2 Samuel 16 verses 1-14. This is God's holy and infallible word. Take heed how you hear it. When David was a little past the top of the mountain, There was Ziba the servant of Mephibosheth who met him with a couple of saddled donkeys and on them 200 loaves of bread, 100 clusters of raisins, 100 summer fruits, and a skin of wine. The king said to Ziba, what do you mean to do with these? So Ziba said, the donkeys are for the king's household to ride on, the bread and summer fruit for the young men to eat, and the wine for those who are faint in the wilderness to drink. Then the king said, and where is your master's son? And Ziba said to the king, indeed he is staying in Jerusalem. For he said, today the house of Israel will restore the kingdom of my father to me. So the king said to Ziba, here, all that belongs to Mephibosheth is yours. And Ziba said, I humbly bow before you that I may find favor in your sight, my lord, O king. Now when King David came to Bahrim, there was a man from the family of the house of Saul. whose name was Shimei son of Gerah coming from there. He came out cursing continuously as he came and he threw stones at David and all the servants of King David and all the people and all the mighty men were on his right hand and on his left. Also Shimei said thus when he cursed, Come out, come out you bloodthirsty man, you rogue. The Lord has brought upon you all the blood of the house of Saul and his place you have reigned. And the Lord has delivered the kingdom into the hand of Absalom, your son. So now you are caught in your own evil because you are a bloodthirsty man. Then Abishai, the son of Zariah, said to the king, Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Please let me go over and take off his head. The king said, What have I to do with you, you sons of Zariah? So let him curse, because the Lord has said to him, Curse David. Who then shall say, Why have you done so? And David said to Abishai and all his servants, see how my son who came from my own body seeks my life. How much more now may this Benjamite let him alone and let him curse for so the Lord has ordered him. It may be that the Lord will look on my affliction and that the Lord will repay me with good for his cursing this day. And as David and his men went along the road, Shimei went along the hillside opposite him and cursed as he went through stones at him and kicked up dust. Now the king and all the people who were with him became weary, so they refreshed themselves there." That's far God's word, amen. Screen slaver. is a super villain in the 2018 Pixar animated movie Incredibles. And my children know very well about Screen Slaver, this super villain. He controls people, okay, in this movie, of course. He controls people by hypnotizing them. He later turns out to be a woman. We thought she was good, as the movie goes. But this supervillain is able to hypnotize people. They look at the screen, a TV screen, and suddenly they're saying and thinking and doing what Screenslaver wants. As the movie progresses, these superheroes, Elastigirl and Mr. Cruddle himself, come under the control of Screenslaver. These mind-controlling goggles are placed on their eyes, and suddenly these superheroes go from doing what is good, and what's good for the city, and what's good for peace in the city there, to doing what's not good, and what's bad. What in the world's going on? Well, they're controlled by this evil supervillain, Screen Slaver. Now, sometimes we wonder, Even as Christians, if something's controlling us. Perhaps you have had a time in your life, maybe recently, where you were angry and you said things and you did things that were not good and you look back and you're thinking to yourself, what in the world was I thinking? Something controlling me. Perhaps you've made a decision in your life And you think back on that, and you're like, what in the world was going on? It was as if something was controlling me. In this passage tonight, we have four examples. We see four people that are controlled by different things. David is on the run, as we saw last night. In the last passage, in chapter 15, Absalom has kicked off this revolt, this coup, as it were. Israel, in the main, has gone after him as the next king, and David's running for his life. And in the last section, we see several loyal followers of David putting forth their life to serve him, to follow him. They're showing faith. In this section, though, we have a few other people that come into the picture, into the narrative, and they're not loyal. They're in some way, Abishai is kind of a mixed mixture, but they're in some way bringing pain to David. And in this narrative, the Holy Spirit has given us this narrative. What does he want us to learn? And we see something about man's nature and what controls people, what motivates them, what causes them to do what they do. And my question, for you tonight is what causes you to do what you do. What's controlling your decisions and your life? The lesson this evening is man ought not to be controlled by the love of money, irrational bitterness, or misguided zeal, but by God's word. Man, his actions, his conduct, ought not to be controlled by the love of money, irrational bitterness, misguided zeal, but rather by God's word. I want to bring this lesson to you under four points. Verses one through four, we have Ziba, and what I'm going to call money love, the love of money. Ziba is controlled. He does what he does because he wants possessions. He wants to improve his earthly lot in life or perhaps in our day he loves money. Now Ziba appears to be a friend He appears to be an ally. He's actually quite wise in how he's conducting himself. He is giving David possessions. He is helping David. 200 loaves of bread, 100 clusters of raisins, 100 summer fruits, a couple, a pair of saddle donkeys. That's two saddle donkeys. But really it's not that much if you think about it. It's helpful, but I mean David probably has up to a thousand people with him. We know he has 600 men in verse 18 of 2 Samuel 15. He has his whole household, which is a lot of people. He definitely accumulated more as the chapters go by before this battle with Absalom. This isn't really that much. Ziba is the heir or he's the steward of Saul's house. He's very wealthy. You'll notice that Ziba is the only one here. And it's very likely that many of Ziba's stewards or servants under him are still at the estate nearby. Benjamin's land was nearby Jerusalem. He's actually an opportunist. He's flattering David. He's trying to get something. What is he trying to get? He's trying to get Saul's inheritance and he lies in order to do it. You'll notice the question in verse 3, Then the king said, And where is your master's son? This is a reference to Mephibosheth. Now Mephibosheth was actually the grandson of Saul. Jonathan was Mephibosheth's father. This is just a way of speaking, the way the Hebrew language worked and some of your translations even translate grandson. It's a reference to Mephibosheth. Mephibosheth is paralyzed or he's crippled. He's back in Jerusalem, and Mephibosheth says something that's quite silly, really, the revolts all around Absalom, who's not a Benjamite. But David's tired, he's weary, we see that in verse 14. The king and all the people who were with him became weary, so they refreshed themselves there. They're running, and David's not thinking properly. I'll come back to this. But David takes this testimony of one man and he gives the inheritance to Mephibosheth. Verse 4, here all that belongs to Mephibosheth is yours. The law of God actually requires two witnesses for some legal transaction like this to take place. It would not be foreign for a servant to have the inheritance. Of course it wasn't the normal thing to happen. The son would have the inheritance. But notice Proverbs 17.2, a wise servant will rule over a son who causes shame and will share an inheritance among the brothers. So this is not completely ridiculous. But it is apart from the law, and David's under duress, and he's tired, and he makes a bad decision. But Ziba is an opportunist, and that's what I want you to think about. What controls, what dictates human action? Here's a man who does what he does because earthly possessions, improving his earthly lot is primary in his life. The Bible does not Condemn riches. The Bible does not condemn riches. And I'm not condemning riches, I'm not condemning work and the pursuit of being productive either, as this morning's sermon made clear. But the Bible does condemn the love of money. and an inordinate focus upon improving one's earthly lot. 1st Timothy 6.10, For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness. I was reading recently, and I was reminded of this actually, and a temptation specifically for ministers, for pastors, we see it in the Bible, Demas. I was reading the book of Philemon, preparing for my message this morning on slavery, and Demas was with Paul in that epistle. But in 2 Timothy 4.10, Paul says, for Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world. Well, that's a way of describing an inordinate desire for earthly possessions and money. He loves this present world. I would venture looking out into the sanctuary. I know all of you well, and I don't think that you're a Demas. I want you to know that as your pastor, but Christians can fall into this trap in different ways. We can love earthly things more than we ought to. And again, I'm not against riches or money in and of itself. That's very much not what I'm saying. But what do you focus on? You know, one of the things that... I don't know a lot about health insurance. I don't know a lot about life insurance. Nothing wrong with those types of things either, but there are certain people, Christians, who know a lot about how to make money, how to accumulate things, insurance, things that are very much earthly, and they don't know a lot about things that really matter, that are eternal. They can't explain the gospel. They may very well know Christ, but they can't explain these things. They don't pursue them. They don't pursue them. They don't make a habit of reading scripture daily and attending to the preaching of the word and growing and things that are eternal. Think about this passage of scripture in this light. And the priority of eternal matters and heavenly matters. Matthew 16, 26. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? What profit is it? Earthly things are not sinful. Riches are not sinful, but are we zebos in our own way? Is that what's controlling what we do? Dictating the things that we do, decisions that we make. Seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the throne of God. Set your mind on things above. What's the mark of your life? Are you in some way a zeba? I want to encourage you with something. All of us have very large hearts that crave We have needs. We want to be satisfied. And I'm telling you right now, money will not satisfy you. You can go to the headlines once a week. Some rich movie star is just doing something that's showing you that they're not satisfied. Jesus said, the thief came to steal, to destroy. I came to give life, to give it more abundantly. The psalmist says, at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Put your right hand. To know Christ, to love Him, to be with Him, that's the satisfying thing. And Ziba's looking for status. He's looking for possessions. Are we Ziba's? What controls your conduct? What dictates it? Money, love. We see that in verses 1-4. We also see something else. In God's wisdom, the Holy Spirit has given to us history. He's given to us narrative. He's given us experience, human experience. These are real people. They really existed. And they're showing us The possibility of what humans can do and what humans can get, people can get wrapped up with. Verses 5 through 8. Irrational bitterness. Now this is another thing, if you will, that can control people. Bitterness very much can control people's lives. And that's shimmy. Irrational bitterness. Verses 5 through 8. Keep in mind the context. David is from the tribe of Judah. Saul is from the tribe of Benjamin. There was a transfer of power. There was a transfer of wealth. Shimei is from the house of Saul. He would have missed out on this financially and socially. His kids aren't going to a school that quite as good now because the Benjamites aren't on the throne, if you will. He's probably lost some wealth. He's bitter about this. And he's showing that. And it's irrational. Now bitterness is irrational really in any case. Because if you think about it, even if things have been done wrong to you, when you are bitter at someone or about something, you're really bitter and angry at God. because God is in control. God gave the kingdom to David and to be bitter in this way and in really any way is irrational because God does not give us what we deserve. Does he? If you're here and you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, or even if you're not saved, even if you do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ by faith, you are not getting what you deserve. It's irrational to be bitter in the first place. And that's something I'll come back to perhaps But it's also irrational because this is absolute slander. This is totally not true. And there's a lesson here on slander, really. David, what does he do in response? He didn't do anything. I mean he's humbled. He realizes God's in control even in the bad situations, which I'll get to in a moment. If you look at it, Abishai replies and David replies to Abishai, but David doesn't respond to Shimei. He just lets Shimei go. And Shimei's slandering David. He says all these things, come out, come out you bloodthirsty... Man, that's the exact opposite. David's very sensitive to bloodshed. He didn't kill Saul. The Philistines killed Saul, Mount Gilboa. He didn't kill Abner. Joab killed Abner. Abner was Saul's right-hand man. David did not approve of that. Ishbosheth, Saul's son, was beheaded by, I believe, by Benjamites. It wasn't some kind of conspiracy. Shimei has drank the Kool-Aid, if you will. He's believed the rumors. This is all very much a fault. It's irrational. It doesn't make any sense to history. And bitterness. Here's a man who's willing to even come out to David and his armed bodyguards, the Gittites, the Cherethites and Pelethites, these armed men, these warriors. and say these things. Obviously he's controlled by bitterness and anger. And this is something that happens, doesn't it? It's something that the Scriptures specifically warn against. The power of bitterness. By God's grace may we not be ever in this situation. Listen to the Scriptures for a moment. Ephesians 4 31, a passage I've quoted many times. There's a list, and the first on the list is bitterness. Let all bitterness be put away from you." Hebrews 12, 14-15. Pursue peace with all people and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord. Looking carefully, lest anyone fall short of the grace of God. Lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled. Are you a shimmy? Maybe you're not like Ziba. Maybe you can't identify with Shiri. Maybe you've been wronged. And that's true. You have been wronged. David has not wronged the house of Saul. Maybe you have been wronged. And there's a sense in which in our flesh we can say, I have a right to be angry with my parents. Or with my friend who did this to me. Or maybe someone even in this room. I want to speak to you for a moment. This is where we have to remember the gospel. God doesn't give us what we deserve. And I realize I may be speaking to someone who's in this room who's very much been wronged. And your flesh and the world joins with you. Cry out. You've been wronged. Be bitter. Don't forgive. Be controlled by this. Let this dictate your actions. Remember the Gospel. Remember the Gospel. You, because of Christ's love for you, you have not received what you deserve. We deserve judgment. We deserve eternal fire. Even though we may go through horrible things on this earth, We can't let bitterness control us. We have to yield to God's will and remember the gospel. Shimei is nowhere near willing to forget, even from Shimei's perspective. He is, if he was right about this, he is controlled and fueled by bitterness. This is a warning to us and the cure for it is the gospel. Is the Lord Jesus Christ slain for his people? Irrational bitterness. Now I want to look at verse 9 for a moment. There's really a whole point here in verse 9 with Abishai. We kind of start to transition from people who seem to be unconverted, people who seem to be wolves in sheep's clothing. I'll let God be the judge of Zeba and Shimei. Abishai is a servant of David. He's not as bloodthirsty as his brother Joab. He appears to be a genuine servant of David. And he's misguided. I want you to see thirdly, misguided zeal. This is something else I want you to think about. As Christians we can be zealous for the Lord Jesus Christ, but a little bit off kilter, misguided. verse 9, Then Abishai the son of Zariah said to the king, Why should this dead doll curse my lord the king? Please let me go over and take off his head. Now Abishai is a man of war. He could have done this physically speaking and we can see this and we can read this verse and think well Abishai is just Totally off base. But there is something to what he is saying. I mean the law of God forbid this type of thing. This was a serious thing. Exodus 22, 28. You shall not revile God nor curse a ruler of your people. I forgot to write this down, but there's a place in the New Testament where Paul quotes this verse. And he says, I did not know that he was a priest. I didn't know he was a ruler of my people. He didn't want to go near this. This was a very serious sin. And it was totally wrong for Shimei to do this. But it was also wrong for Abishai to take off this man's head. If anything, it would only go to prove what Shimei is saying in the first place, that David is a bloodthirsty man and he just sends out his minions to go do his dirty deeds. I think of the Pharisees. I want you to think a little bit more about misguided zeal. Again, Abishai is serving David. There's something about Abishai's verse, this verse here, that's going in the right direction. I think of the Pharisees, something that Paul said. You recall, of course, Paul was Saul of Tarsus. Saul was persecuting the Church of God in the name of God. He was zealous for the tradition of the fathers. Okay, not the right tradition. Not biblical truth. He was casting people into jail and doing all these things. And he was a Pharisee. He was a Pharisee of Pharisees. And Paul says in Romans 10, Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge." It's misguided. It's not according to knowledge. One of the things I want you to think about tonight is just the importance of following Scripture. I'm going to get to faith and Scripture in a moment with David. Having a zeal for God that is according to knowledge. Very important. We can be controlled by misguided zeal and do harm. We think we're helping the Lord Jesus Christ, but we're not. There's many examples of this. You can rebuke someone and do it totally wrong, even in the right case. Someone should be rebuked. You don't do it gently. I think about evangelism that we've done. How many times Not a lot, but a few times I've been doing street evangelism or I've witnessed street evangelism that was very inappropriate. Preaching hell and fire and brimstone and no gospel. Holding up very provocative signs. Trying to get people to just, just provoking people. It's really very shameful and not representing the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I think of Dr. Curto when he preached the week that I was ordained, he mentioned stories about missionaries and this is something that's Just another example, people zealous for the gospel, zealous for Christ, just going out on missions by themselves. There's a whole... Christ has spoken to that. I mean this is serious. The devil wants to take missionaries and chop them up spiritually, if you will. We've got to do this the right way. We've got to do this the right way. Men, just another example, men will go to seminary. Perhaps they get converted and they think that it's a call to ministry or something and they get excited about the scriptures and they're like, well, I need to go to seminary. And before you know it, they've spent a bunch of money getting a master's of divinity and they have no call from the church and it's just misguided zeal. So important for us to be following scripture. Proverbs 19.2, also it is not good for a soul to be without knowledge, and he sins who hastens with his feet. One of the ways we hasten is to not be clear about what we are doing, that it is actually pleasing to the Lord. We assume that it is. Philippians 1.9, in this I pray that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and in all discernment. One of the encouraging things about Scripture and the Holy Spirit is that if you have a question, an issue, you can go to Scripture. It might take a little while. It might take some time. You can seek counsel. By the illuminating work of the Spirit you can get guidance and you can find out what you should be doing in a particular situation. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your path to Abishai's credit, he at least asked David. He asked David. May we do that as well. Seek the Lord's counsel through his word. Not be misguided. Fourthly, and finally, man ought not to be controlled by the love of money, irrational bitterness, or misguided zeal, but he ought to be controlled by God's word. And David, in the main here, is controlled by God's Word. And I'm going to touch mainly on verses 10-13. David does, under duress, fail to consider the Ziba situation fully. He's rash in proclaiming a sentence. He later goes back against that in chapter 19. But he shows faith in what God has revealed to him. And for us that's of course God's word. He shows that he knows God to be a God who's in control of even bad things, even sin. We see that here, in fact maybe you were kind of drawn to this phrase. Verse 10, but the king said, what have I to do with you, you sons of Zariah? So let him curse, because the Lord has said to him, Curse David, who then shall say, Why have you done so? Then in verse 11, Let him alone, let him curse, for so the Lord has ordered him. How should we understand this? Does God command people to sin? Well, no, I think the New King James translation is a little bit too rigid. I think the Hebrew is more flexible and so the ESV renders verse 10 differently and I think that this different rendering of verse 10 should help us understand what the end of verse 11 means. The ESV, 2 Samuel 16, 10 says, What have I to do with you, you sons of Zariah, if he is cursing, because the Lord has said to him, Curse David? Who then shall say, Why have you done so?" David knows, he knows from experience, he knows from revelation, that God's in control. He knows that Nathan has said, It's coming. Your own house is going to rise up against you. David knows that God is in control and he is acting according to that system of theology and understanding. It is a mystery to say that God permits and super intends sin. Maybe that is a fancy word to say super intends. It is called concurrence. What I am saying is this. Genesis 50 verse 20. Joseph, you recall Joseph. He went down to Egypt. He was sold into slavery. His brothers sold him into slavery. That's a sin. That's bad. What did Joseph say to his brothers? But as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. God meant it for good in order to bring it about as it is this day to save many people alive. We know that God works all things for good to those who are the called, to those who love Him, who are the called according to His purpose. It's a mystery, I can't explain it all to you, but it helps us to live our life, and David's keeping that in mind. He knows that God purposed to use Shimei's curses to humble David. So he's acting on that knowledge. He's acting upon God's word. He knows God to be sovereign over difficult, even sinful situations. He also knows God to be merciful. And he's depending upon this revelation to dictate his actions. He knows God is merciful. Verse 12. He is speaking to Abishai. He says, it may be that the Lord will look on my affliction, that the Lord will repay me with good for his cursing this day. It doesn't really matter how one looks at this verse. There is discussion on how to take the word affliction here in verse 12. You can understand this to mean affliction, which is obviously the case. David's being afflicted. You can understand this to mean iniquity, or the punishment for iniquity, which I tend to favor that. Either way, God's merciful. God has promised to David. We sang about it. He's promised. He has not revoked that promise. He told him he would punish him, but he's remembering God's mercy to him. Listen, you were a murderer. You killed Uriah." David is thinking about this in his head, right? Yet God was merciful to him. Maybe God will be merciful again to me. Let's not take matters in our own hands. Let's let shimmy be shimmy. Let us trust in the Lord and His mercy. That's what God's people do. They have faith. Not just in His mercy. Not just in God's goodness and His sovereignty. They have faith in God's Word. In their particular situation it speaks. to their situation. Psalm 3, which we will sing at the end of this message, is a psalm of David when he fled from Absalom his son. It is a psalm of faith, as so many of the psalms. In addition to maybe some other things, David has faith in God. Save me, O God, he says in Psalm 3. This is what we as God's people are to do. We are to do so through the Scriptures. That's what controls our conduct. That's what dictates our conduct. It's a theme in the scriptures themselves. Paul tells the Ephesian presbytery. So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of his grace. I commend you to God and to the Lord of His grace. The Scriptures are sufficient for your life, in every area of your life, and they speak to your life, and that's where we go. Are you a Christian that is conscious of this, that's following, that's dependent upon God's Word? One of the ways you'll know that is if you will not be satisfied with your current knowledge of Scripture, and your current knowledge of how you interpret your life, but you'll continue to grow. You'll continue to come to the evening services and hear preaching. You'll continue to read scripture. You'll examine your life as you read scripture, in light of scripture, and you'll repent and you'll ask God to guide you. Psalm 119.59, I thought about my ways. and turn my feet to your testaments." That's the spirit of David. That's a mark of a Christian who is controlled by God's Word and by God's Spirit. Man ought not to to be controlled by the love of money, irrational bitterness, and misguided zeal, among many other things, but controlled by God's Word. Dear congregation, I want you to Not fear. I don't want you to fear a screen slaver. Sometimes in my own life I can think that screen slaver. What's happening? Why am I doing these things? One of the encouragements of the gospel is that though you, because you are a son or daughter of Adam, Though you were in sin and you were a slave to sin, by God's mercy and through the power of Christ, you're no longer. You're no longer. Screenslaver has been devastated. And by God's Spirit in you, working, directing you through His Word, you can be controlled by God through His Word. That's the gospel. And we can say with the psalmist, your word is a lamp to my feet. Your word is a lamp to my feet. It guides me and you by your spirit walk me down that path. That's the gospel for us this evening. Let us pray. Heavenly father, we give you great praise. Because you through your son and by his spirit have rescued us from the power of the devil in our flesh and our sin. And we can not only learn from this passage of scripture and the human experience that we see in this passage, but we can imitate David and exercise faith in your word and apply it to our life. We ask that you would do so. that even now the issues that are going on, the different families that are represented here, different individuals that are represented here, that you would grant us faith, that you would grant us power to be controlled by your word. For we ask this in Jesus' name, amen.