Please turn in your Bibles to 2 Samuel chapter 21, and we're going to finish off the story concerning the avenging of the Gibeonites, beginning to read at verse 10. 2 Samuel 21, verse 10. Now Rizpah, the daughter of Ayah, took sackcloth and spread it for herself on the rock from the beginning of harvest until the late rains poured on them from heaven. she did not allow the birds of the air to rest on them by day nor the beasts of the field by night. And David was told what Rizpah, the daughter of Ayah, the concubine of Saul, had done. Then David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan, his son, from the men of Jabesh-Gilead, who had stolen them from the street of Beth-shan, where the Philistines had hung them up after the Philistines had struck down Saul and Gilboa. So he brought up the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan, his son, from there, and they gathered the bones of those who had been hanged. They buried the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son in the country of Benjamin in Zillah in the tomb of Kish his father. So they performed all that the king commanded and after that God heeded the prayer for the land. Father, we thank you for your word and we want to live by every word that proceeds out of your mouth. We pray for your anointing as we continue to study your word, dig into it, that we would be sanctified as we hear your word, even in ways that I have not anticipated, that your Holy Spirit would draw our hearts out to you. And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Well, later on in the sermon, I'm going to be dealing with the subject of burial, but verses 10 through 14 of this chapter also give some principles that deal with other sticky issues as well. For example, how should a family member relate to a person whose been in prison for murder right now, or who is under church discipline. It can get really tricky sometimes, and let me just illustrate before we dive into the text. One phase of church discipline that sometimes happens right before excommunication is the discipline of shunning, where Paul commands the members of the church to no longer have fellowship with the rebellious church member. How would you relate to that family member if the Apostle Paul had just given the following admonition? Romans 16, 17 through 18 says, I urge you brothers to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the minds of naive people." Now, what if he was talking about your spouse or somebody else in your family, maybe your parent? How do you keep away from them without violating other scriptures? Well, this passage we're going to be looking at gives us some hints on how to approach sticky situations like that because general commands sometimes do have exceptions. You can think of any number of commands like that. Paul says, if a person does not work, neither should he eat. Well, a baby can't work. Does that mean you starve the baby? No, you don't apply it to a baby or to an invalid who can't work in the same way that you're going to apply it to other people. And so general commands do sometimes get nuanced by other commands that are in Scripture. And the question comes, how does that happen when The general command impacts a person who has dual loyalties to his family and to his church. I want you to consider the following admonitions from Paul, all of which relate to this shunning illustration I just gave, and pretend that Paul is making these admonitions about one of your family members. Paul said, if anyone teaches false doctrines and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, he is conceited and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of corrupt mind who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain. From such, withdraw yourself. 1 Timothy 6, three through five. Or think of this one. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take him into your house or welcome him. Anyone who welcomes him shares in his wicked work." Ouch. I mean, what do you do with a verse like that if the person being talked about is your spouse? How do you relate to that? Or consider this one, "'But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come, For men will be lovers of themselves, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unforgiving, slanderers, headstrong, having a form of godliness but denying its power, and from such people turn away. That's 2 Timothy 3, 1 through 5. And I can think of relatives that are perfectly described by that description. Or consider this admonition. Withdraw yourself from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition which he received from us, for we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner, not working at all, but are busybodies. And if anyone does not obey our word in this epistle, note that person and do not keep company with him, that he may be ashamed. Yet do not count him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother. That's 2 Thessalonians 3. 6, 11, and 14. Or consider one more. I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people, yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother who is a fornicator or covetous or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner, not even to eat with such a person." I think you can see how each of those commandments puts you into a pretty awkward situation. If the brother that's being described there that's being shunned is a member of your family, how do you deal with it? Well, I think that Rizpa gives us a beautiful balance on this. And the reason I say it's beautiful is because of the instructions of scripture elsewhere, because you don't just look to history and copy it. There is a sinful history. There is good history, but the instructions elsewhere. And we'll look at some of those instructions, but I want us to dive into the text first. Verse 10 shows us not only a maternal love that Rizpah has for her two children and her five nephews, but it also shows a love for God and a total agreement with God's judgments on her relatives. She's not a crazy woman. She is coming into agreement with God's judgment without relinquishing her devotion to or her allegiance to her relatives. And she's also bringing a very humble rebuke, I believe, for something unbiblical that is going on. But let's take a look at verse 10. Now Rizpah, the daughter of Ayah, took sackcloth and spread it for herself on the rock from the beginning of harvest until the late rains poured on them from heaven. And she did not allow the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night. Now, there are several things to notice here. First of all, she did not cut her relatives down from the gallows. And they're probably not like the picture that's in your outline there. But she did not cut them down. And she probably would have had plenty of opportunity to do so during the weeks that she was there. She could have at night when no one was watching. have cut them down and buried them, but she did not do so. And this is the first hint that she had no intention of undermining the civil government's judgment or God's curse upon her relatives, despite the fact that their leaving of them exposed for this length of time really was not biblical. And I'll try to demonstrate that it was not biblical later. She did not fight this judgment that came from lawfully ordained magistrates. The second thing to notice is that she spread sackcloth for herself on the rock. Now sackcloth was a symbol that would have immediately been recognized by Jews as a sign of mourning over sin and asking God to do something. So what sin is she mourning over and whose sin is she mourning over? Now obviously chasing away these birds and animals showed devotion to her family, but the sackcloth itself was a Godward symbol. It was not simply a horizontal symbol. In fact, some people would wear a sackcloth under their clothing so that nobody else could see that they were in mourning. Only God could see the sackcloth, but it really was intended to be something Godward in its direction. And let me give you some scriptures to show this symbolism. When God judged the nation because of David's numbering of the Israelites, David and all of the elders clothed themselves in sackcloth and they fell down in national repentance before the Lord. 1 Chronicles 21 verse 16. When Israel sinned against the Lord, and you don't need to look up all of these, I'm just going to give you kind of a review here. When Israel sinned against the Lord with their mixed marriages in the book of Nehemiah, they were confronted about their sin and they repented. And it says this, the children of Israel were assembled with fasting in sackcloth and with dust on their heads. Nehemiah 9 verse 1. Now that was an Israelite way of not only humbling themselves before God, but also asking God to have mercy on their nation and to forgive them for their sin. In Isaiah 32, verse 11, God commanded Israel to put on sackcloth and to mourn over their sins that required his judgments. That was God's command to himself. In Jeremiah 4, verse 8, God says, for this, clothe yourself with sackcloth, lament and wail, for the fierce anger of the Lord has not turned back from us. And in other passages, God commanded His people to wear sackcloth as a symbol of their repentance, their sorrow over national sins and disaster. Jeremiah 6, verse 26, Jeremiah 49, 3, Joel 1, verse 13. And I'll just give you one more. King of Nineveh's response to God's pronouncement of judgment was this, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and cry mightily to God. Yes, let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who can tell if God will return and relent and turn away from his fierce anger so that we may not perish? And I guess my point is that for Rizvah to be spreading this sackcloth out before the Lord, out before heaven, was her way of not only mourning for her family, it was that, but it was also asking God to relent in His judgment upon the nation. And if you're skeptical of that, just be patient and take all of these points that I'm going to be going through and see if you're not convinced of that fact by the time I'm done. The third thing to notice is that she stayed there from the time of the beginning of harvest. Now there wasn't any harvest to harvest, right? But we're talking about time here. From the time of the beginning of harvest until the late rains poured on them from heaven. Now we'll see in verse 14 that no rain fell until after the bodies were buried. That's pretty clear in verse 14. God did not answer their prayer for rain until their bodies were buried, but she kept up her vigil and she didn't stop it simply because the bodies were buried. She quit her vigil when God actually answered the nation's prayers and poured out rain. She stayed there till the rain fell. So it's yet another hint that she wasn't just mourning over her family, she was also mourning over the national calamity that was a direct result of her family's sins. She probably felt like she was in the national limelight because her family's sins were the direct result of this three-year famine. Okay, so this is something she is processing. It grieved her that her family was the cause of the famine. So she has dual interests. If she was only interested in her family, the text would say she stayed there until her family got a decent burial. But no, she stayed there longer. She stayed there after her family got a decent burial. She stayed until the late rains finally poured on them from heaven or from God. And so in the first half of the verse, we see that she's actually coming into agreement with this civil judgment. And in particular, she is asking God's reversal of the calamity of this national famine. She did not cut down the bodies like the men of Jabesh Gilead did when The Philistines had hung up the bodies previously in chapter 31 of the previous book. She had plenty of opportunity to do so and I don't think anybody would have likely have been upset with her if she had cut them down and if she had buried them. She also very deliberately wore sackcloth, very deliberately stayed there until God answered the nation's prayers. But if you look at the second half of verse 10, it also shows an amazing devotion to her family as well. It says, and she did not allow the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night. Now, in a moment, we're going to be considering how important burial was to Israelites. But here we see a very tangible way of showing her devotion and her love to her family. She kept the birds and the animals from eating the bodies. She chased them away for weeks. Now, some people take a very cavalier attitude toward their body. They say, I don't care what you do with my body. Put it in the dumpster, you know, throw it in the backyard, cremate it. I'll give it to science. They take a very cavalier attitude to their bodies. But ancient Jews never took that attitude. It mattered very much to them what happened to the bodies of their loved ones, and we'll look at that in a few minutes. But the question for now is this, did her actions in chasing away these birds and animals constitute fighting against God's will, fighting against His curse? And we'll see actually, no, that's not the case. It was actually the nation of Israel that was going against God's law by exposing them so long. And then secondly, the law itself expected loved ones to do exactly this when you had the unlawful tragedy of exposed bodies. It was never normative in Israel to leave bodies out exposed. In fact, the worst curse that could come in Deuteronomy 28 is given in verse 26, When it says, your carcasses shall be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth and no one shall frighten them away. When you had no loved ones to frighten away the birds and the animals from the carcasses, You truly were desolate. You truly were left alone and cursed. But the very way the curse is worded implies that God considers such an act of love to actually be expected from a relative. No relative would want the bodies of their loved ones to be eaten by birds and animals. That's the point. Even the law of God recognizes what she was doing was a very lawful act of devotion and love. Now that's a lot of exposition without much application. But I think some of these applications should be fairly obvious by now, and we'll start with the one that I began with. Just as no loved one should be forced to testify against their relative, their husband or their wife or something like that in court, No loved one should be expected to distance herself from her family simply because there has been a civil punishment or because there has been ecclesiastical discipline. And this is where I disagree and very strongly disagree with some Plymouth Brethren Christians that I have known in the past, and I valued them, take very seriously the Scripture. I just don't agree with this point here. In those churches, when a man was under the discipline of shunning, the wife was expected to deny her husband all marital relations, to never talk to him, and to eat in the other room during mealtimes. And that, in my view, would make her violate other clear-cut commandments, such as 1 Corinthians 7, verse 5, which says, Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control." Now in that passage it only gives one exception and it's with consent, with prayer and fasting. The Plymouth Brethren approach also violates the principle in verse 4 of that chapter that, quote, the wife does not have authority over her own body but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. So she cannot use her withdrawal of love as a way of enforcing church discipline or state discipline or something along those lines. She does not have that authority over her body. Her husband has that authority. It would also violate the admonition of 1 Peter 3. that wives must submit to even an unbelieving husband who disobeys the word." So that passage shows that at least between a husband and a wife, church discipline would impact the immediate family a little bit differently than it would impact other members of the church and you can look at other scriptures and you'll see the same sensitivity to siblings and to children and to parents. The Bible gives us help when there's tension between lawful jurisdictions and it shows us how we can honor both of those jurisdictions. So what would be a more appropriate way of handling these things? Now even though 1 Peter 3 is dealing with a husband-wife relationship, I think it illustrates the kind of balance of loyalties that Rizpah had with her children. Peter says that the believing woman should agree with God's Word even when her man does not. Okay? So her submission to her husband is not a blind submission. And yet it also says that even though she is submitted to God's word when he has not, she should also submit to her husband and be devoted to him. So there's a tension, there's dual loyalties there. Peter represents church authority. Her unbelieving husband represents family authority. And Peter indicates that even though she disagrees with her husband's disobedience to the word, even though she's trying to win him without a word, but win him to her own chaste conduct, that she is holding to, she should not make an issue of it by nagging her husband or being disrespectful to her husband. So hopefully you can see how God commands an honor to dual loyalties to church and to husband. So it's very similar kind of a situation to what Rizpa faced with her family. In other words, should you have a relative convicted of murder and sentenced to be executed in the electric chair or hanging or something like that, you can fully agree with that judgment as being a good judgment, a just judgment, without giving up on your relative, okay? You don't go to either extreme, you know, of abandoning your relatives, on the one hand, or blindly supporting your relatives, because you love them, you're gonna disagree with the state, you know, even though your son is a criminal. God calls for loyalty to him before loyalty to any other person. And Deuteronomy 13, I think, is quite clear on that. In fact, the interesting thing about Deuteronomy chapter 13 is it says, the loved one needs to be a part of the stoning that happens in that capital offense there. Now, it's just a very, very interesting passage. It says, every family member should agree with God's lawful judgments through the state, no matter how near and how dear that family member may be. But that agreement with God's judgment does not mean she can't cry her heart out before the Lord. She cannot speak to her son while he's in prison. And by the way, prison would be just as unbiblical as the leaving these bodies out to be exposed for a long time would be. So anytime there's a conflict between the jurisdictions of family, church, and state, the Bible shows you how to navigate those conflicts. You need to look to the scripture and it always gives you answers on how to go through those. Life can sometimes be sticky and Deuteronomy chapter 13 verses 6 through 11 is just one of many passages that shows how to navigate those tensions. Now back to our passage, it's clear to me that David thought that this woman was doing the right thing because he responded positively to what she did. And you can see that in verses 11 and 12. And David was told what Rizpah, the daughter of Ayah, the concubine of Saul, had done. Then David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan, his son, etc. Now, everybody agrees that it was a direct result of seeing what Rizpah was doing that made David take these actions. But commentators are puzzled as to the way this is worded. Why does it immediately mention Saul and Jonathan, who had nothing to do with this story. Why doesn't it simply say that because he saw her devotion to her sons, he has mercy, he has sympathy, he takes down the bodies of those hanged men and buries them? He didn't even mention her sons and nephews until the end of verse 13. So why this preoccupation with Saul and Jonathan? Most commentators just skip right over that. They don't really deal with it. Though the seven hanged men were the closest thing on David's horizon, they were just a three-mile walk away from David in Jerusalem. The text focuses on Jonathan and Saul. And when you understand the geography, you realize this is very, very significant. So the first thing that the text mentions as a result of seeing the Rizpah's devotion was David makes a 68-mile trip up to Jabesh Gilead where the bones of Saul and his previous sons were stored. Then he makes almost as long of a trip back to Gibeah, collects the bones, the body, the bones of these men who had hung and he buries them all together. Why did her actions immediately bring 1 Samuel 31 to mind? Well, I believe that her actions brought conviction to David on three counts. first convicted him that he had not taken as much concern about the treatment of Saul and Jonathan's bodies as he should have, as Rizvah was concerned. Yes, he had shown some concern, he had praised the men of Jabesh Gilead at the beginning of this book, but her actions make him realize he really should have done more. Second, her actions convicted David that Deuteronomy 21 had been violated here in exactly the same way that the Philistines had violated that commandment in 1 Samuel chapter 31. And I want you to turn with me to Deuteronomy 21 and we'll take a look. at verses 22 through 23. Deuteronomy chapter 21 beginning to read at verse 22. If a man is committed to sin deserving of death and he is put to death and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain overnight on the tree but you shall surely bury him that day so that you do not defile the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance. For he who is hanged is accursed of God. Now commentators point out four things that are relevant to our discussion and the first is that capital punishment is not simply a human judgment. It is called God's curse. Now if the civil magistrate is imposing God's curse upon this criminal, then he better do it God's way or God's name is going to be blasphemed. This is why Romans chapter 13 says that magistrates only have authority to do what God has explicitly delegated to them. They have no authority if not from God, is what verse 1 says, and they are ministers of God's judgment. And so we saw last week that David didn't give God's judgment when he executed these seven men. They were all guilty of murder. That was not a problem. There is no point of contesting on that. Even Rizvah does not seem to be fighting that point. The next thing that this passage shows is that exposure of the bodies to public view was allowed in God's law as well. This was one of the things to deter criminals. They would look at that and be horrified and say, I wouldn't ever want that to happen to me. But it has its limits. Continued exposure has its limits. And that's the next thing that is seen here. One commentator comments on that verse. And he says, the exposure of his body was the utmost desecration. Such humiliation, however, has limits. Continued exposure would desecrate the land. And notice those words especially, continued exposure would desecrate the land. Another commentator said this. The corpse of the executed criminal had to be buried the selfsame day at all costs. The Hebrew syntax is strongly emphatic. The reason was that the corpse of an executed man was an object accursed of God and would defile the land. Compare Numbers 35, 33 and following, Leviticus 18, 24 through 27. The presence of the corpse hanging up to the public gaze with crime as it were clinging to it and God's curse resting on it might result in untold calamities. Hence, as soon as the necessary amount of publicity had been achieved and other likely offenders had been warned, the corpse was buried and that before sunset. And this is where David erred. He had not specified to the Gibeonites that the body should not be exposed for more than a day. And this brings the relevance of verse 12, 2 Samuel 21 verse 12, where the author brings up the fact that the Philistines had done exactly the same thing to Saul and the three sons in 1 Samuel 31. So when he reminds us of the Philistines, he's not bringing up an irrelevant detail. He is juxtaposing what David allowed with what the Philistines had arrogantly done. Both were just as unlawful. And David removes the defilement just as the men of Jabesh Gilead were praised for doing exactly the same thing with the bodies of Saul and his son. So the text, I believe, is very deliberately crafted. But Rizpah's balancing of duties to family and to state, I think, no doubt, reminded David of his own tough balancing of loyalties under King Saul. On the one hand, he couldn't agree with King Saul's unbiblical actions. You know, some of those were just grossly unbiblical. And yet back in those early chapters of David, he never allowed Saul's disgraceful conduct to be an excuse for his own rebellion. He refused to rebel against King Saul. Repeatedly, he sought to serve Saul well and to submit to God at the same time as submitting to the king. And it was only when it became evident that he was for sure going to be killed that he had to make a run for it. So Rizpah's balancing act was very similar to his own balancing act in the early years and it made David want to do the right things. Now, with that as a background, let's read 2 Samuel 21 and verses 11 through 14. Oops, here we are. And David was told what Rizpah, the daughter of Ayah, the concubine of Saul, had done. Rizpah didn't have to give any verbal rebuke to David in order to influence David. The public testimony of her life and her actions made David want to be better. He was shamed by her actions. Her actions reminded him of better times in his own life. And in this, I think there is a similarity to the spirit of 1 Peter 3 verses 1 through 2. which says, Wives, be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they without a word may be won by the conduct of their wives, when they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear. So there's no need to nag, no need to preach, her conduct had that influence. And we can have faith that God can use our conduct even when our words are not allowed or when our words don't seem to be making any difference. Don't ever think that your conduct is not a testimony. Just as God can powerfully use your words, God can powerfully use the testimony of your conduct. Then David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son from the men of Jabesh Gilead who had stolen them from the street of Bethshan where the Philistines had hung them up after the Philistines had struck down Saul in Gilboa. Now this verse highlights three ways that dead bodies were treated. The Philistines had hung bodies on a wall, city wall. The valiant soldiers from Jabesh Gilead had broken through the Philistine defenses, had taken down those bones, had burned them in 1 Samuel 31, preserving only the bones. David was not content with this partial cremation. He buried the bones in the family tomb with honor. And so I believe that this verse is contrasting the proper way of treating the dead from the pagan way of treating the dead. Jews have always taken Deuteronomy 21 verse 23 as a command to bury the dead right away. And let me read that again. His body shall not remain overnight on the tree but you shall surely bury him that day so that you do not defile the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance for he who is hanged is accursed of God. I want you to notice though the command you shall surely bury him that day. Now Jews have always taken that as a normative command for all burials except for those which God's law has specifically authorized for cremation. Now when you couple that with that command together with the many passages that speak of it as being a curse when people are not buried, I think there's a strong, strong argument against cremation. The only ones cremated were those singled out for an additional shame and curse. And let me give those to you. Leviticus 20 verse 14 commanded the Jews to burn the executed body. It's an already executed person, but there's an additional thing that God wants them to do. Burn the body of anybody who marries a mother and her daughter, uh, uh, you know, together. Why would God want the body burned? Because it is such an offense to God that God wants to show his utter contempt for anybody who would engage in such an ungodly, sinful marriage. Leviticus 21.9 commanded the Jews to bury the executed body of the daughter of a priest who became a prostitute. Why burn the body? Because it showed God's utter contempt for the child of a preacher who would degrade herself to become a prostitute. Now just a regular prostitute could be executed for the sin of adultery. But the daughter of a priest, there was something added to that. God wanted his contempt shown by burning the already executed body. And then there was one more, Joshua 7, God commanded those who took the accursed things to be stoned and then burned. And so it was an extra curse that went far beyond execution and showed God's total contempt. Anybody else who was thus cremated was cremated unlawfully. And it's not just Deuteronomy 21 that commands burial. The second passage is Amos 2 verse 1. In Amos 2 verse 1, God cursed the whole country of Moab for four transgressions, but interestingly it only mentions one of those transgressions that they are being cursed for, and it was the abomination of cremation. It says, for three transgressions of Moab and for four I will not turn away its punishment, because he burned the bones of the King of Edom to lime. Now we aren't told why cremation was considered a transgression of God's law, but it was. God calls cremation a transgression. And this has been the historic position of Judaism, Western Christianity, and Eastern Christianity. And Robney Schwab pointed out so well, I think, in his sermon back in 2010, that if the biblical evidence that he presented, and by the way he presented a whole lot more evidence than I'm presenting this morning, but if the evidence that he presented did not convince you that cremation is wrong, then you're not going to be convinced that cannibalism is wrong. Remember that, Thurman? There's a lot more evidence that cremation is wrong than there is in the Bible that cannibalism is wrong. Of course, we believe cannibalism is wrong, so don't go to that. But there's a lot less evidence. Anyway, the Eastern Orthodox Church has always considered it extremely sad when burial cannot take place. And let me just give you one example. This is from the pastoral guidelines by the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. It says, because the Orthodox faith affirms the fundamental goodness of creation, it understands the body to be an integral part of the human person and the temple of the Holy Spirit and expects the resurrection of the dead. The church considers cremation to be the deliberate desecration and destruction of what God has made and ordained for us. The church instead insists that the body be buried so that the natural physical process of decomposition may take place. The church does not grant funerals, either in the sanctuary or at a funeral home or at any other place, to persons who have chosen to be cremated. Additionally, memorial services with koliva, boiled wheat, are not allowed in such instances, inasmuch as the similarity between the kernel of wheat and the body has been intentionally destroyed. So that's in the East. In the West, it was not until 1963 that the Roman Catholic Church lifted the ban on cremation. Jewish prejudice against cremation was similar. They've always tried to bury the body without embalming, by the way, within 24 hours of death, if possible. And they say that that's in obedience to Deuteronomy 21. Anyway, back to 2 Samuel 21, verses 13 through 14 say, So he brought up the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son from there and they gathered the bones of those who had been hanged. They buried the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son in the country of Benjamin and Zillah in the tomb of Kish his father. So they performed all that the king commanded and after that God heeded the prayer for the land. I want you to notice the inspired comment of when it was that God removed the curse from Israel. Remember that Israel was cursed with a three-year famine because the Gibeonite treaty had been broken and the Gibeonites had been slain. But that wasn't just it. It wasn't just the broken treaty and the murder that God's concerned about. Their continued exposure defiled the land. Let me read that verse once again in Deuteronomy 21. His body shall not remain overnight on the tree, but you shall surely bury him that day. so that you do not defile the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance." So this means it's not just the broken treaties and the murder that we looked at in verses 1 through 9 that are the result of the ongoing famine. God considered this issue of failure to bury the bodies to be extremely serious as well. Does that mean you're going to be forever cursed if you had a relative cremated? No, it does not mean that. But it does mean you fail to show the kind of respect to the body that God intended us to have. Does that mean all cremations are wrong? No. Some would depend on the circumstances and the attitude of heart. I've already read two verses from Leviticus that commanded cremation in certain circumstances. In fact, I personally would recommend cremation for certain criminals because a burial would be too good for them, right? I would say, oh yeah, you should cremate that person. But it was always intended to be considered very, very sad. That's the key point. And if you want to dig into this more, just read Rodney's sermon, or actually, he has more details in his oral one. So you can look at the audio. June 27, 2010. And I think he gave a very, very nice balance. Now I don't want to lay a guilt trip on anybody because love sometimes might make you willing to sacrifice a burial for the honor of Christ. And that's what missionaries who have been eaten by cannibals have done. They knew that there was a big risk that they would never get buried. And love might do it in certain circumstances in America. So I don't want to say this is an absolute principle, but I believe we really should repent if we have been utterly indifferent to the handling of bodies. If we've taken the attitude, I don't care what happens to my body, throw it in a dumpster. That is an ungodly attitude. Scripture would not have you have that attitude. And I've devoted a sermon to this because too many people treat the the whole matter of the disposal of the body as an inconsequential thing. It is not. God regulates in many different ways how funerals should be conducted. Just as one example, Leviticus 19.18 forbids the Ethiopian practice at almost all of their funerals where they gash themselves with knives. Aren't you glad? It forbids that. It regulates, and it regulates in other ways as well, but certainly honoring the dead in a burial seems to be the norm. Now this past week, I called up a seminary to purchase burial plots for my mother, my wife, and myself, and I did it for three reasons. The first one is my mother is no longer traveling. We always wondered what if she dies, you know, when she's in Canada or she's some other place. She's no longer traveling, so that issue is not there. Secondly, boy, we can save a lot of money if we buy these burial plots now and we get ours together. But the third reason that we got those is just as Abraham bought his burial plot as a testimony that he was going to inherit the land. It was a statement of faith. I'm buying this kind of as a statement, I have really no plans on leaving Omaha. I really want to stay here for the long term. I think there's lots of work that still needs to be done. But can God raise a body that's completely disappeared in fire, has been eaten by a shark? Well, absolutely yes. He knows the blueprint of the old body. He knows the blueprint of the new body. And yet there is some connection between the old and the new, even though 1 Corinthians 15 says the old one that is planted in the ground and the new one that springs up is as different as the difference between an acorn and an oak tree, rather than use oak tree and acorn, but seed and the plant that grows from it. But there is a connection. So my admonition to you is, treat dead bodies with the utmost respect. It is not simply fingernails, you know, you discard your fingernails, it's not that. It is a part of who you are, and disrespect for your body is disrespect for the person, according to the Bible. It's not simply your spirit that is the real you. Some people say, oh, the real me is not my body. That is absolutely false. That is Greek dualism. The real you is your spirit and is your body, and both should be treated with great, great respect. Now, there's one more application that I want to make, and it's the importance of prayer. You might be discouraged that God has not answered your prayers. But just as Israel kept praying for three years until God answered, we should persevere in prayers. But you know what? When your prayers have not been answered for long, long periods of time, you might ask God, Lord, is there some sin that needs to be repented of? Psalm 66, verse 18 says, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear. Sometimes sin can prevent answers to prayer. And I think 1 Peter 3 verse 7 is quite clear about that. So confession of sin is critical to power in prayer. But even when it's not in your power to deal with the sin, because it's not your sin personally, you can still repent on behalf of the nation. Now if Rizvah's sackcloth and continued prayers till the rains came were indeed prayers on behalf of the nation, We know that God used her to turn David's heart. We may feel as powerless as Rizpah did, but if we pray, God can move the hearts of leaders to do what is needed. And our text, I think, underscores that point. It indicates that God can hear the cries of a Rizpah to make leaders repent of their sins. And it also indicates that once sins are dealt with, God delights in answering prayer. The norm is not unanswered prayers. That's the key point. That should be an anomaly. Wow, why did God not answer my prayers? The norm should be God always answers our prayers. He loves to answer our prayers when we pray in faith. He is a prayer answering God. And so I think the last thing that we should be motivated by in this passage is to be a praying people and to pray with the absolute confidence that God delights in answering. Not, and I hope so, but praying with faith, claiming God's promises. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you are a prayer-answering God, that as we lay claim to the absolute certainty of your promises, since you are a God who cannot lie, we can expect the answer of yes to those prayers. And we pray, Father, for our sanctification. You have said this is the will of God for you, even your sanctification, and we lay claim to that promise, Lord. and pray that even this day you would sanctify us. You would turn our hearts upside down and make us to be as holy as it is possible for a sinful people to be. We pray, Father, for you to help us to become more holistic, not thinking of the spiritual, the inward, the invisible as being the only important thing, but seeing our bodies, seeing planet Earth, seeing the things we eat and feed our bodies with is important as well. May we put all things that are in this creation under the feet of King Jesus and realize that it is your ultimate goal from Genesis to Revelation to turn paradise lost into paradise regained and even a rejuvenation of this physical earth. Father help us to look at life as you see it and may you be glorified in Jesus name. Amen.