Thank you. The choices we make matter.

Some decisions obviously carry more weight than others.

Today on Truth for Life will learn how the decline of King David's integrity and his kingdom

can ultimately be traced

back to one particular decision.

Alistair Begg is wrapping up our study in Second Samuel by teaching from the closing verses

of Chapter 20.

Well, we ended this morning, those of us who were present, having considered the opposition

that came by way of this worthless man by the name of Sheba, and the intervention that came by way of an unnamed woman who exercised considerable influence in the

circumstances. And we left off, really, the concluding few verses, 23, 24, and 25. Perhaps I just

read those three verses. Now, Joab was in command of all the army of Israel,

and Beniah, the son of Jehoiada, was in command of the Cherathites and the Pelothites,

and Adoram was in charge of the forced labor, and Jehoshaphat, the son of Ahilud, was the recorder, and Shiva was secretary, and Zadok and Abiyah were priests,

and Ira the Jairite, was also David's priest.

Well, they seem almost anticlimactic, don't they? Or perhaps even so. What is this? It appears simply to be a list of the

members, if you like, of David's cabinet, the crucial people within the structure of government

as it was to proceed from there. And the way in which we need to think about

this is in relationship to the fact that this is the second occasion in Second Samuel when

such a list has been provided. On the previous occasion, it is to be found at the end of

Chapter 8. At the end of Chapter 8, if you turn there

in your Bible, you can see it. It is of a similar length. It is largely the same, but there

are significant differences. For example, we're told immediately in verse 23 here of Chapter 20

...