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[0:00] It's page 442 in Sing Psalms and it's the first version of the psalm. We typically sing the second version, but we're going to sing the first version this evening and that's from the beginning of the psalm.

[0:13] Amen.

[0:43] Sing from the beginning to the verse of Mark 7, that's the first five stanzas, page 442, Psalm 145, the first version of the psalm. That's the traditional version and we'll stand to sing.

[0:53] Amen. I'll bless thy name always.

[1:13] They will thy blessed each day and will thy name forever praise.

[1:30] Great is the Lord, much to be praised.

[1:40] His greatness search exceeds. With son to his shall praise thy words And show thy mighty day.

[2:06] I offer thy glorious majesty The honor will record I'll speak of all thy mighty words Which wonders are, O Lord Men of thine axe The might shall show Thine axe The dreadful are And I Thy glory True advance

[3:09] Thy greatness Thy greatness Will declare The memory Of thy goodness Great They largely They largely Shall express With songs With songs Of praise They shall Let's do Thy perfect Righteousness Let's bow our heads in prayer Our Father, we confess that we are taken up by the wrong things all too often That our attention is taken away to things that will never last

[4:16] And we pray, Lord, once again to be reminded that your glory Your splendor and your majesty Is what really counts in all the universe And it counts in our hearts also We ask, O Lord, that you will give us to worship you because of who you are And because of what you've done for us Because we are your creation We are here because you have determined that we should be who we are and where we are And we owe our very existence to you You have created our being and you have created our minds and our bodies and our personalities And you have determined that we should belong to the families that we belong to And you've determined that we should be here this evening We pray, Lord, that you will make yourself known to us And teach us that our first priority In this life is to glorify and enjoy you We ask, Lord, that you will teach us to do that

[5:18] Show us something of yourself Lord, we cannot train ourselves to glorify God We can only worship By means of the Holy Spirit That we believe is present here this evening And we pray that your Holy Spirit will touch our hearts And open our hearts And raise us from being dead in trespasses and sins To being alive in Jesus Christ And, Lord God, we pray that this may be an evening of discovery for every one of us We pray that it will be an evening when our minds are given to be concentrated upon your word That you will open up your word We thank you for it We thank you that you have not left this world without a witness to yourself And we thank you that your word is that witness That explains to us How you have spoken to mankind Through your people And how you have revealed yourself to us In the pages of the Old and the New Testament And so, our Father in Heaven, we pray that

[6:20] You will speak to us and reveal yourself to us this evening And come to us where we are this evening We ask, Lord, that we will be given to worship you In spirit and in truth God is spirit We cannot see you You live in unapproachable light You have no body like we have You're not restricted the way we are For as high as the heavens are above the earth So high are your thoughts above our thoughts So, Lord, we pray like Isaiah of old To see the Lord high and lifted up And the train of his robe filling the temple We pray that we may be awestruck this evening As we come to contemplate your great majesty And your great glory Our Father, we thank you that you are That you have revealed yourself In creation In the beauty around us That we see, particularly on a day like this And an evening like this Where everything is so clear And that impresses upon us

[7:21] The greatness and the might And the loveliness of God Because this world is a lovely world Because you are a lovely God A God who is wonderful And beyond our understanding Yet we also recognize that this world Is an ugly place A place full of conflict And war And sadness and misery Because we have Because the world has become broken And it's separated from you We thank you, Lord, today That we That there is reconciliation In Jesus Christ There is salvation In Jesus Christ And we pray That you will show us What that salvation means And bring us to put our trust in him In Jesus' name Amen We're going to read together From the Old Testament And the second book of Samuel Chapter 10 Second Samuel chapter 10 It's on page 314 Second Samuel chapter 10

[8:29] I'm going to read the whole of the chapter After this The king of the Ammonites died And Hanan Or Hanan His son Reigned in his place And David said I will deal loyally with Hanan The son of Nahash As his father Dealt loyally with me So David sent his servants To console him Concerning his father And David's servants Came into the hand Of the Ammonites Into the land of the Ammonites I should say But the princes of the Ammonites Said to Hanan their lord Do you think Because David has sent comforters to you That he's honoring your father Has not David sent his servants to you To search the city And to spy it out And to overthrow it So Hanan took David's servants And shaved off half the beard of each And cut off their garments In the middle At their hips

[9:29] And sent them away When it was told David He sent to meet them For the men were greatly ashamed And the king said Remain at Jericho Until your beards have grown And then return When the Ammonites saw That they had become a stench to David The Ammonites sent And hired the Syrians Of Beth Rehob And the Syrians of Zobah Twenty thousand foot soldiers And the king of Macca With a thousand men And the men of Tob Twelve thousand men And when David heard of it He sent Joab And all the host Of the mighty men And the Ammonites came out And drew up in battle array At the entrance of the gate And the Syrians of Zobah And Rehob And the men of Tob And Macca Were by themselves In the open country When Joab saw That the battle Was set against him Both in front and in the rear He chose some of the best men Of Israel And arrayed them Against the Syrians The rest of his men He put in charge Of Abishai

[10:29] His brother And he arrayed them Against the Ammonites And he said If the Syrians Are too strong for me Then you shall help me But if the Ammonites Are too strong for you Then I will come to help you Be of good courage And let us be courageous For our people And for the cities Of our God And may the Lord Do what seems good to him So Joab And the people Who were with him Drew near to battle Against the Syrians And they fled before him And when the Ammonites Saw that the Syrians fled They likewise fled Before Abishai And entered the city Then Joab returned From fighting Against the Ammonites And came to Jerusalem But when the Syrians Saw that they had been Defeated by Israel They gathered themselves Together And Hadadezer sent And brought out The Syrians Who were beyond The Euphrates They came to Helm With Shobach The commander of the army Of Hadadezer At their head And when it was told David He gathered Israel together And crossed the Jordan And came to Helm The Syrians Arrayed themselves Against David

[11:30] And fought with him And the Syrians Fled before Israel And David killed Of the Syrians The men of 700 chariots And 40,000 horsemen And wounded Shobach The commander of their army So that he died there And when all the kings Who were servants Of Hadadezer Saw that they'd been Defeated by Israel They made peace With Israel And became subject To them So the Syrians Were afraid To save the Ammonites Any more Amen And we pray As always That God will bless His word to us We're going to sing Now in Psalm 110 That's from the Sing Psalms version It's on page 149 Page number 149 And sing Psalms It's Psalm 110 And we're going to sing From verse 3 Down to verse 7 3 to the end of the Psalm When you display your power Your people flock to you At dawn arrayed in holiness Your youth will come like dew Unchangeably the Lord

[12:31] With solemn purpose swore Just like Melchizedek You are a priest Forevermore And so on to the end of the Psalm Psalm 110 verse 3 To the end of the Psalm And we're going to stand Once again to sing When you display your power Your people flock to you At dawn arrayed in holiness Your youth will come like dew Unchangeably the Lord With solemn purpose swore Just like Melchizedek You are a priest Forevermore

[13:34] The Lord's a true right hand There he will ever stay He on his day of wrath Will crush the kings Who bar his way The nations he will judge The dead in heaps will lie The mighty of the earth He'll crush All who his rule defy A brook beside the way His thirst will satisfy And thus refresh

[14:37] He will with joy Lift up his head on high Our second reading this evening is in the New Testament and Matthew chapter 21 Matthew chapter 21 And we're going to read from verse 33 Matthew 21 and verse 33 Jesus said Hear another parable There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence round it and dug a wine press in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants and went into another country

[15:38] When the season for fruit drew near he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit And the tenants took his servants and beat one killed another and stoned another Again he sent other servants more than at first and they did the same to them Finally he sent his son to them saying They will respect my son But when the tenants saw the son they said to themselves This is the heir Come let us kill him and have his inheritance And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes what will he do to those tenants?

[16:20] They said to him He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruit in their seasons Jesus said to them Have you never read in the scriptures?

[16:33] The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone This was the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes Therefore I tell you the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces and when it falls on anyone it will crush him When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables they perceived that he was speaking about them and although they were seeking to arrest him they feared the crowds because they held him to be a prophet Amen And once again we read these words asking that God will take them and bring them home to us in his own with his own power that he will open our eyes and open our hearts to receive his word in faith we're going to bow our heads once again in prayer Our Father in Heaven we thank you for the privilege which is ours to come not only praying for ourselves but praying for other people and we pray

[17:39] Lord for the needs of the world today we think oh Lord of the world that you have created and the world that has become such a dark place and a fearful place and a dangerous place we think oh Lord of where there is Ebola and the fear that is in the hearts of many people all over the world that it will spread beyond where it is at the moment Our Father in Heaven we pray for the many many families who are affected by the death of loved ones for those who right now live in Sierra Leone and places where the disease is rife and spreading uncontrollably it appears we ask our Father for those who have been caught up and for those who have gone out to risk their lives and their health by helping their fellow human beings we thank you Lord for such benevolence that has been given to humankind and we pray that their work will be successful in containing such a virulent disease and such a contagious disease we ask our Father that you will bring it to a conclusion we pray that it will that you that in a short period of time that it will not spread any further and pray for all the efforts that are made to contain it

[19:13] Our Father in Heaven we are so often reminded that this world is such an unpredictable place and where there are measures that can be taken to contain certain dangers yet we know that there are other unpredictable events that put our own lives in danger and give us to realize oh Lord that the people who have already been caught up in this epidemic are fellow human beings to ourselves they are a me and they are they have needs and they have lives and they have livelihoods and families they have loved ones who are concerned for them our Father in Heaven have mercy upon this world we pray have mercy upon us as a human race we thank you that it was into this world that Jesus came to carry our sorrows and for himself to be involved in our diseases our Father in Heaven we pray that you will bring us to him and bring us to see that he came into the world to seek and to save those who were lost and we ask for the lost in the world we pray for those who have never heard the gospel this evening we pray as people who have heard it many many times and we know the demands of your word the invitation that is given to every one of us to come to faith in Jesus and yet Lord for the most part we have refused to do so we pray Lord that that will change we pray that you will turn the hearts and minds of a rebellious people to yourself to realize afresh that we are accountable to God and we ask that you will that you will bring us in that accountability to trust in Jesus Christ but we pray for those who are hearing the gospel this evening for the very first time we thank you for them we pray oh Lord for those who are in bondage in the bondage of other religions religions that will that will keep them bound to a system of good works and empty belief we thank you Lord that the Christian faith is so different from just religion we thank you that the Christian faith is God coming into this world to rescue us by paying the price of our sin in his own blood and we thank you Lord that we are required to do nothing for our own salvation because it's all been done for us in Jesus our Father we pray that you persuade the hearts and minds of this world to turn to Jesus as the only source of our salvation we pray that the Holy Spirit will be poured out on our towns and villages and our streets and houses we pray that you will revive us as your people we pray that you will stir us up as your people we pray that you will take our minds away from everything that is empty and meaningless and worthless and give us to know that we are being prepared for a heaven that is being prepared for us and give us to fix our minds upon that place knowing that we are citizens of heaven and so Lord we pray for one another we pray for those known to us we pray we want to bring before you those in our own hearts who we have been praying for perhaps for years people who are still outside of Jesus and who haven't made that commitment to him yet we pray for them we ask that you will work in their hearts and bring them to that place where they see once and for all that Jesus is the reason for our being here and he is the objective of life itself our Father in heaven we pray for those who are not able to be with us today we pray for those who are away on holiday bring them back safely we pray for those who are here with us on holiday from other parts of the country and perhaps even other parts of the world we pray that you

[23:14] will bless them and keep bless our time of fellowship together we pray Lord for where there is new life for where there is new birth we pray for the families who are rejoicing this evening we pray for where there are marriages and newlyweds we pray for them and ask that you will bless them and abundantly keep them and guide them we pray Lord for where there is sadness and for where there is bereavement amongst us as a community and even as a congregation we pray Lord that you will uphold all those who are bereaved this evening and guide them in their thoughts and give them to take refuge in you for we ask all these things in Jesus name amen we're going to sing now in Psalm number two the second Psalm and we're going to sing the first it's on page 200 it's a traditional version of the Psalm I'm so far I forgot to I've omitted to mention the tunes but this one is to Eric Steyn it's page 200 in Sing Psalms page number 200 as soon as Eric Steyn we're going to sing from the beginning to verse 7 the first five stanzas of the Psalm why rage the heathen in vain things why do the people mind kings of the earth to set themselves and princes are combined to plot against the Lord and his anointed saying let us asunder break their bands and cast their cords from us

[24:36] Psalm 2 from the beginning to the verse of Mark 7 the first five stanzas we're going to stand to sing why rage the heathen in vain things why do the people mind kings of the earth to set themselves and princes are combined to plot against the Lord and his anointed saying thus let us asunder break their bands and cast their cords from us hear that in heaven sit shall laugh the Lord shall scorn them all then shall he speak speak to them in what in which he begs them shall yet not withstanding

[26:20] I have him to pay my king appointed and over sound my holy hill I have him king anointed the sure decree I will declare the Lord have said to me the Lord my only son this day I have begotten thee let's turn together to 2nd

[27:27] Samuel chapter 10 verse 12 the words of Joab I don't want to concentrate particularly on these words but by way of a text if we are going to have a text then these words are as good as any to focus on where Joab says be of good courage and let us be courageous for our people and for the cities of our God and may the Lord do what seems good to him it's incredibly important when we come to church church to listen to when the chapter is read and because the reading of the chapter is an integral part of our service and any service you'll of course be aware of all the different discussions that there are as to when people stand or when people sit during a service and for some people standing to pray is more important because they believe that prayer is when we come to

[28:43] God in prayer as we're doing of course but I would argue that reading the Bible is when we hear God directly speaking to us we believe that the Bible is God's infallible inerrant word so so what is more solemn than to sit or stand rather some people believe in standing to hear God's word read in any case whatever our posture and it's pointless getting into all these arguments because for every one argument there's a counter argument but the important thing is how we receive God's word and when we read God's word together to take it in and not to be thinking about every other thing that we've been involved in the things that we're planning for the next week as if God's word read is a part of lesser importance in the service it's not every part of the service is important in every part we are coming to meet with

[29:46] God in our singing we're praying we're singing to the Lord we're singing about the Lord in our reading we're hearing God speaking to us in praying we're coming with our needs with our collective needs so every single element in our service even when we put in our money at the beginning that is our offering to the Lord part of our worship some people argue of course that it should be part of the the overall service we should be included within the service again that's another argument that we could spend a lot of time over but every element is important what's important is that we listen that we take it in and that we follow the reading now this is a narrative it's part of the history of Israel part of the Davidic history of Israel where David was the king that's why we're following it's given us part of a successive series of chapters that describe for us his reign from the very beginning of how he was pursued by

[30:51] Saul and how Saul was killed eventually and how David came to the throne and thereafter there are these chapters as we've already seen that consolidate the kingdom now there are several ways in which we could read a chapter like this perhaps you were surprised that we're going to spend time on this chapter perhaps for you it's simply a series of facts and history and so perhaps for you you perhaps don't see much point maybe you're asking yourself well how much is he going to say about a chapter like this which doesn't seem to give us a great deal of spiritual if we want to put inverted commas around that information it seems rather to be just an incident that took place politically and historically in David's reign there's not a huge there's not a great mention of God apart from what Joab says here in verse 12 and so it's hard to see how we can apply a chapter like this in our lives or in the New

[31:55] Testament well I hope that that will change I hope that by the time we go out of here this evening that we will that our understanding of it could change but what I want to stress is that there's a wrong way of reading God's word and there's a right way and the wrong way is just to read it quickly and then put it away perhaps you might have imagined that I would skip a chapter like this and get on to chapter 11 which which of course is where things begin to go badly wrong in the reign of David and his personal life takes a turn for the worse and that has repercussions over the rest of his kingdom but I'm not in too much of a hurry to get to chapter 11 in actual fact chapter 10 it provides for us a preparation for what's going to happen in chapter 11 you could read it you could read it historically then as just a simple series of facts and figures like I said before last week as a record of the history of Israel but is it just a bare record is that all it is I would argue no there is nothing in the Bible that is not there without a reason that is there without a reason I should say everything that is given us in the Bible for a reason you might choose to read it in terms of not only its history but its politics David was a politician he had to be you couldn't be a king without being a politician anywhere at that part of the neither can you at in any in any generation every king is a politician he's a statesman he's a head of state and so he has to deal not only with his own country but he has to deal with other nations as well and he has to be on his guard as to who might threaten them and so for him for

[33:51] David it was a wise thing to consolidate his kingdom by by negotiating with the nations and the countries round about him perhaps that's the way you read chapter 10 and if so well it was a pretty disastrous event as far as the Ammonites were concerned if you're only going to read it on the surface then all that David was doing was sending a delegation as any emperor might to a neighboring country to console them to console this king Hanun on the death of his father Nahash now remember Nahash don't know if your mind goes back that far to way back to when Saul came to the king to the throne at first and Nahash took it into his head to surround the city of Jabesh Gilead and he threatened that he was going to gouge out the eye of every male in Jabesh Gilead then they sent for help and Saul and his army came and he rescued them from the threat that Nahash posed against Jabesh Gilead but over the course of time it's quite clear that Nahash became friends with David I'm not sure how we're not told but obviously they found it within themselves to put the vast conflict behind them and they were going to be friends from then on but now the

[35:21] Ammonites appear again this time Nahash has died his son Hanun has come to the throne and David wants to console him he wants to send a delegation to give the sympathies of Israel to Hanun with regard to the death of his father well and good so far so good but when the men who David sent got there the advisors of Hanun they said to him don't think for a moment that this delegation it means what it says these men are spies they've come here to suss out our army and to find out what our weaknesses are so that David can wage war against our kingdom and so that he can defeat us and Hanun did something that cost him his kingship and his kingdom he listened to very foolish and very sinful advice and instead of it would have been one thing would have been bad enough to just simply turn the men away once they got to the gate of the city but it was much worse than that they decided to utterly humiliate these men and what they did was they shaved off half their beards and they cut off their clothing from the hips down which meant that they were naked from the hips down now that's that might seem to the western modern mind a bit of a joke and a reaction in the modern world might be oh well get over it because it was only meant as a joke well it wasn't meant as a joke and there was absolutely nothing funny about it either by way of cutting off half their beards or by way of cutting off half their clothing so that they were exposed from the waist down it utterly humiliated these men and was in effect an act of aggression it was a wee bit like I mean can you imagine if somebody if a dignitary came from another country to this country if dignitaries came they got off the plane and on the tarmac they put their hand out to shake hands with with our government and somebody from the government said right told the police to come in and to take off their trousers that's the way it was it was utterly humiliating it was not only embarrassing it was the one of the most shameful things that they could it was even more shameful in those days and it was the same in fact it was even worse with a beard now beards nowadays are a fashion statement they come and they go when I grew up it was fashionable to have a beard nowadays it's not so fashionable and I grew up it was fashionable to have a mustache as well these big massive ones that they used to have in the 1970s I remember in fact

[38:30] I remember some years ago I decided to grow a beard when it's coming here and it was on holiday for three weeks and came back and hadn't shaved and I was told in no uncertain terms that it was not that it didn't suit me so it came off right away they come and they go but in those days it wasn't a fashion statement it wasn't the kind of thing you decided to grow if you happen to fancy it or if you happen to take the notion you had to have a beard if you were an Israelite it was part of the law of Moses to have a beard so in actual fact what they were doing was they were insulting not only the men themselves but they were actually insulting the Lord who they represented and that's that only comes when we read a chapter like this not just in political terms or in historical terms but in terms of how the rest of the Bible helps us to understand you always have to understand understand a passage in the Bible in the light of the rest of the scriptures and the rest of the scriptures throw light on a chapter like this and they show us how humiliating and how insulting it was so the men came back to David and David told them to go away and to go back to their homes and to wait until their beards grew again and and that was all well and good there is absolutely no indication by the way that David was going to go to war against them because of this but what became clear to Hanan and his men was how offended David was rightly so at what they had done to them so what they did was that they started purchasing the support and the help from the Syrians they took mercenaries and thousands of soldiers from another sworn enemy of Israel the land of Syria and so they amassed a whole massive army and of course I suppose it's once you see the reality of this massive army that all of a sudden you begin to be aware I could defeat David if I went to war against him not only with my own men but with all of these men that I have purchased then I could defeat the kingdom of Israel and

[41:04] David saw this as a threat rightly so you remember how last week we saw how important it was for him to consolidate his kingdom by ensuring their security and so when he saw the the collection of thousands of men gathering together in the region of Ammon he knew that it was only a matter of time before there would be a war there was only one possible outcome it was not David who caused this it was it was Hanan who caused this David sent Joab and Joab saw that the battle was set against him in verse 9 so he divided his army into two he left some of the men in charge in the charge of his brother Abishai and then he took the rest of the men himself the men under Abishai were going to fight against the Ammonites and the men under him were going to fight against the Syrians and then he said he told he he spoke to them be of good courage and let us be courageous for all our people and for the cities of our God and may the Lord do what seems good to him so Joab and the people who were with him drew near to battle and the upshot of course was that both the

[42:13] Ammonites and the Syrianites the Syrians fled from Joab and Abishai but then David came in when the Syrians saw that they had been defeated by Israel they gathered themselves together Hadadezer the king of Syria sent and brought out the Syrians who were beyond the Euphrates and they came to Helm and then David came in gathering Israel together and David's defeated he defeated the Syrians and which meant that any who survived became subjects of David now the question is are we to leave it at that are we just to understand it just by way of what it is on the surface or are we to are we to understand this a chapter like this like I said in the light of the rest of the Bible well I believe that there is that this chapter has much to point us towards it points us forward it points us first of all to one more indication of the enormous success that David enjoyed as king you remember how this is all of these chapters are a series of of chapters that tell us of how David strengthened his kingdom the Lord gave David victory everywhere he went I suppose that would be the motto that would describe all of these chapters way back from chapter 5 onwards to how David expands and strengthens his kingdom and only in the next chapter do things go badly wrong for

[43:55] David and we'll see that God willing next time the second thing that a chapter like this tells me is that our encouragement as God's people can come from the most unlikely sources our encouragement can come from the most unlikely sources the only verse in this chapter that mentions God is chapter 2 is verse 12 and it comes not from David that's where you would expect it to come from but it comes from job now job was the kind of guy who you would feel very safe with on a dark night if your life was threatened there wasn't a man in the world who was more who was more skilled in fighting and in war warfare than job was but he was also a ruthless man a man of blood a man who would who would take life as quick as Lucas somebody and we see that in many instances in the life of job and yet here he is at this head of the army and even he has a recognition of who Israel is and who God is and by the inspiration of God even job even a man like job is led to announce to the people who were in his army to point their minds towards God and to direct them towards the help that only God could give them in an otherwise hopeless situation he was vastly outnumbered by the Syrians and by the Ammonites and he knew that only his help could come from the Lord and who can't be touched by these words be of good courage and let us be courageous for our people and these were these words applied to God's people in the day of David and Joab then how much more do they apply to you and I when we face all the complexities of a

[46:03] Christian life day-to-day Christian living in which we don't know what's going to happen next in which we live in a world where we can't predict the future but a world in which we know that God has promised his own presence and company with his people and he has encouraged us to be courageous and be of good courage and let us be courageous for our people for the cities of God and may the Lord do what seems good to him the third thing that that I can see in this chapter is that the connection that there is between this chapter and the previous one and this is a really important connection but you can only see it if you look at it in the light of the rest of the Bible if you don't take it in isolation and don't just read it as a historical or a record document it's part of God's word and you'll remember last time how we saw that David in his kindness to Mephibosheth and receiving him into his own house and inviting him to sit at his table day by day he uses the word kindness remember how the chapter opens chapter 9 opens is there anyone left in the house of Saul that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake now chapter 10 you probably missed this you probably if you if you didn't have any knowledge of the original language but if you didn't look at the footnote you would miss this but David says exactly the same thing about Hanan uses exactly the same word after this the king of Ammonites died the Ammonites died and Hanan his son reigned in this place and

[47:47] David said I will deal now the word here in the ESV I have absolutely no idea why they translated it loyally but it's exactly the same word it actually should be translated kindly with Hanan the son of Nahash and what this tells us is that this one remember how the word the word in the Hebrew is the word hezed now please remember this you will never ever get to grips with the Old Testament if you don't understand at least one or two Hebrew words and the word hezed is so important because it's a reflection of the kindness the extraordinary kindness of God and David having showed kindness to Mephibosheth he's now going on to show that same kindness to another man who is potentially at least an enemy of his why because he's a man of God and everything he does reflects the God that he serves it is not true that David was ruthless and cruel it was not true that he arbitrary killed people left right and center if what it what is true in this chapter is that David's objective was a peaceful one he wanted to consolidate his kingdom he wanted to negotiate with people his objective was peace but these overtures were met with humiliation and with insult and with rejection from Hanan and this word is we'll see that this word occurs again in the life of David but but we'll leave it until that time the time when he in Psalm 51 in repentance for his own sinfulness and his own adultery he says after your hezed oh Lord have mercy upon me anyway we'll see that when we come to it but it's important to note that that word comes up time and time again because it's a marker it's an emblem of the love and the kindness of God himself that has been shown to us supremely in the Lord Jesus Christ that love that has called us tonight out of darkness to trust in Jesus and to serve him as our savior so here is a message of peace from a man who represents God from a man who is God's anointed king God's Messiah over his people God has God himself has gone to his enemy and he has preached peace that peace has been rejected by Hanan and Hanan has instead of accepting the peace that would have liberated him and brought true joy into his kingdom he decided rather to reject

[51:04] David and a course of war rather than peace what does that remind you of when you think of the rest of the Bible when you think of the New Testament when you think of the overall message of the Bible does it not does it not raise the gospel itself and how Christ has come into the world as God's chosen king the son of David God's Messiah why did he come what was the message of that the angels brought to the shepherds the night he was born glory to God in the highest and on earth peace and goodwill towards all those on whom his favor rests here's how the apostle Paul put put it he came Paul says this Jesus came and he preached peace to you who were afar off and peace to those who were near not just a political peace the kind of negotiation that there might be between one emperor or another one prime minister or another but this is real peace this is a peace that gets to the root of the greatest problem that exists in the world and that's the problem of separation between the world and it begins with my heart and yours we've become separated from God because of our sin our sin has intruded into the world and broken the world away from God and has caused all the disharmony and all the misery and the death and the destruction but more than that it's brought about the wrath of God the anger the righteous anger of God against a sinful world there is no peace while sin remains and yet Jesus came into the world to bring peace not a superficial peace but a message that gets to the heart of the problem because he removed our sin and our guilt he came and in his death on the cross because he died and took the punishment that we deserved there can be real peace peace that begins with the removal of our sin and reconciliation to God are you reconciled to God tonight are you one with God this evening have you been brought to know God this evening can you say he is my God he is my Lord he is my Savior can you say I know that my Redeemer lives you can only say that through Jesus Christ by faith in him and in his death on the cross the Jesus who came to preach peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near now you would think that if God has made us for himself and he has given us a consciousness of the reality of God you would think that if everything that I have said is true and sin has brought the misery and the death and the destruction into the world that we would be longing for that peace don't you it's the other way around sin means that we don't want peace with God for some for some crazy reason humankind prefers to live without God even if it means living without reason and purpose it doesn't matter to the vast majority in this world you go to them if you go to somebody tonight and you say to them do you believe in aliens you'll start a conversation

[55:06] and the conversation will last for ages and you can talk around and around the possibility of the possibility of there being one star and the thousands of billions of stars that might just be similar and might sustain life and that who knows perhaps there has been you can easily start a conversation centered around the most obscure subject that nobody can prove and that has absolutely no basis whatsoever and yet if you go to somebody tonight and you say do you know something that God has come into this world in the person of Jesus Christ and has given his life on the cross as a sacrifice for your sin do you know that you can be reconciled to God that you can be set free from the guilt of sin and that you can be you can that you can know God for yourself that conversation will last five seconds and the reason is the same as King Hanan do you notice how

[56:20] King Hanan chose rather than to accept David at his word do you notice how he chose to twist his word and he said David's motives are not good ones he wants to spy us out he wants to suss us out so that he can defeat us and so that we can become his slaves that's the way the world thinks of God they've chosen to twist the message of the gospel so that instead of understanding it as a message that sets us free from the guilt of sin and gives us a life as God wants us to have it which is a life the way it should be instead of that sinful human beings they chose they choose to reject that message rather choosing rather to twist the message of God and they'll say something like this ah God simply wants us to he wants us to make us his slaves he wants to restrict us

[57:24] God wants us just to feel he wants to heap guilt on us have you ever heard that have you ever heard have you ever listened to somebody who's accusing the church and accusing the gospel and the kind of way in which they convolute the message of the gospel to make it appear what it actually isn't at all so that it loses all a resemblance of what what it actually is these verses in Psalm 2 says this that the kings of the earth they combine in enmity her rulers join against God's reign they take their stand against the Lord and challenge his anointed one perhaps this psalm was written at this time at this time of this rebellion against David and this is what they say let us break off their chains from us with their restraints let us be done that's the way that the world sees the gospel instead of understanding what Jesus came to do in his love to forgive our sin to take away our sin and to give us newness of life in Jesus to give us everlasting life they see it rather as God trying to to get us into prison and trying to restrict us and constrict us and take away all our liberty and freedom of course you know what people mean by liberty don't you they want the kind of liberty in which they do their own thing and they live a life which is totally opposed to the way that God wants us to be but that's not liberty that's bondage that's restriction and that's death and emptiness only God through Jesus Christ can give us that liberty that freedom that peace with God through our Lord

[59:28] Jesus Christ the last thing this chapter reminds me of is that one day you will bow to Jesus either in the day of God's grace which is today when God invites you to come and to turn to him either you can obey that and accept that invitation and come willingly to serve Jesus or at the end of time when God comes in his day of wrath all every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord but those who have chosen to reject that message like Hanan did when they bow before Jesus it will be too late for their salvation they will have rejected the mercy of God in Christ

[60:41] Jesus and the reason I'm saying all this tonight is in the hope in the prayerful hope that we everyone here will listen to God's voice now today while it is still called today while there is still an opportunity while the mercy of God remains in this world before it's too late and before God comes in his rightful justice and judgment to bring the world we are all accountable to him and we must all appear before the judgment seat of Jesus Christ would it not be so much better to come now and to enjoy the life that God offers to each one of us to discover what God is really like because that's why we were created to know

[61:47] God to love God to serve God and to enjoy him to be what we were meant to be at the very beginning when God created human beings in his likeness and in his image God promises to restore that image in everyone that comes to Jesus in faith promises to make that person a new creation and promises eternal life to all those I can't think of a greater promise this evening I cannot think of any greater news than there is in the gospel that Jesus came into the world to seek and to save those who were lost so however you've lived your life whatever you've done whatever mess you've made however complex and convoluted your life is and bring it all to Jesus Jesus can remove all of our sinfulness all of our guilt all of our past shame and darkness and he can transform us into a new person with a new beginning let's bow our heads in prayer our father in heaven we thank you lord that david's son has chosen to come to us with a message of peace with a message of forgiveness a message that he has earned and that he has won for us by his own blood we ask lord now that you will bless that message to each one of us bless your word to each one of us may we respond to it in faith believing and accepting jesus as our messiah in his name amen we're going to close by singing in psalm 2 the last three verses of psalm 2 it's the new version sing psalm's version it's on page two and the tune is rocking ham it's on page two and it's verse 8 to 12 ask me and for your heritage i'll give you nations near and far you'll break them with an iron rod and smash them like a potter's jar now therefore kings true wisdom find you judges of the earth give ear with reverence come and serve the lord bow down with joy and trembling fear verse 8 to the end last three verses psalm number 2 ask of me and for your heritage was stunned to sing ask me and for your heritage i'll give your nations near and far you'll break them with an iron rod and smash them like a potter's jar now therefore kings true wisdom find new judges on the earth give hear with reverence come and serve the lord bow down with joy and trembling fear pay home is true the lord

[65:47]  son blessed you live up a sign of cross for swiftly come his anchor please blessed are all who in him trust now may the grace of our lord and saviour jesus christ the love of god the father and the communion fellowship of the holy spirit rest on and abide with each one of us both now and always amen