10/1/2010 8:07:12 AM
SPIRITUAL DIARY
My
Worship Time Focus: Joab reasons with the king
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference: 2Samuel 14:1-20
Message of the verses: 1 ¶
Now Joab the son of Zeruiah perceived that the king’s heart was inclined
toward Absalom. 2 So Joab sent to Tekoa
and brought a wise woman from there and said to her, "Please pretend to be
a mourner, and put on mourning garments now, and do not anoint yourself with
oil, but be like a woman who has been mourning for the dead many days; 3 then go to the king and speak to him in this
manner." So Joab put the words in her mouth. 4 Now when the woman of Tekoa spoke to the
king, she fell on her face to the ground and prostrated herself and said,
"Help, O king." 5 The king
said to her, "What is your trouble?" And she answered, "Truly I
am a widow, for my husband is dead. 6
"Your maidservant had two sons, but the two of them struggled
together in the field, and there was no one to separate them, so one struck the
other and killed him. 7 "Now
behold, the whole family has risen against your maidservant, and they say,
’Hand over the one who struck his brother, that we may put him to death for the
life of his brother whom he killed, and destroy the heir also.’ Thus they will
extinguish my coal which is left, so as to leave my husband neither name nor
remnant on the face of the earth." 8
Then the king said to the woman, "Go to your house, and I will give
orders concerning you." 9 The woman
of Tekoa said to the king, "O my lord, the king, the iniquity is on me and
my father’s house, but the king and his throne are guiltless." 10 So the king said, "Whoever speaks to
you, bring him to me, and he will not touch you anymore." 11 Then she said, "Please let the king
remember the LORD your God, so that the avenger of blood will not continue to
destroy, otherwise they will destroy my son." And he said, "As the LORD lives, not
one hair of your son shall fall to the ground." 12 Then the woman said, "Please let your
maidservant speak a word to my lord the king." And he said,
"Speak." 13 The woman said,
"Why then have you planned such a thing against the people of God? For in
speaking this word the king is as one who is guilty, in that the king does not
bring back his banished one. 14
"For we will surely die and are like water spilled on the ground
which cannot be gathered up again. Yet God does not take away life, but plans ways so that the
banished one will not be cast out from him. 15 "Now the reason I have come to speak
this word to my lord the king is that the people have made me afraid; so your
maidservant said, ’Let me now speak to the king, perhaps the king will perform
the request of his maidservant. 16 ’For
the king will hear and deliver his maidservant from the hand of the man who
would destroy both me and my son from the inheritance of God.’ 17 "Then your maidservant said, ’Please let
the word of my lord the king be comforting, for as the angel of God, so is my
lord the king to discern good and evil. And may the LORD your God be with
you.’" 18 Then the king answered
and said to the woman, "Please do not hide anything from me that I am
about to ask you." And the woman said, "Let my lord the king please
speak." 19 So the king said,
"Is the hand of Joab with you in all this?" And the woman replied,
"As your soul lives, my lord the king, no one can turn to the right or to
the left from anything that my lord the king has spoken. Indeed, it was your
servant Joab who commanded me, and it was he who put all these words in the
mouth of your maidservant; 20 in order
to change the appearance of things your servant Joab has done this thing. But
my lord is wise, like the wisdom of the angel of God, to know all that is in the
earth.’”
I
have gotten insight from Dr. Wiersbe through his commentary on this section
that I did not see when I have read this over in the past. The reason for Joab to set this up like he
did was because he was concerned about not only the king, but also the nation
for Absalom was the crown prince, the king in waiting in case any thing
happened to David. Joab knew that
something could happen to David and then there would be a great deal of
trouble, for even when David planned to have Solomon to be king there was still
trouble.
Another
thing about this story is that it is a bit similar to the story that Nathan
told to David about the sin that he had committed. In Nathan’s story there was a man and his
lamb, and this got to the heart of David as a King, and now the story of woman
and her son got to the heart of David as a father.
This
story also has the picture in it of God’s grace in sending His Son so that all
sinners can come home even though we will go right to the Father which was not
the case of Absalom.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: There are many, what I will call famous
people, in the Bible that God has used to bring about His plan and only one of
them is perfect, and that of course is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Perfect Son
of God. The rest of who God uses, the
likes of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Saul, David are all sinners, yet
God uses them any way and this gives great encouragement to my heart for I too
am a sinner saved by the grace of God who has a desire, in fact a great desire
to be used of the Lord Jesus Christ, for His cause just as those who have gone
before me had that desire and yet there are times when I don’t feel worthy of
being used by God because of the sins that I have committed, and then there are
other times when I realize that I have been forgiven and can be used by the
Lord. Moses, David, and Paul were all
murders and were used by the Lord, and David was one who committed adultery
before his murder and was still used greatly by the Lord, so the conclusion is
that God can use me as long as I confess my sin and do my best to stay close to
the Lord and walk with Him so that I am available to be use of Him for His
glory.
My
Steps of Faith for Today:
1. I
want to be like Balaam’s donkey, available to be used when the Lord calls me to
be used for the cause of Christ.
10/1/2010 8:39:50 AM
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