Deception Detected

As we conclude this week’s very solemn, yet most thankful time, let us earnestly ask God to save us from the sin of presumption. Let us ask Him, in everything, whether big or small, high-profile or low-profile, to grant us His thoughts and His ways. These are ways and thinking, which are not of our carnal calibre of understanding.

Mind-Halt: For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.

When we return to our text and listen carefully, we note some interesting, but scary facts. Here is the head of Ish-Bosheth son of Saul, your enemy who tried to kill you. This day the LORD has avenged my lord the king against Saul and his offspring. 2 Samuel 4: 8b. Remember, we are not being side-tracked by the fact that a murder was committed. Indeed not! We are staying rigidly and persistently on track; the fact that even when we know the will and desire of God we are not to take it upon ourselves to help or do anything about it unless we are:-

Asked by God to do or speak it.

Authorized by God to do or speak it.

Appointed by God to do or speak it.

What interesting, yet scary facts are we to behold from the text?  We are offered three.

The first is found in these words. Here is the head of Ish-Bosheth. The learning is that once you take down the head, or remove the head, the body dies. These men did not have to bring the entire body of Ish-Bosheth to David, to prove all they were saying. Proof of his head in their hands, was sufficient and compellingly complete evidence.

When we take God’s word and ways and remove Him the Head, then the ‘body’, all that we do and say is dead. If I do as God says, according to my understanding and my thoughts, then I kill the word for me and others. God cannot and will not ever confirm in me what He has not asked of me.

The second is found in these words. Son of Saul, your enemy who tried to kill you. The learning is that a person’s enemy does not have to be his or her entire family. In other words, because Saul was David’s fierce enemy, did not mean that Saul’s son, Jonathan was David’s enemy too. To presume such a thing is folly.

When we take on God’s role as judge, according to our beliefs and feelings, then the lives of innocent ones will be snuffed out. If I know that a leader in God’s Body, the Church family or Church meeting, is not living according to God, I am grossly wrong to judge all members as not living unto God. God will not stand with me, for He cannot confirm in me what He has not authorized me to think or to speak. 

The third is found in these words. This day the LORD has avenged my lord the king against Saul and his offspring. The learning is that to speak for God, or on His behalf, according to what we have done, is utter, downright blasphemy, nothing but pure lies. True, the path has been cleared for David to sit on the throne and reign as king, but the pathway through which this has come about, is not of God.  What a travesty!

When the good we think we are doing, is not of God, how do we expect it to turn out right for us? When I know that God wishes you to have a house or a car, or a seat on His Church committee and I use my skill and resourcefulness to bring it about, is that not evil? How can my ways, be pleasing to God or those of God? God will never confirm the works of my hands, when He has not appointed me to do such as I have done, as good as it may seem.  

David, who demonstrates the very heart of God, hears and sees what these two men have done and he is totally disgusted. The fact that he has no more barriers, potential or otherwise, to him sitting on the throne and reigning as Israel’s king, does not in any way bring pleasure to him. Listen to David’s voice, as he responds to these bearers and bringers of good news. As surely as the LORD lives, who has delivered me out of every trouble, when someone told me, Saul is dead, and thought he was bringing good news, I seized him and put him to death in Ziklag. That was the reward I gave him for his news! How much more – when wicked men have killed an innocent man in his own house and on his own bed – should I not now demand his blood from your hand and rid the earth of you! 2 Samuel 4: 9b – 11.

Mind-Halt: For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.

May our Lord continue to impress upon our minds, that even though we may know His mind on a certain matter, we are not to do a thing, unless He asks us, authorizes us and appoints us to do so.