Please turn in your Bibles to 2 Samuel chapter 20. We are now back into the Women of Faith series. 2 Samuel chapter 20, and we'll begin reading at verse 14. And he went through all the tribes of Israel to Abel and Bethma'aka and all the Baraites. So they were gathered together and also went after Sheba. Then they came and besieged him and Abel of Bethma'aka, and they cast up a siege mound against the city, and it stood by the rampart. And all the people who were with Joab battered the wall to throw it down. Then a wise woman cried out from the city, here, here, please say to Joab, come nearby that I may speak with you. When he had come near to her, the woman said, are you Joab? He answered, I am. Then she said to him, here are the words of your maidservant. And he answered, I am listening. So she spoke, saying, they used to talk in former times, saying, they shall surely seek guidance at Abel. And so they would end disputes. I am among the peaceable and faithful in Israel. You seek to destroy a city and a mother in Israel. Why would you swallow up the inheritance of the Lord? And Joab answered and said, far be it, far be it from me. that I should swallow up or destroy. That is not so. But a man from the mountains of Ephraim, Sheba, the son of Bichri by name, has raised his hand against the king, against David. Deliver him only and I will depart from the city. So the woman said to Joab, watch, his head will be thrown to you over the wall. Then the woman in her wisdom went to all the people, and they cut off the head of Sheba, the son of Bichri, and threw it out to Joab. Then he blew a trumpet, and they withdrew from the city, every man to his tent. So Joab returned to the king at Jerusalem." Father, we thank you that every portion of your word is intended for our edification. And I pray that we would grow as a result of looking at this, your scripture, in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, if there is one thing that characterizes this nameless woman, it would be peacemaking. She was a peacemaker in an incredibly tense situation, and I think there is a lot that we can learn about peacemaking from her. The text obviously treats her as a model because it calls her wise two times. Wisdom is to be imitated. And so by inspiration, we know that she is a model, and not just a model on peacemaking. She was a model on initiative, courage, tact, diplomacy, decisiveness, and other issues. And those can all be marvelous tools in a woman's tool chest or tool bag, as the case may be. Another thing to be noted about her is that she did not have the same tunnel vision that we men sometimes tend to have. Men tend to be so goal-oriented that they can sometimes miss out on alternative solutions. with strengths, and there are strengths that men have in this regard, there are weaknesses, we really need each other. But what was the obvious alternative solution? Well, Deuteronomy 20 commanded Israel's armies to offer peace and to dialogue with the city before they declared war against it. But Joab had been so focused on his goal of squashing the rebellion that he failed to do so. And she very tactfully reminds him of this fact. For Joab, this city was an obstacle to a goal, and so squashing the city like a bug seemed like the logical thing to do. And the people of the city see Joab as a threat, and so they're hunkering down into a win-lose situation, hoping that they'll be on the winning side. But this amazing woman rejects that false binary approach that people tend to have. It's either this or this, and she's looking outside the box to see if there isn't some possible alternative solution. She knows that the options are going to be very narrow and closed once the war is done, so she took the initiative to seek an alternative solution while there was still some room for negotiation. And the more I've studied this woman, the more I really appreciate and love this woman. So I'm presenting her to you this morning, not just as a model woman. She is that on many, many levels, but also as a model peacemaker. And I think there's a lot that we could learn from her. So we're going to go through the passage phrase by phrase. First thing that we see is that you can't be a peacemaker if you don't engage with the other person in some kind of verbal dialogue, either written or oral. That should be obvious. But it has to be a very specific kind of verbal dialogue because otherwise we can mess things up. What I want to do is break this apart and show how the wisdom was demonstrated in her. Verse 16 begins, then a wise woman cried out from the city. She obviously thinks it's nuts to just wait for the inevitable to happen. And she takes the initiative. Nobody else is acting. And so she just feels she has to at least say something. Maybe nothing will come of her saying it, but she has to at least say something. And I'll grant you that there are people who take initiative, who actually make matters worse. And so this point by itself does not guarantee peacemaking. it sometimes can be peace-breaking. So the word wise is an essential adjective in your outline. It was a wise initiative. And let me define the term initiative for you. Initiative involves four things. It's doing the right thing without being told to do it, and doing it in a proactive fashion, and despite perhaps not knowing whether there's going to be recognition or knowing if there's going to be anything good that will come from that. And we need to teach this to our children. Initiative is an absolutely indispensable tool if we are going to be successful. So let me define that again. Initiative is doing the right thing without having to be told to do it in a proactive manner and doing it despite discouraging prospects. All through the sermon, I'm going to be making some side applications, and I'm going to do that right now. We've seen in this series, and this is number 27, I believe, of the series. We've seen that being a submissive woman does not mean you are a passive woman. Proverbs 31 was a clear demonstration of that. She was anything but passive. I like what Mary Kay Ash said on this subject. She said, there are three types of people in this world. Those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wonder what happened. And here was a woman who made things happen without ceasing to be wise. That's the key thing. And sometimes women second guess themselves whether they have the authority to actually take initiative. And I'm going to embarrass my wife by using her in yet another illustration. and this time illustrating her for initiative. My wife knows my desires and passions, and she knows what my desires are for the family. The philosophy of the family is clearly laid out. We talk about the budget every year. She knows the desires that I have. And so, because of that, she can make snap decisions when I'm not available and do it in a way that she knows will be pleasing to me. She anticipates what I want, even if I have not necessarily thought about it myself. Now, some of you have recently been reading the book Traction. Joel introduced it to me recently. Kathy and I are both reading through that. What a marvelous book on business. But I think that there's principles in there that could be applied to the family. And obviously, you can't hire and fire your family members. So there's some things in there absolutely will not be applicable. But there's a lot of principles I think we could apply very fruitfully to our families. What I'm going to do, one of the key things in that traction book. is the importance of having the right people in the right seats and not micromanaging them. And the results immediately are increased output from combined effort. Now we call this synergy, and we've talked about synergy quite a number of times in the past, so I'm not going to repeat what I had to say back there, but let me use an illustration that I've not used before. I was reading about this experiment on synergy where one thread held up one pound, make sure I get my facts here, and you would expect three threads to hold up three pounds, but instead they were able to hold up between eight and nine pounds, and six threads wound together multiplied that effect. The more threads there were, the more multiplication was there. That's a kind of synergy. We looked at the team of horses before on synergy, so I won't get into that again. The ideal marriage is a marriage that has synergy, where the man and the woman can get much more accomplished together than they would have accomplished should they have been single. And why do they accomplish more? Because of the economic principles of synergy, division of labor, specialization, and initiative. And because I've dealt with this adequately in the past, I won't get into it. But I do want to examine this woman's godly initiative. I want to show how it was not an independent initiative that undermines leadership. And the proof can be seen in the fact that the leaders unanimously agreed with her idea in verse 22. She had anticipated the desires of the leadership rather well even though they themselves had not thought of this idea. And that's the kind of woman that you want to have side-by-side with you. You don't have to micromanage her. You know that her initiative is always going to be engaged in your best interests. And this was true, even though this was an extremely stressful situation. I love this woman. She's just like my wife. Well, actually, my wife doesn't throw heads over walls, but in some ways, she is like my wife, I should say. She's not just like her. But she anticipated, you know, just like my wife, she anticipates my desires, takes initiative without having to be told to do so, and yet she is in total submission to me. And in conflict resolution, people of initiative are indispensable because they can take the needed action at just the right time, the opportune time. In real life, you don't have a perfect schedule. You don't. It's impossible. There are constant interruptions, and God is bringing into your life divine opportunities that we need to take advantage of. So we've got to be flexible, even when we've got a schedule we're trying to follow, to take advantage of those. And that brings me to the second sub-point, under trying to make contact. Sometimes this takes courage and boldness. With arrows flying through the air, soldiers had to be very careful about sticking their heads up above the wall, and yet somehow this woman found a person who was somewhat isolated from the rest of the army. I don't think she was at the place where they're battering down the walls, but somehow she found a person who gone off, who knows for why, going to the bathroom, or some reason or another, he had strayed off to some other place, and she would not have the opportunity to go to the leaders of the city and say, hey, is it okay if I talk with this person? She had to, at that moment, take advantage of this opportunity, and she yells out, So there is initiative, but there's also boldness and some risk in doing this. Sometimes being a peacemaker can make you a bit nervous. I shared with you before, one time back at the previous church, Trinity Press, I had to engage in an intervention on behalf of a woman who was being very severely abused by her husband. And I was calm, I was very calm, but I was forceful with him that what he was doing was illegal, but more importantly, it was against the law of God. Well, he got extremely, flew into a rage, tried to punch me in the head. And I told him, look, you can beat me up, but as a pastor, I am here to tell you that you must not do this. And that got him even more angry. But by God's grace, over a period of time, I was able to calm him down. He repented and we were able to make some progress on peacemaking, specifically on his temper. He had never been trained how to control his anger. And the Bible gives us clear points on that point is sometimes it takes boldness and courage to be a peacemaker. It takes using the illustration here. It takes boldness to stick your head up above the wall of the city when the arrows are flying. And if we're too timid, we're less likely to be good peacemakers. The third sub-point under trying to make contact is that there are times where we have to involve others. We can't do it by ourselves. She couldn't find Joab and get his attention, so she yells at the soldier, here, here, please say to Joab, come nearby that I may speak with you. Now, in some circumstances, this would be considered to be meddling. And if the leaders had already been engaging in some kind of negotiation with a white flag of negotiation, it would have been meddling. It would have been utterly inappropriate for her to engage in her own independent. In fact, it could be a kind of rebellion against the leadership. But what she was doing was trying to act in a way that would not undermine the leadership, and yet recognizing that the leadership either didn't have the opportunity to do this, or for some reason had not thought to do so. She tries to conscript help. She yells for a person to bring Joab over. I have no idea why this soldier bothered to listen to her, but there was something about her that maybe got his attention, and he did listen. The woman then tried to gain a hearing with Joab, and it's so important that we try to gain a hearing when hostilities have made people unwilling to listen to each other. It takes effort and EQ and verbal wisdom to gain a hearing. Verse 17. When he had come near to her, the woman said, are you Joab? He answered, I am. Then she said to him, hear the words of your maidservant. And he answered, I am listening. So in that verse, she's accomplished the main goal of point number one, try to gain a hearing. They may not want to listen to you, but try to gain a hearing anyway. It may take courage, it may take initiative, but in her case, it also took humility. She did it without arrogance. She said, hear the words of your maidservant. That's a very humble and self-effacing statement. Humility de-escalates tensions. You're much more likely to gain a hearing with a person when you approach them with humility. and not with anger or with arrogance. I am your maidservant. I'm here basically to serve your interests. And so that's Roman numeral number one, try to gain a hearing. But the fact that she was humble did not mean that she was servile or that she lacked confidence. And that is Roman numeral number two. I think it was her very confidence that gained her a hearing. And we'll look at verses 18 through 21 in more detail in a little bit. But I do want you to notice three things about her speech that made Joab take her seriously. First of all, she speaks with authority. Now, she obviously had no personal authority, no positional authority over Joab himself, but the way she is talking, she is representing an authority that comes from God himself, okay? First thing that gave her a sense of authority is she knows what she's talking about. She knows that she is right. Let's read through verses 18 through 21 in one fell swoop, and then I'll comment on it. So she spoke, saying, they used to talk in former times, saying, they shall surely seek guidance at Abel. And so they would end disputes. I am among the peaceable and faithful in Israel. You seek to destroy a city and a mother in Israel. Why would you swallow up the inheritance of the Lord? And Joab answered and said, far be it from me that I should swallow up or destroy, that is not so. But a man from the mountains of Ephraim, Sheba, the son of Bichri by name, has raised his hand against the king, against David, deliver him only and I will depart from the city. So the woman said to Joab, watch, his head will be thrown to you over the wall. How could she be so confident? How could she speak with such authority? Well, think about it. If the leaders were presented with an alternative, kill Sheba, or face the possibility that every male in this city will be killed, what are they going to choose? I think it's pretty obvious that they're going to choose the former. And so this was not an ill-founded confidence. She knew what her leaders would want, and it's being in tune with what they would want that enabled her to speak with such authority. Now let me use an illustration of the difference between confident initiative that is not under authority versus confident initiative that is under authority. At our previous church, there was a woman who was married to a military man who would be deployed for months at a time. She said to me, she didn't have any problem with my sharing this story, and I've shared it once before. Anyway, the woman asked my wife for counsel on how to deal with conflict in her marriage. She said every time he comes back, we've got like a month of just nonstop arguing, conflict. And as my wife started to probe, she discovered that this woman saw every time her husband left, saw herself as in charge. Every time her husband came back, then she would see her husband as being in charge. And she'd have to adjust the way that she did things. Every time she came back, there was this period of adjustment and conflict. And it wasn't that either way of doing things was wrong, it's just they were different ways of doing things. Anyway, Kathy told the woman that when I, Phil, am gone, and I used to be gone quite a bit on missions trips, She still saw me as being in charge, and she would do things the way that I wanted those things to be done. And she taught our kids to do exactly the same thing. Whenever our kids would get out and do jobs, we would tell them, anticipate what your boss would want done, and take the initiative. Do it before you're even asked. Show yourself to be indispensable to your boss. Anyway, because Kathy always acted as if I was in charge, whether I was present or not, her behavior never changed. whether I was present or not. Now, there might be some things she might have to ask my guidance on, but for the most part, she knew what my leadership would want, and there was no period of adjustment when I came back. Well, this woman, she told a woman, just act like you're a helpmate all the time, okay? That you're here anticipating what your husband would want. It was just a small adjustment, she willingly did that, and that completely resolved her problems. There were no more adjustments that needed to be made. So even though in both situations she was taking initiative with confidence and with skill, the first was initiative not under authority. The second was initiative that was under authority. It's a very subtle difference, but it does make a huge difference in reality. And I believe this woman's confidence was not an independent confidence, but a confidence in knowing exactly what the city leaders would want. The second thing that gave her confidence was that she knew Joab had violated God's law, and what she is asking for is exactly what Deuteronomy 20 mandated anyway. Deuteronomy 20 mandated that when you go to war against a city, even a pagan city, you have to dialogue with that city. And the commentators point out that this is one of two things implied in her phrase. They used to talk in former times saying they shall surely seek guidance at Abel, and so they would end disputes. Now, obviously, it's giving a historical fact that Abel used to be a place where people would go to resolve very, very tough disputes. Some people say it's maybe a prophetic center, maybe a lot of Levites there. We're really not told, and there's debate on that. They get the idea of that from the phrase, mother to Israel. Is this city filled with people that had prophetic ability? We're not told on that. But what she is saying very, very politely is this. Why did you declare war without ever talking to the leaders of the city, without ever asking for their counsel? That's what people used to do. That's what people used to do. So, Deuteronomy 20 mandated talking to the city before you declare war against it, even if it's a pagan city, how much more so a city within Israel, and how much more so a very faithful city that has been a mother to Israel and has been the place that has resolved disputes in the past. Some commentators believe it's almost certain that Deuteronomy 20 was in the background of her thinking. So, knowing God's Scripture gave her authority. There have been times when I've had to confront a person about sexual immorality or some other thing, especially two people I remember at our former church. He used to tell me, they got the message eventually, but they used to tell me, you know, the Bible says, judge not that you be not judged. And my response to them was, oh, I'm not judging you, God is. I'm just telling you what God thinks. And we're both sinners, we're both under God's judgment, but we both need to listen to what God's word has to say. And I would repeat that, God says, God thinks that what you're doing is wrong. And so even when you have zero positional authority over another person, 1 Peter 4, chapter 4, verse 11 says that we need to speak as the oracles of God, as the way New King James translates, or as the mouthpiece of God. Well, how does a wife do that with her husband without undermining his authority? Well, she meekly tells him, husband, I don't think the Bible says we ought to do that. Let me share a Scripture with you. Could we at least talk about this, dialogue about this?" And she shares the Scripture. Well, when you share the Scripture, you have all the authority of God backing you up, even though you have zero positional authority. And so that's what we're talking about here. Peacemaking is not just telling people to quit fighting and to be nice. OK, that's humanism. Biblical peacemaking is approaching the conflict from the objective status of knowing the truth and standing on the side of the truth. And too much peacemaking out there ignores the truth and sweeps sin under the carpet because it values peace more than it values truth. Ken Sandy would say that's not peacemaking, that's peace faking. Okay, so she had confidence because she knew she was right. And secondly, she had confidence because she had the Scripture backing her up on this, Deuteronomy 20. The third thing that gave her confidence is she was seeking something that was actually in Joab's best interests and in Israel's best interest. Verse 19, I am among the peaceable and faithful in Israel. You seek to destroy a city and a mother in Israel. Why would you swallow up the inheritance of the Lord?" Now that verse there implies three things. according to commentators. First of all, it implies that a Christian nation should not be fighting against a Christian city. That's not the way God intended it to be. It's not in the country's best interest. Second, by calling the city of Abel a mother to Israel, she was probably making reference to the protective status that Abel has had down through its history. Now, it may have some other implications of being a prophetic center as well. There's a lot of debate on whether that's true. But it was way up there on the north of Israel, and Abel was like a protective city. It bore the brunt of all the invasions that came into Israel. And so she's basically saying, you don't want to get rid of a city that's one of David's key protective cities. up there, defensive cities. There is debate on the meaning of the term, but there is no debate whatsoever on the implication that you shouldn't be attacking your mother, okay? You need your mother. It's not in your best interest to attack your mother. And then the third thing, she had confidence in speaking to Joab. was that God had given the tribe of Dan this city as an inheritance and it was not for the taking by any other tribe. Why are you eating up, why are you swallowing up something that does not belong to you? If the Lord has given this as an inheritance to us, you are obviously out of the will of the Lord by fighting against this city, trying to take it from us. Now she obviously was not aware of the fact that Sheba had engaged in rebellion against against David. Sheba may have told the city a totally different story, probably had. But in any case this represents her initial shock that Israel would attack and try to take away a part of the inheritance of the tribe of Dan. But the point is She knows what she is saying is right. A peacemaker cannot go into a peacemaking situation without having confidence in the rightness of doing so. Some of the peacemakers that America sends to other countries, they're in a tough bind because the peace that they're trying to negotiate is not a defensible peace because we're not in the right. We're the aggressors. It's really hard to convince people to be at peace when you're not in the right. If Abel had started this war, She probably would have made zero progress with Joab. If all she was interested in was her own skin, she may not have made any progress. If she had been timid about this, she may not have had any progress. But her confidence in God's Word and that a resolution could be achieved won the day. Now the third major thing that her speech accomplishes is that it's trying to build a basis for trust. Why should Joab trust her? Why should Joab trust the city of Abel? Well, verses 18 through 19 show three additional things that formed a basis for trust. She told Joab of Abel's history of wisdom. They used to talk in former times, saying they shall surely seek guidance at Abel, and so they would end disputes. The city had been a trusted place for wise counsel, and specifically for wise counsel related to disputes. And we're in a dispute here, so why don't we parley? There's plenty of reason to trust negotiations just based on our track record, on our history of reconciling disputes. Okay, so she's appealing to a good track record. I've known people who have been involved in or who have requested to be involved in peacemaking attempts. But based on their track record of creating constant conflict, they were not good candidates at all, not at all. I had a pastor from a PCUSA church approach me quite a few years ago, and he had a flyer in his hand, and he wanted me to advertise his counseling services. And he said, could you provide as many tracks as you need? How many members do you have? You have several hundred, I can give you several hundred tracks. And I said, what's this about? He said, well, I've started a new, no longer a pastor, I've started a new counseling ministry. Well, I almost laughed out loud when I saw the chief qualification that he had at the top of why he's empathetic and going to be a good counselor for marriage troubles. It was that he had been divorced three times. And I thought, wow, what a track record here. And and when I did a little bit more digging, I found out he had been fired from his position as a pastor because of sexual shenanigans with his secretary. OK, when you're when you have a track record of creating trouble, you know, avoid that peacemaker like the plague, right? They don't have the experience. But Abel did have a track record you could trust. So, to review, first of all, Abel had a track record of wisdom, so it's not just a youngster, an inexperienced person who's engaging in counsel here. Second, it had a track record of actually settling disputes very successfully. Said, and so they would end disputes. In other words, very, very successful. So she is saying, look, within this city are the resources that are needed to handle any conflict, including the conflict that we're dealing with right now. Thirdly, she herself was a woman committed to being faithful to the Lord and pursuing peace. She said, I am among the peaceable and faithful in Israel. So if she's among the peaceable and faithful of Israel, there are a whole bunch of other people in this city who share her concern for good peacemaking principles, right? There is people you can trust to not just wage a war, but to be peacemakers. And so, in effect, she is encouraging Joab not to engage in the fallacy of guilt by association. Sure, there may have been some reason for you to fight, but don't assume that all of us agree with that reason, that we even know about that reason. It really is a veiled rebuke to Joab but she frames it in a way that forms a basis for trust. Now there's Hebrew metaphors in here that we who are thousands of years later have a hard time. Once you understand the metaphors though it's a very cool speech, very convincing speech. Now there's a fourth dynamic that I see for peacemaking in this passage. And it's that she is trying to appeal to the common interests that they both had. She didn't just focus on what was right and what was wrong. She tried to find out what is driving Joe Wabb. Why, you know, what's going on here? Trying to figure out a way of meeting his goals and still meeting the city's goals. Finding common ground is one of the key principles for peacemaking in Ken Sande's book. By the way, it's the best book, the first picture in your outline. Best book on peacemaking I have discovered out there, and I've read quite a few. Really, really good book. How can we both have our central aims achieved rather than making this a win-lose situation? Now, I'll be honest with you, there are times where you can't have a win-win situation. It's going to be win-lose or even a lose-lose. A lot of times it's lose-lose, okay? But you try for a win-win situation. She says, you seek to destroy a city and a mother in Israel, why would you swallow up the inheritance of the Lord? Now, whatever she meant by that, and there is debate, it must have struck a chord with Joab because he immediately responds, far be it, far be it from me that I should swallow up or destroy. I mean, he's almost like he's taken aback by what she is accusing him of. Even Joab was not guilty of desiring to destroy just for the sake of destruction. He was always goal oriented. So he must have realized he was partly in the wrong on this, but he also realizes she is mistaken. She needs to be corrected in her information. His goal was to do away with rebellion and to seek the peace of the nation. And so she was able to appeal to a common desire between both parties. And in the past, I've shared a number of stories, and how that can actually be achieved. One of the probably most frequently shared ones was when I was in the PCA in 1994, where it seemed like it was irresolvable, and the whole denomination was going to bust apart. But other people, instead of looking at a win-lose binary thinking, they looked at a different solution, and it was almost unanimously accepted. and I've given other stories that I won't get into this morning, but that's what you're looking for. Second, she is saying that Joab had a vested interest in the future survival of this city. And that's a very important thought. If this city is really a mother in Israel, Israel will be hurt if the mother is hurt. Now, again, we gotta be honest that these kinds of negotiations don't always work out as you had planned because pride can make people cut off their nose to spite you, you know? I mean, they will do self-harm just out of pride or anger. There's so many things that can get in the way of a genuine resolution. R.L. Dabney gave an account of a delegation from the South that was begging Abraham Lincoln to consider a compromise so as not to go to war. Colonel Baldwin, representing the South, assured Lincoln that he would not have to compromise his views on the Union and sought to convince Lincoln that they had the votes to eventually make reunion possible if he would only concede the unconstitutional part that was at issue. Colonel Baldwin said this, only give this assurance to the country in a proclamation of five lines. And we pledge ourselves that Virginia and with her, the border states will stand by you as though you were our own Washington. So sure am I of this and of the inevitable ruin, which will be precipitated by the opposite policy that I would this day freely consent. If you would let me write those decisive lines, you might cut off my head where my life, my own the hour after you signed them. He was offering his life in exchange for his country going to war and guaranteeing union could be achieved without war if they could only get rid of the unconstitutional issue that was so harming the South. So Colonel Baldwin was engaging in exactly this kind of negotiation by showing what was at stake for both nations. Just the bloodshed alone would have been horrible, horrible. And what would be beneficial to both sides? Now, unfortunately, Lincoln adamantly refused any compromise, flippantly saying, what then would become of my tariff? And so there are no guarantees that peacemaking will work. But appealing to common interest can sometimes be an effective strategy. And in the case of Joab, we've seen already that it did work. In verse 20, Joab says he had no interest in destroying Abel or swallowing up their inheritance as if it belonged to him. That was not his intent. Then in verse 21, we see a narrowing down of the discussions to what the real problem was. And you will never have peacemaking if you don't have this point. Too many times peripheral issues are constantly discussed and never get to the real issue. Those peripheral issues cloud the discussions. Joab was treating Abel's closed gates as being the real problem. It was a peripheral issue. The citizens of Abel were treating Joab's aggression as being the real problem. That was really a peripheral issue. It suddenly dawns on Joab that she doesn't know. And the whole city must not know that Sheba had been in rebellion, is trying to destroy this nation. And he tells her what the real problem is. Now it's too bad Joab hadn't thought to do this earlier. But he says, Now let's assume that the city had 20,000 people in it. By fighting against the city, Joab is generalizing the problem to be 20,000 strong. After these negotiations, they whittled the problem down from 20,000 to one problem. It's just Sheba. And since they both had narrowed things down to agree to the same problem, they could come to a resolution. Now, in the story I told you about Colonel Baldwin and Abraham Lincoln, they couldn't narrow things down to one problem that they could agree on. They still had disagreements on the central problem. Lincoln For the South, it was the survival of the Constitution that was at stake. And for Lincoln, it was money and maintaining the union. One eyewitness quoted Lincoln as saying, if I do that, what will become of my revenue? I might as well shut up housekeeping at once. Now, in my view, Lincoln's unconstitutional philosophy was the Sheba. Now, that's a story for another time. And I'm sure that David Dirksen would be happy to discuss it with you if you want. Though the North was not willing to deal with the unconstitutional philosophy of Abraham Lincoln, this woman was certain that her city would deal with the real problem. Second half of verse 21. So the woman said to Joab, watch, his head will be thrown to you over the wall. Because of her willingness to deal with the real problem, she managed to negotiate a deal with Joab and in the process saved countless lives. But this has application to us as well. If the only solution you can think of to resolve a conflict between two people is to ask them to stop it and be nice, you're not going to be successful. And I've seen parents do this all the time. They're just trying to separate the kids, and, you guys, cut it out. Will you quit fighting? And really, there's at least one sin that needs to be beheaded in one or maybe both of those children before true peace can be resolved, okay? Without narrowing down the problem, we're covering the problem with a Band-Aid. I've read Christian books on peacemaking that miss this principle completely. I've got one book, most of its focus is on point number four. And as a result, they're useless books. One book on conflict resolution I've got in my library was absolutely confident. Get this. How can a Christian even say this? Absolutely confident that we can resolve the conflict between pro-lifers and abortionists if we will focus on what we have in common. I'm thinking, no. On essential issues like life, you cannot compromise. You absolutely cannot compromise. And this is a huge mistake that people are making in our nation where people are harboring the enemy of God and the enemy of His Word. For example, they stay in liberal denominations that have long ago abandoned the inerrancy of Scripture and the gospel of Jesus Christ, and they're promoting homosexuality and other things. And you find evangelicals who are staying within that denomination because they're focused on the things that they still have in common with the other members of that church. Okay, so they're putting up with the huge Shebas within that denomination, and the denomination as a result keeps getting more and more corrupt. And the Shebas are gonna guarantee it'll get more and more corrupt. And by the way, a lot of times it's the women in those churches that get the whole family to stay in that church because they're so relationally oriented. They don't wanna give up these relationships. Here was a woman, who really saw things as they should be seen. And so those others, they're not peacemakers. They are peace fakers by staying in those liberal denominations. Scripture commands us to come out and be separate. Now, there are many other applications we could make, as long as politicians in Washington, D.C. are treasonous Constitution breakers who perjure themselves by violating their oath of office as soon as they make their first votes. I'm sorry, there can be no common ground with people like that. No constitutionalist should bother looking for crumb and ground over which they can compromise. You cannot overlook the essentials. Now, maybe I'm naive. People accuse me of being naive politically on this, but I think it's ridiculous. There are some battles you have to engage in a in a win-lose scenario. And eventually, by God's grace, we will win. Some people criticize Dr. Ron Paul for being Dr. No, and constantly voting no against these things. They say, you gotta be voting yes on these things so you can make a compromise and get something else accomplished. And he said, no, I can't. If I violate my conscience on this, I have no integrity left. I think that's a badge of honor, that he was Dr. No. Anyway, I shouldn't go down side avenues. There are some things so bad, if you don't fight for them, you are being faithless. In the last century, J. Gresham Machen worded it well in his fight against liberalism. He said, in the sphere of religion, as in other spheres, the things about which men are agreed are apt to be the things that are least worth holding. The really important things are the things about which men will fight and should fight. And there are too many people who want us to leave the Shebas alone. We saw that in the state capitol last week. It's just so disheartening to see Christians who think it's not an achievable goal to abolish abortion, you know, through the intervention of the state or counties. That is an achievable goal. In fact, that's, I think, one of the best ways doing away with abortion. It's happening in counties around the states, but these Christians will actually fight against and vote against any bill that defines abortion as murder, or that in any way tries to abolish abortion. This is happening state after state all over the nation. What you're having is Christians who will try to get some kind of a common ground. Maybe people who are for abortion will be against abortion late-term abortion if we show them how gruesome this abortion is. But you know what happens? What happened last year? Somebody will argue, well, we'll just give an injection to the baby when we abort them, you know, give them anesthesia. Are you kidding? No, this is not the approach that we should take. This is why Jared set up end abortion now in Nebraska. That must be a battle that continues until abortion is criminalized. Nothing less honors God's law. Nothing less actually takes God's grace very seriously. If the first four points are being followed without the godly goal of point five, you actually end up sweeping the problems under the carpet and perpetuating them. And so, yes, we should try to make contact with those that we're at war with. Always. That's point number one. I'm not saying don't dialogue with unbelievers. Yeah, you dialogue with them. You hope that God converts them and changes their mind, right? You dialogue with them. We should speak with confidence that comes from knowing the Bible and standing for the truth. That's point number two. It's always helpful if the other side knows we're trustworthy. They can count on us to keep our word. That's point number three. And by the way, that's why people trust Dr. No. Ron Paul, because he always did what he said he would do. He didn't constantly compromise. It's useful to appeal to common interests as we present our goals, point number four. So I'm not opposed to that kind of incrementalism, but let's make sure we really are dealing with problems that God sees as the most important problems and not seeing the conflict itself as being the only problem. I would remind you, Jesus said that He came to bring a sword and to bring conflict. He came to bring a sword and conflict. So our goal is to engage in the right fights and avoid the wrong fights. Our goal is to engage in the right peacemaking and avoid the peace faking that constantly goes on around there. Some people are so conflict averse they will never deal with Sheba. But this unnamed lady was a true peacemaker because she was quite willing to fight against Sheba once she understood that Sheba was the problem. And this was a place by the way where Joab was right, she was wrong. Well she was just ignorant and she did need to be instructed. And in verse 22 she went through the same process of convincing the leaders of Abel to deal with the same issues. Then the woman in her wisdom went to all the people and they cut off the head of Sheba the son of Bichri and threw it out to Joab. Then he blew a trumpet and they withdrew from the city, every man to his tent. So Joab returned to the king at Jerusalem. Now this verse shows the power that wisdom and peacemaking can have to change cities. You don't have to have bazookas and tanks to win the culture. You only need to have the truth and to use it with the power of the Holy Spirit and with His blessing. And if you're skeptical about whether that is possible, I just say to you, you do not know history because if you look at the last 2,000 years, God has used tiny minorities to change city after city. the first few centuries. It's just astonishing the changes that came because the Church was committed to not compromise and they had a faith in God's power to change things. So in those first 300 and following Armenia became completely Christianized. England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Spain they were won by the Word of God being preached and lived out by Christian minorities. By the way, Almost every major culture change, whether for the good or for the bad, has been made by minorities who are relentless and just continue to keep pressing and pressing. This was true, you know, in the last century. It was minorities that brought communism to country after country with the devastating carnage and death that followed. It was minorities who brought feminism into America and to nation after nation in the early 1900s. Minorities. It's been minorities who have homosexualized our country. Tiny minorities. And now it's everywhere, right? It is minorities who have gotten involved in every level of education and in every level of government and in the businesses who have brought critical race theory and the other critical theories which are all connected from the Frankfurt School of Philosophy, it's minorities who have brought this into every segment of American life and have been exporting it to other countries. Wow. We can make a difference, but we've got to cut things off at the root. And I think government education, that's one of the things that has produced a lot of this. R.L. Dabney, back in the 1800s, predicted, he wanted to kill these government schools in their infancy, and he said, if we don't do so, we are going to be in deep trouble. If you read his essay from the 1800s, he's predicting the kind of mess that we are in today. It is inevitable. If the government controls education, that things will go bad. It's inevitable. We don't want to reform the government schools. We want to abolish the government schools. That's the only remedy. And here's what happens as Christians like free things. And so they take the bait, they take the cheese that's in the trap, and they go to these government schools and they wonder why their kids abandon the faith. They're being discipled by the Canaanites. By the way, even though Herbster talked with him this past week, well, talked with him is an overstatement. Gary and I went to one of his things, but I appreciate a lot of the things that he's standing for. it looks like he does not like government schools, and he for sure hates the taxes, all of the land taxes, and he says they're 100% going to the government schools. So his plan really was to make the tax money follow the student to private schools, charter schools, homeschools, or anything else like that. And I appreciate where he's coming from on there because that would really put pressure if the government schools were defunded and they would smarten up on the CRT and all of the other mess that they're teaching. But here's the problem that I see with his plan. All the enemy's got to do is say, oh, the money's following the student to a private school. We're going to pass a law that regulates anybody who receives this government money. And you've got to have the same problem in the homeschools and in the government schools, right? I mean, the private schools. So we really do need a different problem. I appreciate some of the efforts that people are making on this. But we've got to cut the tree down at its roots. Most of the agencies, I would be willing to say all of the agencies, because Article 1, Section 1 of the Constitution says nothing can be delegated. That's to be vested in the Congress if it's legislative, which really amounts to all of the agencies are unconstitutional. And we think, well, that's impossible. You can't get rid of all the agencies. I think that needs to be our goal, just like abolishing abortion needs to be our goal. We need to have our goal, a Christian republic, you know, God's law being implemented everywhere. It's up to God whether we're successful or not, but that needs to be our goal. We've got to have the courage to do that. I love downsized DC, even though they're not a Christian organization. They understand EQ. How do we present this in a positive way? They understand the kind of bills that need to completely abolish certain things. And we need to take a cue from organizations like Downsize DC and apply it to our Christian blueprints that come from the scripture. They're going at it with gusto, and we could learn from them. So this passage gives us a glimmer of hope in the midst of horrible political circumstances. You might wonder, well, that was the time of King David. Yeah, they've just gone through a revolution. And David has actually been hobbled at this point with the political machinery. He can't do everything that he wants to do. And on the other side, it looks like the city is under potential destruction. And could be very difficult times, yet here was a woman who had the faith to instantly take advantage of a providential opportunity, and as a result of doing so, brought about a peace that seemed impossible just hours before. Just hours before. Peacemaking can sometimes happen from people and from places far removed from the centers of power. God can use the most unlikely of candidates. In the past I've preached on the little slave girl in Syria, and all she did was a little statement of faith that God's prophet could heal her mistress's—is that the right word?—mistress's husband, Naaman. And that little statement resulted in him being converted, peace being brought to Israel. It was enormous, the changes that happened as a result of her testimony. And the application really goes way beyond peacemaking. Do we have the courage to take advantage of the providential opportunities God brings into our paths? Or do we shut our mouths because of nervousness? God could use your simple testimony, however faltering it might be, to change city council when you speak to it, or to change a mayor, or maybe it's just some random person that you're talking to at the St. Patrick's Day parade, our outreach, and that person becomes converted or becomes changed in his thinking, and he has the courage to go and talk to other people. If you want a book of stories from the past 2,000 years of unknown men, women, and even children who had a profound impact upon their local cities and even beyond, read George Grant's book, very easy to read book, very interesting book. It's called Third time around. Third time around. Marvelous book. I recommended it to the deacon training class this past week. It'll make you realize that even Omaha is no match for a robust Christianity. The subtitle of his book is a history of the pro-life movement from the first century to the present. And it's so encouraging. It looks at times and circumstances that were far worse than what we are facing today. And yet people like this lady took advantage of providential opportunities that God was giving, and even though they were weak, God used them to turn cultures upside down. I'm not kidding, I'm not exaggerating. You read that book, you will be stunned at what small people did. You can read about, for example, the impact of a runaway little girl by the name of Dimpna. She revolutionized the Flemish lowlands. She was weak, and yet God used her in an absolutely remarkable way. She had to flee from the incestuous sexual advances of her father, so she fled her home. God used her to establish orphanages, to care for the poor, to oppose abortion, and this was during a time when other Christians were hunkering down for fear. They were fearful of the barbarian hordes that were still threatening the frontiers. They were fearful of the Norsemen, the raiders on the coastline. They were fearful of all of the feudal rivalries that were paralyzing the internal part. But you read her testimony and you realize she saw all of these things as opportunities. opportunities to showcase God's ways work, man's ways do not work. We live in exciting times, brothers and sisters. Don't be discouraged. Humanism is failing. Man's ways are being destructive. And as people wake up to that fact, we can present the true biblical blueprints that give hope. She didn't get discouraged. She saw these as opportunities to advance the healing shalom of God in her country, and God gave her enormous success in changing that land. Now, I don't think she had even intended to be a success. I don't think that was in her thoughts at all. She was just looking to be faithful to God in the face of opportunity. But it is recognizing opportunity and not running from it that is half the battle. Don't run from the opportunity to share in a very simple, easy way the gospel of Jesus Christ at St. Patrick's Day because you're nervous. Gonna be a bunch of other people there. And if you're nervous and you don't wanna be sharing the gospel along the sidelines, get in the parade. All you have to do is sing. What's so hard about that, right? All you have to do is sing. So we're gonna be singing in a bit. May the mind of Christ my Savior live in me from day to day. But let's close in prayer. Father God, we thank you that you have strewn history with so many examples of men, women, and children who have been used by you when they are sold out to you. And in our weakness, your strength is made known. Father, we're not looking for success, we're looking for us to be faithful to you, to take advantage of opportunities, and I pray that you would enable us to do so. Father, help us as Christians to know when and where to draw the lines. Too many of us, Father, allow Sheba's inside the line instead of outside the line. I pray that you would give to us the courage to be true peacemakers and not peacefakers. Bless this, your people, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.