, or they could have tried to impress them with ammonite strength or something like that. Instead, they act rashly and provoke a war. Here we have undisciplined people. Then when they realized that they had bitten off more than they could chew, they rushed out to hire the Syrians. The Book of First Chronicles tells us that the cost of hiring the Syrians and their cohorts was 1,000 talents. Doing the math the best I can, in modern terms, that's $40 million, which is an expensive shave. But they didn't think about that, apparently, when they did what they did. Also, I think it's telling that when Joab faced the battle and he decided which way to face his prime troops, he faced them toward whom? The Syrians, apparently more of a threat. The Ammonites were doing battle in the gate of their city, where, if things went bad, they could just rush back inside the city, which is what they did. So we get a picture here of rash, undisciplined, proud, impetuous people. And if you analyze the Ammonites that way, you realize that their provocation actually came out of more weakness than strength. What I mean is inner weakness. Proverbs 25, 28 says a man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls. Here are these people, the Ammonites, with the sails of their pride, we could say fully spread to the wind and circumstances and their emotional responses to their circumstances, just driving them here and there. Into these very self-destructive choices. Self-destructive choices, of course, are common to a fallen humanity. They're not unique to the Ammonites. Lots of people make self-destructive choices. How do you put a stop to self-destructive choices? Some people think that in order to keep people from making self-destructive, harmful choices to keep them from hurting themselves, if you can remove societal evils and put people in a situation where it's in their best interest to act rightly, they will. That's kind of the utopian vision, right? Create a perfect society and then everyone will behave themselves. However, How can you account for human pride? How can you tell what pride is going to do? Pride can drive somebody in any old direction whatsoever. As the writer Des Troyesky said through one of his characters, people often knowingly act contrary to their own best interests. In fact, sometimes people find no greater pleasure than kicking everything to pieces because they want to, because they feel that way. So there's a prideful and disciplined spirit common in humanity that often acts contrary to one's own interests. That same spirit hurts others, too. Thousands of people would die before the Ammonites stunt ran its course. In Psalm 60, David expressed to God what this war was like for Israel. David writes in Psalm 60, verse three. You have made your people see hard things. You have given us wine to drink that makes us stagger. Here in this chapter, we read about battles that are summarized in just a sentence or two. These were hard times for Israel. These were climactic. Terrible battles. Proverbs 27, verse three, says a stone is heavy and sand is weighty, but a fool's provocation is heavier than both. So you can see what sort of people the Ammonites were and what effect their actions were having on themselves and on others. Let me ask you. Have you ever had anybody tie into you fairly or unfairly, perhaps because you're a Christian or perhaps for some other reason, somebody just comes at you or maybe you've heard people tie into the church and as a Christian, you felt implicated in that. Maybe you've had somebody use speech on you that was not redemptive or helpful or constructive at all, but aimed to shame you, humiliate you, confuse you, control you. That happens. If you can conjure up one of those things in your mind, were you provoked? Did you react with anger and fear? Did you act in a way that would really do credit to the fact that you have a king in heaven and a savior who's on the throne? How did you react? As you look at David's reaction here, you see that he seemed to be able to rely on God and keep things in perspective. The Ammonites had attacked his dignity to be sure, but what was his first move? He cared for those men whose dignity had really been affected, right? He sent messengers to them and told them to stay at Jericho until their beards had grown, until they had regained their face, as it were, in that society. And then it seems from verse seven that David waited until the Ammonites made the first move. Hiring the Syrians instead of acting first, he doesn't seem to have marched into their country in hot anger. But rather, he waited for them to further show their cards, and then he took action. His care, I suppose, probably preserved life. Where Hanun threw his people's lives away in his hasty anger, David, I think, preserved his people's lives by his careful consideration. By precisely not responding in kind. Now, we all are very different from David. You don't wear a crown, right? You don't command armies. Thank goodness. I say that for all of us. What a responsibility that would be. How difficult to have that kind of political rule. And yet all of us do at times deal with prideful and provoking people. Yet we want to deal with those people in a wise and measured way, in a godly way, instead of blowing up and responding in kind. Seeking to be equipped to do that. Let me just remind you, first of all, just to keep things in perspective. That if God were easily provoked, none of us would be here, would we? If God were easily provoked, none of us would be here. Because all of us provoke God in very many ways. Next week, we're going to read about David himself provoking God very greatly. We're going to read about David doing something even more extremely foolish and hurtful than what Hanun did to him. Yet God was patient with David as he is with all of us, his people. God does not himself quickly pull the trigger on us. But instead, in due time, God sent his only son to die for us, or I could put it a different way. With great deliberateness, with great deliberateness, God chooses to set aside our provocations and deal with us, not as our sins deserve, but in mercy and grace. Drawing us to the Savior, so we'll believe in him and be saved. God acts with that kind of measured approach and that sort of deliberativeness because he has greater purposes in view. If Jesus Christ has redeemed you, then you, too, should try to take the greater view. Try to think about more than how this is hurting me. But widen your view as David widened his view so he would care for these men, so he would care for his nation as a whole. Try to see where the glory of God lies, see how how you can act in a way that's good for other people in even in that situation, like David caring for those who were hurt. Also, as part of the bigger view, When we think about people who act in an unfair, provoking way, we need to realize the bondage of such people. With that person's undisciplined heart and his angry emotions driving him here and there in harmful ways. When we understand the bondage of a person like that. There's a couple implications that I think help us understand the situation. One implication is. And this may not be particularly comforting, but one implication is given the fact the person is in bondage and the Bible says like a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool returns to his folly, you'll probably have another chance to deal with the same person, right? Realize that you have time, you can stop. and pray and reflect and think about who this person is and what he needs and plan. So the next time you'll be better equipped to do to say whatever words or do whatever deeds or take whatever non actions are right at that time. So you'll get another chance. A second implication of a person being in bondage is just that you ought to feel compassion, a few compassion, even for victimizers, even for aggressors. simply because Christ Jesus has had pity on you. You look at people like the Ammonites and they're all twisted up inside like a pretzel. They're all snarled. It's not right inside. You can see that and have compassion and realize that you are just like them, apart from Christ and apart from the ongoing work of his Holy Spirit in your heart. So if you have an enemy, Right now, who is provoking you, you need to pray, ask, first of all, God. Don't let me get all twisted up inside and response, help me not to respond in pride and anger. And then, Lord, help me to understand this person and think about what the best thing is to do. And then, Lord, help me to help me to react in the right way when the right time comes. Whatever may be called for, whether. showing kindness to that person or confronting or letting it go or getting appropriate authorities involved, whatever may be the right approach. Lord, help me have wisdom to do to what needs to be done. OK, provocation, that's the first point, provocation and the need to respond in a measured way. So there's provocation and then there's the conflict itself. In verses seven to 14, the army of Israel faced two armies. But you see here how they put their cause in God's hands. The Ammonites had opened up their treasure chest. They had hired the local superpower. Mercenaries were coming into their country. So they're kind of puffing themselves up, kind of like a puffer fish. They're trying to expand themselves and make themselves more dangerous. When God's enemies team up, it shows One thing it shows is their individual weakness, but it also is a scary thing for the church. David prayed in Psalm 33, verse one, Oh, Lord, how many are my foes? How many are rising up against me? And we can think of many other instances in church history where foes have arisen against the Church of God and teamed up against her. Our Lord Jesus Christ himself faced a sort of evil teamwork. In the alliance that put him to death, there were the Jewish leaders who joined up with the Roman leaders. And Jesus felt the menace of those enemies joining forces. David foretold that experience poetically in Psalm 22, where Christ felt like he was being surrounded by dogs or by lions or by wild bulls. But as we consider the death of Christ at the hands of an evil coalition, It's actually very comforting to us in a couple of ways. First of all. We see that wickedness may link arms with others. Wickedness may threaten and menace. But wickedness is really empty at the core, and that's something that's very important for us to consider. God himself holds the power of life and death. When Jesus Christ knew this keenly, he said explicitly before he went to the cross, no man takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. He did it because it was the will of God. It was God's will that he die at that time, though in one sense, those wicked men did put him to death. Nevertheless, that was God's plan. He did it to fulfill God's love for us, to satisfy God's justice on our behalf. So that comforts us. It covers us, too, knowing that Jesus Christ has overcome death when when wickedness had done its worst on Jesus Christ. What happened? Jesus Christ rose from the dead with victory and with all power and authority. That's how powerful wickedness is. You see, it's hollow at its core. And in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we see God showing his power over against wickedness and showing us, yes, it's menacing, but it is nothing. compared to the power of God for our salvation. Joab, of all people, expresses this in an Old Testament kind of way in verse 12. He tells his brother Abishai to fight hard and may the Lord do what seems good to him. How different that is from, say, the attitude of King Saul, as King Saul was mortally wounded on the battlefield and said, kill me. The Philistines are coming. They're going to make sport with me and my life. So he couldn't trust God at all, even to the very end of his life. He could not trust himself into God's hands. But here, Joab says, may the Lord do what seems good to him. He puts himself in God's hands. There was a Scottish missionary in the 19th century named John Payton, who worked amongst cannibals in the South Pacific, and one night His enemies were looking for him and he was hiding in a tree and he stayed up in that tree and no, they didn't find him. And he reflected on that experience later and he said, I was greatly comforted knowing that I could not possibly leave this earth one moment sooner than God decided. Isn't that a comfort? And that's the sort of comfort that Joab is drawing on here. May the Lord do what seems good to him. You know, if someone attacks you personally, Or if someone fights against the church generally. It's up to you to both fight hard as Joe, I've encouraged Abish Abishai and commit your cause to the Lord. Don't misinterpret what I mean by fight hard, fight hard for you in your context, I primarily mean fight hard to stay faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ, to strengthen yourself in his word and his promises and do what's right in his sight. But then commit yourself. And as part of fighting hard, be ready to help your brothers in the struggle like Joab and Abishai were ready to help one another, but commit your cause to the Lord in the sense of not tying your hopes to any good outcome now. Does that make sense? Don't tie your hopes to any good outcome now, but say, as Joab said, may the Lord do what seems good to him. When wickedness goes to war, it's much more fragile, much more brittle like a vase because it ties the ego to a certain outcome. Right. I must be victorious. I must be vindicated. I must see people must see how right I am. Smash. But a humble trust in God is more like a steel spring. It can be smashed down, it can be stretched out, it can be bent over. If someone is trusting in the Lord and taking comfort in Jesus Christ, then there's a resilience there in that kind of humble faith that just relies on who God is for his people. When someone opposes you or provokes you, then I could brought it out and say when you're beset by any trouble whatsoever. Don't tie your encouragement to a certain outcome outcome happening. Don't think you need a certain thing to happen in order for you to be happy. Because you could be waiting a long time for that outcome. And it may never happen. And things on the contrary may get much worse. What are you going to do then? How long are you going to wait? How long are you going to wait to take encouragement in the Lord? When all that encouragement of who Jesus is for his people is right there for you, it's waiting for you to grab onto and be encouraged. So stop waiting for the sun to come out. It has already come out. If you only have eyes to see it, commit your cause to the Lord. What piece is there? And then finally, this morning, see the opportunities God gives even during times of attack and danger. In the final verses here, the Syrians gather themselves together to fight Israel one more time. The first time they fought for money. The second time they're really fighting for their reputation as a superpower and for their empire. And so they stake everything on this gigantic battle in which they now are calling in their allies. And David wins. Gaining not just the victory, but gaining all the satellite countries that used to be under the Syrian empire. And so David extends his control as far as the Euphrates River. God, in doing that, fulfilling his promise to Abraham in Genesis, chapter 15, verse 18. A simple point here, sometimes you may have an enemy who comes at you. Someone who put what I mean by enemy is someone who acts like an enemy. OK, I don't mean you make an enemy out of this person. Somebody comes at you in a very kind of aggressive way, seeming aiming to knock you down. Or sometimes the church itself may have an enemy, whether it be a government or an organization or individual who is attacking the church. But realize that when the fury of the enemy lands on the church. It really shows what wickedness cannot accomplish. Think about a case that you all know, we prayed earlier for Eritrea and you've heard about the Christians who are suffering, they're locked in the boxcars. What are they doing? They're confessing their faith in Jesus Christ. And what is happening to the church there? Well, they're suffering, but they're being upheld. And what's happening to us here in America when we hear those stories, are we discouraged and cast down? Well, we're sad, but aren't we strengthened and built up to ourselves, confess our faith? You see, when all the fury of wickedness lands on the church, God shows his power in what wickedness cannot accomplish. And for you at a personal level, when when when you find yourself in conflict, it creates an opportunity. It will probably show the thinness of your trust in Jesus Christ and it will drive you to repentance and it will hopefully help you to increase in godliness. You may have an opportunity to heap coals on the head of your enemy through kindness. You have an opportunity to display the love of Jesus Christ, even in a situation like that. And so what that person may have meant for evil, God means for your good. And I'll leave you with this. When you suffer an attack. Or you feel like you're being attacked, whether personally. As a Christian or for some other reason, or whether you feel attacked just being part of the church, there are two different visions about how you may respond. To that attack. The first is the negative vision, the one you don't want to have happen. And that is when someone provokes you and picks a fight, you respond in kind. It feels to you like a leopard just jumped on your back and you have to get him off by whatever means possible. And so you fight tooth for tooth, malice for malice, bitterness for bitterness, strategy for strategy, because you're going to win. You exercise no restraint. You engage in no prayerful contemplation of how to do good. You seize no opportunities. And so you fail, you fail to grow up into the image of Jesus Christ, and instead you become more and more like the person who is coming at you. You have, in the words of Proverbs 26, verse four, answered a fool according to his folly and become like him. That's one vision. I think in that horrific vision, we can recognize ourselves at times, can't we? We need God's words here because the story about David points us to another vision, and that is. If you suffer provocation. Then you need to realize that none of this has come about by accident. But just as God sent his son, Jesus Christ, into this world to suffer for you. And through many sufferings to gain victory for your sake, so the Lord Jesus Christ has decided. That he is going to display the power of Jesus Christ in your life by teaching you how to be godly in suffering, it's not an accident. And so by the power of the spirit. You respond to provocation with wise words and a measured response. You don't fight as though there is no God. You don't fight as if you're in wild desperation, but you commit your cause to the Lord and you see every attack as an opportunity for God to display his power to you and through you. Just remember, remember, friends. When evil has done all it can. It is only going to show its relative emptiness and weakness. compared to the power of God, which he displays through his son, Jesus Christ, and through his church. Amen. Let's pray and ask for God's blessing as we seek to understand this message from scripture. Dear Father in heaven, we pray that you'd help us to take heart in the victory of Jesus Christ. We see how you enable David To stand up against enemies who ganged up on him for no reason that we can easily understand. What's more, you equipped your son, Jesus Christ, to endure much greater suffering on the cross for our sake. Help us then, Father, as those redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ, to experience his victory in every conflict that we face. Help us not to fight desperately as though you're not there. that help us to conduct ourselves as those under the command of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. We ask it in Jesus name. Amen.