2 Samuel 21 The Burning Coal: Rizpah

second Samuel 21 and I know talk you through this story and unpack it because it's got several layers number one then there was a famine in the days of king of David three years now this book is not chronological so this has nothing to do with David's fall and the the outcrop of that which took several chapters the pain the the huge price the whole nation paid for David's in this goes back before that there was a famine in the days of David for three years year after year and David inquired of the Lord and the Lord answered it's for Saul and for his bloody house because he slew the Gibeonites okay the first thing I want to say is this okay always someone's needs to turn on the lights is over me praise the Lord oh there we go hallelujah that's good enough right there the Holy Land the land God gave Abraham Isaac and Jacob it was morally sensitive we tell you what I mean by that God said I'll give you rain and that rain was very very regular early rain latter rain as long as you're faithful to me if you get far enough away from me I'll take the rain away sin would actually affect what what happened with the land there's other places where God said look there's certain sins with you the Amalekites and the people that were here before you were doing that are so bad that the land will vomit you out if you continue in them sins like homosexuality things like that sexual perversion the land itself will vomit you out so the holy land special now by the way for the last 2,000 years since the God expelled the Jews out of the Holy Land in 70 AD that place was a was a swamp malaria riddled swamp there's nothing could grow there if it wasn't swamp it was desert the whole thing was just bereft of anything and then when the Jews came back in 1948 now that land is exporting fruit to the whole world the deserts blooming to fulfill the prophecies the Land of Israel is morally sensitive now this in this case there's a famine and it was lasted three years of King David prayed to God and God said there is a specific reason for this famine it has to do with King Saul and he calls it his bloody house house of blood but see that's not just an expression okay that is saying that King Saul's family had what the Bible calls blood guilt on it there's blood on their hands blood guilt and therefore the land is not giving you the rain it affects the whole nation Kings sin affected the whole nation so this blood guilt on that house and what is the blood guilt because he slew the Gibeonites now let me explain the Gibeonites because when God brought the children of Israel to the promised land and this goes all the way back to the book of Joshua he told them to take all those inhabitants of that land and slay every last man woman and child among them now modern people have a hard time understanding this but if you read the Bible closely you see that they were so morally depraved that there was no hope of a redemption for them they had to be cleared out of the land and God was using the children of Israel to execute his holy justice just like he sent the flood in the days of Noah to kill every man woman and child among them and they were all a bunch of tribes okay the Hittites the Jebusites the Amalekites the up tights and the other sites I mean all of them were there alright but one tribe knew what was coming just like Rahab the harlot what was coming and believed the news of the judgment that was coming so they did what pagans do they they deceived to save their life and it was a quite of amusing thing in Joshua 9 because what they did is they collected old clothes and worn-out shoes and moldy bread and they put all those old clothes on whole tribe and they there in the Holy Land they run across Joshua and his armies and they go man we came from a long ways away from here in other words we're not from here ok we are not from here because they knew that everyone from there was going to be slain under the judgment of God and to make a long story short I mean this is a total deception God had commanded that they be killed ok but they actually believed the command and they believed the Word of God in a sense you could say they believed God and therefore they saved their life by tricking Israel into making a solemn covenant with them ok now look that's very similar to us we deserve to die we deserve to be killed we deserve to go to hell now we didn't trick anyone okay but only because there's a covenant with Jesus who's that's the New Testament way of saying Joshua that's the only reason why we're saved alright there's no reason for us to be saved we're all worthy of death but we've got this covenant with Jesus that saved us well these people they believe Moses and actually did believe the Word of God they knew that they were doomed and they knew that God was going to bless the nation of Israel and kill all the tribes so they tricked themselves into a covenant and three days after Joshua entered into this covenant with them which is a solemn promise you be as US you'll be like us we'll were one we're one family whatever happens to us happens to you three days after that they find out they've been tricked but guess what the Covenant was valid they made it in the name of God they couldn't break the Covenant three days after this tribe trick Joshua the other tribes attacked this tribe of this tribe sent messengers to Joshua Ted guess what we're not from that far away we're just over the hill but now we're under attack and we have a solemn covenant with you you must come and defend us and the children of Israel kept the Covenant and defended them Joshua was very very upset about that and he said you are going to be hewers of would you to a servant status with us because you tricked us but they were happy just to be alive they saw what happened to the other tribes and they said we know for sure there's like rehab we know for sure that your God is going to give you this land and we know for sure that anyone that gets in the way is going to be killed so they were just glad to be saved all right now how many are just glad to be saved tonight I am all right I don't deserve it but but then many centuries later when King Saul was going mad he attacked them they had a covenant with God I'd be like attacking converts or there was a minority they were they were in a powerless state they were the hewers of wood and servants in the temple but Saul to appease the people not to please God he attacked him and killed a bunch of them that's why there was a famine that's why the reign was withheld okay and King David as God and God took him to it God showed him this is why was the land sensitive the king called the Gibeonites and said unto them now the given nights were not of the children of Israel but of the remnant of the amorite and the children of Israel had sworn unto them and saw sought to slay them in his zeal to the children of Israel and Judah so Saul slayed them not because of zeal for God God wouldn't have him slayed out Saul's solemn duty was to fight Philistines and fight the invaders of the Holy Land but not them but Saul slay them it says in his zeal for the children of Israel somehow or other this please certain people and he did it to look good before man wherefore David said unto the Gibeonites what shall I do for you and where would shall I make the atonement that you may bless the inheritance of the Lord okay so Saul doesn't all wrong Saul doesn't care because Saul doesn't fear God that's first King Saul is insensitive so does not care Saul does his own thing but one of the reasons for the stories that show that David doesn't write he finds he seeks God in the first place why is this going on three years shouldn't be doesn't just accept it he seeks the Lord Lord gives him an answer then he goes to them in humility he's not gonna tell them what's what and what's up he goes and ask them what can we do to undo the damage that King Saul has done in our name and so how can we but notice the word he puts how could we make atonement that you may bless the inheritance of the Lord verse 3 in other words it uses the sacrificial language and he says look we are under the judgment of God what do we need to do to make of Tommen now that's the primal question of salvation the whole human race is under the judgment of God what what can make atonement for us well we know in the New Testament one man has to die for the whole human race one worthy man one man qualified to die for us that's Jesus Christ amen and that's why how we come out from underneath the curse but this is just the ruff-ruff crude shadow of it and admittedly from a totally different time a totally different place and a totally different way of doing things so do the Gibeonites he says what do we have to do to get out from underneath this curse and that we might go back under the blessing of the Lord and the Gibeonites in Undine we will have no silver nor gold of Saul nor of his house neither for us show you kill any man in Israel and he said that what show the what you shall say that that I will do for you they're not out for money they're not out for vengeance even but they knew exactly what had happened and they answered the king the man that consumed us and the devised against us that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the coast of Israel that song Levin lets seven men of his sons be delivered unto us and will hang them up unto the Lord in Gibeah of Saul whom the Lord did choose and King David said alright I'll give them to you all we want is seven of Saul's sons now that sounds brutal but I assume that those sons were involved in the war crimes okay I do assume that the Bible says of son can't a son doesn't have to pay for his father's sins says that several times but it also says the father sins to affect the son and God says the people who hate me our visitor sins down to the third and fourth generation but in this case he says they said to him all we want is seven of his sons okay and they and we will hang them up before the Lord see that's another that's atonement language their death will be sacrificial this is what it's going to take to remove the curse that's come on the land this man wasted us this man consumed us this man wrongly attacked us this man broke the Covenant and now everyone's suffering but this is one take away the suffering seven sons seven is a complete number and hang them up before the Lord that'll do it so this is a the whole subject of hanging them up before the Lord comes to play they're to be hung now hanging in the Bible has a theological significance if anyone's hung on a tree that's a sign that they are cursed of the Lord and if anyone's not buried and their bones are exposed if anyone gets up not to be gross but eaten by the Jackals or by vultures that's like a spiritual symbol of damnation judgment being cursed by God the Jews have a very very strict sense about burial burial is really important of course Christians have the same we bear it why do we bury because we believe in the resurrection of the Dead okay so you get a burial you'll see this over and over again in the Old Testament he was buried with his father's he was buried back in the graves of his father's this is good this happens to honorable people anyone dies on a battlefield and their bodies exposed and vultures eat them that's like he's damned okay he's damned it's just a reproach so you got this blood guilt now I want to hold your finger in 2nd Samuel because I want to show you this in another place in the Bible and that's Deuteronomy 19 Deuteronomy 19 is the law of God and if Britain teaches a lot of these principles Deuteronomy 19 and verse 10 I believe it is did she come to pass to whoever well not hearken o wait dude I'm in nineteen excuse me I was in eighteen okay Deuteronomy 19 verse nine if you should keep all these Commandments to do them which I command you this day to love the Lord thy God and to walk ever in his ways then shall you add three cities more for thee besides these three that innocent blood be not shed in thy land which the LORD thy give God giveth thee for an inheritance and so blood be upon thee mara David made mention of this he said how can we cleanse them Lord's inheritance how can we get the blessing back if innocent blood is shed on the land remember the land is morally sensitive benefits and blood is shed on the land stuff like droughts and famines happen and even worse because the land responds to the moral state ok so innocent blood should not be shed on the land ok in another place go back to Samuel in another place it says if you've got a city and you find a murder victim out in the field and you can't tell who that who did it investigation happens you can't tell who kill them there's a ritual where the elders of the city get together and wash their hands and say let that blood not come on this lamb because we are innocent of this and we don't know who did it now in the New Testament I don't think he knew what he was doing when punches pilot fulfilled the law of God he wasn't godly and he didn't care about Deuteronomy believe me but God was leading him to show everyone that Jesus Christ is innocent and that's why he washed his hands and says I'm innocent of the blood of this man he's actually fulfilling Moses prescription for the death of an innocent man so saul slew them but not for God instead his zeal was toward the people he was a man centered man so we get the execution ex second Samuel 21 verse 6 let seven men of his sons be delivered unto us and we will hang them up unto the Lord in gibi of Saul those others hanging was to take place where Saul came from right in his hometown right a big huge testimony he's a war criminal he shed innocent blood and now he has to pay so this is a huge way of God's showing Israel sin is serious business and all sin has to be paid for someone's gonna have to pay for sin or as everyone's gonna suffer so he hangs him right there in Gibeah it says whom the Lord did choose and the King said I will give them so King David turns them over but the King spared mephibosheth and then we read about him earlier the son of Jonathan the son of Saul why because he had he had a covenant - okay so he spared that indignity that that that was between them between David and Jonathan the son of Saul but the King took the two sons of rizpah the daughter of ayah whom she bore unto Saul Armani and mephibosheth so there were two Mephibosheth s-- and the five sons of Michal the daughter of Saul whom she brought up from Adriel the son of Barzillai that maihama thought okay now I told you how to unpack this okay the the mother of two of these people was named rizpah you know what that name means a burning coal rizpah now who was rizpah now she showed up earlier she happened to be one of Saul's concubines the king is due to have more than one wife which was against the law of God but they did and they have different statuses of wives some were wives some were concubines and it's very complicated bit was all they had their own order okay when a man died a concubine had certain rights the wives had certain rights okay and she she had two sons by him okay and then the other was hit her nephews seven sons of Saul now when r is BA showed up earlier if you remember when King David and the house of Saul were fighting we were taken into the the remaining son of Saul that was supposedly the King his house was against King David and this man was stupid because he had a great general named Abner and he accused Abner of sleeping with rizpah this woman which would not only have been adultery but it would have been a treasonous thing to do because the wife of the former King whoever quote gets her that's the sign that he's received the kingdom's and that's what made Abner quit and go to the other side and eventually ich mich f died but this poor woman rhea merges again basically it says the king take the two sons of rock 8 verse 9 he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites and they hang them in the hill before the Lord and they fell they all died all seven together and were put to death in the days of harvest in the first day in the beginning of barley harvest which is sometime in April so you got this scene and of course I see why it's not in children's coloring books of the Bible because what you have is seven men hanging okay in April and verse 10 and read by the daughter of aya she takes Seth and spread it for her upon the rock from the beginning of harvest until water dropped upon them out of heaven and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day nor the beasts of the field by night this woman in April went out with her sons she's not going to leave alone not to the end two of her sons were hung and five of her nephews were hung and she spread out sackcloth which is the symbol of the Bible of mourning fasting and repentance and the Jews call it sitting Shiva at a funeral he said Shiva sit there and mourn only they only do it one day okay then they try to bury the body as quickly as they can she ended up doing it from April to October you get this picture of a woman in black on the black sack cloth and watching over seven bodies hanging and any time vultures land which they would she gets up and scares them off and any time in the day when jackals come out somehow or others she chases him off and she watches over those seven bodies hanging there to try to avoid them being desecrated and she mourns for him what's the April May June July August September October seven months she's not gonna let him be desecrated she's not gonna let vultures land on him she's not gonna let their flesh be picked she's not gonna let hyenas or rats or anything get up there and eat them because in the Jewish mindset that is the equivalent of going to hell that is equivalent of being destroyed forever as the sign of the greatest disgrace that reproach after all the Bible itself says is everyone that hangs on a tree and she sits there morning okay now when we read the New Testament we see a woman standing under three crosses and mourning and crying and she's like a shadow of that why are they hanging there because there's a curse on the land for the sins of the fathers and that curse has to be removed and that land has to be expiated and that sin has to be dealt with righteously but she doesn't want her son's to be desecrated she doesn't want them to be regarded as sinners cursed of God or she doesn't want it to be perceived as they are they're in hell so she stays and keeps a vigil and it must have been exhausting chasing away the Jackals and the birds and I mean what a gruesome gruesome gruesome thing to do and we ask why is this in the Bible well it's in the Bible for a lot of reasons I mean already you can see some that this is the teaching about righteousness and what it takes to remove sin I mean those don't even those seven deaths couldn't really remove sin there's only one person qualified to come and die and hang on a tree between heaven earth to remove sin and that's Jesus Christ himself and why did Jesus hang on a tree because Carson is everyone that hangs on a tree and Jesus actually took the curse that was ours so that the we might be redeemed and that we might be free and ultimately that he might redeem the world of sin and its effect but there's there's other things that you could see in there like for example in their mind and of course the Old Testament is shadows the New Testament is reality it's like interceding for your children that like this culture kills them it kills it slays children and wants to drag them to hell but this woman wouldn't leave those children alone every time she saw the vultures or every time she saw the jackals that she got up and move them away and that's the role I think of parents in these last days that we will look out for our children or other children and every time we see the demons coming then we get down and pray and we keep a vigil and it's worth it to do it over and over and over again until the dangers past this is really what the call is for parents and so it was a risk but was was fulfilling her name a burning coal a burning coal she wouldn't be put out now she's sitting out there women didn't go out at all in those days and she's actually it was after David took over she was put in the harem of David doesn't mean that he slept with her or anything it's the former Kings wives have to be taken care of by someone the obvious one would be the new king but she just took it on herself for her sons I'm gonna go out there I'm not gonna leave them out there to be desecrated and destroyed and Damned and judged and said to hell nope it's a hideous job vultures came she got up I don't know if she did a steak or not I never really seen a picture of this even you see a picture of almost everything in the Bible I know I don't know that I've ever seen a picture of rizpah after keeping her vigil but I'll tell you what the news of what she was doing got out and it even got to the king and he so you see the but the Bible's the way the Bible talks about like in the curse of the law we read another scripture from Deuteronomy Deuteronomy 28 verse 25 one of the dread curses that God would bring on children of Israel if they didn't repent is that they be they die and not be buried Deuteronomy 28 25 the launch of claws need to be smitten before the enemies you'll go out one way against them and fleet seven ways before them you should be removed unto all the kingdoms of the earth and thy carcass should be meat to all the fowls of the air and under the beasts of the earth and no man shall fray them away that is one of the dread curses of the broken law of God like I said that Judaism has a strict strict view of burial it's like you bury someone because you expect to see them again like I always tell people at funerals you bury a crocus in the ground a bald buck because you expect to see it come in beauty as soon as the snows melt but if you're laying out there unburied like Balaam was laid out in the field on bury or like go I have threatened to do to David I will kill you and leave your body to the vultures and then in the last and I won't have you turn there but in Revelation 19 it says God says to the vultures about the last days the last day people they gathered together for a feast vultures carrion I'm gonna feed you the great men of the earth the kings of the earth the wise of the earth the Rebels of the earth the sinners of the earth I'm gonna spread a great big feast for you in other words the implication is not just physical it's spiritual the implication is damnation just she wouldn't have that now think about it mothers and fathers we won't have that would be like her we'll keep the vigil pray will scare away the Jackals she put her life on the line she didn't give up and when David found out about it but chapter 21 and it says verse 11 it was told David what his father daughter of aya the concubine of Saul had done you know what it touched his heart actually it pricked the whole nation's heart there's so much unfinished business there's so much sin in that nation that to get to the point where they are at the whole episode with samuel saul and david and even davidson so much going on the whole nation when they saw this woman out there chasing away vultures and keeping the vigil and not letting her son's be desecrated it didn't just become her thing it became the whole nation state hey what's going on with us we need God we need to get it right and David then remembered and realized something something important that he had never seen - you know who else was hung solid Jonathan they belong to they were and they have not been buried the one village went and recovered the corpse off the wall but they did some kind of a service but evidently it wasn't satisfactory cuz look at verse 12 and David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son from the men of jabish Gilead which had stoned them from the street of Bethlehem where the Philistines that hang them when the Philistines had slayed Saul and Gomorrah and he brought up from there the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his sons and they gathered the bones of them that were hanging he took every one of those boys off those divots I think you call it Jim it's those hanging posts whatever was left in other words they were removed the reproach in the way the symbolic way of looking at it out of the judgment and they were buried properly bones of Saul and Jonathan his son buried a in the county country of Benjamin is Eli and the Sepulcher of Kish his father and they performed all of the king commanded and after that God wasn't treated for the now the business is taken care of and they knew it and she knew it because God gave them the rein and removed the judgment the famine was over the crops came in by the way can you imagine I mean we can't fathom a famine because we don't live in an agricultural world anymore like they did I mean whatever they saved up they'd been living on for three years or whatever they could trade or maybe get rid of all of your excess wealth anything valuable all because someone from another country come inside your food famine would reduce you so fast now I hope to god we never see it but I'll tell you one thing if anything bad happens this country and truckstop run it we will see it but in the net Land of Israel own spiritual after all that's one of the appeals of the praat of the Holy Land I'll give you a land flowing with milk and honey you told him what was the one thing he told him man you'll never be hungry there let's just send that's just sin then the other lesson is you know that the woman would not stop her vigil until the reproach was removed the judgment was reversed and as long as she's alive no vulture is gonna get on her kid and desecrate his life no jackal is gonna drag him off into the bush and finish him off look one of the greatest ministries is intercessory prayer and the famine was over and it had other other impacts too because they still had Philistines and they still had Giants and they still had invaders to deal with verse 15 moreover the Philistines had had yet war again with Israel and David went down and his servants with him and fought against the Philistines and David waxed faint and this book ish vibin table which was of the sons of the giant the weight of whose spear weighed 300 shekels of brass and weight he being girded with a new sword thought he thought he'd killed David he thought he slew David but avichai the son of zeruiah succoured him he helped David and smote the Philistine and killed him then the men of David's were unto him saying you shall go no more out with us to battle that you quench not the light of Israel and it came to pass after this that there was a game of battle with the Philistines at gob then Shiva Chi the who should I fight slew SAFF which was of the sons of the Giant and there were again a battle in gob with the Philistines were el-hammam the son of Jared EF iam a Bethlehem I slew the brother of goliath the gittite the staff of whose spirit was like a Weaver's beam and there was yet a battle in Gath well it was a man of great stature the head on every hand six fingers and on every foot six toes four and twenty in number and he also was born to the Giant and when he defied Israel Jonathan the son of shamea the brother of David slew him these four were born to the Giant and Gath and fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants now why does it say that after that other story what do they have to do with each other they have a lot to do with each other once the curse was removed once the right spiritual prescription was following him once God was entreated the woman herself at her action and spiritual ramifications all the way up to the king then it's like a log jam a breakthrough then the Giants start getting killed and the enemies start B slaying the one thought he'd killed David I'd love to know what really happened there but he ended up dying it's like the one thing leads to the other thing just like with sin Saul's war crimes brought a famine so it is with righteousness people getting serious with God people seeking God and a woman whose name means a burning coal cleansing cauterizing when they saw her zeal for her sons her insistence that they not be desecrated damned reproached waiting out there for God weeping became like a burning coal for the nation she was a reminder that sin is serious and this consequences are serious and yet the right thing has to be done and the end atonement has to be made and sin must be hated and things have to be set right and that God requires all righteousness that's the meaning of her name burning coal member Isaiah he said I'm standing there and they angel took a burning coal from off the altar and touched me on the lips same word rizpah and then he said your iniquities over then and only down can the Giants that have been defying God and defying Israel standing in the face of the whole nation mocking everything good the holy sacred and true oh we know we got a lot of Giants Governor New York just passed the most obscene abortion law that's ever been seen the state of Iowa had the best abortion law but it was just struck down by the fifth District Court I'm telling you these people are of the devil but it's but it's a spiritual thing it's not a matter of political power a woman out in the middle of nowhere watching over seven corpses that won the battles a burning coal father in the name of the Lord Jesus t just this story and all of the depth of the other stories where we know that this book did not come from man but this book is your gift to us it's so full of power it's so full of insight it's so powerful of truth it's got so much to give us a week after week and day after day Oh God let it yield its truths and secrets to us by the Holy Spirit in Jesus name and everybody said amen

Channel: Believers in Grace Fellowship

Views: 2,628

Rating: 4.8987341 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: oKmd1J9J9ZY

Length: 40min 49sec (2449 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 27 2019