King of the Hill

How many people know that when God gives us a directive, it would be wise to adhere to it instead of doing what is easier, or what feels natural and right in our own eyes?!

tells us,

Proverbs 21:2–3 ESV

Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart. To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.

Have any of you ever done something that you thought was right, or that just seemed to be the easiest away around a situation? (Yes, I think that we all can safely say that describes many of our decisions!)

However, these decisions, that seem right in our own eyes, come with a cost and ultimately we either live under the consequences of our own decisions, or we turn to the Lord and do what He wants us to do. (Remember our talking recently about God’s sovereign will and His command will?)

When we do what we want and the way that we want to do it, are we breaching His sovereign will or command will?

There is nothing that you or I can that will EVER alter or change the sovereign will of Yahweh! What He wants done, will happen regardless of what you or I say or do!

It is the command will of God, that we can reject and go rogue on and do as we wish. Just as in, , we see,

1 Thessalonians 5:18 ESV

give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

You and I can do as this says and praise God and give thanks in the midst of all of our circumstances or we can reject this and fail miserably in our trials and struggle with our walk with the Lord, because we have no steadfastness/endurance.

clarifies this by saying,

James 1:2–4 ESV

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

The Lord is not looking for our feeble attempts of placating Him and giving lip service, as this never works because HE knows our heart before we even utter the words of half truth to Him!

,

Jeremiah 17:10 ESV

“I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”

And so, what we are going to see in a second, is this same scenario of God telling His nation, Israel, what He wanted them to do and their response to it.

In we read,

Deuteronomy 20:17 ESV

but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded,

Deuteronomy 20:16–17 ESV

But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded,

This is what commanded of the children of Israel before they came into the promised land.

Now, remember what the nation of Israel answered to Moses, in response to the giving of God’s law in ,

Exodus 19:7–8 ESV

So Moses came and called the elders of the people and set before them all these words that the Lord had commanded him. All the people answered together and said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.” And Moses reported the words of the people to the Lord.

And again, before Joshua dies when he addresses the children of Israel and petitions them to serve the Lord and do as He commands them, the people say, “No, but we will serve the Lord; we will serve the Lord our God and we will obey His voice.”

So, Israel seemed pretty set on doing what God had commanded, right?

In just a short period of time, after they had taken the promised land and began to dwell there, we read this in ,

Judges 1:21 ESV

But the people of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who lived in Jerusalem, so the Jebusites have lived with the people of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day.

What did God command them to do in Deuteronomy chapter 20 that we just read?

“You shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded.”

These were pagan people, as were the other tribes that Israel was to destroy. People that were devoted to worshipping false gods and their ways were found to be abominable in the eyes of God.

And no sooner had Joshua died than we see Israel turning to the pagan ways of the land, as it says in ,

Judges 2:11–12 ESV

And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the Lord to anger.

And at the closing of the book of Judges, after we have seen of God raising up great men and women who served to judge and bring right standing in the eyes of God, back to the people of Israel, we read this in the last two verses of the book, “Then the people of Israel departed by tribes and families, and they returned to their own homes. In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.”

So, before we go to the main verses that I wanted to look at and the main point, does everyone see the condition of Israel and where it was at this point? And, can you see similarities in these passages to that of our own nation today?

“All the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes!”

OK, so Israel had no king and God ends up providing for the people a king, King Saul. Saul disobeyed God and did what he thought was right and it cost him the right to remain king over Israel.

Does everyone know who replaced Saul as king?

DO we have any “DAVIDS” in here tonight; first or middle name?

If so, your name means “beloved”!

We are going to look at one story here about David and in doing so, I hope to show that if you listen to God, you will be more than conquerors. However, if you listen to the enemy and his lies, then it will rob you and hold you back from being all that God wants you to be in the Kingdom!

In we see David being anointed king over ALL of Israel; up until this point, for 7.5 years, he was king only over Judah.

Why you ask? Why was he not king over the entire nation of Israel? Simple, the people, as we have already seen, didn’t listen to God and because they allowed the enemy into their midst, it brought division!

You cannot listen to the lies of the devil and have unity within the body!

Jesus, Himself said in ,

Matthew 12:25 ESV

Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand.

Israel was divided into the northern and southern regions and it is here, under David, that we see them being united back together. Andy why.......because someone had a heart and desire to listen to and follow God’s commands!

So, tells us,

2 Samuel 5:6 ESV

And the king and his men went to Jerusalem against the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, who said to David, “You will not come in here, but the blind and the lame will ward you off”—thinking, “David cannot come in here.”

So, who is it that David is coming up against in this verse, as soon as he is crowned king over all of Israel?

Right, the Jebusites. And where are the Jebusites in this passage? In other words, were did they dwell?

The Bible says Jerusalem, although, at this point, it was not Israel’s Jerusalem, but rather the land of Jebus, as the Jebusites called it. This was their strong fortress.

And why were they there to begin with? Yep, because Israel hadn’t done what God had told them years before and wiped them out.

There are people that say that the Jebusites were too much for Israel to handle and that it ended up this way, but I reflect back to what God had said all the way back to Moses, in , God said, “But the Lord your God himself will cross over ahead of you. He will destroy the nations living there, and you will take possession of their land; The Lord will destroy the nations living in the land; The Lord will hand over to you the people who live there, and you must deal with them as I have commanded you!”

Does this sound like they had any reason to fail at their command?

Now, real quick let me take you back to an earlier account in the days of David and see something interesting that we will hopefully tie in at the end. In we read of an interesting story about a young man and a giant.

Sound familiar? And what happened to the giant? And what did David do after he killed the giant?

tells us,

1 Samuel 17:54 ESV

And David took the head of the Philistine and brought it to Jerusalem, but he put his armor in his tent.

There was no Jerusalem yet in this passage and David wasn’t Israel’s king yet. Why did he go some 18 miles out of the way and carry the head of the giant place it at Jerusalem?

We’ll, David was not only a shepherd and a warrior and a now king, but he was also a prophet.

Is it possible, that David went all the way with the head of the great Goliath (which was customary of military victories then; take the head of the defeated leaders as a trophy to remind others of your victory), to Jerusalem to place it there outside of their fortress as a prophetic statement of, “I don’t know when or how, but one of these days I am going to come and claim this land from you! You sit up there and think of yourselves as untouchables and like giants! Well, this is how my God deals with giants!!!!!

OK, so back to the passage in . David has just been anointed as king over the NATION of Israel and the region inhabited by the Jebusites, was centrally located, like a wedge, between the northern and southern portions of the nation of Israel.

So, David went back there, to claim this area and finalize the uniting of this great nation and make this city, the great city of Jerusalem, the city of David, the city of Zion!

This is the same area that Solomon would eventually build the great temple and God’s glory would come down and inhabit, it’s the same area where David would bring the ark back to the people, it’s the same area where Jesus would later be crucified and resurrected thus bring victory over the enemy!

Zion/ Jerusalem, was a mighty fortified city with walls and a vantage point that made the Jebusites feel untouchable and this is also why they taunted David in verse 6 by saying that the “lame and the blind” could stop David’s army.

They were saying, “We could put our weakest, sickest people on this wall and they could stop you!

Look at what happened in ,

1 Samuel 5:7–9 ESV

And when the men of Ashdod saw how things were, they said, “The ark of the God of Israel must not remain with us, for his hand is hard against us and against Dagon our god.” So they sent and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines and said, “What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel?” They answered, “Let the ark of the God of Israel be brought around to Gath.” So they brought the ark of the God of Israel there. But after they had brought it around, the hand of the Lord was against the city, causing a very great panic, and he afflicted the men of the city, both young and old, so that tumors broke out on them.

You see David had a fervent hate for anyone who stood against his God, the God of Israel.

Friends, let me tell you tonight, that we need to develop a fervent hatred for the enemy of God, the devil himself!

Just like with David in this story and with the Jebusites on the wall yelling down at him, the enemy is yelling down at you and telling you lies about who you are and why you’ll fail at what God has commanded you to do!

And the thing is, just like with David and the army, as we see in this story, in verse 8 as they found a way in to the city through the water tunnel (the gutter, as KJV says), sometimes, our fight is going to be messy.

We may have to be willing to go through some things that we do not feel comfortable with and roll up our sleeves and say, “OK, God, I am trusting in you and where you say to go, I’ll go. Dirty or not; easy or hard. I’m all in!”

Just a few minutes ago, I read where Jesus mentioned that a house divided cannot stand. Well, a couple of verses later in we read,

Matthew 12:29 ESV

Or how can someone enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house.

You see, the enemy, the strong man has set himself up as untouchable. He makes a lot accusations and a lot of noise, but someone has already entered into his house and bound him and rendered him helpless!

Just like David and his army went in the hard way to get inside the “house” and bind the strong man, so Jesus did with the devil, the hard way through the cross and bound him and now his kingdom is divided and his authority and power through death, has been bound and defeated!

Friend, you have to take the hill, you have to overcome the lies and the fear that the enemy puts in your head and take that hill, capture that fortress and bind the strong man in your heart!

The enemy tells you that the fight is greater than you and your ability! You must tell the enemy that “greater is He that is in me, than he that is in the world!”

The enemy will lie and tell you that your not strong enough, your not smart enough, that you’ll never know enough of the word to fight him. He gets you to thinking about the natural, physical aspect of the battle and that you do not have power or might to overcome him!

That is when you remind him, that it’s, “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit says the Lord of hosts!”