SPEAKER_00 0:00

So we're in 2 Samuel chapter 16. And in 2 Samuel chapter 16, we see that King David is on the run. He is on the run because one of his sons, by the name of Absalom, has now hatched a plan that he has been building for some time. What Absalom has done is he has slowly but surely been winning over the hearts of a lot of people in Israel, and among them people that are in positions of influence and positions of power. When we look at some of the sons of King David's family, David has 19 sons in Scripture that are named. And then we are also told that he had other sons from concubines and such. And so what we see is that David has a huge family. Now, the ones that we're going to be focusing on today are the sons of a woman by the name of Makah. Now, Makah was a princess of the Gesherite people. And if you go back, since we're doing chronological Bible, let me tell you who the Gesherite people were. They left those people there and found a way to coexist with them, if you will. Well, when David was on the run from Saul, all those generations later, he would, among the people that he would attack as being enemies of Israel were the Gesherites. But apparently at some point, the Gesherites and David formed some sort of an agreement, and in order to seal that agreement, that one of their princesses by the name of Makah became one of David's wives. And so from that union, there are three children that we are aware of. The first is Absalom. The second is Absalom's sister Tamar, and there's a whole story about Absalom and Tamar and Amnon that you've already gone through. And another son by the name of Adonijah, who will become a problem for Solomon later in the history. Today, though, we're talking about Absalom. And apparently Absalom was, to use a term that gets thrown a lot around by our president, Absalom looked like he came from central casting. Absalom was a fine-looking man. He was tall, he had luxurious hair, he had all of these things going for him. David, on the other hand, is now an older man. David is an older king. And so what Absalom does is Absalom begins a campaign to have the people think of him as being the heir apparent to the throne. Absalom is a man of action. We read that earlier as well. Absalom, in fact, not only takes revenge for his sister, but puts to death the man who violated his sister. And you can read about that earlier in Scripture. But now we have a time when Absalom has finally hatched his plan and he has recruited some very influential people, and he is staging a coup d'etat against his father David. And we get the impression that Absalom, although it's not clearly stated, we get the impression that if Absalom finds David, he's going to have David put to death so that he can become king. And so, you know, to say that the dysfunctional family is present now, that seems like too mild of a thing to say. Because we have one son coming to commit homicide, possibly, against his father. And earlier in Absalom's life, he had been banished for a while. And where did Absalom go when he was banished? Well, he went to his mother's people, the Gesherites, and hung out with them for a while. We get the impression that Absalom is in some ways thinking that he's the daughter of a king, King David. He's the son, excuse me, the son of a king, King David, he's also the son of a princess, Makah. And so in Absalom's mind, he is by all rights supposed to be the next king. And so this takes us to 2 Samuel chapter 16, and we'll begin reading in verse 5. David is on the run, and in verse 5, when King David came to Baharim, there was a man from the family of the house of Saul, whose name was Shemei the son of Gerah, coming from there. He came out cursing continuously as he came. Now, when we see this, we see that David is already on the run from his son. We can only begin to imagine the terror that must be going through his mind, the sadness that must be going through his mind, the confusion that must be going through his mind. David has, he's surrounded by some loyal followers, he's surrounded by some mighty men, he is leaving to go to this place, and out comes this man from the family of the house of Saul, named Shemai the son of Gerah. And he's coming out and he is cursing continuously as he comes. Verse 6 tells us he threw stones at David and at all the servants of King David. And all the people and all the mighty men were on his right hand and on his left. Okay. How many of us think that that's a good idea? You know, you're coming out, and it's bad enough that you're yelling curses at the king. As a matter of fact, in the book of Exodus, uh, I wrote down the reference here. Yeah, Exodus 22 and verse 28, the Bible says, Don't revile God or curse a ruler of your people. And when you read that verse, you realize that the author's intent was that to revile God and to curse a ruler of your people fall in the same category of trouble with God. And so here's this man. Now some of us are right now are probably going, ooh, I've said bad things about the president in the past. Oh, don't look at me like you haven't, all right? Maybe not this president, but you've in the past you've had bad things to say about a president. Well, there's a difference between having criticism and cursing. Cursing is the idea that you are asking God to strike them down because of some evil that you think they have done. This man is cursing David. He's throwing stones and rocks. How did they put people to death in Old Testament times when they had violated the law and deserved the death penalty? They would take stones and rocks. In many ways, what Shemaai is doing by picking up stones and rocks is he's basically wanting to execute his own death penalty against King David. Now David is surrounded by his closest advisors, as well as what the Bible says, the mighty men. If you've been doing the chronological Bible study and you read about the mighty men, these guys were not to be messed with. These were men who were very, very skilled in combat. These were men who defeated giants, who defeated bears, who defeated lions. These were some pretty strong guys. But out comes this man, Shemai the son of Gerar of the house of Saul, all by himself, doesn't have anybody with him, and he's throwing stones and cursing the king. I can't help but think that the closest thing we have, perhaps, to compare the mindset of Shemaii the son of Gerar, is perhaps what they call the road rage. You know? It's when a person loses all sense as to what's going on around them, and all they have on their mind is to do violence to somebody, to somehow pay that person back for some perceived slight or wrong. Have you ever seen someone so mad that they have just lost all track of where they are and what the situation is around them? This is what is happening with Shemai, the son of Gerar, throwing stones and cursing the king. Let's move on to verse 7. Shemai said thus as he cursed, Come out, come out, you bloodthirsty man, you rogue. The Lord has brought upon you all the blood of the house of Saul, in whose place you've reigned. The Lord's delivered the kingdom into the hand of Absalom your son. So now you are caught in your own evil because you are a bloodthirsty man. Well, when we see this, first off, uh in verse 7, if you've got your Bible, depending upon which translation you have, which version you have, uh, the New King James Version is actually a little polite here because the New King James Version says, Come out, come out, you bloodthirsty man, you rogue. Some of the other versions say, you scoundrel, you worthless fellow, and one version even says, you servant of Belial. The idea is that you're, David, not only are you a troublemaker, but you're actually a servant of the forces of darkness. And what is he blaming David for? Well, we see that he says in verse 8, the Lord's brought upon you all of the blood of the house of Saul. Now, you're doing the chronological Bible study. Did David have opportunities to kill Saul in the previous chapters? Not just once, multiple times. David had the opportunity to put an end to Saul. He even had the opportunity to use the spear that Saul had thrown at him. He could have taken that spear and ended Saul while Saul was asleep. As a matter of fact, David had people around him telling him to do that very thing. But did David do that? No. David said, I, heaven forbid, I will not harm the Lord's anointed. But this man is accusing David of bloodshed in the house of Saul. He also says, The Lord's delivered the kingdom into the hand of Absalom your son. Now, this is where things get really interesting. Because in verse 8, Shemaai begins by saying, The Lord has brought this upon you, and then he continues to say, The Lord is giving the kingdom over to your son. This man is proclaiming that he knows the will of God about a particular situation. And he is speaking for God, saying that he has the right to speak for God in what is happening here. Well, let's keep reading. Verse 9. Abishai, the son of Zariah, said to the king, Why should this dead dog curse my Lord the king? Please let me go over and take off his head. That's a nice, calm answer, isn't it? Abishai the son of Zariah, there's another son of Zariah that we read about a lot in David's story, and that is the commander Joab. Abishai is the brother of Joab. If you've done your reading about Joab, you know that Joab is both a brave and devious man and violent man. And we shouldn't be so surprised, perhaps the apple has not fallen too far from the tree in terms of Joab and Zariah, both from the Joab and Abishai, rather, both being the sons of Zariah, both of them are men of action, both of them are men of violence, both of them are men that have no hesitation about killing someone. Abishai says, please, it's nice that he says, please, please let me go over and take off his head. But notice how David responds in verse 10. Verse 10, the king said, What have I to do with you, you sons of Zariah? So let him curse. Because the Lord has said to him, Curse David, who then shall say, Why have you done so? Verse 11. David said to Abishai and all his servants, See how my son, who came from my own body, seeks my life. How much more now may this Benjamite let him alone, let him curse, for the Lord has ordered him. It may be that the Lord will look on my affliction, and that the Lord will repay me with good for Shemai's cursing this day. And as David and his men went along the road, Shemai went along the hillside opposite him, and cursed him as he went, and threw stones at him, and kicked up dust. The Bible has an interesting way of talking about this. So as David and his men are going along the road, Shemai is up on a hill, and he's kicking down dust, and he's continuing to throw rocks and stones and debris. And all the way along this journey, David and his men are listening to this man, as all of his shouting. They got dust flying in their eyes, probably in their mouths. It's no surprise that verse 14 says, Now the king and all who were with him became weary. So they refreshed themselves there. That's the end of what we'll be looking at in terms of the verses. When we see this, we see David is at a low point in his kingdom, in his reign. He's on the run from his son. And just when you think that things couldn't get any worse, along comes this guy, Shemaai. And you know when you go through trouble in life, when you go through times of stress, when you go through times that perhaps you don't deserve to go through, there may be people who just make things worse. Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about. I can see it in your eyes. You're going through a bad time. What you need is support, what you need is love, what you need is care, what you need is encouragement, and instead the people that God puts around you are just making things worse. That's where King David is in this story. Now, King David, very simply, all he had to do was say the word okay. And there was a man standing by ready to go and take care of that problem for him. All right. And it would have been so easy. So David didn't have to do anything on his own. He could just simply say to that uh to Azariah, when Azariah says, please, please, your highness, can I go and take care of that for you? All he had to do was even, didn't even say a word. All he had to do was go like this. That would have been it. That would have been it. Shemei, the son of Gerar, would have been a headless memory from that point on. But instead, David does this amazing thing. And what we see is that David decides, no, the Lord may have told this man to do this right now. So instead of taking any action, what we're going to do is we're just going to endure this. And here are some of the takeaways I want you to have today on this lesson. First, David patiently endured the trouble. David decided, yes, it's troublesome. Yes, it's irritating. Can you imagine after you've been walking in all that way? David's an older man at this point. No telling how far of a journey that was. I imagine that by the time he arrived there, his feet were done for the day. His legs were probably done for the day. Maybe his back was done for the day. But he's also got all of that going on. But he decides to patiently endure the trouble. David doesn't respond to the trouble with anger. He has people around him that are responding with anger. He has people around him that are very, very upset about the situation. But David decides that he himself, he's not going to get angry. He is going to be calm. David's reputation is being slandered by this man. This man is saying, you're a bloodthirsty man, you're a scoundrel, you're a rogue, you killed the household of Saul. David knows enough to know that in some ways he has been a bloodthirsty man. He did, after all, order the death of Uriah the Hittite by having him move to the front line in a few chapters previous to this. David has throughout his life been a man of military action and a man of war. He's killed many Philistines through the years. So he can't completely say that the idea of him being a man of blood is false. Even though what Shemaai is saying is that he destroyed the household of Saul. David didn't even say to anyone, go up there and tell that man the truth about how I could have killed Saul on numerous occasions and I spared his life. David didn't send a man up there to say, set that man straight as to what's really going on here. David didn't demand for his reputation to be protected. Instead, he simply endured what was going on. Why did he endure? Why didn't he do something? Well, it's mainly because through all of this trouble, David is trusting God. He's trusting God. David knows enough to know that God is bigger than the circumstance that he finds himself in. David knows enough to know that God, that what God thinks is more important than what man thinks. And so David is willing to endure the slander. He's willing to endure all of the trouble. He's willing to endure the pebbles and the rocks and the dust and the shouting and all of this. He's willing to endure having his people around him, his loyal people around him, wonder well, if David's not attacking that man, maybe what that man is saying is true. David's willing to endure all of that because he's trusting God. Not only is he trusting God, we see at the end that he endures because he says, perhaps the Lord will see me suffering and will count it as good. David understands that God can work the trouble that he's going through ultimately for good. And this is an amazing thing. This is not a man who was defenseless. This is a man who was a king. This was a man, as I've said, all he had to do was nod his head, and all of this would have been over in an instant. How does this remind us of Jesus? Well, when we get to the Gospels and we think about the suffering of Jesus, immediately the most gracious suffering of Jesus is the crucifixion. And we remember that Jesus patiently endured all of his suffering before and during his. Crucifixion. Could Jesus have stopped everything that was happening by nodding his head? Of course he could. Son of God. At any moment he could have thought the thought, and a legion of angels would have stopped everything that was happening to him as he went through his suffering. Did Jesus respond with anger when he was going through his suffering? Not only did Jesus endure physical suffering, but like David, Jesus' name was slandered in those false trials that led up to the point where the crowd called for his crucifixion. We're told that as Jesus went through those false trials and people were slandering his reputation, that he stayed silent and did not say a word. When we think of Jesus' suffering, we see that Jesus did not demand respect for his reputation. Instead, he allowed the false witnesses to come forward and say things that Jesus had said this, Jesus had said that. He didn't defend himself, and the Bible tells us that the false witnesses, their stories often contradicted each other and they came to nothing. Finally, did Jesus trust the Father through the entire ordeal? Yes, he did. Yes, he did. And finally, did God work the suffering of Jesus for good? Yes, he did. Because all of us in this room that have salvation in Jesus Christ only have that because he was willing to die on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins. And so what we see in the example of David, and more importantly, what we see in the example of Jesus is that as we are going through trials and troubles, and as we're going through times where people are saying things and doing things, and even as people are attacking us, what we see is that through it all, we need to remember that God is in control. We need to remember that no matter how bad it gets, that God can and often does work it for our good. Now, am I encouraging you all to just let people attack you and do nothing about it? Well, no, that's not what I'm saying here. That's not what I'm saying here. You have a right to defend yourself if somebody's deciding to do something to you. But what I'm encouraging you to do is that even in those times, don't lose sight of the fact that God is in control. Don't lose sight of the fact that God sees what is happening and that he can use it for your good. And ultimately, don't lose sight of the fact that since God is in control and sense he can work it out for your own good, to think that it's all on you to set the situation right. We serve a mighty God, a wonderful God, a caring God, a loving God, a God who suffers for us. And we should remember that in light of serving Him, putting up with the troubles of this world is something that we can do and we should be able to do. And we, if we can, we should do it following the example here. We should put up with the troubles of the world in a calm way because we know God's got this. Amen. Let's close in prayer. Heavenly Father, we love you. We thank you for your word. Thank you for the example of your servant David. And ultimately, Lord, we thank you so much for the salvation that we have in your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ the Lord. May we be people who have a slow fuse when confronted with opposition and trouble. May we be people who, in the midst of attack, in the midst of lies and slander being issued about us, may we be people who are calm because we know that you are true and that you see what is happening. Like David, may we pray that whatever is happening to us will be used for our good and ultimately even for the good of those who attack us, that they may come to know you and trust you and be saved. Lord Jesus, we love you. We thank you for this time that you've given us together. Protect each person who's in this room and their families during our four week break. May we come together again in late June, praising you for all the good that you have done. It's in the name of Jesus that we pray, and God's people said, Amen. We are dismissed.