Chapter three, 2 Samuel chapter three. And tonight we're going to look not at the ambitious number of verses that I put in the bulletin, but I decided to pare back a little bit And so tonight we're gonna look at chapter three and verse six through 21. Now, let me tell you a little secret how I preach through the Old Testament. One of the things that I have a tendency to do is I have a tendency to look for Christ and you can do that by And I do that for a very specific reason, not because it's my own bent, I do that because Luke 24, Jesus says, he's in the Old Testament. And he's in the law, he's in the prophets, he's in the Psalms. And so I think it's a New Testament mandate that we look for Christ in the Old Testament. And so One of the things that I do is I try to take a large enough section of scripture to find Christ because sometimes when you look at the Old Testament, especially the prophets, you find a lot of judgment. So you have to stretch a little bit, maybe a couple of chapters to get both law and grace or judgment and mercy. And so I have a tendency to do that. I've selected a smaller portion of text tonight, not a couple of verses, but a few verses. And I've selected it, and it's going to be, if you're following my method, it's going to be disappointing. It's going to be hard to see Christ in the text this evening. And yet, he's there. And he's there in a very unique way, I think. And if maybe you can catch how I'm gonna bring out the Christology of the text, maybe you can come and tell me you caught it before I brought it out. But when I read this text, it will be, I think it'll be perplexing. But let's pray and then I'll say a couple of opening words and then read the text. Gracious God, we thank you for this day and for the blessing of Christ and for life in Christ. Lord, we come now this evening to rejoice in you once again. We're so thankful for the Lord's Day. We rejoice in it that you give us one day in seven wherein we can rest from our weekly labors, wherein we can fellowship with our families in ways that we wouldn't be able to do during the week, during the work week, and we're thankful that we can gather together with one another and fellowship in the morning and the evening when we worship, and Lord, we ask now that you will bless us as we gather together once again, placing ourselves under your word, asking that you would, by your spirit and the word, shape us according to Christ's image. And so, Father, we pray that you would do that which is pleasing in your sight, and we ask it in Jesus' name, amen. In the 1800s, almost all of the 1800s, actually. He was born in the late 1700s. But almost all of the 1800s, there was a man on the religious scene who was part of the Second Great Awakening who pretty much dominated the scene. And his name was Charles G. Finney. He was a Revivalist. In fact, he was chief among the revivalists. He had a pastorate in Oberlin, Ohio. He wrote a systematic theology that was what we might call Pelagian. And if you don't know what that means, simply put, the man basically denied original sin affects anybody but Adam himself. But that's not really why he's known so well. He's really known very well because he implemented some new measures in preaching. And one of the new measures that he instituted was the anxious bench. He wanted to get people off to the side after the sermon so that he could talk to them, so that he could preach to them, so that he could make them, as it were, anxious about their spiritual state so that they would work themselves or be worked up into a frenzy and that they would make a decision for Christ. And he did this because he was very naturalistic in his outlook. Now that doesn't mean that he didn't believe in God, but he believed that God was the architect who put together means by which one might Force, if I can put it that way, God's hand. Just listen to this quote about a revival. This is what Charles Grandison Finney said about a revival. He said, a revival is not a miracle or dependent on a miracle in any sense. It is a purely philosophical result of the right use of the constituted means. That's Finney. And you say, why in the world are we in the Old Testament talking about Abner and you're bringing up Charles Finney? Because I want you to know that if you did genealogy work, you would probably find, at least on the theological tree, that Abner is a great, great, great, great grandfather of Charles Finney. Because Abner believed very much like Finney believed. Through the right use of means, you could bring about, you could bring to fruition the divine promise. And I want you to hear that tonight as we read this text. As we take a look at 2 Samuel chapter three, and look at verses six through 21, I want you to listen for how Abner believes that he can bring about the promise of God. So let's turn to the text this evening, God's infallible and inerrant word. This is a word that is indeed a delight, and so listen to it. While there was war between the house of Saul and the house of David, Abner was making himself strong in the house of Saul. Now Saul had a concubine whose name was Rizpah, the daughter of Eah. And Ish-bosheth said to Abner, why have you gone in to my father's concubine? Then Abner was very angry over the words of Ish-bosheth and said, am I a dog's head of Judah? To this day I keep showing steadfast love to the house of Saul, your father, to his brothers, and to his friends, and have not given you into the hand of David, and yet you charge me today with a fault concerning a woman. God do so to Abner and more also if I do not accomplish for David what the Lord has sworn to him, to transfer the kingdom from the house of Saul and set up the throne of David over Israel and over Judah from Dan to Beersheba. And Ish-bosheth could not answer Abner another word because he feared him. And Abner sent messengers to David on his behalf saying, to whom does the land belong? Make your covenant with me, and behold, my hand shall be with you to bring over all Israel to you. And he said, good, I will make a covenant with you. But one thing I require of you, that is, you shall not see my face unless you first bring Michal, Saul's daughter, when you come to see my face. Then David sent messengers to Ishbosheth, Saul's son, saying, give me my wife Michal, for whom I paid the bridal price of 104 skins of the Philistines. And Ishbosheth sent and took her from her husband, Peltiel, the son of Laish. But her husband went with her, weeping after her all the way to Barhuman, when Abner said to him, go, return. And he returned. And Abner conferred with the elders of Israel, saying, For some time past you have been seeking David as king over you. Now then bring it about, for the Lord has promised David, saying, by the hand of my servant David, I will save my people Israel from the hand of the Philistines and from the hand of all their enemies. Abner also spoke to Benjamin. And then Abner went to tell David at Hebron all that Israel and the house of Benjamin thought good to do. When Abner came with 20 men to David at Hebron, David made a feast for Abner and the men who were with him. And Abner said to David, I will arise and go and will gather all Israel to my lord, the king, that they may make a covenant with you and that you may reign over all that your heart desires. So David sent Abner away and he went in peace. Now that's quite a text. But if I were to ask you, what's the theme? What's the main theme of this text? How might you respond to that? What would you say? I think if you gave it a little thought, you might put it like this. I think you might say that the kingdom of God will never be established by human effort. I think you could put it another way. I think you could say the kingdom of God will never be established by political maneuvering of the kind that Abner was engaged. In this text, you see Abner, the politician. And he's a little slippery, and he's a lot slimy. I want you to notice there are five references to the covenant. Five references to the covenant. either to the covenant that God made with David or a covenant between people or groups of people that will ensure the bringing about of God's covenant with David. And Abner is behind every reference. He's behind all five references. But here's the point I want to make, and I want you to see it this morning, or this evening, rather. I want you to understand that politics will not establish God's kingdom. God will establish God's kingdom. Politics will not establish His kingdom. God will establish His kingdom. I want us to look at an outline tonight, and I want us to look at a three-point outline. The first is this. I want us to notice the promise of God. That's a little general. I'm taking us a little bit outside the text to look at that. I'll tell you why in just a minute, but I want us to look at the promise of God. And then we're gonna look secondly at the power game of Abner. The power game of Abner. We could say the power grab of Abner, but whatever you want. And then after we look at the promise of God, the power game of Abner, we're gonna look at the poor guesswork of David. The poor guesswork of David. So let's look first of all at the promise of God. The promise of God. Now let me ask you children, if I were to ask you, and you don't have to, please don't say out loud, answer in your head, if I were to ask you what is a promise, what would you say? You would probably say something like this. You would probably say, and maybe not in these words as my wife will tell me after the service tonight, a declaration that you will do something in particular that you said you would do. That's a promise. You declare that you will do some particular thing and then you do it. That's what it is to make a promise. Well, God made a promise. And that promise that God made is listed twice in our text tonight. It's listed in verse nine. It's when Abner says, God do so to Abner and more also if I do not accomplish for David what the Lord has sworn to him, to transfer the kingdom from the house of Saul and set up the throne of David over all Israel and Judah from Dan to Beersheba. In other words, everywhere. And then in verse 18, in verse 18, Now then bring it about for the Lord has promised David saying, now listen to this, by the hand of my servant David I will save my people Israel from the hand of the Philistines and from the hand of all their enemies. Twice God's promise is referenced in this text. And in both cases they come from Abner. They're mentioned by Abner. In both cases, he is urging the notion that God's promise can be brought about, either by him in the first promise, in the first mention of the promise in verse nine, or the people of Israel in the second promise that he mentions. Now, I simply wanna pause for a minute and ask a very simple question. Is that possible? Is that the case that Abner or anyone else can bring about the promise of God? I want you to think about this grammatically for just a minute. Think about the little phrase, the promise of God. The of in that statement is a possessive. In other words, let me put it like this. Whose promise is it? It's God's promise. So the promise of God is God's promise. Now, I want you to think about that. If I make a promise to my wife, you can't bring it about. If I say to my wife, if I say, tomorrow we're going to go out to eat, I'm gonna take you out to dinner. And I'm away, and I can't fulfill that promise, and I call one of you up, and I say, will you take my wife out to eat? She'll be very glad to go out to eat with you, but you know what she'll say to me when I get home? You didn't fulfill your promise. You owe me. You can't fulfill my promise to my wife. It's my promise. You can't do it. Nor can Abner fulfill the promise of God that God made to David. It's God's promise. I want you to think about David in the best of moments. Think about him in the best of moments. Think about him fleeing from Saul and first Samuel. He's all over the place. In his best moments, he has opportunities to fulfill the promise of God himself and he doesn't do it. Remember when he's in the cave, and Saul is in there doing his business, and he cuts a piece of his robe off, and he shows Saul. After Saul comes out of the cave, he says, look, I could have killed you, but I didn't. And why wouldn't he? He wouldn't because he wouldn't raise his hand against God's anointed. Now, I want you to just reflect a little bit. You might ask yourself, well, How was God's promise to be fulfilled? Well, think about what happened at the end of 1 Samuel and what happened at the beginning of 2 Samuel. David did not orchestrate or engineer anything that brought about the demise of Saul and him being made king over Judah. He didn't do anything. In fact, he even resisted the idea that he could seize it. You remember what I told you, I said to you that here's this Amalekite holding out the staff and the crown of Saul, and we're not told in that text that David takes it. What we're told is that men from Hebron made David their king. David didn't do anything, at least not at that moment, to take the kingship. So how was he going to become king over the other tribes? I don't know. But I will tell you this, I will tell you that it was not Abner's prerogative to bring it about. Now Abner is functioning very much like the Amalekite at this point. And that's how we ought to see it. Now I want to stop and I want to say this to you because I think it's really important. We are dealing with redemption here. This is not just about a kingdom and a kingship of a materialistic nation in the Middle East. This isn't simply about a nation becoming a power. This is the promise of the gospel. And what we're to think about is we're to think about the unfolding gospel. And God has promised to bring about the gospel in due time. And so for instance, when he promised to Abraham that he would bring about the promise of the gospel. In Hebrews chapter six, you remember what it says. It says that he could swear by no one greater, and so his own character. And so God swore on an oath to bring about to Abraham the promise of redemptive history, the gospel. And so when God promised Abraham, when God promised David, we ought to trust God will bring it about. Because the promise is God's. And if we get that, then we can see through Abner. Because Abner is playing games. Abner is not waiting. Abner is not trusting God to bring David his kingdom. And that takes us to the power game of Abner. Before I start into this, we need to understand one thing. We need to understand that in this text, women are basically currency in this game. And I don't think we can avoid saying that or observing that. And I also don't think that we can avoid saying that there's a lot of wrong here in this text. The polygamy that, for instance, is in this text is wrong. There's a lot of, There are a lot of messed up lives in this very short set of verses, David included. And so the story opens and Abner's got his hand in the cookie jar. What's he done? Well, Abner has had a sexual, or it appears to have had a sexual relationship with Saul's concubine. Now this essentially means that he has the kingship. I mean, you remember when Solomon will take the throne? You remember his brother will say to his mother, Solomon's mother, Bathsheba, can I just have Abishag, just one of David's concubines? And his mother says, sure, take her. And Solomon says, you might as well have given him the kingdom. Or do you remember when Absalom drives his father David out of the city and then sets up with his concubines on the roof, showing everybody, the concubines are mine, the kingdom is mine. You see, that's the idea here. And so Abner gets caught with a concubine. And probably doesn't get caught with it, probably wants it known. I got the king's concubine. Because that's the path to the kingship. And Ish-bosheth says, hey, Isn't it interesting that their encounter starts off with, answer me this, but after the encounter, Ishebosheth can't answer a word. And so Abner is encroaching upon the throne. Now, that doesn't change the fact that Abner needs to respond to this accusation. And so he responds to the accusation. And he says, I have shown love to the house of Saul for a long time and this is what I get in return. Well, I'll tell you what I'm gonna do. Now, you gotta realize, think about this. It says in the opening of chapter three that the house of Saul is growing weaker and the house of David is growing stronger. And Abner is the military leader for the house of Saul. He knows things aren't going well. So he sees this as his opportunity for an out. And so he uses the promise of God. Now, you've met people like this. I've met people like this. I swear with God as my judge, they'll say. Or, God's my judge, you're not my judge. You know that sort of thing? Like they use God to their own ends. That's the way Abner was. God judge me and more if I do not accomplish for David what the Lord swore to him. Okay, so all of a sudden you're a pious man who's really concerned about the unification of all Israel. I got it. No, what you're really concerned about, Abner, is yourself. You see, it doesn't hurt to situate yourself in a good position as Saul grows weaker and as David grows stronger. And you can see this guy, you can see, just listen to the text that describe for us the force of this man's personality. I've read verse nine already, so I'll not read it again, but that's from Abner, who talks about the covenant that God made with David. But look now in verse 12, and Abner sent messengers to David on his behalf, saying, to whom does the land belong? Make your covenant with me. And then what does David say? David says, And he said, good, I will make a covenant with you, Abner. And then in verse 18, you find the same kind of statement about the promise of God. By the force of Abner's will, he is bringing about a covenant that will ensure the unity of Israel and Judah. He himself is bringing about God's purpose. Now think about this. It wouldn't be so bad, maybe, if Abner wouldn't say things like, trust yourself to me and to what I'm doing. But this is all Abner's power grab. And we ought to see that. We can't miss that. So God is the one who brings about his own promises. Abner is forcing the hand of David to not wait upon the Lord, but to seize the moment and for Abner's own good. And that leads us to the poor guesswork of David. I wanna remind you of something. I wanna remind you of the first five verses of chapter three. In the first five verses of chapter three, we find a list of David's wives. Now, let me remind you, just a few of these wives. We find Abigail, who's from Judah, and Ahinoam, who's a Jezreelite from Israel, and Makkah, who is of Geshur. She's a Gentile. Now, I told you the last time we were together and thought about this text that these are political marriages. In other words, what David is doing is he's surrounding Israel in the north. These are political maneuvers. Now think about that. So here you have Abner who reaches out to David and says, hey, I wanna make a covenant with you. I wanna make a covenant with you and I wanna deliver the kingdom into your hand. And what does David say? Great, I've got one stipulation. I want Makkah. I want my first wife. You know, the one I paid all of those Philistine foreskins for. Yeah, bring her. I find that odd. And if you read across the spectrum, you'll find different reasons, because no one really knows, why it was that David wanted Macaw back. Why would he want her back? It seems to me he had three options. He could have, first of all, considered her an adulteress. She was after all given to another man because he had to flee from her father Saul, and so when she turned on him, he could have said she's an adulteress. He could have given her a divorce according to Deuteronomy 24, or he could have asked for her back. And Deuteronomy 24 wouldn't have applied because he didn't technically divorce her. Now why in the world would he ask for her back? You say, oh, romantic love. Now it is true, it is true that we're told at least twice in 1 Samuel, she loved him. But I'm a little bit dubious of romantic love being an answer at this stage in the game. Because I think romantic love is kind of a later development. Richard Bacter says it was a mild form of insanity, that sort of thing. So I'm a little bit hesitant to say it was romantic love. I think it was politics. I think that Saul's daughter was Saul's daughter. And I think that David had married her. And that marriage indicated that David was the heir to the throne. I think it was politics. I mean, it's interesting, isn't it? It is interesting that you find her husband following her, weeping all the way to the point where Abner says, go home. David, in the first time he introduces her, doesn't mention her as his wife. He just says, you know, the one I bought the foreskins with, you know? Bring my wife. So it's a little bit, it's a little hard to attribute it to romance. It's a lot easier to attribute it to politics. Because Abner knows David's passion. David's passion wasn't to get his wife back. David's passion was for a united kingdom and you see it. It says, if you look in verse 21, and Abner said to David, I will arise and go and will gather all Israel to my Lord the King that they may make a covenant with you and that you may reign over all that your heart desires. There we're told the desire of David was the unification of Israel, not for his wife. Besides, he had other wives. In fact, when you look at 1 Samuel, chapter 25, what's interesting is, in 1 Samuel, chapter 25, within two verses, we're told an interesting thing. In verse 43, David also took Ahinoam of Jezreel, and both of them became his wives. This is Abigail and Ahinoam. And then in the very next verse, Saul had given Micahel, his daughter, David's wife, to Palty, the son of Laish, who was of Gollum. David's passion was already for the United Kingdom. But the question is, what about David's prayer life? If you look at this text, not one place do you find him consulting the Lord. Now at the beginning of the war, at the beginning of all of this, we find in chapter two after this, David inquired of the Lord. In fact, twice. But now there's no inquiry of the Lord. Lord, should I make this covenant with Abner? Is this what you want me to do? None of that here. And it's at this very point, I think, that we see Christ. How do you see Christ in all this? It's hard. But I think I would say to you that when you think about the first five verses, and when you think about McCall, when you think about what's going on here, you think to yourself, Christ who is the greater son of David is a better husband than David ever was. This is not the kind of treatment as the bride of Christ that we receive from the bridegroom. We're not political instruments in the hand of our Redeemer. We're sons and daughters. We're a beautiful bride that he's gonna present to his father. We are the bride for whom he died. And that brings us to this table this evening, doesn't it? Because this table is a foretaste of the marriage supper of the Lamb. When our bridegroom will return with the clouds of heaven and we'll see him, every eye will see him. It's at that point that we're going to see our husband, our Lord, and he's going to rescue us finally and fully from the hardships and the trials that we experience day to day. It's at that moment that he'll wipe away our tears. The tears that he's been keeping in a bottle, says the psalmist. And he'll rescue us. I think that we see a better husband in our Lord than we do in David. And I think it's in that disjunct that we see Christ himself presented in a beautiful way, especially when we look at texts like Ephesians chapter five. So as we come to the table tonight, let's come and remember that the bridegroom, our Lord Jesus Christ, is the better husband, who loves us and desires our holiness, desires to know us and for us to know him in an intimate way, and has given to us by union with him his righteousness. He's restored the image that was lost in the fall. He is a beautiful husband. Father in heaven, we're thankful for this time that we have together and for your word. Lord, as we gather Lord's Day by Lord's Day and as we're reminded of the gospel in various and new ways in the scriptures, we just ask that you would continue to impress the wonder of Christ upon our minds. And we pray, Father, that you would inflame our hearts with love for him and that you would indeed strengthen us and encourage our hearts that we might continually strive and reach for the heavens where he is seated and indeed where we are seated even now. So Father, we pray that you'll bless us and you'll strengthen us by that same grace in Jesus' name. Amen.