Mike Bickle discusses the anointing of David as king in Hebron following Saul's death, emphasizing David's reliance on God's direction and his commitment to divine diplomacy amidst civil war. David's patience and humility are highlighted as he waits for God's timing, accepting only the tribe of Judah as his initial kingdom while actively seeking God's will and serving others. Bickle illustrates David's leadership style, which values genuine relationships and reconciliation over revenge, as he navigates the complexities of uniting the divided tribes of Israel. The sermon underscores the importance of understanding God's bigger picture and maintaining integrity in leadership, even when faced with personal grievances.

Well in paragraph A, let's read verse 1, 2 Samuel chapter 2 verse 1. This is one of my favorite verses in the life of David and all of 1st and 2nd Samuel, right here. It happened after this, that means after Saul's death and the funeral, after the incidents in Ziklag and all that, that David inquired of the Lord. He's began to seek the Lord for direction. And he asked the Lord this very important question. He said, because he's still living in Ziklag at this time, he goes, Lord shall I go up? Shall I go to back to Judah? Remember the prophet Gad told him back in chapter 22 verse 5. He says go to Judah, and he's been out of Judah for a while, and it's like okay, okay, I'm going to go back to Judah. But I want to get a confirmation, because the funeral is now over, and the lament, put that way, has been given. David gave it in Ziklag. He wrote this tremendous lament that we just looked at in the last session. He said, shall I go up to any of the cities of Judah? And the Lord says, yes. Go up. Go up to Judah. Then David said, where should I go? And the Lord said, Hebron. So David moved his entire company to Hebron, and there they anointed him over the house of Judah. Now this is a very significant passage. Again, one of my favorites for a reason, and here's why. That David has been prophesied by the great prophet Samuel. Jonathan said it. Even Saul said it. You're going to be the king of Israel. Everybody knows it. I mean, it's been confirmed and spoken prophetically over and over. So now the king is dead. His three of his four sons are dead, too. There is no heir to the throne except for the fourth son, who's a very weak, passive, intimidated man. The reason the fourth son didn't go to battle, he didn't like battles. He stayed home, very passive, very weak, intimidated, and he's no opposition to David. No one's going to follow him. There's nobody in the way. David's men are saying, David, now that you've cried and wept, and we appreciate the way you saw, viewed Saul, but now let's move on. You're the king, and that means we're going with you. David said, okay, but I'm going to go ask the Lord. They go, oh no, no, don't do that ask the Lord thing. Every time you ask the Lord, he tells you, don't cut the road. I mean, don't kill him. Just cut the road. I mean, whatever. You know, in 1 Samuel 24, when he cut the road, he had Saul at the end of his sword, and the Lord said, no. Or David already knew in his heart the Lord's answer was no. They said, David, don't, don't do that. I can picture him. Come on. We've been out here for years with you. You're the king, and we're your helpers. So the Lord says, I want you to go, but here's what I want you to do. Just go to Hebron. I just want you over Judah. Now, most of you know there's 12 tribes of Israel. Judah is one tribe. The Lord says, I only want you to have one twelfth of what I promised you. So David comes back out of the prayer meeting. He tells the guys, what did the Lord tell you? I'm gonna have one twelfth of what He promised me. They go, one twelfth? What do you mean? Let's go over all 12 tribes. Not one tribe, because no, no, it's the will of God. One tribe. They go, David, nobody's in the way. Nobody can resist you. The path to the throne is absolutely within your grasp. All you gotta do is do it. Everybody knows you're the guy. Paragraph C. During David's seven years, he lives seven years in Hebron. Then he moves to Jerusalem after that. He is being tested by receiving only the partial fulfillment. Now, that's, that's a different kind of test. When you've been faithful, you've faced the adversary for years, you've endured, you've blessed, you, for the most part, have responded well to the Lord. And the Lord says, the perfect will of God for the next season is only one twelfth of what I promised you. David was 30 years old, so he spent age 30 to 37 in Hebron. Paragraph D. Now, this is pretty self-evident and clear, but David was preoccupied with doing God's will not preoccupied with becoming king. His men wanted him to become king. He was more interested in the will of God doing it and the Lord being pleased than where the will of God was. He goes, I don't even care. I want what you want, Lord. Why was David like this? He saw himself first as who he was before God, and he saw himself secondly who he was before men. Before God, he wanted to be a faithful servant, a faithful worshipper. Before men, he was king. But he goes, that's second to me. I want to be a worshipper. I want to lock into you. Beloved, if we can lock into that value system and that reality, a door can open, a door can shut. You can have a tremendous increase. You can have a decrease of influence and popularity or all the things going on. But if you're doing the will of God, it can go up, it can go down in terms of the human response to what you're doing. But we have confidence. The Lord is smiling. That's where David lived. David could worship God with the free spirit. In Hebrew, I'm not concerned about being over everything. He says, this is okay. This is what you want from me. This is where I'm living. Paragraph 8, leadership lesson. The promise of God and the timing of God are separate issues. Because the promise was, I mean the full promise is what I mean, the full promise was you'd be over all 12 tribes of Israel and a number of other things would go along with that. But the Lord says the timing's not right now. And beloved, we'll never lose anything by waiting with humility and patience. And blessing the Lord with gratitude. I'm sure some of the guys around David were saying, David, we are losing valuable time. He says, no, we're not. I'm doing the will of God in one twelfth of what I know eventually will be released to me. Now in David's patience and his humility, don't mistake his patience for David being passive. He was not passive at all. Some people think waiting on God means they just do nothing until God makes them famous and powerful. I mean, I know a lot of believers over the years. They go, I'm just waiting on the Lord, like David, doing nothing. And they're just, they're absolutely not engaged in anything. Waiting for a big door to suddenly open and they will be a prophet to the nations or they will have be the next Reinhard Bonnke or something like that. And they think of David's patience and they compare them. David was aggressively seeking God all the way through, number one. David was aggressively attacking the Philistines, the enemies of the kingdom. Meaning that which was opposed to the kingdom, he was going after it. And David was serving people all the way through it. So he's very actively involved in building the kingdom, seeking God, fighting the enemies. Our enemies are sin, sickness, and Satan. Those are the enemies we're fighting. We're not fighting people. And David was serving. David was waiting on the ultimate promotion. So don't confuse waiting on promotion with being passive in your Christian life. Because a lot, I've seen a lot of folks do that and they think David is their role model and David, if he was here, he would say, no, are you kidding? I was fully involved and fully engaged each step of the way while I was waiting for the full promise to be king. Roman numeral two. Now the theme of these next three chapters, chapter two, three, and four, and we won't get so in-depth on it in a short session here. So I'll give you a little bit of notes to work on just to kind of fill in the gaps. But these are really important chapters. Chapter two, three, four. Here's what I would title it. These three chapters. Once David settled the fact he's going to be in Hebron, he knows the full promise of being king over all twelve tribes is coming down the road. I call it divine diplomacy. Jesus said, be wise as serpents, but innocent as doves. Now that's an interesting exhortation. Serpents are bad. Like, you want us to be like serpents? Lord says, no, I want you to have the wisdom like a serpent. Like, why not, aren't owls wise? Or at least that one fairy tale they are. I don't know if they really are, but does anybody know if owls are really wise? Raise your hand if you know. Nobody knows. Okay, good. But he says, I want you innocent, or I want you to have sincere godly motives. Now, in my younger days with the Lord, I was so focused on having godly motives that I wasn't as locked in. I wasn't as focused on being wise as a serpent. I didn't even really know what that meant. I just thought, well, I know it's right, but whoa, whatever. And I think that being wise, and see, and the reason I'm mentioning this, because David gives, is exemplary in these next three chapters on being wise and being godly, innocent as a dove, godly motives. Godly motives with wise leadership. Wise as a serpent. He put the two together. What it means to be wise as a serpent is that the Lord wants us wise related to how human dynamics really work. To be wise as a serpent speaks of employing divine diplomacy. And what I mean by that, I put that quote unquote, it's using wisdom in our approach to decisions that are related to situation with complex human dynamics. Meaning, David understood, I have written here in the paragraph A, he had insight into the fallenness of people and the tendencies, the weaknesses and the tendencies of human beings. And so David made decisions counting on weak people responding not entirely right. And he had that grid. Some people say, well, I'll just make whatever decision I make and trust the Lord. And the Lord says, well, I'd like you to make godly decisions and know that there's sin in the human race. Know that there's an active devil running around and know there's a free will. People really can sin and I'll let them sin to a certain degree. So making wise decisions is calculating, or that's maybe that's not the best word, but incorporating into your perspective the idea that sinful, ambitious, hypocritical men, David, in his world are going to be responding to what he's saying. So David's making decisions not in a naive way, but in that context, understanding it's the real world. Now paragraph B, what's the difference between diplomacy, the way I'm using it, you know Webster's Dictionary might use it differently. What's the difference between the way I'm using the word diplomacy and just being political? Like somebody goes, well David, that was awfully political. Well, I think, and again the way I'm using the terms, I use the term, when I talk of diplomacy, I'm thinking of decisions based on sincere motives to genuinely show value to the other people. Now we're going to see about five or six examples where David showed genuine values to the tribes of Israel. I mean genuine value for them. Meaning he wasn't conning them, like flattering them. You're important, but behind the scenes he says, they're not really. I'm just trying to trick them to get their guard down. That is called, that's being political. But David tapped into this reality of what we looked at in the last session, how God viewed them and God's bigger picture of their involvement in what unity between the twelve tribes of Israel, the eleven with his own tribe of Judah, because there was great animosity in these three chapters. Matter of fact, there was a civil war going on. And David says, I'm going to relate to them and genuinely value them in a way where we could actually come to partnership to a certain degree together. We could come to some level of partnership, but David's men didn't like this. They go, no, get rid of those guys. Don't let them sit at the table. And David says, no, I'm not only going to let them sit at the table, I'm going to involve them. They go, David, what are you doing? They're the bad guys. We're the good guys. You can't involve them. And David says, well, I'm going to involve them in as much as the Lord has involved them. Well, David, we've been loyal to you. Get rid of all those guys. And if they come near you, fire them if you get a chance to get rid of them. Kill them if you have to. David says, no, I'm going to view who they are in God's bigger pictures, bigger picture, and I'm going to relate to them with genuine value, not fake, not flattery. Now a political spirit is giving a show of showing value, a public show of it, but in your heart, you don't really value them. You're trying to fake them out, or you're trying to garner support and the applause of people, but it's not real. The value is not real. Now the virtue of diplomacy, the virtue in David in having this diplomacy, he really took the time and effort to communicate genuine value to his former enemies. He wasn't blessing them to get him out of the way. He really understood a bit of who they were to God and in his bigger picture. And therefore, he says, I'm going to go out of my way. I mean, even at Saul's, you know, the whole lament about Saul. He was telling the eleven tribes, when I'm king, you're not going to have to worry about reprisals, because in history, when a man becomes king, he kills all the people that were for the other king, and then they wiped them all out. I mean, they purged them. That's happened over and over and over throughout history. What David was saying is, when I am king, I'm going to treat you like I treated my former enemy Saul. I'm going to see the beauty and the might and the goodness and the pleasantness of who you are in God's purpose. And when the nation of Israel, the eleven tribes, I always say Israel now, I mean the eleven tribes always, it's Israel, the eleven tribes, versus Judah, the one tribe. David's over the one tribe, Judah, but God promised him he'd be over the other eleven, and they would all come together. But the eleven are hostile towards him still. And the one tribe, Judah, in his leadership, they don't like the eleven. They're hostile towards the eleven. The eleven are hostile towards Judah. And David's in between. He's only 30 years old, and he's going, meaning he's not like an experienced ambassador for 40 years on the job. He says, no, I'm going to show them who they are in God. I'm going to show you who they are in God, and I'm going to show each other what God has in mind for each other. I'm going to bring the whole thing together. That's what I mean by diplomacy. And in these next three chapters, which you'll only briefly look at them for a moment, we're going to find, but I just want to tip you off to what I think is the key to understanding these. Because if you don't understand this point, you're reading these three chapters, and it looks like just random stories that are just kind of strung together, but they don't make any sense. But there's a common theme in every story. That is, the leaders have an adversarial attitude towards each other. David saw the big picture in the positive, and he brought them together. And he's doing it over and over again, five, six times, right here in these three chapters. And it ends up working, because in chapter 5, the nation is unified. And so this is this tremendous textbook of leadership, of how he faces five or six completely different situations. And he takes this posture of God's view of both sides, stands in the middle, and as an advocate for both of them moving forward, five or six completely different situations, and he's using the values in the inside that we saw in chapter 1 at Saul's, the lament toward Saul. This whole view of Saul in the big picture, not the view of Saul as just a personal enemy. Now David's leadership team, they saw the eleven tribes as enemies. They said, we remember those guys. They were chasing us. Man, we're not going to be friends with them. David says, yeah, we are. Yes, we are. There's a bigger, there's a bigger storyline here than your feelings hurt, and your bitterness. There's a bigger storyline. And some of the guys couldn't get a hold of that bigger storyline. And there was setbacks in the whole story, because some of the guys on each side got in the way of this, and they vented their bitterness, etc. Let's look at top of page 2. Let's look at the verse again. Verse 1, so it happens, Saul dies. David's in Ziklag. He asked the Lord, where do I go? The Lord says, go to Judah. That's a region, a tribe of Judah, but go specifically to this one city. Verse 2, then he talks about David's two wives. Incidentally, the reason the two wives are mentioned here, this isn't reducing his relationship to the two wives, but in terms of the narrative, these two wives were from two very prominent families in Judah. Wealthy and prominent families, and the storyteller, the one, the writer of 1 Samuel, is putting them in the context of David's favor in Judah. And he says, even the Lord has used these two, these two families that are now David's, the son-in-law, these two powerful families. And even that plays into the storyline. Again, what's going on here? It's not a romance story that the narrator, that the writer is telling at this point in time. He's telling, he goes, look at how the situation unfolded where David found favor in Hebron, down in the south, in Judah. Hebron's the city, Judah's the territory, the region, so to speak. How he found favor there. Verse 3, David brought up all the men who were with him in Ziklag, the 600 men. Now the 600 men, most of them have families. So you figure they got a, possibly a couple children. So maybe there's 3,000 people totally. I mean, I don't know for sure, but I think that's a good guess. David brought up the men who were with him, every one of them with their entire household, their family. So 3,000 people, here they come to Hebron, and the leaders of Hebron go, why don't you dwell in the cities around, like a little overflow in some of the bedroom communities around. So it says they dwelled in the cities, which means the little villages. They were quite small little towns and villages, cities, kind of a big word there. Verse 4, some time passed and the leaders of Judah, the men of Judah, speaking of the leaders, they came and they anointed David. They said, David, you lived here, you moved in with 3,000 people, you like doubled our city population nearly, or whatever. And they came to him and says, we want you to be king. Now notice David didn't go to them and say, hey, God sent me to Hebron, here I am, anoint me. That's not what happened. He just moved to Hebron and just served the Lord, served people, sought the Lord, did his work, and they came to him and said, we want you to be our leader. Very different, that he wasn't running for the job. He moved to the city and then he, the Lord blossomed him, so to speak. He blossomed where he was planted. Now, let's look at Roman numeral 4, Roman numeral 4. Now, the very first act that happens, David's now king at Hebron. He's got the 3,000, you know, the 600 men with their families. They're in Hebron. They've overwhelmed the town, so they've spilled out into the villages roundabout. The leaders of the city said, you're the guy we want to lead us, good. Now, his very first act, it looks like random and disassociated with what's going on, is that David's first act as king, and the whole Bible, is to bless the men of Jabesh Gilead. Now, these men of Jabesh Gilead, they're Saul's men, and you, I got a little bit on the notes here, Jabesh Gilead, they were, that was the first city 40 years ago that Saul delivered from the Philistines, and they loved Saul, and they were loyal to Saul. They were Saulites. I mean, fully Saulites. Now, what happened is these men, when Saul was killed, and we got it in the notes here, and when Saul died, I mean, the Philistines took his body, that, you know, that Malachite took the crown and went down to David, but the Philistines found his body, and they hung his body on a wall in the Philistine area, territory, just to humiliate him, and say, the king of Israel, the God of Israel, here's his man. I mean, to completely desecrate and humiliate him. These men from Jabesh Gilead, very courageous, they broke into the Philistine camp. I mean, this is courageous. They took Saul's body, and they brought it back home, and gave it, their proper burial, in the way that seemed right to them. So, David is down south, because that's happening up in the north of the country. David, here's the story. These men from Jabesh Gilead, they went and captured Saul's, I mean, they stole Saul's body. David could have said, so what? What's that got to do with me? David said, no, this is amazing. So, he sends this message, verse 5, to these guys. Again, they're quite a few miles up north, maybe 40, 50 miles, I'm guessing. That's a lot in those days. And he said, hey, you're blessed of the Lord. Now, this is the most, one of the most loyal Saul groups in the nation. This is like, really intense, Saul for president. There you go, he goes, I bless you. God has blessed you. He goes, I want to honor you for honoring Saul by, you know, retrieving his body. Because, you know, in those days, what you did with a dead body was very, very important. Verse 6, I will repay you. Now, this is completely going the second mile. He doesn't owe them. These, they're of a different political party, completely. They've, they have, they've had hostility between, they've been against David. These Saulite people have been against him. He goes, no, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go the second mile. I'm gonna actually bless you. Because what David's doing, he's sending a signal to all the tribes of the, the 11 tribes. He goes, with my authority and my power, I'm not gonna use it to pay you back. I'm gonna use it to bring unity and blessing to the people of God. I'm not gonna pay anybody back. There's no payback. It's not gonna happen. And when they honored these men from Gilead, it was a remarkable, I mean, I mean, Abner, who was the top general under Saul, you know, he survived, the five-star general. He should have honored them for retrieving Saul's body. I don't think it ever crossed Abner's mind. I don't even think it crossed his mind. But David, down in the south, he goes, I see this opportunity to communicate the value of who they are to me, and how I would view them. When I am their king, they have nothing to fear, because I'm not gonna have any payback, like a normal king would, when he purges and gets rid of all the former enemies. So he tells them, verse 6, I'm gonna be kind to you. I'm gonna go out of my way. And they're going, wow, we don't even have a grid for this. You're the guy we've been chasing for years. That's an interesting response. Verse 7, he goes, therefore be strengthened and be valiant. For Saul's dead. What he's saying is, he goes, the man you've been loyal to is dead. Therefore, you don't have any military support for your area. Your provider and protector is dead. He goes, I get it. You're vulnerable. You just stole his body from the Philistines, and in a minute the Philistines are gonna come burn your city, because you've humiliated them in the whole region. They're gonna come with vengeance, to pay you back for humiliating them, for stealing Saul's body. But he says, I want you to know this, the house of Judah has anointed me. Now what he means by that, he goes, you are a city that doesn't have military governmental protection. The whole Saul government is in disarray, chaos. The whole government is collapsed. David says, I'm a new king, which means I have a mobilized army. It's a little nation, Judah. It's a tribe. But I got some resources, and I have an organized military, and guess what? I'm gonna defend you. And these guys from Jabesh Gilead, they're going like, we don't even have a grid for this. We're for the bad guy, Saul, our new leader, Abner, who the government's collapsing in disarray, can't do anything to help us, and you're gonna come and be our help. Interesting. Paragraph B. I tell the story of how they, those guys went, I mean, I put the verses there of how they went and retrieved Saul's body. Top of page 3. Now the next event. Now in my opinion, well David's in Hebron for seven years. Five years have gone by, in my opinion. The reason I say my opinion, it's not crystal clear that the timing of this, but that's how I read it, and a lot of other commentators would agree with that, and some have a different view of that. But of the seven years that David is in Hebron, five of the years, the collapsed Saul government is trying to piece things together, and they're trying to survive, and they're threatened by David, because David's organized, David is unified, so the Philistines are troubling the eleven tribes, and the collapsed government, and David is threatening them, so they're, they're kind of like fighting against David, fighting against the Philistines. They move their capital over, in verse 8. They move their capital over about 30 or 40 miles to the east, across the Jordan River, to another city, I have it all written out there, because they're trying to get away from the Philistines, because they said the Philistines have overrun our capital city of Gibeah. So they get another city about 30, 40 miles away to get away from the Philistines, and so they're threatened by David, they're trying to ward off the Philistines, their government is collapsed, they're in total disarray. A couple years go by, and Abner, he's the five-star general for Saul for many years, so he's got to be an older man at this time. Verse 8, he took Ish-bosheth, now that's Saul's fourth son, that's the intimidated, fearful son, who didn't die in battle, because he didn't want to go to battle, and Abner goes, Ish-bosheth, because he thinks he can control Ish-bosheth, which he can, so Abner thinks, I can't be king, because you know, I can't just take over Saul, I got to be loyal to Saul's family. So he gets Ish-bosheth, and he goes, you know, in secret, you do what I tell you, and I'm a five-star general, I'm a Rambo guy, I can take care of the whole thing for you, we can rebuild this government over the next 10 or 15 years, I mean, we can make this thing strong. Verse 10, so Ish-bosheth, he's 40 years old, but he only makes it two years, and then he, we find out a few minutes, he gets killed, one of, he gets murdered, and it's at that time where David takes over all 12 tribes. Okay, let's look at Roman numeral 6, chapter 3, verse 1. So we've got a new king, and the reason you want to know these details, because when you know the details, you know the storyline, it's not a complicated one, it's a pretty easy one, once you put the puzzle together, then you can apply the principles, the spiritual principles, in your own life, because the storyline is unique to them, but we can extract the principles and apply them now, once you understand this, a little bit of the details of what's happening. And again, the drama is not so confusing, but it takes a little bit of time to put these five or six episodes together, to kind of get the storyline of what's going on there. And the final two years of David's seven-year reign in Hebron, again, after Hebron, he goes to Jerusalem, and he's king over all Israel, but for these seven years, from age 30 to 37, the final two years, there's this intensified civil war, because up north is Bosheth, who's, you know, Saul's son, the intimidated son, the weak military leader, or not a military leader, just a really weak leader, they're intimidated by David, so they're resisting David, because they don't ever think they're going to get unified. They think, man, we've got to get rid of David in the south and the Philistines in the west. This is really troublesome. So there's a long war between the house of Saul, up north, and the house of David, down south. Paragraph B, here's the point I want you to read, I mean to catch, when you're reading this more in detail on your own. David longed for Israel to be unified with Judah, but there, these various battles between the two kept happening, and murders were taking place. They were killing one another, and every time these battles or these murders would happen, not every time, but many times, the whole process of them walking in unity was set back again. Then David would have to intervene, and through his diplomacy, his godly wisdom, he was innocent as a dove. He had godly motives, but it takes more than godly motives. It takes a realistic plan that incorporates that sinful, broken, ambitious men are going to be a part of that plan. I mean, that's a little tricky to bring all that together, but David does that, and again, that's where these episodes of these six or seven episodes of these three chapters are all strung together. They're all giving snapshots of David's diplomacy is what's really going on. When you study the bigger picture of David's life, it's kind of like Leadership 101, study chapter 1, 2, 3, 4 of 2 Samuel. You'll lay out leadership on just a snapshot of it there, 1, 2, 3, 4. So I'm hoping that I'm stirring up your interest to familiarize yourself with this story more than we can go into just in a one-session time here, just in the next few minutes of this session here. So the next episode takes place. Now, this is a really strange one. Paragraph A, verse 12. Roman numeral 7, paragraph A, verse 12. Now Abner, the five-star general in the north, and the servants of Ish-bosheth, that's the the inept, incompetent leader, Saul's son. They went out from the capital city. They went to this city Gibeon, which is in between David's capital city and their capital city. Gibeon's the middle point. It's about 40 miles away. They go to this capital city. It's about 40 miles from where David is. And Joab, Joab's David's five-star general, though he's a young man about David's age in his 30s. Abner's the five-star general of the north. He's probably in his 60s or 70s. I don't know, but he's he's been doing it for many years with Saul. I don't really know how old he is. They decide to meet in the middle at the pool of Gibeon. That's right in between the two headquarters, you know, maybe 40 miles from each one, something like that. Paragraph B. So Abner, the five-star general of the north, says to Joab, David's five-star general of the south, hey, let's have a contest. But this isn't a normal contest. You pick your 12 best soldiers. I'll pick my 12 best soldiers. And let's have them fight. I mean hand-to-hand combat to the death. And whoever wins represents their army, and their army's the winner. It's kind of what David and Goliath, which that David and Goliath didn't work, because when Goliath got defeated the Philistines didn't give up. They fought Israel. Well, they put 12 on 12. I mean, this is a deadly thing. So David's 12 men under Joab, the five-star general, come rushing out, and Abner's 12 men rushing out, and all 24 of them did exactly the same thing. They must have learned this move in the military, you know, in basic training. They all did the same thing. They grabbed the other guy's hair and stabbed him with a knife. So this guy grabs his hair, stabs with his knife, but the guy grabs his hair, stabs him. All 24 of them are stabbed in the first moment of the first round of the fight. They look at each other, Abner, the two generals, and go, this was disaster. I mean, they were, it's the bizarrest thing you could imagine. All 24 of them grabbed the other guy by the hair and stabbed. Again, it's probably some move they learned in basic training or something. Top of page four. Verse 17, paragraph C. Now this, this stirred up everybody's emotions. They're in a fierce battle, because Abner had hundreds of soldiers with him watching this. Joab, David's general, he had a bunch of soldiers. They broke out into a absolute mayhem of killing each other. Just chaos. You know, those 24 died real quick in round one of the fight. Verse 18, now the three sons of Zeruiah. Now Zeruiah, you're going to hear this term, oh you son of Zeruiah. Zeruiah was David's sister. David's sister, Zeruiah, and I have it in the notes a bit on this. She had three sons. These three sons, they were David's cousins. No, David's sister. David's the uncle, they're the nephews. Three nephews, but they're all the same age, and they all grew up in Bethlehem, and they're all about peers, because David was the youngest of eight sons. So he's about the same age as his nephew. So they grow up in Bethlehem, and they're great friends. David's now anointed the king of Judah, but they're his most loyal people. They're fierce fighters, and they're really loyal to David, but they're always causing trouble for David, because they're impetuous, they're violent, they're hot-tempered. And then David will die for you, but we may kill some other people for our own reasons, and you may have to pay the bill for it. We're sorry if it causes you trouble. So David was in a jam, because their family, their nearly best friends, that's a little exaggerated, because throughout the David story, he's saying, oh the sons of Zeruiah, he goes, you caused me so much trouble. He goes, how could this be? But they're so valuable to him, because they're fierce warriors, and they're very loyal to David. It's kind of a catch-22. You know, sometimes the Lord sets it up that way. Violent, impetuous, strong-willed, independent, breaking rank, but loyal, and I mean, wow. So what happens, verse 19, is the youngest son, Azahel, the youngest of the three brothers, I mean, the youngest of the three brothers, he goes after Abner. Abner's the five-star general. Abner's the main guy. I mean, a skilled military commander. And this young son of Zeruiah, the youngest one, David's youngest nephew of the three, is chasing Abner. And Abner's running, because you know, there's mayhem after the 24 people killed each other. And this guy says, I'm going after Abner. And you know, my somebody might have said, you might not, maybe not go after him just right now. Maybe he's a little out of your league. So Abner's running, and this, Joab's the general, his younger brother, he's chasing him, and Abner kills him. And he goes, Joab, your brother was chasing me. I told him to leave me alone, and he wouldn't back off, and I killed him. Joab is really mad now. He goes, you killed my brother. He goes, yeah, but your brother was chasing me to kill me. Joab says, it doesn't matter. You kill my brother, I'm coming after you. David is like, guys, I'm trying to bring unity in the nation, and this isn't going to work. I can't have the top leaders of both sides in a little family feud right now. I need this to put all this stuff aside, and to get the bigger picture of what's going on. Let's look at Roman numeral nine, verse six, chapter three. Now while there was a war between the two houses, Abner was up north with Ish-bosheth, and he's strengthening himself. He's losing confidence in Ish-bosheth. He's going, this kid, I thought if I made him king, it'd work. I mean, he's doing everything I'm telling him to do, but he's just completely inept, and so Abner's thinking, I'm reading this into the text. Abner's thinking, I think I'm going to get rid of this kid, and I'm just going to be king. I tried it with Saul's kid. He's the only surviving son of Saul. I don't think it's working. I gave him a two-year shot, and so verse seven, Saul, who has died, has a concubine. You know, a king had a harem, and this concubine, this woman, her name is Rizpah, and Ish-bosheth, the son, Saul's son, who inherits the harem. So all these concubines are now the property of the new king, this inept leader, Ish-bosheth. He goes to Abner, the five-star general, the skilled military guy, the guy that's putting him in power, and he says, hey, he goes, I have word that you went in to my father's concubine, which is now my concubine. I mean, this whole thing's messed up, and you had a sexual contact with her, and Abner says, how dare you, you little brat. I'm putting that into the text. I think Abner said it stronger than that. Because here's why this has mattered, because if you touch a king's concubine, you're making a public statement. I'm trying to take over his throne. It wasn't about a romance or just about a sexual little relationship at the side. When you touch the king's harem, you are making a public statement of treason. I'm taking over the throne. So Ish-bosheth goes to this senior general and says, I think you're trying to take over the throne. He goes, are you kidding me? He goes, I've been loyal to your father all these years, and I'm the one that put you in power, and you're accusing me of treason, because that's a really bad thing. And he says in verse 9, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to throw in my little words. You little brat. Hey, I mean, he's upset. He's really mad at him. You know, he's probably several decades, three, probably 30 years older than him, I'm guessing. Been a military leader for years. He goes, I'm going to do something right on the spot. He goes, I'm going to bring the whole kingdom to David, and I'm going to get rid of you. And I'm going to bring all the elders and convince them to follow David. I'm finished with you. Ish-bosheth, he goes, whoa, whoa, wait a second, wait a second. He goes, Admiral, let's, wait, wait. Wait, I meant that. It didn't say that, but I imagine this kid was scared. He goes, look at this, verse 10. I'm going to transfer the 11 tribes, the whole king of Israel, kingdom of Israel, the whole house of Saul, all 11 tribes. I'm going to bring them over to David, so he can be over our 11, plus his one, all 12 tribes. He'll be over all of it. From one end of the country, from Dan to Beersheba. Dan's in the far north, and the other's in the far south. He goes, now, from coast to coast, so to speak, let's look at top of page five. I'll just tell you a little bit, a few more stories here, and then we'll wind this thing, wind it up. So, paragraph E, verse 12, Abner, he's very upset at Ish-bosheth. He goes, I can't believe this guy's challenging me of treason. I mean, what an insult publicly to have this accusation. So, he sends a messenger to David. Hey, David, I know this is odd. What if I came down south and had a strategic meeting with you? He sends messengers, kind of, you know, to fill out David, and we make a political covenant. And what if I bring the entire government and the military and give it all to you? So, it's all one nation, 12 tribes. I'm going to bring a transfer of the national government and the entire military and get all the generals of my military to submit to you. What do you think, David? David's 37 years old now. He's been in Hebron seven years, and David said, verse 13, good. He goes, good. But he goes, one thing I am going to require of you, that you bring my first wife, Michael. I want you to bring her, too. And I want you to return her to me. Because when David fled into the wilderness, his wife, Michael, got remarried. But David says, I never got divorced. Her dad was trying to kill me. I didn't divorce her. She's my wife. So, he tells Abner, he goes, I want her back. And Abner goes, well, that's complicated. She's remarried. David goes, well, it's adultery. If she is, she's my wife, legally. I paid the dowry, the bride price. She's mine. I never, no, I want her back. Because really what David wanted, it wasn't the romance. I know I'm just killing the whole romance. He wants the legitimacy of being in Saul's family. Because when the whole nation sees that now Saul's daughter, he's in Saul's family. He's not anti-Saul no more. He's in the family again. It's a political statement. But David goes, it's not, I'm not trying to trick anyone. I really value the Saul swirl, the Saul network. I really buy into it. I want to be a part of it. That's what he's saying. But his insistence on this woman coming back was a statement to all these leaders up in the north. I will value you and count you as my family. That's what he was saying in that statement. I mean, him and Michael didn't get along that well when you read some of the other parts of the story. Well, Saul comes down and, okay, and Abner goes, okay, I can get you, Michael. Okay, we'll make that work. We'll make it work. Paragraph 11. So, Abner talks to all the elders of Israel. He goes, guys, I sent messengers to David. He's, he's on board a hundred percent. He wants to do this. So, he goes to all the leaders, verses chapter 3, verse 17 and 18. He goes, you know what? We always knew God called David. He goes, let's be honest. Even when we were chasing him, we really did know, didn't we? And the elders are going, well, I guess if you're really getting technical, we kind of did. I mean, this is the verse that makes me the maddest. The bowl of Samuel, almost. There's one or two other ones. Like, you knew he was the anointed. What is this whole conflict against him for? Well, we want to keep our jobs. And Herod might be really mad at us when he comes in power. He might get rid of us. So, we're going to continue fighting him because no king is going to be gracious to the former people that were resisting him. But they'd never met a David. So, all through these three chapters, David is signaling, there are no reparations. There is no animosity. There's no payback. You're my family. I will fight for you. I will protect you. David's men are going, no, we're not. David says, yes, we are. And the men up north go, you really? Is this for real? You will really treat us this way? David goes, yes. I got a big picture. I know you mistreated me. I know that you said wrong things about me. I know that you attacked me. But you know what? We're going to forgive all that. Paragraph K. So, Abner goes there. No, let's skip that. Turn to page 6 because we're already a couple minutes late. I just want to tell you the last point or two. So, they have the big meeting. Abner tells David, all the elders up north are in favor of this. Ish-bosheth is scared to death. Everybody's in favor. But Ish-bosheth's going to go along with it. We're all going to get on your team. Because you know what, David? I remember you back when you were a kid in the royal court. And I watched you not kill Saul. I was there those times you didn't kill him. And I actually trust you. Because I watched you when you could have killed him back in the wilderness days. You never know where your integrity in the past is going to actually matter to people that were even your enemies in the future. He says, David, I actually... Because now Abner goes down south into David's camp. We're talking about the five-star general of the opposing army coming into your house. You know what you do when that happens? You arrest him and you execute him. But Abner goes, I actually believe you. That you want this. I actually do trust you. You're not like Saul that I was with for these many years. You're different. I watched you many times. So they make this big agreement. They hug each other. He tells Abner to go back home. And we're going to bring the whole nation together at that point. Top of page 6, verse 22. Joab, one of the sons of Zeruiah, the oldest son, the five-star general. Remember the three brothers. One got killed by Abner. I just told the story a few minutes ago. Abner killed one of them. But the other two were really mad at Abner. So Joab comes back from a raid. He's been out raiding against some of the enemies. And there's certain revenue that comes in. A lot of plunder when you raid the enemy territory. And he brought a lot of spoil, which helps David's government. David's thinking, Joab, good job. We really needed this infusion of resource right about now. And Joab goes, wait. I just heard Abner was here? The guy that killed my brother was in your house having dinner? He goes, well, yeah. Actually, he was. Really? And you let him go? Yeah. Well, it's worse than that, Joab. We're going to have a peace agreement. And we're going to have a partnership. He's going to bring his whole government down. He's going to be on my senior leadership team. Joab says, that guy that killed my brother, who is twice as good at the job that I'm doing, he'll take my job too. I mean, he's way more experienced than Joab was. David says, Joab, let's calm down. Let's not go there yet. He says, David, he's furious at David. He goes, how dare you do this? So, paragraph B, Joab tells a few guys, hey, Abner just left about 20 minutes ago. Tell him, because Joab just came in town. You know, it was all news to him. He goes, Joab is acting, moving real fast. He goes, send a couple of messengers. Tell Abner, David has one more special thing to tell him. Tell him to come back quick. It'll only take a few minutes. So Abner is all excited. He comes back. Yeah, David, what's up? Joab goes, hi. He goes, come here. I want to tell you something. I'm over on the side. Abner goes, yeah, why? Because Abner guards down because he thinks peace is happening. Joab kills him. He stabs him. Joab, wait, the whole nation is going to be in unity. How can you do this? He kills him. Roman number 11. David, verse 28, he heard it. He goes, oh my gosh, the whole unity is now destroyed. Because up north, they told Abner, you go down there. They're tricking you. They're going to kill you. They're going to arrest you and execute you. Now it all looks like that's true. You can't really trust David and that group. We know the truth about him. So David, verse 28, Joab, why couldn't you get into the big picture and get out over your personal offenses here? There's something massive going on here. Well, he killed my brother, and he might take my job, and I'm not going to have it. So there it is. So David, in his wisdom, has another funeral. He had souls, so to kind of. He had at least a funeral service of sorts when he gave the lamentation. Now he has Abner's. But in this public meeting, he rebukes Joab. I mean, this is one of his best friends. He grew up with his whole life. Before the whole nation, he calls him, in essence, a fool and an evil man. Because he wants to send the signal back up north, I value the north. This man is not representing what I and my government represents. They go, he isn't. He's your five-star general. He doesn't represent your government. Well, it looks like he does. So David had to communicate to the nation his value of who they were. But again, remember a lot of people on David's team, they're going, we don't even like those guys up there anyway. Why are we doing all of this? Let's just kill Abner and be done with it. David says, no, there's a bigger picture. North, 11 tribes, I honor you. I will punish, and I will rebuke, and I will confront the guy on my team who did this. And so there's a whole lot more that's going on. And the final part of the story is, the very end, chapter 4, Ish-bosheth is up north. Abner just died. Ish-bosheth can't run a government or a military. He's terrified. He goes, oh, no. He goes, I know all the elders of Israel have already said they're going to join David. This is horrible. He's absolutely terrified. Abner's dead. All the elders are going with David. Two men, two of his men sneak into Ish-bosheth's house one afternoon when he's sleeping, and they stab him. They cut his head off. They run down south, south of the country, you know, 40 miles, whatever, 50 miles, and with his head. David, we killed your enemy. Look at us. And David says, you just don't get it, do you? I don't do it this way. So David executes those two men and sends a message back north, I am not going to tolerate anyone who doesn't honor you and value who you are, even your own soldiers, because those were his own soldiers. They thought Ish-bosheth's time was over anyway. They thought, hey, we'll get on David's good side. They thought David was like Saul, that David would rejoice in this murder. David says, I don't do it that way. I let God bring these things to pass. I don't speed up the process by cheating that way. So David executes them, and again, in that statement, he's telling everyone up north, I am for you. This is divine diplomacy. I'm using wisdom. I'm innocent as a dove. My motives are pure, but I've got a bigger picture as to who you are to God and why I'm not going to pay you back, but rather I'm going to defend you, and I'm going to honor you and go out of my way to do it. And the next verse, which is next week, all of Israel makes David king, and he's king of all twelve tribes, and we go from there. Amen. Now, I don't know if you could follow that whole story. That's a long story.