Today we begin 2nd Samuel Chapter 10.
For the Complete Jewish Bible, click HERE.
For the King James Version, click HERE.
This chapter could aptly be titled “David’s Descent.”
For it represents a turning point in the life of this great warrior king.
Things start relatively calm
But then soon spiraled into a massive war with the Ammonites and Syrians.
Truth be told, these wars were the most dangerous and bloodiest Israel ever fought while David was on the throne.
The suffering was unprecedented.
The battles were brutal…
The losses were huge…
And everyone was beyond exhausted.
Just when Israel thought they had conquered the Syrians…
The Edomites swooped in, ready to wipe them out.
A parallel account of these times is also told in 1st Chronicles 19.
However, as is typical of the Biblical narrative, there isn’t a lot of dramatic detail provided…
But, there are two powerful Psalms that portray with raw emotion and intensity just how horrific these times were.
They are Psalm 44 and Psalm 60.
Psalm 44 was written by a faithful Levite from the Korah clan and Psalm 60 came straight from David himself.
Here are some choice excerpts that give you a taste of the bitterness of those times:
“Wake up, Adonai!
Why are you asleep?
Rouse yourself!
Don’t thrust us off forever.
Why are you turning your face away,
forgetting our pain and misery?
For we are lying flat in the dust,
our bodies cling to the ground.
Get up, and come to help us!
For the sake of your grace, redeem us!”
-Psalm 44:24-27
Or this one…
“God, you rejected us; you crushed us;
you were angry; but now revive us.
You made the land shake, split it apart;
now repair the rifts, for it is collapsing.
You made your people suffer hard times,
had us drink a wine that made us stagger.”
-Psalm 60:3-5
It would be no exaggeration to say if you really wanna grasp just how bad things were at this time…
You’ve got no choice.
You’ve gotta read these two Psalms.
They hit hard in uncensored fashion.
I’ve linked them up above.
So dig in!
Now, recall I stated this chapter is the beginning of the end for David.
His decline from the top is just on the horizon.
There’s a point I wanna make here.
You can’t fall from the top if you’re not there already.
Up until now, David has been at the top of his game.
But as we see over and over again in the Scripture…
Just when God’s greatest heroes hit their peak…
They start slipping.
Their weaknesses…
Their temptations…
Their bad choices…
All their fleshly faults catch up with them.
And they come tumbling down like a sand castle toppled by a tidal wave.
The Apostle Paul expressed it well when he said…
“I do not understand what I do.
For what I want to do I do not do,
but what I hate I do.
And if I do what I do not want to do,
I agree that the law is good.
As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it,
but it is sin living in me.
For I know that good itself does not dwell in me,
that is, in my sinful nature.
For I have the desire to do what is good,
but I cannot carry it out.
For I do not do the good I want to do,
but the evil I do not want to do—
this I keep on doing.
Now if I do what I do not want to do,
it is no longer I who do it,
but it is sin living in me that does it.“
-Romans 7:15-20
Is there no way to reverse this curse of the human condition?
Yes, there is a way.
It’s the only way.
It’s also today’s takeaway!
You must crucify your flesh and replace it with the divine.
Until you do that…
You will ALWAYS struggle with sin.
Ya feel me?
See ya all next time.
CONNECTING THIS TEACHING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT
“What a wretched man I am!
Who will rescue me from this
body that is subject to death?
Thanks be to God, who delivers
me through Messiah Yeshua our Lord!”
-Romans 7:24-25
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