SPEAKER_00: So we study through books of the Bible here at the village chapel.
SPEAKER_00: We have extra copies if you didn't bring one and you'd like one to follow along.
SPEAKER_00: Would you raise your hand up just real high and uh we'll get somebody to come through and uh make sure you get a copy to there's one over here and uh one over that way.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00: Uh glorious day outside, good to be together and uh good to good to worship the Lord, be reminded of his faithfulness and steadfast love for us.
SPEAKER_00: Uh up on the screen you'll see if you prefer the uh uh digital Bibles or online Bibles rather, uh feel free to use that uh uh code there, and you can go online to the network uh TBC guest.
SPEAKER_00: We'll be in 2 Samuel chapter 14.
SPEAKER_00: We're reaching back 3,000 years in history, and uh we're we're back to the time.
SPEAKER_00: The fellow that uh uh inspired the last song that we wrote, uh Psalm 23, David King David himself, the uh psalmist, uh the songwriter of Israel, uh gives us uh, I believe uh 75 or so of the 150 psalms in the in the Psalter, the hymn book of the Bible are attributed to David.
SPEAKER_00: So uh he's he's uh certainly the songwriter, the ancient songwriter of Israel, one of the primary ones, and gives us those kinds of words that uh that express our longings and our our uh trust in God and our hope in God.
SPEAKER_00: His own life has been the subject of uh much of 2 Samuel.
SPEAKER_00: Um he has been uh shown to be uh a man after God's own heart, yes, but also a man who's quite fragile and uh uh uh faulty and frail in many ways.
SPEAKER_00: His spiritual life undulates, much like mine does, much like yours does, uh, if you can look back over it.
SPEAKER_00: And his uh uh so what we're getting to see in all of its honesty and reality is uh is a man that really needs the redeeming power and redeeming love of God in his life.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, that gives me great hope myself.
SPEAKER_00: I hope I hope it will for you as well, even as we study some of these chapters that, uh, like in the previous couple weeks have been pretty dark and uh even grisly to some extent.
SPEAKER_00: But uh this chapter, not quite uh quite like that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh however, I would point out, like in as we've seen in the previous couple chapters, where God is either not mentioned at all or only mentioned a little bit, and I sort of uh speculate that because of the fact that God is left out of those chapters, one might expect those kinds of events to take place.
SPEAKER_00: When we cut ourselves loose from God, um we leave ourselves vulnerable to a host of all kinds of mischief and things that might uh uh go afoul and go wrong for us.
SPEAKER_00: So we're in chapter 14, if you want to turn there.
SPEAKER_00: It's the continuing story of a fractured family.
SPEAKER_00: Um uh we uh all have seen that at this point in time David has approximately uh eight wives.
SPEAKER_00: We're not sure how many children that he has.
SPEAKER_00: Um we also have seen that he has taken one of those wives away from another man, had that man also murdered uh in the or arranged for that murder of Uriah.
SPEAKER_00: And um so he's a man, David is a man who has done great things that were uh amazing and wonderful, but also some pretty uh horrible things along the way.
SPEAKER_00: And uh we're seeing God work in his life.
SPEAKER_00: We're we're watching how all of that happens.
SPEAKER_00: And uh we we now come to a chapter where um the uh son of David, uh Amnon, the firstborn son of David, uh had previously taken uh uh one of David's daughters.
SPEAKER_00: Her name was Tamar, and he he literally uh raped her, and then her full brother Absalom has come back now and uh after a couple of years murdered Amnon and then fled to the other side of the Jordan River to uh Geshur, and that is where his grandfather lives, and he's holed up there, Absalom is.
SPEAKER_00: And now we pick up the storyline where it's been a it's been a while, it's been these three years, and Joab, who is David's nephew, so I'm connecting all these dots, everybody's related, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's almost like this amazing story.
SPEAKER_00: You just see everybody's a nephew or a cousin or whatever they are.
SPEAKER_00: And uh Joab uh in verse 1 of chapter 14, Joab the son of Zeruah, uh Zeruiah rather, perceived that the king's heart was inclined toward Absalom.
SPEAKER_00: Some of your translations may uh have a different word than inclined, and indeed there's a bit of um uh debate about whether or not this means his heart was inclined toward Absalom in that he was uh longing for him, pining for him, hoping that he would come home, or that his heart was inclined toward Absalom and he was still very angry with him.
SPEAKER_00: Uh it could actually go either way, but I think as we see the chapter unfold, um uh maybe you can sort of make your own uh judgment on that.
SPEAKER_00: Joab sent to Tokoah, and this is a town uh ten miles to the south and west of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: It's the town where a couple hundred years later the prophet Amos will come from.
SPEAKER_00: And uh Joab, who is David's nephew and also the commander of the armies of Israel, Joab sends to Tokoah and brought a wise woman from there, and he said to her, Please pretend to be a mourner, or someone in grieving, uh over and put on mourning garments now, and do not anoint yourself with oil, but like a woman who has been mourning for the dead many days, go to the king and speak to him in this manner.
SPEAKER_00: And Joab put the words in her mouth.
SPEAKER_00: So he's literally hiring this person to come on and to do this thing, to go before the king, likely choosing from Tokoa, ten miles southwest of Jerusalem, because likely David won't know who she is.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, won't have seen her, won't have, you know, and Joab, so he pulls it, he puts the words in her mouth.
SPEAKER_00: And when the woman of Tokoa spoke to the king, she fell on her face to the ground and prostrated herself and said, Help, O king.
SPEAKER_00: Some of your translations might say, Save me, O king.
SPEAKER_00: And uh now she is going to spell out in uh sort of a parable, but it's fictitious because Joab's the one that wrote it for her.
SPEAKER_00: She's playing the part of an actor, an actress, if you will, uh, before the king.
SPEAKER_00: And she cries out for his help.
SPEAKER_00: He, by the way, he happens to have a rescuer's, a first responder's heart.
SPEAKER_00: He's that kind of a guy.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he this is the kind of thing that Joab probably knew David would be sympathetic to this woman because she would be crying out, save me, help me.
SPEAKER_00: And David's proven himself to be that kind of guy that runs to the rescue all the time, and and uh wonderful and uh trait and a wonderful character trait.
SPEAKER_00: And yes, uh we in our own day and time have so much respect for first responders, those who run to the rescue.
SPEAKER_00: Um and so the king said to her, What is your trouble?
SPEAKER_00: She answered and said, Truly I am a widow, for my husband is dead.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Joab told her to say.
SPEAKER_00: Pretend you're in mourning.
SPEAKER_00: And your maidservant had two sons, but the two of them struggled together in the field, and there was no one to separate them.
SPEAKER_00: So one struck the other and killed him.
SPEAKER_00: So the two boys were out in the field.
SPEAKER_00: They got into a fight.
SPEAKER_00: Something rose up and caused them to fight, and one of them killed the other one.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, the whole family is risen against your maidservant, and they say, Hand over the one who struck his brother, that we may put him to death for the life of his brother whom he killed, and destroy the heir also.
SPEAKER_00: Thus they will extinguish my coal which is left, in other words, my future, my ability to sustain myself.
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's just sort of a metaphor for that, my last child, if you will, so as to leave my husband neither name nor remnant on the face of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Then the king said to the woman, Go to your house, I will give orders concerning you.
SPEAKER_00: Here he's sort of playing the role of the rescuer and and and the king and the judge who's gonna sort of take action on her behalf.
SPEAKER_00: The woman of Tokoa said to the king, Oh, my lord, the king, um, the iniquity is on me in my father's house, but the king and his throne are guilt less.
SPEAKER_00: So the king said, Whoever speaks to you, bring him to me, and he will not touch you anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Then she said, Please let the king remember the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_00: So she's bringing the Lord into it.
SPEAKER_00: And as I've said in the previous chapters, God not mentioned at all in one of the chapters, marginalized in the other.
SPEAKER_00: This is this is God being sort of utility God, used in a sense, and and and and marginalized a little bit, not right in the very center of David's heart or mind at the time, but here she comes along and she's saying that I'd like to bring God in before this and have you promise to do all of this.
SPEAKER_00: So please let the king remember the Lord your God, so that the avenger of blood may not continue to destroy, lest they destroy my son.
SPEAKER_00: He said, as the Lord lives, so she gets him on that page with God being included, not one hair of your son shall fall to the ground.
SPEAKER_00: Then the woman said, Please let your maidservant speak a word to my Lord the King.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, could I say one more thing?
SPEAKER_00: One more thing.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Speak.
SPEAKER_00: Now she's gonna speak to him eight times.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna answer her seven times.
SPEAKER_00: And you gotta remember, I mean, I I don't know if you've watched any of those TV shows about the royals and all that sort of thing, but you're you're you're not supposed to speak to the queen until she speaks to you first.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, the monarchs are to be greatly respected and revered, and you're in the presence of the king here, woman from Tokoa, as wise as you are and as needy as you may be, but you need to wait until it's time to speak, wait till he speaks to you.
SPEAKER_00: And so uh he said, speak the woman said, Why then have you planned such a thing against the people of God?
SPEAKER_00: For in speaking this word the king is as one who is guilty, in that the king does not bring back his banished one.
SPEAKER_00: Oh boy, oh boy, I sat up straight when I read that.
SPEAKER_00: That's like that's impertinence before the monarch.
SPEAKER_00: That's like saying when Nathan spoke to David and said, You are the man.
SPEAKER_00: And is David, I mean, I sat up straight and I went, what is he gonna do?
SPEAKER_00: Is he gonna literally have her killed right now for saying that?
SPEAKER_00: For even bringing that up, that kind of thing up?
SPEAKER_00: And this is the one thing that I think we do learn about David over time, is that even though he is a man with some clay feet, even though he falls often, um, he learns often too.
SPEAKER_00: He's eager to repent, unlike his predecessor, King Saul.
SPEAKER_00: Uh David, yeah, he's a sinner, but David's quick to repent when this is pointed out to him.
SPEAKER_00: And he is he has a teachable spirit, teachable heart, and I think that's all good.
SPEAKER_00: And so she brings this up and says, You haven't brought back your banished one.
SPEAKER_00: And verse 14 is is fascinating.
SPEAKER_00: It's a little glimpse of the gospel foreshadowed.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we shall surely die, and others all of us die, and are like water spilled on the ground which cannot be gathered up again.
SPEAKER_00: All right, that's pretty true.
SPEAKER_00: A hundred out of a hundred of us, and if the Lord tarries and doesn't return before our earthly lives are over, one hundred out of one hundred of us are gonna go in the ground somehow.
SPEAKER_00: And uh you thought, well, it's so nice to be in church today.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but it's just true.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, there's a lot of us try to hide all that, and we buy all kinds of things to make us sort of push that back and stave it off and all that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_00: And we do do all kinds of things, but that's the that's the way of the the way the world goes, the way life is right now.
SPEAKER_00: And she goes on and says, Yeah, God does not take away life, but plans ways so that the banished one may not be cast out from him.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody say amen.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: He does do that.
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly she doesn't have everything right about God.
SPEAKER_00: But there is a way in which that does foreshadow this beautiful, glorious gospel of grace, where God Himself has made it possible for you, for me, banished by our sin, the kind of thing that separates us from God, if you will.
SPEAKER_00: And he's made a way for us to be brought back to him, to be reconciled to him, to be called home, if you will.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the reason I've come to speak this word to my lord the king is because the people have made me afraid.
SPEAKER_00: So your maidservant said, Let me now speak to the king.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps the king will perform the request of his maidservant, for the king will hear and deliver his maidservant from the hand of the man who would destroy both me and my son from the inheritance of God.
SPEAKER_00: Then your maidservant said, Please let the word of my lord the king be comforting.
SPEAKER_00: For as the angel of God, so is my lord the king to discern good and evil, and may the Lord your God be with you.
SPEAKER_00: She's talking more about God than he is.
SPEAKER_00: She's hoping as she communicates to him that he will remember the ways of God, and that he will uh in some way be merciful to her, gracious to her, and help her with this fictitious little story that she's brought up.
SPEAKER_00: And he's catching on now to the whole thing.
SPEAKER_00: And so as he says all of this, the king answered and said to the woman, please do not hide anything from me that I'm about to ask you.
SPEAKER_00: And the woman said, Well, let my lord the king please speak.
SPEAKER_00: And so you kind of, you know, this is such a reversal here.
SPEAKER_00: Like, who's asking permission now?
SPEAKER_00: And and who's saying, okay, go ahead?
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's just fascinating to me.
SPEAKER_00: So the king said, Is the hand of Joab with you in all of this?
SPEAKER_00: Has that ever happened to you?
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever seen the hand of someone else behind the story you're hearing?
SPEAKER_00: And come to the conclusion.
SPEAKER_00: Did grandma put you up to that?
SPEAKER_00: Did your father tell you?
SPEAKER_00: Did your mother do?
SPEAKER_00: Did your brother?
SPEAKER_00: You know, all of that.
SPEAKER_00: We see this is amazing.
SPEAKER_00: David's sort of, it's dawning on him.
SPEAKER_00: Joab's behind all this, right?
SPEAKER_00: The woman answered and said, As your soul lives, my lord the king, no one can turn to the right or to the left from anything that my Lord the King has spoken.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, you see it all.
SPEAKER_00: This is your kingdom, your your nobody can hide anything from you.
SPEAKER_00: Indeed, it was your servant Joab who commanded me, and it was he who put all these words in the mouth of your maidservant in order to change the appearance of things.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, to change the circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: Remember in verse 1, Joab said, Man, David, his heart is so inclined.
SPEAKER_00: And again, that could be he's he's just obsessed with him or he's he's missing him.
SPEAKER_00: And either way, Joab goes, we've got to change this somehow.
SPEAKER_00: The king needs to be in some way set free from what's whatever's got him in this grip like this.
SPEAKER_00: And so she says, she she fesses up and says, in order to change the appearance of things, your servant Joab has done this thing.
SPEAKER_00: But my Lord is wise, like the wisdom of the angel of God, and she's really good at this because she's continues to compliment him and to keep God in the mix, to know all that is in the earth.
SPEAKER_00: It says immediately, then the king said to Joab, and I don't know what's going on, I don't know what the room looks like, I don't know who's in the room.
SPEAKER_00: She may be there laying before the king uh as he sits on the throne, and the the court are all sitting there, Joab included, and he might be sitting right there.
SPEAKER_00: And as as David says, Is Joab behind you in all this?
SPEAKER_00: Joab might be getting a little uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: And then the woman from Taco goes, Yes, you and then Joab's probably thinking, I'm about to die.
SPEAKER_00: What's gonna happen?
SPEAKER_00: And again, it just shows the character of David.
SPEAKER_00: I f I uh the good side of his character, that he's actually still teachable and reachable in many ways.
SPEAKER_00: And Joab, the king says to Joab, Behold, now I will surely do this thing.
SPEAKER_00: Go therefore bring the young man Absalom.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_00: Joab fell on his face to the ground, prostrated himself, and blessed the king.
SPEAKER_00: Then Joab said, Today your servant knows that I have found favor in your sight.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, I'm aware of the fact that you could have killed me.
SPEAKER_00: Oh my Lord the king, in that the king has performed the request of his servant.
SPEAKER_00: So Joab arose and went to Geshur and brought Absalom to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: However, the king said, Let him turn to his own house.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, Absalom, there's a house for him, he can go there, and let him not see my face.
SPEAKER_00: So it's a qualified uh return, if you will.
SPEAKER_00: So Absalom turned to his own house and did not see the king's face.
SPEAKER_00: This is huge that the king would even allow Absalom to come back.
SPEAKER_00: It's actually huge that the king didn't send an army after uh Absalom to Geshur because he Absalom murdered Amnon, the firstborn, the heir to the throne.
SPEAKER_00: Absalom murdered him.
SPEAKER_00: Chileab, the secondborn, has not been heard of, and most most of the commentators think he's probably dead too.
SPEAKER_00: We're not sure, but he he's not, we never hear about him anymore.
SPEAKER_00: The next in line for the throne?
SPEAKER_00: Absalom.
SPEAKER_00: So one would be suspicious of the fact that Absalom is jealous for or interested in the throne, and one would be right in thinking that, as we will see in the coming chapters.
SPEAKER_00: Um but here instead he says, let him return to Jerusalem, and but to his own house, I don't want to see him.
SPEAKER_00: Now this is verses 25 to 27.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of a fascinating insert here.
SPEAKER_00: I uh you know, when you when you're reading this, you could you could jump right to verse 28.
SPEAKER_00: But 25 to 27 kind of gives us an it's like a little side road, if you will.
SPEAKER_00: It says, Now in all of Israel, no one was as handsome as Absalom.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: So highly praised, from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head, there was no defect in him.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's the guy that does all the, you know, all the TV commercials, gets the billboards, and all the, you know, he's he's just this, you know, stunning human being.
SPEAKER_00: And when he cut the hair of his head, and it was cut at the end of every year that he cut it, for it was heavy on him, so he cut it.
SPEAKER_00: He weighed the hair of his head at 200 shekels by the king's weight.
SPEAKER_00: Folks, that's almost five pounds of hair at the end of a year.
SPEAKER_00: And that he was even measuring and that anyone was keeping track of it at all, is just remarkable to me.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's just amazing.
SPEAKER_00: And to Absalom there were born three sons, one daughter whose name was, what is it?
SPEAKER_00: Tamar.
SPEAKER_00: So there's something about Absalom that I still admire, and that he so loved and respected his sister who was violated by their half-brother and raped, that he wanted to honor his sister by naming his daughter Tamar.
SPEAKER_00: I think that's a beautiful thing, perhaps for the elder Tamar.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps that was some way of being honored, and she was was respected by her full brother, Absalom.
SPEAKER_00: She was a beautiful woman, this daughter, a beautiful woman of uh in terms of appearance, just like her father, just like her aunt, a beautiful person.
SPEAKER_00: And then we go back to the rest of this text.
SPEAKER_00: Absalom lived two full years in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: So remember, a lot of time passes here.
SPEAKER_00: It's been about seven years since Tamar was raped.
SPEAKER_00: It's been then um two years before Absalom kills Amnon, and then three years Absalom lives in Geshur, and now he's brought back here, and he lives in Jerusalem for two years, and did not see the king's face.
SPEAKER_00: Time moves quite slowly when you're actually living it.
SPEAKER_00: It moves pretty fast when we're just reading it, you know, from 60,000-foot view 3,000 years later.
SPEAKER_00: Absalom sent for Joab to send him to the king.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, he knows he can get to Joab because Joab's the one that arranged for his return to Jerusalem, right?
SPEAKER_00: He sent for Joab to send him to the king, but he would not come to him.
SPEAKER_00: Joab wouldn't come.
SPEAKER_00: So he sent again and a second time, but he would not come.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, he said to his servants, see, Joab's field is next to mine.
SPEAKER_00: He has barley there.
SPEAKER_00: Go and set it on fire.
SPEAKER_00: So Absalom's servants set the field on fire.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, if I try to get to the king indirectly, it doesn't seem to work.
SPEAKER_00: I don't seem to be able to get Joab's attention.
SPEAKER_00: Let me dial him up direct.
SPEAKER_00: And when you're Joab and you look in the distance and you see your field on fire, all of a sudden you have to respond.
SPEAKER_00: You go, What in the world is that all about?
SPEAKER_00: You know, why did he do that?
SPEAKER_00: Joab arose, came to Absalom in the house.
SPEAKER_00: Why have you your servants set my field on fire?
SPEAKER_00: 32.
SPEAKER_00: Absalom answered Joab, Behold, I sent for you, saying, Come here that I may send you to the king to say, Why have I come from Gesher?
SPEAKER_00: It would be better for me to still be there.
SPEAKER_00: Now therefore, let me see the king's face.
SPEAKER_00: And if, this is interesting, this tells us a lot about Absalom, if there is iniquity in me, let him put me to death.
SPEAKER_00: So Joab came to the king and told him, and now what's David's response going to be?
SPEAKER_00: It's been two years.
SPEAKER_00: He called for Absalom.
SPEAKER_00: Thus he came to the king and prostrated himself on his face to the ground before the king, as he should have.
SPEAKER_00: And the king kissed Absalom.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, I know that that sounds uh uh intimate and and uh like it's a restoration in some way or or endorsement in some way, but it may have been merely formal.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to understand that.
SPEAKER_00: We we're again we're looking back 3,000 years.
SPEAKER_00: We got a lot of culture to jump, we got a lot of time to jump to figure out some of these things and understand exactly what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: And while we don't fully understand verse 1 and what did it mean that David's heart was inclined toward Absalom, I would also say we can't say with certainty what the kiss meant.
SPEAKER_00: Was it merely uh I'm gonna allow, I'm gonna allow you into the palace once in a while, or was it this, you know, was it this full-on restoration?
SPEAKER_00: I don't think so, and I'll I'll I'll try to make that argument as we go along.
SPEAKER_00: But um, as we often do, we'll take a look at the primary characters in the text and see what we can learn.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll just make a few points if you don't want, if you don't mind.
SPEAKER_00: David, as I see him uh throughout these last couple chapters, he's a staled leader and a frustrated father.
SPEAKER_00: Uh you may be in the room and be one of those as well.
SPEAKER_00: There's there's There are a lot of those.
SPEAKER_00: And that's because we got people, and that's all we got to work with is people.
SPEAKER_00: I've often wanted to be a pastor of a church of dogs.
SPEAKER_00: I kind of know what dogs are going to do.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I can get them to actually obey and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_00: Not always, but sometimes, you know.
SPEAKER_00: But here he is, and he's a stalled leader and a frustrated father.
SPEAKER_00: The reason he's stalled, of course, is because he's lost some, what he thinks is his moral authority, and that's probably true.
SPEAKER_00: He hasn't lost his moral responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: I'd like to point out there's a difference.
SPEAKER_00: Moral responsibility is what we all have from God.
SPEAKER_00: No matter how well we've performed ourselves or not, we still have a responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: So when I get up to do Bible studies, I don't teach, I don't, I don't teach the Bible because I've got it worked out in my life perfectly.
SPEAKER_00: If that were, if I had to wait until I had this all worked out perfectly in my life, I'm going to go get another job.
SPEAKER_00: Because I got nothing to do.
SPEAKER_00: But we're all before the Lord responsible to respond to him and responsible for the things that he's entrusted to us.
SPEAKER_00: And here is David, a stalled leader and a frustrated father.
SPEAKER_00: Some of that is because his own sins are so similar to those of his sons that he probably has it in his head.
SPEAKER_00: They simply learned that from me.
SPEAKER_00: When Amnon objectified Tamar and took what wasn't his, all he was doing was exactly what I did, David's thinking, with Bathsheba.
SPEAKER_00: When Absalom killed Amnon, all he was doing was exactly what I did with Uriah.
SPEAKER_00: People can be objectified, people can be obstructions, and we can remove them.
SPEAKER_00: And so he may have become pusillanimous, that is, lacking in courage, lacking in any kind of moral authority to be able to be a father to his kids, but he still has a responsibility to do that, whether he's failed himself or not.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's a stalled leader, I would say, and a frustrated father here.
SPEAKER_00: But I want to also remind you that all along he's still writing psalms.
SPEAKER_00: All along he's still a songwriter.
SPEAKER_00: And though his life looks like this in terms of his spiritual life and his faithfulness to his family and his faithfulness to God, just like mine does, just like yours does, God continues to use him, continues to speak through him, continues to do things that are redemptive in his life.
SPEAKER_00: So we get Psalm 3, as Absalom begins to chase David and wants to kill him and take the throne.
SPEAKER_00: We get Psalm 41, we get Psalm 62 and 63, all during those very difficult and dark times in David's life.
SPEAKER_00: Joab is a clever, constructive manipulator in this storyline, and that's I'm not saying that's horribly wrong.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, none of us like to be manipulated, do we?
SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean, uh it's it's it's one of those, when you when you find out somebody's patronizing you or manipulating you or trying to get you to do something, and here's Joab arranging for this woman from Tokoa.
SPEAKER_00: She's a good actress, and and he's got this script, and he wants her to go and perform this uh parable, if you will, before him.
SPEAKER_00: Kind of mimicking what Nathan did when the Lord sent Nathan to David, and Nathan uh brought up the story about the two people that one had a single sheep, the other guy was a rich guy, had lots of sheep, and the rich guy takes the the poor guy's sheep and and and kills it, you know.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's Joab, who I think is very clever here and very constructive uh as a manipulator.
SPEAKER_00: Absalom is an unrepentant and recalcitrant prodigal.
SPEAKER_00: That is, I think he's obstinate.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I think he's I think he's I think he's probably already had designs toward the throne in his own heart and mind, as even as he's in Geshur.
SPEAKER_00: That's my I'm just speculating, but it seems that way.
SPEAKER_00: When you watch the results of all of this, could that have been changed if when he arrives in Jerusalem, David didn't say, You stay in your own house, I don't want to see your face.
SPEAKER_00: If David had been more open to him and said, Hey, come on to the palace, let's talk this out, let's figure this out, let's find a way for justice and mercy to cooperate and go hand in hand.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: I I know we we don't really know if that could have worked or not.
SPEAKER_00: We haven't got uh any way of knowing that.
SPEAKER_00: But that big if, if I'm guilty of anything on Absalom's part, is a sign, at least.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't think he's done anything wrong in murdering his own brother.
SPEAKER_00: Taken woman, sympathetic.
SPEAKER_00: Um, she comes, she takes the job.
SPEAKER_00: Now, she may indeed have been a struggling actor.
SPEAKER_00: I think aren't all actors struggling.
SPEAKER_00: Is Chip here?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if anybody's here that does acting.
SPEAKER_00: Seems like all actors are struggling.
SPEAKER_00: I laugh at the commercial all the time, that Liberty Boocebo.
SPEAKER_00: You know, that that uh whoever the guy is that does, I'm a struggling actor, and I don't need and he's trying to do the thing and he stumbles all over it.
SPEAKER_00: Finally, they voice over it, and his lips are not going at the same time as whatever's being said.
SPEAKER_00: And uh here's this common woman.
SPEAKER_00: She's sympathetic, uh, she's adroit, she she's she's she's good at and clever at what she does.
SPEAKER_00: Uh she's effective and uh gets up to a certain point until it and gets almost all the way to the end before David finally dawns on him and he realizes Joab must be behind.
SPEAKER_00: She knows far too much of the details of what's going on between me and Absalom.
SPEAKER_00: Uh somebody else must have put her up to this whole thing.
SPEAKER_00: So those are our characters.
SPEAKER_00: What do we learn here?
SPEAKER_00: At the least, I think we learn that there are times we all experience a clash of responsibilities.
SPEAKER_00: The wisdom of God's word can help us prioritize and navigate the collisions and the confusion.
SPEAKER_00: Was David supposed to think like a king and execute justice on his son, Absalom?
SPEAKER_00: Was he supposed to send the posse and go get him?
SPEAKER_00: Or was he supposed to think more like a father and find some way to bring his son home and restore him and forgive him?
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, there's in his position, there's so many things that could happen if he moved in either direction.
SPEAKER_00: If he didn't bring about justice, there are those that would look at him and think him weak and think they could get away with the same kinds of things.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps some of his other children might do that same thing.
SPEAKER_00: He seems to, as I said, been frustrated as a father, installed as a leader.
SPEAKER_00: Was it possible possible to preserve justice and at the same time pardon Absalom?
SPEAKER_00: David had other children, like I said, and would this incite them?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: But I know that the God of the Bible finds ways.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why we turn, we keep going back to the scriptures for the wisdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: Because wisdom is much more than knowledge, it's much more than data storage capacity, it's even more than expertise.
SPEAKER_00: We've got enough experts in the world.
SPEAKER_00: We need more wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: Wisdom is the employment of all of those aforementioned things, knowledge, data, expertise, all that stuff.
SPEAKER_00: It's the ability to do that for the most beautiful, highest good that we might be in pursuit of.
SPEAKER_00: See?
SPEAKER_00: And that's why we want to return to the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it is God's word that we that's where we will find God's wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, in the book of Proverbs, David's son will write this very thing: that the fear of the Lord is the beginning, he'll say it's the beginning of knowledge, but he'll also say the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom itself.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where it begins.
SPEAKER_00: And so far, in the last couple chapters, God has been marginalized.
SPEAKER_00: His ways and his wisdom have been moved to the side.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody's just acting like they want to, or out of their own fear, or out of their own something that's seized them and something that's gripped them, some desire or affection that is that has taken them and has them in a vice grip.
SPEAKER_00: I love what Dale Ralph Davis says.
SPEAKER_00: The chapter should haunt the church, not to mention the individual, believing or unbelieving.
SPEAKER_00: It is possible to have all the signs of wisdom, plans, strategies, and accomplishments, and yet be utterly devoid of it.
SPEAKER_00: The ancient scriptures we call the Bible is the word of God, unique in its source, timeless in its truth, broad in its reach, and transforming in its power.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we study through books of the Bible here at the village chapel.
SPEAKER_00: No, you probably won't find every issue that you, every crossroads you come to that's a moral crossroads, you probably won't find the exact word or the or it may not be a direct parallel, but we do find in God's word, God's wisdom, the principles for life, the kind of ways that he, the ways that God looks and sees things, and the way that we ought to if we want to be like him and respond as he would in his wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, I think we see here, far too often we reach for solutions that are merely cosmetic when the solutions we really need are systemic.
SPEAKER_00: Solving deep relationship problems requires dealing with root causes, not just symptoms.
SPEAKER_00: Evidently, Joab thought, man, if I can just get Absalom back to town.
SPEAKER_00: That's all we need to do is get him in the same space.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's what he manipulates, that's what he gets the woman of Toa to sort of drum up and make that happen.
SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden David goes, Yeah, but I don't want to see his face.
SPEAKER_00: It's more complicated than just getting somebody in town.
SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
SPEAKER_00: The problems that you and I have, that all of us experience, relationship problems uh along the way, they're usually more profoundly deep than most of us think.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of us like to settle for the easy fix instead of working hard toward the systemic uh root problem that we need to work on.
SPEAKER_00: And uh the problems, these problems ran deeper than mere proximity.
SPEAKER_00: And the same thing could be true uh in our own relationship problems.
SPEAKER_00: The root causes needed more than a cosmetic treatment here, and so it is with our life and our life with God as well.
SPEAKER_00: We must not trivialize God by thinking being a Christian is the mere acknowledgement of God's existence.
SPEAKER_00: Or just going to the building where the people talk about God once a week.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the same thing as having a vital relationship with God, where God's at the center, where Jesus is Lord as well as Savior.
SPEAKER_00: That's a different thing.
SPEAKER_00: And so more was needed here before David and Absalom could get along again.
SPEAKER_00: One of them needed to sort of break the ice.
SPEAKER_00: Absalom needed to acknowledge his wrongdoing, his sinfulness.
SPEAKER_00: And he murdered his brother, David's son.
SPEAKER_00: David at the same time needed to extend an olive branch to him.
SPEAKER_00: This needs to happen.
SPEAKER_00: It's more complex, it's not just as simple as one thing or the other.
SPEAKER_00: Without the kind of um work that the Holy Spirit can do in our lives, I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_00: Because of our pride, uh, we wall ourselves off of other people.
SPEAKER_00: And without the kind of work the Holy Spirit does in our lives, where he where we we, as he convicts us of our sinfulness and our pridefulness, and we actually begin to crucify the self and and allow the life of Christ to bloom in our lives, you see, I don't know that we can get past our own pride on our own.
SPEAKER_00: We need the help of God in these things.
SPEAKER_00: We need the transforming power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and then we can watch God do things that are eye-popping, mind-blowing, heart-stopping, and soul-enlivening.
SPEAKER_00: Because he can make some things happen that we can't make happen.
SPEAKER_00: And he can change hearts in a beautiful way, even as he's changed your heart and my heart in some very beautiful ways.
SPEAKER_00: Eugene Peterson, in a book called Living the Resurrection, says, without wonder, we approach spiritual formation as a self-help project.
SPEAKER_00: We employ techniques, we analyze gifts and potentialities, we set goals, we assess progress.
SPEAKER_00: Spiritual formation is reduced to cosmetics, and it's not just cosmetics.
SPEAKER_00: This is a work of God.
SPEAKER_00: I need his help, you need his help if we're going to be able to get along.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just as simple as it may seem on the surface.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just a cosmetic thing that so many people might think it is.
SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, I think we learn here too: if God's justice is tempered by mercy, so should ours be.
SPEAKER_00: This was a lesson from the woman of Tokoa's parable in verse 14.
SPEAKER_00: I thought it was pretty good.
SPEAKER_00: It is, in the very least, a good rule of thumb for all those times someone is seeking forgiveness from us and we're not willing to give it.
SPEAKER_00: And to my shame and to our shame, I think every single person in this room has been like this before.
SPEAKER_00: It's your fault.
SPEAKER_00: You need to sit in that and stew in that.
SPEAKER_00: And we've been unforgiving.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the only thing we're doing there is as people so often say, is we're drinking the rat poison, hoping the rat will die.
SPEAKER_00: But we're the ones drinking the rat poison.
SPEAKER_00: Our souls were never meant to harbor unforgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: It's like a poison in our souls.
SPEAKER_00: God created us in his image.
SPEAKER_00: And his image is he's eager to forgive and extend grace.
SPEAKER_00: I want to look more like the heart of my Father.
SPEAKER_00: I want to look more like the heart of Jesus in these things.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the one himself who in Luke 6 36 actually said, be merciful, just as your heavenly father has been merciful to you.
SPEAKER_00: So, folks, I implore you, I hope to persuade you if you're holding unforgiveness in your heart toward anyone, somebody at work, somebody in your family, somebody who's a neighbor, somebody you're here at church with, please do yourself and them a favor and do God some glory as you extend forgiveness and mercy to others who may need it.
SPEAKER_00: Fourthly, there's a difference between acquittal and forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think that Absalom knew the difference.
SPEAKER_00: Um we all want acquittal, and often we don't even think we need forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: And I think Absalom was that way.
SPEAKER_00: If I've done anything wrong, let him kill me.
SPEAKER_00: We habitually take our sin far too lightly.
SPEAKER_00: If we only pretend we've sinned, we can only at best pretend to be forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: If I don't, and Lewis talks about this a lot.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Don't, when you confess your sins, don't bring your excuses to God.
SPEAKER_00: Bring the inexcusable part.
SPEAKER_00: Then watch God in all of his glory, all of his beauty, forgive you and receive his forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Receive his grace.
SPEAKER_00: Um be washed clean.
SPEAKER_00: We sang it earlier by the blood of the Lamb from the cross as it flowed.
SPEAKER_00: The part where we own our own sinfulness and receive God's grace and forgiveness through faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I think Absalom grew impatient and then he burns down the field, demands an audience of the king.
SPEAKER_00: Um he didn't demand an audience with his father.
SPEAKER_00: I did notice that.
SPEAKER_00: He demanded an audience with the king.
SPEAKER_00: That's interesting.
SPEAKER_00: Absalom believes he's entitled to an acquittal.
SPEAKER_00: Amnon, uh, in the death of Amnon, in the murder of Amnon, he was uh he was guilty.
SPEAKER_00: Absalom had acted to avenge the violation of Tamar, that's true.
SPEAKER_00: And his view was David should acquit him right now.
SPEAKER_00: Time moves far too slow for those who believe they are entitled to something they do not have.
SPEAKER_00: And two years went by, and Absalom had had it.
SPEAKER_00: And so he wanted to take acquittal, he wanted to demand acquittal from David instead of working toward forgiveness and reconciliation.
SPEAKER_00: Fifth and finally, how grateful we can be that God's grace towards repentant sinners is wholehearted and unrestrained.
SPEAKER_00: And I say that because I think that David, the one thing that David shows here is a half-hearted forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he can come home to Jerusalem, but I don't want to see him.
SPEAKER_00: So there's all kinds of qualifiers placed on the whole deal.
SPEAKER_00: He's not really interested in the relationship, he just wants Absalom back in the space.
SPEAKER_00: Um why?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it would look good in the nation, maybe it would look good like there's some plan for when I get old and I'm no longer able to be the king, that there's one of my heirs nearby.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what he was thinking, I couldn't tell you.
SPEAKER_00: But it was a qualified thing, and I think it's wonderful that as we look to God, who's the Father we've always wanted and always needed, as we look to God and we and we're we're interested in his forgiveness and his mercy and his grace, look how eager he is toward repentant sinners.
SPEAKER_00: He's wholehearted and unrestrained.
SPEAKER_00: And some some would draw a parallel between this story we just read and the prodigal son, but it's so vastly different, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Because the prodigal son's father is looking out the windows, waiting for that speck in the distance of his son who's simply turned around one little turn.
SPEAKER_00: And his father runs out to meet him with a ring and the sandals and the robe and yells over his shoulder, kill the fatted calf.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to celebrate.
SPEAKER_00: My son has come home.
SPEAKER_00: Look how eager God, our Father, is to forgive.
SPEAKER_00: It's wholehearted.
SPEAKER_00: It is unrestrained or unconstrained, however you would like to say it.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus came to the cross to die in our place, it showed us that God took our sin seriously, didn't sweep it under the rug.
SPEAKER_00: Took our sin seriously.
SPEAKER_00: And the cross is such a beautiful intersection of God's justice, God's mercy, God's love, and God's wisdom, as Stott points out.
SPEAKER_00: Which is more brilliantly on display is hard to say.
SPEAKER_00: Justice, because our sin, the price must be paid.
SPEAKER_00: Mercy, because the ones who don't deserve it receive forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: See?
SPEAKER_00: We don't get what we deserve, which is condemnation.
SPEAKER_00: We're shown mercy, the mercy of God, even though God is just, and Jesus takes the wrath of God in our place and pays the price for our sin.
SPEAKER_00: All motivated by the love of God, and it's God's wisdom on full display that He can somehow or another combine justice, mercy, and love together like that, to our eternal benefit.
SPEAKER_00: May God write it on your soul, Red Path says, if the pardon you want is that God should wink at your sin.
SPEAKER_00: He will not do it.
SPEAKER_00: That's so true.
SPEAKER_00: God takes your sin seriously, God takes my sin seriously, and we should too.
SPEAKER_00: So we don't just sweep it under the rug.
SPEAKER_00: We don't just say, please just why don't you just dismiss it?
SPEAKER_00: He didn't, God didn't do that.
SPEAKER_00: God sent his son Jesus to die in our place.
SPEAKER_00: So that the full price for our sin could be paid once and for all.
SPEAKER_00: And that's pretty amazing.
SPEAKER_00: God took our sin seriously, so should we.
SPEAKER_00: We should also take his mercy seriously, his love and his wisdom seriously at the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Mary J.
SPEAKER_00: Evans has a commentary on 1st and 2 Samuel.
SPEAKER_00: She taught uh Old Testament at the London School of Theology.
SPEAKER_00: She says our beliefs and our experiences are not meant to be unrelated or kept in different compartments of our lives.
SPEAKER_00: We all have a responsibility to bring them together, to think about how what has happened to us can be understood in light of our faith, and how our understanding of God and his work can be developed in the light of our experiences.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, folks, this gospel of good news of God's grace on offer to you, on offer to me, as a gift, and forgiveness and mercy of God for our sins, on offer to us as a gift because of the finished work of Christ on the cross, that's to be fully integrated into our lives.
SPEAKER_00: That's to actually begin to change us.
SPEAKER_00: And that's not a mere cosmetic solution.
SPEAKER_00: That's actually that's getting to the systemic problem.
SPEAKER_00: My indifference toward God marginalizing him so often in my life, my sometimes leaving him out completely.
SPEAKER_00: And you're doing that as well.
SPEAKER_00: And yet he still comes for us.
SPEAKER_00: He still comes the hound of heaven in pursuit of a people he can call his own.
SPEAKER_00: And he does everything necessary to make it possible for us to be fully reconciled to him.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, praise his name.
SPEAKER_00: We stand amazed at the grace of God.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray, Lord, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: As sometimes shocking as some of these Old Testament stories are, they uh sure make the light of the gospel of grace all the more bright, all the more inviting and welcoming to us.
SPEAKER_00: And so here we are, a group of sinners who are coming to you for grace, for mercy, for forgiveness, for absolution from our sin.
SPEAKER_00: Over and over and over we come.
SPEAKER_00: And we rejoice, Lord, because you've told us now what your response is.
SPEAKER_00: You come running to meet us.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're so grateful for that.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for the lessons of history.
SPEAKER_00: I pray, Lord, that we'll learn them, that they will change the way we do life here, change the way we think about you and your kindness toward us.
SPEAKER_00: And then, Lord, send us back out into the world to reflect that same kindness, that same grace, mercy, uh, to embrace the wisdom of God from the Word of God as the people of God.
SPEAKER_00: Send us back out into your world, Lord, that others who are in the dark and the cold might see Jesus and be drawn to the warmth campfire of the gospel of grace.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen and amen.