In this sermon, Pastor Chuck Smith discusses the story of David and the famine that occurred during his reign. David seeks the face of Jehovah and discovers that the famine is a result of Saul's actions in slaying the Gibeonites. Pastor Chuck emphasizes the importance of seeking God's face and calling out to Him in times of trouble. He also highlights the moral decline of the nation and the need for God's people to turn away from worldly distractions and seek Him earnestly.

Oh, let the Son of God enfold you With His Spirit and His love Let Him fill your heart and satisfy your soul Oh, let Him have the things that hold you And His Spirit like a dove Will descend upon your life and make you whole Welcome to The Word for Today. The broadcast ministry of Pastor Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, California. Pastor Chuck is currently leading us on a verse by verse venture through the entire Bible. And on today's edition of The Word for Today, we'll be following David as he avenges the Gibeonites. As we pick up in 2 Samuel, chapter 21, verse 1. And now, with today's message, here is Pastor Chuck Smith. Then there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year. So, consecutive years of famine. And David inquired of the Lord, in the Hebrew literally, David sought the face of Jehovah. And the Lord answered, it is for Saul and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites. Here are problems in the land. The nation is in trouble. They've had three years of drought. Supplies are now being rationed. And David begins to realize that this isn't just coincidence. There's something wrong. And he began to seek the face of the Lord to discover the reason why they were going through this national calamity. And as David was waiting upon the Lord, the Lord revealed to David the reason for this national calamity, for this drought, for this famine, was of Saul's inhumane treatment against the Gibeonites. The Gibeonites were those people who made the league with Joshua by their guise of having traveled a long way. They figured that that was the only way they could survive, was to deceive Joshua. They were successful. And Joshua made a covenant with them. And when they came to Gibeah and Joshua started to deploy the troops, they said, wait a minute, you can't attack that city. We have a league with you. We have this peace treaty. So Joshua said, well, you've deceived me, but I will honor the covenant. You will dwell among us and live peaceably among us. However, you will be servants. You will have to chop our wood, and you'll have to take care of the temple or the tabernacle and make sure that everything is clean and kept up around the tabernacle. Now, during the reign of Saul, and it isn't told in the record, but we have it here, that Saul began to put the Gibeonites to death. In his zeal, it said, for the Lord. Perhaps at the time when he put the witches to death, and perhaps it was after his failure to put the Malachites to death that he was going to show, hey, you know, I'll get rid of all of the foreigners and purify the place. And it was wrong because of this covenant. God expects you to honor a covenant if you make a covenant, even though it may have been done in a false pretense, God wanted them to respect and honor the covenant. And so when David found out the cause, waiting upon the Lord, seeking the face of the Lord, the Lord revealed to David the reason. And David came to the Gibeonites, and he said unto them, and he makes a note here, the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but they were the remnant of the Amorites, the children of Israel had sworn to them, and Saul sought to slay them in his zeal to the children of Israel and to Judah. Wherefore David said to the Gibeonites, what shall I do for you? How can I make atonement or a covering that you may bless the inheritance of the Lord? And the Gibeonites said unto him, we can't be bought off. We don't want silver or gold from Saul, nor from his house. Neither do we want you to kill any man in Israel. And he said, well then, what do you say? What do you want me to do for you? And they answered the king, the man that consumed us and the devised against us that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the coast of Israel, let seven men of the sons, his sons, be delivered unto us and we will hang them up unto the Lord in Gibeah of Saul, whom the Lord did choose and the king said, I will give them. So we want seven of his descendants to hang. So David said, all right, you'll have them. Now the king spared Mephibosheth, Jonathan's son, because of the Lord's oath that was between Jonathan and David. But the king took two sons of Rizpah. Now Rizpah was a concubine of Saul and she bore two sons to Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth. Now this Mephibosheth being the son of Saul would have been a uncle to Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan. So Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, was named after his uncle. Keep that straight. He was a son of Saul from the concubine whose name was Rizpah and he and his brother Armoni were two of the men and five sons of Michael or Mashal, the daughter of Saul. Now this was the one that was given to David as a wife, whom she brought up for Adriel, the son of Barzillai, the Miholathite. Now this is not the other Barzillai that helped David. This is a different one. But when David killed Goliath, King Saul had promised that whoever kills this giant can have my daughter for a wife. And you know he'll be promoted and get all this glory and everything else. And this was Saul's incentive to the men to go out and fight the giant. When David went out to fight the giant, Saul hesitated giving his daughter Merab to David as his wife, because he became jealous of David. His older daughter Merab should have been David's wife. But instead Saul gave her to this guy Adriel, who we read about here. And she had five sons. Merab, she should have been David's wife. Saul pulled a fast one on him. And when Saul said, well look, take Michal. Now she was a gutsy little gal. And he figured that man, she'll be more than that guy can handle. I mean he sort of did it as punishment to David. And she became a problem to David. She was testy, nasty mouth. And she put David down when he came back from victory and bringing back the Ark of the Covenant. He was out there dancing for the Lord and had blessed all of Israel. Everybody on a spiritual high praise the Lord. Just a real spiritual high. He comes home and she's, weren't you fancy out there today in plain linen robes like common people? You look sick. Didn't the king behave himself? And so there were problems between this gal and David. David says, hey, that's enough of your mouth gal. And so he had enough other wives and concubines that he never bothered with her again, but just left her without children and to experience the social curse of being childless. However, her sister Merab, who had had five sons, evidently had died. And Michal had taken and raised those five sons. The Gibeonites want seven of the descendants of Saul. So David took those five sons and perhaps again, still in spite against Michal, he took the five sons that she had raised of her sister Merab. And with the two sons of Saul by the concubine Rizvah, they gave them to the Gibeonites. And the Gibeonites hanged these seven descendants in the city and on the hill before the Lord. And they fell all seven together and they were put to death in the days of the harvest, the barley harvest, the beginning of the barley harvest. And Rizvah, the daughter of Eah, took a sackcloth. It was the mother of the two sons. She took sackcloth and spread it for her upon the rock. From the beginning of the harvest, which the barley harvest begins in May, until the water dropped out of the heaven, until the rains began, which they began in around the end of October. And she would not allow any of the birds of the air to rest upon them or to the vultures. She would beat the vultures away from their bodies by day and by night the jackals and the coyotes and so forth. She would fend them off at night. And it was told David what Rizvah, the daughter of Eah, the concubine of Saul, had done. And David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan from the men of Jabesh-Gilead, which had stolen them from the street of Beth-shan. Remember when Jonathan and Saul fell on Mount Gilboa, right at the end of the northern end of Mount Gilboa is the city Beth-shan. And the Philistines hung their bodies, desecrated them, hung them on a wall there in Beth-shan. They had beheaded them, but they hung their bodies on the wall. The men of Jabesh-Gilead came over and took the bodies and buried them over in Jabesh-Gilead. Now David, hearing of the seven fellows and this gal out there protecting the bodies as they decay, he takes all of their bones and buries them in the tomb that belonged to Kish, the father of Saul. And so they were all buried together there in the land of Benjamin. Now another little story of things that happened at that time. It gives you a little insight into some of David's conflicts with Goliath and the descendants of Goliath. Moreover, the Philistines had yet war again with Israel. And David went down and his servants with him. And they fought against the Philistines and David was faint. And Ishbi-Binob, which was one of the sons of the giant, the weight of whose spear weighed three hundred shekels of brass in weight, he being girded with a new sword was going to slay David. But Abishai, the son of Zariah, helped him and he smote the Philistine and killed him. And then the men of David swore unto him, saying, Thou shalt go no more out with us to battle, that you quench not the light of Israel. So this happened no doubt sometime earlier because we are really in a chronological order just about six years before David's death. He's getting older at this point and it's been a long time since David's gone out to battle. You remember he got into trouble with Bathsheba because the troops were out fighting and David wasn't going out anymore. But this is the reason why David ceased going out with the armies is in this particular battle against the Philistines he was weakened. He was faint and this giant almost did him in until Abishai came and rescued him. And so they said, Hey, no more David. You stay home. We'll do the fighting. We don't want the light of Israel to go out. And it came to pass after this that there was again a battle with the Philistines at Gob. And Zebekiah, the Hushethite, slew Zaph which was one of the sons of the giant. They're going to eliminate the family of Goliath and all of these giants. And this gives the story of the elimination of these guys. There was again a battle at Gob with the Philistines where Elhanan, the son of Jeriorim, a Bethlehemite, slew the brother of Goliath. And then there was yet a battle in Gath. And a man of great stature must have been a fearsome looking guy. On each hand he had six fingers. And on each foot six toes. Twenty-four in number. He also was born to the giant. And when he defied Israel, Jonathan, the son of Shimeah, the brother of David, slew him. And these four were born to the giant in Gath. And they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants. Now as we get into chapter 22 we have this psalm of David. It is a song of God's deliverance. A beautiful psalm of David. And then we get into David's last words. His mighty men. And then the final sin of David in numbering the people. And the buying of the place for the building of the temple. And again I'm impressed with David seeking the face of the Lord to discover the reasons for the national calamity. And how to change the disaster that they were facing. The time of national peril. Three years of drought. David's answer was seeking the face of the Lord. And as he did, God showed him the cause and God also showed him or led him to the cure. We are in a time of national peril. Our country is in big trouble. Don't have to argue that. It's quite obvious. From a moral standpoint, from a spiritual standpoint, from a military standpoint, from an economic standpoint, from a political standpoint. I mean, any way you want to look at it, we're in a mess. Our nation is in trouble. We are morally and spiritually bankrupt as a nation. And righteousness exalted the nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. And our nation is in deep trouble. It is time that God's people, as David, seek the face of the Lord. I believe that God wants to deliver us as a nation from the peril that we are facing. I believe that God wants to bring revival, to stir our nation. And as God answered Solomon as he prayed at the dedication of the temple, that should times of national peril come, Solomon said, if your people will turn towards this place and seek your face, then hear thou from thy throne in heaven, answer their prayers and help them. And God responding to Solomon's prayer said, if my people called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face. David sought the face of the Lord. God said, I will hear from heaven. I will forgive their sins and I will heal their nation. We need it. We need to seek God's face. We need to call out upon the Lord. If this nation is going to survive, it'll only survive because God's people finally got desperate and turned off their TVs and began to spend time seeking God. How Satan has lulled us, mesmerized us. You know, we're almost as guilty as Nero who fiddled while Rome burned. Things are going down the tube from a national standpoint. The nation is in deep trouble and we're just fiddling. More concerned with whether or not the Rams are going to make the Super Bowl this next year than we are the moral conditions of our nation, our schools. The National Educators Association, you know, teachers have gone on record as supporting the distribution of condoms to the children in school. That's your teachers of your kids. Hey, we're in trouble. That's the solution that they come up with to solve the problem of AIDS. We can't teach them that you should wait until you're married. Sex is something that is sacred. It was created by God for the perpetuation of the human race. It's a beautiful experience in marriage whereby two become one in a beautiful sacred bond and relationship. And thus you should save yourself and be pure. No, we can't teach that. So what we do is distribute condoms and say be careful when you have your sex kids so that you don't get AIDS or chlamydia or any of the other many diseases that are going around right now. God help us. My people call by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face. It's time to seek the face of the Lord. Let's do it this week. Let's see what path God opens to us. Let's see what God might reveal to us. Your prayers can make a difference. Seek the face of the Lord. God help us. Let's make a difference. We'll return with more of our verse-by-verse study through the book of 2 Samuel in our next lesson as we find David giving praise for God's deliverance. And we do hope you'll make plans to join us. 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And be sure to include the call letters of this station with your correspondence. And now, on behalf of The Word for Today, we'd like to thank all of you who share in supporting this ministry with your prayers and financial support. And be sure to join us again next time as Pastor Chuck Smith continues his verse-by-verse study through the book of 2 Samuel. That's right here on the next edition of The Word for Today. Now, once again, here's Pastor Chuck Smith. Let God be first. Let us not forsake the Lord and serve other gods. You can't serve two masters. He's either the Lord of all or Lord not of all in your life. Take a close examination. So God be with you and God bless you and may He indeed become the Lord of your life and may you serve Him with all your heart and your mind and your soul and your strength as you give your all to Him. In Jesus' name. The question is, have you laid hold of what God has called you to do? 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