Theological Commentary: Click Here
Discipleship Focus: Approval
- Approval: We all need to feel as though we are accepted. When we seek the approval of God, our Up is in the right place. But when we seek the approval of other people besides God, we open the door to pursuing false gods and risk putting someone or something other than God in our Up position.
I seem to be talking an awful lot about the three areas of
sinfulness as we have dove into 1 & 2 Samuel. Those areas are Approval, Appetite, and
Ambition. But I think this makes sense,
truthfully. As we look into the Hebrew
history from 1 Samuel to 2 Kings we are going to get a grand sense of human
government sliding into sinful patterns, which leads to the human populace
sliding into sinful patterns. We should
talk often about Ambition, Appetite, and Approval because that is what the
majority of the Hebrew history during the time of the kings is all about!
So as we look at approval, we hear in 2 Samuel 4 that Ishbosheth
is murdered by the sons of Rimmon. They
think that such an act will bring them approval from David. They think that such an act will grant them
favor in the court of the king. They
think that they can advance their own social status through such means. But they are wrong.
See, David has his own struggles with sin. But approval is not one of them. David does not struggle with getting his
approval from God. David does not have
any difficulty being a king who from a political frame of reference is
godly. David has no need to seek the
death of his public enemies; he has the full belief that God will establish him
as king on God’s own timing.
So when these sons of Rimmon come to David they are surprised to
find that David is angry that his rival has been killed. I love this about David. David doesn’t give his approval to an ungodly
act, even if he does benefit from it.
For David, the only things that we should approve are the things that
are ordained of God. What a great lesson
to learn today.
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