All right, we're in 2 Samuel chapter two, verses eight to 17. I've got a title on that, The Conflict of Loyalties. We're going to learn something about Abner. Abner. Very, very important. And so let's go to the Lord one more time in prayer. Ask God's blessings on this. And then we'll get started. Heavenly Father, as we come to you right now, Lord, we pray, Father, that you would open our understanding, that we might understand the scriptures. Speak to us, Lord. Teach us. We ask it in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. For the next couple Sundays, we're gonna be looking at Abner. and learning some things about him. Are you looking for one of those papers? Right up front here, there's some right here on the front row. And those verses that we're gonna be looking at and dealing with Abner, our focus is going to be Abner. Why? I'm gonna make a statement, I want you to get it. It's very, very important. Here it is. And over the next few weeks, you're gonna see the outcome of this. Ambition is often hidden behind a curtain of loyalty. All right? Ambition is often hidden behind the curtain of loyalty. Ever, ever so important. Abner is a man that had power. He was under Saul and he had the power, he had the ability to do things. Now what you're gonna see tonight you're going to see ambition working. Now Abner, in the name of being loyal to Saul's family, of course Saul is dead now, and so in the name of being loyal to the family, he's going to do things. But when you look at it, you realize He's really driven by ambition more than loyalty. And that's an interesting thing. We'll learn some things about that. And so let's begin right here, right now. And it says 2 Samuel 2, 8 to 17, let's start in verse 8. But Abner, the son of Ner, captain of Saul's host, took Isbosheth, the son of Saul, and brought him over to Mahanaim, and made him king over Gilead, and over the Asherites, over Jezreel, and over Ephraim, and over Benjamin, and over all Israel. I want you to notice verse nine there. It says, you can circle this if you want to. Mark it, you need to. In verse nine it said, and made him. See that? And made him. Since when does the captain of the host of the army make somebody a king? Well, Abner did. He had some ambitious motives. Abner made him king. Now there's something about this. You see, in the name of loyalty, ambition is hidden. And so one of the things that we see here that you and I need to learn in life is this. When somebody like Abner, who was the captain of Saul's host, all of a sudden, ultimate power is given to him. Well, now he can't become king, but he can put somebody in the place. Now, there's a question, I'm not gonna get into this right now, but I'm going to pose the question. And then we'll get into it a little bit later. But let me ask you this question. It said, Saul's host, he took Ish-bosheth, the son of Saul. Now, the person that was supposed to be king, would have been Saul's first born. Isn't that right? And we might ask this question, was Mephibosheth older or younger than Ish-bosheth? Ah, very important. Now remember, Mephibosheth was lame on his feet, right? And so you see, Abner wasn't concerned about that. The name Ishbosheth means a man of shame. And we'll learn more about his name later on as we get into the Chronicles. And it was spelled even somewhat different. So you see, folks, what we have here starting off. We have something that we need to slow down, pay attention to, and ask God, God, what do you want me to see in this? What is it that I need to see? What is it that'll teach me something about life? What is it, God, that's here that I really need to see? Well, like I said, one thing we can look at is this, is that Abner, is going to take all kinds of liberties that's not his. And that's one of the marks of ambition, is that people will try to manipulate things to their benefit. And that's what you're gonna see here. Abner, he's got the power, he's got the authority, he's got the army behind him. And he finds the weakest of Saul's sons. He finds this person that's almost nothing as far as character and integrity goes. And he puts him in power. And look at this, Abner made him king. Why did Abner choose him? because he knew he could manipulate him. That's why he chose him. You're going to learn also when we get up into chapter three, it says that when, well, we'll look at some of it next week also, that when Abner got in Ish-bashir's face, It said Isboshus didn't say anything because he was afraid of him. Now, should have been the other way around, shouldn't it? The king should have said, kill this guy, I'm done with him. That's not the way it was, you see. So Abner is going to move into this picture here and he's going to take advantage of this situation, and he has his ambitions, and he's going to do some things. So he realizes that the first thing he needs to do is to pick the right man for the job that would benefit him. So Ish-bosheth was it, a man of shame, that's what his name means. Next thing is this, he had to find somebody that was afraid of him. That way he could manipulate him, control him. And that's what he did. The third thing is this, is with his ambition, regardless of what God was going to do, he was going to do something now. And we're gonna realize later on, you're gonna see this whole picture change. But right before I move on in this, I want you to know something. In chapter three, verse one, it said there was long war between Saul's people and David's people. Long war. So guess who kept the war going? Mr. Abner did. You see, Who kept this civil war going? As you and I study this over the next few weeks, you're gonna find out Abner done a lot of talking. Abner spoke up first. Abner took the action. Why is that? Because he was protecting his ambitions. Now, listen. It's one thing for people to have honest ambitions. It's another thing for people to have selfish ambitions. Notice, somebody with honest ambitions, they do not have to hide it. But somebody with selfish ambitions, they always have to hide it. They'll hide it. Like here, he's going to hide it behind the curtain of loyalty. Oh, I've just been loyal to Saul's family. All right? So what's his first step is this. He finds this son of Saul. Makes no difference whether he's the first in line or the third in line. He's the prime prospect for the job. Why? Because Abner can control him. And so they get here and it says in verse 9, and made him king. And made him king. Wow. That sounded like somebody had that office in name only, huh? Sound familiar to you? All right, now, let's go to verse 10. Ish-bosheth, Saul's son was 40 years old when he began to reign over Israel and reigned two years, but the house of Judah followed David. Now, we're going to find something else here. And the time that David was king in Hebron over the house of Judah was seven years, six months. Now, I want to show you something. Verse 12, it starts off, well, let's just do it like this. Verse 8, but Abner. Verse 12, and Abner. Verse 14, and Abner. You see that? So who's going to be the focus of this conversation? Abner is. Now watch what happens here. So as we move down, we get to verse 12. And Abner the son of Ner and the servants of Ishbasheth, the son of Saul, went out from Mahanaim to Gibeon. Verse 13, and Joab the son of Zariah and the servants of David went out and met together by the pool of Gibeon. And they sat down, the one on the one side of the pool and the other on the other side of the pool. So, now this is interesting. Because now what you have, you've got this meeting taking place, and this meeting between these two guys, the only thing it's going to do is perpetuate trouble. And that's exactly what Abner wants. Remember something, ambitious people have to keep things going so that you'll not know the truth of them. Ambitious people always want some distraction going on, right? So you're looking at the distraction rather than them. And the thing of it is, is most people want somebody that's going to be all right, up front about it, let's go get them, let's kill them, let's do whatever, right? That's extremely important. And so Abner knows that. Abner knows I've got to keep something going here. Because if it turns into zero, then I'm in trouble. But as long, listen, he knew this, as long as there was war, Ish-bosheth needed him. Right? Man, he was the captain of Saul's host. So as long as he could keep some type of war going, the king that he put in place needed him. You see that? Know this. People with selfish ambition, they will always hide that ambition. behind the curtain of a loyalty. And so look at what he's doing. Well, now they're going to meet here. And let's look at this. Well, we got Joab and David's men on one side of this pool. We got Abner and his men on the other side of this pool and they meet. Now, there was something going to happen here. And look who speaks up. Of course, it's Abner. And Abner said to Joab, let the young men now arise and play before us. And Joab said, let them arise. Well, What was supposed to have happened here was that these and these would have come together, the young men, and they would have acted like they were having a war, all right? That's what they were done. That was the purpose of that, okay? That's why I said let them play before us, okay? Act out this thing. But that's not what happened at all. You see, Joab knew that Abner was not going to be nice about it. That Joab had other motives. Wow. Let's see what happens. This is absolutely amazing to me. Here we go. And Abner said to Joab, Let the young men now arise and play before us. And Joab said, let them arise. Now watch this before I move on. The boldness of ambition. The boldness of ambition. Abner with this ambition. Watch this now. Now, why do you have that number? Why do you have that name, the 12 of Benjamin? Why the name? Because the men of Benjamin They were people of war. They were courageous people. They were people that were manned. They would go to war and they had a name for being good soldiers. They had a name for being valiant fighters. They had a name. And so it's interesting here that Abner would show up with 12 men from the tribe of Benjamin. In other words, he went and got his special forces. He went and got his whoever. He went and got his Marines. He went down there and showed up with some of his best from the tribe of Benjamin. Don't you think Joab recognized that? Of course he did. But now watch what happens. Verse 15, and there arose and went over by number 12 of Benjamin, which pertained to Ishbathus, the son of Saul, and 12 of the servants of David. Now, when it comes to the people of David, it just says the servants of David. But Ishbashus, no, no, it tells you who. he had, it tells you who his 12 were. Why? Because he had hand-picked those men. Abner showed up with the idea that he was going to kill whoever Joab showed up with and kill Joab too. He had a plan, but God had a plan. That's why you have Benjamin stuck in there. Well, now, let's look at verse 16. And they caught every one of his fellow by the head, and thrust his sword in his fellow's side, so they fell down together." Well, isn't that something? So they went out there, and the men of Benjamin grabbed David's servants by the head, and David's servants grabbed them by the head, And they took the sword and killed each other, shoved it in their sides. So all 24 of them died. The 12 from Benjamin, the 12 of David's servants, they died. So they fell down together. In other words, they went out there and killed one another at the same time. I don't think Abner was planning on that. It's always been an amazing thing to me that why would the people of Benjamin be so blind not to see what was going on, as well as the men of David, but that's in God's hands. But you see what we're looking at here now, is the beginning of something. All right? We're going to find that out in just a second. The rest of verse 16 says, "...wherefore that place was called..." Somebody pronounce that for me. All right. Ha-ha-ha-ha. Helcathazurim. All right? That's as close as I'm going to get to that. That means a field of flint. Now, remember something. Back in these days, flint was used as a very sharp instrument. You could take flint and get it really, really, really sharp. That's what the Jewish priest used on the eighth day to circumcise the males. was flint, that's what Moses used, because they could get it sharp, super sharp. And so a field of flint, then as you look at it, which is in Gibeon, sharp things, pointed things, cutting things. And so they named this field because these guys had killed one another at the same time, A field of flints, a field of sharpness. And it's interesting when you study how flint was used, flint rock was used. The Israelites would take pieces of flint, big pieces and sharpen it and use it as real sharp knives at times if they wanted to kill. The only problem with flint is that it's brittle, real brittle. but they could sharpen flint, razor sharp. And so a lot of times it could be used for some things, but a lot of times it could only be used once. And so we find then, they call this the field of flint. Now look at what this started, verse 17. Let's take some time here. And there was a very sore battle that day, and Abner was beaten and the men of Israel before the servants of David. Now I'm gonna stop there tonight, but I've got somewhat to say about it. The reason is because we're gonna start, we'll take next week, we'll look at the details of this. We'll see what happened. We'll see the outcome of it. We'll see a lot of things. But I want you to see this. The first part of verse 17 says, and there was a very sore battle that day. Now I want you to mark these few words, a very sore battle. All right, a very sore battle. Now, what you're going to find then is this. Abner's people, Abner lost a lot of folks. David lost a few. But the battle, You see what Abner's idea was, was this. We'll sit down here and we'll kill Joab's few men and Joab. And if we can do that, then David's army will have no captain over the host of his army. And then we'll go to battle. You see, ambition has a boldness about it. The problem with ambition is because ambition so often assumes so much that is wrong. They assume ability, they assume power, they assume so much that's wrong. And guess what? It always blows up in their face. We're gonna learn that about Abner. I want you to know something. Ambition right up front, It might be hidden behind the curtain of loyalty to others, but you'll soon find out that ambition is only loyal to self. Abner-type ambition is just loyal to self. The second thing I want you to know about selfish ambition. Selfish ambition does one thing, and he does it good. Selfish ambition always uses other people. Selfish ambition, a person that has selfish ambitions is a people user. He will always, or she will always, or they will always just use others. And like him, you see, they don't care about right and wrong. They don't care about the heritage of the family. They don't care about nothing. He's going to find somebody that he can use. And therefore, he chooses Ish-basheth, and he makes him king. You see, Ish-basheth, he had the position, but he didn't have the power. You see that? That's exactly what Abner wanted. You see, Abner's ambition, he's loyal to his self. But he's hiding that in the cloak of, I'm being loyal to Saul's family. When in all reality, he's only being loyal to himself. That's why he wants Ish-bosheth to become king. That way he can continue to manipulate the entire situation. That's what you got to watch out for. All right? He's moving, doing everything in the background, isn't he? Not the king's not making the decisions, Abner is. Abner's keeping the war going. Abner's making all the decisions. You see, selfish ambition just uses others and cares nothing about the consequence of that use, of how it affects somebody else or not. The next thing I want you to see is that selfish ambition is constantly planning. Selfish ambition is never, never idle. Think about that now. If you're old enough, think about it. Selfish ambition is never idle. That person that has selfish ambitions is constantly thinking about how he can use the circumstance, the situation, and other people for them to get what they want. Always, constantly. Well, that's what you're gonna find here. You see, selfish ambition will plot and plan. That's why you find, verse 13, and Joab the son of Zeruiah and the servants of David went out and met together by the pool of Gibeon. I wonder, who called for that meeting? Who called for that meeting? Think Joab did? Think Joab said, hey, Abner, let's meet together. No, no. The reason you have the name Benjamin listed is to let you know that Abner had planned the meeting. Abner knew what he was doing. Abner had picked out his 12 Benjamite warriors, if you please. Abner, why does it say he had men from Benjamin? There was a reason for that. You see, ambition is constantly plotting and planning. Okay? Then we find There's a boldness in this selfish ambition. There's a boldness in it. That's why Abner, verse 14, and Abner said to Joab, you see, listen, what you've got here, ambitious people like this, Why is it that Abner's doing all this talking? It's because he's manipulating the situation. He's handling, he's controlling the circumstance, isn't he? Let's do this, let's do that. Come here and do this. I'm gonna make you king, come here. You see, the thing that you see here about Abner is, boy, in his selfish ambition, he's going to control the circumstances best he can. He's plotting and planning to do this. And listen, when people get around you and they try to hide their ambition, their selfish ambition, you'll find that, man, it's a pattern that they all follow. They try to use people, manipulate people. They're always trying to manipulate the situation and the circumstance, regardless of how they can do it. And you'll find that they use the circumstance. Well, are they really concerned about feeding the poor? No, they're more interested in stuffing their own pockets. They have ambitions. And one of the things, if you want to see that in somebody, just take a moment, look at them, and think, all right, now wait a minute. If this turns out like this, how's it gonna benefit him or her or them? If this turns out like that, how's it gonna work out for them? You see, learn to ask the right question. Because if you ask the right question, then you'll get a true picture of what's really going on. You see, like him, if we had said, now wait a minute, wait a minute. Abner, how is this gonna benefit you? Oh my goodness. The minute Abner's challenged, he goes ballistic. We'll learn about that. You see, I'm in the king's, anyway, you don't mess around with my dad's concubine. Abner blew a fuse and says, all right, I'm gonna take this whole thing and I'm gonna give it to David. I'm gonna give all of Israel to David. Boy, you talk about a guy that had some power. He just told the king that he installed what he was gonna do. You make me mad, buddy, I'll give this whole, you won't be king or nothing. I'll take this whole thing over there and give it to David. Wow. You see, when people are motivated by self-ambition, like Abner was, and Abner said to Joab, wow. In other words, listen folks, When somebody's trying to manipulate the situation, they're gonna try to do most of the talking. They're gonna try to speak up to keep things moving in their direction. Right? Well, Abner spoke up. And Abner said to Joab, let the young men now arise. And Joab said, Let them arise. For some reason, I get the idea that Joab just had, just had some confidence in his men. I mean, I can see Joab saying this thing, let them arise. Man, there's fixing to be some killing going on. You see, watch this now. And so, all these guys died. Remember something now. Does the selfish ambition of Abner care about what happened? No. Listen to this. Before I move on, Selfish ambition never concerns itself with the consequences that comes to other people. Know this, the person that has eat up with selfish ambition is never concerned about the consequence that happens to other people. Why? Because they are people users. Now watch this. As I draw this to a close tonight, we see that these 12 and 12, they all died. They killed one another. All right? But then in verse 17, there was a very sore battle that day. Well, who started that battle that day? Didn't it say Abner spoke up and said, hey, let the young men start out here. Well, once the killing started, everything exploded, didn't it? There was a sore battle that day. That means somebody, there was a lot of dying going on somewhere. A lot of fighting going on that day. Well, the Bible gives us the detail in the rest of this chapter, but I want you to know something. Did that stop Abner? No, no. Abner was beaten and the men of Israel before the service of David. I'm gonna close here, but I'm gonna close with this. Abner takes off. All right, man, he's getting away from them. There's some people chasing him, but that's all right, he's on his way down the road. But the thing that amazes me about people that eat up with selfish ambition, like Abner was, is this. Does that stop them? No, it don't. Man, they just back up, kick again. I mean, they just, they keep on trying to work the circumstance out. And so we'll find Abner going back to the king. He's doing some other things. You see, he's not going to stop. Remember this and remember it well in your own life. People with selfish ambitions will not stop. Man, they might get defeated on Tuesday, but they'll be back on Thursday. They might get caught on Wednesday, but they'll be back on Friday. Their plans might go up in smoke like Abner's, man, he had it all planned out. I got men of Benjamin here, buddy. I've got the best of the best on my side. So I tell you what, hey, Joe Abner, Why don't we let these guys come out here and do their thing? Do you know why Abner was so confident? Because he thought that those Benjamites was gonna kill those other guys. Instead of those other guys killing them too. Now listen to me, listen to me. Selfish, ambitious people like Abner They always, always have plan B. They do. Ladies and gentlemen, never forget this. He was confident that his men would kill those of Joab and so on. You see, ambition can be hidden behind not only the curtain of loyalty, but ambition can be hidden behind a curtain of kindness, a curtain of, well, listen, let me put you in power. Man, it can be hidden behind so many things. That's why you and I, as we journey through life, boy, we need to stop and ask this one question that's so revealing. How will this situation benefit them? And if you'll look at that, you'll be able to say, hmm, now I see where your ambition is. Selfish ambition has one thing, and that's this. The conclusion of this is going to benefit me. Right? I don't care who else gets in the way. I don't care who else dies. I don't care who else, whatever happens to others, doesn't bother me a lick. I just know one thing, one thing only, and that's this. When this is said and done, my ambitions will be satisfied. Boom, that's it. That's what Abner had in mind. But it didn't turn out quite like that. You see, ladies and gentlemen, as I close this lesson here tonight, I want you to know, chapter three, verse one, it said there was long war between the house of Saul and the house of David. All right? Long war. You know something? Abner did not care. You know that? He didn't care whatever happened to somebody else. He cared less about that. Know this. As you journey through life, know this and never forget it. People that have selfish ambitions, the only person they're concerned about is themselves. They can care less about what happens to you. All right? They've got this one ambition, and that's it. And it's a selfish ambition. Never, never, never forget it. I'll tell you one story, true story. When I was going through ranger school, we had limited food. And so we took our food and divided it up. And we had some Vietnamese that were going through ranger school with us. And we gave one of them this little bag of rice that was supposed to be for all of us, right? So we shared our stuff, you know, on this night and the other guy, another guy, another guy. We got down to this last bag of rice and we'd got some other stuff. And this one fellow I was with, he looked over at this Vietnamese fellow and he said, all right, where's the rice? You had the rice, cough up the rice. And I never will forget what he said. He looked at that guy and he said, me eat rice, me eat lice, me eat lice. He said, you eat, what do you mean you eat lice? He said, you can eat all the lice you want, you better come over to that rice. And he said, no, me eat lice, me eat lice. And anyway, The outcome of that wasn't too good. But the reality of it is this. That guy could have cared less about anybody else. He could have cared less. He had that rice and he was eating it. That's all there was to it. He was snitching that stuff. But when nobody was looking, he'd take him a little pinch of lice, you know. But at any rate, I've always, I'll never forget that because that was a prime example of somebody, everybody shared with him. But when it come down to him sharing with others, he'd already done the job. He wasn't willing to do that. And listen, you don't need people like that in your life. You got it? You don't need people like that in your life. Let's all stand, if you would, please, as we go to the Lord. Father, we thank you now for tonight. We thank you, Lord, for this lesson about loyalty and ambition. We thank you, dear Lord, that we can look at Abner and learn something. We thank you, Lord, that you teach us these great, great lessons from the word of God, Lord, that we can walk out of this place tonight having learned something from your word. And, Father, may we learn to ask the right question if we get to thinking and looking and seeing things. May we just ask the question, how's that gonna benefit him, them, her, whatever? So, Father, thank You so much for Your Word. Thank You for tonight. Bless these folks, dear Lord, that have made it here tonight, and bless those, dear Lord, that'll hear this. May it make a difference in their lives. We thank You now. We ask it in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. Join me.