Today's Quick Word
Today’s Quick Word
2 Samuel 3:6-8a During the war between the house of Saul and the house of David, Abner had been strengthening his own position in the house of Saul. Now Saul had had […]
2 Samuel 3:6-8a During the war between the house of Saul and the house of David, Abner had been strengthening his own position in the house of Saul. Now Saul had had a concubine named Rizpah daughter of Aiah. And Ish-Bosheth said to Abner, “Why did you sleep with my father’s concubine?” Abner was very angry because of what Ish-Bosheth said.
It is interesting to read the directions the LORD gave to his people through Moses as they were about to enter the Promised Land. Among these instructions was the warning: “When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, ‘Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us,’ be sure to appoint over you a king the LORD your God chooses. … [He] must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. …” (Deuteronomy 17:14, 17a).
The worst offender in this regard would be Solomon, but his father David, and his father’s predecessor, Saul, were not without significant failures to pay heed to it! And this part of 2 Samuel, with all its intrigues and disastrous domestic complications, helps us to see the importance of doing things God’s way, as he has so graciously revealed it in his infallible Word, instead of making up our own rules to suit our own ideas and preferences.
The interesting, and quite disturbing, thing for us in our present day is that we are experiencing in our culture the results of blatantly rejecting God’s Word and defiantly legislating things that are openly contrary to it. Wisely does the Apostle Paul remind us, “These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come. So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” (1 Corinthians 10:11-12)
At one level, we feel powerless to reverse this perilous trend; but let us take heart in knowing that our loving God is still in full control of his Creation, and that he is preparing us for the day when Jesus will return in power and ‘make all things new’. So let us be much in prayer for his mercy upon us as a nation, and let us take every God-given opportunity, in obedience to his Word, to fulfil our function as ‘salt’ and ‘light’ in the rotting darkness.
– Bruce Christian
