Tag Archives: excuses

Sermons and Preaching

Motives and murder

Read 2 Samuel 3: 17-31 to start

This evening we’re going to be looking at an Old Testament character with a dark history. I could spend the entire time reading verses where he is mentioned and where his actions are described, both positive and seriously negative, but for the sake of time I’ll try to only read short sections as applicable.

The person I would like to look at is Joab. An Israelite general, specifically the commander of David’s army, and a competent, brave, and successful leader, we see Joab time and time again in the books of 1 Chronicles and 2 Samuel in particular. One of three sons of David’s sister Zeruiah, Joab was a valiant leader. He led the capture of Jerusalem from the Jebusites, and conducted a number of successful military campaigns against hostile foreign neighbours. He also provided good advice to David on a number of occasions, such as in dealing with Absalom, and in the census of the people in 2 Samuel chapter 24. But as we saw a moment ago, Joab was also a murderer, and it is that aspect of the man that I would like to consider this evening. There are four specific accounts of murders that Joab committed, with four different motives, and we are going to look at each of those this evening.

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Sermons and Preaching

Here and Now

Read Romans 13:11-14 to start.

11 And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. 12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. 13 Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. 14 But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.  

One of my favourite movies growing up was the 1960 Disney adaption of the Swiss Family Robinson. If you aren’t familiar with it, it is a rollicking adventure story of a family who is shipwrecked on an unoccupied island and who has to survive and indeed make a new life for themselves. This Disney adaptation features action, excitement, humour, and pirates. I call it an adaptation, because the movie is wildly different from the book. The aforementioned pirates, for example, who are a major plot point in the movie, are not even present in the book. In the movie, however, it was the pirates who drove the ship the family had been sailing on into the storm where they were shipwrecked. It was the pirates that the two older brothers encountered on the far side of the island, and from whom they rescued a prisoner. And it was in anticipation of those same pirates coming to retrieve the prisoner that provokes the family to prepare elaborate defenses.

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