Blessing or Bitterness

Welcome to week three of our Women's Bible Study on 2 Samuel, which we call the reigning king. Today we're going to cover chapters five and six. Last week, David finished a season of drama with his inside enemies, people who should have been on the same team as him. And what did we discover about him? He showed kindness to them, brought unity, and a forgiving spirit. Now this week, we're going to see David do some great accomplishments. He's going to establish the city of Jerusalem, bring the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem, and we will find yet more drama in this week's lesson. And so we're going to consider our choices this week to bring blessing or bitterness. And so I've titled this week's lesson, Blessings or Bitterness. Okay, let's get started. 2 Samuel, open your Bibles. Chapter five, it starts like this.

And we're so happy, we want to applaud. We're tempted to close the whole book right there, because it seems like a really great ending. And it tells us in verse four,

And the key word here is Jerusalem. We know about Hebron. We have already read quite a bit about that. But this is one of the first times we hear about Jerusalem. So let's read about this in verse six.

So four things about this passage. First, it is so extremely brief, this establishment of Jerusalem, considering Jerusalem's great importance in the rest of the Bible, all the way to the New Jerusalem. We're like, that's all we get to hear about the taking of it. But yes, it's a very brief account. The next thing about the city of Jerusalem is that it was actually given to the tribe of Benjamin in their allotment. So this is an extremely savvy political move on David's part to choose a city that had not yet been inhabitant. Benjamin had not been able to take it, but yet it was a part of their tribe, which is of the house of Saul. So he's gaining more unity by doing this. Third thing that we realize is the city itself is very centrally located. So it was easy to establish it now as sort of the national capital. It's becoming the Washington, D.C. of Israel. And then the fourth thing that we see, which we don't see here, but the taking of Jerusalem sealed Joab as commander. And we don't hear about it in 2 Samuel, but I'll show you from 1 Chronicles. Let's look at 1 Chronicles 11, 6.

And stop there for a minute. I don't know. I'm just kind of thinking we had this little problem with Joab. He just murdered Abner. David kind of slapped him with a curse, but didn't really bring justice to what he had did. The way I read it, it's kind of like this is David's thinking, this is my opportunity to get a new commander. If someone would just step forward here right now and be the first to take Jerusalem. And it says,

So he is now sealed as David's commander. Just interesting. All right, back to 2 Samuel, verse 9.

We already know David isn't perfect. But isn't this such a comforting verse to read? God was with him. God had a plan. God wanted to bless his people. God had a covenant that he wanted to bring forth with his people. And he was with David regardless of whether he was perfect or not. I take great comfort in that. And you should too, knowing that God does not demand perfection of us. And it's the heart attitude that matters. All right, so we just take note here in verse 11. Hiram, the king of Tyre, sent messengers to David. Cedar trees, carpenters, masons who built David a house. This will be of much greater importance in 1 Kings when we talk about Solomon. So we're just going to take his name and put it on the shelf. This Hiram guy for right now. Verse 12.

Because God loves to bless his people. And isn't it a good thing that in those last seven years filled with drama, David did not get veer off course because of all the drama that came his way. He stayed on course and now the Lord is with him. And the Lord is using him to bless his people. In verse 13.

You listed them in your study guide. And so this is where we remind ourself again. The Bible narrates. The Bible does not give its stamp of approval on what has been said. It just tells us what happened. Verse 17.

And from the stronghold, I presume verse 19.

And then we're given an account of two different battles. Both times David asked the Lord what he should do. And I think that we are meant to notice these repetitive phrases. In verse 19. And again in 23. And that is David inquired of the Lord. We're told that two times here. There's not a lot of information given us about these battles except that. That David asked God. God gave him instructions. David obeyed the instructions. So that we can get to the summary in verse 25.

And now we're able to move into this next chapter. Where David has this big project on his heart. He wants to bring the Ark of the Covenant now into Jerusalem. The city named after him. The city that he has established. It's a noble task. The Ark of the Covenant is the great symbol of God's presence with Israel. But we're not going to find any mention of that repetitive phrase. David inquired of the Lord. We won't find it here. And I think the writer wanted us to hear that phrase over and over. So that it's silence here is loud. Chapter six.

Now Baal Judah is what is called right now in our text. But it was Kiriath Jerim when we were back in first Samuel. Same town. The Ark has resided there since first Samuel chapter seven. Okay. Now David probably took such a large group of men. 30,000. Because it is right next door to Philistine territory. So if I was wanting to go personally and retrieve something. I would take a lot of men with me too. In verse three it said.

Again in scripture we are meant to hear repetitive phrases. Okay. Do you remember back when we studied the book of Judges. A certain man from the hill country of Ephraim. Kept hearing that over and over again. I told you last week we're going to meet the phrase. Sons of Zeruiah over and over again. And right here we are meant to hear the phrase. New cart. two times. New cart is only used in the Bible three times and the last time it was used was to tell us how the Ark got to Kiriath or well got into Israelite territory in the first place and that's because the Philistines had it and they were they had gathered it up kind of as spoils of war and they were all getting sick and they thought we don't want this thing around here and so they took the two milk cows and separated them from their calves and they built a new cart and they put the Ark on it and sent the milk cows and thought well let's see where it goes and it went right into Israelite territory it actually went to Beth Shemesh and the Israelites were super happy about this Ark that came on a new cart and but the problem was after they were all rejoicing 70 men of Beth Shemesh actually looked into the cart and they died so they made an error in how they were relating to the Ark and they were all frustrated about it was like what are we gonna do and so they actually just sent the Ark then from Beth Shemesh to Kiriath Jerim now it seems intentional here that we're supposed to hear that that the Philistines method to transport the cart the Ark was a new cart we're supposed to hear that and that's what David is doing as well and it looks like we're gonna find some other similarities to verse five

and when they came to the threshing floor of Nican Uzzah put out his hand to the Ark of God took hold of it for the oxen had stumbled and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah and God struck him down there because of his error and he died there beside the Ark of God and David was angry because the Lord had broken out against Uzzah and when we read that we might have some negative emotions as well I don't know if we're angry but we might think well that was harsh you know the guy he was just trying to do a good thing it was a little harsh of God don't you think but the only reason that we think it's harsh is because we've been conditioned as we've read to see God as very very very merciful and very forgiving in how people in the past have related to the Ark everyone should have been dying and then suddenly when someone does we're like well what in the world but it's only because we've trained ourselves to see that God has been showing his mercy the Ark of God was designed for one thing only and that was to reside in the inner place of the tabernacle inside the Holy of Holies it was only to be seen by the high priest ever and even when the tabernacle was being transported through the wilderness journey it was to be covered and then it was to be carried on the shoulders of only the Kohathites as it's covered going from one place to the next it was never to even be seen much less touched by anyone and so now when we understand that and we know that we studied the book of Numbers we studied the wilderness way and we read that it what no one was even to touch the Ark so Uzzah made an error in how he related to the Ark the 70 men at Beth Shemesh had made an error in how they had related to the Ark and David is angry because of the Lord's discipline we find in verses 10 and 11 it was sent to the house of Obed-Edom and says the Lord blessed Obed-Edom and all of his household and it was told King David well the Lord has blessed the household of Obed-Edom and all that belongs to him because of the Ark of God so David went and brought up the Ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the city of David with rejoicing and this time he wasn't modeling the method of doing ministry after the culture around him after the Philistines this time it was different verse 13

and this was part of God's method which we learned about and now first Chronicles what we what we hear in 2nd Samuel in just a verse first Chronicles tells us in about a dozen verses so I'm going to show you a little bit of what had happened David presumably had time now to do what was silent before now David went and inquired of the Lord because we find out in first Chronicles the Lord had showed him some things look at this 15 to

so David had organized the proper men and look at now in first Chronicles 15 12

we did not seek him according to the rule so the priests and the Levites consecrated themselves to bring up the Ark of the Lord the God of Israel and the Levites carried the Ark of God on their shoulders with the poles as Moses had commanded according to the Word of the Lord and that gives us the entire picture now of what had transpired there's two noteworthy things I think for our lives in this message and one is you can never go wrong by stopping to inquire of the Lord you will never get off course if you stop slow down and ask the Lord what you were to do and the second thing that's noteworthy is that you may indeed go wrong if you simply follow the culture's methods of doing God's work it might not work out for you okay now the final section is where I do our title from for this passage blessings or bitterness and now we're going to continue the story of David and McCall and I feel like it's especially relevant to us because of the drama that we talked about last week and our choices in life whether we can bring blessing into a relationship and become a peacemaker or whether we will bring bitterness and continue contribute to the drama verse 14

so David and all the house of Israel brought up the Ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the horn and for right now I want you to just swipe away verse 16 we'll swipe it back in a minute verse 17

and when David had finished offering the burnt offerings and the peace offerings he blessed the people in the name of the Lord of hosts he distributed among all the people the whole multitude of Israel both men and women a cake of bread a portion of meat and a cake of raisins to each one and all the people departed and were happy have you ever gone to a conference or something like that and lunch was provided and you get to the lunch table and you see all these beautiful red and white boxes with Chick-fil-a and and I thought you know bread and meat and fruit so that's just exactly David just had this whole pile of snack boxes and as people were leaving they could just take it and go and everyone that's what makes people happy but what I want to do now is I want to look at this same celebration through the eyes of McCall okay recently unmarried to her second husband and remarried to her first husband likely against her will and now we're gonna see how she saw this going on back to verse 16 swipe it back

okay a couple things about this verse let's slow down here first of all she's called here the wife of David no she's called the daughter of Saul her identity is made clear to us her identity is political okay she's called that three times in these seven verses let's remember who this woman was and what her history was she was pursued by the man she loved won by the man that she loved she was loyal to the man that she loved she took risks for the man that she loved when he had to flee from her psychotic father and then she was returned to after David fled for his life she was returned to her mentally ill father who then gave her to another man to be his wife and now she's snatched away from her new life which she may have made peace with and brought back to David one thing different about this time she's brought back to David with lots of other women in the picture in the meantime her father and all of her brothers have perished She's alone in the world and she's she's named as the daughter of Saul. Second thing we see here is that the narrator wants us to see her looking out the window. We're supposed to picture her looking out the window and don't you know that is the last place that we left her was looking out the window and that was in first Samuel chapter 19 when David had to flee for his life from Saul. She's the one that let him out the window, risked her life for that and so she's looking out the window seeing the back of the man that she loved that she's risking her life for leave her and now the writer wants us to see her looking out the window seeing that man coming back but everything has changed. This is not the same situation. It also says that she despised him in her heart. David was leaping, he was dancing, David was a passionate worshiper but personally I don't think she was despising David as much for what he was doing as much as despised people end up despising people. I think it was much more of a heart condition than anything David was doing at the moment. Let's see what happens. Verse 20,

and again somehow I am suspicious that this isn't as much about David's dancing as it is as much about how the world has changed through her window and the condition of her heart. McCall was a woman with a victim mentality right now. Hey she was a victim but when crummy things happen to people it's typical, it's a typical human response for us to suck in those crummy things into our heart, into our life and make them our identity. It's also natural then that we believe we have no control of any situations in our life and that only bad things will ever happen to us and that because I'm a victim I have a free path to act on my emotions in any way that I want to and also because I'm a victim I'm kind of like everybody else around me to know what it feels like to be a victim. This all comes naturally to us, this is part of our sinful nature. So I'm not a mind reader here but I know sarcastic words when I read them and the biggest problem with bitter words is that they usually draw up bitter words from the person whom they're spoken to. So let's see if that happens. Verse 21

So we're super disappointed here that David didn't take the high road and say to himself, I asked this woman to come here, maybe she needs a hug right now. We're disappointed that David now forgot what he had done for seven years. He forgot how to affirm and show kindness and peace and unity and a forgiving spirit and we do. We're disappointed that David and McCall completely miss each other. They both have swords out, daggers, and they're cutting each other to pieces but they're not understanding one another and that disappoints us. And so the last verse of our study this week says,

because people rarely want to go to bed with someone who just cut them to pieces with daggers. So the relationship was over. There was no more relationship with David and McCall. And so now we find out, as the reader, there will never be any coming together of the house of Saul and the house of David. That idea is over. It's done. We are where we are. And so that's how we end. But I want to, as we always do, we have to end with, you know, what does it mean to me? So I want to end with three self-check questions that help us see, so how does my world look through my window? In other words, blessing or bitterness, okay? So here's the three questions and I'll put them on slides for you. First question, self-check. Have I absorbed a victim mentality, even just a little bit? Your life has probably not been perfect. I actually have zero friends who have been taken away from their second husband and forced back to their first husband. But I have lots and lots of friends who have had crummy things happen to them. And so if you are one of those people who has had crummy things happen to you, it's good to check once in a while and ask ourselves, have I adopted an identity as a victim? Have I adopted a victim mentality in any way? Do I say things like, well, I am the way I am because my parents, fill in the blank, either did or didn't do something. See, a bad thing happened to me, so now it's my identity. I'm not changing it, take it or leave it, it's who I am. Do I say things like, well, I just have trust issues. I just don't trust people because they've always turned on me. Maybe that's true. Bad things, crummy things have happened and so now we've absorbed it as an identity and we kind of just say, it's who I am. It's healthy for us to inspect our identity occasionally and see if there's any victim mentality in there. It's unhealthy for us to continue living in a victim mentality and it is possible for us to overcome a victim mentality if we find it there. And that would probably be an entire additional Bible study, but I'll just say that overcoming it is wrapped up in the renewing of our mind. The renewing of our mind. The renewing by the Lord, okay? This steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Let's look at number two. Have I become bitter? Even a little bit. Have I formed a habit of reliving my disappointments, repeating my difficulties, rehearsing the drama in my life to the point where now I may bubble over with bitterness because I'm rehearsing, rehearsing, rehearsing. And there's a couple tests we can ask ourselves to say, have I become bitter? Even just a little bit. Like test number one, can I share someone else's joy? Can I just simply share in your joy or do I have to make your joy all about my sad? Do I have to say things like, well sure it would be nice if I can go to Hawaii but with all of our bills we'll never be able to. No, it's just like I'm glad I'm happy for you. Good, go. Have a good time. Bring me back macadamias if you would please. Here's another check. Do I get angry over stupid things? Because if we're constantly rehearsing hurts in our minds, it's taking up all of our bandwidth. And now a stupid little thing, offense happens to us and we get angry instead of just being able to push through. It's bitterness. How about this, am I difficult to please? Am I impossible to please? We might have excuse, we might give excuses about that. Well I just have high standards, that's why people don't please me. But what it really is, is we're yearning for resolution to old pain. And until we get resolution to old pain, nothing satisfies us, nothing pleases us. Our kids can't do anything right, our husband can't do anything right, and there's a remedy. But we're going to move on to our third question first. These are hard, aren't they? You can say it, this is hard. Third one, do I remember how to survive drama? And that's what we learned last week. Dealing with inside enemies, people who should be on the same team, but for some reason we have started this antagonistic relationship with one another. David and McCall should have been on the same team, but now they're inside enemies. So what do I do now? I'm David now in this situation, and somebody comes to me with a volley of bitterness. What do I do with this? Well I have to remember that hurting people hurt people. When someone is hurting, they do hurt people, and those bitter words coming at me are just a sign of the hurt that is inside of that heart. I have to remind myself, I'm not the enemy here. You're not the enemy here. Let me in my mind disassociate the bitter words from the person, okay? And then we need to apply what we observed last week that David did well for seven years and suddenly forgot in this moment. That's okay, we forget. Kindness, calm, peace, forgiving spirit. Those are the things that we have to remember when we find ourselves in the position of David. Now, just to recap this and to wrap these self-check questions up, there's a passage in Ephesians that I want to show us here in a minute that instructs us on all of these matters, whether we're suffering from a victim mentality, whether we are throwing out bitterness, or whether we are the receivers of bitterness. Let's look at this passage, Ephesians 4, 31 to 32.

It's so simple, but it is not easy. But these are the kind of verses that we look at and we say, okay, if this is written for us, for our instruction, this is a possibility. And so as I intentionally renew my mind in things like this, the Lord is saying, put away the bitterness. That is a possibility in my life. And then we sit with the Lord and say, Lord, you're going to have to renew my mind here. You're going to have to, I'm going to sit with you until you show me if I am just suffering from resolution to old pain, and we are going to get it taken care of. We are going to get that covered so that I can move forward and not do damage to people around me. So interesting lessons that we learn, isn't it? I just trust that the Holy Spirit is going to help us just handle these things and remind us we have the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives that we can push through these things. Father, that is my heart as we go into our discussion. Lord, that even just bringing up these topics of old pain and crummy things that have happened to us and how maybe our words in the past have been destructive and all that. Lord, I pray that you would protect all of our minds in that. And we would see this light, this pinhole of light in the future that we could reach out through the power of the Holy Spirit and say, God will not leave me in this place. He will allow me to overcome and to be victorious in this area. And I pray this for all of us, Lord, in our little ways and our big ways of making these things our identity. Lord, that you would spare us from the heartache and from the misery that McCall is living in right now and that, Lord, we would truly be overcomers. I ask in Jesus' name. Amen.