I WILL DIE HERE

Benaiah went to the sacred tent of the LORD and said to Joab, "The king orders you to come out!" But Joab answered, "No, I will die here." So Benaiah returned to the king and told him what Joab had said. 

(1 Kings 2:30)

In 1 Kings chapter 2, we find the touching story of Joab, a faithful commander of David's army. Joab has clearly come to the end of his life's journey. Benaiah is ordered by king Solomon to kill Joab and Joab, utters these touching words as he holds on to the horns of the altar (v.28), "I will die here". Joab faithfully served David all his life and one would expect him to die in a better position than to be murdered at the instruction of Solomon, his master's successor. One would expect him by now to be eating with princes on the king's table.

There are a few lessons that we learn from Joab's story, let us look at five points:
1. He was so committed to the temple and understood the significance of the altar that even though an instruction is issued that he be murdered, he decides not to run away but rather to run to the temple and hold on to the horns of the altar and be killed there. He remains unshakeable until he is struck dead.
2. It was David in v.6, who when he realized he was about to leave the world of the leaving, ordered Solomon concerning Joab, to " not let him grow old and go to his grave in peace". This is despite the fact that Joab served David faithfully as the commander of his army
3. It is intriguing that Joab, who has been a commander of an army his whole life is now accused of shedding blood as a reason to have him never to enjoy peace, v.5. 
4. He is accused of shedding blood during time of peace, yet it is the same king David that taught Joab that it is okay to shed innocent blood. David made Joab make sure Uriah, a devout and committed soldier of Israel, die at war, because David wanted to cover his adultrous relationship with Bathsheba.
5. Joab was so committed to David, he would do anything and everything ordered by David without questioning it, as long as it was ordered by David and it would make David happy, but he never knew nor strengthened his relationship with the God of David. He never learnt to be a man after God's heart, as David did, all he did was to honour and please David. In this same chapter we learn that Joab got a worse sentence than Shimei who cursed David when he was hurting running away from his own son, all this despite Joab's unsurpassing commitment to David. Joab king David faithfully and never seemed to care about God despite him knowing the importance of the temple and significance of the altar. He decides to die in the altar, whose God he does not have a relationship with.

Unlike Joab, Nathan the prophet, had a close relationship with the God of David, that is why when David was no longer walking well with the Lord, God told him (Nathan) and he was able to wisely find a way to warn David about his relationship with Bathsheba.

It is important that everything we do that we have a clear relationship with our Heavenly Father that will guide every decision we take. Serving at the altar, does not make us anyway better. The same, unreservedly serving those who serve at the altar, is insignificant as long as we do not strengthen our relationship with the God of the altar. It is actually dangerous to serve those that serve at the altar more than God, as we see in the case of Joab, when they are no longer in right position with God, we are not able to assist them as Nathan the prophet did.