In the 8th chapter of 2 Samuel, there
is chronicled for us certain of David's victories
over their enemies round about, how that God
was establishing David and his kingdom, and was
subduing his enemies before him.
And so it tells about David's moves in
many directions as he was expanding the kingdom.
He took Mithigama out of the hands of
the Philistines, and then he smote Moab, and
they became the tributaries of David.
And then he moved a little north from
there and came against Hadadezer and recovered the
border to as far as the Euphrates.
And from him he took a thousand chariots,
700 horsemen, 20,000 footmen.
David hewed all of the chariot horses but
saved a hundred for the chariots.
And then he moved against Damascus and captured
Damascus and the Syrians became the tributaries of
David.
He put garrisons in the city of Damascus.
And David took, well there's the phrase that
the Lord preserved at the end of verse
6, the Lord preserved David whethersoever he went.
And David took the shields of gold that
were on the servants of Hadadezer and brought
them to Jerusalem.
And then Toi sent Joram his son unto
King David to greet him and to bless
him, because Toi had been fighting against Hadadezer.
And Joram brought with him vessels of silver,
vessels of gold, vessels of brass, which also
King David did dedicate to the Lord with
the silver and gold that he had dedicated
from all of the nations which he subdued.
So, you remember last week David had expressed
his desire to Nathan to build a house
for God.
And Nathan off the top of his head
said, I'll do everything that you want to
do.
And then God spoke to Nathan and said,
you spoke out of turn.
David can't build a house for me.
You must go and tell David because he
is a man of war.
He's a bloody man.
His hands have been bloodied by battles and
all.
He cannot build a house for me.
But I will build David a house and
prophesy to the coming Messiah.
But even though he was refused by God
the privilege of building a house for God,
yet David then set about to raise all
of the treasure for the house of God.
In other words, he started gathering gold and
silver and brass in abundance, laying up a
huge store so that when his son Solomon
went to build the house of God, all
they needed for the gold vessels and the
silver vessels and all was already gathered by
David.
So the Lord didn't say anything.
You can't gather together all the loot to
build the house.
And so David set about gathering the wealth
in order that the house might be built.
He not only did that, he drew up
the plans for the house of God so
that Solomon only had to build it.
And David did everything but build it.
Really, he gathered all of the precious metals
and all he got.
He created the plans and then left it
to Solomon, his son, to build the house
of God.
And so of Syria, verse 12 and Moab,
the children of Ammon, the Philistines, of Amalek,
the spoil of Hades, or the son of
Raob, the king of Zobah.
David got a name when he returned from
smiting the Syrians in the Valley of Salt.
He there killed 18,000 of them.
Valley of Salt is south of the Dead
Sea.
He put garrisons in Edom.
Throughout all Edom, he put garrisons.
They became David's servants.
The Lord preserved David whether so ever he
went.
David reigned over all Israel.
David executed judgment and justice unto all of
his people.
In Joab, the son of Zeruiah was over
the host.
Jehoshaphat, the son of Hilud, was the recorder.
Zadok and Ahimelech were the priests.
And Zeruiah was the scribe.
So these were really the men who served
with David in his kingdom.
And thus, the kingdom was established under David's
reign.
In chapter 9, David sought to discover if
there were any left from the house of
Saul.
Jonathan and David had made a friendship pact
between them that they would do good and
show kindness unto each other and to each
other's descendants forever.
And so, now that David is established, he
seeks to find out if there are any
left from Saul's house that he might honor
and they might keep this pact that he
had made with Jonathan.
And he was told concerning Jonathan's son Mephibosheth.
Now, Mephibosheth was only five years old when
his father Jonathan was killed in battle with
his grandfather Saul when they battled against the
Philistines at Mount Gilboa.
When his nurse heard that the Philistines had
taken Jonathan and Saul in battle, she was
fearful.
She grabbed this little five-year-old son
of Jonathan, Mephibosheth, and sought to flee.
And as she did, she dropped him and
broke both of his legs.
And not being set properly, he became a
cripple.
And so, it was told David that Mephibosheth
was yet alive.
And so, David called to have Mephibosheth brought
in to him.
And when Mephibosheth came in, he bowed down,
did obeisance to David, and David said, Hey,
hey, none of that.
Don't be afraid.
I want to actually honor you seeing I
made this pact with Jonathan and all.
And he said, I want to restore to
you all that belong to the house of
Saul, all of the properties, the houses, the
vineyards, and everything that belong to the family.
I want to restore them to you.
And you are to eat meat at my
table from now on.
He was to become a part of the
entourage that ate with the king.
And so, David showed unto Mephibosheth great kindness
for Jonathan's sake and for the vows and
all that he had made with Jonathan.
And then David took one of the servants,
and he made this servant and his family
the servants of Mephibosheth.
And Ziba with his 15 sons and 20
servants were given the orders to take care
of his crops, to bring in the harvest,
and to just watch over all that belonged
to him.
And so, David showed unto Mephibosheth great honor
and was extremely gracious unto him.
In chapter 10, it came to pass after
this, that the king of the children of
Ammon died, and Hanum his son reigned in
his stead.
And David, upon hearing the death of the
king, sent certain men, certain of his men,
emissaries actually, unto Hanum to express David's condolences
and to just sort of greet them in
David's name and express David's sorrow and all
for the death of his father.
Now, some of his counselors said, do you
think that David is really just trying to,
you know, show kindness to you?
Listen, these guys are actual spies, and they've
come to spy out the weakness of the
land, and the next thing you know, David's
going to be attacking you.
And so, Hanum took these emissaries that had
been sent by David, and he cut off
or shaved half of their beards and cut
off their skirts, exposing their backsides, and sent
them away.
Well, the guys were extremely embarrassed and humiliated,
and so David heard of what had been
done to them, and he said, you guys
just wait down at the city of Jericho
until your beards grow back again, and then
come on back into the city.
But over in Ammon, which of course is
the present day Amman, the capital of Jordan,
they heard of how that these men were
not allowed back into Jerusalem until their beards
had grown back and so forth, and so
they feared an immediate attack by David, and
so they sent to Syria and hired from
Syria 20,000 mercenaries to come and to
help them fight against David.
So when David heard that they had hired
the Syrian mercenaries and others to fight against
him, he sent his armies against the Ammonites,
and as they came to battle, Joab saw
that the Syrians were coming from the north,
joining with them.
So Joab said to his brother Abishai, we'll
divide our forces in half.
I'll take on the Syrians.
You take on the Ammonites, and if they
start to overcome you, then I'll come and
help you.
If the Syrians start to overcome me, you
come and help me.
But be valiant.
Be strong.
In fact, his words I thought were very
interesting in verse 12.
Be of good courage.
Let us play the men for our people
and for the cities of our God, and
the Lord do that which seemeth Him good.
And so Joab came to the Syrians, and
the Syrians began to fall back before Joab.
When the Ammonites saw that the Syrians were
retreating, they too began to retreat.
And the men of Israel gained a tremendous
victory over the forces of Hadaseh over the
Ammonites and over the Syrians in that battle.
Now in chapter 11, it came to pass
after these things that Joab and the army
in the springtime when it was a good
time to go out and fight after the
winter rains were over and all, Joab with
the forces went again against Ammon or the
Ammonites.
And David one evening after his afternoon siesta
was taking a stroll on his roof.
And from this vantage point up on his
roof looking over the city, he noticed in
the courtyard of a neighboring house a beautiful
woman bathing.
And David began to lust after this woman.
He said to his servants, who is that
woman that lives in that house over there?
And the servant said that is Bathsheba, the
wife of Uriah the Hittite.
And so David commanded his servants to go
over and to bring her to him.
And there David committed adultery with her.
And after a while, she sent a message
to David that she was pregnant.
So David sought to cover his sin.
His son Solomon later wrote, he who seeks
to cover his sin shall not prosper, but
whoso will confess and forsake his sin, he
shall be forgiven.
David sought to cover his sin by sending
for Uriah, who was in the army fighting
with Joab.
And he sent a note to Joab, send
Uriah back from the battle.
So Uriah came back and David said, how's
the battle going?
How's Joab?
How are the troops?
Ask him a lot of questions concerning the
battle.
And then he said, well, go on home,
spend the night with your wife tonight.
And David sent out to him a mess
of meat and all so they could just
feast.
And he figured that he'd go home and
go to bed with his wife.
And later on, when his wife would say,
honey, I'm pregnant, that no one would ever
know the difference except for David and Bathsheba.
And he figured that the whole thing could
be covered over.
But Uriah seemed to be a very honorable
man.
And instead of going home, he slept that
night on David's porch with David's servants.
And in the morning, it was told David
that Uriah didn't go home.
He spent the night there in the port.
And so he called Uriah in and he
said, hey, man, why don't you go home,
spend the night with your wife?
You know, after all, you've been out fighting
and all, and you have a chance to
spend the night with your wife.
Why would you sleep on the porch?
And he said, well, he said, you know,
Joab and all of my buddies are out
there in the fields.
They're sleeping out in the fields at night
and all.
And it wouldn't be right for me to
enjoy my wife and my own bed and
all when my buddies are out there in
the trenches.
I just couldn't do that.
And so David said, well, tarry with me
today and tomorrow.
And so he kept filling the guy's wine
glass, got him pretty drunk, figuring if he
was drunk enough, maybe he would go home.
But he staggered out to the porch at
David's house and there he went to sleep
again.
And so, as sin so often does, it
leads to something worse.
It begins to compound.
It begins to develop in its insidious manner.
And so David's turned to a second plan
more dastardly than the first.
And that plan was to deliberately have Uriah
killed in battle.
And so David sent a message to Joab,
sealed orders by the hand of Uriah, which
said, when the battle gets hot, put Uriah
in the front line of the hottest spot
that he might be smitten and die.
And so Joab began to assault the city
of the Ammonites.
And he sent an assault troops up towards
the wall pursuing the Ammonites.
And as they got close to the wall,
the archers from the wall began to shoot
at them.
And Uriah was shot and killed along with
some of the other troops.
So Joab sent a messenger unto David to
tell him of the battle and how things
were going.
And he said, if David gets angry because
we approached the wall too close, then tell
him that Uriah also is dead.
And so the fellow came and told David
of the battle, how some of the men
had fallen.
They had been shot by the archers on
the wall.
And David became sort of angry because he
said, that's foolish to come so near the
wall.
Joab knows better than that.
And the messenger said, well, Uriah, the Hittite
was also killed.
And David said, let the matter rest.
It is okay.
Bathsheba mourned for her husband.
And after her period of mourning, David took
her as his wife, figuring things were all
right, but things weren't all right.
God could not allow David's sin to go
unnoticed or to go unpunished.
The child was born and David figured, well,
that's great, you know.
He no doubt came to love Bathsheba.
His first experience with her was not an
experience expressing love.
It was an experience just expressing lust, but
he no doubt came to love, even as
I believe that many couples are attracted by
certain physical characteristics.
And later on, they actually learned to love
each other.
Many times you're attracted to another person by
certain physical characteristics and later on, you'll learn
to hate them as you really get to
know them.
So love doesn't always follow an attraction, a
physical attraction.
But people say love at first sight.
No, it doesn't really happen that way.
Interest at first sight, attraction maybe.
But love is something that grows.
Love is something that develops in a relationship.
And David thought that things were just going
great until the prophet Nathan came to him.
And Nathan said to David, there is a
man in your kingdom who is very wealthy,
had many herds, many flocks, many servants.
And there lived next to him a very
poor man who only possession was one ewe
lamb.
And that lamb ate at his table, drank
from his cup, slept next to him.
It was like a daughter to him, part
of the family.
And he loved that ewe lamb.
All he had.
And this wealthy man had guests come to
visit him.
And he sent his servants to take by
force the one ewe lamb from his neighbor
and to kill it in order that he
might feed his guest.
David's anger was kindled hot against the man.
And David said, that man shall surely be
put to death as the Lord lives.
And he shall restore unto the man fourfold.
And he went ahead and laid out a
real judgment on this guy.
And when he was through, Nathan said, David,
you are the man.
And then he went on to say, thus
saith the Lord God of Israel.
I anointed you king over Israel.
I delivered thee out of the hand of
Saul.
I gave thee thy master's house, thy master's
wives into thy bosom.
I gave thee the house of Israel and
of Judah.
And if that wasn't enough, I would have
given more to you.
David, I've given you everything.
I've given you the kingdom.
I've given you wives.
I've given both Israel and Judah.
And if that weren't enough, David, I'd still
give you more.
Why have you despised the commandment of the
Lord to do this sin in His sight?
David, when God has given you so much,
why would you despise this commandment?
Why would you do this when God has
been so good?
Why is it that when God has been
so good to us that we just don't
appreciate and be satisfied with what God has
done?
Why do we sometimes reach out for more
when we already have more than what we
can possibly use or enjoy?
David, you've got all these wives.
Why would you take a wife of another
man?
Why would you despise the commandment of God?
Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from
thy house because you have despised me and
have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite
as your wife.
Thus saith the Lord, behold, I will raise
up evil against thee out of your own
house, and I will take your wives before
your eyes and give them unto thy neighbor,
and he shall lie with thy wives in
the sight of the sun.
For you did it secretly, but I will
do this before all of Israel and before
the sun.
And David said to Nathan, I have sinned
against the Lord.
And Nathan said unto David, the Lord also
hath put away thy sin, thou shalt not
die.
Now David's judgment for this man was he
shall surely be put to death.
God's judgment for David was you will not
die.
However, David, you're not going to get off
scot-free.
You cannot sin with impunity and expect God
to just let you off the hook completely.
There are always those people who are misinterpreting
the grace of God.
Paul spoke about those who said, let us
sin freely that grace may abound.
For if where sin abounds, grace overflows, and
let's go out and sin freely in order
that grace might just overflow.
God has declared that all are sinners so
that if I just go out and sin,
I'm only proving that God is true.
Now, why should God judge me?
Because I'm proving that he's telling the truth
that all men are sinners.
I'm just helping to prove God's truth.
Paul said whose damnation is just.
Those kind of philosophies.
Any philosophy that leads you into sin, presuming
on the grace of God is a damnable
philosophy.
Peter speaks of the words of Paul, and
of course, Paul's preaching was that of the
gospel of grace and the forgiveness of sins
by faith in Jesus Christ, which is a
glorious gospel.
But Peter tells how those people were subverting
the gospel.
Using this gospel of grace as a cloak
for their own lasciviousness.
Well, sure, let's go ahead and do it,
and then we'll pray and ask God to
forgive us because surely God is merciful and
he'll forgive us.
And thus people are willfully transgressing the law
of God with that anticipation of grace and
forgiveness.
That should never be.
I should never knowingly, willfully go into sin,
expecting to come back to God and say,
Oh God, please forgive me.
And presuming on the grace of God, the
Bible says, keep thyself from sin.
Flee the youthful lust that damn men's souls
in perdition.
And as it speaks of the works of
the flesh in Galatians 5, our manifest, which
are these adultery, fornication, it goes on lying
and envying and stealing and so forth.
And it says, and they that do such
things shall have no part in the kingdom
of God.
And I question concerning the true conversion of
a person who deliberately, willfully sins against God
with the idea, Oh, well, I'll just ask
forgiveness and receive the grace of God.
God's grace was never intended to be presumed
upon by us.
And sin though forgiven leaves its mark.
There are certain aspects of sin that cannot
be undone.
There are certain marks that sin leaves upon
the lives of yourself and the lives of
others that remain.
It remains a mar, a scar in your
conscience.
Even though you've received the forgiveness of God,
still your conscience is telling you that you
did wrong deliberately, willfully.
You did wrong in the eyes of the
Lord and your conscience never lets you forget
it.
And years may pass, but it remains there
in your consciousness.
And someday when calamity befalls you down the
line, you'll remember your sin.
Joseph's brothers sold him as a slave into
Egypt.
And Joseph went down into Egypt.
His brothers betrayed him, sold him as a
slave for 20 pieces of silver.
They cared not that Joseph was crying and
saying, Oh, please guys don't do this.
Oh.
And he was weeping.
And as the last they saw him, the
guy was just crying as he was on
the cart being carried down to Egypt.
Their brother, they were heartless.
They were cruel, but it stuck in their
minds.
And almost 20 years later, when they were
in Egypt and having a bad time because
of the Pharaoh's rep, they turned to each
other and they said, you know, we're getting
what's coming to us.
Don't you remember Joseph and how he was
crying and all?
Man is coming back to us.
You don't get away from your conscience.
It sticks.
The scars are there.
You don't escape them.
And the scars that are left upon those
around you, the hurt that comes.
And though the Lord said to David, thou
art forgiven.
You will not die yet.
These things are going to happen, David, because
of your sin.
One of the tragic things of the sin
of David was brought to his mind by
the prophet.
He said, you have caused the enemies of
God to blaspheme.
I think that one of the tragic by
-products of a sin in the life of
a believer is the fact that the enemies
of God look at it and they blaspheme
God.
That so-and-so, you know, he's supposed
to be a Christian.
Look what he did to me, you know,
and they're blaspheming God because of your actions,
because of what you have done.
Maybe you've been guilty of ripping them off
in a business deal.
And you know you ripped them off.
And you come and say, oh God, forgive
me, please, you know, and you think it's
all over.
And you go to rip off someone else.
Keeping the idea in mind, well, I'll just
come and ask God's forgiveness.
No, it doesn't work that way.
But the effect of that is that there
are many people who are going under the
name of Christianity that are doing such things.
And that is why Christianity has such a
bad name in the eyes of the world
today is because the Christians haven't been living
a life of purity and righteousness and holiness
before God.
And no one picks up on it quicker
than the worldly people who blaspheme the name
of God because of our actions, our inconsistencies.
And so the punishment, the
sword was never to depart from David's house.
His own children were going to rise up
and rebel against him.
His own wives were going to be humiliated
in publicly.
And the child that was to be born
or the child that was born was going
to die.
This sort of marks a watershed in David's
life.
This experience sort of took the fire out
of David.
From this point on calamities, rebellion, problems within
his home began to arise.
And it is interesting that David, rather than
trying to deal with them and fight with
them, was just sort of, you know, just
sort of consigned to them.
He didn't try to rise.
He just sort of accepted it.
This is of God.
This is God's judgment.
And he didn't try to, well, just the
inner, you know, that thing that drives you
on, that push was gone.
It sort of was just drained out of
David from this experience onwards.
Sad and tragic when the fire is gone
out of a person's life.
The words of God were gracious indeed.
Thy sin is forgiven.
You will not die.
At this point, Psalm 32, it was written
by David upon hearing the words of the
prophet, thy sins are forgiven, you will not
die.
David wrote, blessed is he.
And the word blessed means, oh, how happy.
Oh, how happy is he whose transgression is
forgiven, whose sin is covered.
Happy is the man unto whom the Lord
imputeth not iniquity and in whose spirit there
is no guile.
Now, you see, while David was trying to
cover this thing, there was all kinds of
guile going on.
Calling Uriah back, trying to get him to
go home to be with his wife.
It was all a part of a deceitful
scheme of David.
All this guile that was there.
But you know, when you're a deceitful person,
you're always living in fear and in worry
that you're going to get caught, someone's going
to catch up with you, someone's going to
find out, the truth is going to out.
And you're going through all these little deceptive
things and trying to, you know, cover and
say, well, who me?
Well, I don't know what you're talking about,
you know.
And you're going through all of this deception,
but you know and you're fearful constantly that
it's going to come out, someone's going to
find out, someone's going to see me, someone's
going to know, someone's going to blow the
whistle on me.
Happy is the man who can be straight,
who can be honest, who can be forthright,
who doesn't have to deceive and hide and
connive.
When I kept silence, that is when I
wouldn't confess it to God, when I was
trying to just cover the thing, my bones
waxed old through my roaring all the day
long, for night and day, day and night,
thy hand was heavy upon me and my
moisture is turned into the drought of summer.
That's the first strophe of this psalm, a
man who has just experienced the forgiveness of
sin, but he also relates how heavy was
the conviction upon his heart prior to the
forgiveness.
Man, it was heavy duty.
I was just all dried up within.
God's hand day and night was heavy upon
me.
And then he said, I acknowledge my sin
unto thee and my iniquity have I not
hid.
I said, I will confess my transgressions unto
the Lord and thou forgave us the iniquity
of my sin.
The next strophe of the psalm, as he
expresses his confession and the resultant forgiveness.
Oh, how happy is the man who has
that load of sin taken away, who has
the guilt removed, but there is still a
price that must be paid.
The sword is still going to be upon
his house.
His children are still going to rebel.
His wives are still going to be humiliated
and his child is still going to die.
And so it came to pass that the
child took sick and David laid on the
ground grieving and the servants tried to get
him to eat, but he refused any food.
He just lie there groaning.
And for seven days he lay there on
the ground groaning, not eating.
And on the seventh day, the child died
and the servants were worried.
They said, what shall we do?
How are we going to tell him if
he's grieved this much while the child was
living?
What's he going to do when he finds
out the child's dead?
And he heard the servants whispering and he
said, is the child dead?
And they said, yes.
David got up, went in, took a shower,
dressed himself, fresh clothes, came out and he
ordered dinner.
They said, man, we don't understand you.
While the child was sick, you're lying there
groaning, not eating, filthy.
Now that the child is dead, you've showered
and you want to eat.
You want a dinner.
What's going on?
And he said, as long as the child
was alive, I had hope that God might
be gracious and spare the child's life.
But now that the child is dead, I
can't do anything more.
I think that David really had a very
healthy attitude towards death.
What more can you do?
He said, I shall go to be where
he is, though he cannot return to me.
David showing his confidence in life after death.
David showing confidence that his child was with
the Lord, that his child was saved and
that he would go to be with his
child, though his child would not be able
to return to him.
I shall go to be where he is,
though he cannot return to me.
Our children who die before they are at
an age of accountability, go to be with
the Lord.
Though they cannot return, we look forward to
that day when we shall go to be
with them.
Now, after the death of the child, David
comforted Bathsheba and she conceived and she had
another child and she called his name Solomon.
But Nathan the prophet came with God's name
for Solomon and God's name for him was
Jeddah.
Wait a minute.
Jeddah, which means beloved of the Lord.
Now, there to me is real grace.
Though God, for purposes that we
do not fully understand, took the first child
of David and Bathsheba, yet the second child,
God named beloved of the Lord.
So, there was God's grace in operation.
And of course, Solomon became David's favorite son
and took the throne after David.
But David has a rocky road ahead.
The sword is not to depart from his
house.
There's going to be family problems developing.
His wives are going to be humiliated and
these things are going to come to pass.
David's sin is not going to go unpunished.
The price must still be paid for the
past misdeed, even though God's grace is operative
through the whole thing.
And God gives to David and Bathsheba another
son whom God calls beloved of God.
So, we find that the problems begin very
soon thereafter.
David had a son by the name of
Amnon.
And Amnon was talking with a man who
was called his friend.
And yet I would challenge that because any
man who would help you and advise you
in the fulfilling of a sinful desire could
not be a true friend to you.
Any man who would encourage you to a
sinful act cannot be a true friend.
And Amnon was sick.
His friend said, what's the matter with you?
He said, oh, I'm so in love with
my sister Tamar.
She was actually a half sister to him.
She was a daughter of David, but she
was the daughter of the Jeziorite wife who
was also the mother of Absalom, David's son.
And he said, I'm just sick.
I'm so in love with her.
I can't eat.
I can't do anything.
I'm just in love.
I'm in love.
And the fellow said, well, look, just lie
in your bed and pretend that you're really
sicker than you are.
And when your dad comes to visit, say,
oh, dad, let my sister Tamar come and
fix meat in my sight and feed me.
It'll make me feel so much better.
So David came to visit his son Amnon.
And Amnon said, oh, dad, if you'd just
allow Tamar to come and fix me some
bread and some food in my sight and
feed me, oh, it'd make me feel so
good.
So David sent Tamar over and there in
his sight, she baked the bread and all
fixed it for him.
And he said, she went to give it
to him.
He said, oh no.
And he sent all the servants out and
he said, bring it into my bedroom and
feed it to me.
And so she went into the bedroom and
he grabbed hold of her and he said,
lie with me.
And she said, oh, Amnon, don't do this
sin.
This is wrong.
Look, if you just ask my father David,
he'll probably make arrangements I can marry you.
Don't do this.
But he did not hearken to her voice,
but he raped her.
And then he sent her out.
He said, get out of here.
For there came an abhorrence of her and
the hatred of her was greater than the
love that he had previously felt.
It is interesting how closely akin are our
emotions.
Emotions are sort of a weird thing.
Now many gifted public speakers know how to
play on the emotions of the people.
And they will tell jokes for the purpose
of getting people to laugh, because they know
they can get people really laughing, that it
isn't but just a little click for people.
Your emotions are in gear.
Your emotions are working.
Once your emotions are working, they can do
weird things.
You can go from laughing to crying in
just a moment.
Have you ever seen a baby and the
change of emotions?
You know, you come in and you know,
and then all of a sudden the lip
will turn down and they'll start to cry.
Well, what happened?
You know, but that's just how crazy our
emotions are.
So speakers, some of the psychological speakers that
know that emotions are this way, they tell
these jokes, get everybody laughing, and then they
can just flip them right onto tears because
you got your emotions going now.
And once they're going, you can just play
games with them.
Now Amnon expressed a tremendous love for his
sister, which was not a love at all.
One of the statements
that is made so often today, which really
is so far from truth that it should
be banished as a phraseology, is for a
person to say, let's make love as
though the sex act is making love.
Many times there is absolutely no love at
all involved in the sex act.
It is purely a person seeking gratification for
a certain biological drive, but no
real true love involved at all.
And people who go to the bars on
Friday nights to find their true lover will
never find them.
They will find an experience.
And it is interesting.
A fella says, well, I'm going out to
look for a girl tonight.
I want to find someone to make love
with.
In reality, he's not even looking for a
girl.
He's only looking to satisfy a biological drive
within him.
And a girl happens to be necessary to
satisfy that drive.
But he's not really looking for a girl.
He's not really looking for love.
He's not really looking for a meaningful experience.
And we see the world around us living
like animals.
There's no difference between that and the animal
kingdom.
There is no love involved in those kind
of experiences.
And it's tragic.
It's tragic that so often people desiring and
wanting love are going out seeking to find
love in that kind of an experience.
And women are so often such suckers because
they will give sex in order to get
love or get what they hope will be
love.
But you never get love that way.
And men will give love in order to
get sex.
That is, they will give a demonstration of
love.
And so one disappointment after another, one heartbreak
after another, one disappointing experience after another, and
the crazy world around us searching for love.
And Hollywood has deceived them all thinking that
love is some romantic moment under the moon
and that you can just fall in love.
But the case of Amnon is a very
classic case in point.
How that he was only using his sister.
He had no real desire for her, for
her benefit.
He was only seeking for his own personal
gratification.
And once it came, he discarded the object
like a dirty rag.
Would have nothing to do with her.
He wasn't looking for a meaningful relationship.
He wasn't looking for a wife.
He wasn't looking for someone that he could
bestow true love upon and to benefit her
and to build her up and to bless
her with his actions of kindness and goodness.
He was just seeking an object through which
he could gratify his own fleshly desires and
was willing to discard her once that had
been accomplished.
Gals, when are you going to wake up?
That fellow who's coming on so strong, the
fellow who is desiring to have sex with
you before you get married, trying to rush
things, trying to give you the old baloney.
About everybody does it.
You know, and after all, how are we
going to know if we're really matched or
not?
He's not really looking to give true love
and meaningful love.
He's putting on a big act so he
can gratify his own fleshly desires.
And when you no longer satisfy those fleshly
desires, he'll discard you and you're going to
be left heartbroken, disillusioned.
That's not the kind of love you need.
That's not the kind of love you want.
That's not the kind of love God wants
you to have.
God wants you to have a meaningful experience
of love.
And the sex act is not intended to
just be a clinical biological action
fulfilling certain biological drives, but it is intended
to be an expression of real love.
And it finds that in marriage and no
place else.
People though are sadly deceived, especially in this
world in which we live today, because Hollywood
has made the big lie.
And people are gullible and have fallen for
it.
God has laid down the rules.
You follow the rules, you're going to find
fulfillment and satisfaction and a meaningful relationship.
You violate the rules and you're going to
get hurt.
You're going to get burned.
Tamar disgraced wearing this coat of many colors
because all of the princesses and princes wore
these colorful coats.
And with the girls, it was a special
robe that designated her virginity.
Being kicked out of the house, the servants,
he said to the servant, eject her.
And she was forcefully ejected from the house.
She put ashes on her head.
She took her robe of virginity and ripped
it.
And she went crying down the street.
Now, of course, it wasn't Tamar's fault at
all.
She was raped.
Amnon was totally at fault in this thing.
But the tragedy of the whole story is
this.
David, because of what he had done, couldn't
discipline Amnon for it.
He didn't say a thing to Amnon.
There was no disciplining.
There was no rebuking.
David was a lousy father, totally derelict
in discipline.
And he suffered the result of it in
his children.
That is no doubt the reason why Solomon
wrote so much about the importance of disciplining
children.
He saw in his own family the effects
of the lack of discipline because David was
not a disciplinarian.
Here he didn't say a thing to Amnon.
Another son that rebelled against him later on.
It said that David never once said anything
to displease that child.
Now, that doesn't make a child love you.
The child actually hated David and rebelled against
him.
And Solomon, seeing this in his own home,
wrote so much about the importance of disciplining
a child.
The foolishness of the world is bound up
in the heart of the child, but the
rod of instruction driveth it far from him.
If you spare the rod, you'll spoil the
child.
A child left to himself is going to
bring disgrace to his mother.
All of these things about the discipline, the
necessity of discipline and all, because David was
such a totally poor disciplinarian.
But he felt his own guilt.
And because of his own guilt, what he
had done was really not much worse than
what Amnon had done.
And thus, he did not feel that he
could really speak to him about it.
And Amnon was really sort of allowed to
go without being punished.
Except Absalom, the brother of Tamar, hated Amnon
for this and waited his day.
And two years later, he said to David,
I want to throw a big party.
I want all my brothers to come.
David said, oh, you know, why do you
want to do that?
I want the whole family.
David said, I'm too busy.
I don't want to come.
He said, well, if you don't come, then
let Amnon come.
Why do you want Amnon to come?
And he just was insisting.
So, Amnon came to the party that Absalom
threw.
And Absalom said to his servants, kill him.
Thrust him through.
And so, the servants of Absalom took Amnon
and they killed him.
And Absalom fled to his grandfather.
He fled to the city of the Gezerites.
And if you will remember, David had made
one of his incursions against the Gezerites.
And he took the daughter of the king
as his wife and she bore Absalom.
So, actually, Absalom was heading as sort of
a Bedouin type of a tribe.
And he was heading to his grandfather's house
on the other side to live with his
grandfather and there be more or less protected
from David's vengeance.
And so, Absalom fled to Gezer in verse
37, 38, 39.
And he was there for three years to
Talmai, who was his mother's father, his grandfather.
Now, David longed to see Absalom.
Actually, now that Amnon is dead, he can't
do anything for him.
And he longs to see Absalom.
And so, Joab, realizing that David is proud
and stubborn and really wants to see his
son, but won't make the first move, got
hold of a widow woman in Tekoa.
And he said to her, now you go
and tell David this story.
Tell him that you had two sons and
they got in a fight.
You're a widow.
And your two sons got in a fight.
And they were out in the field fighting.
And one of your sons hit the other
and killed him.
Now, the rest of the family is wanting
to put your one son to death.
But if he dies, then you don't have
anybody.
There's no descendants.
There's no one to carry on the family
name.
And it's just the end.
And so, tell them that they are not
to take revenge against my one son.
So, this woman came to David and she
told the story.
My two boys, you know, they were out
in the field fighting and they were really
going at it.
No one to separate them.
And the one killed the other.
And now the avengers of blood are trying
to kill the one son.
But if he's gone, I won't have anybody.
I'll be left and so forth.
And David said, you know, your son will
be pardoned.
He's forgiven and all.
And so, she said to him, well, why
should it be to me and not to
my master's house?
And she brought the fact to David that
much the same thing had happened.
If he would forgive her son and the
avengers of blood because of the murder, then
why wouldn't he forgive his own son and
bring him back?
David realized he'd been caught up in the
same kind of a thing that Nathan had
caught him in, you know, tell a story
and get a judgment.
And David's quite a guy.
He sticks by his judgment.
And so he said, one thing, though, before
you go, I want to ask you this
and I want you to tell me straight.
Is Joab behind this?
And she said, oh, surely, you know, you
have the knowledge of an angel.
No one can hide anything from you.
Yeah, Joab's behind it.
And so Joab sent for Absalom to come
back.
But David refused to see him.
He can go back to his house, but
David still, this pride thing and all, though
he still wanted to.
And isn't it stupid, this pride of ours?
Sometimes the thing we really want to do,
we won't do because, you know, you know,
we just, you know, we want to stop
the fight.
We don't want to go on.
But I'm not going to say I'm sorry
first.
She's got to say it before I'm going
to say it.
And I really am miserable.
And I really don't like this going on.
And I really want it to be all
over.
But I'm not going to say it first.
No way.
You know, she's got to come to me.
And we do these stupid things because of
our stupid pride.
And we allow things to go on and
simmer.
We allow things to go on in turmoil
and all just because of our own stupid
pride.
So, Absalom isn't the kind that you can
just ignore.
And he wanted Joab to come over and
to set up a meeting with his dad.
But Joab wouldn't even come to see him.
He sent several messages to Joab to come.
And Joab refused to come.
And so he said to his servants, well,
his barley fields are getting pretty dry.
Go over and set them on fire.
And so his servants set Joab's fields on
fire.
And Joab came storming over.
What's the big idea?
Your servant's burning my fields.
He said, well, I wanted to see you.
And I called you several times.
You never would answer, you know.
So here you are.
And so he told Joab, I want you
to make arrangements for me to see my
father.
And so Joab came, made the arrangements.
And David saw Absalom.
There was the forgiveness, the weeping, the rekindling
of love and so forth.
Except that Absalom began at that point to
conspire against his own father.
Now, Absalom went out to the gate of
the city.
And when people would come from Israel to
bring a matter for judgment, he would say,
oh, what a shame that my father wouldn't
appoint me a judge in Israel because I
could judge in these matters.
And you know, you come to see my
dad.
He's so busy.
He hasn't got time to see anybody.
But bring the matter to me.
Let me judge it for you.
And the people would, you know, start to
bow to him.
And he'd take them by the hand.
And he'd kiss their hands.
And he was a shrewd politician, you know,
kissing the babies and just, you know, saying
the things that the people wanted to hear.
And oh, what a shame that, you know,
I wasn't placed in a position where I
could really help you.
Oh, I could do so much for you
if I were just in this position.
It's a shame my dad is so busy.
He really doesn't have time for people, you
know, busy running things.
And oh, what we could do for you
and all of this, you know.
And he began to steal the hearts of
the people, those that would come to them.
He began to steal their hearts.
And when he felt that he was in
a strong enough position, he headed for Hebron
with some of the key leaders.
And he announced his kingdom there in Hebron.
And when the kingdom was announced, then Israel
began to gather unto Absalom.
And some of David's counselors, one especially Ahithophel,
went with Absalom against David.
And this desertion of his friend Ahithophel is
expressed by David in the 55th Psalm.
Let's turn to Psalm 55 and read of
David's feelings over the desertion of Ahithophel who
went with Absalom.
Give ear to my prayer, O God, and
hide not Thyself from my supplication.
Attend unto me and hear me.
I mourn in my complaint and make a
noise because of the voice of the enemy,
because of the oppression of the wicked, for
they have cast iniquity upon me and in
wrath they hate me.
My heart is sore pain within me and
the terrors of death are falling upon me.
Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me and
horror hath overwhelmed me.
And I said, oh, that I had wings
like a dove, for then I would fly
away and be at rest.
Lo, then would I wander far off and
remain in the wilderness.
I would hasten my escape from the windy
storm and tempest.
Destroy, O Lord, and divide their tongues, for
I have seen violence and strife in the
city.
Day and night they go about upon the
walls thereof.
Mischief also and sorrow in the midst of
it.
Wickedness is in the midst thereof.
Deceit and guile depart not from our streets.
For it was not, and here is his
lament about Ahithophel, for it was not an
enemy that reproached me, then I could have
borne it.
Neither was it he that hated me that
did magnify himself against me, then I would
have hid myself from him.
But it was thou, a man mine equal,
my guide, mine acquaintance.
We took sweet counsel together and walked unto
the house of God in company."
And then David's prayer of vengeance upon them
for their deceit and treachery.
And so, the desertion from David of some
of his chief men.
And yet there were those who remained true,
but word came that Absalom was coming from
Hebron with an army.
Now David, as I told you, his spirit
is gone.
Rather than defending himself, rather than setting up
his troops and all to defend him from
Absalom and from the army that's coming with
Absalom, David's spirit is gone.
He makes no attempt to defend the city,
to defend himself.
But David begins an exodus from the city
with his faithful followers.
And they start up over the Mount of
Olives toward the wilderness.
And as they start up, David is weeping
as he walks through the Kidron stream and
up the Mount of Olives.
He has his head covered and he's weeping.
And all of those that are going with
him, their heads are covered.
They too are weeping.
What a sad and pitiful sight.
David not even making a fight.
David not standing up.
This great valiant man, not standing up, but
fleeing.
And Absalom, his son, will arrive at Jerusalem
and find there are no defenses at all
against him.
And they told David, Ahithophel is among them.
And David said, Lord, turn the counsel of
Ahithophel into foolishness.
And when David came to the top of
the Mount of Olives, he worshiped God.
And behold, Hushai, who was also one of
David's counselors, an older man, came to meet
him.
And David said, Hey, look, go on home.
You know, go on back to Jerusalem and
maybe you can sort of subvert the counsel
of Ahithophel.
So David began to set up his men
also to destroy the purposes of Absalom.
And the priest had come with the Ark
of the Covenant and David sent them back,
Zadok and Abiathar.
He sent them back with the Ark of
the Covenant and committing it really.
And it is interesting to me, David at
this point was committing his case totally to
God.
If God wants me to come back, you
know, the Lord will bring me back.
If the Lord is pleased to help me,
the Lord will help me.
But he's not going to defend himself.
He's not fighting for himself anymore.
He is a broken man and he is
committing his case totally into the hands of
God, because this is really the fulfillment of
the prophecy because of his sin.
Nathan said, your sons are going to rebel
against you and all.
And he sees this just as a as
God's judgment.
And he's accepting it.
He's committing himself totally into God's hands and
into this judgment that God has brought upon
him.
And when David was a little past the
top of the hill, Ziba, the servant of
Mephibosheth, met him with a couple of donkeys
that were loaded down with bread and raisins
and summer fruits, a bottle of wine.
David said, what do you mean by all
these things?
And Ziba lied to him.
He said the donkeys are for the king's
household to ride on.
The bread and the summer fruit are for
the young men to eat and the wine
so that those that are faint in the
wilderness may drink.
The king said, and where is Mephibosheth?
And Ziba said to the king, behold, he
abides at Jerusalem because he said today they'll
restore the kingdom back to me.
In other words, he's lying to David about
Mephibosheth, declaring that Mephibosheth was looking to this
and and saying, hey, I'm going to get
the kingdom back.
That's not true.
That's a lie of Ziba.
And so David said, well, everything that I
gave to Mephibosheth is yours, you know, if
we ever get back.
Of course, later on, David found out the
guy was lying to him.
And as he was going along, another relative
of Saul, a cousin of sorts, Shimei, the
guy's name, and Shimei came out and began
to curse David, running along and throwing rocks
at David and throwing dirt in the air
and cursing him.
Now, Abishai said to David, David, that dirty
dog, he has no right doing that.
Let me go take his head off.
And David said, no, let him go.
Maybe God's put it in his heart to
curse me.
David has no fire.
Just, you know, maybe God wants him to
curse me.
Maybe that's what's in God's heart.
David is so broken at this point, realizing
that this is the fruit of my sin.
And yet there is a beautiful submission to
David unto God and unto the will of
God and even unto the judgments of God,
which is that which made David a man
after God's own heart.
He was willing to just commit himself now
totally to God, to the judgment of God.
God, if you want to wipe me out,
if you want to destroy me, if you
want to curse me, whatever you want to
do, God, do what you want to me.
And David isn't resisting any longer.
His life now is one of total and
complete commitment.
He was brought to that place of brokenness,
which so often is necessary in order that
we might enter into that place of complete
and total submission unto the will of God.
And though it is sort of sad to
see the fire gone, yet in another way
it's beautiful to see now no more resisting,
no more defending himself, but just that total
commitment.
Whatever God wants, let it be.
So Absalom came into Jerusalem and David had
left ten of his concubines to keep his
palace.
And so Ahithophel said to Absalom, look, put
up a tent on the roof of the
house and take the ten concubines in the
sight of all the people and take them
into the tent.
And there, in a sense, humiliate them.
Now, this was showing that a breach was
being created between Absalom and David that could
not be healed.
In other words, the people would feel secure
now in following Absalom because they feel, wow,
there's no way David could ever forgive this
sin.
Also, this was a common practice for a
king who took over the kingdom from his
predecessor.
One of the acts of taking the kingdom
from his predecessor was taking the king's wives,
even as David took Saul's wives.
Taking of the wives of the predecessor, again,
was a part of the succession in the
kingdom.
And so Absalom was really taking this position
of superseding David as king and also creating
a breach irreparable between himself and his father.
This was the counsel of Ahithophel and Absalom
followed it and the further part of the
prophecy of Nathan was fulfilled as we find
the wives of David there in the sun
before all of the people being publicly humiliated.
Next week, we'll begin our lesson at chapter
17.
There was one thing I passed over and
I want to come back to it.
In verse 25 of chapter 14, it tells
a little bit about Absalom.
In all Israel, there was none to be
so much praised as Absalom for his beauty.
From the sole of his foot to the
crown of his head, there was no blemish
in him.
He was a very beautiful person outwardly, but
he was cunning, cruel, and all inwardly.
And then it says that he pulled his
hair annually because his hair was heavy on
him.
Therefore, he pulled it and the weight of
his hair was about 200 shekels after the
king's weight, or every year he grew about
three to four pounds of hair.
Now, part of their pay was by the
pulling of their hair.
They would give them so much, you know,
per shekel and so forth for the pulling
of their hair.
And his weigh between three and four pounds
annually when they shave his head and weigh
it annually, about three to four pounds.
But it is interesting, it was his hair
that led to his death.
He was riding through the woods and his
hair got caught on a branch and he
was hanging there by his hair when Juab
came along and threw the darts through his
heart.
So, you know, there may be
disadvantages, but there can be advantages too.
Shall we stand?
Our Father, we give thanks unto You for
those lessons that can be learned as we
study Thy Word together.
Lord, enrich us in the knowledge of Thy
purposes and Thy will.
And help us, Lord, to grow in grace
and in the understanding of Thy truth.
Lord, we pray now that Thy Word will
be hid in our hearts and may we
be cleaned, washed through the Word that You
have spoken.
In Jesus' name, Amen.