Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible podcast. Happy Monday. It's Monday, and he's still risen. That's right. So he's risen still Indeed. Still indeed. Yep. Yep. Yeah, no, we are into a new week. Some of you may have the day off depending on your job. I know some offices are closed on the Monday following Easter, since obviously Easter falls on Sunday. I know our offices are closed at the church, so if you're coming to the church for anything today, you're not gonna find anybody there. 'cause our offices are closed today. But wherever you are, we're glad that you're listening. Glad that you're reading the Bible. Glad that you're tuning in with us for the Daily Bible podcast. That's right. Which by the way, just as a shameless plug, if you listen to this, enjoy this. If it's a benefit for you, we would love for you to tell other people about it. Send 'em a link. Say, Hey, you get, listen to this. These guys do this every day. They're not all great, but they're not all bad either. They're not all bad either, right? No. And yeah, reviews help on the podcast platforms. Giving 'em likes, posting 'em on your social media pages. Those are our ways to get this out there. We'd love to do that. We do this as a labor of love. We don't like to hear ourselves talk as much as we, we do talk, but we do find that, that this is, we think, beneficial and hopeful. Hopefully it is. And we've heard good feedback from. And if not, leave reviews to the contrary and then we'll just stop. Yep. It'll save us all some time. We'll recoup the time. Totally. We did have a question come in from a listener Uhoh who wanted to know, and I said something yesterday in, or yesterday as I sit here recording this, I said something at the Good Friday service, you were confusing people. Yep. Uhoh and I mentioned hell and I had talked about hell being away from the presence of God, and as soon as I said it. Did the thing. As soon as I said it, I thought, man, do I need to correct this? And then I thought, no, I'm not gonna correct it right now. It would just distract and muddy the waters. But somebody wrote a question and behold we got the question. Yep. Somebody wrote the question in said, Hey is hell, I've heard that hell is a place away from the presence of God and in the presence of God. What's the answer there? Yeah. He says that my senior pastor recently

preached a Good Friday service. He does not say that. I'm confused by what he said. He doesn't say that. No. But it would make sense 'cause I think he was there.

He was there. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Yeah. No, it's my take on it is that, that I misspoke it. If God is omnipresent, which we believe is what the Bible says then he's everywhere all at once. And so there is no place in all of creation and hell is part of creation wherein God is not present. Now what. Aspect of God is present in hell. That's a different question. Is the grace and the mercy and the patience and the loving kindness of God present in hell? And I would say no. What is present in hell is God's justice and his holiness and his wrath, his power. All of those attributes of God are known and experienced in hell by those that are there because hell is not the place where Satan has a pitchfork. Hell is the place where God is pouring out that, that bowl of wrath that we talked about on Friday, that was poured out on Christ for believers for the unbeliever that is poured out on them in hell, and that is gonna be a place of eternal, weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Yeah. So when people say away from the presence of God, you have to understand it in terms of the common vernacular, right? We're not using a literal, wooden phrase to mean exactly what we say or what you're trying to say is that you're. You're away from God's good presence, his grace, his mercy, all the things that we enjoy here, and even that unbelievers enjoy is acts of God's common grace. You don't get those things right and so you are away from the good presence of God, the kindness of God. God could never be fully removed because he's God, he's everywhere, all places at all times. So therefore, the sentence still makes sense. It's just, it adds, it needs clarification because some people could misunderstand it like what this email says. It could offer some. So it'd leave room for a lot more clarification, which you just offered. So thank you for that.

Yep. So there you go. He said, I'd like you both to respond on that. I think he was wondering if we disagree on that. I think he was looking for a fight. We could do it for fun. Yeah.

Let's do, I read, okay. I read recently and I thought, this is a great idea. Here it comes. No. This has nothing to do about our disagreement on that. Okay. We don't disagree. Okay. But they said in, in a disagreement between two people, one of the best things to do is to argue the other person's position. Because it helps you respect and know and own what you believe. And I don't think I've ever done that. I think that'd be really fun. That wouldn't be So next time we have a disagreement, we're gonna take the other's position.

Okay. You say it like that, I just am saying it like that. 'cause you make me do hard things sometimes and I don't want to. Man I heard something and I, in preparation for Good Friday, and I made a small comment on it and it probably wasn't noticed by many people, but it was something that hit me in preparation. It goes in, it comes back to the idea of hell. 'cause you and I have talked about the eternality of hell. Yes. And one of the options is that people in hell continue to sin in their response to the wrath of God, the weeping and gnashing of teeth indicating a rebellion against God. Continue rebellion against God. And this is. I guess in, in keeping with that to some degree, and basically what this person said is they said the fallen nature of man is inherently by itself offensive to God's holiness. That it's not even the sinful acts that we commit that are the grounding of God's wrath against us, but our connection to Adam, our fallen nature. That is that which draws the ire of doubt and the wrath of God to begin with. Which, if that's the case and those in hell still possess a fallen nature, which I would believe that they do, then perhaps that is also part of the grounds for the eternality of hell, that fallen nature is never redeemed, and so they're never in a place of not being in at odds with a

holy God. I get that, and I understand how that's appealing. I think one of the challenges then you come across is then, okay, what about those who don't have the. Mental ability to respond to the gospel. You and I would agree that we think there's some kind of dispensation that God offers to those. We think about particularly babies who are in some way incapacitated either by time because they never grow up or some other means. You guys get the idea, but we wouldn't say God would send them to hell, right? Because of their sinful nature. So you have to still make a provision in your mind. So I get it and I think there's something appealing about it. I just think it, it doesn't for me fit. What I think to be true, what I think the Bible at least allows for is a provision for the very very young.

Yeah. And I would agree with that. And I think that both of those things can operate in concert with each other. That provision is made for those that are incapable of intellectually grasping the gospel, coming to faith in, in that which is the remedy for our broken and sinful nature. But for those that, that don't fit that category, which is the majority, I think of humanity, that the sinful nature could still be, that, that grounds for the simmering of the wrath of God that is eternal.

That's consistent with reformed theology. We say that people are we say that people sin because they're sinners and not the other way around. And again, Millard Erickson. In his book that's No Longer in Print talks about the fact that we we vote with our actions to validate or to affirm our sinful nature. We participate in it and give it, giving ourselves over to it, which in his mind is the time that we reach the age of accountability. Whatever that age is when we take that sin and we say, yes. I wanna do that. I want to pursue my sinful nature. So yeah, I think that's consistent with how we understand human nature to work. We would not say that humans are born with a blank slate or that people are born good. I was talking to somebody recently about that, and the idea was like people are born good and they just get contorted by the world, and they, they get shaped by evil forces like their parents or their schools or whatever else. And I thought I'm I could not disagree more. Because it's so evident that we are born with a natural inclination disposition toward evil, right? We just validate it later in life, as a full bill on adults or someone with the reasoning capabilities that is not necessarily adults. Yeah, I would agree with you. I think that's fitting, it makes sense. Probably a shade or a nuance. I. A step further about some things that we've said in the past about that.

Yeah.

Yeah. I would agree.

Yeah. I'll never forget the, I forget who the first person to say it, but I won't forget the illustration. And that is you don't have to teach your kids how to fight. Like you, you don't have to teach your kids to be selfish. Yeah. You don't have to teach your kids to. Have a bad attitude or respond in anger to something that doesn't go their way, which is evidence of the fact that the sin nature is there. It's, they're not sinners because the world has corrupted them. We don't take our children and say let me teach you how to be a bully. It just, it comes out because that's the sin nature within us, and I think that's that's evident there with with those that have kids for sure.

For those without kids, you're welcome to borrow hours. For any number of our church kids, I'm, they'll teach you and you'll be convinced. Yes. You don't even Absolutely. This one is one of those read the book of scripture. Yes. But read the book of nature as well. Totally. And you can have our book. Yeah. We'll let you have our nature. You could go and take care of our kids

minute. It's dogeared it's marked up a little bit, but you can have our book. Yeah. Yeah. Alright, let's jump into our Bible reading Second Samuel one through four. Second Samuel one. Talk about a guy that does not read the room well. Yeah, the report of Death the Death of Saul and Jonathan reaches David through let's just, he's an unfortunate Amal, but he brings it on himself, man. He comes in thinking that he's bringing good news, thinking that he's bowing up here. It looks like he's robbed the body of Saul and Jonathan. And he comes to David claiming to be the one that dispatched Saul in this act of supposed mercy. And yet he doesn't understand two things. Number one, David doesn't really like the Amalekites. Remember the whole Ziklag thing. And then number two David himself had multiple opportunities to end Saul's life and chose not to. And so here you have an enemy of Israel who claims to be the one that. Terminated Saul's life and then has robbed the bodies of these of the crown and other things. And so David does not give the man the honor that he's looking for. In fact, David has 'em dispatched, he has 'em killed right off the bat there and says, this is this is on you man. You, your blood be on your own head for the actions that you committed. Yeah, he's an

amalekite strike one. And he killed, or at least he says he killed, which we don't think he did, obviously. He says he killed Saul. He did not. The scripture, the testimony of scripture is that Saul killed himself. He's totally misreading his audience. Yeah. Fatally.

Yeah. Yeah. And even his description, he says, Saul, I saw Saul leaning on his spear, and if you go back and read the death of Saul, Saul falls on a sword. And so there's even inconsistencies there which would lead to the fact that we would believe that that this is wrong. All right, two zero. Chapter two, then Civil War breaks out here between King David and King ish Bhe. Abner had taken ish Bhe, which was one of Saul's sons, and anointed him as king in place of now the dead Saul. And this had created a rivalry, and this war was gonna last for two years between Israel and. Judah David being the king over Judah and ish Beeth being the king over Israel. And the first battle shows up here and you've got Joe AB and Abner Joe AB over David's army and Abner over ish Beth's army. And they send out these men, young men to fight to see if that can settle the battle. They all end up. In a very bizarre interaction, killing one another there so nobody comes out on top. So then the battle breaks out and David wins, except there's a loss here. And that is the brother of Joab Asel or as Asel. And pursues Abner and wants to kill him. And Abner multiple times says, Hey, stop. I don't wanna do this. I don't wanna kill you. Leave off following me. The battle is winding down. Let's just go our separate ways. And this young man refuses to do it. And so Abner does all that he knows to do in an act, I think of justified self-defense, in my opinion, at least. And he kills job's, brother. Joab doesn't see it this way. And the battle keeps going until Abner finally says, Hey, can we just stop all the killing and go our ways? Because this is getting outta hand. And that. Seems to appease both sides and both sides return home. But this is gonna come into play later on. In fact, even in our reading today.

Yeah. So Joab, Abhai, and Assael are the three sons of Zaia, which is interesting for two reasons. Number one, Zaia is a woman's name. It's suggestive then that whoever their father was, he wasn't the extraordinary one. It was Zaia. She's the one who's highlighted. So there's this three, her three sons. That's the first thing. Second thing is that Zaia appears to be, as far as we're understanding this rightly, appears to be the sister of David. So if you look at one Chronicles two 16 two 15 talks about David and his brothers. Two 16 says, and their sisters were Ria and Abigail. And then you have Zia's sons there, Abishai, Joab, and ASA Health. So it looks like there's a family relationship that, which is one reason I think Joab sticks around for a while. But just keep that in mind. Two things. She's a woman. Zia, that is, and it seems to be David sister.

And.

You learn something new every day. Yeah, that's, I didn't know that. Yeah I have studied this before because I was trying to put family connections together and David's life, and that's, this is harder than you might realize. Yeah. But I'm pretty clear, I think I'm pretty clear on this. I feel pretty good that he is his nephew. Joe AB is his nephew, and it's through his sister Zia, which I mean. There, there's complications there, but yeah, that's the idea. Yeah. Wow.

Chapter three again, this battle continues for two years. It says that the battle went on for a long time. It was for two years. And we know that because that's the length of Ish's reign over Israel there. And so the battle grew longer and longer. David grew stronger and stronger because God was with David and not with. The offspring of Saul there. And that goes back to what God had told Saul, Hey Saul, you're done. Your dynasty's done. Your rain is done. This is not happening. There's some notes here at the beginning of chapter three about some of David's sons, Amon in Absalom. Those are two names to, if you highlight in Logouts or something like that, highlight those guys in red. Those are bad dudes, and we'll find out why. Later on is the book unfolds. But Amon and Absalom are born at this time in in David's life as well as a couple of other children here. But the line is gonna go through Solomon, which tells you that there's gonna be some. Bad things that happened to these other guys. 'cause these other guys are born before Solomon. But we'll find out more about that. As the story unfolds, as they say. But ish, Behe and Abner have a fallout because ish Behe accuses Abner of doing something that Abner doesn't appear to have done. And that is that he accuses him of a power play with one of ish Beth's concubines. Abner says, how dare you? I've done all of these things for you and I served your father, and this is how you repay me. I'm out. I'm gonna go establish the kingdom in David's hand. And what's always fascinated me here is. That Abner knew the prophecies. He knew that God had said that it was gonna be David that was gonna be established, and yet he still fought against that until this point. And now he's Nope, I'm out. I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna give the Kingdom to David. And he goes to do just that. And and David is agreeable as long as he brings me call back. His wife solved daughter back. And Abner says, great, we'll do this. Let's strike the deal. And then Joab comes back and finds out that this has happened. Feels betrayed by David. And Joab and Abishai take Abner off to the side and they kill him. In retaliation for Abner having killed their brother. And David finds out about this and basically says, Hey, this was wrong, and you murdered him. Like a dog rather than a man. And he leads Israel in a lament. And it, it seems to go over well with the people respected David for the way that he responded to the death of Abner.

So this is interesting. So I think what you just said here about I. Abner in particular being like is this a justified claim that he was actually trying to make a claim for the throne? I don't know if Abner's a good guy, I'm just gonna say, throw my cards on the table and part of it, because he does know the prophecies and yet he doesn't say, look, this is the wrong guys. We ought to give the kingdom to David. 'cause the Lord has prophesied, the Lord has promised him this kingdom. He doesn't do it until he's offended by what ish Boche says, and he never denies it. I don't know if he noticed that. He never says I didn't do it. He just says look at all these positive things that I'm doing for you. You should. I think he's saying, you should trust me, trust that I've got your best interest at heart, and let me do what I'm trying to do over here. Who knows? The scripture doesn't tell us whether or not he did or didn't do it or whether or not he was guilty. But what we do see is that you're right. He knows the scriptures and he should have done this earlier. So I'm gonna hold that against him. Secondly, I want you to notice too, that when you find that Joe AB murders Abner, he does it in Hebron. Which is one of the cities of refuge. It's where you're not supposed to kill people. So he violates the law in two ways, not just the first by killing him, but killing him at a city of refuge, which if you remember reading Leviticus, it was a provision for people that accidentally killed somebody else. They could flee to a city of refuge, and they were safe there until the death of the high priest wherein they could then go back home and hopefully not be killed. But here you have an offense not only in the murder, but in murder at a city of refuge.

Yeah. I'm not. Sin Abner's a good guy? No. You said he's a good guy. I unqualified that. I don't said full throated support. Yeah, I'm sure it's gonna show up that way 'cause you're gonna just grab something and that I've said in the past and throw it in there. No, I, yeah I don't think he did the move with the concubine. Why do you think that I'm interested? I think he words there are denying it at least I read that granted, he doesn't come out and say, I didn't do this, and yet he says, I look, are you treat me like a dog's head? I've always loyal. I did all this. And yet you charge me today with a fault concerning a woman. So there, the, I think he's pointed to the charge as the offense. Dude you're charging me with doing this. Look at my loyalty, look at my track record.

Okay?

And you're gonna charge me with this as though bro I had, I've been loyal to a fault to you and this is how you repay me is you charge me with this. All right. So I see it. I see that. Yeah. I guess I'm just more cynical. And I think the other reason too is he doesn't make a power play. He does the opposite. If this was a power play, which it would've been to sleep with the concubine right? Then I feel like he would've bowed up against ish bhef at this moment and brought things to a head and seized the throne rather than in the, than abdicating going, Hey, then I'm out. I'm going over to David then.

Yeah. Yeah, I could see that. And that makes sense. Un, unless it was un, unless he wasn't aiming for the throne and he just wanted the woman yeah. This is all speculative, but I think again, he knows the promises. Yeah. Verse 18, now bring it about for the Lord has promised David saying yada. Ab I don't know. I just, he's a. Seedy character. I'm not saying he's a good guy. You just

said that. He's a good guy. Alright chapter four then as we wrap up here, another unfortunate read of the room. You've got these two wicked guys Benna and Rahab who go in and they murder ish bef while he's on his bed and they behead him and they take the kings. The head to King David and they say, look at us. We did you a favor. And David just rips into them, has them killed. He disgraces and dishonor their bodies and buries the head of ish beseth. And oof there's bookends here, chapter one, chapter four, where you've got guys that, that take matters into their own hands as far as justice. And David is sitting there confident in the Lord to bring about justice, saying, this is unnecessary, this is wrong. You don't realize what you've done and you're gonna pay for it. And so David is showing himself at this point, a man of integrity, time and time again in the text.

And it's gonna work so well for him. People are gonna love this and they should. This is a really good season for David. Granted, it's not good 'cause there's two molts. But his response to these situations are going to endear him to the people, which I think is gonna be really important as he establishes his reign. Totally.

And that's what God's doing. He's preparing him for that. He's preparing him for that. That. Being able to unite the nation under him. And that makes sense because this was a divided nation at this point, and he was gonna have to take the throne and be able to bring everybody together for the good of the nation of Israel. Let's pray and then we'll be done with this episode of the Daily Bible Podcast. God we see the two M in the, just that the effects of sin at work here in the Bible. And we look around our world and we see the same thing today looks different, but it's still here. And so God we look forward to the time when the treat of VI King will come back and put an end to all of this and put an end to sin. And he will establish his throne forever and ever. And we will be able to be a part of the new heavens, the new Earth where there is no more sin or any of its consequences. We can't wait for that day. And in the meantime here we find ourselves. And so we read about the precursor, the first, David. Looking forward to the next, the second David, the better David who will come in the future. Your son, Jesus Christ, the resurrected Christ that we just finished celebrating yesterday. So would you pray that you'd give us a great week as we start a new week today, and that we would focus on Christ, that we would focus on the Word, and that we would grow as believers? We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Keep reading your Bibles. Tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. See you. Bye.

Thanks for listening to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. This is a ministry of Compass Bible Church in north Texas. You can find out more information about ourChurch@compassntx.org. We would love for you to leave a review to rate to share this podcast on whatever platform you happen to be listening on, and we will catch you against tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast.

Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said