Absalom

Good morning. Welcome to Radius White Knoll. In case yall didn’t know, we have open gym on Thursday nights. But just a heads up, if you’re in your mid-30’s or up, your body might not like running full court anymore.  My knees have not been happy with me. They hurt just now stepping up here. I’m not ready for all this. I guess I don’t have a choice do I? I did want to start today with sharing a little bit of encouragement. If you would’ve asked me about a year ago if I was ever going to get up here and preach and come on full-time for the church, I probably wouldn’t have shot it down. I had been feeling that pull for some time, but like many of us, stage fright is real. And what I actually said when asked that was that I felt it was about 10 years away. Idk why, but apparently that 10 years was more like 10 months. That's one of those things you get a kick out of now and you have to know God got a kick out of it when I said it. So I’m not saying a leap of faith is easy or always fun, but when God calls you to take that leap, take it. He’s got you. And it’s leading to who you were created to be.

And so if you’ve been with us then you know we are in a series on the life of David. And it’s raw, there are some tough issues to deal with. The bible doesn’t hide any of it, which is pretty cool. It’s just life and it shows how we all fail and struggle at times. Even King David. But it’s how we respond, God looks at the heart. He is far more concerned with our character and us following Him. The example we set for the world to see. When you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you are now the temple. We are called to be His hands and feet. And even though tough things are in the bible, we know that everything we read in the bible is there for a reason. We know that bc Paul told us in his second letter to Timothy, 2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. And to take that a step further, not only to equip us, but when we come across a passage that is hard to understand or accept, and we then take the time to try to understand that scripture in context of what it is saying, we are then directly taking the time to know God better. That’s what a relationship looks like. So don't shy away from it, we won’t here at Radius.

As we keep diving into David’s life we see that his life doesn’t get easier. After he has been fighting to stay alive before becoming king, now you could argue that when he becomes king he relaxes too much and becomes passive. And today we are going to take a look at his rebellious son Absalom. But to start I wanted to share a little story, especially since I knew my dad was going to be here. He once had a rebellious son who later became a pastor and got over his fear of stage fright. I blame it on Eminem. I had listened to too much Eminem growing up and I had convinced myself that my life was just like his. It was not even close. I used to want to run away and all kinds of stupid stuff. And so I came across this a year or 2 ago. Looks like nothing to you but it actually holds a great story. You may not be able to tell but on it are the 10 commandments written at about a 45 degree angle. I don’t know why I couldn’t write in a straight line, maybe it was bc I was about 10 or maybe it was bc I slightly feared for my life at the moment. Maybe both. So I grew up in a small town down the road called North. And for a while, on a Friday or Saturday night, the thing to do was to go to the turkey shoot that a local church put on right outside of town. Well I had already done something to get grounded and I wasn’t allowed to go to the turkey shoot and I thought they had just crossed the line. How dare they keep me from the turkey shoot. So I snuck out, hopped on my bicycle and headed a couple miles out of town to the turkey shoot. Not thinking this all the way through that it was my dad who was going to pick us up. I can still remember the look on his face, I can not imagine what would have been going through my head if I were in his shoes. So we get home and he tells me to write the ten commandments down. So thats what I did. We had a picture on the wall of the ten commandments so I took it down and copied it. We then went out to our family land and I was given my instructions. I was to run from the road to the river reciting the ten commandments, and for every one I didn’t know when we got to the river would be a spanking (with the belt) and if I stopped, that would be a spanking too. And just to start things off on the right note, I got a few lashings then too. It’s probably half a mile or so to the river. But when it’s mostly sand, your butt’s burning, and the fear of God is literally right behind you, it feels a lot farther than half a mile. And believe it or not, when I got to the river I knew everyone of the ten commandments verbatim the king james version. So if you’re struggling to memorize scripture, find me, I know a pretty cool trick. I know everyone disciplines differently, so if you have issues with how he did that then please find me for that too, he is here today and I will make sure your voice is heard on my behalf!

But if you go back to the beginning of that, I had justified in my mind that I was right. Why? Bc I couldn’t go to the turkey shoot? Bc my parents wouldn’t let me keep my Stone Cold Steve Austin t-shirts? I had convinced myself of believing a false reality, based on no truth. We can still do that, especially when we have some truth but not the whole truth. But even if I had some truth, it shouldn’t have mattered. The failure was in me not understanding the seriousness of sin. I was in direct violation of those very commandments I was writing down. You shall honor your father and mother. The 5th commandment, it comes before murder; which could be a sermon in itself. And the same can happen today. I bet many of you have a boss at work who isn’t saved. So you know they aren’t looking to God to carry out His will but the decisions they make will directly affect you. And in turn you can become disgruntled or worse. There are tons of ways someone can cause us to get out of character. But those are the very moments we should be showing God’s grace. Bc in turn we could end up violating scripture and putting ourselves at odds with our creator. We would then be sinning against Him, all bc our pride caused us to justify it. Justifying is just-a-lying to ourselves. No excuse justifies violating God’s commands on who we are to be. And I would argue that’s a lot of what Absalom did. Bc most of us would agree, he had reason to be angry. Just like David having the opportunity to take Saul's life twice, most would’ve understood. But David knew that he would’ve in turn been sinning against God. Saul was God’s anointed, even though David was the newly anointed. Out of his respect for the position and his reverence for God, he was being obedient in allowing his kingship to take place in God’s timing. You’ve heard me say that we are the faithful servant who carries out God’s will for God’s glory. You’ve heard it the way JP puts it, it’s about God’s will, God’s way, in God’s time! It’s about us being obedient and bleeding bible. Life is going to cut you, and when it does we want the bible to bleed out. How we act in those moments could very well be God’s call on our lives, in that moment, to shine His light on a lost world.

So we have been in the life of David for 2 months now. We have seen him anointed but not king. Kill a giant. Become famous and loved. And then hated by king Saul. Lived on the run and out of caves for years. Had opportunities to kill Saul but didn’t bc of his reverence for God and His law. He eventually becomes king of his tribe and then after Saul and Jonathan’s death he becomes king of all Israel. And if you were with us in May, we talked about David and Bathsheba, and that's really the beginning of what we're going to talk about today.

So if you remember, David was already king. And the bible reads that at a time when kings went off to war, David stayed behind. He is not where he is supposed to be. David becomes relaxed, he lets his guard down against the spiritual enemy. He sees Bathsheba bathing on a roof, lust after her and then acts on it. He’s just allowing the sin to consume him. He gets her pregnant. Then has her husband killed and he marries Bathsheba. Well the prophet Nathan comes along and rebukes David. He tells him a parable about himself to help David see the sin he has committed. And then tells him 11 “This is what the Lord says: Because of what you have done, I will cause your own household to rebel against you. I will give your wives to another man before your very eyes, and he will go to bed with them in public view. 12 You did it secretly, but I will make this happen to you openly in the sight of all Israel.”

Flash forward a few years later and that’s exactly what’s about to happen. 13 Now David’s son Absalom had a beautiful sister named Tamar. And Amnon, her half brother, fell desperately in love with her. (So this is more of a play on words, not true love as we will see) So Amnon and his cousin come up with a sick plan so he could sleep with her. “I’ll tell you what to do. Go back to bed and pretend you are ill. When your father comes to see you, ask him to let Tamar come and prepare some food for you. Tell him you’ll feel better if she prepares it as you watch and feeds you with her own hands.” 6 So Amnon lay down and pretended to be sick. And when the king came to see him, Amnon asked him, “Please let my sister Tamar come and cook my favorite dish as I watch. Then I can eat it from her own hands.” 7 So David agreed and sent Tamar to Amnon’s house to prepare some food for him. 8 When Tamar arrived at Amnon’s house, she went to the place where he was lying down so he could watch her mix some dough. Then she baked his favorite dish for him. 9 But when she set the serving tray before him, he refused to eat. “Everyone get out of here,” Amnon told his servants. So they all left. 10 Then he said to Tamar, “Now bring the food into my bedroom and feed it to me here.” So Tamar took his favorite dish to him. 11 But as she was feeding him, he grabbed her and demanded, “Come to bed with me, my darling sister.” 12 “No, my brother!” she cried. “Don’t be foolish! Don’t do this to me! Such wicked things aren’t done in Israel. 13 Where could I go in my shame? And you would be called one of the greatest fools in Israel. Please, just speak to the king about it, and he will let you marry me.” This is probably to buy her some time as this would not have been permitted under the law. But Amnon isn’t buying it, he over powers her and rapes her. And then immediately his “love” turns to hate, and it says he hated her even more than he had loved her. It wasn’t love, never was. He is being driven by lust. He is being consumed by the same sin as his father David did in his affair with Bathsheba. As we can often struggle with the same sins and bad habits as our parents. No it’s not a curse. But if we don’t break that chain, our kids are going to struggle with it too. They’re going to watch us not take our sins seriously. We have to become whoever we want our children to be, bc that’s who they are watching. And we know how to break that chain, by finding our identity in Christ. By submitting our lives to Him and allowing Him to renew our minds. So we can better see our sin and our lives as He does.

Amnon is already going down the same path as David. And Absalom is furious about it. Which we can all understand why, and I would argue he has righteous anger at this point. He is absolutely right to be mad about this. It says David is mad too but he does nothing. David has become passive as a king and now as a parent. One commentator put it this way, “David may have taken no action against Amnon because he realized that people would regard him as a hypocrite for punishing Amnon, since he himself had been guilty of a similar crime. Nevertheless, Amnon deserved to die (Lev. 20:17).” In one act Amnon’s lust has lead to at least 3 more sins against God; he raped someone, he slept with his sister, and he had sex outside of marriage. Those are easy for all of us to see, but what about that last one? That's a chain that the church as a whole has failed to break for how long? I know longer than I’ve been born, I grew up in it. When scripture tells us over and over it’s a sin against God. If we don’t take our sins seriously then we’ll continue to justify our acts of defiance against God (which is what sins are, we are actively defying God). And then we wonder why our world, our nation looks the way it does. It’s not getting better until we as the church start taking sin seriously. It’s not going to be easy, I know, but we must. Let’s not hide our failures but learn from them and use them.  Right here David could have been using his failures to teach his kids of what can happen when you give into sin.  It started with rape and now it’s about to lead to murder.

Flash forward another 2 years. Absalom has been sleeping on this, David has had 2 years to do something about it and there are no indications that he ever did. So Absalom’s out for revenge, probably thinking that if David won’t do it then I will. And I get it that what I’m about to say is hard to stomach but it is not Absalom’s place to take Amnon’s life. Even though Amnon deserved it. Absalom doesn’t have that authority, David does as king. But Absalom taking it into his own hands is now just as at fault with God. This is another one of David’s failures as a king and as a father. As a father, we are the God ordained leaders of our household. We are leading whether we like it or not. If we fail to lead then we are just leading our family in failure. As JP likes to say, “if you’re taking notes, I’d write that down.”

So Absalom has been sitting on this for 2 years. 23 Two years later, when Absalom’s sheep were being sheared at Baal-hazor near Ephraim, Absalom invited all the king’s sons to come to a feast. 24 He went to the king and said, “My sheep-shearers are now at work. Would the king and his servants please come to celebrate the occasion with me?” 25 The king replied, “No, my son. If we all came, we would be too much of a burden on you.” Absalom pressed him, but the king would not come, though he gave Absalom his blessing. 26 “Well, then,” Absalom said, “if you can’t come, how about sending my brother Amnon with us?” “Why Amnon?” the king asked. 27 But Absalom kept on pressing the king until he finally agreed to let all his sons attend, including Amnon. So Absalom prepared a feast fit for a king. So sheep-shearing was a pretty big deal back then. It was like the super bowl. One commentator says ‘In ancient Hebrew tradition, sheep-shearing became a spring festival to celebrate a sheep-herder’s plenty. It became a significant celebration in the Old Testament characterized by feasting, heavy drinking, and the settling of old scores. The shearing of sheep reminded everyone of their excess and their vulnerability, and in David’s narrative sheep-shearing seemed to correspond with avenging a wrong in the pursuit of establishing a royal dynasty (see Genesis 38, 1 Samuel 25, 2 Samuel 13).’  So that gives a better idea of why Absalom probably chose this moment. He had probably justified in his mind that he was avenging a wrong to establish a dynasty. I’m sure he had convinced himself that he was right. Here is how he does it. 28 Absalom told his men, “Wait until Amnon gets drunk; then at my signal, kill him! Don’t be afraid. I’m the one who has given the command. Take courage and do it!” 29 So at Absalom’s signal they murdered Amnon. Then the other sons of the king jumped on their mules and fled.

As they’re fleeing back to David, a report gets back to him that all his sons were dead. He throws himself to the ground. Then Jonadab shows up and lets him know it wasn’t all of them, just Amnon. They all weep together. Absalom flees to his mothers kingdom where his grandfather is king.

Chapter 14 Joab realized how much the king longed to see Absalom. 2 So he sent for a woman from Tekoa who had a reputation for great wisdom. He said to her, “Pretend you are in mourning; wear mourning clothes and don’t put on lotions. Act like a woman who has been mourning for the dead for a long time. 3 Then go to the king and tell him the story I am about to tell you.” Then Joab told her what to say. So she’s about to do the same thing that Nathan did to David after Bathsheba. She goes on to tell him a parable about himself to get him to convict himself in not bringing Absalom home. As David begins to see this he knows exactly who is behind it, and asks directly “Did Joab put you up to this?” Joab, if you don’t remember, was one of his right hand men, the general of his army, he has been there from the beginning. So Joab goes to get Absalom and David says, “Absalom may go to his own house, but he must never come into my presence.” David misses him but still isn’t willing to forgive. David is still being stubborn and it’s about to bite him. God forgives and restores relationships. Which we should all be very thankful for. And it gives us no excuse not to do the same. David not restoring this relationship is about to lead to prophecy being fulfilled, and not the prophecy he wants.

25 Now Absalom was praised as the most handsome man in all Israel. He was flawless from head to foot. 26 He cut his hair only once a year, and then only because it was so heavy. When he weighed it out, it came to five pounds! Apparently that's a lot. Who knew? I had to look it up and it’s pretty crazy. Just from what I saw, it sounds like about 1ft of hair per pound. There are other factors like thickness and things but 5ft of hair in a year, that sounds miserable. And if you know the story, this hair is going to be a part of his downfall later in the story. And Absalom, like Saul, attractive physically, but not attractive to God spiritually, because he put his own ambitions before God's plans. Absalom was now David’s heir to the throne by custom, but remember God chose Solomon as the chosen seed in the lineage of Jesus and to succeed David as king.

28 Absalom lived in Jerusalem for two years, but he never got to see the king. So Absalom reaches out to Joab by setting his field on fire??? Of all things. So Joab comes wondering why he set his field on fire and Absalom tells him, “Because I wanted you to ask the king why he brought me back from Geshur if he didn’t intend to see me. I might as well have stayed there. Let me see the king; if he finds me guilty of anything, then let him kill me.” 33 So Joab told the king what Absalom had said. Then at last David summoned Absalom, who came and bowed low before the king, and the king kissed him. So they are back together at last, but this is only the beginning…

Chapter 15 After this, Absalom bought a chariot and horses, and he hired fifty bodyguards to run ahead of him. 2 He got up early every morning and went out to the gate of the city. When people brought a case to the king for judgment, Absalom would ask where in Israel they were from, and they would tell him their tribe. 3 Then Absalom would say, “You’ve really got a strong case here! It’s too bad the king doesn’t have anyone to hear it. 4 I wish I were the judge. Then everyone could bring their cases to me for judgment, and I would give them justice!” 5 When people tried to bow before him, Absalom wouldn’t let them. Instead, he took them by the hand and kissed them. 6 Absalom did this with everyone who came to the king for judgment, and so he stole the hearts of all the people of Israel. I mean as conniving of a politician as it gets. And he did this for 4 years, then asked David to allow him to go to Hebron to offer a sacrifice to the Lord to fulfill a vow he had made. Probably wasn’t true at all, maybe it was, but he definitely had more up his sleeve. So Absalom went to Hebron. 10 But while he was there, he sent secret messengers to all the tribes of Israel to stir up a rebellion against the king. “As soon as you hear the ram’s horn,” his message read, “you are to say, ‘Absalom has been crowned king in Hebron.’” 11 He took 200 men from Jerusalem with him as guests, but they knew nothing of his intentions. 12 While Absalom was offering the sacrifices, he sent for Ahithophel, one of David’s counselors who lived in Giloh. Soon many others also joined Absalom, and the conspiracy gained momentum. Absalom is long gone. Doesn’t sound like there are efforts to restore this relationship from either side. And you can easily follow all of this back to David’s failure as a father, and Absalom justifying his sins. He murdered his brother, who he was righteously angry at. If David was on top of things that could've possibly been avoided. David’s forgiving of Absalom and allowing him to return was clearly shallow and not whole. As the relationship was never restored. God calls us to be merciful, to forgive and welcome back warmly and quickly. But David continues to be petty so Absalom continues to go a step further. Now he has conspired against his father and king, to take over the throne. Remember what the prophet Nathan said the Lord told him?  I will cause your own household to rebel against you. Well it’s coming true.

So from here David flees. He tells his men to leave so that they and the city will be spared. Which is pretty noble on David’s part. He knew that many lives would be lost and that the way to save them was to flee for the time being. And what you really begin to see, over the next chapter or 2,  is the difference in friendship between those loyal to David and those loyal to Absalom. While David had his faults and failures, he still had a heart for God that expressed itself in loving kindness for people. His people were willing to die for him. While Absalom was more of a “what can you do for me” kinda guy. One commentary says, "Meanwhile David showed a commendable attitude very much in contrast to Absalom's arrogance. He was completely willing to submit to God's will, whatever that might prove to be. Such willingness to surrender leadership at the right time is another hallmark of good leadership."

Over the next few chapters, armies are going to form and it’s going to culminate in battle. The rest of Nathan’s prophecy continues to be fulfilled. David is going to send one of his advisors to go undercover to Absalom to give bad advice that he would end up following. Which gave David what he needed, time. Eventually war breaks out and David’s men begin to handle business. 9 During the battle, Absalom happened to come upon some of David’s men. He tried to escape on his mule, but as he rode beneath the thick branches of a great tree, his hair (that beautiful luscious hair that we talked about earlier) got caught in the tree. His mule kept going and left him dangling in the air. 10 One of David’s men saw what had happened and told Joab, “I saw Absalom dangling from a great tree.” Joab then goes back and it says he took 3 javelins in his hand and thrust them into the heart of Absalom while he was still alive in the tree.

David learns of Absalom's death and cries out “O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you! O Absalom, my son, my son.” David goes on to show mercy and kindness as he restores the Kingdom. He allowed the word of God to bleed out of the deep wound from Absalom. While being human and having his faults and failures, David continued to repent and choose God. Over and over throughout David’s life he went against the grain of what the world would tell him to do and chose God’s will, God’s way, in God’s timing.

And the times he took his eyes off of God we saw it got ugly. While Christ has already handled our salvation, sin still has consequences. "Grace means that God, in forgiving you, does not kill you. Grace means that God, in forgiving you, gives you the strength to endure the consequences. Grace frees us so that we can obey our Lord. It does not mean sin's consequences are automatically removed. If I sin and in the process of sinning break my arm, when I find forgiveness from sin, I still have to deal with a broken arm." Now God absolutely has the power to mercifully heal that arm but that’s not really how He works. A commentary put it this way, "When David sowed to the flesh, he reaped what the flesh produced. Moreover, he reaped the consequences of his actions even though he had confessed his sin and been forgiven for it. Underline it, star it, mark it deeply upon your conscious mind: Confession and forgiveness in no way stop the harvest. He had sown; he was to reap. Forgiven he was, but the consequences continued. This is exactly the emphasis Paul is giving the Galatians even in this age of grace [Gal. 6:7]. We are not to be deceived, for God will not be mocked. What we sow we will reap, and there are no exceptions."

Band can come on up

So let's write the word of God on our hearts. Let’s, as scripture says, meditate on His word day and night. So that when we are cut, we show the world who God is. Let’s meditate on His word so that WE know who God is. Let’s put on the armor of God and see the world through His eyes. So that culture doesn’t influence which sins we take seriously, God’s word does. We can break the chains. We can be stepping stones for the next generations. But it starts with us, the church, shining His light to our radius.

I’m honored to join you all each Sunday to worship our Lord. And many of you I’ll see throughout the week. We were always meant to do this together. To do life together, to hold each other accountable and to lift each other up. You’re never alone on this journey. Get plugged in, not just to this church, but to the body of Christ.