David's Kingdom Grows

Chapter eight. Okay? Second Samuel. And I guess I'll have to take the hymn book down so I can put my Bible up here. Second Samuel chapter eight.

And I think Jules needs to be out of here in about fifteen minutes, so it's going to be really short. No? Sorry, Jules. Not that short. Mhmm.

Not that short, I'm afraid. Okay. But you need to get your money's worth. Right? I can't let you out of here too soon.

You'll feel like you were, you know, cheated. Second Samuel chapter eight, remember in chapter seven, David asked the Lord or asked Nathan, the prophet that was his counselor, he said, do you think it would be okay with the Lord if I build him a house? It seems like, you know, it isn't quite right for me to have this beautiful palace here in Jerusalem and and God to have the ark of the covenant sitting over there in a tent. And so David thought that's something God would want. And Nathan kind of agreed with him to start with, but then Nathan decided to ask God and God said, no.

God said to David, no. I don't need a house. The house isn't important. Now, God did later allow Solomon to build the temple, a permanent place of worship there for the ark of the covenant, for his people to gather and and worshiping the Lord, a place where his Shekinah glory could fill the holy of holies and rest among them. However, that wasn't the most important thing.

God wanted to day build David a house. Now, not the house, the palace that he was building in made it out of wood and and and stone but he wanted to build him an eternal house, meaning a nation, a kingdom in which one of David's descendants, one of his seed would rule how long? Forever. Okay? Now, at this time, that house, that kingdom has been established under the rule of David.

First, David was a fugitive running from Saul after God anointed him and then God made him ruler over Judah for seven years and then finally, overall of Israel after that seven year period And David ran the Philistines out to begin with because they had taken over half the half the land at the end of Saul's reign. But but all of the land that Israel was to occupy, the kingdom that God had given to Abraham's descendants as he had promised, that wasn't fulfilled yet. That was only still partially true. And so David's kingdom still needed to be built further, okay? And so, we're going to look at that process in chapter eight briefly this evening.

David's military conquest and kingdom expansion. Verse one, and after this, it came to pass that David smote the Philistines, subdued them, and David took meth methag, Amah, Metheg-ammah out of the hand of the Philistines. Now, that's a city or an area and he smote Moab and measured them with a line, casting them down to the ground even with two lines measured to put to death but with one full line to keep alive And so the Moabites became David's servants and brought gifts. David smote also, Hadadezer, the son of Rehab, king of Zobah. As he went to recover his border at the River Euphrates, David took from him a thousand chariots, 700 horsemen, 20,000 footmen, and David hold all the chariot horses or hamstrung them but reserved of them for a 100 chariots.

When the Syrians of Damascus came to secure or to help Hadadezer, king of Zoba, David slew of the Syrians twenty two and twenty thousand men. Then David put garrisons in Syria of Damascus. That's been in the news recently. If you haven't noticed, that's a good bit north of Israel and Syrians became servants of David and brought gifts and the Lord preserved David whithersoever he went and David took the shields of gold and they're on the servants of Hadadezer and brought them to Jerusalem. And from Beta and from Berothai, cities of Hadadezer, King David took exceeding much brass.

And let's just stop there for just a moment and we'll kind of point out a few things from that list of conquests that will continue through most of the rest of the chapter. God promised Moses and Joshua that no man could stand before them to defeat them or stop them from carrying out the Lord's will. He told that to Moses, told it to Joshua again in Deuteronomy and in Joshua chapter one that no man would able be able to stand before him all the days of his life. Why? Because the Lord was what?

The Lord was with him. So David could not stand I mean, Goliath could not stand before David. Why? Because the Lord was with him and the Lord is still with David. Now, sometimes the Lord will does Lord's will doesn't exactly look like our will, does it?

God's timing is perfect. Our timing is not. We do our best to try to avoid all pain and difficulty and sorrow in life. But sometimes those things are necessary. Oddly enough for our what?

For our good. All things work together for good, for the benefit of those who love the Lord, to those who are the called according to his purpose. So David was so God was with David. As long as David honored the Lord, no man, no army, no nation of any size was able to stand before him. Now there were some incredible armies and foes that David went up against.

Much like Joshua when he brought Israel into the land of Canaan, they said, we look like grasshoppers in their sight. They have these big walled cities. They have these big armies and chariots and and weapons of war. We are no match. And they were right.

They were no match. For humanly speaking, the Israelites were no match. But the opposite was true when you considered that the Lord was with Israel. And the fact was Jericho was no match for Israel and neither was the all the other cities that Israel took as God brought the walls down, as God gave them these cities, as God made the sun to stand still and rain down huge hail, hailstones out of heaven to defeat the enemies of Israel. So, as God was with Joshua and as Israel honored God, so God honored Israel and gave them the victory.

So true. So was the same with David. It says in Psalm thirty three twelve, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. All capitals, that's God's name, Jehovah, and the people whom he hath chosen for his inheritance. That verse is speaking of the nation of Israel.

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. Who's who was the Lord, the God of Israel? The true and living God. The Lord of hosts. The word host means armies.

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord and the people. Again, in context, the Israelites whom God hath chosen for his own inheritance. Now, to some degree that applies to any nation who chooses to exalt who? Exalt the Lord. There are rewards for a people who choose to believe, to trust in, to honor, and to exalt the true and living God whether they be Israel or whether they be The United States or whether they be should be another nation.

God honors those, protects those, takes care of those who honor him. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be what? Shall be added unto you. However, Israel was special. They were chosen specifically by by God, by via Abraham and Isaac and Jacob to the peep the people through whom the Messiah would come to save them from their sins, not their sins but also whose, but also our sins for he died for the sins of the world.

They were the people that God promised to give a specific portion of land. That was to be the kingdom of Israel that would be ruled by David and one day by the Messiah. They were a special, a chosen people. Now, by the way, are you a chosen person? Yeah.

It tells us in it tells us in first Peter chapter two in verse nine speaking of the church. But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people that you should show forth the praises of him who have called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. So it's true we are a people as well. But God's promise to us is not one of an earthly kingdom so much it is of a what? A heavenly kingdom, of eternal life that he gives to all who come to him by faith, Jew or Gentile alike, to all who become part of the family of God, his body, the church.

Our enemies are not so much physical enemies of flesh and blood, but spiritual enemies in high places. Our weapons of warfare are not carnal, but are mighty to the pulling down of spiritual strongholds that oppose us, his church, who oppose his children to turn us away in faith from the Lord to to to again entrap us in sin and to destroy our testimony, our joy in the Lord. Greater is he that's in us than he that's, what, in the world. And God too will honor and exalt those his children who honor and exalt and serve him. Once again, but seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things, what, shall be added unto you.

So, no, we're not Israel and know the land God has given to Israel, though we are kind of grafted into that in Jesus Christ, our our hope, our faith is in the redemption of Jesus Christ, the justification for our sins, the freedom, and the salvation that we have from sin and its penalty in the Lake Of fire. So there is some parallelism here between us and them for sure. But back to that to that promise of a physical land that God gave particularly to Israel, we read in Genesis, I have it up here. Genesis fifteen eighteen, God is speaking to Abraham before he became known as Abraham. Abraham meaning the father of a nation versus Abraham which means the father of many nations.

It says in the same day, the Lord made a covenant with Abraham saying, unto thy seed will I give this land from the River of Egypt until the great river, the River Euphrates. Now the River Euphrates is a good bit, I get my directions mixed up, East of the Jordan River. So as you go from the Mediterranean Sea, you come inland, you come to the to the Jordan River, the the transverses north and south in Israel, you go further over, a good bit further over into the desert, and you come to the great river Euphrates. That goes today through modern day Iraq. It is there today.

It has been a mighty river for thousands of years. It is interestingly enough, I've been told little by little drying up and it's not the Great River that it once was. The River Of Egypt, some think is the Nile River, which again is a great river, but it doesn't say the Great River Of Egypt, says the River Of Egypt. It's thought that that was actually a smaller river that is on this side of on of Egypt near the border down there, and you can look that up sometime if you like. Israel did not currently in any form at the beginning of David's reign, reign over all of that territory.

Matter of fact, it was only a about a third of that territory. Today, it's only about a fourth of that territory that Israel currently currently occupies. But as we'll read through this, what God is spelling out for us here is at least the temporary fulfillment of that promise. As David conquers the areas of land that fill in that map between the great river Euphrates, the Mediterranean, and the River Of Egypt to to the south. So God always keeps his what?

God always keeps his promises. Although Israel did conquer these lands or subdue them, they did not continue to hold on to them. Why? Because they failed to do what? They failed to honor the Lord.

They turned to idols. God told them back in Deuteronomy, if you do that, I'm going to rip you out of the land and I'm going to scatter you across the globe. That's just exactly what he did. They turned from the Lord to idols. God took them out of the land and he scattered them via Babylon, via Syria, via Persia.

Praise the Lord. He has sustained them. They still exist as a people today despite all of other these other nations we're going to read of of of of those on the list, I think there's only one that you will recognize and that's Syria. The rest of these people groups and nations, they went out of existence but not but not Israel because Israel's not done. God is not done with Israel yet.

One day, guess what? They're gonna rule that land again and this time, it's not going to be taken away. But let's look at the conquest here. First of all, in verse one, we have further conquest of the Philistines pushing them back down into the area we know as the Gaza Strip today. That was the area of land inhabited by the Philistines in David's day.

So he pushed them pushed them back even further into their territory. This took care of Israel's only enemy to the West because everything else to the West is what? It's water. Okay? They would later deal with some enemies who came across the water, thus Greece and and Rome.

But for the moment, Philistines is their only enemy to the West between them and the Mediterranean Sea. From this time forward, the Philistines role as a power in the region begins to diminish and then disappear altogether. The Palestinians are not Philistines. The two are completely unrelated. The only thing they share is right now the Palestinians inhabit a piece of land that is the same place where the Philistines once inhabited a long long time ago.

But the Philistines went out of existence as a people group hundreds and hundreds of years ago. And this was the beginning of the demise of the Philistines. And then, we read about Moab in verse two. David conquered Moab. Moab is to the East, just the other side of the Jordan River.

David also conquered and subjugated Moab. So, they also sent tribute to David and served him. The Moabites along with the Ammonites, both descendants of anybody remember? No? Lot.

K? Moabites, Ammonites, both descendants of Lot lived on the East Of The Jordan River. They gave Israel a time when Israel came up to enter the land. They wouldn't let them pass. They had to fight their way through.

Despite being the descendants of Lot, they were not a God fearing people. They were idolatrous nations. They both dwelt to the East of Israel across Jordan, and David expanded his territory into Moabite and Ammonite territory into the area today that it's called Jordan. There's a nation over there now. I won't go into the history of the nation of Jordan, but that was inhabited by the Moabites and the Ammonites long ago.

Back in David's day, that was called Gilead. It was to be part of Israel, particularly the northern section of it was given to two and a half tribes, Gadasher and the half tribe of Manasseh. Manasseh and David took it back. The the measuring lines mentioned here in verse two, you remember as I was reading and talked about a measured he smoked Moab and measured them with a line, casting down the ground, even with two lines measured to put to death, and with one full line to keep alive. This was a practice of eastern kings in that day.

They would line the enemy soldiers up in lines, and they would say, kill this line, kill that line, save that line. Sounds brutal, doesn't it? Yeah. It was a brutal world indeed. It was a brutal world.

Conquering a nation was not about blowing up their skyscrapers. It was about defeating and killing the enemy. And David, in order to defeat the enemy, had to, at times, do things that seem brutal to us. And indeed, war is brutal and indeed, if there were no sin, there would be no what? Be no war.

And one day when Christ comes back, he'll rule and reign for a thousand years and as he rules with a rod of iron, there will be nobody that wants to take on Jesus Christ. So for a thousand years, there will there will be what? There will be peace like this world has never known. There's an area in history called the Pax Romana. That means the peace of Rome.

That was around the time that Christ was born. When it says in in when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under the law. Part of what made that the perfect time for the Messiah to come was the peace of Rome. And what made for the peace of Rome? It was that Rome ruled the world with a rod of iron.

And very few people rose up to fight against Rome for hundreds of years. Therefore, they were able to build huge cities. They were able to build Roman roads and, merchant ships, and things that before had never been. But war, brings this type of thing. He defeated Moab.

He defeated their armies, and he took over land on the East Side of the Jordan River between the Jordan and the river what? Euphrates. Okay? And then David battled against Zobah and Syria. These are Aramean people to the north.

Zobah was an Aramean stronghold north of Damascus that was defeated by David. When the army of Syria came to Zobah's aid, David defeated the Syrian army that came to their aid. The kingdom of Hamath, also called here Toy or the king's name Toy, offered itself as a vassal to David and the defeat of Zobah which was evidently an enemy of king Toy. So if we continue on, I think I stopped at the bar at verse eight. It says, and when Toy, king of Hamath, heard that David had smitten all those have had it easier, Then Toi sent Joram, his son, unto King David to salute him and to bless him because he had fought against Hadadezer and smitten him for Hadadezer had wars with Toi.

And Joram brought with him vessels of silver and vessels of gold and vessels of brass, which also king David did dedicate unto the Lord with the silver and gold that he had dedicated of all nations which he subdued of Syria and Moab and of the children of Ammon and of the Philistines and of Amalek. Remember Amalek was the people that attacked Israel as they came out of Egypt that God said he would one day destroy. And of the spoil of Hadadezer son of Rehab, king of Zobah, and David got him a name when he returned from smiting from smiting of the of the Syrians in the Valley Of Salt being between 18,000 men. We're going to come back to verse 13 in a second. So so David defeated all of these people.

He expanded his kingdom West by taking control over the Philistines. He expanded his kingdom to the East Of The Jordan, between the Jordan and Euphrates by conquering the Moabites and the Ammonites. He expanded his kingdom north by defeating the the Arameans and the Syrians to the North, the area today which is Damascus, the city of Damascus being when you hear about that when I hear about Damascus in the news, I think about the apostle Paul. Maybe you do too. He was the Lord stopped him on the road to Damascus where he was headed to bring Jews who profess faith in Christ back to Jerusalem for trial.

But Damascus is one of the oldest cities in the world. And when Damascus is in the news, it is a reminder God is still working in that area of the world. Is he not? It's been in the news a lot. And he's coming back very soon.

We get to verse 13 again and David got him a name when he returned from smiting the Syrians, the Syrians, the Valley Of Salt being 18,000 men. If you look in first Chronicles eighteen twelve, you'll find this. Moreover, Abishai, the son of Zeruiah, slew of the, what, Edomites in the Valley Of Salt, 18,000. In the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, in this passage in verse 13, it reads this. And David got him a name when he returned from the smiting of the Edomites in the Valley Of Saul being 18,000 men.

So if you compare second Samuel eight with first Chronicles eighteen twelve, you find out that somewhere along the line, a scribe changed Edomites to Syrians. Okay? So what we have, these two passages speaking of the same 18,000 men that were slaughtered, They were not Syrians. They were they were Edomites. Okay?

So thus we have David expanding his kingdom to the West, the North, the East, and now to the South around the Dead Sea, that was inhabited by the Edomites. Now the Edomites are the descendants of who? They're they're the descendants of Esau. Okay? The Edomites, descendants of Esau, that's that's Jacob's brother.

Okay? Whose descendants, settled around the area of the Dead Sea, again, causing Israel all kinds of trouble when they came, into the land. And David expanded. You'll see in verse 14 continuing to speak about the Edomites and he put garrisons in Edom throughout all of all of Eden, put he garrisons and all they of Edom became David's servants and the Lord preserved David whithersoever he went. To the West, David was God was with David and he pushed the Philistines back into their little strip of land and into servitude to Israel, which was amazing.

The Philistines had been a thorn in Israel's side for so very long. And to the East, Moab and Ammon, and to the North, Syria and Damascus, and to the South, the Edomites. Because God was what? Because God was with him. And the Lord preserved David whithersoever he went.

David was an was a great warrior. He was an incredible strategist in general and king. But none of those were the real reason that David overcame all of these enemies around about him. It was God was with him. And I think sometimes despite Israel's unbelief still, God gives them victory over their enemies today when the odds are much against them because God has a plan and God will not fail to fulfill his plan.

And that plan still involves who? It still involves Israel and it still involves that area of land that Christ will rule when he returns one day, when the remnant of Israel will return in faith to Jesus Christ and will receive him. If you read the last few verses of chapter eight, you find something a little bit interesting. Verse verse 15, and David reigned over all Israel and the surrounding areas that he subjugated. David executed judgment and justice unto all his people.

He was a good king. He was a he was harsh in war. Yes. But to his people, he was a just king. How many of those do you find?

Not many. Not many. This is why the founders of our country decided they didn't want a king because kings almost inevitably turn out to be very bad. Power goes to their head and they take advantage of their subjects, but but that wasn't David. David was a good king.

Even to those he he subjugated, he was a good king and ruler. God honored him for that. Verse 16, and Joab, the son of Zeruiah Zeruiah is sibling of David. Joab would be therefore David's nephew as was Abishai who's mentioned here in first Chronicle eighteen twelve. Joab and Abishai were brothers.

And Joab, the son of Zeruiah, was over the host, and Jehoshaphat, the son of Ahilud, was recorder. Zadok, the son of Ahitub, and Ahimelech, the son of Abiathar were the priests, and Seraiah was the scribe. Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, was over the Cherethites and Pelethites, and David's sons were chief rulers. So once David conquered these territories, God gave him rest, And David ruled them. He divided them up.

He put people in charge. There were those who were in charge of his armies. Those were those who were in charge of worship. There were those who were in charge of the legal system and those things in Israel that were mentioned here. David delegated.

It wasn't just about David. David surrounded himself with with other good people. David couldn't do it all by himself. Neither can your pastor. Neither can your boss.

It takes everyone involved as partners to fulfill the will of God. And there were those that helped David. It's interesting to me among those mentioned in this passage were not just warriors like Benaiah or Joab, but also Zadok and Ahimelech. These were the religious leaders. Why were religious leaders why were the high priests mentioned in this passage about the expansion of the kingdom?

Because they were important. Because see, it wasn't just those who drew a sword. It was about those that spend time on their knees before God and before the people, teaching them the word of God. It was about the spiritual condition of Israel and not just about the military might of Israel that made it a great nation. So it was true if we go back to Psalm thirty three twelve.

Blessed is the nation whose God is the one. The the Lord blessed us as a nation when we were not the mightiest and greatest military might in the world and made us the greatest. We have suffered some losses, no doubt in part because we have not honored our God as we should, but instead have chosen to honor our might and not the might of our of our God that brought us here. So is true in our own spiritual walk, in our own spiritual life. If you think you stand, take heed lest you what?

Fall. Because the arm of flesh will fail you, but God never will. God never will. It goes on in chapter 10, which we won't take time to read this evening to if you wanna read it, it chronicles a rebellion mounted by the Ammonites and the Syrians. It was short lived because, once again, God was on the side of Israel.

And the rebels were defeated promptly by David's army under the leadership of Joab and Abishai. So too if we honor the Lord in our lives, meditate upon, and follow his word, we too will succeed in the things which the Lord has called us to. Joshua one eight. God told Joshua, but this book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night. Thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein.

For then thou shalt make thy way prosperous and then thou shalt have good, what, success. When we honor the Lord and when we obey his word, God does great and mighty things in our lives. Sometimes through sometimes, it's one of the songs, some through the water, some through the flood, some through the fire, but all through the blood. Some through great sorrow, but God gives a song in the night season and all the day long. Some through the lion's den and some through the the fiery furnace, but but God will cause to succeed.

He will honor those who honor him and his word. Sometimes our vision about what his will may be is may be a little shortsighted. We may think we have failed, but like Isaiah and particularly Jeremiah, the weeping prophet prophet, his purpose for us and our ministry may look like failure in the eyes of the world and yet be a great success in the eyes of the Lord. To the enemies of Jesus who hung him on that cross, They won. But did they?

No. They didn't. Jesus won. He won when he hung there on that cross and suffered willingly. He he won when he cried out, it's finished, and he gave up the ghost.

He won when he rose again from the dead. He won when he ascended to heaven. He won for us as he intercedes and advocates in our behalf before the throne of grace. He will win once again when he returns to take his rightful place on the throne of David. I wanna close with this these two verses this evening.

Galatians six nine, let us not be weary in well doing for in due season we shall reap if we faint not. David was chosen to be king of Israel as a shepherd boy, as a teenager, and it was a couple decades later before he actually became king. And he spent most of that time doing what? Running for his life. Let us not be weary in well doing.

For in due season, we shall reap if we faint not. Not only did God give him the throne of Israel, but God made him one of the greatest kings ever on the face of the earth. The greatest in that, God made him a promise that his seed would rule forever. And in the person of Jesus Christ, he will. So let us not be wearied.

Sometimes we tend to get that way. Don't don't take your eyes off of Jesus. When you do and you begin to sink, he'll be there like Peter walking on the water, took his eye off of Jesus, Jesus right there to pull him out and to help him to learn to keep his eyes on Christ as we need to as well. And then finally, Isaiah forty thirty one, but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles.

They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. Let's close in prayer. Lord, thank you for your word this evening. Thank you for what you did.

For David, thank you, Lord, for the fight, the war that we are involved in, not against flesh and blood, against principalities and powers. Thank you for the grace and the spirit that you have given to us to have victory and over sin in our lives and over the enemy to to point people to a savior, to build your kingdom through the salvation of lost souls who trust in Jesus Christ. Lord, if there be one here this evening who is yet to trust Christ, to forgive them of their sins and to save their souls for all eternity, I pray they would come as we sing this hymn of invitation this evening. I pray we who know Christ as savior would be challenged, Lord, to not be weary in well doing But, Lord, each day to get up, to spend time on our knees with our savior and his word, and in prayer, and watch those strongholds come down in our lives and in the eyes of in the lives of others and his kingdom grow in the souls of men. In Jesus' name, do pray.

Amen.