In our last episode, we saw how David and his followers mourned the tragic end of Saul’s life, and we learned important lessons from their experience. First, when confronted with bad news, we must not blame the messenger, and also, while we should therapeutically tell our story of loss, we should not tell details that might complicate our grief process. We must always tell the truth, but we don’t have to tell everything that we know. We also observed that David could cherish his memories of Saul and Jonathan, while also not living in the past. In addition, while we must look to the future, we must not neglect to show appreciation for those who helped us experience good grief.
As David and his followers moved forward in their service to God, the people of Judah anointed David as their king. As we might remember, Judah was physically separated from the rest of the tribes of Israel by Jerusalem, which was occupied by the Jebusites. Although Judah had accepted David as their king, the remainder of Israel had not yet done so. In fact, the situation would get worse before it got better. Sadly, a civil war was about to break-out.
Having been born and raised in the South, I am well aware of the many people who make remembering the American Civil War into more than just a hobby to become an avocation. The thoughts of these folks range from the erudite reflections of noted author Shelby Foote to the way a crotchety old lady teacher insisted on calling it the War Between the States. I clearly remember this latter example, because she would loudly, and quite directly, correct anyone who called it anything else. And, of course, there were the wags who jokingly, well I think they were joking, called it the War of Northern Aggression. History is written by the victors, but the vanquished also find ways of having their say as well.
The saddest part about the idea of a civil war, is that, like the friendly fire that killed Pat Tilman, it isn’t. Usually there is nothing civil about it. The American Civil War produced over 650,000 deaths, not to mention untold civilian deaths as well. As we examine the uncivil war that broke out over Saul’s succession, let’s begin with 2 Samuel 2:8-13,
Abner son of Ner, commander of Saul’s army, took Saul’s son Ish-bosheth and moved him to Mahanaim. He made him king over Gilead, Asher, Jezreel, Ephraim, Benjamin—over all Israel. Saul’s son Ish-bosheth was forty years old when he became king over Israel; he reigned for two years. The house of Judah, however, followed David. The length of time that David was king in Hebron over the house of Judah was seven years and six months. Abner son of Ner and soldiers of Ish-bosheth son of Saul marched out from Mahanaim to Gibeon. So Joab son of Zeruiah and David’s soldiers marched out and met them by the pool of Gibeon. The two groups took up positions on opposite sides of the pool.
Conflict Begins By Exceeding Our Authority:
Conflict begins in a family, or in a community, or in a church, when someone exceeds their authority. The Bible uses three different terms for sin. One type of sin is inherent in the human condition. It is simply falling short of God’s perfection. A second word for sin describes a transgression. This is a deliberate act of rebellion against God’s clearly known will. The third way the Bible describes sin is as iniquity, or deliberate and heinous sin. Conflict begins when someone deliberately takes an action or harbors an attitude that is against God’s Will, God’s Word, or God’s Way. In other words, conflict begins when someone deliberately sins.
In some cases, like this one, the sin is easy to see. Abner’s role was to serve kings, not to be a kingmaker. What he did may have seemed perfectly logical to him, and in other circumstances, it might have been an acceptable act. In this case, however, God had appointed David to be Saul’s replacement, and Abner was out of bounds. He, and he alone, bears the brunt of the responsibility for all the deaths that followed.
Rebellion like that of Abner is easy to spot, but another form of rebellion exists also. It happens when we take offense at another’s mistake without being patient and trying to sort things out. Remember, Jesus told His followers to leave their offering at the altar and go and be reconciled with those whom they were in conflict. In Mathew 18, he told His followers that it was their responsibility to go make things right. Paul also said in Romans 12:18-21,
If possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Friends, do not avenge yourselves; instead, leave room for God’s wrath, because it is written, Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay, says the Lord. But If your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. For in so doing you will be heaping fiery coals on his head. Do not be conquered by evil but conquer evil with good.
A pastor once saw this to be the problem that a couple was having in their marriage. In a counseling session he said, “I think you both have the problem of getting too historical with each other.” The husband replied, “Don’t you mean hysterical?” The pastor said, “No, what I mean is you both keep bringing up the past that you said was dead and buried. That’s your problem, you are both too historical!”
Conflict begins with exceeding our authority, which is a deliberate sin. We accelerate conflict through aggression. Next, let’s read 2 Samuel 3:14-28,
Then Abner said to Joab, “Let’s have the young men get up and compete in front of us.” “Let them get up,” Joab replied. So they got up and were counted off—twelve for Benjamin and Ish-bosheth son of Saul, and twelve from David’s soldiers. Then each man grabbed his opponent by the head and thrust his sword into his opponent’s side so that they all died together. So this place, which is in Gibeon, is named Field of Blades. The battle that day was extremely fierce, and Abner and the men of Israel were defeated by David’s soldiers. The three sons of Zeruiah were there: Joab, Abishai, and Asahel. Asahel was a fast runner, like one of the wild gazelles. He chased Abner and did not turn to the right or the left in his pursuit of him. Abner glanced back and said, “Is that you, Asahel?” “Yes it is,” Asahel replied. Abner said to him, “Turn to your right or left, seize one of the young soldiers, and take whatever you can get from him.” But Asahel would not stop chasing him. Once again, Abner warned Asahel, “Stop chasing me. Why should I strike you to the ground? How could I ever look your brother Joab in the face?” But Asahel refused to turn away, so Abner hit him in the stomach with the butt of his spear. The spear went through his body, and he fell and died right there. As they all came to the place where Asahel had fallen and died, they stopped, but Joab and Abishai pursued Abner. By sunset, they had gone as far as the hill of Ammah, which is opposite Giah on the way to the wilderness of Gibeon. The Benjaminites rallied to Abner; they formed a unit and took their stand on top of a hill. Then Abner called out to Joab, “Must the sword devour forever? Don’t you realize this will only end in bitterness? How long before you tell the troops to stop pursuing their brothers?” “As God lives,” Joab replied, “if you had not spoken up, the troops wouldn’t have stopped pursuing their brothers until morning.” Then Joab blew the ram’s horn, and all the troops stopped; they no longer pursued Israel or continued to fight.
Conflict Is Accelerated By Aggression:
We must recognize that the day comes when we must fight. Solomon, in Ecclesiastes 3:8, told us that there is “A time for war, and a time for peace.” So fighting is an option, but we must pick our fights wisely. Sadly, I don’t see either general exhibiting much wisdom in this battle.
The idea of a battle of champions was familiar to the Jews because of the story of David and Goliath, but they forgot that such an arrangement meant that one side or the other must lose. The goal of conflict resolution is a just and equitable solution to a problem caused by sin. The goal is not victory, but grace, peace, and mercy. The battle of champions didn’t go well for the Philistines, and it didn’t go well for both sides in this situation.
The problem that Abner and Joab had is described by the meme about a child with a hammer. That meme goes, “If all you have is a hammer, then all the world is a nail.” All Abner and Joab had was armies and testosterone, and that is an explosive mixture. And what was the result?
First, the conflict was not resolved. Both David and Ish-bosheth remained on their thrones. Second, the cost of this aggression was high. Two-dozen of the best and brightest of Israel and Judah were killed, as was Joab’s brother Asahel. All told, 380 men died that day, all cousins of one another. That was far too high a price to pay for a stalemate. All that blood shed resolved nothing.
It would be nice to say that such unfruitful aggression among God’s people died out with the advent of the church, but we can’t because it isn’t true. But this is what James, the pastor of the mother church at Jerusalem said to his members in James 4:1-4,
What is the source of wars and fights among you? Don’t they come from your passions that wage war within you? You desire and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and wage war. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. You adulterous people! Don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? So whoever wants to be the friend of the world becomes the enemy of God.
Belligerent conduct was also present in the Church at Corinth and Paul rebuked them as well. Unbridled aggression accelerates conflict and it is almost never the solution we need to choose within the church. Neither is the next solution Abner turned to next, which is found in 2 Samuel 3:6-11,
During the war between the house of Saul and the house of David, Abner kept acquiring more power in the house of Saul. Now Saul had a concubine whose name was Rizpah daughter of Aiah, and Ish-bosheth questioned Abner, “Why did you sleep with my father’s concubine?” Abner was very angry about Ish-bosheth’s accusation. “Am I a dog’s head who belongs to Judah?” he asked. “All this time I’ve been loyal to the family of your father Saul, to his brothers, and to his friends and haven’t betrayed you to David, but now you accuse me of wrongdoing with this woman! May God punish Abner and do so severely if I don’t do for David what the Lord swore to him: to transfer the kingdom from the house of Saul and establish the throne of David over Israel and Judah from Dan to Beer-sheba.”
Conflict Is Complicated By Playing Politics:
As we saw above, Abner viewed himself as a kingmaker. He knew who was supposed to be king, but he rejected the clearly revealed will of God. When he installed Ish-bosheth, he did so with ulterior motives. We don’t know what those motives were, but when Ish-bosheth acted like a king, Abner took offense. He showed just how thin-skinned he was, and just how shallow his commitment to his king was as well.
Abner, in his arrogance, seemed to look upon the throne of Israel as a gift that he could give to anyone that he wanted. We must be careful not to look upon the gifts of God as our own, to do with what we will. If we aren’t careful, we might end up like the Seven Sons of Sceva in Acts 19:11-17. They found that appropriating the gifts of God for their own benefit was playing with fire:
God was performing extraordinary miracles by Paul’s hands, so that even facecloths or aprons that had touched his skin were brought to the sick, and the diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them. Now some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists also attempted to pronounce the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I command you by the Jesus that Paul preaches!” Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish high priest, were doing this. The evil spirit answered them, “I know Jesus, and I recognize Paul—but who are you?” Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them, overpowered them all, and prevailed against them, so that they ran out of that house naked and wounded. When this became known to everyone who lived in Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks, they became afraid, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high esteem.
The gifts of God are bestowed upon us for the building-up of the church, not for the building-up of ourselves. Playing politics with the things of God does not bring a good result. Neither does resorting to assassination, as we see in 2 Samuel 3:1-4,
Joab went to the king and said, “What have you done? Look here, Abner came to you. Why did you dismiss him? Now he’s getting away. You know that Abner son of Ner came to deceive you and to find out about your military activities and everything you’re doing.” Then Joab left David and sent messengers after Abner. They brought him back from the well of Sirah, but David was unaware of it. When Abner returned to Hebron, Joab pulled him aside to the middle of the city gate, as if to speak to him privately, and there Joab stabbed him in the stomach. So Abner died in revenge for the death of Asahel, Joab’s brother.
Let’s also read 2 Samuel 4:1 and 5-7,
When Saul’s son Ish-bosheth heard that Abner had died in Hebron, he gave up, and all Israel was dismayed . . . Rechab and Baanah, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, set out and arrived at Ish-bosheth’s house during the heat of the day while the king was taking his midday nap. They entered the interior of the house as if to get wheat and stabbed him in the stomach. Then Rechab and his brother Baanah escaped. They had entered the house while Ish-bosheth was lying on his bed in his bedroom and stabbed and killed him. They removed his head, took it, and traveled by way of the Arabah all night.
Conflict Is No Justification For Assassination:
It is tempting to think that both Abner and Ish-bosheth got what they deserved. One might find some sympathy for Ish-bosheth, who, after all, was a son of King Saul, and who might be forgiven for trying to see if he could replace his father. Leaving him aside, surely Abner deserved his death, right? He had blatantly ignored God’s will, and in doing so, the blood of many was on his hands.
Despite the sins and mistakes made by Abner and Ish-bosheth, their deaths were not committed as righteous acts. In the modern world we would call these extrajudicial killings, and since neither fell in battle, then their deaths were no less than murders, and their killers were no less than murderers. As the saying goes, “two wrongs don’t make a right,” and as a former colleague of mine liked to say, “There is no right way to do the wrong thing.” We must never try to do God’s work with the Devil’s tools.
It would be rare to find a church conflict today that resulted in a literal assassination, though I was once told about a deacon’s meeting where a gun was pulled and laid upon the conference table. That’s said, modern social media is a loaded gun for character assassination, and it is one which has been fired far too often by those who should know better. We must never assassinate another’s character just to win an argument. Whether we kill someone’s body, or whether we kill someone’s reputation, we are still committing murder, at least if we believe Jesus in Matthew 5:21-22,
You have heard that it was said to our ancestors, Do not murder, and whoever murders will be subject to judgment. But I tell you, everyone who is angry with his brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Whoever insults his brother or sister will be subject to the court. Whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be subject to hellfire.
Finally let’s read 2 Samuel 5:1-3,
All the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron and said, “Here we are, your own flesh and blood Even while Saul was king over us, you were the one who led us out to battle and brought us back. The Lord also said to you, ‘You will shepherd my people Israel, and you will be ruler over Israel.’” So all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron. King David made a covenant with them at Hebron in the Lord’s presence, and they anointed David king over Israel.
Conflict Is Resolved When We Yield To God:
The best part of banging your head against a wall is when you stop. God’s people finally quit resisting God’s will, the same way that Saul did on the Damascus Road. In Acts 26:14 Paul described his conversion in this way,
We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice speaking to me in Aramaic, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’
When we resist God’s Word, His Will, and His Way, we are like Saul, kicking against the goads like a rank bull in a rodeo. When we accept His Word, His Will, and His Way, we set ourselves up to experience the abundant life Jesus said that He came to give us.
Once the Children of Israel accepted David as their God-anointed king, they put aside their uncivil and ungodly war. They began to experience their best life in the Promised Land they’d ever had, and God led David to develop an exalted kingdom, as we will see in our next episode,
Conclusion:
When we do things God’s way, it works every time. When we deliberately go our own way, however, rebellion, conflict, war, and even assassination are the results. Let’s learn from the mistakes of the past, so that we may profit from them in our daily walk with God.
Every blessing,
Dr. Otis Corbitt
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