Sermon on 1 Chronicles 18–20: David's victories as a picture of Christ's kingdom
A sermon from Latimer Church on the four features of God's kingdom revealed through David's military victories in 1 Chronicles 18–20.
Summary
This is a sermon by James de Costobadie, Senior Pastor at Latimer Church, preached on Pentecost Sunday, working through 1 Chronicles 18–20. He argues that David's string of military victories in these chapters is not primarily a record of military history but a portrait of the kingdom that David's greatest descendant, Jesus Christ, would establish. De Costobadie identifies four features of this kingdom: a victorious king whose victories are attributed entirely to God, a vast scope encompassing all nations, an invaluable quality marked by justice and beauty, and the certain defeat of all who oppose the king. He closes by calling the congregation to join the battle on the king's side, fighting against sin and self through the power of the cross.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
The brokenness of the world and the question it raises
James de Costobadie: Ours is a beautiful world. It's an amazing world, and it is also a broken world. There is not one person in this world that doesn't feel that brokenness at times, and the cracks that run through this world do so at every level. You see them on the grand scale — between warring nations and rampant injustices which blight the lives of so many people — but you also see the cracks in the lives of every single individual: the scarring of broken relationships and the heaviness we carry in that, the evidences of our creeping mortality, the hard situations some of those whom we love carry every day of every week, and the lostness and loneliness that pervades this world.
And so many people, really, whether they're Christian believers or not, from time to time ask the question: will God do anything about this? Will he ever change it? That's what people want to know. Because we have a dream of a better world — a dream the Bible would say is actually a memory, for once upon a time this world was different to how it is now. It was a world that was in harmony — in harmony with God and in harmony with people.
The Bible tells the story of how a loving God made this world and made us to be in relationship with himself, in perfect relationship with each other; how we turned away from him and in so doing broke this world and broke ourselves at the same time; how those cracks then appeared. And the story of the Bible is the story of what God is doing, and has done, and will do to restore this world to how it was meant to be. One day he will recreate it, renew it into the glorious creation that he made it to be. And he will renew and remake his people — who he gathers from around the world — into the glorious creation we were made to be, designed to be.
And at the heart of this story is the person who would bring it about — the central character in the story, the one who would come to change it, the one who would come to redeem his people, rescue his people, and who would create and recreate the new creation, who one day would reign in glory to be worshipped and adored forever and ever in the new creation with his people all around him.
We saw last week that Yahweh, the God of Israel, promised King David — the second king of Israel — that one of his descendants would be that central character, would be that king who would remake this world, would be that king who would reign forever. And today we see in David, as we look at these words here, a model of what this great descendant would one day do. David the king of Israel, who one day would have a descendant, a son — David's greatest son — who would be the king not just of one nation but of this whole world and universe and everything that God has made.
This world will not just go on forever in its broken state. God has taken action to change it — action that one day every person will see when Jesus Christ returns to this world. And as we read chapters 18 to 20 of 1 Chronicles, our eyes are opened to a glorious vision of what this kingdom will be like. Make the most of it, because next week it all goes wrong as we go further into 1 Chronicles. But here is the vision laid out as to what God will do through his anointed kings.
Four features of the kingdom
There are four features to this kingdom which he is establishing.
First feature: A victorious king
First of all, there is a victorious king. Because how can you have a perfect kingdom without a victorious king to establish it and to reign over it?
Chapters 18 to 20 are three chapters when David, King David, gets on a roll and is an unstoppable juggernaut on the battlefield. He gets four victories straight off the bat, and they're massive ones. Have a look down at chapter 18. "In the course of time, David defeated the Philistines." You remember the Philistines? Here is the nemesis of Israel. You remember Samson — the incredible Hulk, completely out of control — even he couldn't really get on top of the Philistines. But here David does. He actually beats them twice, because he beats them in chapter 20 as well, because evil will always try to reassert itself. And so God's king defeats them in verse 1, subdued them, and he took Gath and its surrounding villages from the control of the Philistines.
Second victory, verse 2: David defeated the Moabites. Third victory, verse 3: David fights Hadadezer, king of Zobah, as far as Hamath, going to establish his control along the Euphrates River. One, two, three — bang, bang, bang. Here is the victorious king of God. For you cannot defeat the one whom God has put in charge. It is the victory of God's king.
And when you see what causes the victories, the chronicler makes it so obvious for us. He doesn't attribute it to military might — it's not that David has got the biggest army and the most modern weaponry and that sort of thing. He doesn't attribute it to military brilliance, as if David were the best tactician and strategist. Rather, the chronicler tells us in verse 6 — have a look down at the end of verse 6 — "the Lord gave David victory everywhere he went." And if you look at verse 13, exactly the same words: "the Lord gave David victory wherever he went." Here is God establishing his kingdom through the anointed king he has chosen. You cannot thwart the purposes of God. When God decides that his king will be victorious, he will be victorious, and God will ensure it is so.
And when you trace the line down and you see David's greatest son, Jesus, walk on this earth — is that not what you see? Jesus's enemies, that is the enemies of Satan, never stand a chance against him. And wherever Jesus walks, as he walks around first-century Palestine, he is able to roll back the forces of evil. They just melt away in front of him. Every time he comes across someone who is possessed by an evil spirit, Jesus is able to release the person and free them. The broken pieces of this world, Jesus is able to put back together. He doesn't have to think twice. He doesn't have to summon every ounce of energy. It's just what he can do. He's able to heal the lame, he's able to give sight to the blind, he's able to give hearing to the deaf, he's able to give speech to the mute. He's able to put back the broken pieces of this world together. Jesus, the victorious king.
But finally, showing his greatest victory — not in his life but in his death — as he raises his arms on the cross, not to fight with weapons of physical might, but to take down Satan at the cross. Because through his victory he robs Satan of the one thing he has against us, which is our sin.
I'll read some verses from Colossians chapter 2 to speak about what Jesus did at the cross: "He forgave all of our sins, having cancelled the written code with its regulations that was against us and stood opposed to us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross, and having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross."
It's language that speaks of the greatest victory. Paul speaks there of the written code that was against us — he's speaking of the law of God. The law of God is God's standards, God's rules. And the question is: how do we measure up against it?
When a person looks at the Ten Commandments — recently, as one of my own children did in Sunday school — you might think that you've kept them. I said to my son, "How do you think you're doing against those ten?" He said, "I think I'm doing very well." I said, "I'm very encouraged by that. Should we have a closer look?" So we began to go through them, and once you go through them you see that actually we haven't kept any of them. He said, "But surely I haven't murdered anyone." I said, "Well, maybe not, but you know how Jesus says that when you hate someone in your heart, when you're frustrated with someone to the point that you wish they weren't there on the road in front of you — that means you've murdered them. That's how Jesus sees it. It's an issue of the heart, not just of the gun." And so we find we haven't kept all of them.
Now the problem with that is the charge sheet — that is the charge sheet for when we meet God on the last day. That will be the indictment that stands against us. And we read in Colossians that Jesus nailed it to the cross — nailed it, that is, destroyed it, took away that sheet, or we might say ripped it up or threw it in the incinerator — because our sins are gone, gone, gone, gone, taken away from us forever.
It is the victory of Jesus over the devil, for the devil is left to fight against us with no weapon left in his hands. The only weapon he had was your sin, and once that is taken away from him, he's left fighting with a stick of celery. He doesn't have anything left to fight against us. Jesus has defeated him.
Our only hope, and our sure and certain hope, therefore, is the cross of Christ. "There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Or that line from Charles Wesley's famous hymn: "Bold I approach the eternal throne" — why? Because our sins are gone. And that's why we should confess them always, but not wallow in them. We shouldn't overthink them, and we should think more about the victory of Christ than we do about our own faults and failings.
You are declared righteous in Christ if your faith is in him. Released from the power of Satan and brought into the kingdom of the Son God loves. You are now ruled by a new ruler, ruled by a new king — which we'll come on to in a second — which means we no longer have to sin anymore. We're free not to sin. Because his is the victory over sin, death, hell, and Satan.
Second feature: The vast scope of the kingdom
Secondly, notice the vast scope of the kingdom. Now there's something going on here — this is a little bit implicit — but there's something going on here with the geography. The Philistines were in the west of the country, over the border. David's territory was landlocked; he needed some access to the sea as well. The Philistines were in the west. The Moabites, verse 2, were in the east. And Hadadezer, verse 3, is up in the north, where the Euphrates River is. In other words, David's going everywhere here. He's winning the whole territory. It is expanding battle after battle.
Some of the battles he doesn't even have to fight. If you have a look down at verse 9, at Tou, king of Hamath — have a look at that. He hears that David has defeated the entire army of Hadadezer, so he sends his son Hadoram to King David to greet him and congratulate him on his victory in the battle over Hadadezer, who had been at war with Tou. In other words, this king Tou had not been able to beat Hadadezer, and so when David does, Tou comes and says, "Thank you very much for defeating my enemy," and falls at his feet as well, and gives him articles of gold and silver and bronze. In other words, kingdoms are falling even without him having to fight.
It shows that the kingdom of Israel was a blessing to the neighbouring Gentiles, who recognised the strength of Yahweh. Israel's God had achieved for King Tou what he couldn't achieve for himself. In other words, this was to be a big kingdom, in line with the big plans of God, which themselves are in line with the big promises of God. You remember how God had said to Abraham that all nations will be blessed through you — in other words, through this one man Abraham, God would raise up one nation, Israel, in order to bring one king in the line of David, Jesus, so that in him and by faith in him, all the nations of the world could enjoy the blessings of God's favour.
As providence would have it, today in the calendar of the church is actually Pentecost Sunday. We remember that day when the Spirit of God was poured out, enabling people to speak in languages that were not their own, as a demonstration that the gospel would go to the ends of the earth. For what is Pentecost Sunday about? In Acts 2, it is actually about the risen, reigning Lord Jesus Christ, who calls people from around the world to believe in him and pours out his Spirit that they might be able to do so. And that's what you see — 3,000 on that very day coming to believe in Jesus. Traced through the book of Acts, God is adding to the number of those who are being saved. And ever since, over the last 2,000 years, from around this world, people have been hearing about Jesus and entering the kingdom.
The kingdom expands week on week, month on month, year on year. And the day that you put your faith in Jesus was the day that it expanded a little bit more as well. The kingdom is a vast kingdom. By the time you get to the end of the Bible and we get a vision of what the new creation will be like, there are more people there, we are told, than we can count. In other words, if we ever feel that we're on the back foot, or that Christians are a minority group — that sort of thing — don't think that's how it will necessarily end up. The numbers will be vast, from all over the world. God is calling people to faith in Christ from east and west and north and south.
For some people it comes because they were brought up with the Christian message, and they come because their parents taught them faithfully about Christ, or they heard about Christ through the youth group or some other way, and they come to put their faith in him. To them it may feel a bit unspectacular, but of course that never is the case. It's always spectacular when people hear about Jesus, however that happens, and put their faith in him. Praise God for those parents or youth group leaders who taught them about him.
But occasionally you come across someone, and maybe that's true for some here today, who became a Christian almost against their own expectations — like this fellow here up on the screen, who I met last week. My new friend called Tam. And Tam is a Celtic supporter — I could see from his shirt. And if you know anything about football in Scotland, in Glasgow you get Rangers, traditionally Protestant, and Celtic, traditionally Catholic. So I said to him, "Catholic background?" And he said, "Yep." I said, "How did you come to know Jesus?" He said, "Well, I wasn't really expecting to. But four years ago I was invited to a fancy dress evening and I didn't know what to go as, so I dressed up as a bishop." And so he goes to this pub, dressed as a bishop, has a number of drinks, and then I think a number more drinks, and stands up on a table and gets out a Bible that he's got, and begins to talk to the assembled throng. He opens the Bible and turns to a random verse, which happened to be in Leviticus 24, verse 14 — which is a verse that speaks of how the blasphemer shall be taken outside and stoned. He got down from the table, went to the bathroom, burst into tears, and felt convicted about the state of his life. The next day he rings a friend who he knew went to church, and asked whether he could go with him, and there and then becomes a Christian.
Now you see, God is working all over the world to bring people — often against their own expectations. I mean, imagine being converted by the sermon that you preached on an evening in the pub. But that's what God is doing all over the world, bringing people to faith in Christ against their own expectations. And the point is, there will be all types of people in his kingdom — all skin colours, languages, personality types. It is the vast scope of the kingdom.
It doesn't always look that way, and to the readers of Chronicles, who were at a time in Israel — late on, around 300 BC — when it looked like the time of small potatoes, it doesn't always look that way. But we need to be reminded, just as they were reminded, that his kingdom is vast.
And if you're here this morning, and maybe you think you were brought because someone brought you, or you wandered in — the reason you're here is because God wanted you to hear this, so that you might see that you could be a part of this kingdom.
We could add, although we don't have time to dwell on it much, that the land of the kingdom will also be vast. Just as here the land increases — remember how Jesus spoke of "in my Father's house are many rooms" — or to change the language, God will one day create a new heavens and a new earth. It'll need to be like that to contain all of the people he is saving. A vast scope of the kingdom.
Third feature: The invaluable quality of the kingdom
Then thirdly, the invaluable quality of the kingdom. It's not just vast in scope — there is a quality to what David is doing here that we should not miss.
When David does his conquering, it's made clear that his military victories are comprehensive. Verse 4: a thousand chariots and 7,000 charioteers and 20,000 foot soldiers captured. It really is a walkover, and he captures a lot of land with it. That's the vast scope of the kingdom. But there's something else alongside it, which is the spoils that he gets because of the victories — the booty, the victory spoils. So verse 7, he takes the gold shields. Verse 8, large quantities of bronze, which we're told Solomon would later use in the temple he would build. Then there's this fellow Hadoram, who gets sent by his dad King Tou, and he brings, we're told, all kinds of articles of gold and silver and bronze.
And then in a later war, chapter 20, verse 2 — just flip over if you can — we read that after another victory, David takes the crown from the head of the defeated king. This is very graphic — takes the crown off his head. And we're told its weight was found to be a talent of gold. You may have a footnote there that says a talent is 75 pounds, which in my money is about 30 kilos. What kind of crown is this? You've seen pictures of the crown jewels, but this is next level. With precious stones, we're told, and it gets placed on David's head. It's a transition moment. And we're told in the sentence after, he took a great quantity of plunder from the city.
In other words, he's not just a powerful king — he's going to reign with a certain beauty. That beauty is first of all a moral beauty. Chapter 18, verse 14: "David reigned over all Israel, doing what was just and right for all his people." Here is the king who reigns with righteousness and reigns with justice. Remember those verses we read at Christmas time: "The government shall be on his shoulders." He will govern this world perfectly. It's a reign where every person under his rule is properly cared for and none miss out. It's a reign where the little people are not ignored. It's a reign where the power is not corrupted by the one in charge, because he always uses it perfectly for the good of others.
Here is the one person — the only person you will ever know in life — who only ever and forever has your best interests at heart. No one else is quite able to say that, are they? It is the righteous, just, and perfect rule of the Lord Jesus Christ, where every person under him is safe and properly looked after by him.
In this world, that doesn't happen. Even within the church we try hard — we try hard not to show favouritism, we try hard to look after one another — but here of course we fall down as well, because we're not a perfect people either. But in his kingdom, in the final kingdom, in the next world, in the life of the new creation, it will only be perfection. And in that kingdom you will not be disappointed to live under the rule of this king. It'll be better than we ever thought.
And in a beautiful place — all of this silver and this gold and these precious stones — it really transports us forward in the Bible to the final picture of the final kingdom in the book of Revelation. We're told that yes, this world will be beautiful, because it'll be like the best of the world out here. It won't be of a completely different order to earth as we know it at the moment — it'll be like the earth renewed and enhanced. But the reason there are so many precious stones — when you read in Revelation it's just one set of stones after another, and streets paved with gold and all of that — not because we feel we have to walk on gold, but it's a picture of how precious it will be. We're told that even the one on the throne in heaven is like jasper and carnelian. In other words, it's a beautiful place to be.
I get that a bit when I say that — I'm from New Zealand, and people say, "Wow, amazing country," and of course they're not wrong. But this will be next level again.
So not just vast in scope, but invaluable quality. To live under the reign of Jesus is to say goodbye to the hurts and disappointments of life in this world. That's why there'll be no more tears in the next world. And that's why Christians hold on to this with eager expectation. We are looking forward to our eternal holiday, our rest in the harmonious, stunningly beautiful, breathtakingly magnificent place where Jesus is the victorious king on the throne, and where he is the most beautiful thing in that whole kingdom. "I want heaven in order to have Christ," said Samuel Rutherford, "not Christ in order to have heaven." He who is waiting for us is the most beautiful part of that kingdom, seen by the way he laid down his life for us.
Fourth feature: The vanquished enemies of the kingdom
And then fourthly, the vanquished enemies of the kingdom. Right from chapter 18 it's made clear that those who stand against the king God has chosen don't stand a chance. You see it in chapter 18, but you also see it in chapter 19 and chapter 20.
Chapter 19 is this rather strange incident — a diplomatic misunderstanding of catastrophic proportions. There's this king Nahash, who is the king of the Ammonites. He dies, and David sends some messengers to offer respectful condolences. But the son of the dead king misinterprets this, thinking, "Ah, I see what's happening here" — he thinks it's a classic case of espionage. And so he grabs hold of the messengers that David sent and shaves off half of their beard. The beard is the sign of manhood, as those of you who have beards will agree, and in the ancient world. So shaved off half of that — utter humiliation — made worse by the fact that they also then cut the seat off the trousers of them to expose their buttocks. Now how they thought David was going to take this lying down, I'm not sure. But anyway, he doesn't. He gets up and he beats two armies at once when they try and turn tail and run. Because you can't take on the king that God has appointed and expect to win.
When you get into chapter 20, there are three incidents when it's a one-on-one, and of course God's people win each time. Verse 4: Sibbecai kills Sippai, and again you see there he's defeating the Philistines. Then the second battle, verse 5, in another battle with the Philistines: Elhanan son of Jair — this is chapter 20, verse 5 — killed Lahmi, the brother of Goliath the Gittite. Now you remember Goliath. Did you know that Goliath had a brother? We're not told how big he was, but I imagine he wasn't tiny. And we are told what his weaponry was like, because we're told that he had a spear with a shaft like a weaver's rod. I have no idea what that really means, but it sounds like it's big, or maybe it's long — maybe this is like the boxer with the three-metre reach, that type of thing. And there he is, and he falls over. He gets killed.
Which leads to the third battle, taking place at Gath. Now this fellow, we are told, was huge, with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot — the 24-digit man, fighting like RoboCop or something in the battle. And again, he's defeated. He's killed. In fact, we see that Jonathan, David's brother, killed him. They all fall down, verse 8, at the hands of David and his men. Because you cannot win against the king that God has installed. Not even if you fiercely oppose him with a massive spear. Not even if you have 24 digits.
And the thing about that is that people who want to take on God, people who forever resist Jesus, people who forever have their reasons not to come to God, always think that they will be the exception. "Oh no, it'll be all right. I'll be able to get in at the end of the day. I think I'm good enough. I think I can do it my way." Who do we think we are? You cannot be part of the kingdom which God is establishing without acknowledging the king who rules over that kingdom. And it doesn't matter if you've got 24 digits. It doesn't matter if you've got massive arguments to deploy against God. We cannot win against the king that God has appointed.
You cannot get into heaven without submitting to Jesus, without falling down before him completely. He is the Lord of all. And so either he will be the Lord of all over us, or he's not Lord at all. And to those who do submit, they will be on the winning side. But to those who don't, they will be defeated and vanquished.
The call to fight alongside the king
The last thing to say is that, in thinking about this kingdom and the victorious king and about being part of his kingdom and how to avoid being a vanquished enemy, we need to remember that there is a place for us to fight as well.
The king wins the battle, and yet there's still a battle to be fought. Finish with this: chapter 19, verse 13. Joab, on King David's side, says to the people: "Be strong and let us fight bravely for our people." Now that's what Jesus did for us. There was no one braver than he. He fought for you like no one else will fight for you. And now in his army, we show we're in his army by joining the fight.
With the victory of the cross behind us, with the Lord of the battle above us, with the Spirit of God inside us, with eternity ahead of us — we are to fight against God's enemies, meaning sin and Satan. We're to fight our selfishness, we're to fight our self-protectiveness, we're to fight against our desperate pride, raging lusts, self-protective laziness, and we're to put the king's priorities before our own.
Remember how in the New Testament we're described as being in a spiritual battle — or these words here from Ephesians chapter 6: "Put on the full armour of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armour of God so that when the day of evil comes you may be able to stand your ground, and after you've done everything, to stand."
That's how you show you're on the king's side — by joining him in the battle. It means putting to death our own interests. It means developing a love for his family, his precious family of brothers and sisters. It means seeking first his kingdom rather than trying to extend our own kingdoms. It means living for a future country, believing it's better than the one we currently live in. And we're to do it as those who rejoice that Christ himself is our conquering king, who has already defeated Satan at the cross.
Closing prayer
Let's pray that God would help us to appreciate what he has done for us and then give us strength to stand firm in that battle.
Our Heavenly Father, we praise you this morning for your king, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we praise you for that victory that he has won on the cross. Lord, help us to remember how great the victory. We pray, Lord, for any person here discouraged by their own sin, discouraged by the lack of progress in our Christian lives — so up the field, half-baked, and not really going anywhere. Do pray, Lord, that you'd help us to remember what you have done for us, and then, energised by the Spirit of Jesus, we pray that you would help us to join him in the battle, to fight with the gospel, Lord, in our hearts. We pray that you would help us to take our stand against the devil's schemes. Please help us to commit ourselves to living for Christ and not ourselves. In Jesus' name, amen.