Defeating the Deceptiveness of Pride and Passion by Devotion to Principle (Family Worship in 2Samuel 3:12–39)

How would the Lord bring David the kingdom? Pastor leads his family in today’s “Hopewell @Home” passage. In these twenty-eight verses, we see Abner’s pride in having positioned himself powerfully to consolidate the kingdom under David. The Lord does do it by using Abner—at his funeral? And we see Joab making show of concern about kingdom security, although the text makes clear that he is really being moved by fleshly revenge. Still, the Lord uses him—by humiliating him as the second-mourner-in-charge at the funeral of the man he murdered! Ultimately for David, the Lord used his commitment to do what is right before the eyes of the people to give him favor in the eyes of all the tribes through an action that ended up being exactly opposite what usually happens during regime-change.