Category: 2 Samuel

Reading

Audio, Visual

SAA Notes

The first thing David does after the defeat of Israel’s enemies is to bring the Ark into Jerusalem. We are to live by the Word of the Lord – Uzzah lived by his own ideas, and died. The Levites didn’t make that mistake a second time – they carried the Ark as the Lord instructed Moses!

SJA Notes

* Dear God, may we tell to the coming generation, Your glorious deeds, Your might, the wonders You have done.

“It was before the LORD … I will make myself yet more contemptible than this, and I will be abased in your eyes.”

David danced before the Lord with all his might.

We see here in David the behaviour that James, Paul, Peter and others in the New Testament exhort us toward.

David humbles himself before the Lord, and the Lord exalts him (James 4:10, 1 Peter 5:6).

We see in Michal’s response that of the world. It sees true religion, worshipping our God above, as foolishness. Michael saw David abasing himself before the Lord, not caring that he might look silly, for the glory of the Lord – And she despised David, she despised the Lord.

The apostle Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 1,

“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

This is it!

David considers the foolishness of following God a much smarter choice than the wisdom of the world.

David considers the weakness of following God a far better choice than the strength of the world.

Paul says of Jesus in Philippians 2,

“And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

Jesus, God the Son, humbled Himself before His Father.

We can join with David in reflecting Jesus to those around us.

* Dear Lord,

Thank You for David’s witness, pointing to You.

Please teach us today what You want us to know, enough for the day.

Please make us more like Jesus.

Amen.

Reading

Audio, Visual

SAA Notes

Ish-Bosheth is murdered by his own clansmen. However, David does not become King with blood on his hands. Remember Abigail’s words in 1 Samuel 25:30,31. Our redeemer must be clean of blood and no Cain, to deliver us from our great enemy. The Christ has the faith of Abraham, not of Cain.

SJA Notes

* Faithful God, in the day of our trouble we seek You, we cry aloud to You – May we remember Your deeds O Lord, Your wonders of old. Let us ponder all Your work.

“As the LORD lives, who has redeemed my life out of every adversity,”

Here we see the faith of David, the reality of his relationship with, and understand of, our God. The LORD.

David knows that God lives – He is the LIVING GOD!

And David knows the reality of his own standing. He hasn’t done anything to merit God’s salvation, it is the LORD who has redeemed him.

These are important building-block truths.

Do we know them in our own lives?

A rock-solid trust, because who we trust in is rock-solid.

David knew that it is the Lord who saves, and who continues to save.

After his sin with Bathsheba, David writes these words in Psalm 51,

“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love;”

We are to be encouraged and exhorted here to model the attitude that David shows, the understanding, the hard-won day-in-out hard-fought truths embedded in our very selves – That we need God every day, we need His salvation every day, according to His steadfast love, we need His mercy today!

More of Jesus. Less of us.

* Great and Mighty God,

You do not look at things like the world does.

You look at the heart, You see through to the heart.

Thank You that our dead hearts are made alive again through Jesus, new birth!

Please help us to be Your people in truth today.

Amen.

Reading

Audio, Visual

SAA Notes

This book is prophetic history. (It is placed in the Prophets Luke 24:27,44). These events of pride, arrogance, betrayal, murder reveal why David’s Kingdom failed and why another better Kingdom was necessary – the coming Kingdom of great David’s greater Son, Jesus of Nazareth. Read Galatians 5:19-21.

SJA Notes

* Holy God, You are glorious, You are to be feared. Who can stand before you when once your anger is roused!

“But one thing I required of you;”

God’s word doesn’t write about people as they should be, but as they are.

Here we read of Joab and his brother Abishai murdering Abner for their other brother Asahel, who was killed in battle (after having been warned repeatedly).

They murdered Abner under the flag of peace that David had covenanted.

David wanted the land whole. Joab and Abishai wanted revenge.

David acts like a wise king, mourning the loss of Abner. The people respond to his actions, what he does pleases the people.

But we also see David making foolish decisions.

One of them is a selfish and hurtful request, even if politically motivated – David demands Michal, Saul’s daughter, back!

David causes a breakage in marriage, just as Saul caused a breakage by giving Michael away while he was trying to kill David.

You don’t fix a problem by doing the same thing that was done to you.

How good then that in Jesus we have a king who was and is always right and true. Completely righteous, without fault.

Jesus never made, and will never make, bad decisions. Not a single one.

Jesus never sought His own pleasure at the expense of others. He never tried to fix a problem by creating the same problem for another.

Hallelujah, what a King He is!

* God Above,

Thank You for Jesus, who leads us in righteousness and true.

Please help us to do as You tell us.

Amen.