Play musical books up here on the pulpit. Alright. Second Samuel chapter 21. Second Samuel chapter 21. We read about David early in the passage, the man after God's own heart, but the man after God's own heart blew it.

And no doubt many of us, probably all of us in some way, have blown it. And so that was the end. No, it wasn't. Wasn't the end, was it? He blew it, but yet God God forgave him.

He repented and God restored to him the joy of his salvation as he requested in Psalm 51. And he continued his reign as king. However, there were consequences. Things were not quite the same as they were before, but yet life continued. And the same thing is true of us.

We, in some degree, some way, we have we have messed up. We have blown it. And praise God, we have a a gracious and merciful God who doesn't give us everything we deserve. Yes. There are scars that sin leaves, but God's grace is there to be with us, to renew us, and despite those things, and to use us despite those things.

And life goes on. God's will doesn't work as, oh, I blew it and it's over. And now, no, it doesn't work that way. God God knew that you were going to blow it. He didn't choose for you to blow it.

You made that choice, but he's not done with you. He still his will took takes that into account, and he still has a purpose for you. And he can still use you, and by God's grace, he still used David. He still used him as king in Israel as things continued on and David started to make some wise decisions again, like the man after God's own heart that he was. And so in second Samuel 21, we have kind of an odd situation.

And so we're going to read through it and try to explain a little bit and see how in some way it might apply to us today. Things were a little bit different in the Old Testament or the old covenant. The world was a little bit different then. God hasn't changed. He's always been the same, but but the world has changed.

Society and some other things have changed. And so we have to keep kind of put those thing keep those in mind as we go through the Old Testament scriptures. But there is something for us to learn. I think there is a couple of things from this passage. Second Samuel 21 beginning in verse one.

We're going to read down through verse 14. Then there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year. In other words, three years in a row, there was a drought and the famine was getting worse each year. David inquired of the Lord, smart on David's part, and the Lord answered, it is for Saul and for his bloody house because he slew the Gibeonites. And the king called the Gibeonites, that is David called the Gibeonites, and said unto them, now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the children of but of the remnant of the Amorites.

Amorites is another name for the Canaanites. And the children of Israel had sworn unto them and Saul sought to slay them in his zeal to the children of Israel and Judah. We'll come back to that in a moment. What that means. Verse three, wherefore David said unto the Gibeonites, what shall I do for you?

Wherewith shall I make the atonement that ye may bless the inheritance of the Lord? And the Gibeonites said unto him, we will have no silver nor gold of Saul, nor of his house, neither for us shalt thou kill any man in Israel. And he said, what? Ye shall say that will I do for you. And they answered the king, the man that consumed us, that would be Saul, and that devised against us that we would be destroyed from the remaining in any of the coasts of Israel.

Let seven men of his sons be delivered unto us, and we will hang them up unto the Lord in Gibeah of Saul, whom the Lord did choose. And the king said, I will give them. The king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of the Lord's oath that was between them was between David and Jonathan, the son of Saul. You remember the story of Mephibosheth. And the king took the two sons of Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, whom she bear unto Saul, Armani and Mephibosheth.

Now that's a different Mephibosheth. We don't think of Mephibosheth as being a common name like John or Steve, but there were more than one person named Mephibosheth. There's five sons of Michael, the daughter of Saul, whom she brought up for Adriel, the son of Barzillai the Meholathite. We'll explain that in just a moment. And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the Lord and they fell all seven together and were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, in the beginning of the barley harvest.

And Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, took sackcloth and spread it up, spread it for her upon the rock from the beginning of the harvest until water dropped upon them out of heaven and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day nor the beasts of the field by night. And it was told David that Rizpah, the daughter of Ai, the concubine of Saul, had done. And David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan, his son, from the men of Jabesh Gilead, which had stolen them from the street of Bashan, where the Philistines had hanged them when the Philistines had slain Saul and Gilboa. And he brought up from thence the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son, and they gathered the bones of them that were hanged. And the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son buried they in the country of Benjamin in Zelah in the sepulchre of Kish his father.

And they performed all that the king commanded. And after that, God was entreated for the land. In other words, it began to rain and there was no what? And there was no drought, no famine. Okay?

And so let's go through this a little bit at a time, explain a few things to make a little more sense of this of this passage. K. Number one, there was during the reign of David's reign a three year drought, that was beginning to result now in a famine in the land. And so David did as he should have done, he went to who? He went to the Lord.

He didn't go to the Lord after he tried everything. He went to the Lord. He didn't just go to the weathermen and the scientists and say, why is it not raining? Okay? It wouldn't have been scientists.

It probably would have been astrologers and stuff in that day. No. He went to the right place. He went to the Lord. He went to the He who is the God of the land and the sea and the wind and the rain, the creator of it all.

He had reason to be concerned. First of all, well, there was famine. That's a reason to be concerned. But he had a reason also to be concerned from from scripture concerning because the Lord had to say this as David no doubt knew in Deuteronomy chapter 28. In Deuteronomy chapter 28, it speaks of the curse that God will bring on the land of Israel if they are not faithful to God, if they go after idols and such.

And amongst all of the things that go with the curse, this was said in that passage. The Lord shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust. From heaven shall it come down upon thee until thou be destroyed. No rain or rain that is dry. In other words, it's not going to rain.

What happens out west when there's no rain and there's desert and there's a lot of wind? You don't have rainstorms. You have what? Sandstorms. Okay?

It gets so dry out there you get sandstorms. So therefore, this is verse 48, shalt thou serve thine enemies, which the Lord shall send against thee in hunger and thirst and in nakedness, and in one of all things. And he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck until he have destroyed thee. So this is a warning that God gave to Israel. If you turn to idols, you turn for me, I'm gonna bring judgment.

Part of that judgment was a a durst, a lack of rain and water and famine. And if not dealt with, it would eventually lead to what we read in verse 48. That in hunger, in thirst, and nakedness, they would serve their what? Their enemies until they were destroyed. And so David knew verses like these, if not these very verses.

And so he thought something is wrong and it's not just with the weather pattern. It's with our relationship as a nation with God. And so he went to the Lord in prayer. This particular drought was the chastening hand of God upon the land for having broken a treaty they had made with the house of Gibeah in or with the Gibeonites in the name of Jehovah. So turn back to Joshua chapter nine.

So you'll have to hold your place there in second Samuel. Turn back to Joshua chapter nine. We have to look here at what the issue is. Okay. So the Israelites came into the land of Canaan, And God commanded Joshua and the Israelites to kill, slay, or run out every Canaanite that lived in Israel.

That was to be their land, and it was to be taken away from the Canaanites. God had given them five hundred years since the time of Abraham when he said the the iniquity of the Amorites. He said to Abraham, the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. God gave them another almost five hundred years to repent, did they? The answer is no.

They did not. And so God told Joshua, you go in the land. You do not make treaties with anyone in the land. No treaties. Okay?

No treaties. And what happened? Well, there was this town called Gibeah. And the people of this town heard what happened to Jericho. And they heard what happened in a couple battles following and how that the these walled cities in Canaan were falling before the Israelites and there was nothing they could do.

And so the Gibeonites decided, hey, if you can't beat them, what? Join them. And so the Gibeonites, they they they had this this really sneaky plan. And that is they they mounted their their donkeys or their camels or whatever they had, And, they put on old tattered clothes. They carried moldy bread with them, and, they pretended to come from a land far, far away to the Israelites.

And they said, we have heard about the great God of Israel and all this, and we're here to make a treaty with you. No. We're not live we're not nearby. We're in a land far, far away. And so Joshua, being the smart man that he was, depended upon his own wisdom and didn't ask of who?

Didn't ask of the Lord. And so he was fooled. He didn't know they were Canaanites, and so he made a treaty with them, a treaty with them in the name of the Lord, all capital letters, the personal covenant name of God. And so that brings us to chapter nine verse 15. So chapter nine of Joshua, verse 15.

And Joshua made peace with them and made a league with them to let them live, and the princes of the congregation swear unto them. So they swore unto the Gibeonites that they were not going to kill them. They made a treaty with them. Came to pass at the end of three days after they had made a league treaty with them that they heard that they were their neighbors and that they dwelt among them. The children of Israel journeyed and came unto their cities on the third day.

Now their cities were Gibeon and Chephirah and Beeroth and Kirjath Jearim. And the children of Israel smote them not because the princes of the congregation had sworn unto them by the Lord God of Israel. And all the congregation murmured against the princes. But all the princes said unto all the congregation, we have sworn unto them by the Lord God of Israel. Now, therefore, we may not touch them.

This we will do to them. We will even let them live, lest wrath be upon us because of the oath which we swear unto them. And the princes said unto them, let them live, but let them be hewers of wood and drawers of water unto all congregation as the princes had promised them. And Joshua called for them and he spake unto them saying, wherefore have you beguiled us saying we are very far from you when you dwell among us? Now, therefore, you are cursed and there shall none of you be freed from being bondmen and hearers of wood and drawers of water for the house of my God.

And they answered Joshua and beca said, because it was certainly told thy servants how the Lord thy God commanded his servant Moses to give you all the land and to destroy all the inhabitants of the land from before you. Therefore, we were so afraid of our lives because of you and have done this thing. And so here, Joshua now is between a rock and a hard place. Okay? So he made this treaty in the name of the Lord.

To go back on it is to dishonor the name of the Lord. To not go back on it means to disobey the command of the Lord. And so they came to this compromise. Because they had made a treaty in the name of God, even though they had been fooled, They said, we won't destroy you. You are allowed to live here, but you are going to be servants.

You are not gonna have any place of power or authority or anything like that in in Israel. And the Gibeonites agreed agreed to that to that deal. And so that's what happened. Now, Saul had apparently sought to purify Israel from the remaining Amorites or Canaanites by annihilating the Gibeonites from Israel. Maybe his attempt to genocide was misplaced zeal for fulfilling God's command to Israel.

Deuteronomy seven, this is what they were commanded as I explained. Matter of fact, I have I have that command here where God told them to cast out any of these nations, Hittites, Gergesites, Amorites, Perizzites. You know what's on that list is the Hivites. The Gibeonites were Hivites. Okay?

So they were amongst the ones that David was to cast out of the land. And so Saul sought, I guess, in his misplaced zeal to finish the job. Even though it's kind of odd, he didn't finish the job when it came to Amalek when he told to do. It may have also been a reaction on Saul's part to eradicate an element from Israel and Benjamin. The Gibeonites lived within the borders of the tribe of Benjamin, that he felt were causing continual trouble.

Thus, he blamed the Gibeonites for the ills and sought to correct those ills by exterminating these people. Whether Saul was right or wrong regarding the negative element that the Gibeonites represented, the fact is Israel made a what? They made a treaty in the name of Jehovah. And God expected them to keep that treaty, that vow that they had made, and Saul was therefore in the wrong. And the Gibeonites were not a godly people.

They retained a lot of their pagan practices and their pagan ways. They were not wholly devoted by any stretch to the God of Israel. But yet, God had made a what? By Israel, God had made a covenant. And it wasn't Saul's prerogative to break the covenant.

God keeps his what? God keeps his promises even to the nasty Gibeonites. And if you wanna read about some of that situation, you can read Judges 19 through 21 and see what some of the Gibeonites did and how it almost resulted in the destruction of the entire tribe of Benjamin. And what tribe was Saul from? Anybody remember?

Benjamin. So he may have had an axe to grind particularly with the Gibeonites. Okay? So all of this led to his crusade to get rid of the Gibeonites. But that did not set well with who?

With God. With God. And sometimes you may mean well, but we need we we need not overstep our bounds. We need to trust in Lord because sometimes what may seem right doesn't fit with with this, with God's with God's word. And so that's when we need to conform our thinking and our actions to God's word.

Even when we may not completely understand, we know that the Lord is right. So though the sin had been committed by the way, Saul had been dead now for many years. David had been reigning for twenty some years from the throne of Israel. Though the sin had been committed against the Gibeonites several years prior, time alone does not eliminate guilt nor need for justice in the eyes of God, neither should a delay in the execution of such justice be seen as indifference or permissiveness. And I think this is a problem we have, particularly a problem the world has expressed in second Peter chapter three.

They came to Peter and said, well, hey, you know, look, everything's continuing as it has since the beginning. God hasn't done anything. It's not gonna happen. Judgment's not coming. And, this was Peter's response, second Peter three nine, God's response.

The Lord is not slack concerning his promise. In other words, God does not fail to keep his promises, whether they be for good or or ill. Though it's not slack concerning his promises, some men count slackness, but is what? Longsuffering to us, we're not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. In this passage, we see a delay in God's judgment and justice.

Not as inability or unconcern on God's part, but God giving further opportunity for repentance. The house of Saul could have repented. Saul could have repented. Israel could have recognized and done something about this. In regards to, salvation, God gives people time, time, and more time to make the right decision to repent of their sins and come to Christ for salvation.

Sometimes we look at the world around us and say, why does God let this go on? God has his reasons. And one of those reasons is this, there are yet souls out there who are going to come to Christ. If we have to suffer a little bit longer for them to spend eternity in heaven with us, is it worth it? It is.

It is. And for God it is too. And so he waits. But we must not look at it and say, well, look, I've been doing this sin now for years and God hasn't punished me. Watch out.

Don't mistake God's long suffering and mercy for permissiveness. Okay? God does keep his promise. God also gives time to repent as in the days of Noah. Two thousand years at least between Adam and the flood.

Two thousand years of man spiraling downward. He gave time for the Amorites in the days of Abraham, to the days of Joshua, to turn from their idolatry. He gave Israel time over five hundred, six hundred years before he scattered them amongst Babylon and Assyria. And praise the Lord, he has given us time today and mercy and his long suffering, to the world in which we live. Number two, David went to the Gibeonites to inquire what restitution might be made to atone.

That is to make reconciliation between the people of Israel and the people of Gibeah. Okay? The people of Israel had wronged the people of Gibeah. And so the right thing to do, what was necessary, which God wanted to show them, is when you've offended somebody else, you you not only need to deal with it with God, you need to deal with it with the party that you've, what? Offended.

And if you don't deal with the party you've offended, then that might affect your relationship or fellowship with God. Okay? And so he said, you've gotta go. This hasn't been dealt with. Now it's time to deal with it.

Okay? You want the famine to end? Go find out what you need to do to make restitution with the Gibeonites who have been wronged by what Saul did. This is not directly making restitution with God, though it did affect that. It's making restitution with the Gibeonites.

When I was in college, I one particular class, we had to read certain material for the class. And you got to the test and it asked you the question, did you read the assigned material? And if you didn't say yes, then your grade started with a C. That was the best you could get. It went downhill from there.

On at least one occasion, I marked yes when I knew the answer was no. And I asked God to forgive me I don't know how many times for that little yes that I marked that should have been a no. It wasn't until I went to a teacher from the school and finally admitted. This was a couple years later. So, no, it did not affect my grade, but maybe it could have.

But I finally went back face to face actually with the dean of students at Bob Jones who I happened to be at camp with that week when I was a youth pastor, and confessed what I had done that God lifted that that guilt off my shoulders because it was enough to tell God I needed to to tell the person that I had that I had wronged. And so that's that's what's what's happening here. What the Gibeonites asked for, remember, they're not a real godly, God honoring people. So their request may not be quite in line with what God would say for the Israelites who were his children, but this is what they requested and David agreed to. The Gibeonites did express their in their response a humility befitting their position as servants.

They did not ask for money, silver, gold. But as David continued to ask, what can we do? Well, he said there were one thing. You can you give us seven sons of Saul. You turn them over to us to be executed, and we will be will be satisfied.

Now under normal conditions, sons were not to be punished directly for the sins of their father. The scriptures the scriptures say this. However, sometimes the sins of a father do affect the lives of their what? Children, grandchildren to the third and fourth what? Generations.

That certainly ended up being being the case here. Be careful what you do because your sins may not just find you out. Your sins may have consequences further down the line than you than you know. Therefore, David did acquiesce to these demands. He chose two sons.

They chose the two sons of Rizpah, Saul's concubine, and the five sons of what does it say here? Which verse are we in? Gotta get back to Samuel. There we go. And let's see.

Here we go. Verse eight. But the king took the two sons of Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, whom she bear unto Saul and Armani and Mephibosheth, and the five sons of Michael, daughter of Saul, whom she brought up for Adriel, son of Barzillai. K? These five sons apparently are not the sons of Michael.

They're the sons of Merab whom Michael raised. Why would we say that? Well, we would say that because of this. First Samuel chapter 18 and verse 19. First Samuel eighteen nineteen.

And David said unto Saul, who am I? Let me see. No. 19. Okay.

Verse 19. But it came to pass at that time when Merab, Saul's daughter, this is Saul's oldest daughter, should have been given to David that she was given to who? Adriel to wife. So Merab, Saul's oldest daughter, was given to Adriel to wife. And then Michael was given to who?

Help me out. Michael was given to David. Okay? Now, he left Michael behind when he went running from Saul and all of that, came to be. But it also tells us in another passage that, in second Samuel that Michael didn't have any children.

She was childless. Okay? So back in chapter 21 and verse eight again, it says, and the five sons of Michael, the daughter of Saul, whom she brought up, for who? Adriel. That's not her husband.

That's whose husband. That's Merab's husband. Merab was given to Adriel. So these are not the sons of Michael. These are the sons of Merab that evidently Michael raised.

Now, you you wanna know the story behind that? How that she I don't know. God didn't tell us. Alright? But that seems to be the case.

Michael was childless. Merab had children. She had children by Adriel. He's the father. And Michael evidently brought them up.

And so, these five sons along with the two these would be five grandsons of Saul along with the two sons of Rizpah were handed over to the Gibeonites, and they were executed. They were hung. They were not given in sacrifice to the Lord as was forbidden in scripture, but they were handed over for execution to make restitution for the sins of Saul against the house of Gibeon. They were hung in ignominy. Ignominy?

Ignominy? I think that's how that word. They were not killed in the usual manner of sacrifice, but as an accused, what? Criminal. In a manner reserved for the most heinous of criminals, that of being killed and hanged upon a pole.

Deuteronomy chapter 21. If a man have committed a sin worthy of death and he be to be put to death and thou hang and thou hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day. For he that is hanged is accursed of God, that thy land be not defiled, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance. So one of the manner ways of execution was by hanging somebody's body on a pole. Now that wasn't necessarily hanging as in the way it was done in the Wild West in order to kill them.

They were killed and then they were hung on the pole for everybody to to see. It's more similar to crucifixion than it actually is to hanging the way we use, we use the term. Accursed is he that that is hanged upon a tree. It is the it is to declare to all that come by this person is the most vile of of criminals to be hung in such a manner as these men were hung. But it's also interesting, it is a similar matter in which our savior was hung.

Galatians three thirteen, Paul writes, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us for it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. Where did Paul get that from? Well, he got that from Deuteronomy chapter 21. And Jesus Christ bore the most humiliating of deaths on the cross. Reserved for the most heinous of criminal in Israel or pretty much across the world in that day.

And that is what he suffered. The pain, the humiliation, and the pouring out of God's wrath upon himself for our sins. To make restitution for who? For us. That he might redeem us, that he might restore that was was broken, that we had messed up.

He died on the cross for us. And we do see that in a manner pictured even in this grotesque scene here. In Matthew five twenty three and twenty four, we also read this. Therefore, if thou bring thy gift to an altar and there remembers that thy brother hath ought against thee, leave thy gift before the altar and go thy way. First, be reconciled to thy brother and then come and offer thy gift.

And this was sort of the situation that David was running into here with the Gibeonites. God was not hearing his prayer. God was not blessing the land with rain. He needed to leave his gift at the altar and go deal with his his problem. It wasn't even his problem per se.

It wasn't he that did it, but he is he is what? He is king and he is what? Responsible. And it needed to be dealt with. And so and so he did.

And sometimes there are things that God brings to our attention when we're praying. We need to deal with this person, with this situation. A lot of times we put it off, say, oh, no. I can't do it. Lord, I can't.

It's not gonna fix anything. I don't know how many times I've thought, it's not gonna matter. They're not gonna listen. Why even bother? But that's not the right attitude.

Leave your gift. Go take care of the wrong that was committed and then come back and then seek the blessing of the Lord. We see a a mother besought with sorrow, Rizpah. She goes and she she makes a tent nearby where the bodies were hung out of respect for her children and her nephews or other relatives. She she keeps the birds and the animals from devouring the bodies, which would have been a a even greater humiliation.

Upon seeing the humble and loving response of Rizpah for her children, David was led to follow suit. And once the rains had returned, he took the bodies down. He buried not only their bones, but also those of Jonathan and Saul, having retrieved them from Jabesh Gilead to bury them in their father, Kish's tomb in Benjamin. Thus did David not only carry out a very sad and difficult act to make right a very terrible wrong, but brought once more respect to the house of Saul by his manner toward their remains, something of great importance to the people of David's day. He did what he could.

He did what he had to, and then he did what he could. And sometimes we can't we can't go back and fix everything, whether it be our wrongs or somebody else's. But we do what we must and we do what we can and we trust that the Lord will do the rest. David's obedience led to a renewed blessing upon the people of Israel. God heard the prayers, and he brought the rain upon the land.

Being a leader can be a very difficult and lonely place to be, yet it is vital for those under your leadership that you act, whether it's to leader in your home, in your workplace, in your community, in your church. Leadership requires action even when it is difficult. Because David acted and obeyed, the Lord his people were blessed again. And not only did he obey, but he went beyond the call of duty. So I do believe there's something we can in that story tonight.

Let's pray. Dear heavenly father, thank you, Lord, for your long suffering toward us. Lord, I pray that we would not gloss over the wrongs we may have done with others that might need to be dealt with. Lord, I I pray that you would help us to do the difficult things, particularly in leadership, but also in life as your children. Lord, thank you for your mercy toward us.

Thank you for your mercy toward the Gibeonites and the opportunity they had to live among the people of Israel and to hear about Israel's God and to see your mighty works. And Lord, no doubt, many of them did come to faith in you. Thank you, Lord, for the opportunity you have given us to be salt and light in the world. Yes. There is much wickedness around us, but, Lord, you have called us to to follow you and do what's right and be salt and light.

And I pray that you will help us to do that day by day, honor you, that you can bless not only us, but also be a blessing to those to those around us, Lord. Thank you for all that you have done. Help us to consider, Lord, your mercy and the opportunities we are given to get things to get things right. In Jesus' name, do pray. Amen.