Dennis Tuuri

# SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Sermon scripture is found in 1 Kings 2:1-6. “Now the days of David drew nigh that he should die. And he charged Solomon his son, saying, I go the way of all the earth. Be thou strong, therefore, and show thyself a man, and keep the charge of the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, and his commandments, and his judgments, and his testimonies, as it is written in the law of Moses, that thou mayest prosper in all that thou doest, and whithersoever thou turnest thyself, that the Lord may continue his word which he spake concerning me, saying, If thy children take heed to their way, to walk before me in truth, with all their heart, and with all their soul, there shall not fail thee, said he, a man on the throne of Israel.

“Moreover, thou knowest also what Joab, the son of Zeruiah, did to me, and what he did to the two captains of the hosts of Israel, unto Abner the son of Ner, and unto Amassa the son of Jether, whom he slew, and shed the blood of war in peace, and put the blood of war upon his girdle that was about his loins, and in his shoes that were on his feet. Do therefore according to thy wisdom, and let not his hoary head go down to the grave in peace.”

At this time, the younger children may be dismissed to go down to their Sabbath schools, if the parents desire that. We continue this morning with our series of sermons going through the seven deadly sins. And we’ve kind of reached a juncture here as we’ve been talking about where in the historical order of those seven deadly sins, the first three—pride, envy or covetousness, and anger—are seen in one group. And then sloth is a different sort of a sin.

It’s a sin of omission more than a sin of commission like the first ones are. And then the last three have to do with a different sort of sin. So this is kind of a turning point here as we wrap up these first three deadly sins. And I’ve chosen to take the life of Joab and do a little analysis of it with what limited time we have and look at how Joab, a mighty man gifted by God, yet comes to the end that we just read about in 1 Kings. Solomon, his son, takes David’s advice and within the chapter Joab is dead, fleeing to the altar for safety, yet there is no refuge there for him. A mighty man of God, and yet was sinning, coming upon judgment and a curse from God. How did this happen? Because he gave into the first three of the seven deadly sins.

So, let’s look at the life of Joab this morning. We’ll begin by looking at some of the references to the positive side, to the great giftings that were given by God to this mighty man. It has been said that Joab is probably one of, if not the most accomplished warrior in the history of a very accomplished warring people, the Israelite nation. Joab was a mighty warrior. He really was the head of David’s army for most of David’s career.

He was the best of all the warriors that served under David and conquered the Edomites, the Ammonites, the Philistines, and many other groups. He was a tremendously gifted warrior given by God to fight the battles of the nation of Israel. Now, the first reference I have there is the battle of the pool of Gibeon. We’re going to go through these fairly quickly. In 2 Samuel 2, we read of that battle. You might want to turn to 2 Samuel 2, and we’ll go kind of a little racetrack through this book and look at some of the mighty deeds of Joab.

2 Samuel 2 is really the first reference to Joab. And the situation is this: Saul is now dead. In 2 Samuel 1, we have David’s dirge for the dead Saul and for Jonathan who is also dead. And in chapter 2, Saul has a son named Ish-bosheth and Abner who is head of Saul’s army, his right-hand man, his general as it were, decides to make Ish-bosheth king in his father’s place.

And all of Israel except for the tribe of Judah follows Ish-bosheth and Abner. And the tribe of Judah follows David, who has of course been anointed by God as king before Saul was even dead. And so we have these two warring tribes again. The kingdom is not yet united under David. And Abner and his men come out to the pool of Gibeon. And it’s—we could get into the discussion of the geographics here, but I don’t think we should. The important thing I want you to notice here is that Abner, Saul’s right-hand man and now Ish-bosheth’s right-hand man, comes out to the pool of Gibeon, sits on one side, and Joab with the men of David’s army—he’s not officially head of them yet but he’s acting as their head apparently—he comes out to the pool of Gibeon on the other side. And they sit there looking at each other for a while. And then Abner throws up a challenge to Joab and he says, “Tell you what, let’s have a contest. Let the men go to it here. You pick twelve of your best men, I’ll pick twelve of my best men. They will fight. We’ll see who has the better army.” Okay.

And so these twelve men get out there and it’s kind of a calico cat and gingham dog sort of story. The twelve men each grab each other by the beard and thrust a blade into the other one, and all twenty-four men fall down dead. So no resolution to the conflict. Well, at that point a fight begins which goes on for a while between the followers of Ish-bosheth and the followers of David.

And that very day after this battle of the twelve pairs at the pool of Gibeon, there’s a fierce battle. Then we’ll be coming back to this story in a little bit, but for now I want you to realize that the account of this battle is in 2 Samuel 2. And we read in verse 31 of 2 Samuel 2, or verses 30 and 31, that altogether nineteen of David’s servants besides Asahel were missing. They were dead. In other words, we have Asahel plus nineteen of David’s men get killed in the battle that ensues after these first twenty-four guys die.

But verse 31 says, “The servants of David had struck down many of Benjamin and Abner’s men, so that three hundred sixty men died from that side.” And so Joab successfully takes on Abner. Now remember, Abner has been Saul’s general, his right-hand man for many years. He’s an accomplished warrior. But Joab leads the troops of David into that battle and kills three hundred sixty of Abner’s men while losing only nineteen of his men, and in addition to this Asahel person who we’ll return to later.

And so the first thing we know about Joab is he’s a mighty warrior leading David’s men here into battle against Abner and prevailing. Going on from there, we have a description in one other thing before we leave that. Let’s look at verse 26. Before we leave this, you’ll notice on my outline I say here that Joab is a mighty warrior from this battle at the pool of Gibeon.

But we have here shades of things to come. In verse 26 of 2 Samuel 2, Abner yells to Joab and says, “Shall the sword devour forever? Don’t you know that it will be bitter in the end? How long will you refrain from telling the people to turn back from following their brothers?” So, what’s going on here is Joab’s men have routed Abner’s men. Abner goes up to this hill. The Benjamites are gathered behind him, and he yells back to Joab, “Let’s knock this thing off for now. We’re going to kill everybody in this whole battle. Let’s stop and have peace now.” And he says, “Don’t you know that if you continue on, the end of this affair will be worse than the beginning?”

Now, remember we looked at Ecclesiastes 7, that the end of an affair seen from the righteous eyes is always better than the beginning. But in this particular case, it is a prophetic word as it were. It’s a picture of what’s going to happen in the life of Joab. The end of Joab will be more bitter than the beginning of Joab because he never—he often times fails to turn back and to accept peace. Okay.

After this, we read of Joab in several other citations that you have there in your outline. In 2 Samuel 5, we have to look at also 1 Chronicles 11:6. We won’t turn there now, but what’s happening here is that David goes up to take Jerusalem. Now Jerusalem, before it is Jerusalem at this point in time, is the city of the Jebusites and it is a well-fortified citadel. And so David says, “Well, whoever is the mightiest man who can climb up there first and kill the first Jebusite, he’ll be my commander-in-chief.” And we find out from 1 Chronicles 11:6 that man was Joab.

Joab was a mighty warrior and attained to the position of commander-in-chief of David’s army through this mighty feat of scaling this big high wall and then killing a Jebusite, leading the attack as it were on the enemies of God and reclaiming Jerusalem through that endeavor.

Third, we see the gifting for warfare against God’s enemies that God had given Joab in 2 Samuel 8, and I also give you the reference there of 1 Kings 11 and Psalm 60. We read in 2 Samuel 8 and 1 Kings 11 that Joab, as head of the host of David’s men, is mighty against God’s enemies, particularly the Edomites in this particular situation here.

Might be good just to briefly turn forward a couple of chapters there to 2 Samuel 8. And the situation here at the last few verses of 2 Samuel 8, verse 13: “David made a name for himself and he returned from killing eighteen thousand Syrians or Edomites in the valley of Salt, and he put garrisons in Edom.” And then verse 16, “Joab the son of Zeruiah was over the army and Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud was recorder.”

Here Joab successfully with David leads the attack against the Syrian Edomites at the Valley of Salt. Psalm 60 in the introduction to that psalm says that Psalm 60 was written when Joab returned from slaying twelve thousand in the valley of salt. And so Joab and David battled together against the enemies of the people, and Joab again was mighty in warfare and was head of the host and led successfully this attack on the Edomites.

A few chapters later in 2 Samuel 10, we read of Joab’s mighty acts in battle against more of God’s enemies. And in this particular case in 2 Samuel 10, the enemies are the Ammonites and the Syrians, two different groups. Now it’s interesting in 2 Samuel 10—I’ll just reference this in passing if you’re considering, having nothing to do with today’s topic, but I’ll throw it in anyway. 2 Samuel 10, the battle begins when the head of the Ammonites dies.

David sends a representative over to express his regrets over the affairs. They take that as an insult. And the Ammonites then take the men that David sends over, they shave off half their beards and they cut their garments and dishonor them, in other words. And they go back to David. And David—it’s very interesting here—David tells the men, he doesn’t tell them to go ahead and shave the other half off. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.” He tells them to go off to another place for a while until their beards grow back.

It’s very interesting. The absence of a beard, at least in this time of covenant history, was an indication of shame to the man. Now, you know, as being good continuity people, I don’t know what that means in terms of facial hair today. We’re thinking about, though, of course, another thing. And as I just mentioned, when these twelve men fought, they grabbed each other by the beard and used that as a device to stick them. And later in the life of Joab, he uses that same trick—he uses pulling by the beard and then sticking. So maybe it’s safer to be clean shaven.

Well, in any event, I don’t know what all that means, but it is a very interesting verse here. And I think this is one of the verses where some people involved in reconstruction have used to talk about the beard being the man’s glory. Whether or not they’re right, I don’t know, but it’s an interesting account. Okay, enough for the side trip.

Getting back to the matter at hand, what happened in this battle then with the Ammonites is they have some Syrians come in to help them. And Joab and his brother Abashai fight these two groups. And Joab tells his brother, “You take the Ammonites, I’ll take the Syrians. Okay, we’ll separate here and then whoever gets done first wiping somebody out, we’ll come help the other one.” And Joab is done first. He wipes out the Syrians and then comes helps his brother with the Ammonites.

And so Joab is very mighty and victorious. To the end that in verse 19 of chapter 10 of 2 Samuel, the Syrians feared from then on to help the sons of Ammon in war. And so Joab is successful, gifted by God in battle. God trained his hands to war, and as a result, one whole enemy, the Syrians, never come out to help the Ammonites anymore against God’s people.

And then finally, in 2 Samuel 12, we have another account of Joab being mighty against God’s enemies. And in this time, in this particular occurrence, it is only the Ammonites. This is another—again a sidelight to the actual point of using this verse, which is to show Joab’s prowess. In 2 Samuel 12, what goes on there is Joab is off defeating the Ammonites, pressing the offensive war against them. And David very conspicuously in the text stays at Jerusalem instead of going out with Joab to fight the war against the Ammonites.

So David stays at Jerusalem, and you’ll probably remember now that it was while he was staying there where he shouldn’t have been—he should have been out fighting—that he sees Bathsheba from afar and falls into that entire incident. Remember he calls then to Joab for Joab to send Uriah back to him. Uriah is Bathsheba’s husband. Bathsheba has gotten pregnant, and he tries to figure it out so that Uriah will go home. While he’s coming back to David to do David’s work, he figures Uriah will probably go home and lay with his wife, and when the child is born it won’t be so conspicuous that it was his.

But Uriah is a good soldier and Uriah says, “How can I sleep in my own house when Joab and the men of Israel are out camping in tents pressing the warfare against the Ammonites?” Well, now David should have known that—that should have struck his heart because here he was staying in the palace instead of going out and fighting with his men and being a good warrior.

So Uriah doesn’t go for it. He sleeps outside on the street essentially. And then David finally ends up sending a note back with Uriah himself carrying the message to Joab saying, “Put this guy in the front, fall back and let him die.” So David plots murder against Uriah at this particular case. But in any event, the primary reason for referencing this at this point in the talk is to show again from 2 Samuel 12 that Joab is mighty against the Ammonites.

Joab also shows deference to David as he’s about to essentially wipe out the Ammonites. He sends back and says, “You come out now because we’ve got them pretty well wiped out and you should be there to claim the victory.” And so David comes back for the actual taking of the interior of the city that they had besieged.

Okay, so we have a picture here of God’s gifting to a man. Tremendous gifting for kingdom work, aggressively going forward and fighting against God’s enemies. That’s the positive side. And Joab fought good, strong, and did a good job. But there’s a negative side, a dark side.

How could a man such as this, who had helped David against God’s enemies so much, come to the place and what we read in 1 Kings 2 of being the conversation when a dying David tells his son who’s to reign in his stead, “Take care of that guy. Don’t let his hoary head go down to Sheol in peace. Kill him.” How did that happen? Well, it happened because Joab failed to use the gifting that God gave him and instead sinned in many areas.

We have a negative or a darker side to Joab’s life, and that’s we’ll turn to now.

Joab was a strife-maker, and throughout his career, while he was victorious against God’s enemies, he caused strife within the camp as well. And I’ve outlined here four points.

First: Joab in anger. Joab succumbed to the sin of anger in slaying the peacemaking Abner. I mentioned we’d go back to 2 Samuel 2. 2 Samuel 2 is followed by 2 Samuel 3, of course. In 2 Samuel 3, Joab kills Abner.

Now, after the battle at the pool of Gibeon, as I said, warfare continued between the followers of Ish-bosheth and the followers of David, Abner’s men, and Joab’s men. But Abner grows increasingly disenchanted in chapter 3 of 2 Samuel with Ish-bosheth. And there’s reasons for that. But in any event, he grows disenchanted. And he comes then to David and proposes peace. And he says, “I’ll get all the elders of Israel to come and to pledge allegiance to you essentially and say you’re the king.” And David says, “Well, that sounds good to me.” And then so Abner leaves and Joab comes back now.

He’d been out fighting. He hears about the arrangement and tears into David essentially in 2 Samuel 3, let’s see verse 24 of 2 Samuel 3. Joab comes to the king and says, “What have you done? Behold, Abner came to you. Why then have you sent him away and he is already gone? You know, Abner, the son of Ner, that he came to deceive you and to learn of your going out and coming in to find out all that you’re doing.”

Well, David wasn’t hearing it. But essentially, what I want you to note here is that Joab is essentially accusing King David of being an idiot and not understanding the real purpose of Abner in this peacemaking device he had entered into. Well, David doesn’t stop the whole thing. And so Joab rather takes matters into his own hands. He then sends men out in the next few verses to go stop Abner. In the name of David says, “Come back, I want to talk to you.”

Abner comes back to Hebron where Joab is. Joab meets him in the gate and surreptitiously, deceitfully, in verse 27, when Abner returns to Hebron, Joab took him aside into the middle of the gate to speak with him privately, and there he struck him in the belly so that he died on account of the blood of Asahel his brother.

We mentioned Asahel from 2 Samuel 2. Joab deceitfully lures Abner to a little private conversation and then sticks him and kills him supposedly to avenge the blood of Asahel. Joab was one of three brothers. Abashai, Asahel, and Joab were the three. All three brothers, Asahel, in that battle at the pool of Gibeon we just talked about, was killed there by Abner. And here’s the story: Asahel, young man that he was, wants to go after the chief over there, Abner, in the war that’s going on in 2 Samuel 2 at the pool of Gibeon.

Asahel runs after Abner and says, “I’m going to kill you.” Abner, not once but twice, turns back, knows he can kill this young thing coming up behind him, and says to him, “Now knock it off. Go find, if you need to kill somebody, go kill somebody else. Don’t chase after me. How am I going to look Joab in the face if I kill you, his brother?” Twice he beseeches Asahel not to keep coming. Asahel pursues him anyway. Abner sticks out not the front of his spear but the butt end of his spear, which Asahel runs into and it goes right through him and kills him.

Now, they frequently would throw their spears in the ground. The butt end also was probably a sharpened end. Okay, the point is that Abner, he did in fact, of course, create the fight. He’s the one that suggested, “Let’s have these guys fight.” But remember that Joab took up the challenge. Joab could have said, “No way. Let’s not fight. We’ll keep working on this.” Joab took up the challenge, number one.

Secondly, in the battle of the pool of Gibeon, Abner tried twice to warn Asahel, Joab’s brother, “Don’t come after me. I’m going to have to kill you if you do.” And Asahel came anyway. Third, Abner acted out of self-defense. Asahel was pursuing him. But otherwise Abner didn’t, wouldn’t have killed Asahel. He didn’t go after him. He simply defended himself. And four, the context for this whole killing was battle, was warfare.

Now, the reason I point out all these reasons is that Joab wants to think here that he’s done a good thing by avenging the blood of Asahel the way that a relative could do. But a relative could not avenge the blood of one killed in war, nor one that was killed in self-defense by somebody else. And it’s obvious from these four things I’ve pointed out that Joab had no justification for doing what he did to Abner.

Why did he do it? Because he was upset. Because he was angry over the shed blood of his brother Asahel. It’s why he pursued him the way he did in 2 Samuel 2. And that anger was a crock-pot sort of anger. He let the sun go down on his anger. It stayed within him. He brooded about it. And when he found his first opportunity to kill Abner, he took it. He burst out. That smoldering fire flared up and he kills Abner.

Now, think of the timing of this event. The incredible poor timing that Joab has in this. Abner is about ready to make peace with David and the kingdom is about to become united again. That’s the whole point of what’s going on. Here, Joab has no consideration. Remember, we said that in Dante’s Purgatorio, anger clouds up your perspective. There’s all this smoke. You can’t see what’s going on. Joab was blind to the fact that what he was doing was disastrous to the kingdom. He was killing the man who came to make peace from the tribes of Israel, and their response probably wouldn’t be too good a one.

He was blind to Abner’s justification in killing Asahel. His anger blinded him to that. He was blind to the effect it would have on David’s life and career to see David’s right-hand man kill the right-hand man of a man who came to make peace with him, and he was blind to his own condition relative to God, to his own sin in this matter, and how he had struck out at him.

Joab killed a peacemaker. Abner both with the incident with Asahel—Joab’s brother—and in this incident here was attempting to bring peace between warring factions. He told Joab, “Quit pursuing me. Let’s stop now.” Asahel wouldn’t hear it. He tells David and Joab here, “Let’s stop fighting. Let’s be a united kingdom again.” David was willing to hear it. Joab was not, however, and Joab strikes out at the peacemaker.

Now, remember we said that anger is a failure to govern oneself. And Joab failed to govern himself. Joab was no longer fit for rule. Remember we said if a person can’t rule himself, he can’t have rule in the army or anything else as well. Joab was not fit to rule. He couldn’t control himself.

Joab struck out not in wisdom. Joab didn’t rely upon God to bring justice to the blood that was shed at the battle at the pool of Gibeon. He took matters into his own hands outside of the law. The law specifically tells us in Deuteronomy 27:24, “Cursed be he that smiteth his neighbor secretly, and all the people shall say, Amen.” But that’s what Joab did to Abner. He smote him secretly, lured him into a little trap, sticks him in violation of God’s law, showing Joab’s foolishness instead of wisdom.

Joab avenged himself in direct contradiction to what the scriptures tell us—not to take vengeance for ourselves, or rather to leave room for God’s wrath. Joab didn’t trust God for the major injustice he saw of what Abner had done to Asahel. He took matters into his own hands, and as a result, Joab was not a peacemaker.

Now Joab did create some peace for himself. He created the peace of the grave for Abner. But remember that peace is God’s order, and God’s order was not served by Joab’s wicked action here. It wasn’t God’s peace. And Joab’s life continued then to be marked by his deeds of sin and anger. And these sins continue to have a tremendous effect on David as well.

Turn with me to Psalm 55. I don’t know that this psalm was written by David in reference to Joab, but it certainly fits the circumstances there. Psalm 55, David begins this psalm by saying, “Give ear to my prayer, O God.” Verse 3: “The voice of the enemy, the pressure of the wicked, they bring down trouble upon me, and in anger they bear a grudge against me.” Joab was not pleased with David for hearing Abner out. And now he’s not talking about enemies from outside the camp here.

He says in verse 12: “It’s not an enemy who reproaches me that I could bear, nor is it one who hates me, who has exalted himself against me. Then I could hide myself from him. But it is you, a man, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend,” Joab was David’s nephew, and they knew each other and he’d been with him a long time here. “We who have had sweet fellowship together, who walked in the house of God in the throng.

Let death come deceitfully upon them, let them go down alive to Sheol, for evil is their dwelling in their midst.” Then in verse 20, “He has put forth his hands against those who are at peace with him. Abner came at peace. Joab struck out against him. He has violated his covenant. His speech was smoother than butter. Let’s turn aside and talk here. But his heart was war. His words were softer than oil. Yet they were drawn swords. He drew a sword and killed Abner.

Cast your burden upon the Lord. He’ll sustain you. He’ll never allow the righteous to be shaken. But thou, O Lord, will bring them down to the pit of destruction. Men of bloodshed and deceit will not live out half their days. But I will trust in thee.”

We see David specifically referring to those sorts of curses when he tells Solomon, “Don’t let his head go down in peace. Take care of him for what he did.”

Joab in anger was not a peacemaker but a strife-maker.

Joab also acted in pride. We’re not going to spend a lot of time on this incident, but in 2 Samuel 18, this occurs sometime later. Absalom, David’s one of David’s sons, plots and enters into rebellion against David. And David has to flee Jerusalem at the time. He goes out to war against Absalom. Joab goes out and David specifically commands his men.

Turn to 2 Samuel 18. 2 Samuel 18, verse 5: “King sends Joab and Abashai. Remember Abashai is his brother, and [another name] the Gittite out saying, ‘Deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom.’ And all the people heard when the king charged all the commanders concerning Absalom.” God wants us to make it very clear to us what David has commanded here.

Now I’m not saying David was right or wrong. Let’s can take care of that right now. Absalom was in revolt and rebellion. Perhaps he should have been executed. But David the king had given specific orders to his commander-in-chief, the general as it were, Joab, the head of his army. He gave him specific instructions not to kill Absalom. And then what happens in verse 9 is that some servants find Absalom. Absalom is riding away on a mule. You probably remember this story. He’s got this big hair, his pride. It gets caught up in the branches of this tree. He gets suspended in mid-air. His mule continues going and he’s stuck there. And some men of Joab’s men come upon him. They find him there. They go back to Joab and they tell him, “We found Absalom over here.”

He says in verse 11, Joab says to the man who told him, “Now behold, you saw him. Why didn’t you strike him to the ground? And I would have given you ten pieces of silver and a belt.” The man says, “Well, I couldn’t do that. I wouldn’t put my hand against the king’s son, for in our hearing the king charged you and Abashai and Ittai saying, ‘Protect for me the young man Absalom.’” There’s a good guy here. He’s saying, “Well, you know, it seems like we should kill him. But David charges not to.”

Joab wants none of that, however. Joab has a better idea than David. And he goes out and he says, “Well, enough talking to you.” He goes out with some of his men. He sticks Absalom with some darts and then his men finish Absalom off as Joab was there with him.

And so here we see Joab acting in pride. Remember what pride is? Pride is an exaltation of oneself, a debasement of God. He had a debasement of the authorities that God places over us. Absalom was trusting in his strength and his understanding of the matter instead of in his commander David’s. And so I meant—I said Absalom. I meant Joab.

Joab thought he had a better idea. Joab was prideful in rejecting the specific commands of the king and his commander by breaking that command and instead killing Absalom. And so here again, Joab strikes out in a rejection of authority. Remember we said from 1 Peter 5 that pride is the basis for the rejection of authority. When our children reject our authority, we’ve got to understand they’re rejecting the authority of God and they’re being prideful in that, exalting themselves and debasing God.

And remember we said at the time that pride is destructive to community. And in Joab’s pride so far—and his pride that leads him to the anger of the sin against Abner—and here is pride in killing Absalom. He is being destructive to the community that David is trying to create peace in. And so Joab also succumbs to the deadly sin of pride and slays the protected Absalom in direct contradiction to the king’s orders.

And then third: Joab falls into the sin of envy and slays his rival Amassa. This is a couple of chapters further along in 2 Samuel 20. Absalom, when he begins his revolt, before he’s killed, makes Amassa, who is Joab’s cousin by the way, interestingly enough—and we’ll talk about that in a couple of minutes—but Amassa’s mother was Abigail. Joab’s mother was Zeruiah. They were sisters. So Amassa is his cousin.

Absalom makes Amassa his right-hand man, his general, his lieutenant, as it were, the commander-in-chief of his army, the way that Joab is David’s commander-in-chief. And after Absalom is killed, David wants peace. And to try to forge peace and to get the followers of Absalom to follow him as well—like he used, like back with Saul, he was willing to deal with Saul’s right-hand man, Abner. Now he’s willing to deal with Amassa, Absalom’s right-hand man.

And in fact, he tells Amassa, “You’re going to be head of my tribes in place of Joab. You’re head of my armies in place of Joab.” So David moves to make Amassa the new commander-in-chief, replacing Joab. Joab has sinned a couple of times here already. He’s killed Abner. He’s killed Absalom. David wisely replaces him with Amassa. But you think that’s going to stop a guy like Joab? No, it’s not going to stop a guy like Joab.

His sin actually continues. You know, sin is a funny thing. When you don’t deal with it, you get worse and worse in what you do. And this is probably the low point of what Joab does here.

In verse 8, the situation is that David’s men go out against this fellow who was encouraging revolt in the land, a guy named Sheba. But in any event, Joab and Amassa meet each other. Verse 9 of 2 Samuel 20.

And it’s interesting too, they meet at Gibeon, where that pool was that Abner and Joab met at. Well, anyway, Amassa comes to meet them and in Gibeon. And in verse 9, Joab goes up to Amassa and says, “Is it well with you, my brother? How you doing, brother?” Gives him some good words—words smooth as honey here to him. “How you doing, brother?” And he took Amassa by the beard. So, I guess you’re better without one in this case. But he takes Amassa by his beard to kiss him. And Amassa was not on guard against the sword which is in Joab’s hand. So Joab struck him in the belly with it and poured out his inward parts in the ground and didn’t strike him again and he died.

So Joab here takes his rival. He has been taken away from his position by Amassa. David avoids Amassa’s place. He takes Amassa and deals more deceit with him than he did even with Abner. He butters him up. He pretends to kiss him and then he sticks him with his sword and spills his intestines out on the ground.

So Joab here, motivated by envy, strikes out at the one who has the position that he no longer can have, wanting to kill him and he does that.

And then finally, the fourth incident: pride, anger, envy—the killing of Abner, the killing of Absalom in contradiction to David’s orders, and the killing of Amassa out of the sin of envy. All these things really are wrapped up in the final incident, his rebellion.

In 1 Kings 1, we have a rebellion in place. David is getting old. He’s going to die. He has named Solomon as his successor. But David has an older son, older than Solomon, and this particular son named Adonijah decides that he wants to be king. And he begins to get put together a conspiracy to take over the throne before David can appoint Solomon as the king.

And Adonijah in 1 Kings 1 brings in some helpers for him. And one of the helpers that joins Adonijah in direct rebellion against the king now is Joab. Joab—the survivor. He has survived all these terrible sins he’s done. David hasn’t executed him yet. He keeps plugging along. He’s a survivor. He always lands on his feet, so to speak. Always is able to take care of himself. But like all men who think they can do that, he finally makes the one mistake that is too far.

He joins the wrong team, ends up on the wrong side finally, and he does one thing here that David will not forgive and neither will Solomon, of course, who’s going to be king.

And then David gets final instructions. David, by the way, to thwart this thing before it gets off the ground—while Adonijah is having a meal, a feast with Joab and other people who are conspiring with him, while that’s going on, David hears about the plot and immediately gets together some people and anoints Solomon king.

And so they beat him to the punch, so to speak. When the Adonijah group hear that they all break up, and at that point David then, having given instructions to Solomon to take care of Joab, gives instructions to Solomon, “Take care of Joab.” And Joab finally then, after David’s death, takes care of these fellas. Kills Adonijah and kills Joab as well. Okay.

So Joab, although mightily gifted by God, yet falls into the sins—the first three deadly sins—pride, envy, and anger, culminating in direct rebellion against God, and as a result, doesn’t end up serving the king well at all, and ends up hurting the king’s kingdom.

Now, the third element here I want to talk about is that Joab is a son of Zeruiah. And we’ll go through this pretty quick and you’ll see why I have this here in a couple of minutes.

As I mentioned, Joab’s mother was Zeruiah. He had two brothers, Asahel and Abashai. And the pattern seems to run in those men as well. We won’t turn to these references in this part of the outline, but we’ll go through them pretty quickly. Abashai and Asahel also were mighty warriors. There’s a list, several lists in the scriptures of the mighty warriors who served under David. And both of Joab’s brothers are on those lists and very high up in the ranks of the men. They were also mighty warriors gifted by God for warfare.

In 2 Samuel 21, Abashai ends up saving David from a Philistine giant and helps David out that way. In 2 Samuel 2, Abashai was with Joab when they killed off three hundred sixty of Abner’s men, only lost nineteen of their own. Abashai and Joab were really doing that battle together as they would throughout most of their careers. And then as I said, at the list at the end of 2 Samuel, the mighty man Abashai figures prominently there.

So all three of the sons of Zeruiah, as it were, were mighty warriors gifted by God for warfare. But unfortunately, all three of them also were quick to shed blood. We mentioned—let’s see—the anointed Saul’s blood first. In 1 Samuel 26, verses 7 and 8, before we really get into all these things that happened after Saul’s death, back then, you remember Saul is chasing David around out in the country, and David sees Saul and camp out there with Abner and his men, and wants somebody to go with him to go down to surprise Saul.

And they go down in the middle of the night and they catch Saul asleep and Abner’s asleep and not doing his job too well. But instead of killing him, David just takes a couple of his things to prove that he had a chance to kill Saul.

Well, Joab’s brother, Abashai, is the one who goes with David down to Saul. And the first thing Abashai says is—when they stand there next to the sleeping being anointed king of God’s people. The first thing Abashai wants to do is to kill him. And David says, “No, I’m not going to lift a hand against the Lord’s anointed.” You see, one of the sons of Zeruiah was quick to shed royal blood in this case, the blood of the anointed Saul.

And then Abashai also later on wants to kill another person, the cursing Shimei. I mentioned that Absalom had this revolt going on. He was out there. David leaves Jerusalem to go out to fight with Absalom. And on his way out of Jerusalem, as he goes out a little ways, this fellow named Shimei, an ex-follower of Saul, Shimei comes out and curses David as he’s walking along. And Abashai is with David. And immediately Abashai says, “Let me kill this dead dog for you.”

Now, you know, Shimei was breaking the law of God. He was cursing a ruler of the people. It was a capital offense. But nonetheless, Abashai acted quickly to want to shed blood. David, being a peacemaker, being a righteous wise man, says instead, “Now wait a minute. This guy’s curse could be from God. This could be God. I’ve not done a lot of good things here. I got a sudden revolt against me. You know, I had this thing with Bathsheba going on. I conspired with Joab to kill Uriah.” He knows he’s done some things wrong. And so he looks. He doesn’t—he isn’t quick to anger and quick to shed blood. He thinks, in back of all of it, to what God is doing through Shimei’s cursing. And he says, “This could be God cursing me instead.”

Now it’s interesting because then after Absalom is taken care of and everything, on their way back to Jerusalem and their entrance back into Jerusalem, Shimei comes up again. But this time Shimei is repentant. Whether faintly so or really so at the time, I don’t know, but Shimei comes out and says, “You know, I know I did a terrible thing. Please forgive me.” And he brings out some men to support David and who, as king, some important men. And so David hears this and immediately, again, Abashai—there with David, like his brother Joab—quick to be angry, quick to want to shed blood—says, “Let me kill this lousy Shimei again.”

And David says, “What are you doing? This day, the kingdom is finally united together under me. This is a day of peace. This is not a day for going out and killing the first guy that comes along that might offend you.” So he rebukes Abashai again and tells him, “This guy’s repentant. Let’s not move in haste here. Don’t do it.”

David is slow to anger. When cursed, he seeks God’s voice in the affair. When Shimei feigns repentance, David believes all things, hoping that Shimei really is repentant. David is quick to show mercy and grace, knowing that he has been shown mercy and grace by God. David is slow to anger. And that makes him able to choose if there is going to be judgment for Shimei, the appropriate time.

I mentioned that because as David is on his deathbed, in addition to Joab and Adonijah—or Joab rather—he also tells his son Solomon to take care of Shimei. So Shimei does not serve David well after this supposed repentance. But in any event, the sons of Zeruiah were notably lacking in the ability to stop and to think through things relative to timing, relative to what God is doing, and relative to showing mercy. They were men of bloodshed.

David rebukes, as a group, the sons of Zeruiah in three different occasions. In 2 Samuel 3:29, this is after Joab has killed Abner. He says, “I am this day weak, though anointed king. And these men, the sons of Zeruiah, be too hard for me. The Lord shall reward the doer of evil according to his wickedness.”

Then in 2 Samuel 16:10, when Abashai tells him, “Let’s kill Shimei,” David says, “What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah? So let him curse because the Lord hath said to him, curse David.”

And then in 2 Samuel 19, they’re going back into the city and Shimei is repentant. David says, “What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah, that ye should this day be adversaries unto me. Shall there any man be put to death this day in Israel? For do not I know that I am this day king over all of Israel?” David saw them as having the same essential failing here—mighty men, quick to shed blood. They were sons of Zeruiah.

Okay. And Joab was one of them. And he took part in those same sins.

Now, in this brief overview of Joab and the sons of Zeruiah, I think we have a picture of two failures. The first is Joab’s own failure to control himself. You know, in the proverbs, we mentioned before that Proverbs 25:28 says that he that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down without walls. And we talked about that in reference to anger. And Joab has no control over his own spirit. He is like a city without walls. And he ends up defenseless at the altar, crying out for mercy. No mercy is shown to him. He is put to death.

Now, note well here that Joab was gifted. Gifting from God does not mean that we’re not capable of falling into sin and turning that gifting into curse instead of blessing. When you see somebody that’s gifted, that’s only part of the thing that’s going on in their life. Gifting is a sovereign dispensation of God to people for particular tasks. That gifting has to be made meek, to be brought into harness, to be broken to harness under God’s control.

You see, gifting and obedience are not the same thing. Gifting for war was given to Joab graciously by God. But Joab didn’t respond in faithfulness to that charge with humility, with emulating God’s slowness to anger, and with praying for his adversaries like Amassa instead of striking out at them. Joab sinned.

Gifting is no guarantee of success or blessing. And in fact, gifting when coupled with sin produces greater curses for us. The greater the gifts that God gives us, the higher our responsibility to use those gifts for God. And so Joab was mightily gifted, but as a result, mightily cursed, killed inside the very house of God.

I thought of Otto Scott as I was thinking about the life of Joab. He said at one point on an easy chair tape that all men are sadistic. He said, “Oh, I’m going to have a sadistic streak in them,” bullying sort of. You know, we all have that propensity to do that, he said. I don’t know if that’s right or not, but certainly Joab’s life—one of bullying, one of striking out in anger—should be a warning to us. We should be warned by this not to be a Joab, not to succumb to the sins of pride, envy, and anger, but rather to take the recommendations we’ve given over the last nine or ten weeks in terms of repentance for those sins and moving on in obedience.

Remember we said that 1 Corinthians 13 is the picture of how we’re supposed to act. The picture of biblical love. Love doesn’t behave itself unseemly. Verse 5 of 1 Corinthians 13: It doesn’t seek its own. It’s not prideful. It isn’t easily provoked. In other words, it doesn’t get angry, and it thinketh no evil. It isn’t envious. Love is longsuffering. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

That’s a picture of David. Things that love is not is a picture of Joab, in spite of the great gifting given to him. And it can be a picture of us. Those are the two paths that we just sang about from Psalm 1. The two paths: blessing and cursing, righteousness and unrighteousness. Are those two paths—succumbing to the sins of pride, envy, and anger? Or rather repenting of those sins and being longsuffering and humble and praying for our enemies?

Don’t be Joab. Be David. Use David as your life model. Working to produce peace in spite of tremendous difficulties and disputes and strikes. Believe the repentant. David tried to seek peace with Saul and Abashai wanted to kill him. David tried to seek peace with Abner—on good terms, not illegitimate peace, God’s order—with Abner. But Joab struck out at him. David wanted peace, so he exalted Amassa, Absalom’s right-hand man, to being his right-hand man to—