Sermon: Promises Matter

Would you take a copy of God's Word this morning, and we will turn open to the book of 2 Samuel as we continue our way through that book. If you wanna use a pew Bible, you can turn right there to page 273 in the pew Bible, 273. And this morning we're looking at 2 Samuel 21:1-14 this morning. 2 Samuel 21:1-14 this morning.

Let's go ahead and pray before we open God's Word together. Our Father, even as we have just sung, so we believe that we are children if we are indeed in Your Son, children of Yours. And we're thankful that You count us as Your precious children. And as children, we confess that we are often wayward children, that we are immature, that we are desperately in need of hearing our Father's voice. So we pray this morning that as You have promised by Your Word,

that You would speak to us as Your children as we each have need. That You would instruct us, You would rebuke us, You would exhort us, You would encourage us, all for Your praise and Your glory. It's in the strong name of Christ we pray, amen. 2 Samuel 21:1-14. This is the holy, inerrant, sufficient Word of God. There was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year. And David sought the face of the Lord, and the Lord said, "There is bloodguilt on

Saul and on his house, because he put the Gibeonites to death." So the king called the Gibeonites and spoke to them. Now the Gibeonites were not of the people of Israel but of the remnant of the Amorites. Although the people of Israel had sworn to spare them, Saul had sought to strike them down in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah. And David said to the Gibeonites, "What shall I do for you? And how shall I make

atonement, that you may bless the heritage of the Lord?" The Gibeonites said to him, "It is not a matter of silver or gold between us and Saul or his house, neither is it for us to put any man to death in Israel." And he said, "What do you say that I shall do for you?" They said to the king, "The man who consumed us and planned to destroy us, so that we should have no place in all the territory of Israel, let seven of

his sons be given to us, so that we may hang them before the Lord at Gibeah of Saul, the chosen of the Lord." And the king said, "I will give them." But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Saul's son Jonathan, because of the oath of the Lord that was between David and Jonathan, the son of Saul. The king took the two sons of Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, whom she bore to Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth, and the five

sons of Merab, the daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Adriel, the son of Barzillai, the Meholathite. And he gave them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them on the mountain before the Lord. And the seven of them perished together. They were put to death in the first days of harvest, at the beginning of barley harvest. Then Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, took sackcloth and spread it for herself on the rock, from the beginning of harvest until rain fell upon them from the

heavens. And she did not allow the birds of the air to come upon them by day or the beasts of the field by night. When David was told what Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done, David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of his son Jonathan from the men of Jabesh-gilead, who had stolen them from the public square of Beth-shan, where the Philistines had hanged them on the day the Philistines

killed Saul on Gilboa. And he brought up from there the bones of Saul and the bones of his son Jonathan, and they gathered the bones of those who were hanged. And they buried the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in the land of Benjamin, in Zelah, in the tomb of Kish, his father. And they did all that the king commanded. And after that, God responded to the plea for the land. For the grass withers and the flower fades,

the Word of God is forever. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Well, let's be honest. If we didn't do consecutive expository preaching, this chapter you skip. Uh, but because we do, we are going to walk our way through it this morning and learn from it because all of the scriptures are God-breathed and useful for our instruction. We've come to the end of the book of 2 Samuel, and chapter 21 and to the end is what many scholars consider the appendix. It's, it's not unnecessaryUh, the things that are in

it are important, and it seems like the author of 2 Samuel is trying to bring different things to the front of the person's mind that is reading the book of different things that occurred during David's reign that he hadn't yet covered. This morning, what I've entitled this sermon is Promises Matter, and that's what I want to look at overall this morning as we go through. First, let's see providence in the text, providence in the text. The author begins,

"Now there was a famine in the days of David." We, we don't know when this occurred. We do know that it wasn't sequential upon chapter twenty. That seems pretty clear. It could have happened any time during the reign of David, except it must have happened after he extended mercy and grace to Mephibosheth and invited him to the table, because there we're, we're told in verse seven, there that he had done so, and this had already

occurred. We read, this was a very severe time for the nation. "Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year." The writer is stacking up terms. The, the days were a famine, and then he says it's been for three years, and then it's year after year. The reader is meant to feel the weight of the affliction, which frankly you and I have trouble doing. We don't think much about starvation in twenty-first century

Michigan. We'll talk about hunger when we've missed a meal. We'll talk about how we're starving because we missed two meals. I have a teenage son in the home, and those teenage boys, there is never any food in the house, though the refrigerator is packed and the pantry is full. There's no food, Dad. We will hear people say, "I'm so hungry that I could eat a cow." Well, you know what? You can. You can go right down the street to the meat market or the grocery store, and they

have a whole meat selection, and you can buy a whole enough meat that it's like a whole cow, and you can eat it this afternoon if you want. We don't starve. We don't think about starving. But you do realize, don't you, that our experience is an anomaly in the history of humanity. The vast majority of people in the history of the world have lived from hand to mouth. That's how they've lived. What they grow, they eat. What they raise, they eat.

And if nothing grows, then they don't eat. And nothing's growing in Israel. But why? When the disciples come to Jesus in the Gospels, and they say to Jesus, "Teach us to pray," you'll remember that as Jesus teaches them to pray, that he gives them what we call the Lord's Prayer. And in that model prayer, part of the prayer is that we pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." It's a request. It's a request to a father, and by that request we acknowledge that all that

we have for our sustenance comes from him. He giveth and he taketh away. If we have not, it's because he gave not. If we have, it's because he gave. I-it's not Meijer and Kroger that provide your bread and your meat. They're just middlemen. It's God. He causes the, the rain to shower from the heavens, and that seed that is in the ground, he causes to germinate, and he causes it to grow, and he causes it to mature and to break the soil, and he causes it to blossom, and he

causes it to be harvested. God's providence has brought about the famine.

Second, the people's problem. The people's problem. Because David knows this, he knows from where to seek relief, and after three years, he, quote, "Sought the face of the Lord." He turned to the Lord in prayer. Now, David lived in a different time than we do when God at that time would sometimes speak directly to men, or he would speak through men to men, but that is not the case today. Hebrews one makes it very c-clear,

"Long ago at many times and many ways God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us in his Son." Jesus is the final word. We hear God now in the Scriptures, in the Scriptures alone. But here the Lord speaks to David. We don't know how, we don't know in what way, but David receives the reason for the famine. And the Lord said, "There is blood guilt on Saul and on his house because he put the

Gibeonites to death." Well, who in the world are the Gibeonites? The author tells us in verse two that they, quote, "Were not of the people of Israel but of the remnant of the Amorites." They are foreigners living among the nation of Israel. Gibeon was close to the city Gibeah.Which was Saul's home city, and it appears that Saul sought to exterminate all the Gibeonites, maybe because they were cla-close to his home city, and he didn't want them influencing those

people, or he wanted that land for his people. Well, we don't know, but what we're told in verse two is that after David called the Gibeonites to himself, they relayed that though, quote, "The people of Israel had sworn to spare them, Saul had sought to strike them down in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah." Saul had tau-sought to s-extinguish them, wipe them out. We don't have any record of the attacks in the reign of

Saul in the scriptures, but it's clear that it occurred. But as the Gibeonites say, Israel had sworn to spare them. That's the problem. Israel had made a promise.

The problem, this promise that the Israelites have made to the Gibeonites, wh-where is that? What is that? When Israel was crossing into the land and was crossing the Jordan under the leadership of Joshua, after its wandering in the wilderness under Moses, after it crossed through the Red Sea on dry ground, after it had been set free from bondage in, in Egypt, we're told on two separate occasions in the book of Joshua

that all the people in the land, the Amorites, that their hearts melted within them. Wh-why did their hearts melt within them? Because they had heard. They had heard that the mighty God, a powerful God, was with these Israelites, that he had dashed the Egyptians, that he had allowed the Israelites to cross through the Red Sea on dry ground, and they had seen even more. They had seen them cross the Jordan on dry ground, and they had seen that fortress of a city, Jericho, its

walls come tumbling down. And so their hearts melted within them. Here come a people into our land that have a powerful God of providence. So all the people in the land, the Gentile people, gathered together as one to fight against Joshua's Israel. If we bind ourselves together, maybe we will defeat them. However, there was an exception. There was a city that lay six and a half miles northwest of Jerusalem named Gibeon, and it decided not to join the

alliance against Israel. The Gibeonites understood that Israel was to exterminate all the pagan people of the land, and there wasn't much of a chance of standing against them because this God of providence and power was with them. They also clearly knew that Israel was not to make any peace treaties or any covenants with the people in the land of Canaan. So what could they do?

They must have known the stipulation that God gave to Israel in Deuteronomy twenty, because they'll quote it, that Israel could make peace with nations that were, quote, "very far from you." And so the Gibeonites devise a plan, what the scriptures call a cunning plan, crafty plan. Children, they decide to play dress-up. So the Gibeonites take worn-out sacks. They put them on their donkeys. They fill those worn-out sacks with

old bread. They found old wineskins, and they filled them with old wine. They put old, cracked sandals on their feet. They put old, worn-out clothes on their bodies, and then they made their way to the Israelites. It looked like they were bedraggled travelers from far away. And they asked Israelites for a covenant. "Make peace with us." When the Israelites asked where they came from, the Gibeonites used that language of Deuteronomy twenty. "We come from," quote, "a very

distant country." And they told the Israelites how, "We've heard what God has done for you. We heard how he set you free from Egypt. We heard how he dashed all the Amorites and all their kings, and we want to make peace with you. Now look at us. Look at our bread," as they took it out of the bags. "It's more than day old. It's rock solid. Look at our wineskins. They're so old they're cracking. Look at the sandals on our feet.

They're, they're worn out. Look at our clothes," as they tugged on their shirt. "They're holey, and they're stained. We've come from far away. Would you make peace with us and with our people?" We're told in Joshua nine that Israel, quote, "cut a covenant with the Gibeonites." They made covenant with them. They made a binding oath. You can seeHow that promise was made, how such a covenant was made, what I referenced this morning and as we approach

baptism in Genesis fifteen, there God enters into a covenant with Abraham. And as he enters into a covenant with him, Abraham does what was done in the ancient Near East at that time. You would take animals, and you would cut them in half, and you would put the two halves across from each other, and then the makers of the covenant would walk through those severed animal pieces. And it was a way of saying, "Listen, I will keep this word. If I

break this oath, let it be to me like it is to these animals. Let me be severed." And that was Israel's problem. They had made such an oath. Because third, promises matter. Promises matter. Now, in our day and age, we would say this oath was entered into under false pretenses. We'd find a lawyer, and we would wiggle our way out of it, but frankly, that's an indictment on us. We think too little of our word. We think too little about the honor of

God. As Calvin said, they could not go back on their oath, since the sacred name of God is more precious than the wealth of the whole world. A promise was made. But you say they were deceived. Yes, but two wrongs don't make a right. We have to l- have to live with the consequences of our sinful and even unwise choices. Psalm fifteen makes this very point in regards to an oath. The man of God, David says, does not change his oath because it hurts him.

No, the man of God lives with the consequences to the glory of God. It's sworn by God. At times, it's necessary to take oaths. Why? Be-because we live in a sinful world. Men are dishonest. Men are deceptive, and by taking an oath, we're saying, "This is true. God is my witness. If this isn't true, then let God be my judge."

We reassure people by calling on a, an authority higher than us. But what about Jesus's words? Doesn't Jesus call this into question? He says, "Let your yes be yes and your no be no."

He's not forbidding oaths. He takes them himself. The context is important. When Jesus says, "Let your yes be yes and your no be no," he was issuing a particular warning to a particular people, the Pharisees. They liked a good oath, but when taking an oath, they would often swear by Jerusalem instead of God. They would swear by the temple, or they would swear by the altar instead of swearing by the name of God. They were, they were crafty in their oaths.

They were tempting to not blaspheme God, just in case they didn't uphold their oath, but in fact, they often made promises that they had no intention of keeping. This was their slimy way of reassuring people without harming themselves. And Jesus is saying, "When you take an oath, you're taking it before God, regardless of whether you say his name or not." Y-you can name anything in heaven, anything on Earth, and it is, as Irsaeus said, stamped

with some mark of God's glory. God is a witness whenever you take an oath. Promises matter.

Let me make a quick distinction for you. The Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter twenty-two makes that is helpful. There's a difference between oaths and vows. An oath is a solemn appeal to God to witness to what you are saying is true or what you promise that you are going to do, you will do. Whereas a vow is a direct promise made to God himself. Oath, promise before God. Vow, promise to God. Oath, God is a witness. Vow, God is the receiver of the

promise. And both matter, vows and oaths, because they're promises either before God or they're promises to God. We live in a day in which people don't think much about the oaths and vows they take, marriage vows, ordination vows, membership vows, oaths in courts of law. I think we need a little more John Wayne. Just saying. Grew up watching a lot of John Wayne movies with my grandpa, and in multiple movies, John Wayne would say,

"If a man doesn't have his word, he doesn't have anything." Your word matters. It used to be that promises mattered. They still matter to God. Israel had taken an oath. They had promised before God to these Gibeonites to live in peace with them, God as their witness, and Saul transgressed the oath. It was zeal, the author says, verse two, for the people of Israel and Judah that led him to try and annihilate the Gibeonites. Zeal for the people of God, that sounds so

good, and zeal is good in its right place, and it's damnable and devastating in the wrong place.Thus the Lord says, "The nation has blood guilt on its hands." Now why? Why because of this one man? Because Saul was king of the covenant people of God. He himself had entered into covenant with God, not as an individual, but as king of the covenant people of God. What set them apart from all of the other nations on the face of the

earth was that they were a people of the covenant, of God's promises made to them. They were to be a people that honored covenants. So his action was a national corporate covenant breaking and forsaking. God was a witness, so the entire nation is paying the price, price of breaking this oath. So fourth, the problem's painful solution. The problem's painful solution. David asks the Gibeonites what he can do so that they might bless the inheritance of the

Lord. You'll note the specific language in verse three, "How shall I make atonement that you may bless the heritage of, of the Lord?" Atonement. Heinous sin has been committed. Atonement is needed. In the Old Testament, it involves a sacrifice to cover over that sin. Leviticus seventeen eleven, "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make an atonement for your souls." On the Day of

Atonement, a lamb would be slaughtered, and that lamb's blood would be taken in and it would be sprinkled on the mercy seat. Atonement was made, and then that goat would be taken, the escape goat, and hands would be laid on it, and it would be driven out. And so the sin, the guilt of the offense was covered over, and the sin of the nation was sent away. Atonement, that's our English word. You know, it's a made-up word. William Tyndale made up the word when he

was translating the Bible into the English. William Tyndale made up a lot of words when he translated the Bible into English, words that you and I take for granted. Words like Passover, William Tyndale made up. Mercy seat, William Tyndale made up. Scapegoat, William Tyndale made up. Atonement, William Tyndale made up. Atonement, he made it up from a phrase, at-one-ment. At-one-ment. Atonement. At-one-ment. Being made at

one again. Reconciled. And that requires blood. The penalty for sin is death. The Gibeonites rightfully say neither silver nor gold will do it. Money doesn't correct such wrongs. They subtly hint at what would. They say, "Neither is it for us to put any man to death in Israel." In essence, you, O king, must order death for this to happen, decree that someone must be put to death. Death is needed if there's going to be at-one-ment,

atonement.

So David decrees what they ask for. Seven of sons, seven of Saul's descendants will be hung, quote, "before the Lord at Gibeah of Saul." The problem's solution for at-one-ment, for reconciliation, it's painful. It's severe. Th-there's no getting around that. This is a hard text.

The final scene brings it home with even more severity. Rizpah, the mother of those two sons executed, she goes to the place of their hanging, and there she keeps herself, and she remains there, fending off all the vultures and the birds of the air and all the wild beasts that would want to consume these dead bodies of her sons and of her nephews. And there she sits. It, it's a ghastly scene.

We're meant to see the horror of it.

Even see her tears. But we're also to see her hope. Rizpah hopes for rain. We're told she remained there, quote, "from the beginning of the harvest until rain fell upon them from the heavens." She, she doesn't move until the God of providence and mercy provides. And He is a God of mercy. You say, "Well, it sure doesn't seem like it from the text. Where's the mercy?"Let's think about what we learn from this text, a hard

text. I d- I don't know everything this text is meant to teach. I don't know all the lessons we're to learn, but let me offer just a few questions and provide some answers for you in application here at the end. First question, do promises matter? Answer, absolutely to God. Therefore, you're to be a man or woman of your word. Why? Because God hates lies. See Second Samuel chapter twenty-one. He hates violations of promises. See

Second Samuel chapter one. Promises matter to God. Why? Second question, why? Why is it that promises matter to God so much?

Because in Him is no lie. He's all light, no darkness, and He works by His word, by His promises. If we can say it this way, our covenantal God, a covenant-keeping God who makes promises, He's a person of His word.

And He expects His people that have received His promises by His word to be people of their word, to value the promised word.

Like, He speaks to us, and He makes promises. He doesn't need to, and yet He does. He, He enters into covenant with people whereby He seals Himself to them. He promises Himself to them and promises them all kinds of blessing. He doesn't have to, but He does. And you can believe Him because He doesn't lie. He doesn't break His promises. So three, okay, Jason, what promises has He made? Well, how much time do you have today?

Let me just give you some. He promises His presence. "I will never leave you nor forsake you," Hebrews thirteen five. His guidance, "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go," Psalm thirty-two eight. His help when we fear, "Fear not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand," Isaiah forty-one ten. His help in trials, "When you pass through the waters, I will

bless you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned," Isaiah forty-three two. His care, "Cast all your anxieties on Him because He cares for you," First Peter five seven. His provision, "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you," Matthew six thirty-three. His forgiveness of your sin, "I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more,"

Jeremiah thirty-one thirty-four. His gift of salvation through Christ, "Whoever comes to me, I will never cast out," John six thirty-seven. His eternal oneship with you, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people," Revelation twenty-one three. Trust in His promises

because you can. Because He's a covenant-keeping God.

He's an incredible God of mercy. What really shows His mercy is the fourth question and answer, what I think we're especially meant to meditate upon today because this is our text today. Fourth, what did these promises require of Him?

Atonement, at-one-ment always requires a painful and severe price. And I'm not sure of everything that this chapter is meant to teach, but it's meant to shock, and it's meant to awaken to the cost of at-one-ment, atonement, what it took for our reconciliation with God. I want to read an extended quote from Dale Ralph Davis, who said it better than I ever could. He said this: "Readers should be aghast. The text says atonement is horrible.

It is gory. Atonement is never nice but always gruesome. We need to see this, for we easily fall into the trap of regarding atonement as merely a doctrine, a concept, an abstraction to be explained, a bit of theology to be analyzed, or a little better, to view it as a moving story to be replayed during Passion Week. But we should know betterSurely the Israelite worshiper realized this when he towed a young bull to the tabernacle and had

to slit its throat, skin it, cut it in pieces, and wash the insides and legs. It was a m- all mess and gore. From slicing the bull's throat in Leviticus I all the way to Calvary, God has always said atonement is nasty and repulsive. Christians must beware of becoming too refined, longing for a kinder, gentler faith. If we've grown too used to Golgotha, perhaps Gibeah can shock us back into truth. Atonement is a drippy, bloody,

smelly business. The stench of death hangs heavy wherever the wrath of God has been quenched.

Which leads to the necessary final question. Are you at one-ment? Has there been

at one-ment in your life, reconciliation in your life with this God?

He's provided a sheep to be slaughtered for the sins of the world. He sends His Son into this world, and He hangs Him

that we might be reconciled to Him. It's bloody. It's gory. It's a mess.

And the Son willingly subjects Himself to this gory, bloody, wrathful mess because God so loved the world. He so desired reconciliation.

As Ralph Davis said, "The atoning death upon the cross for sinners is drippy, bloody, smelly business." It's gruesome. It's ugly. And it's lovely, and it's beautiful because it's the act of a merciful God for sinners. The God of promise reconciles us by making atonement for our sin by substituting His Son in our place so that grace like rain may fall upon our barren, hungry, dead souls, and there might be life.

And you're to reckon with what it cost Him, this merciful God.

Keep trusting Him, and if you haven't trusted Him, He is worthy of your trust. Let's pray.

Our Father, we are thankful. You are a God of promises, a covenant-keeping, not simply a covenant-making, not simply a promise-making, but a covenant-keeping, promise-keeping God who's worthy of all of our trust. Be true of all of us that we don't leave this room without being reconciled to you, at one-ment with you, our God, who's given so much for sinners. We give you praise in the name of that Lamb that was slaughtered for sinners,

that Son of yours hung upon the tree for sinners, Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.