To one day go to the place that he has preserved for us, incorruptible, undefiled, and fadeth not away. But those promises are still, in some cases, over the horizon. But nonetheless, they're there. And God always keeps his what? God always keeps his promises to us as he did to David.

And so we're gonna see the fulfillment of that promise in full to David this evening, but we have one more obstacle to get through here in chapter four before we get to that with the, demise of Ishbosheth. Despite, the many enemies of Israel, David had slain, and he was a warrior, no doubt. He had killed many enemies. It was a different day and time than we are in today in in many ways. Yet there are warriors today that we are grateful for, that put themselves in harm's risk and at times do have to kill the enemy in order to protect us and other innocent people.

And so this is an unfortunate result of sin in the world that war does occur and that warriors are needed. But despite David, the many enemies David had slain, despite the disposition of the house of Saul towards David. Did the house of Saul treat David as a friend? No. At first, they did, but the house of Saul had turned on David.

Even after the death of Saul, the house of Saul should have given the throne rightfully today, but no, they did not. And many of their side were still seeking his demise. Yet David did not seek the deaths of his countrymen in the civil war to obtain his rightful place on the throne, nor particularly the deaths of Saul or his family. Though Saul clearly saw David as in his as his enemy, David did not treat Saul as his his enemy. And there in part, we see the difference between Saul and David, between Saul and the man after what?

God's own heart. The bible tells us, Jesus tells us to love your what? To love your enemies. And David, all the way up through this, never ceased to reverence the house of Saul nor does he ever, it would seem, seek to make his claim by ending the house of Saul. I think David saw the possibility for him claiming the throne without altogether ending the house of Saul, which in the end, the house of Saul did not altogether end as we'll read about in the passage this evening.

David had sought peaceful end to the hostilities through Abner and Ishbosheth, both foiled as we'll see in the past chapter in this one by bloodthirsty and fame seeking ways of Joab, his nephew, and the sons of Ramona that we'll read about tonight. The previous chapter ends with Joash and Abishai being condemned verbally by David for their bloodthirsty ways in tricking and killing Abner and foiling what David saw as an opportunity to end this peacefully. The next chapter opens with the execution of two men by David who sought likewise to end this for their own fame, it would seem, by taking out Ishbosheth. It would seem that moving forward, we see David as the man after God's own heart in many respects, but we still see what? We still see flaws, as we'll see, I think, as you put these two stories together this evening.

While David was swift to execute judgment on others, he was not so quick to exact judgment upon his friends and his family, and that would come back to haunt him. Though mercy is laudable, being consistent with the application of judgment, being inconsistent with the application of judgment is a problem, and it is a problem that would plague David in regards particular to his family. Praise the Lord. Unlike David, the ultimate messiah that we'll end with this evening does not have such flaws. His mercy is everlasting, and his judgment and justice is righteous altogether and always fair.

So brother David will read. You can probably just read it there, I guess. So I'll just kinda turn a little bit, and he's gonna say my voice a little bit and read chapter four. Okay. Alright.

So the chapter with the dread of a Ishbosheth. What brought on that dread? Well, Abner had been killed. And who was the power in the North? It wasn't actually Ishbosheth.

It was who. It was Abner. And with the death of Abner, Ishbosheth is now vulnerable. And so immediately Ishbosheth begins to fear and as it turns out that fear was warranted because among some of his closest associates, notice these this group of men, these two mentioned, these brothers in particular, the sons of Rahman. They're what?

What tribe? They're Benjamites. Okay. So these are men. They're part of a group close to the family of Saul and they had been loyal to Saul.

But now they begin to see that the demise that this is not going to last. And so they decide that they're going to join the other what? The other side. And in doing so, not only are they going to join the other side, which was not altogether wicked because that's David's side, but they decided to make a name for who? To make a name for themselves.

Thinking that they would be rewarded by David for killing the man to whom they had sworn allegiance as their their king. Seen an opportunity for themselves, they slyly commend the palace having the confidence of the king. They're able to make their way to his bedchamber. There they kill him in cold blood, assassinate him, and take a trophy with them in order to show David that they had killed him. And of course, what more sure trophy could you take than the person's what head.

So I know it's grotesque but somewhat common way of showing that one had defeated the enemy in those days. And so that's what they did. In the middle of this, there is a verse that doesn't really fit. It would seem and that's verse four. And Jonathan Saul's son had a son that was lame in his feet.

He was five years old when the tidings came of Saul and Jonathan out of Jezreel that is that they had been killed and his nurse took him up and fled and it came to pass that she made haste to flee that he fell and became lame and his name was Mephibosheth. Now this doesn't seem to fit really because we we just stop there for just a moment and pause to learn about Mephibosheth and then we continue with the death of Ishbosheth by the hands of these wicked men. Mephibosheth is grandson of Saul, son of Jonathan. Therefore, he is not in the eyes of God because God had anointed who? David to be the next king, but could have been in the eyes of others the rightful heir to the throne after the death of Ishbosheth seeing he was Jonathan's who was the oldest son's son.

However, being that he was dropped and that he was maimed or paralyzed in the lower part of his body, he was not fit to take that up it would seem. And that's likely maybe why this was mentioned in the midst of the rest of this. However this is not the end of the story of Mephibosheth. There's a beautiful story of the love and mercy of David and of the faithfulness of David to Jonathan that grows out of this and we'll get to that later when we get to second Samuel chapter nine and we see how Jonathan, I mean how David respects a promise that he made to Jonathan regarding his family in taking care of Mephibosheth. I think it's chapter nine.

So moving on, the rest of the world went on moving forgetting about who? Mephibosheth. But had God forgotten about Mephibosheth? The answer is no. Thus he mentioned him here.

He'll mention him later. And God is a God of mercy and love particularly for those who put their faith and trust in him. And though Jonathan lost his life and loyalty to his earthly father, he also was rewarded by his heavenly father for his faithfulness to the Lord and his faithfulness to David and we see that in regards to how his son was taken care of here on earth by by David. So we'll get to that in chapter nine. So it's kind of a little glimmer of something good in the midst of a really ugly passage here.

And of course, God does also also give us light at the end of the tunnel in midst of all kinds of of tragedies, some of which we've heard about this week, but also some beautiful stories of how God saved and rescued and used people to to to deliverance and hope to many in the midst of of the storm. So these assassins escaped. They went to David. They come to David and they say, look, we have killed Ishbosheth. We killed your enemy.

We took him out. Now, you can be king. What did they want? They wanted a a roar. They wanted to be high up in his army.

They they were expecting David to to praise them. And to reward them lavishly but David did not reward them for their betrayal. Why? Why did David not reward them? For their killing of Ishbosheth?

And I think maybe there's two or three reasons that one, it wasn't the wise thing to do. What is David trying to do? He's trying to bring together what? All of the tribes of Israel back under one umbrella, back under one king. He wants the people in the North not to hate him.

He wants the people in the North to respect and love him. What is it going to look like to the tribes in the North if he exalts the people that assassinated their king? It's gonna look like who was behind it. It's gonna look like David was behind it. Was that the way for David to make friends and bring the nation together?

The answer to that is I don't think so. That's not the kind of king that David was. David wasn't the kind of king that just beat everybody over the head. He was a servant leader. God chose a shepherd to be a what?

To be a king. He chose a man who could care for sheep so much as to risk his life to take care of them, to care for his people. He chose someone who understood what it meant to be a servant who didn't grow up in a what? In a palace. And God knows what he's doing and often as we're reminded in Corinthians, God chooses the weak things to confound the what?

Confound the mighty. And often the reason is is he wants servants and ministers and and children that understand as Christ came to be one of us to understand what it's like to suffer loss and to suffer need and to be able to empathize with those to whom we minister as Christ can empathize with us. He was tempted as in all points as we were yet without sin. We have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our what? Infirmities.

He can. And as we're dealing with some of the stuff in revolve in regard to the hurricane and and all of those things, Christ didn't grow up on this earth in king's palaces. He was born in a stable. He suffered loss. He he probably suffered hunger, and he didn't have it the easiest of lives.

And he did that, and he chose that for us, that he might be one of us and that in the end that he might die for us. But David wanted to bring the kingdom together. He needed to make a a very public display that these men were not serving who? Not serving him. And this was not the way that he had chosen to end this.

He wanted to end it peacefully. These men ended it differently. Second of all, another reason is because once again, despite how Saul's family had treated David, David honored the family, the king that God anointed before he anointed David. And David was willing to wait on who? On the Lord to end this.

He did not want to end it by taking matters into his own own hands. He wanted to become king when God wanted him to become And he was not seeking the injury or death of Saul's house. And so I think for both of those reasons David responded the way that he did in executing these men, taking upon himself as he saw it the rite of Genesis nine six to when someone had taken the blood of another human being, it was the right of the government, therefore, to take their their blood in return. So he took it upon himself to do that as the king. Now I want to stop just once more before we move on to the next chapter to look specifically at verse nine and a particular word that kind of jumps off the page in verse nine.

David answered Rechab, Rechab, and Bana, his brother, the sons of Rahman, the Beerothite, and said unto them, as the Lord liveth, who hath, not the next word, redeemed my soul out of all adversity. The Bible is the story of what? It's the story of redemption. It's the story of redemption. And it's interesting in the midst of this, again, kind of horrendous chapter here of all this violence we see the story of Mephibosheth and we also see the mention by David of God's redemption.

Of God's redemption specifically here of David. David said, as the Lord liveth In verse eight, these men that came to David If you look in verse eight again, I just, behold the head of Ishbosheth, the son of Saul, thine enemy, which sought thy life and the Lord, all capital letters, Jehovah, Yahweh, the Lord hath avenged my Lord. So then, David comes down to verse nine and he repeats as the Lord live it. The Lord that you're claiming is on your side that told you do this as the Lord live it that one who you claimed who hath redeemed who? Me out of adversity.

Who hath brought me back, who hath bought me back not because I am the great and mighty David but because he is the great and mighty God. That Lord that Lord is not pleased with what you have done and taking this matter into your own what? Hands for your own glory, for your own fame, and thus he slew them. So as they claim the Lord, David took that He took that back and he said, no. What you did was not the Lord's will.

The Lord didn't command you to do this. The Lord who has seen fit all this time to keep me alive. The Lord who has seen fit to keep my enemies at bay. The Lord who has seen fit to rescue me from my own stupid decisions. And David had a few of them who had redeemed him.

This was not his will as David saw it and so David had them them executed. But the Bible is about this plan of redemption, about God bringing bringing us back, about God buying us buying us back. And it's interesting that David goes there in the midst of this. And by doing so, he gives the glory to who? To whom it is due.

Not to the sons of Rahman, not even to David himself, but but to the Lord and he reminds us that it's not by the will of man but it is by the will and the power of who and the grace of God. It is by God's might that David will take the throne, not the might of who? The sons of Rahman. It is God who will put him there. Whether they did this or whether they didn't, David was still assured the throne because God had promised.

And to God be the glory, God was gonna take care of that. He did not need their help in this manner, but he needed whose help? God's help and so do we. Praise God as Dave God redeemed David from his own foolishness, as God brought David back to the throne that he had promised him through the ups and the downs and I thought about singing the service this evening in times like these Because we had one storm come go, and now we got another storm coming, and and we see all that potential mess that's there that, we may have to go through. But the Lord is on the throne, and the Lord has made promises, and the Lord said he'll take care of his own.

God will take care of you as he has taken care of David, oftentimes in spite of ourselves. And he has redeemed us by the blood of Jesus Christ. Galatians four four and five, but when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son made of a woman, made under the law to redeem them that were under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons. Praise God, he's also redeemed us. Interesting, God sent forth his son made of a woman.

Now that would seem to be a reference to Mary and going back to Genesis to Eve, but the son is also a son of who? It's also a son of David. Jesus Christ humanity. But while he thought on these things, that is Joseph, the whole angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, that which conceived in hers of the holy ghost, he shall bring forth a son. Thou shalt call his name Jesus for he shall save his people from his sins.

That's what Jesus means. It means savior of the Lord's saints. And as Joseph was a descendant of David, so was Mary, and in his humanity, so was Jesus. So again, this plan of redemption, we see it all tied in to right here, the man of David, the one redeemed by God himself, the one redeemed as it may as it will be by his own seed as Jesus is the seed of David. As Jesus died on the cross for David's sins, to redeem him as he did us also.

But that brings us to chapter five and we'll close by reading the first five verses of chapter five and just being reminded briefly of why this coronation of David is so pivotal pivotal to this plan of redemption. Verse five, then came all the tribes of Israel to David from Hebron and spake saying, behold, we are thy bone and thy flesh also in time past when Saul was king over us. Thou was he that latest, let us out and brought us in. And the Lord said to thee, thou shalt feed my people and thou shalt be captain over Israel. So all the elders of Israel came to the king in Hebron, king to Hebron, and king David made a league with them in Hebron before the Lord and they anointed David king over Israel.

David was 30 years old when he began to reign and he reigned forty years. In Hebron he reigned over Judah seven years and six months. In Jerusalem he reigned thirty and three years over all Israel and Judah. A brief passage, not a lot of detail, not a lot of fanfare, just a declaration here of what happened. But in this declaration in chapter five, we have the fulfillment of God's promise to David back in first Samuel chapter what?

16. When he anointed a shepherd to be a what? To be a king. As he has anointed us by his spirit to one day rule and reign with him for a thousand years. And into inherit his eternal kingdom with Jesus our savior and Lord.

It's interesting. God anointed David to be king many years previous. Man did not acknowledge that till years later. But in God's mind and heart, David was king years before man acknowledged it But one day, man did. Is Jesus king today?

Have you acknowledged that in your heart? I hope so. That's salvation. That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. But he is not recognized on this earth yet as king but will he be?

And the answer is yes, he will. He will be. As David was acknowledged one day as king over all Israel, so Jesus will be acknowledged as king of heaven and earth. Every knee shall bow and what? Every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the father.

The tribes of Israel finally recognizing God's anointed and as they recognize David as God's anointed, one day, all will recognize Jesus, the Messiah as God's anointed. And the Messiah, the word Messiah or the Greek version which is Christ means the same thing, means anointed one. When we say Jesus Christ we're saying Jesus the anointed one, the anointed one to be king of heaven and earth for whom before whom every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess. David is not only the ancestor of Jesus he is a type of Jesus, an imperfect one but yet he is a type of Christ and Jesus the perfect fulfillment of that type when he comes to reign and rule on this earth as the anointed one. Anointed before the foundation of the what?

Announced at the baptist at his baptism of with John the the Baptist. Here's my beloved son. Who I am well pleased. Announced once again by the angel that says, he is not here for he is what? For he is risen.

Announced once again, when the promise of the father came on the day of Pentecost and Peter through the power of the spirit announced that Jesus Christ is the Lord. The one, not David, but Jesus who was the holy one who did not see what? Who did not see corruption as Peter points out. And I just want to end with a few verses. As David's crowning foreshadows the crowning of Jesus Christ one day in Genesis 4nine 10 it says, the scepter shall not depart from Judah nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh come and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.

The lawgiver is a ruler or a king. This is a prophetic statement by Jacob to his son Judah concerning his son Judah before his death that the ruler, the king, would come from the tribe from his son Judah and there would not be another rightful ruler but from this line in Judah until Shiloh come. Shiloh seems to be a reference to the Messiah, to Jesus Christ, the ultimate ruler. And unto him shall Jesus shall the gathering of the the people be. Back in Deuteronomy, God promised that there would be another prophet that would come in the likeness of Moses and though the people rebelled against Moses they would not one day rebel against who?

Jesus. And though they have rebelled momentarily when he returns they will embrace him. They will embrace him as their Lord and serve him for a thousand years on this earth as he rules and reigns. That line goes through David. Second Samuel seven, and when thy day shall be fulfilled and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom, And he shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom, what, forever.

Now that was partially fulfilled in Solomon who built a house, but I think there's a different house that God's talking about here and it's not just a house made of stones. It's a house that Peter talks about made of living stones. The true believers. And that house will be established forever, not by David or Solomon, but by who? But by by Jesus Christ.

Isaiah nine, six, and seven, for unto us the child is born, unto us the son is given, the government shall be upon his shoulder. His name shall be called wonderful counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting father, the prince of peace. So often when we're reading this, when you hear this verse read in regards to the birth of Jesus, you stop right there and that's sad because this passage is focusing on the next verse, okay? Of the increase of his government or his reign and peace there be shall be no end upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom to order and to establish it with judgment and with justice. From henceforth even forever the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

David had tried, Solomon had tried, Israel tried, they had failed, who would succeed? God would. Jesus would. Luke one thirty one and thirty two, and behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, bring forth a son, thou shalt call his name Jesus, he shall be great and shall be called the son of the highest and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father, David. And so as David was crowned king in this passage, it foreshadows the coming when Jesus will be crowned king of kings and Lord of lords.

When the four and twenty elders in revelation followed by the redeemed of all nations will sing a new song. Under not only God, but specifically to the lamb, thou art worthy to receive glory and honor and power, for thou hast created all things, and for thy glory, they are and were created. So I think that's a good way to end this section of our study on David. We've got another section to come. But I I really didn't want to stop there because where does where is Jesus going to reign from?

The holy city. Where's the holy city? Jerusalem. Where was David crowned king in this passage? Hebron.

Not Jerusalem. You gotta get to the next five verses To the conquering of Jerusalem. So, so I hated to stop without going but it's going to take me another half an hour and neither your ears or my voice are going to stand that. So, we'll get to Jerusalem next week, Lord willing. Alright?

We're going to do something a little different. If Kate will come up. We're going to close with this song. It's a it's a chorus in in my book but it's not in your hymn book. It's entitled crown him king of kings, crown him Lord of lords.

If you know it, sing with me. If you don't, let's learn it. Okay? So, if you would stand, then let's