2 Samuel 2:8-17

Fanatical patriotism.

The facts are:

1 . By degrees, and with the aid of Abner, those parts of the country not subject to David, and which, during the decay of Saul's power, had come under the control of the Philistines, now became consolidated under the rule of Ishbosheth.

2 . The jealousy between Israel and Judah, owing mostly to the hostility of Ishbosheth's adherents to David, assumes threatening form, and the leaders on each side, attended by a small army, come together face to face, probably to consider the points in dispute.

3 . The political questions not being solved by discussion, Abner proposes ( 2 Samuel 2:13 , 2 Samuel 2:14 ; cf. 2 Samuel 2:27 ) as alternative a settlement by a combat of twelve select men from each side.

4 . The combat issuing in mutual destruction, the main forces come into conflict, and Abner suffers defeat. The men who entered into the strife here recorded doubtless prided themselves on the zeal they felt for their country, and were ready to justify in words the deeds of the sword. It is customary to credit people with patriotism, and to that extent condone their savage passions. But too often the plea of patriotism is only a cover for a lack of reason and a domination of inferior impulses.

I. ATTACHMENT TO KING AND COUNTRY IS SUBORDINATE TO A HIGHER LAW . Considered in the abstract, such attachment is worthy only of admiration, and it forms an element in a people's well being. But human feelings, with their corresponding acts, are parts of a great complex whole and their worth in any particular concrete instance depends on antecedent and concomitant facts. There is a gradation of obligations, and virtues in name cease to be virtues in reality when they appear in isolation, or consequent on a disregard of a higher law. The men of Israel were bound to love their country, and to show love to it by asserting the rights of their ruler. But at the same time they were bound to follow the guidance of God; to submit to his supreme will; and, making this the standard of feeling and action, to modify the form of expressing love to country and ruler accordingly. Now, the men of Israel, especially the leaders, ought to have known, from the events and words of Samuel's life, and, indeed, from the manifest interposition in favour of David and against Saul, that it was the Divine will that they should not oppose David; that, in fact, love of country was to show itself in accepting whom God had chosen. Any personal interest, therefore, which they may have felt in a son of Saul, and any regard top what they deemed the good of their native land, should have shaped its form of expression in harmony with their primary and higher obligation. The principle is of wide range. Any passion for our country and sovereign must be exercised within the limits of a higher love. If so-called patriotism involves hatred of men as men, or injustice to them, or national selfishness, then it is a violation of the second great commandment. If upholding a ruler and seeking to subdue a neighbouring ruler involves a contravention of God's will, revealed in the order of manifest Providence or Scripture, then it is a spurious patriotism. Human feelings are not the tests of truth.

II. BLENDED IGNORANCE AND PASSION ENTAIL SUFFERING AND SLOW PROGRESS IN NATIONAL LIFE . Had Israel been alive to the lessons which God was teaching them all through the life of Saul, by means of Samuel and David and Jonathan, they would never have allowed the sentiment of interest in a monarch's son to have developed into a strong aversion to David and a passionate effort to expel him from Judah. Considering all the facts of the case, there is no valid excuse for their ignorance, and, therefore, none for their feelings, even though patriotism be pleaded. Thus we see how neglect to gather up and use the lessons of Providence, slight an evil as it may seem to be at the time, really is the seed sowing of the innumerable miseries of a civil war. If, during those painful years of contention, the energies of men are diverted from industrial channels into the wasting channels of war, and if, consequently, national progress is retarded, the cause is to be found in the domination of ignorance and passion. So has it been again and again. That vox populi has always been vox Dei is little less than blasphemy. Generations looking back on their ancestors see how wars and strifes took their rise in stupidity; and yet, too often, there is an unwillingness to pause lest the same evil be repeated. The woes that have come upon nations in consequence of war are a dark foil, setting forth in wondrous light the wisdom and sweet reasonableness of the gospel of Christ. If peoples would find the clue to progressive national development, let them accept and put into practice the sober, generous precepts and principles of the New Testament. This harmony of Christ's religion with economic law is no feeble strand in the evidence of its Divine origin.

III. THE GREAT ERROR OF LEADERS TOO OFTEN LIES IN THEIR INDISPOSITION TO TRACE OUT THE LEADINGS OF THE HIGHER LAW . Abner's suggestion that the dispute should be settled by combat of twelve on each side was an appearance of humanity and sobriety as compared with the indiscriminate use of force. But in the light of reason it is absurd; for right cannot be constituted by chance superiority of might. The complication in which he found himself was simply the result of previous indisposition to find out the Divine meaning of Samuel's dealings with Saul and of Jonathan's compact with David ( 1 Samuel 13:11-16 ; 1 Samuel 15:24-31 ; 1 Samuel 16:6-13 ; 1 Samuel 20:12-17 ; cf. 16:57; 1 Samuel 26:3-16 ). It had been easier to follow the family feeling and official impulse ( 1 Samuel 14:50 ; 2 Samuel 2:8 , 2 Samuel 2:9 ) than to look at private and public interests in the light of such revelations of God's will as were then available. It is a good maxim in moral questions that first promptings are best. The voice of conscience is quick to speak, even though in low tone, Most probably Abner recognized that voice telling of God's will in David. But where there is an unwillingness, because of personal or other interests, to give heed to that voice, it soon becomes easier to follow the lower impulses; and when once on the slippery incline of lower impulse, every movement adds to the momentum downwards. Herein lies the danger of our public men. They especially need the "light of the Lord." Expediency and wrong principles gain on them unconsciously in so far as they lose the primary sensitiveness of conscience. The contagion of their spirit and conduct affects the lower orders. They will have no difficulty in finding men willing, under the cover of patriotic sentiment, to enter the "field of sharp edges," and kill and be killed. Hence, it behoves preachers and all good men to bring the light of the higher law of life to bear with all its clearness and directness on the minds of those in authority.