Ep 646 – 2 Samuel 8:1-14

What good is it to be king if you allow your nation to live in fear and subjection to the enemies who surround it? As the king of Israel, David knew that he had a God-given responsibility to defeat the enemies of Israel. And as he looked back on Israel's less-than-stellar track record, he knew that they had failed to obey God's command and cleanse the land of promise of all the pagan nations that occupied it. So, one of the first things David did was to lead his armies against the Philistines and other nations who remained in the land and posed a threat to Israel's physical and spiritual safety. In 2 Samuel 8:1-14, we see David doing what Joshua and the people of God should have done generations earlier. He performed a kind of radical surgery, cutting away the cancer of sin that had spread throughout the land. He was out to restore the spiritual integrity of the nation of Israel by removing the dangerous and deadly influences of wickedness that surrounded it.