2 Samuel 13

Disorder Comes Home

Big Idea: Since you reap what you sow, sometimes sin can come home to be repeated by your children.

Intro

They say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. This means that children often grow up to resemble their parents. Scientists and psychologists debate the reasons for this, asking is it nature (genetics) or nurture? The answer is probably a bit of both. But no one who has raised a child can deny that they see themselves in their children. This often includes your most regrettable sins.

As we continue through the saga of the life of David, we come to Ch. 13 and we begin to see disorder come to David's home. As the Lord begins to visit the consequences of David's sin on him and his household. While David was told specifically that his sin with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah, her husband would result in the same kinds of sin taking root in his family, so of course the text would lay out for us how this happens. Still, this principle is on display throughout scripture: sin always has consequences. A friend of mine is always saying, "play stupid games, win stupid prizes." And that's true. Since you reap what you sow, sometimes sin can come home to be repeated by your children.

2 Samuel 13

The Rape of Tamar

David has a lot of wives which have given him a lot of sons. While it's true that children are a blessing from the Lord. It's also true that children that are not nurtured in the faith are not a blessing. David has more than he can handle, or that he is willing to handle and it is going to begin to show.

Now, one of David's sons Absalom, has a sister Tamar that was very beautiful. Amnon, another of David's sons, but from another woman, loves Tamar, or at least he thinks he does. Now the law prohibits a brother from sleeping with his sister (Lev. 18:9, 11). But he wants her. He wants her so bad he has made himself sick. Just like his dad, it would seem that the thing that he can't have is exactly the thing he wants. Such is sin's temptation, the forbidden fruit is the only thing you can think of in a garden full of fruit.

So Jonadab, a crafty man and Amnon's cousin, comes up with a plan to bring Tamar within Amnon's grasp. Pretend to be sick and tell dad you want your sister to come and care for you. So David comes, and he listens to Amnon and sends for Tamar to come and care for him. Again we see David sending messages as in ch. 12. There he used his authority to sin, here he uses it to allow others (unbeknownst) to sin.

Tamar comes and cares for Amnon and after preparing food, he sends everyone out. As she brings the food to him he pleads with her to lie with him, she tries to convince him not to with suggestions that David might give her to him as a wife, which was not likely but would have allowed her to get away from him and tell someone. But Amnon's lust is not to be reasoned with. So he takes her by force and lays with her.

But after he does he immediately hates her, more so than he ever loved her, and he compels her to leave. She warns him that this is worse than taking her in the first place. As she leaves she tears the sleeves of the robe that virgin daughters of the king wore, covering her head with ashes as she mourns the wrong done to her.

Absalom her brother, is the first to discover the wrong done by Amnon. He tries to encourage her to hold her peace since he is her brother. But the tragic thing is she will live as a desolate woman in his house probably the rest of her life. Meanwhile, Absalom waits for his father to act. And David does hear of it, but all he does is get angry. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint give the rest of the story by adding, "but he would not punish his son Amnon, because he loved him, since he was his firstborn." To overlook sin through silence in your own family is not mercy. To refuse to bring justice as the civil magistrate in a capital offense is a king that perverts justice. Beyond that David's refusal to act provokes Absalom to take vengeance into his own hands. A temptation many feel when there is no justice.

The Murder of Amnon

So Absalom waits. He doesn't let on that he hates Amnon, so after two years biding his time he finds an opportunity to get even. He gets his father's permission to invite all David's sons to sheep shearing, which was a time of feasting. Think of it like payday weekend. To disguise his true motives, Absalom also invites David, and when he won't come he presses him to allow Amnon to come instead. David seems to be apprehensive which makes his agreeing to allow Amnon to go with Absalom almost complicity in Amnon's murder, at least through gross negligence. But in truth, David will increasingly show a lack of wisdom and discernment as a king and father. David is a shell of his former self.

Absalom needs to get Amnon away from Jerusalem and he also needs a ready getaway if he is to be successful in his vengeance against Amnon. Whereas David tried to disguise the murder of Uriah to look like the sad result of battlefield death, Absalom didn’t disguise his intentions from his servants at all. At his word, they are to kill Amnon. Which, when he was good and drunk, they did. Soon everyone is fleeing. Absalom to his maternal grandfather in Geshur, and the other sons back to Jerusalem. Meanwhile, the gossip mill reaches David as people supposed Absalom's plot was to kill all the king's sons, leaving no other contenders to the throne. But there is shrewd Jonadab, as shrewd as a serpent, to put David at ease. For Absalom's plan, since Amnon raped his sister, was to take vengeance. The scene ends with a king bereaved of his oldest son by murder, a daughter wasting away in her desolation, meanwhile his spirit longs for the return of his treacherous son Absalom. What a bleak picture of a house filled with disorder.

The way this episode begins: "Now Absalom, David's son, had a beautiful sister" sets the story up as an introduction to the coup d'état of Absalom, which will take the better part of the book. The rivalry between David's sons over the throne will continue into Solomon's reign. Absalom is the negative image of David - repeating all the sins of David but having none of his virtues.

As parents we worry about our children. We want them to love the Lord; we want them to have success, and we want them to avoid great suffering. Sometimes we see our sins clearly in our children and mourn that. Other times, we are oblivious because we don’t see it in ourselves. The danger, then, is that our children too will be oblivious and carry on that sinful habit or disposition without even knowing it. It’s clear in our text that the narrator is showing us that David is reaping what he sowed. He was driven by lust and abusive of his authority, so was Amnon; he used the sword to fix his problems and so does Absalom.

But it does not excuse the boys for their sins. The narrator is not teaching that the father has eaten sour grapes, so the children’s teeth are set on edge (Ezek. 18:2). God is soverign and he has determined that the consequences for David’s sins would be a house at war with itself. But he does not bring that about by doing violence to the will of those within David’s house. Rather, his plan comes about through second causes, i.e. the free, but sinful actions of those in David’s family.

We live in a victim culture. Therapists have for some time taught people to look for the source of their problems everywhere but where they should. Right here in their heart. The way you are nurtured will certainly affect you, maybe even for the rest of your life. No doubt Amnon and Absalom learned a great deal from watching their father, both by what he did in Amnon case, but also by what he left undone as in Absalom’s case. But God will hold these boys personally responsible for their sins. They cannot fall back on the excuse I learned this from my father.

What is true of every child born is they are born and raised by two sinful parents. Who, although they may mean well, will teach them to sin. Hopefully, they will also teach them to repent, and hopefully they will constantly point them to Christ–the only perfect man, and God–the only perfect father. If your relationship to God doesn’t define you, then I promise you that you will be defined by your relationship with your earthly family. You will be always looking back into your past to discover the genesis of your woes. But your past need not define you. But you can only move beyond your past, by looking to Christ, and by learning to cast your cares upon Him.

But parents, this is a telling picture of parenting gone wrong. Fathers, who are negligent with their sons, or overly indulgent, will reap sons who are not well adjusted. They will often either be soft and effeminate, or too hard and often brutal. They need your presence. They need to be around you, and around other godly men. Part of David’s problem is he is not aware of the sins that are developing in his sons. They are off in their own houses. They probably grew up separate from him. Now, thankfully, we have lived in a Christianized society such that polygamy is not (yet) practiced. But in culture where it is, this is often the fall out.

Still, it’s not hard for men to have this kind of neglect when the children do grow up in their home. Often we pour ourselves into our work, especially when things are tense at home. And maybe you don’t resort to affairs, or rape like David and Amnon, but your nursing a porn addiction. Let me warn you, you may think no one knows, so how can this have an effect on my family? Besides, I need an outline and she’s not available, and this is better than getting a prostitute or having an affair. But sin is never private, and it will affect your family and is doing so now. You need to kill the lust that is driving you to porn before it consumes your family. Sin always has collateral damage, and it’s often the Tamar’s in your family who bear the brunt of it.

Sin also has a way of disordering your loves, so that you desire what is forbidden, or at least you think that’s what will make you happy. How many marriages and families have been broken apart by the chaos disordered love brings? And it isn’t always sexual. Here, we also see sibling rivalry, and the hatred that can develop even between brothers. If you are not saturating yourself in the word of God, and practicing repentance, then I promise you all your relationships have the potential to sour and become toxic, even those in your own home.

You reap what you sow, and if you sow to the flesh, you will reap death. But if you sow to the Spirit, you will gain eternal life. These things were written for your instruction, so that you would learn not to desire evil as Amnon and Absalom did; so that you would learn not to be indulgent and slow to judge sin in your homes. Take care that you be killing sin, or it will be killing you. Amen.