2 Samuel 15
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Additional context: Watch the theology teaching video, What is the Bible?
Transcript
All right, so Chet and Spencer are away. Let's get down to business. No, no, no, no, no. My name is Mike. I'm an elder in training here. Last week at the end of the sermon, I had three people come up to me and say that I reminded them of Absalom.
I had one person come up and tell me I reminded them of Abimelech and I reminded them that that's not what the story was about and that was Raz. So when they told me that I reminded them of Absalom, I said, "Oh, of course, the striking good looks." And they all pretty intentionally clarified, "No, that is not why. it is because you have long hair and you are trying to convince people to leave this church and go out with you to plant another church. And so that brings me to my first point today. Oak Ridge Church in Lexington will be meeting sometime in January of 2027. Now this is not an infomercial for our church plant, even though we are very excited about that.
We're going to be today in 2 Samuel. We're going to be in chapter 15. This is going to be on page 304 of the Bibles that are at your seats. We would ask if you'd consider not using an electronic Bible if you're willing and instead maybe pick one of those Bibles up and we're going to read the Bible together. And we think that's a helpful thing. Before we get started in our text, I'm going to pray for us. Father, we thank you for being our God, for being our salvation.
We thank you for your good scripture that teaches us about you. Please Lord, may the Spirit work in our hearts through the foolishness of preaching that we would be changed to be more like your Son in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. Last week we saw that David permitted Absalom to return back to Jerusalem after he initially spent three years in exile after murdering his brother Amnon after Amnon's sin with Tamar. But even though Absalom was back in Jerusalem, he was not allowed to be in the king's presence.
And after about two years, he kind of forces himself back into the king's presence by burning down Joab's field. Now, Joab is one of David's nephews. He is the son of David's sister. And he's one of the commanders of David's army. So, Absalom burns down the field, gets his attention, and Joab tells David, and David lets Absalom back into his presence. And then Absalom goes and spends the next four years positioning himself daily at the city gate, rendering judgments and manipulating the people, stealing their hearts is what it says. He is taking them away from their loyalty and their allegiance to King David.
He then travels down to Hebron, which is about 18 miles or so south of Jerusalem. And he's got a large group of followers with him. And guys, remember Hebron is actually a pretty significant place. It's significant that he goes down there. So Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the patriarchs, the men from which all of Israel descended, are buried.
They're all buried in Hebron. And David himself was was anointed king down in Hebron. So this is a pretty significant place. And now we see Absalom is down there and he's proclaimed as king, but he's not anointed. He's taking it by manipulation. And we're going to see taking it by force.
This is the beginning of a full-scale rebellion. And today we're actually gonna look at how David responds and how the people around David respond to what's going on here in Israel. We pick up in verse 13 of chapter 15. And a messenger came to David saying, "The hearts of the men of Israel have gone after Absalom." Then David said to all his servants who were with him at Jerusalem, "Arise and let us flee, or else there will be no escape for us from Absalom," "Go quickly, lest he overtake us quickly and bring down ruin on us and strike the city with the edge of the sword."
And the king's servant said to the king, "Behold, your servants are ready to do whatever my Lord, the king, decides." So the king went out and all his household after him. And the king left 10 concubines to keep the house. And the king went out and all the people after him and they halted at the last house. All right.
So a messenger comes in and tells David, hey, Israel is going to follow Absalom. So through his manipulation over the last four years, he has won over a significant portion of people that this messenger comes right in and says, "Hey, is the hearts of the men of Israel, they're gone. And they're not just gone from you. They've gone to your son Absalom." Meaning Absalom has the loyalty of these people. So David responds by saying to all his servants that are still in Jerusalem that they need to flee because if they stay, they will not escape from Absalom and he will come quickly and violently and he will ruin them.
And so his servants get up with him and they get ready to flee and they leave behind the 10 concubines to maintain the house. And now they're going. And this is a pretty high pressure moment in this story. And we've we've kind of seen stuff like this play out in stories before, right? You know, you know the story the the tale of the prince who his uncle wanted to become king. And so he convinces the prince that the prince killed his dad.
And the prince gets so overwhelmed and so scared that he flees. And he leaves Pride Rock. And Zazu and Rafiki have no idea what they're going to do. And we see stories like this in our entertainment. But guys, this happens a lot and it has happened a lot in history.
There are so many coups in history from the murder of Julius Caesar to Napoleon taking over France to Castro and the Cuban Revolution. Did you know that in 2024 there was a coup in South Korea where the president of South Korea decided he was going to declare martial law so the legislature you know they couldn't meet or do anything and then well the legislature met anyway and 11 days later he was impeached and then put on trial. That was two years ago. This kind of stuff has been happening forever throughout history. And honestly, when I think about that, I can't help but think back to 1 Samuel chapter 8, where Israel is demanding that they have a king so they can be like all the other nations.
And David, their king, is now here fleeing Jerusalem because his son is coming to overthrow him just like so many other nations before them and so many other nations that will come after them. What do you think was on David's mind? What do you think he was thinking about here? You know, the text doesn't directly say, but do you remember what the Lord said through the prophet Nathan in chapter 12? In chapter 12, when Nathan is pronouncing his judgment from God on David for his sin, the Lord says to David that the sword will not depart from your house. And then right after in chapter 13, we find out Absalom kills his brother Amnon.
So, one of David's sons kills the other. And now David suspects Absalom is coming for him. So his plan is to flee. And it might be because he's afraid of Absalom. It might be because he wants to avoid conflict with his own son. It might also be acceptance of the judgment of God.
And I actually think that the rest of what we're going to look at today supports that idea. Supports that David has accepted what God has planned for him no matter what. All right. So, David's servants are ready to go and they begin leaving Jerusalem together. And let's pick up verse 18. And all his servants pass by him.
And all the Cherethites and all the Pelethites and all the 600 Gittites who had followed him from Gath passed on before the king. Then the king said to Ittai the Gittite, "Why do you also go with us? Go back and stay with the king, for you are a foreigner, and also in exile from your home. You came only yesterday. And shall I today make you wander about with us, since I go, I know not where? Go back, take your brothers with you.
And may the Lord show steadfast love and faithfulness to you." But Ittai answered the king, "As the Lord lives and as my Lord the king lives, wherever my Lord the king shall be, whether for death or for life, there also will be your servant." And David said to Ittai, "Go then, pass on." So Ittai the Gittite passed on with all his men and all the little ones who were with him. And all the land wept aloud as all the people passed by and the king crossed the brook Kedron and all the people passed on toward the wilderness. Okay, so David's leaving and as he's leaving he passes by different people that are highlighted for us here in the text.
First there's the Cherethites, the Pelethites and the Gittites. So the Cherethites and the Pelethites are part of the royal bodyguard. So these are warriors who protect David and they go with him. And the Gittites and their leader Ittai are originally from Gath, we're told. And that's a a Philistine city. And the reason that we're told that is because back in 1 Samuel, David when he was originally fleeing Israel, fleeing from Saul when Saul wanted him dead, lived in Gath.
And these men followed him when he returned back to Israel. And so he gives Ittai the option. He says, "Go back. You can just go back and align yourself with Absalom. You do not have to come with me." He says, "There's not really a reason for you, Ittai, to go ahead and get caught up in this problem.
I'm releasing you from that." And Ittai refuses and he says, "He's going to stay with David even to death." And that is pretty awesome. There's something in us that just kind of loves a display of loyalty and a display of friendship like that. If you remember the famous book series that was adapted into the blockbuster movies, The Lord of the Rings, the whole series, the whole journey, the main character is trying to destroy this ring that he has to carry. And right when he's at the end, right when he's just feet almost steps from being able to do so, he runs out of strength and and by his side with him the whole time is his friend, his best friend that he's known his whole life.
And his friend looks at him and says, "I can't carry it for you." And that's the ring, "But I can carry you." And when you watch that in the theater or maybe at your house, you're like, "Yeah, and I can carry it for you, too." You just like get so swept up in it, it's really cool. And your wife says pipe down, but you're like, "No, this is this is awesome." And so we see that and that strikes a chord within our hearts because we love that display of loyalty and friendship.
We want to be a part of that display of loyalty and friendship. And so I think that's a really noteworthy thing and I think it's included in that in who he passes by on his way out of town because we get to see that exceptional display of friendship and loyalty to David. So, he's got this large group of faithful friends who in his darkest hour are leaving Jerusalem with him and they're all together and it says that they're weeping and that they're headed into the wilderness. Verse 24, and Abiathar came up, and behold, Zadok came also with all the Levites bearing the ark of the covenant of God.
And they set down the ark of God until the people had all passed out of the city. Then the king said to Zadok, "carry the ark of God back into the city. If I find favor in the eyes of the Lord, he will bring me back and let me see both it and his dwelling place. But if he says, I have no pleasure in you, behold, here I am, let him do to me what seems good to him." The king also said to Zadok the priest, "Are you not a seer? Go back to the city in peace with your two sons, Ahimeaz, your son, and Jonathan, the son of Abiathar.
See, I will wait at the fords of the wilderness until word comes from you to inform me." So Zadok and Abiathar carried the ark of God back to Jerusalem, and they remain there. But David went up the ascent of the Mount of Olives, weeping as he went, barefoot and with his head covered. And all the people who were with him covered their heads and they went up weeping as they went. And it was told David, Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom. And David said, "O Lord, please turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness."
All right. Now we are going to get into David's response to the situation that he's in. So Abiathar and Zadok, who are they? They are the chief priests. They are part of the Levites and they carry the ark of the covenant. And the ark of the covenant represents God's presence with his people.
What does David say? He tells them, "Take it back to Jerusalem." Why? Why would David say that? Part of the answer to that question is because he says, "Zadok, aren't you a Aren't you a seer? Aren't you a prophet?" maybe David thinks, well, if he's back there, he can he can get some information out to me while I'm out here in the wilderness.
It might be good to have him back there. And that is part of it. However, I think the main answer, the main reason that David tells him to take the ark, tells them to take the ark of the covenant back, is because he is accepting of the sovereign will of God. And he's doing it with humility. David's response is to essentially resign himself to the will of God. And if he sees the ark again, he knows God has looked favorably on him.
And if not, then may God do what seems good to him. In the 1600s, German theology professor Samuel Rodegast wrote a song for his friend who was dying. And the song is called Was Gott tut das ist wohlgetan. Do you got I'll translate that for you for those of you who don't speak German. Whatever my God ordains is right. And one of the verses in this song goes, "Whatever my God ordains is right, he never will deceive me.
He leads me by the proper path, I know he will not leave me. I take content what he has sent. His hand can turn my griefs away, and patiently I wait his day." So David resolutely accepts the will of God and he ascends the Mount of Olives weeping and here we see the second aspect of his response. We first see the humble acceptance of the divine will and after that we see him pray. What does he pray?
He asks God to make the counsel of Ahithophel foolish. Now, Ahithophel was once David's advisor, but he turned his allegiance toward Absalom. And David here, powerless from a position of humility, asks the Lord to make whatever Ahithophel advises Absalom to be foolish. And we're actually going to see later on that God is going to answer this prayer. But something I want to see is that the two aspects of the response are actually linked together, require each other.
Because intrinsic to prayer is humility. It's recognizing that the greatest thing you can possibly do is acknowledge the will of God and the fact that he is ordaining all things. And when you do that, you are going to pray. No, you are. You pray. When you have a heart posture like that, what comes out of it from within you is prayer.
Because you finally understand how insignificant you are in affecting outcomes on this earth and you realize that God is sovereign and that God is ordaining all things and you are not God. What happened in Israel when they decided to accomplish their own will? Sexual sin, murder, treachery, it doesn't really go well. And the world around us doesn't really understand this, right? Because what happens when we see tragedies and things like that and people say, "Well, you know, our thoughts and prayers are are with the victims and and the things that have happened, right?" And people just don't like that.
They sort of respond back with, "Well, we don't want that. We would rather you do something. We would rather see action. But if you know God and you know your relationship to him and you understand in your heart that what he ordains is right, that what he is doing has a purpose, then you know that the greatest thing you possibly could do would be to pray and to ask him, hey, if it could work out this way, would you change the counsel of Ahithophel to be foolishness? Right? And to commune with God from a position of humility is a really powerful thing.
Let's pick back up in verse 32. While David was coming to the summit where God was worshiped, behold, Hushai the Archite came to meet him with his coat torn and dirt on his head. David said to him, "If you go on with me, you will be a burden to me. But if you return to the city and say to Absalom,"I will be your servant, O king, as I have been your father's servant in time past, so now I will be your servant. Then you will defeat for me the counsel of Ahithophel."
Are not Zadok and Abiathar the priests with you there? So whatever you hear from the king's house, tell it to Zadok and Abiathar, the priests. Behold, their two sons are with them. Ahimeaz Zadok's son and Jonathan Abiathar's son. And by them you shall send to me everything you hear. So Hushai, David's friend, came into the city just as Absalom was entering Jerusalem.
Okay. Here, David tells Hushai, another one of his close friends and counselors, to go back to Jerusalem and act as a spy, essentially to feed information to Zadok and Abiathar, who will through their sons get that information out into the wilderness to David. And so now we finish chapter 15 with David on his way out of Jerusalem. And we begin chapter 16. And as David is out of Jerusalem, Absalom has now entered Jerusalem. Chapter 16 starts, "When David had passed a little beyond the summit, Ziba the servant of Mephibosheth met him with a couple of donkeys saddled bearing 200 loaves of bread, a hundred bunches of raisins, a hundred of summer fruits, and a skin of wine."
And the king said to Ziba, "Why have you brought these?" Ziba answered, "The donkeys are for the king's household to ride on, the bread and summer fruit for the young men to eat, and the wine for those who faint in the wilderness to drink." And the king said, "And where is your master's son?" That's Mephibosheth. "Where is your master's son?" Ziba said to the king, "Behold, he remains in Jerusalem, for he said, Today the house of Israel will give me back the kingdom of my father." Then the king said to Ziba, "Behold, all that belonged to Mephibosheth is now yours."
And Ziba said, "I pay homage. Let me ever find favor in your sight, my Lord the king." Okay, so back in 2 Samuel 9, we see the first interaction of David with Ziba. And what's happening there is remember David wanted to honor someone of the lineage of his friend Jonathan. And so he wants to find someone of the lineage of Saul. Jonathan was Saul's son.
And he wants to honor him. And Ziba says, "Well, actually, Jonathan's son, Mephibosheth, is here." And David says, "Okay, bring him to me." And he brings him and he honors him. And he says, "You're going to always eat at the king's table." And Ziba then after that is made the servant of Mephibosheth.
And now where we are, we've got Ziba coming to tell David, "Hey, just so you know, as you were leaving back in Jerusalem, Mephibosheth went ahead and said, "Awesome. Now I'm going to get the kingdom back because David's gone." Like as if the house of Saul is going to now take back the kingdom. And David kind of takes this just at face value. And I don't know if it's because maybe things have not been working out super well for David. So, you know, when you're not having the greatest of time and you hear a piece of information that's not that great, you're like, "Of course, yeah, that's going wrong, too.
The car is broken as well." You know, it's that kind of thing where, yeah, Mephibosheth thinks he's going to be king. I guess that's what he wanted all along. I don't know if that's exactly what David's thinking, but he responds by giving what he had originally given to Mephibosheth over to Ziba. But later on, and we're not going to unpack this as much today, in chapter 19, Mephibosheth is going to dispute this.
And we're not actually sure if this is what happened. But from David's perspective, he thinks Mephibosheth has also sort of abandoned him and is looking to gain his own kingdom. And he thinks that's another person who probably is not on his side anymore. Verse 5. When King David came to Bahurim, there came out a man of the family of the house of Saul, whose name was Shimei, the son of Gera. And as he came, he cursed continually. And he threw stones at David and at all the servants of King David.
And all the people and all the mighty men were on his right hand and on his left. And Shimei said as he cursed, "Get out. Get out. You man of blood, you worthless man. The Lord has avenged on you all the blood of the house of Saul in whose place you have reigned. And the Lord has given the kingdom into the hand of your son Absalom.
See, your evil is on you, for you are a man of blood. So Shimei, who is one of Saul's relatives, sees things aren't going very well for David. And as David and his guard and all his people with him are are passing by, he starts flinging stones at him and saying a curse at him. And the text sort of reads this as one man just out there flinging rocks into a crowd of hundreds, thousands at David and cursing at him. And we're told he does this because he resents David for what happened to Saul. In verse 9, you see, then Abishai, the son of Zeruiah, said to the king, "Why should this dead dog curse my Lord the king?
Let me go over and take off his head." But the king said, "What have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah? If he is cursing because the Lord has said to him, "Curse David, who then shall say, why have you done so?" And David said to Abishai and to all his servants, "Behold, my own son seeks my life. How much more now may this Benjaminite? Leave him alone and let him curse, for the Lord has told him to. It may be that the Lord will look on the wrong done to me, and that the Lord will repay me with good for his cursing today."
So David and his men went on the road while Shimei went along on the hillside opposite him and cursed as he went and threw stones at him and flung dust. And the king and all his people who were with him arrived weary at the Jordan and there he refreshed himself. Okay. So Abishai is Joab, the guy who we talked about from last time whose field was burned. He's his brother. So this is another one of David's nephews, one of the children of David's sister.
And Abishai, he is not liking this. He does not like what he sees here. This is like, you know, if you're like in high school and maybe you're like having a feud with another person and so like all your friends, they're like shooting that other person dirty looks. Maybe that person's having a party and they're like, "Well, we're not going to go because, you know, our friends are feuding with each other. we're not going to go support that. And then your friend kind of comes up to you and he says, "Look over there at that dead dog. How about I just go bring his head to you?"
And you're like, "Whoa." Love the zeal, but no. And so David here tells Abishai, "No." But this isn't the first time that's had to happen because actually back in 1 Samuel, Abishai is with David when David is in the camp of Saul when Saul wants to kill him and Saul is sleeping and David and Abishai are there and see him and Abishai goes let me pin him to the ground with one thrust of the spear and David tells him no and he tells him here no again. So he's being cursed and mocked by Shimei and Abishai will not stand for that.
And in his zeal he wants to go kill him. And you know David could have just been like yeah I am so tired of this. I am so sick of this. Go over there and bring me his head. But he does not.
Instead, he says, "Let him curse because if God told him to curse, then who are we to question that? And perhaps one day God will look favorably upon it for me." This is David again accepting God's will humbly. He rejects the opportunity to control the outcome by manipulating the circumstances and instead he resigns himself to the will of God. I think that's really hard. And I know some of you feel like you're in the same boat, right?
Maybe your mind is three steps ahead of everyone else and you're always trying to engineer the best outcome for yourself, especially if things haven't been going well lately. And so seeing David do this this act of humility is impressive and it's really challenging. We're going to bring our time together with this story to a close today. I want us to look back through some of those themes that we stopped to talk about. You know, we're not kings and queens. We probably will never flee our own homes on foot because of a coup.
But a lot of these are reflections of what goes on in people's hearts. And I think some of these things go on in our hearts. First, I want us to reflect on Israel's desire for the king. Their desire to be just like everyone else around them. You know, this was a rejection of God as their king. And we talked about this in 1 Samuel, but now here they are just like everyone else.
Because murder and sexual sin and treachery are all just glimpses of what life choosing your own sin and choosing your own will can lead to. And it doesn't ever seem like that. Nobody ever says we want a king and is thinking about a military coup. But yes, sin can take us to the place that we never think we'll go. So where are you tempted to believe these things?
Where are you tempted to say that you know better that you desire a king even though that's not what God wants? I mean, I know I'm not supposed to sleep with my boyfriend or girlfriend before we're married, but what's the big deal? I mean, it's just so impractical in this economy anyway to not live together. I mean, I understand that God says I shouldn't lie, but really, honestly, taxes are crazy high, and I don't really believe in them anyway. So, what's a big deal if I count that as a deduction? Where do you think you know better than God?
And where will it take you today? Reflect on that and turn from it. You can do it. You can turn from it. You can reject it and obey God, but not in your own willpower. But Romans tells us that we were once slaves to sin, but from a changed heart, we can now obey.
You can obey if you have repented of sin and put faith in the gospel because your heart is changed. And only from a changed heart can we obey God. Second, I want us to see the beauty of friendship and the beauty of loyalty. David in one of his darkest hours is surrounded by men who refuse to leave him. So where do we need to be a friend like Ittai the Gittite?
Where do we need to say that wherever you will be, I will be, good or bad? Are you sticking it out with your friends? Are you showing it up? Are you showing up when they need you or are you just busy? What do you need to remove from your life so that you can have the space to be there for other people? Some of you have been in rough situations in your life.
Some of you are in rough situations and some of you can think of people who have showed up. Some of those people are sitting nearby you in this room. Rejoice in that because guys, you know that's a reflection of God. You know in the book of Hebrews it says that God will never leave us or forsake us. Why? Because he forsook Jesus.
And so we are welcomed in a relationship with God that even death cannot sever. And we should reflect that to the friends around us that God has brought in our path. Thirdly, I want us to see David's humble contentment with God's will. We see it in his posture toward the ark of the covenant and in the cursing from Shimei. David accepts whatever God has ordained. And the temptation in times when you're walking a dark road can be to look up at God and say, "No, I am the master of my fate.
I am the captain of my soul." And so I ask you today, where are you discontent with what God has sent? work, family, dating, children, health. Remind yourself of his goodness and entrust yourself to him. David ascends the Mount of Olives, weeping, resolved to God's will. And about a thousand years later, a descendant of David will sit at the base of the Mount of Olives in the Garden of Gethsemane. And in grief, he is going to call out to God and say, "Let this cup pass from me."
Yet, not as I will, but as you will. And that's Jesus. And that's David's descendant who humbly accepts the will of God and goes to the cross and is punished for sin and he dies and he's buried and he rises again. And because of that, because Jesus has humbly accepted the will of the Father and was crushed, you can humbly accept the will of the Father and live. And the band is going to come back up and we are going to close this morning reflecting on Jesus, on the freedom he brings from our own sinful will and desire, on the relationships that he makes possible for us to have with God and on the example of humble acceptance of the will of God that he showed us on the cross that allows us to accept whatever comes our way.
2 Samuel 14
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
Good morning. What a wonderful morning. Baptisms are a time to truly be thankful that God redeems any of us and that we get to enjoy the benefits of what it means to follow him, belong to him in the context of the church community. What a blessing. We're continuing to walk through 1 and 2 Samuel. We're in 2 Samuel chapter 14 today.
We'll spill into chapter 15 as well. We've got quite a bit of story to get through. Let me give us a little bit of a recap from last week. It'll be on page 303 in the Black Bible. So if you're going to grab a Bible nearby, you can follow along with us.
Last week, really last week in the next few chapters, we're kind of living in the aftermath of David's sin. What we saw last week is that his son Anon desired his half-sister Tamar, and then he assaulted her. And we saw the devastation of that spill into two years of Tamar's brother waiting for his opportunity to exact revenge, and then we saw Absalom kill Amnon. And we are in the aftermath of that tragic story, and we're going to see more of this continue into a story today that has also elements that are laden with sin. And my hope as we walk through this story today that in the darkness of this really section of 2 Samuel, we would actually discover some really wonderful hope.
Some really, really wonderful hope. So let me pray for us, and then we're just going to jump straight into the story. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you, in the middle of sin and brokenness, in the middle of darkness, in the middle of all sorts of suffering, because of the effects of sin, you bring wonderful hope. God, I pray that we would be reminded of that today as we walk through a story that continues in this section that is difficult. And we ask that you would open our eyes to what is true, and that we might leave here as not just hearers of the word, but we would also be doers of the word.
We ask this in faith, in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, so pick up in verse 1. Now Joab, the son of Zeruiah, knew that the king's heart went out to Absalom. And Joab sent to Tekoa, and brought from there a wise woman, and said to her, Pretend to be a mourner, and put on mourning garments. Do not anoint yourself with oil, but behave like a woman who has been mourning many days for the dead.
Go to the king, and speak thus to him. So Joab put words in her mouth. So Joab sees how much this situation with Absalom has affected David, and he wants to do something about it. Joab is the commander of his army. It's David's nephew. He loves David.
And he wants to ease his pain, and he figures out a way to do this, that he's going to do pretty much what Nathan the prophet did, which is to come and act out a story. I don't know why David keeps falling for these, but he does. Like he apparently appreciates theatrics, but he just... Joab sees what happened with Nathan the prophet, and says, I'm going to do the same thing. I'm going to find this wise woman. He goes and sends for a woman from Tekoa, which is not far away from Jerusalem.
And then basically says, you're going to be someone who's mourning, who is sad. And then he gives her a script that she's going to go act out before the king to illustrate a point. So this is the script. Verse 4. When the woman of Tekoa came to the king, she fell on her face to the ground and paid homage and said, Save me, O king. Which is a dramatic entry into something that actually would have been very normal for their time.
The Israelite kings were meant to be Judges for the people. That you could come and bring your dispute to the king, that he would hear it and give a ruling on it. This is a normal practice. And she says, Save me, O king. Verse 5. And the king said to her, What is your trouble?
She answered, Alas, I'm a widow. My husband is dead. And your servant had two sons. And they quarreled with one another in the field. There was no one to separate them. And one struck the other and killed him.
And now the whole clan has risen against your servant. And they say, Give up the man who struck his brother that we may put him to death for the life of his brother whom he killed. And so they would destroy the air also. Thus they would quench my coal that is left and leave my husband, neither name nor remnant, on the face of the earth. So, that's the script that Joab writes for her. And it is indeed sad.
It is a woman who has been widowed. She has two sons. Her sons are in the field. They're fighting, and the other one, one of them kills the other. So it's devastating to lose a son.
Now, the remaining son, her clan, is wanting capital punishment. They want him to be put to death. And she's hiding him. And they're demanding this. And she's coming to the king. So that she could be spared more of this grief so that her husband would have a name, have a remnant that's left behind.
That's the situation. Then the king said to the woman, Go to your house, and I will give orders concerning you. And the woman of Tekoa said to the king, On me be the guilt, my Lord the king, and on my father's house let the king and his throne be guiltless. The king said, If anyone says anything to you, bring him to me, and he shall never touch you again. Then she said, Please let the king invoke the Lord your God, that the avenger of blood kill no more, and my son be not destroyed.
He said, As the Lord lives, not one hair on your son shall fall to the ground. So she gets David. She reels him in. And she gets him to agree to, invoking the name of the Lord, a protection upon this fake son. So he's going to, no one's going to lay a hand on him.
So this is David, y'all. David just so clearly can assess the situation that's outside of himself. He just so clearly sees it. He's like, I'm going to intervene. And she's got him. Verse 12.
Then the woman said, Please let your servant speak a word to my Lord the king. He said, Speak. And the woman said, Why then have you planned such a thing against the people of God? For in giving this decision, the king convicts himself inasmuch as the king does not bring his banished one home again. And that's the point of Joab's script. To get David to reckon with the fact that Absalom cannot come back to Jerusalem.
She got him. Joab wrote this well. She says, You've convicted yourself. It is you who have made sure that Absalom cannot come home. And then she continues. Verse 14.
We must all die. We are like water spilled on the ground which cannot be gathered up again. But God will not take away life and he divides his means so that the banished one will not remain an outcast. Now I've come to say this to my Lord the king because the people have made me afraid and your servant thought, I will speak to the king. It may be that the king will perform this, the request of his servant. For the king will hear and deliver his servant from the hand of the man who would destroy me and my son together from the heritage of God.
And your servant thought, The word of my Lord the king will set me at rest for my Lord the king is like the angel of God to discern good and evil. The Lord your God be with you. So she basically says, Listen, we're all like water spilled to the ground. We're all going to die one day. And as for this banished one, Absalom, why punish him any longer? But she ties it back to her story, this script, and says, See, you should bring him home.
You have the power, David. You can make this right. Bring him home. And after boldly correcting their king, she very wisely begins with some flattery. She says, The king is like the angel of God that has discerned good and evil, which is very wise at this point because you've just put the king on blast. Maybe you should say some kind words about who he is.
Verse 18, And the king answered the woman, Do not hide from me anything I ask you. And the woman said, Let my Lord the king speak. The king said, Is the hand of Joab with you in all this? The woman answered and said, As surely as you live, my Lord the king, one cannot turn to the right hand or to the left from anything that my Lord the king has said. It was your servant Joab commanded me. It was he who put all these words in the mouth of your servant.
In order to change the course of things, your servant Joab did this. But my Lord has wisdom like the wisdom of the angel of God to know all things that are on the earth. Which is just really laying on thick at the end. Which, again, is very smart at this point. Her fate is in his hands. She says, Yes, you figured it out.
Joab is the one who gave me this script. He's the one that put the words in my mouth. In order that you might reckon with the situation with Absalom. So at this point, I just, as I'm reading this, I feel like David going forward should probably ask a few more questions before he just jumps into giving judgments. This is the second time this happened. We don't know if this happens over and over again.
But David keeps falling into this. And people keep using these type of situations to illustrate points so that David's eyes can be open to his situation. Now Joab seems to be here, present for all of this. And he turns to him in verse 21. Then the king said to Joab, Behold now I grant this.
Go, bring back the young man Absalom. And Joab fell on his face to the ground and paid homage and blessed the king. And Joab said, Today your servant knows that I found favor in your sight, my Lord the king, and that the king has granted the request of his servant. So Joab arose and went to Geshur and brought Absalom to Jerusalem. And the king said, Let him dwell apart in his own house. He is not to come into my presence.
So Absalom lived apart in his own house and did not come into the king's presence. So this ruse, it works. Joab sees how much David has been in distress. He illustrates this whole living parable before him. It makes the point. And David says, Okay, bring him home.
He can go back to Jerusalem. He can go back to his home. He's not going to come back to my presence. So he goes. He gets him. He brings him back.
And what we're going to see is that bringing Absalom back is going to create some real problems for David in this kingdom. So verse 25. Now in all Israel, there was no one such to be praised for his handsome appearance as Absalom. From the sole of his foot to the crown of his head, there was no blemish in him. And when he cut the hair of his head, for at the end of every year, he used to cut it. When it was heavy on him, he cut it.
He weighed the hair of his head 200 shekels by the king's weight. They were born to Absalom three sons and one daughter whose name was Tamar. She was a beautiful woman. Which that last part, it's just a beautiful nod to his sister, Tamar, who would not have children after everything that happened to her. And he named a daughter after him. But we get a description of Absalom.
Absalom was praised by the nation for being a handsome man with beautiful hair. He is good looking. I mean, he is basically Fabio. Or if that reference is lost on you because it's too old, Gaston. Whatever, whatever you can try to picture, it says there's no, there's no blemish on him. He's beautiful.
Beautiful. And his hair is beautiful. His hair is so thick, it's so luscious, that every year when he cuts it, he weighs it, which is weird, but he does. He weighs it and it's 200 shekels by the king's weight. Five pounds is about what that is. So he's a beautiful person, beautiful man.
He's handsome. It's not just handsome, he's overwhelmingly handsome. He's the kind of handsome that when you show up in Hollywood with no discernible talent to act, they just hand you a role. And you know it when you see it. He's very handsome, which means, if you understand, take a step back and understand the context of Absalom. This man was born on third base, y'all.
He's a prince, which means he has status and he has money and he's famously handsome. So, he's extremely blessed. And the question is, okay, with all of this blessing, what is he going to do with it? And what you see is he chooses evil. And that is where all this story is going. Verse 28.
So Absalom lived two full years in Jerusalem without coming into the king's presence. Then Absalom sent for Joab to send him to the king, but Joab would not come to him. And he sent a second time, but Joab would not come. Okay. So Joab, one would think, you know what?
You got away with murder. Maybe just live in luxury in your home in Jerusalem. Is that enough? No. He goes to Joab, he sends for Joab and says, I want, I want a present, I want a moment with the king. And Joab ignores him.
And then he sends a second time. And he says, I want to be in the king's presence. And Joab ignores all of this. Now, it does not appear from the context here that what Absalom wants is reconciliation with dear old dad. What we're going to see is that all of this is politically motivated. So he sends for Joab, he gets rejected, he gets ignored.
And then we're going to see what kind of character is bound up in Absalom. Verse 30, then he said to his servants, see, Joab's field is next to mine and he has barley there. Go and set it on fire. So Absalom's servants set the field on fire. Have you ever been in a situation where like you've you've reached out to your boss and you've asked for a raise but they just put. The meeting off and then you reach out again to ask for a raise and then he just put the meeting off and then you set his desk on fire.
That's Absalom. He's the crazy ex who keys the car. I'm going to I'm going to get your attention somehow. Burn his field down. So he does.
He has a tantrum. He burns the field. And guess what? When you use emotional sabotage, it sometimes works. And he comes. Verse 31, then Joab arose and went to Absalom at his at his house and said to him, Why have your servants set my field on fire?
Absalom answered Joab, Behold, I sent word to you. Come here that I may send you to the king to ask why have I come from Gesher. It would be better for me to still be for it would be better for me to still be to be there still. Now, therefore, let me go into the presence of the king and if there is guilt in me, let him put me to death. So it works.
And Joab shows up and he's like, Crazy, what are you doing? What is the point of all of this? And he says, You didn't come. I have a message for the king. It would be better for me not to be in this house. I might as well be in exile in Gesher.
But no, I want to be in his presence. And you know what? Send for him. Let me go. Because if he wants to kill me, he can kill me. But I'm getting my audience with the king.
So his temper tantrum works. Absalom goes. Verse 33. And Joab went to the king and told him and he summoned Absalom. So he came to the king and bowed himself on his face to the ground before the king and the king.
Kissed Absalom. In the end of 14, before you get into 15, kind of feels like the eye of the hurricane. Because there's a moment where the sun is shining and things are, okay,. They've reconciled. He kisses them. He embraces them.
That maybe this is the moment where things just get good again. That maybe, like, it's just, they're going to have, you know, moments together out in the field. Hunting and it's going to be wonderful. Maybe, just maybe, things are good but it's, it's the eye of the hurricane. And as the sun passes, the storm quickly approaches. And in verse 1 of chapter 15, we're going to see that what he is shooting for is a play for power.
After this, Absalom got himself a chariot and horses and 50 men to run before him. So, pause there. The more you read the Old Testament, the more you'll pick up on some themes. One of those themes is that trusting in chariots and horses is bad. That using chariots and horses to flex your might, your power, and your greatness is a bad idea. This is what Egypt did.
This is what the surrounding nations did. It doesn't mean they couldn't ever have chariots. It doesn't mean they couldn't ever have horses. It doesn't mean that those are in and of themselves bad but those are military weapons that the people of God are not meant to trust in because they are meant. To trust in the power of God but you positioning yourself on a chariot for all to see as we're going to see this is all a play. For power and majesty for himself.
So, as soon as we read that there's some context there I think the eye has passed and there's trouble abroon. So, he basically outfits himself with a tank, a rocket launcher and a crew of 50 men and then we're going to see. How he positions himself amongst the people. Verse 2 Absalom used to rise early and stand beside the way of the gate and when any man had a dispute to come before the king. For judgment Absalom would call to him and say from what city are you? And when he said your servant is of such and such tribe in Israel Absalom would say to him see.
Your claims are good and right but there is no man designated by the king to hear you then Absalom. Would say oh that I were judge in the land that every man with a dispute or cause might come to me. And I would give him justice and whenever a man came near to pay homage to him he would put out. His hand and take hold of him and kiss him thus Absalom did to all Israel who came to the king. For judgment so Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel and it's clear at this point that what Absalom. Is doing is he's positioning himself for a place on the throne because the king is the one who makes judgments.
Like this this is the king's responsibility and Absalom seems to be getting in the middle of that and he seems to be. Taking what the king does and he says oh where are you from what's your problem oh oh no oh I'll give you justice. Oh I just wouldn't it be great if you had a king that listened to you wouldn't it be great if you had someone who could make. Good judgments for you and you could all receive judgments oh if there was just someone I guess I'll be the one. That does this and you can almost see him in his chariot in his stupid chariot with his wind blowing through his hair. Riding up to the gate posting up the people swarming him and he's just like oh I can help you and the people begin they.
Listen this is what the people do they fall for cheap tricks every nation doesn't matter what nation what era what time. People fall for cheap tricks they just do and this is something that is working with every judgment with every hair toss. With every swooning kiss that he gives to the people he starts to capture their hearts and y'all he's lying. I mean you think about this he's lying this is we we just saw that David does give judgments. He met with a woman from Tekoa but Absalom's in the shadows he's he's politically maneuvering. He's out now in front of the people he's doing things that are shady they're falling for fool's gold they're falling.
For a man who murdered his brother without one ounce of regret one ounce of repentance. One ounce of sorrow we see none of it they're falling for a man who burns down fields. To get people's attention they're falling for a guy who positions himself on chariots. To show his power they're falling for a guy who this is the really evil part of this. That's lost on us culturally he's dishonoring his father y'all which is a massive sin in the bible. He's dishonoring him not just his father but the anointed king of Israel and if you can remember how in first Samuel.
How David the future king of Israel went about treating Saul the present anointed king. Of Israel and all the deference that he gave towards him you can see the difference. That approaches this is wickedness this is evil and he's positioning himself for a shot at the throne with every million. Dollar style with every wink with every nod with every judgment and now the storm is raging and a civil war. Is brewing verse 7 and at the end of four years Absalom said to the king please let me go. And pay my vow which I have vowed to the Lord in Hebron for your servant vowed a vow while I lived.
At Geshur in Aram saying if the Lord will indeed bring me back to Jerusalem. Then I will offer worship to the Lord the king said to him go in peace so he arose and went to Hebron. So David led him out of his sight which is not really the main point of the story I get so annoyed. With David sometimes when I'm reading this because I'm just like what are you doing how are you not. Seeing what's happening here how are you not in attention to your kingdom and not seeing what he's doing. But he does that's him out of his sight verse 10 but Absalom sent secret messengers throughout all the tribes of Israel.
Saying as soon as you hear the sound of the trumpet then say Absalom is king at Hebron with Absalom went 200 men. From Jerusalem who were invited guests and they went and their innocence and knew nothing and while Absalom was offering. The sacrifices he sent for Ahithophel the Gilanite David's counselor from his city Gilom. And the conspiracy grew strong and the people with Absalom kept increasing so that's where we pause today. Is that what he has done is he's taken he's enacted a plot to take the throne by force from his father and God's anointed king. And he's going to Hebron with some supporters with some bystanders who don't know what's going on and with a plan.
And a conspiracy that we're going to see play out so to recap let's think about this story in context. Absalom is born with everything he's born on third base he has good looks he is a prince. He literally gets away with murder he gets away with it and then is restored he's allowed. To be back in Jerusalem where he gets to continue to live in royalty he should just. Be content he should just be satisfied and what does he do with all this blessing it's not enough it's not enough. For him he wants more he wants a throne that is not his to take he starts to dishonor.
His father he lies he plots he schemes and he plans to take his throne which by the way. The only way you take the throne from a sitting king is by killing the king so this plan is moving towards. He wants to kill his father and that means what we're seeing is a story that plays out like a tragedy. And built into this tragic story is a self-centered prince who wants to be his own king and we're going to witness. Absalom do some truly evil stuff he has all the blessings and in the end he chooses himself. He chooses self-interest even if it tears the nation apart which it is.
And the reality is if we can have enough foresight to take a step back from all of this we are just like Absalom. We are just like Absalom we in this room are born on third base just like Absalom. And you might say oh you don't know I'm ugly and it's like maybe that's subjective. It's not the point not the point of the comparison I'm trying to make we're just like Absalom. And that we have so many blessings that we've been given so many luxuries y'all. We live better than the kings of old the people of royalty from ages.
Past we live better than them we have food that we can. Summon we have an abundance of food we have food that goes. Bad we don't know what a famine is like here in our. Nation that even if you're struggling there are places you can go. To get it we have food we have running water. That is clean we have our own chariots that never grow tired.
You can get in a car and you can drive people used to have to. Walk for miles and miles and miles or ride a horse for miles. And miles and miles and it would take days and days and you. Could do it in a matter of hours if you go through the list of all the. Things that we have in fact that you have a machine in your. Pocket that is one of the most powerful machines that's ever been made.
With that machine you can summon food to be delivered. Groceries to be delivered a car we have blessing upon blessing. Upon blessing the things that we think are just common needs. It's like no it's comparatively we are blessed. In more ways than we could possibly and on top of. The material blessings of this present world in this place.
In this area the Columbia area we have access to spiritual. Blessings that are wonderful y'all I can take a rock. And throw it and get close I can throw it a couple. Times and get close to a church down the street where they're. Preaching the gospel right now where Chet Andrews at State Street is preaching. And that's keep driving and you're going to see on a hall.
Avenue where Dow is preaching it's like. We have people that are preaching the gospel in this city you have. Access to Christian community in this city you have community. Groups and small groups and maybe we are blessed beyond. We have access to the word of God that you can read it in front. Of you right now you can pull it up on your phone you probably.
Have maybe some of you have it in your car you have. It at your house we have every spiritual blessing some of. Us who belong to Jesus Christ who are Christians we have. Access to our creator y'all that he has we can. Pray to him and he listens that we have no middle. Man other than Jesus Christ it's wonderful access.
To our triune God we're not born on third base. We're born rounding third base on our way. To home we are so wonderfully blessed and like Absalom. It's not enough we want more money we want more power we want. More success we want more praise we want more and better friends. We want better looks we want a better life it's never.
Enough it's never enough we want more and then we'll do. Actions that are similar to Absalom many of us know how to politically. Maneuver you know how to at the workplace position yourself to compete for a job. Like it's a throne that you're fighting for your life for you know how. To position yourself ahead of another co-worker you know how to make. Business deals work the way that you come out on top we know how to.
Play the game at the workplace we know how to play the. Game in our social spheres some of us know how to maneuver. And put ourselves and say I really want to be closer with this person. But I need to get in between this person and this person I need. To make this friendship work better and it's like all. That political maneuvering reveals the same heart it's not enough it's never.
Enough and we'll do some of the same things behind the scenes. To get what we want for our own good we'll. Act just like Absalom we can be erratic we can throw temper. Tantrums we can act like petulant children we know how to. Yell in an argument to get what we want some of. Us know how to break things to get what we want.
And you might say I would never I am cool calm. And collected I would never yell to get what I want. But you might know how to give a cold shoulder you might. Know how to be passive aggressive we know how to. Do this we know how to act in order to get what we. Want for our own interest we do things just like.
Absalom we fortify our lives just like he did with he did. It with a horse and a chariot and a squad of 50 people because he. Wanted to trust in his own strength as opposed to in all. Of this trusting and the strength of God as opposed to trusting. That what God wants and what God desires for this kingdom is what. Is good he doesn't it's not enough but he trusts in his own self.
And we do the same thing we'll find ways to trust in our own. Selves we'll do it through a savings account we'll do it through. Work ethic and working endless hours one of the ways that shows. Up in my life is just prayerlessness this idea that I can work. And work and strive and do and do and do and do and do. And not run to the Lord and I've just seen over and over again.
That the prayerlessness in my own life is symptomatic of a greater problem. That I trust in my own strength and not the Lord but we. Have the same streak that runs through Absalom that's in us this self. Centeredness and wanting more and not being content content we're just. Like Absalom and yet in so many ways we're blind to it we can't. See it so if that is reality and I'd argue that for the majority of us if not all of us.
In some form or fashion it is then where's the hope if that's the problem then what's the. Remedy like what what do we actually how do we not live. Like this Absalom type lives I want us to go to Philippians chapter. 2 It's on page 1135 1135 in the black bibles because. Bound up in this wicked story that we've read that we're going to. Continue to see play out and that's the backdrop of the darkness of our own lives.
And the ways that it aligns with this story is some incredible hope. This is Paul writing to the church to Philippi addressing this directly. He says in verse 3 chapter 2 do nothing from selfish. Ambition or conceit but in humility count others more significant than. Yourselves which I read that and the times where I have the clarity. To see that Absalom prideful self-interested streak in me.
I'm like okay I'm in you've got me do nothing. From selfish ambition or conceit but in humility count others more significant. Than yourselves I'm in how I want that then verse 4. Let each of you look not only to his own interests but also. To the interest of others that's like okay again you've. Got me I'm in I don't want to look to my own interest.
Only I want to be a man that lives for the interest. Of others I'm in but how do I get there verse 5 have this. Mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus who though. He was in the form of God did not count equality. With God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself by taking. The form of a servant being born in the likeness of men and being found.
In human form he humbled himself by being obedient to the. Point of death even death on a cross and the. Remedy for self centered souls and the way to fix. Our prideful beset sin in our lives is through. Jesus Christ it is by trusting and a God who left. The glory of heaven to take on human flesh and dwell among us.
Who subjected himself to be murdered by his own creation for our own interest. That we might not be sprinting into an eternity of destruction. Under the wrath of God forever but he might bring us from. Darkness into a kingdom of light by choosing to surrender in the same. Way that Stephen declared in the baptism waters today. That the only hope we have for the self centered and self.
Interested soul is through the work of Jesus Christ entrusting. In him and not ourselves and then every day in following Christ. Day by day we continue to come back to the hope of the. Gospel of a God who loved us so much that he. Gave himself for us that he might mold us. And conform us into his image into being people that are.
Not so interested in our own lives but live for the. Sake of others hope is Jesus Christ that's the only. Means that we get there it is through faith and daily. Repentance of dying to our own selves and doing it every. Single day as we grow to be more like Christ. So when we read stories like this it's a warning and what.
We're going to see is absolutely just absolutely wrecked his own. Life and so many people the pain and the. Fallout of his sin is massive and it's a warning. Of what it means when we trust in ourselves and we care about. Our own lives and thank you God that he's given us stories like. This to remind us not only the seriousness of sin but the wonderful.
Gift of a savior and as we get ready to sing one final song in worship. My hope is that we would begin to reckon with our own sin and then. Run to Jesus Christ asking him to both reveal our self-interest to feel our. Pride reveal all the self-centeredness within us but also celebrate that he. Came and that he died and that he gave his life so that I. Wouldn't be a slave to myself and worshiping my own self but I might live.
To worship in Christ and the fruit of that would show up in so many other. Ways so we'll get the opportunity to do that in worship here in a moment. We'll have the opportunity in groups to do that this week as we get to live. This out and this is a care week where we get to maybe confess. Our own sin and our own self-interest and we pray that. God would stir that work in us and then we'll worship and sing heavenly father I pray.
That you might open our eyes to the reality of our own. Absalom like sin within God I just I so. Need you I so feel it myself this concern for self. This lack of contentment that it's never enough and I think there's others like. Me here that need you that desperately need you to go to. Work and may we trust in you and you alone and not.
Ourselves and may you regularly graciously confront our sin and remind. Us beautifully of our savior you and may that change. The way we live our lives in Jesus name amen the band's. Going to come up we're going to sing this final song together and as we. Sing and celebrate and make much of Jesus Christ for what he has done for us. My hope is that this wouldn't just be things that we hear but we.
Would actually begin to put into practice in our lives and as we leave here. Begin to take practical steps in running towards Jesus and watching him change. Us to be a people that live not to ourselves but for the sake of others.
2 Samuel 13
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
Well, my name is Chet. I'm one of our pastors. If you will, grab a Bible and go to 2 Samuel chapter 13. We will work our way through chapter 13 this morning. And in it, we will see the depth and the depravity of sin and what it does among people when it is set loose, unabated. This is a story of rape and murder, which in the life of David has become all too common.
Our hope as we study this this morning is that we would see clearly the danger and the brokenness of sin and where our hope lies. We'll begin reading in chapter 13, verse 1. It says, Now Absalom, David's son, had a beautiful sister whose name was Tamar. Absalom is David's third oldest son. We're going to read a story. This story will involve Amnon and Absalom, who are two of the three oldest sons of David.
They were born to him in Hebron before he became king of all Israel, when he was just king of Judah. Absalom is the son of the daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur. And Amnon, who we're going to see in a second, is the son of Ahinoam of Jezreel. He's a different son. And all that's listed out in chapter 3 of 2 Samuel. And there's a son in the middle of him, Kiliab, who is only really ever mentioned in the order of birth and then never again, who's born to Abigail.
So either David in his function as a redeemer basically has a son, but it's not really his son, so it's not in the line of succession. Most likely, though, Kiliab just died young and therefore doesn't show up in any sort of conflict over eldest son things. So what we probably have here are the two of the three in birth order, but just the top two in actual age that are around, Absalom and Amnon. And Absalom has a sister who's pretty. She's beautiful. And it says, after a time, Amnon, David's son, loved her.
So we have Amnon, the oldest son, who's in line to become king, falls in love with Tamar, his half-sister. Now, there's a moment for us as readers who are distant culturally. We might go, Is that okay back then? Can you, can he be in love with his half-sister? Is that, are they cool with that? Does that work?
And the answer is no. And I want to read Leviticus to you. This is the law given to Moses, which was hundreds of years before. This is now, they're in the nation of Israel with the king. They should be following the law. This is Leviticus 18, 9.
You shall not uncover the nakedness of your sister, which if you're reading through Leviticus, it's worded that way. It means approach sexually. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your sister, your father's daughter, or your mother's daughter. So covering half siblings, whether brought up in your family or in another home, which feels like that last phrase was for the person who was like, but what if we didn't know? No. Still no.
Put your hand down. No. So that's the way this works. And Leviticus in this section is going through a whole lot of sexual sin. And it ends with this in Leviticus 18, 26, but you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you. For the people of the land who were before you did all these abominations so that the land became unclean.
Lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean as it vomited out the nation that was before you. For everyone who does any of these abominations, the persons who do them shall be cut off from among the people. So this is a rule not just for those who are faithful Israelites. This is if people move in and are living there, strangers who sojourn among you. You can't do this on the soil. This isn't allowed inside the territory.
And whoever does it is to be removed, cut off from the people, sent out, exiled. This is not going to happen here. That's the way Leviticus treats it. So when Amnon starts having feelings for his half-sister, he's already begun, headed in the wrong direction. And he's started incorrectly and needs to change. But here's what happens.
Verse 2. Amnon was so tormented that he made himself ill because of his sister Tamar. So his love here is obsessive. It's infatuation. He's made himself sick with how much he loves her, how much he desires her. And it's going to word this in a way that, you know, if you're going, well, that's, you know, he's aimed in the wrong direction, but, you know, maybe he loves her.
But listen to the way it's worded. It says, for she was a virgin, And it seemed impossible to do anything to her. So there is a type of love that is beautiful, self-sacrificial, kind, good. And in general, when our culture talks about love, we only hold up that version. But there is a love that is inordinate, aimed in the wrong direction, obsessive, where you love things you should not love in a way that you should not love.
And that's the situation that he's in. He has a sinful, idolatrous love. The same way that we can love things that we should not love. And in a way that we should not love them. But it's still love.
It's just a twisted, broken version of it. And that's what he has. And he's sick over it because he can't figure out a way to do things to her. But Amnon had a friend whose name was Jonadab, the son of Shimea, David's brother. So this is a friend and a cousin.
And Jonadab was a very crafty man. He can get things done. It's the same word used for the serpent in the garden. And he said to him, Oh, son of the king, why are you so haggard morning after morning? Will you not tell me? So Amnon is creepily, visibly sick over his desire for Tamar.
To the point that Jonadab says, Man, what's going on with you? Why do you look like this? Amnon said to him, I love Tamar, my brother Absalom's sister. And Jonadab said to him, Lie down on your bed and pretend to be ill. And when your father comes to see you, say to him, Let my sister Tamar come and give me bread to eat and prepare the food in my sight that I may see it and eat it from her hand. So Jonadab helps him concoct a plan to get her into his house to try to help.
Now, we don't know how far Jonadab understood Amnon was willing to take this. But if he was actually a good friend, he would have said, Dude, that's your sister. You're the son of the king. There are other women in Israel. Let's go on a trip.
Let's ride around the nation a little bit. Let's get out of here. Like, let's don't head in this direction. Like a good friend helps you not sin. You've had friends that it was easy to not sin around. It was easy to follow the Lord around.
And you've had friends that it was easy to sin around. You want the friends that help point you in the right direction, who will stand toe to toe with you and say, Do not do this. This is not good. It is not cute. It is not fun. Stop.
But he's not that type of friend. He's the type of friend who goes, Oh, we can figure this out. And he comes up with this plan. Verse 6. So Amnon lay down and pretended to be ill.
And when the king came to see him, Amnon said to the king, Please let my sister Tamar come and make a couple of cakes in my sight that I may eat from her hand. Then David sent home to Tamar, saying, Go to your brother Amnon's house and prepare food for him. So Amnon's oldest brother in the family, King David's patriarchy, so he's the father of the family, and then the oldest brother has rights. And when he goes to see the oldest son, the oldest son says, Can you send her over here? And he says, Sure. So he sends her over there.
Go to your brother Amnon's house and prepare food for him. Verse 8. So Tamar went to her brother Amnon's house, where he was lying down. And she took dough and kneaded it, and made cakes in his sight, and baked the cakes. So she does all of this, this whole process, it says in his sight.
So he's laying there, somehow in his house, where he's watching her, knead, prepare, bake, all of this stuff. And she took the pan, and emptied it out before him, but he refused to eat. And Amnon said, Send everyone, send out everyone from me. So everyone went out from him. So when she finally has it all ready, and she says, Okay, come eat.
He just says, No, he's not going to. And in my head, it doesn't tell us all these details. In my head, he's been laying, and he just kind of, when it's time to eat, he's just like, I don't feel like I'm not going to eat. I don't want to eat right now. And he's still playing up the being sick. But then he says, Everybody out.
And if he's sick, and everybody's like, Okay, let's give him some privacy. But then he says, Everybody out. And then he says, Then Amnon said to Tamar, this is verse 10, Bring the food into the chamber, that I may eat it from your hand. And Tamar took the cakes she had made, and brought them into the chamber to Amnon, her brother. So he gets her into his bedroom, and he gets everybody else out.
And I don't know at this point, how suspicious she is of Amnon and his behavior. It doesn't give us any of these things. But as the oldest brother, for her to do what he asked is not odd. And this text is very clear. This is brother and sister. To Amnon, her brother.
Verse 11. But when she brought them near to him, he took hold of her, and said to her, Come lie with me, my sister. Now, it was not uncommon, at this time, to poetically refer to a lover as your sister. Even in the Song of Solomon, he often refers to her as my sister, my bride. The point being, even though we are not related, we are so close, that our relationship is more than just romantic. You're my sister, my bride.
It's meant to be sweet. In this framework, even if he meant it to be sweet, it is a complete twisted version of what could be beautiful, but not in this situation. And so he says, Come lie with me, my sister. And she answered him, No. Which should be enough. We're going to see her plead with him.
She says, No, my brother. Do not violate me, for such a thing is not done in Israel. Do not do this outrageous thing. She says, We don't do this. And she means that, and she means that on several levels. We don't sleep with people we're not married to.
Not in Israel. You don't force yourself on someone. Not in Israel. Brothers and sisters, do not do this. Not in Israel. So she says, Do not do this.
Do not do this outrageous thing. And as for me, where could I carry my shame? If you do this, what will I do? Where will I go? How will I get rid of this? And as for you, you would be as one of the outrageous fools in Israel.
So she says, What would I do with my shame? And what would you do with your guilt? You would be an outrageous fool. You'd be a laughing stock. This is not done. Now, therefore, please speak to the king, for he will not withhold me from you.
I think, in the rapid fire succession, of those phrases, this last one, is her last ditch effort, to just get out of the situation. It is possible that she thinks there was some truth to it, that maybe this would, he could marry her. I think mostly it's, No, don't do this. This is outrageous. This is wicked. This is sick.
Don't. Just go talk, go talk to the king. He'll let you marry me. And I think that's just a, let's, get me out of here. We'll move forward. Get me out of this situation.
Because she peppers him with six reasons. Verse 14. But he would not listen to her. And being stronger than she, he violated her, and lay with her. So Amnon, rapes his sister.
Because he's bigger and stronger. Verse 15. Then Amnon, hated her, with very great hatred, so that the hatred with which he hated her, was greater than the love, with which he had loved her. And Amnon said to her, get up, go. Because his love wasn't self-sacrificial, good, kind, clean, godly love. Because it was infatuation, because it was obsession, because it was idolatry.
It immediately turns to hatred. It sours very quickly. Which I've heard a pastor say before, we demonize what we idolize. And that's what happens here. She actually becomes, she was always an object for him, she now becomes just an object, of his outrageous sin, of his wickedness. It does not satisfy, what he had been playing up in his head, what he had been desiring, what he thought was going to fix him, what he thought was going to be so good, it doesn't work.
Because that's not how it works. That's not how sin works, that's not how idolatry works, that's not how pursuing these passions, and desires works. And so he hates her. Some because he hates himself, because of his foolishness, and his sin, and his wickedness. But she personifies it, she's right there.
And so he says, get up and go. And what she says next to him, is extremely sad, and culturally bound. So we're going to read it, and I'm going to explain, what actually is happening here. But she said to him, no my brother, for this wrong, and sending me away, is greater than the other, that you did to me. Now on our ears, that's a crazy thing to say.
But in their culture, her role, God ordained, God blessed, beautiful, good role, was to marry, and to have children. God, was to help, be fruitful and multiply, to fulfill the call, that God has placed, on the people of Israel. To add, to the sons, and daughters, that are like the stars, in the sky. To be a part of the promise, to Abraham, to help move that forward. This is her role, this is what she's longing for, this is what she's working towards, this is her hope. And what she says to him is, if you send me away, that's gone, and I'm trapped.
If he keeps her, the situation's messed up, but at least, she gets to have a family. What's happening in her head, at this moment. But she says, if you send me away, then I'm, I'm imprisoned in that. I will forever, be unwanted, unmarriable, unloved. That's what will happen to her, in this culture, because nobody's going to want her, after this. She will be unmarriable.
So she says, that would be worse, than what you've already done. But he would not, listen to her. He called the young man, who served him and said, put this woman, out of my presence, and bolt the door, after her. The word woman, isn't even in the Hebrew text, it's just put this, out of my presence. It's implied, but he also doesn't even bother, to treat her, with any sort of level of respect. She's always been an object.
Now she was wearing, a long robe, with sleeves, for thus, for the virgin daughters, of the king dress. That phrase is the same, as the kind of cloak, that Joseph had. It's a, it's a high honor. She's well dressed. She's been given, this beautiful thing, as a daughter of the king. So his servant, put her out, and bolted the door, after her.
And in this story, she's locked out, from Amnon, and she's locked into, the life that he's, forced upon her. She's imprisoned. The bolt, has been put, behind her. And Tamar, put ashes on her head, potentially from the place, she was just cooking, and tore the long robe, that she wore. And she laid her hand, on her head, and went away, crying aloud, as she went. She covers her head, with ashes.
She rips her virgin robe, and she walks off wailing. She, laments. She, mourns. And there are times, when sin, so, devastates our lives, that the response, is lament. It's mourning. That you don't know, what to do.
There's nothing to do. And lament, gives you something to do. It gives you something, to talk to the Lord about. It gives you something, to feel the brokenness in. And that's where she goes. And her brother, Absalom, said to her, has Amnon, your brother, been with you?
Seeming to know, where she was, to jump ahead, and guess what's happened here. Why she seems so distraught. Maybe he had seen, the way Amnon, looks at her. Now hold your peace, my sister. He is your brother. Do not take it to heart.
He encourages her, to handle this well, and to not let it, sink into her. So Tamar, lived a desolate woman, in her brother Absalom's house. That's her last action, in the text. She's referred to a few times, but only as person, who's been marked, by what has been done to her. But that's her life.
A desolate woman, in her brother's house. Desolate meaning, no husband, no children. That's how she lives out her days. She's trapped in it. When King David heard, of all these things, he was very angry. But Absalom, spoke to Amnon, neither good nor bad.
For Absalom hated Amnon, because he had violated, his sister Tamar. So Absalom doesn't talk to Amnon anymore, he doesn't say anything to him, not good or bad, and Absalom takes it to heart. What he told Tamar not to do, he does. He hates him. Sin has devastated, in a myriad of ways. Verse 23, after two full years.
So that's it. We just move forward in the story. It's been two years since this event. Absalom had sheep shears, at Baal Hazor, which is near Ephraim. And Absalom invited, all the king's sons. And Absalom came to the king, and said, behold, your servant has sheep shears, please let the king, and his servants go, with your servant.
But the king said to Absalom, no my son, let us not all go, lest we be burdensome to you. He pressed him, but he would not go, but gave him his blessing. So Absalom has sheep shears, he's going to shear the sheep. When you do this, you get a lot of people together, it's celebratory. He goes to the king and says, I want all y'all to come. We're going to make a whole big thing out of it.
And King David says, no. We'd be a burden to you. It's too many people. We're not doing that. But he presses him.
He eventually gives him his blessing. And so the king could honor Absalom with a high honor by going. But the patriarch's not going to go to Absalom, his third son, probably second oldest at this time, to his sheep shearing. But he blesses him. He does try to honor him. Be blessed.
But he's not going. Then Absalom said, if not, please let my brother Amnon go with us. And the king said to him, why should he go with you? Now, he's the oldest son. So by him going, he's still, it's kind of like if the president can't come to your party, but the vice president can come, then it'll still be cool.
You can tell people the vice president was there. That's kind of what's happening here. He's the oldest son. But David goes, hmm, something else going on here. So he says, why do you want him to go?
Probably knows that they aren't close. You know, there's a rift there. So why are you wanting Amnon to go? We don't get Absalom's answer. It just says, but Absalom pressed him until he let Amnon and all the king's sons go with him. Then Absalom commanded his servants, Mark, when Amnon's heart is merry with wine, and when I say to you, strike Amnon, then kill him.
Do not fear. Have I not commanded you? Be courageous and valiant. So we find out very quickly why Absalom wants Amnon there. Get him away from the capital. Amnon, Absalom has been holding on to hatred for two years.
He's nursed it in his heart. First chance he gets, first time he gets him away, when he's able to work this out, he says, let him drink a little bit, and then we're going to kill him. And then he tells him, don't worry, I'm the one who gave the command. Basically, I'll take the fall for it. You'll be okay. Do what I say.
So, verse 29, the servants of Absalom did to Amnon, as Absalom had commanded. Then all the king's sons arose, and each mounted his mule and fled. So as soon as Amnon's killed their oldest brother, they hop up and just get out of there, fearing for themselves, fearing for maybe this is going to happen, there's going to be more to this, and they get, they flee. Verse 30, while they were on the way, news came to David, Absalom has struck down all the king's sons, and not one of them is left. Which isn't that how news travels? Then the king arose and tore his garments, and lay on the earth, and all his servants who were standing by tore their garments.
But Jonadab, the son of Shimea, so he shows back up, he's the one who helped Amnon in the first place. Jonadab, the son of Shimea, David's brother, said, let not my Lord suppose that they have killed all the young men, the king's sons, for Amnon alone is dead. For by the command of Absalom, this has been determined from the day he violated his sister Tamar. Now therefore, let not my Lord the king so take it to heart, as to suppose that all the king's sons are dead, for Amnon alone is dead. So he knows, somehow, that Absalom has been planning this, since the day that happened, and he says, he didn't kill all your sons.
Absalom didn't kill all your sons. Amnon is dead. That's who he killed. But Absalom fled. And the young man who kept watch, lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold, many people were coming from the road behind him, by the side of the mountain. And Jonadab said to the king, behold, the king's sons have come, as your servant said, so it has come about.
And as soon as he had finished speaking, behold, the king's sons came, and lifted up their voice, and wept. And the king also, and all his servants, wept very bitterly. Amnon is dead. Absalom has fled. And this is how it so often works, in situations where there's family strife, where there's murder. You lose both.
And they lose both. But Absalom fled, and went to Talmai, the son of Ammihud, king of Geshur. That's his granddad. He's the king of Geshur. So he goes to his granddad, about 80 miles away.
And David mourned for his son, day after day. So Absalom fled, and went to Geshur, and was there three years. And the spirit of the king, longed to go out to Absalom, because he was comforted about Amnon, since he was dead. It's likely in your Bible, especially if you're holding one of these black ones, that there's a little one, and a little two there, the spirit of the king longed to go out. That phrase can be read, in two different ways. It can be, he longed to go out to Absalom, meaning he was wishing for him back.
It can also mean, he no longer wanted to chase after him. Either way, it sets up what's going to happen next, with Absalom's return. The three years have passed, David has mourned his son, and we're going to stop there, for today. And what we have in this passage, is sin, absolutely wreaking havoc. What we have in this passage, is sin going to work in the lives of, Amnon, Absalom, Tamar, David, the kingdom. We have sin, winning, as you read this, you can almost hear Satan laughing, because this is what he's wanted, from the very beginning.
He's wanted us to just do, what we decide is best to do. He's wanted us to just pursue, our own desires. He's wanted us to disregard, what the Lord says, and to think we have the best route, to the good life. He's wanted to bring, death and destruction. And that's all that's here. They're all, imprisoned, imprisoned, in sin.
Amnon, leading up, to his sin, is imprisoned, in this desire, that's growing in him, so much so that it's, changing his appearance, it's tormenting him. And if you're in this room right now, and you think, I could never, I could never do one of those big sins. I could never do what these guys did. I could never rape. I could never murder. You say, I never would embezzle.
I could never, I could never do that. This is a case study of how you do it. You have a little desire, that you feed every day. You have a little desire, that you let grow. You let it fester. You get yourself around people, who help you.
You get yourself around people, who turn the other way, when it comes to sin. And then you can do, all sorts of heinous, wicked, outrageously foolish things. That's how everybody does. Amnon, imprisoned in his desire, and then, imprisoned in his guilt, and it ultimately leads to his death. Tamar, whose, whose fault in this story, is being beautiful, which so often, the enemy works against the blessings of God, to turn them on their head, to bring such destruction. She's imprisoned.
She's trapped, in what's done to her, with nowhere to carry her shame. Absalom, as sin enters his life, is enraged, and filled with hate, to the point of it, consumes him. He wants justice, but all he can work out, is his own form of vengeance. And we're going to see, as we continue following this story, it leads to more death. There's this moment, in the story, in verse 21, when King David, heard all these things, he was very angry. And you get this moment, where you go, yes, do something.
Yes, King David knows about it now. He's going to fix it. The king knows about it now. The anointed of the Lord, he's going to fix it. And it says, he was very angry. Then it tells you something about Absalom, and then it says, it's two years later.
And he does nothing. And I don't know, I don't know if it's that he favors, his oldest son. I don't know, if it's that, when it comes to sexual assault, he doesn't feel like he has a leg, to stand on. When it comes to lust, when it comes to sexual sin, but it ultimately, in David's life, there's sexual sin, and murder. And then in his children's life, in his family's life, it's sexual sin, and murder. And it's just playing itself out.
And David seems powerless, to help. We want the king, to do something. There's this moment, where I'm going, do fix it. And I don't even know, how he would. I don't know, what to tell him to do. How do you, how do you help Tamar?
How do you help Absalom, with the rage in his heart? How do you come in, with Amnon your son, and bring any sort of, redemption or care, or anything? How do you fix, this situation? I just want someone, to show up, who knows what to do. This text is begging for it. And so often, we're living out, 2 Samuel 13, in our own lives.
What do we do? What do we do with this? What do I do with what I've done? What do I do with what's been done to me? What do I do with what's been done, to the people I love? And sin just, imprisons us.
In Luke, chapter 4, when Jesus is beginning his ministry, he goes to a synagogue. That's where the Jewish people gathered, on the Sabbath. He asks for the scroll, of Isaiah. He unrolls it. He reads the beginning of Isaiah 61, and he rolls the scroll back up, and he says, today, this has been fulfilled, in your hearing. He says, I'm Isaiah 61.
He unrolls the scroll, he reads it, he says, this is fulfilled, in your hearing. I'm fulfilling Isaiah 61. So if you will, turn to Isaiah 61, with me. I think it is worth, our time this morning, the spirit, of the Lord God, is upon me, because the Lord, has anointed me, to bring good news, to the poor. So Jesus says, he's the one who's picked, anointed by God, to bring good news, to the poor.
He has sent me, to bind up, the broken hearted, to proclaim, liberty, to the captives, and the opening, of the prison, to those who are bound. He says, I'm here to set, captives free. I'm here to open, the prison doors. I've been sent, anointed, to declare good news, to the poor. I'm bringing the gospel, which means, you don't have to be, in prison anymore. You don't have to be, a captive anymore, which is the way, the Bible talks about us, and sin, that we're slaves, to it.
That we're sold, under it. Verse two, to proclaim, the year, of the Lord's favor. He says, I'm coming, to bring blessing, and joy, and favor, the day, of vengeance, of our God. So he's bringing, mercy, and favor, and he says, I'm also bringing justice. So for every person, who goes, when are they going, to pay for that?
For every person, who's nurturing, in your heart, that somebody, somebody would get them, that they wouldn't, get away with it. Jesus opens, the scroll, and he says, I'm the one, who brings the day, of vengeance. It's Jesus's Job, not Absalom's. To comfort, all who mourn. To grant, to those, who mourn, in Zion, to give them, a beautiful headdress, instead of ashes. The oil of gladness, instead of mourning.
The garment of praise, instead of a faint spirit. That they may be called, oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified. In verse 10, he says, this is now the person, who's receiving this. He has covered me, with the robe of righteousness. And then it says, as a bride adorns herself, with her jewels. Jesus, when he reads, Isaiah 61, I can't, I can't help but see it.
Can you, can you see him coming to Tamar? And to every Tamar that there is? And lifting them up, out of mourning, and saying, take that torn robe off. I have, a robe of righteousness. Take that robe of shame off. I want to cover you, in righteousness.
I want to cover you, in praise. Take those ashes, out of your hair. I want to give you a headdress. I want you to look like a bride. You see, Tamar, and all the Tamars, can feel so trapped. Tamar was in a spot, where nobody wanted her.
Nobody loved her. Nobody would have her. And Jesus unrolls the scroll, and he says, I want her. I'll have her. I want everyone who mourns. I want everyone who has ashes, in their hair.
And I'm going to clothe them, with righteousness. And I'm going to give them, a headdress. And they're going to look like a bride, and they're going to come with me. And everyone who falls, on their face in Zion, and begs, and needs mercy, and laments, they're mine. I want them. That's what I've come for.
In verse 4, he says, they shall build up, the ancient ruins. They shall raise up, the former devastations. They shall repair, the ruined cities, the devastations, of many generations. Is there anybody in this room, who goes, I come from the devastations, of many generations. I'm in a long line, of devastations. I have a life, of ruin.
And he's, Jesus says, I've come to rebuild, the ruin. That's one of the things with us, we'll say it's ruined, and what we mean, is it can't be rebuilt. It doesn't come back. It's ruined. And he says, I'm coming for the ruins, and I'm going to rebuild them. And I'm going to undo, devastation that's lasted, for generations.
If you're caught in devastation, or desolation, or you think you've been desecrated, he shows up and says, I'm going to rebuild, all of that. It will be covered. You'll be welcomed. You are a bride. You are made new. I'm going to raise you up.
He says, it's been fulfilled. That's what Jesus came to do. And that's exactly, what he does, on the cross. That Jesus takes our shame, on the cross. As he's stripped, bare in front of everyone. He takes our shame.
As he pays the guilt, by his stripes, we are healed. As he pays the guilt, that we owe for our sin. As he absorbs the wrath of God. And then ultimately returns with justice. That Jesus Christ, is the only one who answers. That's why Paul, in Titus, says it this way.
Paul's talking to the church, and he says, for we ourselves, were once foolish. We were the outrageous fools. Disobedient. Led astray. Slaves to various passions. And pleasures.
That's us. That's the church. Passing our days in malice, and envy, hated by others, and hating one another. Paul, writing to the church, says, we were Absalom, and we were Amnon. But when the goodness, and loving kindness of God, our Savior appeared, he saved us. not because of works done by us, in righteousness, but according to his own mercy.
That the hope, that we have, to make all of this past tense, for it to be we once were, is that Jesus Christ has come, and that he's merciful. By the washing, of regeneration, and renewal, of the Spirit, whom he poured out on us, richly through Jesus Christ, our Savior. So that being justified, by his grace, we might become heirs, according to the hope, of eternal life. He says that Jesus came, and in his mercy, sends his Spirit, to wash us, to renew us, to go to work in us, to make us whole again, to fix the things, that were broken, and so that we might have, a hope of eternal life. I don't know, who in this story, most mirrors your life.
I don't know, if you look like Tamar, so shattered by the sin of others, feeling imprisoned in shame. I don't know, if you're like Absalom, and you're like, I'm so overwhelmed, by hatred, and a desire for justice. I don't know if you're Amnon, and you're like, no I'm the fool, who pursued the sin, and I'm trapped in it. I don't know, but come to Jesus. And you say, but, it's too far gone. No, come to Jesus.
No, I've done, what I've done is too big. No, it's not. Come to Jesus. No, I'm trapped in my shame. No, come to Jesus. He's the King, who doesn't sit idly by.
He's the King, who comes to rescue, and to bring hope. He's the King, who gets angry, and then does something. He's the King, who takes shame. He's the King, who takes guilt. He's the King, who dies, and rises, He's the King, who reigns. He's the King, who has justice.
He is the King, who does not just sit, and think, and not respond, because He's the only one, who's righteous, and holy enough, to do something about it. Come to Jesus. He can take it away. He can fix it. He sends His Spirit, inside of you, to renew what is broken, to refix the ruins, and to make you clean, and holy, and righteous. And sin brings death, but Jesus brings the hope, of eternal life.
If you will, pray with me. Lord, we live in a world, devastated, by sin. King Jesus, we come from generations, of devastation. We're surrounded, by ruins. And when it's quiet, and when we're alone, with our thoughts, sometimes it's too much, to bear. Lord, there are things, that have happened, to us, that we carry, and we don't know, where to take it.
Lord, there are things, that we have done, that seem like, they just lead us, to the gallows, working death, in our lives. Lord, would Psalm, Isaiah 61, be practically, applied, through your spirit, to be fulfilled, in our hearing, today, as you go to work, to save, and to redeem, and to rebuild. May those who are weary, and weak, and tired, and broken, and scared, may they come to you. Those who are in sin, may they come to you. Those who are facing, a day of vengeance, may they come, and receive favor, and grace, and mercy, not because of works, done by them, and righteousness, because of your goodness, and your kindness, that has appeared, on our behalf, so that we might say, goodbye to those former things, and be made new.
May your spirit, go to work, to renew, this morning. wherever you are, would you ask the Lord, for help, because he's the only one, who can. We can't fix this, on our own, but he can. The band's gonna come back up, we're gonna sing together, but I would encourage you, to not sit, and let sin, and desire grow, to not tell yourself, that you're trapped in shame, to not tell yourself, that your guilt, will never be taken. I would encourage you, to come to Jesus, who clothes all of us, in righteousness, welcomes all of us, loves all of us, died for all of us, and all who call on his name, will not be put to shame.
Come to him. Come to him. Come to him. Come to him. Come to him. Come to him.
Come to him.
1 Corinthians 1:10-2:5
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
Well, good morning again. If you have been with us on Sunday mornings, you'll know that we have been working our way through the book of Second Samuel. But we are actually going to take a pause this morning. It just so happened to be that in terms of calendaring, if we had stayed in 2 Samuel today, it would have been a rather emotionally heavy and difficult topic to discuss. And on Mother's Day, we figured that maybe wasn't the best approach. And so with Chet and Spencer out of town, they asked if I would preach. And they said the choice is yours. You get to choose, which is great for me. So for those that maybe don't know, we have been in the process of sending and planting a church out in Lexington. And as somebody who is committed to going and to serving in a leadership capacity, we over there, that has kind of been where my mental space and where my heart has been drawn as of late. And so what I wanted to do is share some encouragement with you that I have been receiving from the opening chapters of First Corinthians. And so that's where we're going to be this morning. As we're gearing up as a church to enter into this time, in this season of transition, there's going to be a lot of change. And change can kind of be frightening and scary. If you don't like change, I'm sorry, but it's coming to us. And whether or not you're going or whether or not you are staying, things will look different and there'll be a lot of things that have to be done and there'll be a lot of little tasks and a lot of little stuff that we're trying to work at. There's a way that in the middle of all of that, we could start to forget what is essential and we could start to focus too much of our attention on what is non essential. In the letter of First Corinthians, right out of the gate, Paul is helping point out to this church some ways that they specifically have been getting caught up in non essentials. And he wants to remind them of what is the main thing. And so that's what I want to remind us of this morning. What is the main thing. So let me pray and then we'll dive in.
Father, we, we thank youk for your word, the way that it instructs us. And would you'd be instructing us this morning, would you'd word not return void in Jesus name. Amen.
If you will open up your Bibles and turn To First Corinthians, Chapter one. I actually don't have any on the slides behind me. There won't be any text there. We're trying out some new stuff. Instead of having the text on the screen, you can open up a physical Bible. We are blessed to live in a time and a space where we have physical Bibles available to us. So if you didn't bring yours with you, you can grab one that is provided in the seat racks in front of you. If you're using one of those Bibles, it's going to be on page 1102. And as you're turning there, since we're jumping right into the middle of a book, I figure I'd give a little bit of context to help position us. First Corinthians is a letter written by the apostle Paul to the church in Corinth. And what we read in Acts 18 is that Paul actually was at the forefront of spreading the gospel and helping start the church in Corinth. And so this letter is written about three to five years after his time there. Now, a little bit of brief context on the city itself. Corinth was a port city, which really, the only reason that's important to know is that port cities often grow and become prosperous because there's a lot of trade that's going through there. If you can kind of visualize the setting of what this church was started in, in this city, if you think maybe like a Charleston or a Savannah or maybe Virginia beach area, that's kind of the space where the church is in. That's the culture that is around them. Paul, he's writing to them, and at the beginning, he's trying to remind them of what he preached to them when he first came. We're going to pick up in chapter one, verse ten and the first six verses that we read, we're kind of. We're going to go kind of quickly through them because they're also still just helping build some context for us. So verse 10.
> I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.
> For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers.
> What I mean is that each one of you says, "I follow Paul," or "I follow Apollos," or "I follow Cephas," or "I follow Christ."
> Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
> I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius,
> lest anyone should say that you were baptized in my name.
> (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.)
> For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
Paul, he's concerned about some quarreling, about some bickering that's coming up in the church. He's received a report about this Chloe, we don't know her. We don't know what it means to be Chloe's people, but we assume it means something to the people at Corinth. This is the report that is given to Paul about the issue, the quarreling that's showing up.
What I mean is that each one of you says, I follow Paul, or I follow Apollos, which he was a teacher that came after Paul in Corinth, or, I follow Cephas, that would be the apostle Peter, or I follow Christ. The picture that we get here is that it appears that the people in the church have almost kind of like been forming factions where they're grabbing on to kind of important figureheads in the church at the time, and they're claiming them as some sort of way for, like, status and position. You're like, paul, Paul is my guy. And as if that's supposed to communicate something about my importance, my intellect, my ability to know what's going on. It's a very interesting one as well. The very last one where he says, I follow Christ. Because you might think, well, that's the good crowd. They're the ones figuring it out. You're supposed to follow Christ. But it doesn't seem that he's really saying that because he's batched them in with the rest of this group. And it seems that there's a way in which the people have even started to say, I follow Christ as some kind of way to try to jockey for position and kind of power and strength in the church. And so that's the situation that Paul is finding himself riding into here, is that the people are beginning to miss the main point because they're needing in their own cells to try to hold on to some kind of strength.
> For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
> For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart."
> Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
> For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.
> For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom,
> but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,
> but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
> For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
When you're reading Scripture, paying attention to repetition is a good hint at what's being pointed, pointed out as important. You have this idea of wisdom and its opposite folly coming up over and over again in a very short time. The image that we're getting here is that we have the wisdom of the world and we have it stacked up against God. That's what Paul is beginning to do here, building these ideas.
> For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.
> But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;
> God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are,
> so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
> And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption,
> so that, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord."
If you can use your imaginations, with Paul here, you would consider a spectrum where on one end you had wisdom and power, wisdom and strength, and then on the other side of the spectrum, you had weakness and foolishness. Paul says, wherever you put the message of the cross, he's been talking about it as weakness and foolishness. He said, wherever you put it, it's wiser and it's stronger than you and I. Consider for a moment what is the message of Christ crucified? It begins with Jesus coming to us, condescending to us, taking on flesh, like you and I. I would assume that all of us here in the room know the limitations of your body. You know the weakness that we are. And that's all just before we even get close to what is the cross, and you start to approach it, and you have the night before Jesus is betrayed, he's stabbed in the back by a friend, and then he's turned over to be arrested. When he's arrested, all of his close friends now leave him and he's left on his own. Then he goes. The crowds who once just a couple days earlier were shouting his name are now scorning him. They're saying, release for us a guy who we know, he's rotten, he's a criminal, but we'd rather have him than this Jesus guy. Then he's handed over to random soldiers who beat him within an inch of his life. Then he's taken out to the entrance of the city and he's hung on a tree next to common thieves. This is the message of Christ crucified. Such weakness, such foolishness. How weak and foolish we must be. But deep in this truth is precisely where we find the wisdom and where we find the power.
> And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.
> For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
> And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling.
> My speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
> so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
This is the same as us here, unless some of you have a kingly line that I didn't know about. God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not to bring to nothing, things that are so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. This is the wisdom. That it would be such a way where you and I couldn't boast in ourselves. We're torn. We have two sets of desires. On one hand, we really want to boast in ourselves. We really want to be able to tell you, I've got it figured out. But on the other hand, deep within you, your soul aches for what is true in Jesus, the message of this cross. Because do you really want to boast in yourself? Do you know what kind of weight that is that you have to carry to boast in yourself? You don't have to. You get to boast in Christ. You get to boast in his weakness, in his foolishness at the cross. And the weight can be lifted because it's about him, it's not about us.
And because of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that as it is written, let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.
Now, it's not been until recently, in the last several months of sitting in and meditating on this passage, that I've come to understand what I think Paul is actually getting it here when he says the phrase demonstration of spirit and of power. Every time I've read this passage, I've just assumed that as a great apostle, at the birth of the church, he's talking about some kind of sign, some kind of miraculous work. I mean, it happens all over the book of Acts as the church is getting going. And it even happens now and today that you can go to something like Acts 3. You can see Peter and John, they heal a lame man. Or maybe in Acts 9, where Peter raises Tabitha from the dead. Or Paul himself, he does miraculous work. He exercises a demonic spirit out of a man, and then he's thrown in prison for it. And then there's this miraculous work of him being broken out of jail. That's in Acts 16. And so I've always just assumed that, well, this is what he means here. And then that's always created a disconnect between me and Paul because that's not really what my lived experience is. I wrote it off and just continued on. But if you go and read Acts 18, which gives the account of his time in Corinth, not one time is there an instance of a mention of some miraculous work. There's not some big sign. If we just stayed inside of 1 Corinthians, he said that Jews demand signs. Why would he go and flip what he was saying? He just said, I decided to only know Christ and him crucified. Why would he turn around and start talking about something different? This is what I've come to understand. Paul hasn't changed the subject at all. He's still saying the same thing he's been saying the whole time, that the power of God, the demonstration of the Spirit, is Christ crucified at work in you. That's power, us coming to life in him. Paul says in verse five why he wanted to stay out of the way of the message so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Paul didn't want to come and try to sound intelligent and eloquent. He simply wanted to share the message of Christ crucified because he had tasted the power of God in his life. He knew he didn't want people saying, I follow Paul. He wanted people to say, how great is God, that his power would be at work within me to bring me new life. I boast in him and him alone. That's what he wants.
Now, I want to share some encouragement for us as a church, specifically as it relates to the season that we're in, as we're about to send a church, and some of us are about to go and begin a new work out in Lexington. One of the reasons that we're doing this work, aside from the fact that we think God has said, go, so we're going to go, but it's because we want to create more seats at the table. We use that language all the time when our groups multiply. What we're trying to accomplish is create more seats at the table. We want to see others welcomed in and joined in to what we are doing. Very specifically, we want to see those who do not know the hope of Christ join us at the table. The reality is those people come to join us because we, as his people, are faithful to share the message. Just like Paul. The church in Corinth is the church at Corinth because Paul went and he declared the message.
The specific encouragement is that Paul says he was in weakness and in fear and in trembling. If I had to guess, when we talk about the idea of evangelism or sharing the message that for all those believers in the room here now, myself included, if you have ever been at that precipice of sharing the message of Christ crucified, you've been afraid. You, like Paul, have trembled. As I've reflected on my own life, I've thought, why is it. Why is it that we can stand here in this room and say, oh, the cross of Jesus Christ, it's the reason that I am alive. And then I'm there in that moment where a friend, a neighbor, who doesn't know Christ, and there's a part of me that wants to. It's terrifying. I think the reason why is exactly what Paul has been saying here in First Corinthians, that the message of the cross is a stumbling block and it's foolishness. If I'm going to share the message of Christ, it's not about pointing to me and how great I am. If I do that, then I've emptied the cross of its power. When you're in that moment, what you're afraid of is exactly what Paul has come to experience. There are some people, oh, they get tripped up. That's pretty tense, awkward conversation. When you're in that moment, somebody gets tripped up like that and we don't want to be there. Or maybe you just get written off as a silly, foolish person. You're one of those weird Christians. The encouragement is that what Paul offers to us is not that we have to go and hone our skill into perfection, to be able to say it just right, to make it work, that we can be just like Paul. You can be weak, you can be afraid, you can tremble. Because it might be getting tense when I talk about this. But the message is not just foolishness and not just weakness, but for those who are called, those who the Lord is working in their heart. This message is power. Christ crucified is power and wisdom for new life. Some of us in the room here, you're already in the position. You already have the relationship with a neighbor or a co worker or a friend. You've been in Paul's spot, you know exactly, you've heard them talk about their life and you have in your head thought, if you only knew the gospel of Jesus. But you stopped at fear and trembling. My encouragement to you is take the next step of faith and share the message of Christ crucified. Your fears might be realized, but this message that while I was an enemy in my disobedience in love, Christ came to go to the cross to absolve the guilt of my rebellion and to give to me the right standing with the Father. That's a message that has power and wisdom to bring about new life. And that is worth it. It's worth it to share. That's what Paul has found to be true. May we find it to be true as well as a church. Whether you are somebody who is staying and going, those of us who are going, or whether you're packing it up and you're going. May we share this message. May we share in fear and in weakness and in trembling. And may we not use eloquent words of wisdom so that the cross would be empty. But may we simply share.
Father, we thank you for the cross of Jesus that though it is weakness, though it is foolishness, it is power and it is wisdom. We have felt it because our eyes have been opened and we have been made alive in you. Father, you know us and where we are at. You know the fear and the trembling we that we feel and we face as we consider the notion of sharing this weak, foolish message with those around us. Would you'd empower us in the middle of that weakness and fear to simply say, christ crucified, we love you, praise you. Amen.
I'm going to transition into a time of taking the Lord's Supper. Matt's going to come up and prepare to sing for us. In a moment when we have a moment of reflection, I want you to consider, take a moment to consider the cross of Christ. Specifically. Think about the power and the wisdom that it has been for you. Remember the work that the Lord has done in your life. And then when you're up and you're at the table, look around, look around this table and see your brothers and sisters. Remember, the power of the cross has been at work in them too. What joy. And then for a moment, just consider that there are people in this city that the Lord right now is working in their heart and in their life. And when they hear the message of Christ crucified out of our mouths, they will join us at the table and the cross will become power and wisdom.
> For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread,
> and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me."
> In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."
> For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
When you're ready, come to the table and proclaim the Lord's death. Need gluten free bread? It'll be in the back corner as well in the balcony.
2 Samuel 12:14-31
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
2 Samuel 12: 1-13
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
All right, so I said earlier, my name is Spencer. I'm one of the pastors here. We're gonna be in second Samuel chapter 12 today and want to announce just a little bit of a change in one of the ways we're doing things. So if you look in and around you, there are hardback black ASV Bibles. So we're making a little bit of a shift here. So those are going to be what we use for the primary reading of the text that we're walking through. So we've had in the past, we've had text on the screen, we'll still have some of that. But we wanted to move a little bit more towards what we kind of used to do, which is to really read out of a physical Bible. So we've actually made the investment. We bought some nicer kind of hardback Bibles to use in during worship. So if you go to page 300, that's where it will be. We would invite you A couple things. We invite you to, if you have a Bible that you regularly use to actually bring that on Sundays that we use the esv. If you have a different version, that's fine. We're blessed in the English language to have so many wonderful translations. People who get in just knife wars over translations, it just drives me nuts sometimes some are not great. The majority are quite good. Then it's very possible that you have a very good one. So if you have one, bring it and bring that regularly. Write in the margins of the Bible, take notes during the sermons, like really engage there. If you don't ever have one, if you don't actually. Let me say this, if you don't have a Bible at home, a physical copy, please take that one. That is our gift to you. We want you to have a Bible that you can read at home. But if you didn't forget to bring your Bible on a Sunday, pick one of those up, engage with it. The text, the main part of the text will not be on the screen. Or we would like to discourage being on our phones. That is something that we're actually making a shift towards. I'm not going to like stare at you in the middle of the sermon and just start pointing. Not going to do that. But one of the things we've realized is, is that when we are on our phones and we read the Bible from the phone, sometimes we get distracted. I felt this all of a sudden, a text message comes through, an email comes through, and we want to try to minimize that distraction as much as possible. So you Know, again, I'm not going to be angry from the pulpit if you're on your phone, but we would like to discourage that as much as possible and actually be in the text. So going forward, we'll kind of make this announcement a few different times, but that's the shift we're going to make. And the hope will be, is as we're reading a physical Bible, it's going to come to life in some new and better ways. It's a little more active than kind of passively looking up at the screen. So we're going to be in Second Samuel, verses 1 through 13, which is on page 300 in those Bibles. And we'll get to that text in a moment.
There are times where. Where I am, where I've sinned, and I'm being confronted in my sin. Now, most of the time that happens with my wife, because I don't know if you know this. If you're married, the person you sin against the most is. Is your spouse. Vice versa. You know why? Because you're living in close proximity with your spouse and she's a sinner and you're a sinner, and this is what happens. So you should expect sin to happen in marriage, which should result in conflict resolution, all the things that we do and we encourage. But what happens sometimes is that when my wife confronts me in my sin, there's such a clear crossroads. Like, there's just two paths. And the first path is Christ exalting, humble consideration of her words, of myself and my own sin. And then, like, time to really reflect and think and consider. That's path one. Then there's the second path, which is I'm not going down without a fight. I'm going to argue my way through this. First off, I reject the premise of your argument. Second, do we need to get to your stuff? Like, I mean, all the terrible ways, And I'll be honest, this way is pretty appealing and it's pretty easy at first. The other way is quite difficult at first to actually do the work of humility and to consider your own sin and be open to confrontation and to like. Like, that's hard on the front end. Way easier in the back end over here. Way easy in the front end because I got to do what my flesh desires, which is not consider my own faults, not consider my own sin. I get to do what I like to do, which is talk. So let's go for it. But the back end is way worse. And there are just times where I see the crossroads in front of Me. And it's like, oof. The desires of the flesh and the spirit at work in ways where, you know, sometimes by God's grace, I choose what is good, and sometimes I choose what is evil, and it results in good. But I think I'm going to guess I'm not alone in this, that many of us feel that, that with spouses and friends and co workers and family members and et cetera, you feel that you're at the crossroads when someone does the work of confronting you. And that's where we see David today. David is about to be confronted in his sin, and we're going to see what comes out of that and how we should think about that as Christians.
So let me pray for us, and then we'll walk through this together. Lord, we thank you that you are patient with us in our sin and that you have incredible hope held out to us. God, I pray that that would be clearly seen in a way that changes the very way that we operate and live our lives. This morning we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.
Okay, so summary summarizing. Last week, Chet walked us through what is the lowest point of David's reign. The David who's supposed to be on the battlefield leading his people as their king. He's back home. And then temptation comes. He's out. And then he sees Bathsheba, the wife of one of his soldiers, and he inquires of who this is. And then he takes her. And then, attempting to deal with the consequences of his sin, deceives, lies, plots, and then ultimately sends Uriah to the front lines to be killed by the Ammonites, which he is. So David, committing adultery, deception, murder, comes out looking like the good guy. I'll take Bathsheba, she'll be my wife. And he thinks that he's moving forward and his tracks are covered. But God sees everything. The eyes of the Lord see everything. And he sends Nathan, one of his prophets, to confront David in his sin.
> And the LORD sent Nathan to David.
> He came to him and said to him, “There were two men in a city, the one rich and the other poor.
> The rich man had very many flocks and herds,
> but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought.
> And he brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children. It used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him.
> Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the guest who had come to him,
> but he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him. (2 Samuel 12:1–6 ESV)
So Nathan is a prophet. And this is what God does to his kings. We saw this with Samuel and Saul. We're seeing it here with Nathan and David. You keep reading. You're seeing this with Elijah and Ahab. This is what God does. He sends his prophets to correct the people and especially the kings, in their sin. So Lord sent to Nathan to David, and what he's about to tell David is a parable. But David doesn't know it's a parable. David hears this as an actual thing that has Happened.
Okay, let's consider the details of this parable. This is the classic evil rich man versus lowly poor man story. This rich man has an abundance. He has more lambs than he can count. He has flocks upon flocks upon flocks, herds upon herds upon herds. He has an abundance. But then there's the poor man. The poor man doesn't have any. And eventually he gets enough money just to have one little ewe lamb, and that's it. Seemingly all he can ever afford. And then you get into the relationship of that this poor man has with his lamb, and it's like the family pet. I mean, you consider the details, that he raises this lamb, that this lamb grew up with his children. We have a family dog. Her name is Piper, and she is the same age as my middle child, my son. And there are pictures. I can go through a photo show, just the puppy and my son growing up together. That's our family dog, and we love our dog. And that's what this is. This is the family lamb. They love this lamb. This lamb comes to the table and they feed her morsels from the table. Yes, you can have some of this. That lamb drinks out of his own cup, which is kind of gross, just being honest. But some of you let your dog lick your face. So same. They just have this. You can see him just give him some of the cup and then scooping up the lamb and just running it just in circles. Montage. Just, just absolutely. Just this brushing the wool. His sweet little ewe lamb says he treated her like a daughter. You. So once you're attached to the lamb narrative, it shifts back to the rich man. And the rich man has a guest coming to town, and he wants to prepare lamb chops for his guest. You could see him scanning the fields and thinking Thoughtlessly about which one he's going to have one of his people, one of his servants grab. And who. Who. Who's going to. And then he sees the poor man's lamb and the. And he says, oh, no, I'll have that one. And it feels like a. Like a. Like a movie, as you like. You just imagine him sending his goons to, like, just go in and just forcibly take the lamb. And the children are crying, and the man can't do anything because he's the lowly poor man. This is the rich man in town. He has all the power with the sheriff and has all the power with. And he's got all the money. He can't do anything. Or maybe he comes in the middle of the night and his goons come in and sweep and take the lamb. And then all of a sudden, the next day, they're looking, calling for her, wondering where she is. And then all of a sudden, they hear that she's been slaughtered and cooked and served at the table of the rich man. And when you hear the details of the story, you want Liam Neeson, with his particular set of skills, to team up with John Wick and just absolutely destroy this man. And if you feel that kind of angry at the story, I want you to imagine how David felt. Because David was a shepherd. He. He knows what it's like to love the flock, to take care of these lamps. And he is furious again, he doesn't know it's a story. He's furious at this.
> Then David's anger was greatly kindled against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the LORD lives, the man who has done this deserves to die,
> and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.” (2 Samuel 12:5 ESV)
David is furious. And as a man of great passion, he responds to Nathan. He invokes the name of the Lord, and he says, this man deserves to die for what he has done. We are going to make this right. He's going to pay back fourfold what he did. Because this man was cruel. He had no pity. He was a savage. He was brutal. He was an evil man of wealth and power. He deserves judgment. And what's wild is that David can't see it. He can't see it. He so clearly can see this man's sin, but he can't see his own sin. And if you're honest, we've been there. You've been there, where it's so easy to see the sin of others. It's so easy to Point out all the ways that they have failed. So blind to our own reality, the plank so lodged in the eyes we can't see. That's David. He just can't see it. And Nathan just has him exactly where he wants him.
> Nathan said to David, “You are the man. Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul.
> And I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more.
> Why have you despised the word of the LORD, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.
> Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.
> Thus says the LORD, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. And I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun.
> For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.’” (2 Samuel 12:7–10 ESV)
And now the deeds are coming into the light. Because God sees it all. Every thought, every action, and this life for the next will be exposed. And he exposes it for all to see. He saw when temptation came upon him. When he saw Bathsheba, he saw him take her. He saw him scramble to cover up the Pregnancy. He saw him murder him with the sword of the Ammonites, which pause for a moment. Those of us who sometimes have seared consciences and are like, well, I didn't really do the thing. They did the thing. I didn't really participate. They participated. But you were actively in the background doing things. It's a lesson in morality that if you're the first domino, you're responsible, that you might not brought the sword down, but you are culpable. You, you murdered. He says all of that. He sees it, it's exposed. Then God pronounces judgment, verse 10. Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. Thus says the Lord, behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor. And ye shall lie with your wives in the sight of this Son, for you did it secretly. But I will do this thing before all Israel and before the Son. So the judgment is that strife is about to come upon David's house. It will not be the same, but strife will come upon his house because he despised God, despised his commands. And notice it didn't say he took Bathsheba. You took the wife of Uriah. The sting here of the rich man taking the poor man's lamb because of what you did and the evil that you brought upon this man and the evil you've done against me. Now evil will come out of your own house. And the very things that you have done in the secret and the dark will be done before the sun, out in the open, which we are going to see come to fruition in just a few chapters as this house is torn to pieces. And this is the tragedy that awaits David and the judgment that is given to him.
And now is a pivotal moment for David because Nathan just called him out publicly. All of the nation is going to hear about this. And then all of God's people for the next 3,000 years are going to hear about this. What is he going to do? He is the king. And kings in history typically don't respond well to public shaming. They don't respond well to being dressed down in the Bible. Kings typically don't respond well to being called out by prophets. So what is he going to do? Is he going to put them in jail like Jeremiah was put in jail? Is he going to threaten his life like Elijah was threatened? What is he going to do to the prophet who has openly just dressed him down for all to see.
> David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.”
> And Nathan said to David, “The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die.” (2 Samuel 12:13 ESV)
And we're going to stop there, and we're going to pick up next week in the second half of that verse and finish off the chapter. At the crossroads of confrontation, David repents. He repents. He acknowledges who this sin was primarily against. I have sinned against the Lord, the God who took me, who chose me, who made me king, who blessed me with blessings I could never earn. I've sinned against him. And then in the same breath, Nathan delivers the message from the Lord. The Lord has put away your sin, and you shall not die. David is given forgiveness, which is massive, y', all, because if you understand the Old Testament law, what David did actually merits death. And the Jewish law, that's the death penalty for what he's done. But he's given forgiveness, and his repentance is genuine. You might could read this and go, okay, does he really. He does. And what we read earlier in Psalm 51 for our liturgy this morning is the. Is the window into his soul, because he wrote Psalm 51, David did, in the midst of. In the aftermath of this sin, really fleshing out repentance in his soul.
So what I want to do is I want to go to Psalm 51, which that is on page 554 in that black Bible, and I want us to look at Psalm 51 and to consider really, the elements of repentance. We're not going to get into all of it because we don't have the space to look at every single verse. But I want to just. I want to look at this to consider some of the elements of repentance that are happening here in Psalm 51, on page 544, starting in verse one, David says,
> Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. (Psalm 51:1 ESV)
You see, there's a. There's a neediness in his repentance. He's in a humble state. He says, have mercy on me. Have mercy. Now, why would he need to have mercy? Because he sinned against a holy and perfect and righteous God who brings wrath towards sin. Have mercy on me according to your steadfast love. He says, according to your abundant mercy. Blot out my transgressions. Remove them. There's this deep desire for repentance, and he's not sorry for what awaits him in the discipline of the Lord. He's sorry because he sinned against God. That's important for us because Spurgeon was quoted as saying this once, that if I hate sin because of the punishment for sin, I've not repented of sin. I merely regret that God is just. So if we. If we just hate sin because we don't like the punishment, which is the wages of sin is death, which is hell. If that's why we hate sin, then it's like we're not understanding whom we've sinned against. Actually, we're just more concerned with the judgment of God. And if he's just or not. David is like, I've sinned against you, God. You. You see the. You see this. This beginning, this restoration in his heart of just understanding this relationship that he's had with God that he's gone wayward from. Have mercy.
And then he says in verse two,
> Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! (Psalm 51:2 ESV)
Like he just feels the stain of sin on him every now and then. I get to take my kids, we go camping and go camping for a few days, and at the end of it all, we haven't showered, haven't. I've got sweat and bug spray and sunscreen and dirt and grime and marshmallow residue and, like, the works. It just. And I'm like. And when we get in the car to go home, it's just like, I'm really, really looking forward to getting in the shower because I just want to. I just am so ready to just get rid of all of the filth. And David just. He's. He sees it. He finally has eyes to see, and he sees all of the sin and everything that was involved and the plot and the murder and the. And the lust of the heart. He sees all of it, and he's just like, God just washed me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleansed me from my sin. I don't want to be stained like this anymore. God, would you wash me? Would you cleanse me?
Verse 3 says,
> For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. (Psalm 51:3 ESV)
He has this knowledge now. Like, I know my transgressions are before me, and I know you see it. And I've done what's evil in your sight, which if you just think about it for a moment, you just see, this is. This is the human heart on display before God, because very Logically, God is actually not the only person he sinned against. Right, Uriah. He sinned against him grievously. Had him murdered. All the lying and deception. So there's sin that affects the community and all around, but he sees whom he's primarily sinned against and it's the Lord better. Sin first and foremost is against the Lord. He just. He sees it so clearly. I've sinned against you. I've done what's evil in your sight.
Go skip down to verse seven.
> Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. (Psalm 51:7 ESV)
It's like he just. Would you purge me with the hyssop branch? Would you cleanse me so I can be clean? I want to be righteous before you again, God. Go down to verse nine.
> Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. (Psalm 51:9 ESV)
Just God, I want a clean record. I don't want the iniquities to be counted against me. Hide your face, Lord, from my sins. I don't want it counted against me.
In verse 10, he says,
> Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. (Psalm 51:10 ESV)
So he understands so clearly that his heart has been wayward. And he understands this is really helpful, y'. All. He understands it's not just the actions, it's the inner heart. It's the human. It's the inner being. And he says, I need to be made new. I need you'd to create a new heart within me. I need you to renew the right spirit within me. I need. I need to love you and delight in you and follow you again. I just. I lost my way and I just. I need you to cleanse my inner self so that I can be right with you again.
In verse 11, he says,
> Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. (Psalm 51:11 ESV)
Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit. The reality is that there are folks who will harden their heart towards their sin and will pursue it and will pursue it and will pursue it. And their heart becomes cold and callous and. And distant. And yes, God hides his lovely face from his people. Sometimes you can't read the rest of the Psalms and not see that. That's why the old Hin says, when darkness see, when darkness hides his lovely face, I rest on his amazing grace. There are times where God hides his unique presence from us. And that's not a place you want to. He says, I don't want to Be away from your presence. I want to remember. I want to restore to me God the joy of your salvation and walking with you. I want to feel your presence and your redemption yet again. God, don't abandon me.
And then you skip down to verse 17, says
> The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. (Psalm 51:17 ESV)
What's so helpful there is that David understands that it's more than just going to the tent of meeting and offering sacrifices, which he would have absolutely done in accordance with the law. It's more than that. Because what God ultimately desires is not the outward action. It's the inward, broken, contrite heart. He wants contrition in our hearts. A broken, sorrowful, remorseful heart that sees I've sinned against you, God, to feel sorrow over sin. And through tears and anguish, with remorse for his adultery and his murder and his deception, he feels all of that against the Lord.
Now take a step back from Psalm 51 and you observe his repentance. Summarize some of the elements of what we see. He's desperate. He gives pleas for mercy. He desires to be cleansed. He gives an acknowledgment of who he's primarily sinned against. He has a desire for his presence. He has a plea for his sins to not be counted against him. He has a longing for joy and his salvation again. And he has a confessed reality of contrition and sorrow over his sin. That's what repentance looks like. Which begs the question, does our repentance look like that? Does our repentance and the way that we consider sin mirror this? Because this is what repentance is.
Years ago, many of you know this. I was, for years I was bivocational, doing real estate and pastoring. And then I went full time years ago. And every now and then I'm doing some real estate here or there. But years ago I was doing. I was doing a deal and I was. It was me directly with a seller on a property and we were in negotiations and this property needed a lot of work and it got to the end of it all and then went through some inspections and when the H VAC unit, the air conditioning unit came back, I was like, yeah, I don't. I don't know. Like, I just. And there's a lot of trust between this person. This person loved God and I love God. And we're just trying to figure this out. But I just, at the very end of it all, just, I don't know, I think. I think I have to drop the price by 2000 because this. This unit, I think it's about to go. And then she did. And then the years that followed. A couple things came to reality. First, that that H VAC unit actually was a tank. That thing was. It just kept going. Just needed a little maintenance. But I got four solid more years out of that thing. But in evaluating my own heart, and I just realized I was like. That was done from a place of greed and a place of fear. It was done from a place of taking advantage of someone else. And I just. When that finally sunk in, I just. I felt this. I felt like just, lord, what have I done? And rejecting your ways and rejecting your desire and loving money over people. And I just. I felt the overwhelming weight of sin. And I just. I can't. I can't move forward like this. This. This can't be. And I just. I talked to my wife, and we kept thinking and praying through. I talked to the pastors. I kept thinking and praying through it, and I just finally came to the conclusion I just can't stand. I'm not gonna stand before the Lord and this sin. So I. In repentance, I finally. I reached out. I just said, hey, listen, I wrote a letter. I just said, I. I think. I think. I think I did wrong in this. I think you're owed $2,000. I want you to take this check and I want you to cash it. Please, please, please do not send this back. And thankfully, God in his providence in allowing me to be in sin for a period of time, this person actually needed that exact amount at the exact time. But I just. I felt this. That happens, y'. All. We have these. These moments where we're tempted and we're lured and enticed, and the sin grows within us, and we choose wickedness. And this is needed. This. Psalm 51. This contrite, broken heart, this desire to be. Desire to. To be obedient to what God desires for us is so desperately needed in us. And David feels that. He feels a sorrow over his sin, a longing and a hope for God. He. He feels this, and then he's given forgiveness, and his sin is not counted against him. And he spared the judgment of death. And next week we'll see consequences for sin. Because even though sometimes we don't face eternal consequences for sin, there are eternal punishment for sin, there are earthly consequences, and we'll get to that. But for the moment, this week, I wanted to pause and to consider that David's sin is not held against him. He spared the judgment of death.
And here's the deal. The good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that we are like David, more so. We are like David, more so because we, knowing the gospel, choose to deliberately, intentionally, flagrantly, grievously, sometimes joyfully sin against God, reject his ways in favor of wickedness, in favor of selfishness and self centeredness. And we choose to do this over and over and over again as we break his commands. And what I want us to hear so clearly this morning is that sin is costly, that sin costs. For the wages of sin is death. And God looks at us just as he looked at David. And he looked at David and he said, the Lord has put away your sin. You shall not die. And the reason that's true for us is because the Lord has put away our sin, because Jesus Christ died. Because we get to look to Jesus Christ who dies in the place of sinners, using some of the same language put away in Hebrews 9:26.
> For then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. (Hebrews 9:26 ESV)
In the back part of that verse it says, but as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, that if he belonged to Jesus Christ, your sin was put away because of his sacrifice on the cross. Because somebody has to pay the penalty for sin, because we don't sin against a holy and perfect God and reject his ways without a cost. And Jesus Christ lovingly went and paid that penalty for us. And in paying that penalty, he has better things held out for us.
> He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. (1 Peter 2:24 ESV)
That Jesus Christ takes our sins, he bore them on the tree, the cross, that we might hear this, die to sin and live to righteousness. There are those of us who belong to Jesus Christ who have trusted in the finished work that he did on the cross, that his atonement has covered our sin. He does that so that we might die to sin, not, not living it. That we might see sin be put to death in our lives. I mean, goodness, y', all, we should take the call to repentance seriously, like David did. You should understand the cost of sin. It's the blood of God. You should understand the precious gift that was given for us because of our sin. We should take sin seriously.
The puritan Thomas Watson once said that Christ is never loved until sin is loathed. You cannot love Christ if we do not hate sin. Those go hand in hand. There's no way that you can love a God who loved you so much that he gave up his only Son to be crucified for our rebellion against Him. And then us just wink and nod at sin as if it's the. Not a big deal. No, the only logical conclusion to a love that great is a hatred that is that great, too. And that hatred is towards our sin. We must hate sin. We must feel the reality of sin and deal with it seriously, which means considering it, grieving the offense, repenting of it, and running towards Christ.
Listen, if we can stare at our sin and have the general posture of our hearts, well, good thing I'm forgiven. Good thing God's a God of grace, right? It's like, whoa, are we. If we can be flippant about what our sin cost and just treat grace like it's a cheap gift, then maybe we've misunderstood grace entirely. And maybe we need to be reoriented with the reality of sin. Listen, we don't have to beat ourselves up after we've repented. I'm not wallowing in the sin of greed from years ago. I find joy in Jesus Christ because what he has done. But we don't skip the work to get there. And some of us skip the work, myself included. We don't do the work of repentance. And we need to. We should be. Listen, we should be terrified at the possibility that we could sin repeatedly in a way that our heart could grow cold and our love could be dim to where we don't sense the presence of God. That's a terrifying place to be.
To summarize, Thomas Watson in another place, he says we either must drown our sin in the tears of repentance or our sin will be drowned in the judgment of hell. And that should weigh upon us, and we get to face that reality right here as we have the opportunity to come to the table, invite Christy up to take the Lord's Supper and to play for us in a moment.
> “When he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, ‘This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’” (1 Corinthians 11:24 ESV)
> “In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’” (1 Corinthians 11:25 ESV)
On the night that Jesus Christ was betrayed, he took bread and he broke it. And he said, this is my body that was broken for you. And that's the. That's the physical reminder that Jesus gave up his body. And then Jesus took the cup, which is the cup of the new covenant. He said, this is my blood that was shed for you. And it's the reminder of the blood that flowed down from Jesus Christ that covers our sins. And as we consider that until Jesus Christ returns, one of the ways we do this in taking seriously the Lord's Supper, is we consider our sin in repentance. So we're going to sit in silence for a few moments. And if you belong to Jesus Christ, I want you to ask God to reveal, just as he sent Nathan the prophet to reveal his sin, may you ask God to send the Spirit upon our hearts to awaken within us the reality of our own sin. And I want you to sit in that for a moment. And once you've considered the ways in which you've sinned, I'm going to pray, I'm going to invite you to the table, and I want you to come being reminded of the seriousness of sin. I want you to take the Lord's Supper and return. And then I want you to worship him. Enjoy.
Now, attached to some of this, maybe. Maybe you've got some work left to do when you leave here. And maybe you need to make a phone call and maybe you need to have a conversation and maybe a group this week, you need to finally walk in the light. Which brothers and sisters, be reminded, undoubtedly, with the size of this room, there, there's some. There are folks in here who are just hiding their sin, who aren't being honest and open, who aren't actually being real about the reality of sin in their life. And I want to make this clear to you. That's a terrible place to be. Don't hide your sin. There's freedom that's found in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Believe that God doesn't want you to walk in darkness. He wants you to walk in light and in power and in victory. And you will not have victory over sin and if it remains in darkness. So part of what needs to happen coming out of this, this week is in your group, is you need to confess your sin. You need to confess it to God first and then one another. But don't choose the path of darkness time and time again. Don't presume upon the kindness of God that's meant to lead us to repentance. But as Christians, we need to come to the table after we've prayed, and we need to walk this out in repentance. If you. For some of you, some of you have never done this. You've never seriously considered your sin. You've never seriously considered the Savior. And the table is not for you, but Jesus Christ is. You have a God that loves you so deeply that he, though he absolutely could, he could have brought judgment down upon you for repeatedly rejecting his will and his desire for you. But he loved you so much that he sent Jesus Christ to die for you, to capture you, to set you apart into eternity. And there's so much joy that's found in that, but it doesn't happen unless you believe. So right now, as we sit in silence, you need to pray and you need to plead for God to blot out your sin, maybe look at Psalm 51 and see Jesus in it and just pray it and ask God to have mercy on you as a sinner and to believe and trust in him. And then come talk to me. Come talk to a person who brought you. But don't come to the table. Come to Jesus Christ. We're going to sit in silence for a few moments, and then I'll close in prayer and invite you to the table.
So bow your heads with me, Sam. Heavenly father, We are so thankful for the blood of Jesus Christ. May the wonderful reality of your work compel us to faith. May it move us to beautiful repentance. As we consider your death, your body, and your blood. For those of us that need to do a thing, need to have a conversation, that need to put sin to death, need to throw out something from their house, need to confess their sin. And group this week, they need to walk in freedom. May you help them do it. May you help us do it. And as we come to the table and return to our seats, may we stand and may we sing joyfully that our sins are not counted against us. Amen.
2 Samuel 11
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
There's something about us that enjoys scandal, that enjoys getting to see some. Some drama, some chaos. We're working our way through the book of Second Samuel, and we've made it to chapter 11. And some of you maybe knew this story was coming. I know there are new believers and new Christians in our church family, and maybe this is the first time you've ever even walked, read any of two Samuel. But we're going to look today at the story of David and Bathsheba. And we're in danger of reading this story, which is filled with scandals, filled with sin, in a. The same way that we would watch, you know, Dateline or I guess one of those true housewife shows or whatever, where we're just at an arm's distance from it, we're looking down on it, we're shaking our heads, we're sucking our teeth at it, we're, you know, shame. And then we just move on. And we can miss that. In this story, we see such a clear descent into sin that. That King David is going to so seamlessly, alarmingly walk into terrible sin. And there's a way for us to just watch that and go, wow, that's awful, and not see that we have the same potential. So my hope this morning is that God, in his grace and in his mercy, helps us see that we have the same potential and kindly cuts us short from continuing to follow in David's footsteps. So let's pray to that end, and then we'll read chapter 11 together.
Lord, we ask for your grace and your mercy that we would not read the scriptures like Pharisees who can see other sins clearly but can't see our own. We ask that your. Your spirit would pierce through our armor that we put up to keep you away from us, so that we might walk in repentance and we might walk in new life. We ask for your grace. We ask for your mercy. We ask for you to be active at this time in Jesus name. Amen.
All right, so we're going to walk through this story together. If you'll remember, we did 8 and 10 at the same time a couple of weeks ago. That was before Easter. And then we did chapter nine last week. So chapter 10 is talking about this war that is happening, and it says this in chapter 11.
> In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel. And they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem. It happened, late one afternoon, that David arose from his couch and walked on the roof of the king's house. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful. And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, "Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?" And David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (2 Samuel 11:1–4, ESV)
The way that's written makes it sound like David is the only male still in Jerusalem. It's written in such a way to try to highlight he's not where he should be now. There are times he's the king, where he could stay back. There are men that stay back. He could there. There are times and ways that he should be governing, that he gets older and they tell him they don't want him to go to battle with him anymore. But the way this is written is intentionally trying to help us see, he's already kind of in an odd place. It'd be normative for him to be gone. That's not what he's doing. So that's how this starts. And it says, and it happened late one afternoon when David arose from his couch. Which couch is couch or bed? Worked the same kind of way. And in this time frame and in places where it's hot, it's not uncommon to get up with the sun. Get a lot done till about lunchtime, till the sun's high in the sky, eat, and then have kind of some downtime where you get in the shade for a little while on the hottest part of the day. Not everybody has that luxury. There's a parable. Jesus tells. And he says that the workers said, we worked through the heat of the day, meaning they were at work during that time. They didn't get to have a break. But it's not uncommon to have a break. But it says it's late afternoon, meaning that he's kind of already gone past that. If it was, they were going to give him credit for, like, you're allowed to kind of have a siesta, given the way that the sun works here. It's like, no, this is late afternoon. And he gets up off his couch. So it's written in this kind of. David's just kind of lounging around listless, doesn't really have. He's not really doing anything. Normally he should be at war. He's not doing that. And late afternoon, he just gets up off his couch. It says, and he was walking on the roof of the king's house that he saw from the roof a woman bathing. And the woman was very beautiful. And that word for beauty there is just a physical word. She's just physically attractive. So he's on his roof, walking around looking, and he sees a woman bathing. He should go back inside and mind his own business. But he doesn't. He sees that she's beautiful and he is interested. We don't know exactly what vantage point he has. He's on the roof. It doesn't tell us that she's on a roof. So just from his vantage point, he's able to see wherever she is bathing. It wouldn't be uncommon to bathe outside if it's hot. But he's in a vantage point from where he's at on the roof of his larger house to be able to see where she is. And David sent and inquired about the woman. So not only does he watch her, but now he's like, I want to find out who this is. And one said, so he sends somebody to go find out. Or he asks, hey, who's this? And one says, is not this Bathsheba the daughter of Eliam the wife of Uriah the Hittite? And we don't know this yet, but later in Second Samuel, we learn that Uriah is one of David's mighty men. He's one of the 30, which means that he has done quite well in battle. Would have been known to David at this point, and is off at war, where David seems like he should be. So it says, that's uriah's wife, verse 4. So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. David Caesar thinks she's attractive, finds out who she is. It doesn't even seem like that step was necessary. Who did they have to say it was for him to. Not just he, I don't know. But they tell him, and it doesn't seem to bother him at all. He goes, okay, go get her. Maybe he was making sure her husband was out of town, I don't know. Brings her to him, he sleeps with her. Now, she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness. That is ritual purity in reference to menstruation. What it's telling you is that she had recently menstruated. That was over. That's why she was bathing. That's very pertinent to the next part. Then she returned to her house and the woman conceived, very clearly not Uriah's child. And she sent and told David, I am pregnant. Now, that's the only thing Bathsheba says in this entire story. She's going to do some things Later. But in this recounting of this interaction, that's the only thing she says. And the text is not written in any sort of way where the light really ever shines on Bathsheba. We don't know her intentions, her motives, we don't know. It is written to where David is sinful. It's written where the light shines on David. He uses his position of power to take advantage of this entire situation. But from the text to say that she owns some guilt, you don't really have the ability to do that in the text. And from the text to say that she didn't sin at all, you don't really have the ability to do that in the text. It doesn't give us anything. It does clearly tell us David is wrong. And he does use his position of power to create a lot of victims in this scenario. And that's where it keeps just following along. So she sends to David, I'm pregnant. He gets that information from her somehow.
So David sent word to Joab, send me Uriah the Hittite. Is he going to confess what, what's his plan here? And Joab sent Uriah to David when Uriah came to him. And he would have sent. It's about 40 miles off where they are. So Uriah gets word while he's out on the military campaign. And he's one of the 30, he's important and good at this. They say, hey, David needs you back at the capitol. Okay, so he goes, When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab was doing, how the people were doing and how the war was going. And I suspect Uriah thought anyone other than me could have told you this information. We got like 16 year old guys who barely know how to swing a sword. They can run and say sentences like, Joab is good, war is bad, but we're doing okay. Like, I mean, you know, could answer these questions. David just kind of. It almost feels chit chatty. But he just is like, all right, give me a report, tell me how things are going. And then David said to Uriah, go down to your house and wash your feet. Which wash your feet there is like an idiom, it means relax, rest. In some ways he's King David giving him a, a leave, military leave, a little bit of go enjoy yourself, take a little break. And Uriah went out of the king's house and there followed him a present from the king. So he sends with him some kind of gift. Take this to your house, have a little, have a little time off. All Right. Y' all pick up on David's plan. Go to your house. He'll sleep with his wife. He'll go back to war. He'll come back from war. She'll be pregnant. Yay. That's his plan.
But Uriah slept at the door of the king's house with all the servants of his Lord and did not go down to his house. Not uncommon for people to sleep outside, especially at this season where it's warming up and the raining has stopped. So servants just kind of find places to sleep. Uriah goes outside. He says, go to your house, which is apparently close to David's house. And Uriah doesn't. He hangs out with the servants. He sleeps there. When they told David, Uriah did not go down to his house. That's an interesting. It just the servants seem to be kind of aware of what's going on here. It's possible David asked them, hey, did you write? Like, maybe he was fishing? But it seems a little more like the servants at this point know that somebody knows. He asked, who's that lady? Somebody knows that he sent for her. Somebody knows. Now that her husband has shown up, somebody knows. Now they were supposed to take gifts with him, but he didn't. He was like, no, take them down to her. But I'm not like, whatever somebody goes to, David just says, hey, just so you know, Uriah slept by the door just giving you that information. David said to Uriah, So he calls him, have you not come from a journey? Why did you not go to your house? So David calls him back up and is like, hey, they told me you slept outside. Why didn't you go home? I gave you, like, you know, time off. What are you doing?
Uriah said to David,
> As the LORD lives, and as you yourself live, I will not do this thing. (2 Samuel 11:11, ESV)
the Ark and Israel and Judah dwell in booths, and my Lord Joab and the servants of my Lord are camping in the open field. Shall I then go to my house to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? As you live and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing. So if you didn't like Uriah, you should now. He says, that's crazy. I'm not going to do that. And honestly, y', all, I think he learned this from David. He's a Hittite. He would have been brought in with David. He's learned how to do some of this stuff. And he's like, the Ark is in a tent. We're at war. Everybody I just left is sleeping on the ground. I'm not going home. I can't do that. Like I wouldn't feel that's wrong. And if he doesn't mean to chastise David, he does successfully chastise David. How dare I lounge around on a couch and sleep with my wife? He says, I won't do that. So David, now his plan isn't working. Then David said to Uriah, remain here today also, and tomorrow I'll send you back. So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. And David invited him and he ate in his presence and drank so that he made him drunk. So David says, okay, we'll just stay tonight and we'll send you back tomorrow. And then he says, hey, come eat at my table. Intentionally gets him drunk. New game plan. Once he's drunk, he won't be so high and mighty about where the ark is and he'll go back to his house. And in the evening, he went out to lie on his couch, which, just so you all know the text, does this stuff on purpose. You go his couch with the servants of the Lord. But he did not go down to his house. So he goes back out and just camps where he'd been camping. David's plan is completely failed. His desire to cover his sin, his ability to get himself out of this, doesn't seem like it's working.
In the morning, David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. In the letter he wrote, set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting and then draw back from him that he may be struck down and die. So David says, thanks for coming, Uriah. It was good seeing you hand this to Joab when you get back over there. And Uriah delivers his own execution order faithfully. And Joab was besieging the city. They've surrounded Rabba, just waiting them out. And he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew where there were valiant men. And the men of the city came out and fought with Joab and some of the servants of David. Among the people fell. Uriah the Hittite died also, or also died. Then Joab sent and told David all the news about the fighting. And he instructed the messenger,
> When you have finished telling all the news about the fighting to the king, then if the king's anger rises and if he says to you, "Why did you go so near the city to fight? Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall?" and if the king says to you, "Why did you go so near the wall?" then you shall say, "Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also." (2 Samuel 11:21–24, ESV)
Which gives us a little, little view into Joab has fought with David for a long time, knows David, it's his uncle. And he's like, I kind of know how David responds when you make stupid military decisions. He's taught us this stuff. He was referencing a story that's in the Old Testament. He says, so when you tell him, hey, Joab did something stupid, which was run up next to the wall of a city that we have surrounded. And he says, why is Joab stupid? Doesn't he know that that's where you get shot? Can't someone just drop something on your head? What are you doing? Then you'll say, uriah's dead. So the messenger went and came and told David all that Joab had sent him to tell. The messenger said to David, the men gained an advantage over us and came out against us in the field, but we drove them back to the entrance of the gate. Then the archer shot at your servants from the wall. Some of the king's servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also. So messenger doesn't wait for David. He just says, this is what happened. David said to the messenger, thus shall you say to Joab, do not let this matter displease you, for the sword devours now one and then another, now one and now another. Strengthen your attack against the city and overthrow it and encourage you. So if you're the messenger, you might be inclined to think David saying, hey, don't feel bad about this military mistake you made. But Joab would understand that David is saying, hey, don't feel bad about this murder I made you complicit in. People die in war. Sword was going to get somebody sometime. Don't think a lot about Uriah or the other guys that died because you had to kill Uriah. Go encourage him.
> When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she lamented over her husband. And when the mourning was past, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD. (2 Samuel 11:26–27, ESV)
It is possible that even him taking her to be his wife is a. Is a way for him to seem like he's just being kind to a widow of a Hittite who was in his army. He's going to make sure she's taken care of. If you're David, you've done it. Took a while, but you got yourself out of this fix. But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord, which is a rare statement in first and Second Samuel. It's pretty rare in all of Scripture for it to be that clear. There are times in 1st and 2nd Samuel where a man of God has come and given some kind of declaration. There's times in 1st and 2nd Samuel where God spoke directly to Samuel. There's been a whole lot of stuff in first and Second Samuel where we read it and just went, what's God think about that? And it did not tell us this. It very clear. God is displeased with this. Which, yeah, none of us are surprised by that, but we are surprised by what David has done.
Do you not feel kind of sick reading that story? That's the slimiest thing. I mean, it's like every turn. You ever been four books into a book series and they start changing the character. You're seven seasons into a show and this character just starts doing stuff, and you're like yelling at your tv, they wouldn't do that. That's what this feels like. David. David wouldn't do that. David, he wouldn't do that, would he? When David's introduced to us, Samuel says to Saul, this is in 1st Samuel 21. Nope, it's not. This is in 1st Samuel 13. He says to Saul, this is Samuel says to Saul,
> But now your kingdom shall not continue. The LORD has sought out a man after his own heart, and the LORD has commanded him to be prince over his people... (1 Samuel 13:14, ESV)
Because you haven't kept what the Lord commanded. There's another place where he says he's gone to get a man who's better than you. And what we want so deeply is for there to just be good people who do good things and don't do this. David's hand picked to be the one who's after God's own heart. And he goes and does this. And y', all, he does it so easily. It just boom, boom, boom, boom. My. My older son, when he was 4, I always tell people it was like having a feral cat living in my house. He was certain if he just used enough effort, he could be in charge of our entire household. And there would be times where we would just. Something would happen and then boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. We would just be decision descendants, decision. And my wife would say, you need to learn how to de escalate. And I'm like, I don't de escalate. That's his job. I will end up at the top of this thing. But there would be times where we'd. I'd have him and I would say to him, he'd be sitting on his. I'd get him to his room. We're finally at sorting things out. We've gotten past some of the stuff where we just burst through. Every. Every little mark I put on the ground said, don't cross it. And I would say, do you want to know how we got here? Can we stop? Can we go back and see how we got here? And I feel like we have to do that with David right now. We have to say, how did. How did we get. How did we get here? Well, it started with David not really doing what he was supposed to be doing. That's where it started. And is he wrong? That's hard to say. I mean, would it be better? Sure. Should he have gone? Yeah, you could probably make that argument. But it starts off in this real squishy area where that if you showed up and you were like, how dare you? On your couch. He's like, first of all, I'm the king. I've been at war forever. Joab's great. I'm in a season right now where I just need some rest. Like, I've just had so much going on. And there are some legitimate times where those things are kind of true, right? That. That happens. But. But it's like it's cloud cover for I not really doing what I'm supposed to be doing. There are sins. We often we think about sin. We think of sins that we commit. You go do a thing. But, you know, there are sins of things that you omit, good things that you ought to do that you just don't do. But those are harder to get pinned down on. You got to really run a pattern of those. Someone's like, you weren't generous. Then you're like, I mean, you know, you got all this. It's like, all right, well, we're going to watch you for six months. We're going to watch you for two years. We're going to see if that can. Like, that's the zone he's in where it's like. It's hard to immediately show up and say you're not doing the things you ought to do. And sometimes that's clear and sometimes it's not. And that's where he starts. And so often that's where we start. It's hard. It's hard to go from doing exactly what you're supposed to do. Walking in obedience with the Lord, and let's commit murder that's just. This is a hard jump. Premeditated murder. Like, let's just. Premeditated murder that you had a lot of time to think about. But he's still got to get out there. It's got to happen. Like, he just hanging out, waiting to see, how'd my murder go. That's a hard jump. What we go to first usually is just kind of not doing the things we're supposed to be doing. So it's like, well, I'm not really reading the Bible, but I've had a lot going on. I'm not. I hadn't been around group. I'm a little bit out of the loop, but, like, I'm trying. And usually when our group meets, I stay at home and feel a little bit bad about it. So that counts. And it's like, you're not really. You know, I should be trying to pursue my spouse. I should be kind of doing this, But I'm not. I don't. You know, I just have. And it's. That's where it's. It's just easier to begin there. And sometimes legitimately, we begin with some amount of. It's hard to get things going, but that's where we start.
Then he moves to an internal sin. He looks at her, sees that she's beautiful.
> You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's. (Exodus 20:17, ESV)
It ends with. Or anything that is your neighbors. You can't look at somebody else's stuff and want it. That's really interesting to be in the Ten Commandments. And it stands out in the Ten Commandments because the other ones are like, don't steal, don't murder. This one says, don't do this thing inside of your heart. That's easier to do, though, and it's easier to justify. Have you ever said, well, I hadn't really done anything. Just thinking about it. I hadn't really done the thing. That's not me. This is where we start. We often start with things, this covetousness. But it's this. This. I shouldn't have to put up with this. You should be really on guard when you start telling yourself there are things that you shouldn't have to do. I shouldn't have to do this. I shouldn't have to put up with this. Other people's wives, they don't do this. If I was just married to her, if I was just married to him, if I just had that job, if I just had this house, it's easier for everybody else. I'm in this spot. This is specific. And you start craving. You start doing stuff inside. That's where it starts. And then that's harder to catch, too. It's easier for you to excuse because I'm still obeying. I'm behaving. Even though you're not. You're do. This is one of the Ten Commandments. But it's harder for people to say to you, hey, I think you're off here. Hadn't shown up yet. Jesus says in Matthew 5,
> But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Matthew 5:28, ESV)
that we begin. Sins begin internally so often before they. They ever show up externally. Which means that when you have external sin, it's not enough to just go, hey, let's. Let's stop the thing. You have to start saying, but what's going on in my heart that I was even willing to get there. It's not just about curbing your behavior. It's about also looking and saying, what's going on with me that I wanted that so badly that I was willing to sin to get it. So that's where he goes. He goes from not really doing what he's supposed to do in a very kind of gray, squishy kind of area, even though it's written in a way to be like, hey, he should have been doing this other stuff. Then he's obviously sinning internally. Then he acts on it. He commits adultery, uses his position of power, uses a position of authority. Whether she was afraid of that or drawn to that, we don't know. We just know he used it. He commits adultery. Then it just starts going, he's committed adultery. Now he's. So he's brought her in on this. And then he's got to bring in his. His servants in on it. Then he's got to bring in. Uriah's got to get here, and Uriah's not going to do anything. So he's got to get Uriah drunk. So that brings him in on a little bit. And then he's got to bring in Joab to make him complicit in murder. And then he's got to tell Joab, hey, don't worry about that. He's got to commit a murder, he's got to kill other people, other sons and brothers didn't come home because Uriah had to die. It's just. And Uriah also the important one we were trying to kill. And it doesn't ever even seem like he stops and thinks about it. He just goes, that's terrifying. Paul refers to this as searing your conscience, which is where you make it to where you won't listen to your conscience for unbelievers or to the Holy Spirit for believers who's trying to get you to stop. You get really good at moment by moment. And it starts back here. It doesn't just start over here, it starts back here where you get to where you just that still quiet voice, that nagging annoyance that says, you shouldn't do this, you should do something else. You just get to where you tune it out, you become numb to it and you just take every little step in that direction because you don't just jump from one to the other, you go every step along the way and you get to where you can't hear the spirit. If you had chronic foot pain and you were seeing doctor about it and then you went to the doctor and he said, how are your feet doing? And you said, great, they're doing great. I can't feel anything from my hips down. No pain whatsoever. Y' all laughed because you know the doctor would say, that's not better, that's worse. This is progressing, it's not getting worse. And y' all, as a pastor, far too often have I sat with someone and I've said, hey, this says this is sin. And they said, I don't feel bad about it, I prayed about it. And the Lord didn't tell me to stop. He already told you, he already told you to stop. Yeah, but like when I asked him, I didn't hear anything, I didn't feel anything. That's worse. The disease has progressed further. That's not better, that's terrifying. Because we're on our way towards being able to commit heinous sin, high handed, rebellious sin, and not notice and not feel it. That's worse. We've reached a later stage in the disease. And it started off with too much time on your phone, which is hard to nail down and accuse you of. But then it gets worse and we go every step of the way in searing our conscience so that we can't hear the voice of the Lord anymore. And so that when people in our church, family around us saying, hey, this is off, you're wrong, this we don't hear them.
James 1:14 and 15 puts it this way:
> But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death. (James 1:14–15, ESV)
But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. That's where we start. Starts internal. We're lured and enticed by our own desire. Now, if you're inclined to think, I can't do that because I'm not like that. Can you not see David? Are you not surprised that he did this? This is David. This is David who was unwilling to raise his hand against Saul. This is David who we watched with extreme patience, who was anointed to just wait for the Lord. This is David who we just read and celebrated how kind and good he was to Mephibosheth. This is David who wrote half the Psalms. But you can't. I can't. You ever hear someone come out and they say, I'm sorry that I did that. It was outside of my character. I acted outside of my character. Every time I hear that, I think, they didn't. This is perfectly inside of our character. You say, I don't know why. I don't know why I said that. That's not me. Yeah, it is. It's perfectly inside of who you are. That's what's terrifying. And the confidence level to say, I can't sin because of who I am, first of all, is purely insane, given the way the text talks about it. But it's also just. It doesn't work like that. So we're lured and enticed by our own desires. And then it says this, then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin. So before Bathsheba conceived, sin was conceived by desire. In David's heart, desire conceived and has given birth to sin.
This is why the Bible constantly says things like, keep a close watch on your steps, keep a close watch on your feet, keep a close watch on your heart, keep a close watch on your words, guard your path, keep a close watch on your life and doctrine. Don't let your feet wander. Because it. This is why Jesus says, daily we pray,
> And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. (Matthew 6:13, ESV)
because any of us can start this walk. Sin, when it's fully grown, brings forth death. It's just what sin does. It's just how it works. The wages of sin is death. It is destructive, it will kill you, and it will lead you to eternal death. Siegfried and Roy had a magic show for years in Las Vegas. One of their main things was they had big cats. And Roy was famous for light. He would, like, sleep in the bed with his tigers and stuff. And then in 2002, one of the tigers bit him in the neck and dragged him off stage during a show, causing severe injuries, including a severed spine, partial paralysis, and a stroke. And everyone who heard that story said, yeah, it was a tiger. He's like, no, I raised it from a baby. Yeah, it was a tiger that you raised from a baby. We were friends. You were friends with a tiger? He did a tiger thing that tigers do, like a tiger. He didn't stop being a tiger because you slept in a bed with it. We're surprised it took this long. Most of the other people who do this are already dead. That's what this says about sin. And some of you right now are saying, no, this sin is cute and under my control. No, I've known this sin for a long time. No, this sin can't get me. It's sin and it brings forth death, and that's all it ever does. It doesn't bring joy. It doesn't bring life. It doesn't bring hope. It brings death, and that's all it ever does because it's sin. And that's all it can do. It doesn't bring joy. It doesn't bring life. It doesn't bring hope. It brings death, and that's all it ever does because it's sin. And to tell yourself, this one's my pet. This one is fine. Jesus, you can mess with the other things, but not this. I hope God in his grace knocks your whole house down to take that away from you, because if it gets full grown, it kills you. That's all it ever does. Now, the question for us this morning is where am I on this walk? Where have I begun to drift? Where have I begun to make compromises? Where. Where are you? Are you just right now not really doing some of the things that you ought to be doing? Not really pursuing, not really fighting, not really praying, not really. Where. Where are you at? Is it just in your heart? I'm just thinking about it. I didn't say that to him. I just thought about it. I'm just daydreaming. Doesn't hurt to look. You can order and still read the menu. Whatever kind of nonsense phrases we have. Have you already started texting them? You already started eating your lunches with them? Have you been telling yourself, this place doesn't really pay me enough? So you've. Is that all you're saying right now? Or have you already started taking things? Well, it's just time right now. Okay? But we're on the walk. We're just friends right now. Okay, but we're on the walk. It's just porn. It's not hurting anybody, but it's years of it. And it gives birth to death. And if God will help you see your sin, and you say, well, what do I do with it? Because most of our plans look like David's hide. Obscure. Put it on somebody else. Make sure I don't have to pay for it. Figure out my way out of it. I can't say this to people. You'll tell yourself that I can't tell anybody this. Can I tell you right now that it is better to confess than to die? Lord help you if you keep your sin until you meet Jesus. Take it to him now. That's the answer. What do I do with this sin? What do I do while I'm up to my neck in it? What do I do if I'm drowning in it? What if I do if I've already walked the whole line?
Romans 5 says this about Jesus:
> For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. (Romans 5:6, ESV)
Who did he die for? Who did he die for? The ungodly. So if you say I'm too far gone, I'm too far in it, that's exactly who he died for. Murderers, adulterers, thieves. That's who he died for. The ungodly. Those who do not deserve it, Those who have gone too far in. We have a story here where a king commits sin and then makes sure that someone who's innocent pays for it. But the story that we get invited into is a king who never committed sin who's willing to pay for ours. That's the hope of the gospel. So I don't know where you are on the line. And I'll tell you that it doesn't matter. You can go to Christ and you can repent and you can be forgiven and you can be given life. I can't guarantee you you'll keep your marriage. I can't guarantee you that you'll keep your job. I can't guarantee you won't go to jail. I can't guarantee you you'll keep those friends. I can't. But I can guarantee you that Jesus is better and that the trade is worth it and that sin leads to death. I can guarantee all of those things. And I can guarantee that taking your sin to Christ is your best chance for those things being restored and redeemed and worked out. But I can also tell you that we had someone walk over here this morning and stand right here and say, I was in the middle of nothing in a desert, choosing sin, and I've chosen Jesus and it's better. And even if her life didn't get better, it's eternally better.
George is going to come back up and we're going to take a moment to just try to listen, because some of you have worked really hard to stop listening. And we can get really good at it. There was a time when David listened. We just read this whole story. He's not listening. You're not going to listen. We want to take a moment where you ask the spirit, where, where am I? And if you're right now going, I think I'm doing pretty good, then ask, have I started anything? Do I have any habits that are going to grow? Am I 2 degrees off? Let's pray.
Lord, I ask you would open us up, that you'd help us see our sin, Lord, where we've gotten good at hiding. Let us run to you, Lord, where we've hardened our hearts and our ears to not hear you. Breakthrough, Lord, for the person that you're speaking to right now and you've been telling them you've been pressing on it, you've been, don't let them run. We ask this in Jesus name. Wherever you are, ask the Lord and then act on it. If you need to confess to someone in your group, if you need to confess to your spouse, if you need to grab somebody and pray, if you need help, respond. Don't harden your heart, don't turn away, don't take further steps and getting to where you don't listen to Jesus.
2 Samuel 9
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
Come on, if you will, grab your Bibles and go to Second Samuel, chapter nine. We're going to be reading all of Second Samuel chapter nine together this morning. That's on page 149 in one of the blue Bibles. So if you want to grab one of those from the seat in front of you, would love for you to turn there. It's good to hold a Bible. It's good to hold it open and read together. We have already walked through 2nd Samuel 8 and 10. We're working through the whole book of 2nd Samuel. We took a little break right around Easter, but we've already looked at 8, chapters 8 and chapters 10, because they were dealing with the military victories of David that he was successful, because God was blessing him, defending the nation of Israel and enlarging the territory of Israel as they were attacked and as they defended, they would claim new lands. And so we looked at that. But in the middle of that recounting of the victories of David, there's this story that we're going to look at in chapter nine. And it. In chapter eight, it just finished by saying that David ruled with equity and justice, that he's a good king. And then it's going to give this little story. And in some ways that typifies that, that shows us that. And I think this is one of the beautiful highlights of David's kingship. So we're going to study it together this morning, and through it, we're going to try to set our minds on Christ and how he's a good king and how this story reflects to us some of the beauty of what he is like and how good he is. So chapter nine, verse one. This is David at kind of the height of his power. In some ways. He's been victorious. He's established the kingdom. It's firmly in his hand. And I think this gives us a little glimpse into what he's like because it says this.
> And David said, "Is there still anyone left of the house of Saul, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake?" (2 Samuel 9:1, ESV)
So if you'll remember, Saul was the first king of Israel and Jonathan was his son. And when David killed Goliath, it says that Jonathan, the souls of Jonathan and David were knit together, and they loved one another and they were friends and cared for one another. And Jonathan helped David escape Saul, his father, when Saul was going to kill him. And they made covenantal promises to each other that David promised that he would be good to him in his kingdom and he'd be good to his family. And David even promised Saul that he would not, if he became king, kill all of Saul's family. And so David, in this moment of power, when he's got some victories under his belt and things have settled, he's got his own city, he's got the. The ark brought to the city, he's got the tabernacle, a tent set up for the ark. I went in the tabernacle. It was in a different place. I was about to misspeak there. David stops and says, can't I find somebody to keep this promise to Jonathan? Is there not anybody where I can show kindness to? And if you would think about kings, if they're constantly at war, the sorts of things that they might be inclined to do when they had a moment of break, when they had a moment down where they might be inclined to make themselves greater, enlarge their palaces, rest. And we get this moment where David, in the moment of stillness, goes, can't I keep this promise? Is there not someone that I can show kindness to for Jonathan's sake? Verse 2. Now, there was a servant of the house of Saul whose name was Ziba. And they called him to David. And the king said to him, are you Zeba? And he said, I am your servant. Which is just a humble way to say yes. Now, if you're Zeba and you're a servant of Saul, and David, who Saul was at war against, has now become king. There was a war between the house of Saul and David for several years because of Saul, and then with Ishma Sheth, and then they come to your house and they say, hey, David wants to see you. I'm going to go ahead and guess that you're not ecstatic at that news, that this was probably kind of stressful for Ziba. If they came to you and just said, hey, the president needs to talk to you, you'd have a lot of questions. Why? What for? And they're like, we got to get there quick. We brought a helicopter. Me. Are you. Check the name again. Why do I need to see the president? And even if you thought there was not a good chance that he was going to execute you on the White House lawn, you'd still be nervous. Well, Ziba is in a situation where he's a part of the house of Saul. It's like, this might not be going to go well. And he's brought before the king. And the king said, is there not still someone of the house of Saul that I may show the kindness of God to him? So David's Intent is to bless someone in the house of Saul, to show the kindness of God to them. And Zeba said to the king, there is still a son of Jonathan. He is crippled in his feet. Now that's an interesting, might even argue, troubling response. He, he doesn't say who in Ziba's mind. The thing that's important is he's crippled in his feet. And if you're someone who deals with a disability, specifically physical ones, that it's possible for you to feel like this is kind of how it works, that that's what's seen and known about you to the point of it swallows your identity either for other people or for yourself, that that's how you're marked, that's how you're labeled. That's how you're understood to the point of even being able to lose yourself in it. Now, we know that this son of Jonathan, his name is Mephibosheth. And we know that because of the introduction that were given to him in chapter four. But it, and it's a tragic introduction. So I want to show that it's a chapter four. You can go one page over in the blue Bible, Chapter four, verse four, says
> Jonathan the son of Saul had a son who was lame in his feet. He was five years old when the news about Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel. His nurse took him up and fled, and as she fled in her haste she fell and the child became lame. His name was Mephibosheth. (2 Samuel 4:4, ESV)
So Mephibosheth, when he was five, on the same day, lost his granddad, his dad, his home, and his ability to walk. Now, any one of those things, no matter what your age is, would be extremely difficult to try to process through. But to have them all happen when you're five is an immense, acute amount of suffering. To be displaced, to be a refugee, to lose your father, to lose your grandfather, to lose everything you knew and understood about the world and your place in it, to lose all sense of safety. None of these things are anything that we would want a five year old to have to deal with. And he loses all of it at once and physically carries the reminder in himself from that day forward. In this culture, it was possible that he also carried the stigma of the judgment of God on him, that somehow he had earned this or deserved this or that God had added this to him. And all cultures, including ours, consistently ask, why do these sorts of things Happen? Why do we face this amount of suffering? Why do we have things like this happen? There's an interaction with Jesus and his disciples in John chapter nine where they see a man who's born blind and his disciples ask Jesus who sinned, that this man was born blind, was it him or, or his parents? The reason being, the reasoning being that someone had to sin for him to be cursed this way. Someone had to sin for this to befall him. Obviously it was deserved. That's the assumption. Then the thing they're troubled with is if he had become blind later in life, we wouldn't have the question because he had earned it. But since he was born blind, whose fault is that? Is it his parents fault or did he somehow earn it? But how did he earn it when he was born this way? That's, that's the thought process that they're trying to work out. And we can see that the idea of suffering, and specifically the suffering of someone young, or the suffering of someone born a certain way, or the suffering of, of the kind of the chaos suffering that just seems to happen adds more questions to it. Every once in a while we watch someone and we go, yeah, the reason that happened to you is that you're dumb and you make bad choices. You earned that one. But there are other times where we're going, we don't know how to place this, how does this fit? And that's the question that they're asking. And that honestly is the question that so much of life has to try to answer. Every religion has to try to answer that, every worldview has to try to answer that. So if you believe in karma, you would say that these sort of things, this type of suffering happens because of a previous life. You have a chance to suffer well in this one and then be reincarnated in a, in a better form. If you're Buddhist, you would say that all the material world's an illusion anyway and we're supposed to try to see through it. I was speaking to my neighbor who's Islamic. She said that in our suffering there are specific times where God hears us better in prayers and so we can pray to him and we can ask why. And she said, it's the primary purpose of praying to God in suffering is to ask why. Understanding that the reason you're suffering is God is trying to teach you something. Our Western culture is one of the least prepared to handle suffering in a what's called an imminent frame, which is all that we have is what we can see and taste and touch all we have is science, then there's no purpose in suffering, and the best you can do is get out of it quickly. We at least had at some point previously in generations, we understood that you could grow as a person and develop in character. And we still have a little bit of that, that you could somehow develop as a person so that you could become tough for the world. But now we've mostly shifted into, let's make the world soft for you. And so if anything causes pain or discomfort or suffering, you need to get rid of it, and you need to get rid of it quickly, whatever that means. Get rid of the relationship physically change, however, you can change to the point of surgeries or whatever, but we've got to change the situation so that you don't have to deal with that anymore. And in Christianity, I think we're given better answers and a better hope. We. We know that God's original design did not include any of this. And we know that through sin, suffering has entered the world. We know that it's not all earned. There are some, you know, there's rules in the world, like gravity. But a lot of the suffering that we face is not somehow earned by us or could have been avoided by our good behavior. Jesus, in his response to the disciples when they asked that question, says, neither, but so that the works of God might be displayed in Him. There's another instance In John, chapter 11, where Lazarus dies, and he says that God allowed this to happen for the sake of displaying his glory, that there's something unique that can happen in suffering and through suffering, a unique, peculiar way that God can work to display his goodness, to display his glory, to display his greatness. That only can happen in suffering. There's a unique and peculiar way that he can work in your life only through suffering, that he can't work in other ways or chooses not to. And we know because Jesus joins us in our suffering that there is no suffering that is wasted, that he's not distant from it, but he loves us in it, and that he works redemptively through it, and that we have a hope beyond it. So we don't get all the answers we want. We don't understand why some of these things happen to the degree they happen to you or to this other person, why him, not her? We don't understand those things. We actually don't get that answer. But we do know that Jesus meets us in it, cares for us, sees us, knows us. And we see specifically in this situation with Mephibosheth, a glimpse of how God cares and knows and works. And specifically in this situation with someone who's physically disabled, how he works and relates and ls. So I want to keep reading because I love what happens next. Verse 4. So Zeba just said, he's got a son.
> Then the king said to him, "Where is he?" And Ziba said to the king, "Behold, he is in the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, in Lo-debar." (2 Samuel 9:4, ESV)
The king sent and had him brought from Lo-debar, from the house of Machir the son of Ammiel.
> Then King David sent and had him brought from Lo-debar, from the house of Machir the son of Ammiel. (2 Samuel 9:5, ESV)
If you thought Ziba was uncomfortable, if you agreed with me on that assessment, Mephibosheth has to be quite nervous. If they showed up and said, hey, Mephibosheth, King David's looking for you. Why? Because you're a descendant of Saul. Great, good, normal thing to do is to go round up anybody else who could be a rival to your kingdom. You just wipe them out. And he's like, oh, okay. And they say, no, no, no, no. He wants you to come because he's going to be nice to you. Doesn't that make it worse? Feels more suspicious that way. He's got a gift for you. Sure he does. So I should, like, hug my wife and tell her bye? That's what you're saying? This isn't going to go well, but I don't know how trusting he was. It doesn't tell us. David does respond to him and tell him not to be afraid. So I think there's a. There's an indication that there was some anxiety over the situation. But it says this in verse six.
> And Mephibosheth the son of Jonathan, son of Saul, came to David and fell on his face and paid homage. And David said, "Mephibosheth." And he answered, "Behold, I am your servant." (2 Samuel 9:6, ESV)
And David said to him, do not fear, for I will show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan, and I will restore to you all the land of Saul your grandfather, and you shall eat at my table always.
> And David said to him, "Do not fear, for I will show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan, and I will restore to you all the land of Saul your grandfather, and you shall eat at my table always." (2 Samuel 9:7, ESV)
He bowed himself and said, what is your servant, that you should show regard for a dead dog such as I? Then the king called Ziba Saul's servant, and said to him,
> "Behold, I have given to your master's grandson all that belonged to Saul and to all his house. You and your sons and your servants shall till the land for him, and you shall bring in the produce, that your master's grandson may have bread to eat; but Mephibosheth your master's grandson shall eat at my table." (2 Samuel 9:8–10, ESV)
Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants. Then Ziba said to the king, according to all that my lord the king commands his servant, so will your servant do. So Mephibosheth ate at David's table like one of the king's sons.
> And Mephibosheth had a young son whose name was Mica, and all who lived in Ziba's house became Mephibosheth's servants. And Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, for he ate continually at the king's table. Now he was lame in both his feet. (2 Samuel 9:12–13, ESV)
So Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, for he ate always at the king's table. Now he was lame in both his feet, which will factor into the story again later as we run back into Mephibosheth. But David has welcomed him, invited him in, and placed him at his table, restored everything he could restore to him. And it's wonderful. And I think sometimes when we read these stories, when you're reading the. The Bible, sometimes you just come across something like this and you're like, okay, what do we do with that? How are we supposed to understand that? And in general, we've been trained to. When you interact with a story, that the story is trying to tell you something about life or about yourself, some sort of moral, some sort of lesson. And then we import that specifically when we come to the Bible, we're going, this is obviously written for some kind of lesson. And. And there are things that are like that. Paul says that in First Corinthians, he says these things were written down for our instruction so that we wouldn't do what they did. So that's an okay thing to do, to read the Scriptures and go, okay, yeah, let's not repeat that. Let's learn from that. Just like if you have an older sibling and they do dumb things, it's good for you to go, yeah, I'm also not going to do that. So we're able to look into this and see this. But that's not the primary way to read the Bible. We're not supposed to just take in lessons, although that's what we've been trained to do. That's. I don't know if you all know this, but every culture, stories help you understand what their ideals are, what they care about, what they value. That's why so many of the stories we tell right now are about throwing off anything that would keep you from being your real, authentic self. That's what a whole lot of our stories are about. Figuring out how to find out the real you and listen to that voice inside and seeing that with your little animal companion or whatever. Like, that's the stuff that we put out there and how your parents are stupid, that's a bonus. Just throw that in there. Don't listen to them. But that's a lot of the stories about freedom, about being alone, about figuring out how to find it all in yourself. We have a lot of those kind of stories. That's not the stories that people used to tell. We actually went and took all of the old fairy tales and turned them into that. But the old fairy tales used to be like, hey, honey, you about to go to sleep? Let me tell you a story. There was a little girl, she's about your age, her mom gave her a chore. She didn't do the chore. And she got eaten night pudding. Those were the stories. There was a mermaid, and her dad told her, don't become a person. And she became one and then suffered forever. Good night. Listen to your dad. Those are the stories. And so we. We understand, we're trying to read sometimes, and we're going, what's the lesson here? But when we come to the text, when we come to the Bible, that's secondary in our understanding. The Bible's primary purpose is to tell us the story of God and his interaction with humans and to display his greatness. This is how Jesus tells us to read the Bible. He looks at the. The Pharisees and he says, you search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have life, but it's they that testify about me. The point of the Scriptures is to point us to Christ first and foremost. So, yes, we can learn lessons and we can say we ought to be like David and we ought to be kind and we ought to be gracious. But if we're looking for ourselves in stories so often, what happens is we end up putting ourselves in the. In the position of the hero. But we're not in the position of the hero. Christ is in the position of the hero. If we're to find ourselves in this story, we're Mephibosheth. We've lost everything and have no ability to get it back. That's us in the scheme of the world. It's all gone. You've been born into an enemy house. You've been born into sin. You've chosen sin and you have no way to come back. You have nothing in yourself that can merit or earn your salvation. You have no hope on your own. But God in Christ has chosen to rescue and to redeem and to welcome each other. Enemies and to bring him into his house. Enemies who could not have accomplished anything on their own. Enemies who. Who by nature and choice have fallen away. Enemies who have rebelled, enemies who do not belong are brought in because he's good. I love that he says, for the sake of Jonathan, because it's for the sake of Christ that we're welcomed in. It's not for our sake. It's not something that you've done. It's not something that you've accomplished. It's not something that you've earned. It's something that has been accomplished by Jesus on our behalf. So if your framework for what you're trying to do, even just being here this morning is, I'm going to get it together. I'm going to fix it. I've messed some things up, but I'm going to get better. I'm going to do what's good. I'm going to do what's right. I'm going to. I'm going to change. And your intent is to do that on your own in such a way that merits you a seat at the king's table. It will never happen. But I've got better news. The king goes out of his way to seek and to save the lost. He goes out of his way to find and to bring in rebels to his house. He goes out of his way to get those who do not belong and in any other system would not be welcome. They're brought in. And I think we say this a lot, so I think you've heard it. I think we've said a lot that you're a sinner, you're broken. We don't usually use this phrase, but we could. You're like Mephibosheth. You're a dead dog. Maybe we should start. I think we say that a lot. I think what can happen sometimes is we can miss. Mephibosheth lays on his face before the king understands his position is absolute worthlessness. He has nothing to bring. And then he gets up and he goes to the table. I don't want you to miss that. Because his position at the table should be one of joy and delight and fellowship and welcome, like a king's son. He shouldn't sit forever and go, oh, my dead. He shouldn't do that. That's not the position he's in. And here's the other thing that I think sometimes happens in our mind. You might go, yes, I understand. I'm saved only by grace. Yes, I understand that Jesus did everything. Yes, yes, yes. And then somehow you work in your mind that you've snuck in the back door. Everybody else is loved and welcome, but somehow you're here on some kind of technicality. It's not how it works. I don't know if y'all can imagine with me the moments when David looked down the table at all of his sons and at Mephibosheth. I don't know if you can imagine the Moments that Mephibosheth moved or spoke or laughed like Jonathan and David's heart leapt. And how much joy and delight there was in David's heart to have him at the table. And as Christ goes to work for you and in you, I want you to know that the King of Ages will sit with us at the table and delight that we're there to the glory of Christ. And every moment that Jesus is at work in you, and he sees a glimpse of him in you, and every moment that he knows that the only way you're welcome is because of the work of the Son of God, that there's joy and delight that he's brought you in, and that his greeting is your name with an exclamation mark. You did not sneak in. You are not unwelcome. He died and shed his precious blood so that you might have a seat at the table, and he did it on purpose for you. John, chapter 10. He says, I, the good shepherd, I know my sheep. I call them by name and I lead them out. If you don't think he knows your name and doesn't delight to welcome you, you have misunderstood the greatness of our God and King, who in Christ welcomes sinners to the praise of his glory and to the light of his goodness. So if you belong to Jesus, I want you to know you don't deserve to be at the table, but I want you to know that you get to be at the table and that he delights to have us there. He's that good. Let's pray.
Lord, thank you for saving sinners. And thank you that we have nothing to offer or to merit or to achieve or to accomplish, but that you searched us out. And due to your great kindness and goodness, you've welcomed us. So, Lord, may we with joy in our hearts, with heads held high, with a smile on our face, live like we're your children because Jesus is the firstborn among many brothers and that we've been welcomed because of your greatness, not ours. May we rest in that and hope in that and give you glory in that. And for anyone in this room, Lord, who's been on the run for you from you, or who thinks that they have to fix it before they can come, may they lay their face on the ground and say, lord, I don't deserve this. And then may, through your grace and your goodness and your blood, may you lift them up and give them a seat at the table, because they don't. But you're good enough, kind enough and loving enough to Bring them in. May they surrender to you in Jesus name. Amen.
We're going to take a moment together before we sing. Daniel's going to come back up and play for us as we take communion together as a church family. And what we're going to do is remind ourselves that we're invited to the table. And that what invited us, what brought us in, is the blood of Christ and the breaking of his body. That the night he was betrayed, he took bread and he broke it and he gave it to his disciples. He said, this is my body broken for you. And he took the cup and he said, this is the blood of the new covenant poured out for forgiveness of sins. And that in Jesus and in his sacrifice, we have forgiveness and we are welcomed. So take a moment wherever you are, if you need to deal with the Lord on something, if you need to repent of something, if you need to talk about something that's great, throne in between you and him, then repent and do that. And then go to the table as someone who's welcomed to the table through the work of Jesus. If you are not a Christian, then communion is not for you. But the gospel is offered to you that you might trust and follow Him. So when you're ready, we'll take communion. There's gluten free at that table back there.
2 Samuel 8 & 10
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
2 Samuel 7
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
Good morning. My name is Spencer. I'm one of the pastors here. So last week I got to serve in Kid City. Yes. First time in eight years. Which should tell you how desperate they were that I was called in to serve. They were really scraping the bottom of the barrel. But I got to serve and it was neat because I usually get the 10,000 foot view. So I got, as an elder, I help oversee the church and every now and then checking in with Isaac, who's checking with Katie. So I get this bigger picture of you. But it's been eight years since I've actually been in the classroom. So I got to basically just walk up there and I was so blessed to just walk in. And there was a lesson in the book of Job that was dealing with big theological, weighty ideas of suffering that was written so well. It was at a game that was really helpful, which some of you may not know this. We actually, we've written our own curriculum. When we started as a church plant, we could not afford to buy curriculum from Lifeway or anywhere else. It's pretty expensive to buy. So we wrote it over the years and it's been edited and re edited and revisited and it's just really strong stuff. And the whole setup was just cool. To see all the work that goes in to teach our children the gospel. And it just, in a brief period of time, just sit with the kids and help them see who Jesus is in new and better ways is just awesome. So this is my plug this morning. If you're not serving anywhere, we'd love for you to serve in Kid City. We got a need for volunteers. It's a wonderful opportunity to teach children the gospel. We're going to. Just being frank, we're going to have a bigger need for volunteers because it is very possible when we send out this church plant next year that we're going to lose volunteers. Maybe more volunteers than children, I don't know. So we actually need. If you're not serving anywhere, we'd love for you to actually connect with Katie Mertz and get involved in Kid City. If you're like, I just. But I hate children. First off, maybe we should talk because Jesus loves children and maybe you shouldn't have that attitude. But maybe Kid City is not the first step for you. There are other places to serve and I can connect you and. Or any of our elders can connect you to service opportunities. But we're going to have a need to fill more gaps in the coming months and over the next year. So if you've been around for a bit, man, we could use you. So come talk to us. Let me pray for us. And then we're going to jump into Second Samuel, chapter seven.
God, I'm thankful for the opportunity to walk through your word, to continue to see the message of the gospel and the hope that comes out of the Old Testament. God, I pray that you might help us see that so clearly this morning in a way that would make you more wonderful in our minds, that would lead us to faith, that would lead us to repentance, that would lead us to ultimately delighting in you over all things. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen.
All right, so in Second Samuel seven, here's what we're going to see today. God delivers this blessing, this promise to David. That is wonderful. And we're going to get to see how it's good news for David, but how it's even better news for us. And there's a little bit of layers of whoa. My wife and I were watching the show and in the first episode it's like, oh, this is good. And by the end of the first episode, it's like, oh, man. They've totally changed this. Whoa. And the whole first season was just more plot lines and threads being tied together. I was like, whoa, whoa. By the end of, it's like, well done. This is great. Today we're going to see a glimpse of that right there as we get to see how this story is tied into the greater story.
So jump into verse one.
> Now when the king lived in his house and the LORD had given him rest from all his surrounding enemies,
>
> the king said to Nathan the prophet, "See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent."
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> And Nathan said to the king, "Go, do all that is in your heart, for the LORD is with you."
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> But that same night the word of the LORD came to Nathan, "Go and tell my servant David, 'Thus says the LORD: Would you build me a house to dwell in? For I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle.
>
> Wherever I have moved with all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word to any of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, "Why have you not built me a house of cedar?"'
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> Now therefore thus you shall say to my servant David, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel.
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> And I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you, and I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth.
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> And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more, and shall badgered no more; and violent men shall afflict them no more, as formerly,
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> from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the LORD declares to you that the LORD will make you a house.
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> When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.
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> He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
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> I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men,
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> but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you.
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> And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever.'"
So Nathan has this message that the Lord is giving him, that he's got to deliver to David. That is, listen, in all the years that I've dwelt in this tabernacle, his unique presence, ruling and residing amongst his people has dwelt. He's like, have I ever asked the Judges and the hundreds of years, did I ask the last king? Did I ask anyone to build me a cedar house? So he presses this upon David.
And then it shifts a bit. Now therefore, thus you shall say to my servant David, thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel. And I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you, and I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. So it shifts and he's like, remember when you were a mere shepherd boy? Remember how I chose you and I took you and I made you prince of Israel, your king. Remember all of this, how I cut off your enemies, how I established your role in your reign. Guess what? I'm going to make your name great. Greater than almost all the names that have come before or will come after. And this is where kind of the layers of whoa begin. It's like, wait a second. What's happening here? That he's giving to David what we're about to see is one of the most important promises in the Scriptures, but I would also argue is one of the most important promises in all of human history. And that's what God is about to deliver to David.
> And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more, and violent men shall afflict them no more,
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> and from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I will give you rest from all your enemies.
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> Moreover, the LORD declares to you that the LORD will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.
>
> He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
So what the Lord just promised David is that he'd give him three things. A house, a kingdom, and an eternal throne. As we're going to see this, this is an eternal house, an eternal kingdom, and an eternal throne. So David comes and he says, I want to build you a house, Lord. And God takes the words and flips them and says, no, no, no, I'm going to build you a house. And what he's getting at is that I'm going to build you a dynasty. David, your house is going to continue to rule and reign. Your kingdom is going to continue to rule and reign. Your throne will be eternal. This is a massive promise that David is receiving, that his children and his children's children and his children's children's children are going to continue to reign. David gets this wonderful promise.
And then he continues this promise. And speaking of his descendants, he says,
> I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men.
>
> But my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before you.
>
> And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever.
In accordance with all these words and in accordance with all this vision, Nathan spoke to David. So David gets, or Nathan gets this vision from the Lord at night, and he takes it to David. And at the last part of this he says, you, son David will be on the throne, and he will be like a son to me. I'm going to have a unique relationship with your line. However, built into this promise is some warning that if he strays, that if he commits iniquity, which is sin, that God will bring discipline. But even as the Lord disciplines him with the rod of men, even as he disciplines him, his love will not fade. It will remain with him because it will remain with David. So David will have an eternal house, an eternal kingdom, and an eternal throne.
Nathan takes that message and delivers it to David, which had to be overwhelming. Have you ever been in a situation where someone did something so wonderful for you, so kind to you, so amazing, you just didn't have the words to even convey thanks? My wife and I were watching the show, and this Secret Service agent, he takes a bullet for the President. And the President comes and visits him in the hospital, and they have this exchange where the President looks at him and says, saying thank you kind of feels insufficient. And the agent kind of quips back and says, well, I mean, saying, I'm just doing my job feels kind of lame. And I appreciate that exchange for the writing, but also the reality that it's like, yeah, if someone takes a bullet for you, how do you begin to convey thanks? David has received something so overwhelming, so wonderful, this promise that his sons and his grandsons and his great grandsons are going to sit on the throne and rule and reign unendingly. It's like, how do you begin to even respond to that? Thank you kind of feels insufficient. David's going to do his best. And this best prayer, a prayer of thanksgiving, and that's the rest of this chapter is this prayer of thanksgiving that David gives in response to this promise.
> Then King David went in and sat before the LORD and said, "Who am I, O LORD God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far?
>
> And this was yet a small thing in your eyes, O LORD God. You have spoken also of your servant's house for a great while to come, and you have regarded me as though I were a man of the highest rank, O LORD God.
>
> What more can David say to you for you know your servant, O LORD God. For your promise's sake, and according to your own heart, you have brought about all this greatness, to make known all that is in your heart.
>
> Therefore you are great, O LORD God. For there is none like you, and there is no God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears.
>
> And who is like your people Israel, the one nation on earth whom God went to redeem to be his people, making himself a name and doing for them great and awesome things by driving out before your people whom you redeemed for yourself from Egypt a nation and its gods?
>
> And you established for yourself your people Israel to be your people forever. And you, O LORD, became their God.
>
> Now, O LORD, confirm forever the word that you have spoken concerning your servant and concerning his house, and do as you have spoken.
>
> And your name will be magnified forever, saying, 'The LORD of hosts is God over Israel; and the house of your servant David will be established before you.'
>
> For you, O LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, have made this revelation to your servant, saying, 'I will build you a house.'
>
> Therefore your servant has found courage to pray this prayer to you. And now, O LORD God, you are God, and your words are true, and you have promised this good thing to your servant.
>
> Now therefore, may it please you to bless the house of your servant, that it may continue before you forever. For you, O LORD God, have spoken, and with your blessing shall the house of your servant be blessed forever."
That's the end of his prayer. That's the end of this chapter. David has promised an eternal house, an eternal kingdom and an eternal throne. And as I said earlier, this is one of the most significant promises in all of history. And we're going to see why as we walk through this. Though the word doesn't literally show up in this chapter, all the ingredients that are necessary for this are here. This is a covenant. This is a covenant that God makes with David. That's why the Psalmist in Psalm 89, Psalm 89 is all about recounting this covenant.
> You have said, "I have made a covenant with my chosen one; I have sworn to David my servant,
>
> 'I will establish your offspring forever, and build your throne for all generations.'"
This is often called the Davidic covenant. The Davidic covenant, that's David, the covenant God makes with David. And if you want to understand the Old Testament, the way to really understand how it all ties together is the history of the Old Testament is told through covenants. There are significant covenants that God makes that help define what the rest of the scriptures. So you can go to Genesis chapter nine and you can see the covenant that God makes with Noah and creation. And that is God's one way promise that he will not destroy the earth with water again. And that is the Noachic covenant, the covenant with Noah. Then you get to Genesis chapter 15 and then we get to see the Abrahamic covenant. This is the covenant, the promise. That's what a covenant is, a promise that God makes with Abraham. And when you look at those two covenants, what you see is that those are what are called unconditional covenants, meaning they are one way promises from God to the party he's agreeing with. So they're unconditional. So for Abraham, God makes this unconditional promise to Abraham that he is going to make a great nation out of Abraham, that he is going to bless Abraham with this big group of descendants. And that becomes the special people of God, the people of Israel. And that's an unconditional promise, meaning that Abraham does nothing, God does everything. Then you continue to read the Old Testament. And that covenant remains. God is blessing and forming a great nation through the descendants of Abraham. Then you get to the book of Exodus, and this is what we saw a few years ago when we walked through Exodus. You get to Exodus 19 through 24 and then the rest of the Old Testament law. And then comes a new covenant. And this is the Mosaic covenant, the covenant with Moses. But this covenant is different. It's not like the Abrahamic covenant, because this was what's called a conditional covenant. So we'll say a bilateral agreement. And what happens at the formation of the people of Israel with the Mosaic covenant is that when God gives the Ten Commandments and the whole Old Testament law that flows out of the Ten Commandments, this is what the Lord says. If you do these Ten Commandments and you abide by the law, it will go well for you in the promised land. But if you disobey the Ten Commandments and you don't follow the rest of the Old Testament law, it will not go well for you in the promised land. In fact, you will get curses and that's the agreement. God will bless them if they follow the law. But if they do not follow the law, they will receive curses and people will come in. As you read the Book of Judges, people are not following the Lord and enemies come in and they bring judgment. And that's the Mosaic covenant.
Now, these major covenants are still in play. They're like threads being pulled together through the Old Testament. And that gets pulled into this chapter right here. Because this is the last really major covenant of the Old Testament. And this is the Davidic covenant. Now, I'll be honest, this covenant is the source of a lot of debate over how to think about it. Because there is something extremely unconditional one way promise from God in all caps. And that is you're going to receive David, an eternal house with an eternal kingdom and an eternal throne, your descendants, one after the other, unconditional. This is going to happen. All caps, okay? And then in somewhat fine print right next to that, it says, however. And then we get some seemingly conditional language, because when you read it, it says, when he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men. But my steadfast love will not depart from him as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before you. And really, that even goes back to what was said before about the people being in the promised land and the surrounding nations having peace from them. All that's tied together. So he's got this unconditional promise of an eternal house, an eternal kingdom, an eternal throne. But also, if your sons and their sons who sit on the throne act wickedly, they will be disciplined with the rods of men. There will be discipline. So when you read that, it's like, oh, that seems a little bit like the Mosaic covenant. Very similar language to what was said with Moses. So it's debated. Is this unconditional? Is it conditional? And that tension right there is felt through the whole rest of the Old Testament that if you read the whole rest of the Old Testament, you feel it. Because when you follow the story, David's son Solomon takes the throne. And Solomon was. What's built in this promise is a couple of things. First, he is the one that's actually going to build the literal house for the Lord, which is the temple. And what you see from 1 Chronicles, chapter 22, verse 8 is that God didn't want David to build the house because he was a man of war. It says, but the word of the LORD came to me saying, you have shed much blood and have waged great wars. You shall not build a house to my name because you have shed so much blood before me I on the earth. So because David was a man of war, he says, you, it's not for you to build a temple, it'll be for your son. So part of this promise is coming to pass because Solomon is going to build the temple. But remember, it's not just literal, it's not just about the house, it's about his dynasty. So lots of blessing is coming to Solomon. And really, when you look at the full reign between David to Solomon, it's kind of the golden era of the people of God. This is when things go the most right and things go very well throughout Solomon's reign until you get to the end of his reign. And when you get to the end of Solomon's reign, he begins to accumulate lots of wives. And as we said, we said it in our overtime episode a few weeks ago, it's not how God wants us to be. And even worse, he starts accumulating foreign wives. And those foreign wives start driving his heart away from the Lord holy towards foreign gods. And at the end of Solomon's reign, because he does not abide by the law, he receives judgment that his son, the kingdom, is going to be torn from him. So Solomon to Rehoboam, which would be David's grandson, Rehoboam, does some foolish things, and then all of a sudden, the kingdom is torn in two. And now there's a northern kingdom, the kingdom of Israel, which is most of the tribes that were fallen. Saul and then Judah in the south. And there's tension. These two kingdoms don't ever really come together again. But when you follow the kings of Judah, because they're the ones that received the promise, they're the ones in the line of David, there are moments where things are going well and the kings are acting rightly and they're leading the people in worship. But then you get kings that are so pagan and wicked and horrible. You get Manasseh. Read the story of Manasseh. It's wretched, it's awful. Manasseh sacrifices his own son, burns him alive on an altar to a foreign God, and then just all types of abominable practices along with that. He's as pagan, even worse than the pagan kings of the surrounding nations. In the line of David. And judgment is coming. And then there's moments of hope where you get Manasseh's grandson, which is Josiah. And Josiah rallies the people and kicks out the idols and the high places and does all the things and leading the people back to following the law. And it seems good. And then his son strays away. And there's just this tension that's felt throughout the whole rest of the Old Testament of, what's happening here with this promise to David, because things are starting to fall apart until finally God just brings ultimate judgment on Judah. The Babylonian empire comes in, led by King Nebuchadnezzar, and they completely and utterly just decimate and destroy Jerusalem. They destroy the temple, they take the people, they bring them into captivity for 70 years. And there's. In all of this, there's just this longing for this promise of David to see its fruition. That's why it's helpful to look at Psalm 89, which is just this retelling of this moment in 2nd Samuel 7 that helps us feel that tension.
> I will establish his offspring forever and his throne as the days of the heavens.
>
> If his children forsake my law and do not walk according to my rules, if they violate my statutes and do not keep my commandments,
>
> then I will punish their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes.
>
> But my steadfast love will not depart from him, nor will I be false to my faithfulness.
>
> I will not violate my covenant or alter the word that went forth from my lips. Once for all I have sworn by my holiness; I will not lie to David.
>
> His offspring shall endure forever, his throne as long as the sun before me.
If his children forsake my law and do not walk according to my rules, if they violate my statutes and do not keep my commandments, then I will punish their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes, which is again that Mosaic-type language. But I will not remove from him my steadfast love or be false to my faithfulness. I will not violate my covenant or alter the word that went forth from my lips once for all. I have sworn by my holiness, I will not lie to David. His offspring shall endure forever his throne as long as the sun before me. And there's still that longing hope. But it is going to happen. And that tension is felt as the people are literally in exile. And it's 586 onward. It's just this. What is happening here? How is this possibly going to come to pass? It just feels like there's no kings right now. There's no, how can this possibly happen? I coached my son's baseball team. We started the season two and oh, and we played our third game Thursday. And I just knew that Thursday's game, I tried to prepare our parents for it. I'm like, y'all, this team is good. I knew before the season, this team was stacked to the ceiling. Their infield is efficient. It's a bunch of 8 year olds who just, they played for years and boy, oh boy, we just, it was very apparent the first couple of innings. We're just taking it. It's almost, you know, it's 13 to 5, it's 14 to 5. And it's just like, how in the world can this team rally? We just can't. Like we're just, how are we gonna get back in this? We're just. Doesn't seem like it's possible. There's this hopelessness that's amongst the people of God. Just how in the world can this Davidic promise come to pass while yet still clinging to the promise? Because God makes good on his promises and that's the guiding hope for the rest of the Old Testament, as one commentator puts it. He talks about that this Davidic promise becomes the nucleus around which all the Old Testament prophets are built. So when you read the whole rest of the Bible, just literally go through the Old Testament and you read the rest of the prophets from Isaiah onward, you just see this callback to the Davidic covenant over and over again.
I mean, Isaiah 9, Isaiah 11, Isaiah 16, Isaiah 55, Jeremiah 23, 30, 33, Ezekiel 34, Ezekiel 37, Hosea 3 and Amos 9, Zechariah 12. Like there's all these prophecies of hope that are anchored in this promise to David. And I just, I'm not going to read all of them, but I want you to hear a few of them to see this longing for this to come to pass.
> For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
>
> and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
>
> Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.
That sounds familiar. It's because we read that every December.
> "Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.
>
> In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: 'The LORD is our righteousness.'"
It's this longing for this promise to David to come to fruition, to come to pass when things will be well again.
> "I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd.
>
> And I, the LORD, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them. I am the LORD; I have spoken."
You just follow the prophets and you just see that there's this longing for the promise that was made to David to be fulfilled, that somehow his eternal house, eternal kingdom, eternal throne will be established century after century after century. It's not happening. It's not happening. It's looking more bleak. But in the bleakness, hope remains, because over time, the people of God start to call what this figure is going to be in the line of David. They start to call him the Messiah, the Savior, King. And if those Old Testament passages didn't give it away, if the Messiah language doesn't give it away, if the general trajectory of all of our sermons don't give it away, it's Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant. And that's what makes the Davidic covenant so special that throughout the whole rest of the Old Testament, there's this tension that's felt that God's going to make his promise come to pass, right? God said he would. He said he would. He said he would. And then God comes and he takes on flesh and he dwells amongst us and he fulfills it on the God side of it. But also, Jesus Christ is man, meaning the conditional elements that seem that are in it. Jesus Christ also fulfills. He fulfills all of it. That's why the New Testament begins with the genealogy. Some of you people think, man, what a boring way to start a story to name off a bunch of people. Why? It's because all this covenant promise is coming together with both Abraham and David. It shows he's in the line of David because he's the one, the Messiah who is to come. All the threads come together in a way that's so powerful, so beautiful.
When I was in college, I had to go to these things called cultural enrichment programs, which were boring. Most of them. They just, you go, you had to get a bunch of them, and then you just sat there and like, oh, please make it stop. And then you'd leave. But there were a few of them that were good. And one of them, there's this guy, it's the first time I ever saw this. He grabbed a guitar and he started playing a song and he started playing a rhythm and then he hits the pedal, then he moves on to another instrument, starts playing that, hits the pedal, comes back to the guitar, plays the lead line, hits it, and then he like hits another pedal and then boom, they all come together. And all of a sudden you're listening to all the parts of House of the Rising Sun. And now all of us who are conditioned for boredom in these things, are getting into it. And then he puts more instruments on top and layers and layers and layers. And this one man band, the first time I've ever seen this, puts together this wonderful sound. And that is what the Old Testament is doing. It's putting all these parts together. And then in Jesus Christ it all comes together in this wonderful song. That's what Paul's getting at in Acts 13 when he's making those connections from first and second Samuel into the New Testament.
> Then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years. And when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, 'I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.'
>
> Of this man's offspring God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised.
And that thread gets pulled all the way to the end and the final chapter of the Bible and the final words that God gives in his word to his people.
> I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.
It all comes together and this beautiful promise and the question that you leave coming from that is, okay, well then why is that so significant? Why is that the most important promise in all of human history? It is because the whole story of redemption leads to Jesus establishing an eternal house. That's the family of God. That's the church we just sang. The church of Christ was born and the Spirit lit a flame. That's it. That's the fulfillment that as the eternal family of God, we get to be invited into a fellowship that never ends. That goes back to the promise to David. It's an eternal kingdom which is the rule and the reign of Jesus Christ, which we get to participate in as it expands and it moves. The reason that Jeff is in the water this morning declaring what happened years ago, because someone in the kingdom of God declared the good news of Jesus Christ and his ears were opened that he placed his faith in Jesus Christ. It all goes back to the promise of David. It's this eternal throne that when Jesus went to the cross and died for our sins, when he rose from the grave and conquering death, that Jesus Christ ascended to the right hand of God the Father, and that's the establishment, that the work is finished and his eternal reign will reign forever and ever and ever. Amen. And that's what we're invited into through simply believing.
But here's the deal. This is why this is really important. In the south, those of us that are in and around the church, we can deceive ourselves into believing that faith in this is the mere mental agreement to these truths. To cite Jesus died for my sins. To say Jesus rose in the grave. That's why we celebrate Easter, to say he ascended to the right hand of God the Father. You can recite the Nicene Creed a thousand times. Growing up, you could do all types of things to mentally agree with this message. But the heart of this message is not mentally agreeing. What it boils down to is, do you see that Jesus is the king in the line of David? Do you see him as your king? That's what this boils down to. Is he your king? Meaning, does Jesus Christ have supreme rule and reign over every aspect of our lives? That's the question that should be lingering as we look at the celebration of Jesus Christ the King on the line of David.
Because here's what happens in the south is that we have all the words that we can say. We know all the phrases. And the moment that Jesus starts to try to make a claim on parts of our lives that we don't want to yield to him, we say, mm, no. I want to dictate in my kingdom who I can have sex with. I want to dictate in my kingdom how I spend my money. I want to dictate in my kingdom how I use my time. I want to dictate in my kingdom the way I speak in the workplace. I want to dictate in my kingdom how I strategize and move, whether it's through slander or gossip. And then Jesus Christ stands at the right hand of God the Father and declares, I am king. And we say, yes, but not of this. And I want to tell you something. If that is the seated heart position of your life, he isn't king for you and that should terrify you.
But the good news of the gospel is that a you're here to hear the message of a God who loves you so much that he gave up his life for you so that he might become your king and invite you into an everlasting kingdom and a rule and a reign and a throne and a family that is far superior to anything this world has to offer. That as we regularly rehearse that Jesus is better than everything else, it is the rehearsing that we believe that his kingdom is better than everything else. We believe that his kingship is better than everything else. It is the invitation to see him as supreme master of every aspect of our lives.
And as we get ready to close out this morning, that is the question that your soul should reckon with. The band's going to come up and we're going to get to sing. But some of you, you might need to sit and you might need to consider if he's actually king of your life. And you might need to surrender to the King this morning and lay down your life, whatever it is that you're holding your tight fisted your hand onto that you don't want to give up, now's the time to open it up and say, take it, King, it's yours. Some of you have truly trusted in the finished work of Jesus Christ. But there are parts of your life right now that are so hidden that you've tried to make a claim on and I want you to see so clearly. The kingship of Jesus Christ is wonderful. The promises that go back to David are wonderful. And they're offered to you. That you don't have to run back to former ways. You don't have to go back to worse kingdoms and worse rules and worse reigns. That you have a savior that says, do you understand that I'm a good king? I'm a good and wonderful and gracious king. And that when I tell you that that part of your life is worth yielding to me, that I'm actually for your good, I'm not against you. I'm for you. And your faith needs to inform the actions that leave this place today. And you'll have some opportunity this week in community group to do just that. And my hope is that you would let me pray.
Heavenly Father, I thank you for this wonderful message that comes from 2nd Samuel 7 that helps us see that you are the king. You are the promised Messiah. You're the ruler of all things. May we in faith submit to you as our king to see how good and wonderful your kingdom is. May we yield to you in powerful ways. God, we have some repentance that we do in our hearts. We've got some areas of our lives that we've carved out for ourselves that belong to you. And I just pray that you do the work in our hearts to soften, to see it and to yield it. And as we worship and close out today, may the gospel of your kingdom coming to bear in our lives be felt and lived out in a way that makes you look good. In Jesus name, amen.
2 Samuel 6
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
Good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. If you will grab a Bible and go to Second Samuel, chapter six. We're working our way through the book of Second Samuel. We're going to go through all of chapter six today. Every culture and people throughout human history has had things that they considered sacred, things that they considered hallowed, that they revered. Our culture is unique in this regard because American culture kind of doesn't. We don't have a whole lot that we really revere, not culturally. America itself doesn't give that to you. You may say that you have something that you consider sacred, or this other person has something considered sacred. And we're taught that that's okay for them, but. But we aren't taught that we have to have anything that is sacred. And when it comes to politics and science and school and the things that you kind of enter into in the public sphere, you're basically told, like, hey, keep that to yourself. That's not for this place, for us to have things that we hold as sacred. And I think our culture thinks that they've successfully done that. The problem is that when you remove the pinnacle, if you take God out of that place, something still has to go there. And so what our culture has placed there is humanity. We consider man sacred. Another way to put that would be the sanctity of the self. That's the culture that we live in. Those are the lines you can't cross. Those are the things that are untouchable is your self. What do you believe about what you want for life? What's inside of you? This is why we don't look to God to direct our lives. We look in our hearts, we sing a song. Sometimes animals help. And then we go express ourselves. We go find out what's true about us. And we, you know, export that to the world. And the only real rule is that I can't stop you from being yourself and you can't stop me from being myself. What's right for me is right for me. The only problem is I can't have something that crosses the line into harming you. Carl Truman, in his book the Rise of the Modern Self, he says it this way. He says the only moral criterion, it's the rise and triumph of the modern self. Sorry, I realized I said that wrong. The only moral criterion that can be applied to behavior. So how do we know something is right? How do we know something's good is whether it conduces to the feeling of well, being in the individuals concerned. Does it feel right? Does it make you happy? And if what you're doing makes you happy, then good, as long as you're not making someone else unhappy. That's the place where we have conflict. But we've all agreed that the self is central. The reason I'm saying all of that is because in this text today, we're going to see the conflict in two instances between a self centered, a man centered view of the world and a God centered view of the world. Not only we're going to see it in the text, but if we're, I think, honest while we're working through the text, we're going to feel it in the text, we're going to feel it in ourselves as we go through. There's going to be some places where we realize that because of the culture that we're in, we are in tension with this text. And my hope for you, for all of us today, is that we will leave less self centered and more God centered, that we will have removed ourselves and rightfully see God there. And if you love Jesus, you want that, so you should be on board with what we're trying to accomplish today. And if you are not a Christian, you need that. Even if you don't like the idea, it's actually better. So hopefully that's enough to make you want to read the Bible with me. Let's go. Second Samuel, chapter six, verse one. David is king. He set himself up. Now he's in the city of David. It says,
> Again David gathered all the chosen men of Israel, thirty thousand.
> And David arose and went with all the people who were with him from Baale-judah to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the name of the LORD of hosts who is enthroned on the cherubim.
Okay, this is the first time we've learned about the Ark of the Covenant. Read about the Ark of the Covenant for 20 years now. For us, it was last fall sometime. But for those of you who have had a hard time with first and Second Samuel, it may have felt like 20 years ago, I don't know. But we, we were in 1st Samuel at the beginning. If you'll remember where the Ark was, it was in the tabernacle when Samuel was little. And then Hophni and Phinehas decided to use it as like a good luck war totem. And so they took it into battle to secure victory, which is a. An incorrect use of the ark, unless God tells you to use it that way. So God did not honor this. Hoffney and Phinehas die, Eleazar dies. Then the. The ark is taken. The Philistines take it, and they're going to use it as a trophy, which is an incorrect way to use the ark. So it goes really poorly for them, and God begins to curse them. So they start swapping it from town to town, being like, hey, you use the trophy for a while. Let your people die. And then eventually the town say, stop, we're not going to accept it. Send it back. So they put it on a cart and hook it to cows. And they just said, if this really is God at work, the cows will know where to go. They begin to bellow, and they walk uphill immediately back to Israel, and they're like, oh, they knew where to go. This was from God. So they send it back. When it gets to Kirioth Jearim, which is also baal, Judah town with two names, they uncover it, which is an incorrect use of the ark, and many of them die. So they cover it back up. They stick it in Abinadab's house, who is a Levite, and they don't mess with it for 20 years. And I think part of the reason they don't mess with it is I don't think Saul cared about it because it didn't help win. Oh, this is. This would have been longer than 20 years. It's been gone for a long time. It didn't help win. But David cares because it's not just about war. He goes to get it, to bring it back because he's setting up the city that's going to belong to God. He wants the ark there, so they go to get it. Okay, that's what we're doing. It's been in Abinadab's house,
> They set the ark of God on a new cart and brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill.
> And Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were driving the new cart, and Ahio went before the ark, and David and all the house of Israel were celebrating before the LORD with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals.
So this is how it made it to that town. So they put it on a cart and they're bringing it out. That's how it got here. That's how they're going to leave with it. And Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab were driving the new cart with the Ark of God. And Ahio went before the ark, and David and all the house of Israel were celebrating before the Lord with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals. So stringed instruments, percussion instruments, instruments. And they're all celebrating loudly. This is a. I mean, a procession excitedly working their way towards Jerusalem. They have the ark. They're going to move it. There's thousands of people here. This is a big deal. And they're celebrating. It's loud, it's festive. And when they came to the threshing floor of Nakin, Uzzah put out his hand to the Ark of God and took hold of it. For the oxen stumbled and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah. And God struck him down there because of his error. And he died there beside the Ark of God. Loud, festive, joyful, marching along. We're going to take it up to Jerusalem. The oxen stumble. Uzzah, who's walking along with the ark, steadies it or catches it and then dies. The text does not tell us whether or not he just fell over dead, like his life just left him, or if there was this was accompanied by some sort of noise or display, whether this was loud or quiet. David is going to call it Perez Uzzah. They rename that place, and that Perez means breach or outburst, which could be referring to God's anger, but could also be referring to what it was like when it happened, or both. Whether he touches it and just falls, or whether he touches it and something happens, the music stops, everyone stops, the procession stops. And suddenly it's like, what. What just happened here? And David has a response that I think is very common and that we see culturally quite often as well. It says this.
> And David was angry because the LORD had broken out against Uzzah. And that place is called Perez-uzza to this day.
David's response is anger. And I think we see that all the time. I think we feel that at times that even if you've read this story before, I think sometimes what happens if you've grown up in the church or you've been around the church for a while, if you've read a lot, you just kind of sometimes move past this stuff. Like you start reading, you know what's going to happen, you just kind of work your way past it. You don't really think about it. But there is something in us that goes, He, he touched the ark to help was going to fall. Doesn't it feel a little like God overreacted? Should he die for that? Now I will say the ark should not have been on a cart. Uzzah and Ahio were Levites. They should have known that you carry the ark. That's in the law. They should have known that Levites carry the ark. They're often referred to as the those who carry the ark, not those who haul the ark on a cart. It's a. It was built in. It had poles. I think it had the poles on it, because otherwise they would have had to have touched it to get it on the cart. They just didn't carry it. They were traveling with it the way the Philistines had traveled with it. David was king. He should have known this. He was supposed to have a copy of the law that he made himself for himself so that he would know the law, so that he would follow the law. But they are not doing what they're supposed to. But there's still something that goes, yeah, but should he die? And I think culturally, we feel that a lot. And you'll hear people say stuff like that about God. They'll say, well, if God's like that, I'm not going to follow him. If that's the way he treats people, if that's the way he is, who does he think he is to act that way? I've seen interviews with famous people where they said, you know, interview. He said, you're a famous atheist. What happens if you die and you see God? He said, I'll start by saying, how dare you? And there's this general tone of who does God think he is? And the reason sometimes we feel that or think that is because we have placed humanity as central. And therefore God has rules he must follow in regard to us. We're first, we're primary. So God can't step over bounds when it is in regard to us. Not he's first, he's primary, and we have rules in regard to him. We. We read this, and we didn't immediately go, don't touch the ark. We went, don't kill Uza. Because there's something that we think is sacred, and it's not God. It's. It should baffle us. It should resonate with you. It should. It should bother you that we think that Uzzah should have more consequences from touching a hot stove than from touching the ark of the covenant of the Lord who sits enthroned above the cherubim, That we think there should be more consequences to simple things in life than to crossing a line to where God in His holiness has made his presence known. So he responds with anger. And I think that's a normal response. I don't think it's the correct one. Then
> And David was afraid of the LORD that day, and he said, "How can the ark of the LORD come to me?"
He responds in the way that I think is the appropriate response. And David was afraid of the Lord that day. And he said, how can the Ark of the Lord come to me? This is when the Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. That when you realize he's different than you, bigger than you, more glorious than you, more dangerous than you, you've begun to understand the world. That's why it's the beginning of wisdom. And so David, they now all of everybody's eyes. In everybody's eyes. The Ark of the Covenant is different now. Everybody has backed up and now everyone is treating it with respect and reverence. This isn't the same type of celebration anymore. And David says, how? How can it come to me? We're not taking this to the city of David. If Uzzah is going to die, I'm not. I can't. If he dies for touching it, I probably can't get within 10. He just says, I'm not. So then it says this, which I find humorous and maybe I shouldn't.
> So David was not willing to take the ark of the LORD into the city of David. But David took it aside to the house of Obed-edom the Gittite.
> And the ark of the LORD remained in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite three months. And the LORD blessed the house of Obed-edom and all that he had.
I just. I wonder how that came about. This thing is dangerous. Hey Obed, we got something for you. You're going to need to store this. Don't touch it. I don't know if Obed was with him. We do find out in First Chronicles he's a Levite. That doesn't seem to apply here or matter. Maybe that's why they picked him. But if that's why they picked him, they don't tell us that in Second Samuel. It just seems like David was like. And then they were just somebody's house was close and they were like, here you go. And they give it to him. So that's what happens.
> And it was told King David, "The LORD has blessed the household of Obed-edom and all that belongs to him because of the ark of God." So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom to the city of David with rejoicing.
So they said, hey, just want to let you know Obed edom's doing great because of the ark. And he's like, let's go get it seems as if he was worried that maybe God was going to punish. God was upset about how they'd handle it. It was going to go poorly. He gives it Obed edom. It goes well. And he goes, oh, well, then we can. That can we can get that into the city. They do. Beginning of chapter, verse 13 is very important, says this.
> And when those who bore the ark of the LORD had gone six steps, he sacrificed an ox and a fatling.
When those who bore the Ark of God, they're carrying it this time. So in that three month interim, they learned what they were supposed to do, or they knew it immediately and said, we shouldn't have been doing this. But we just know that this approach is different. They are now carrying the ark and it is accompanied with sacrifices. This whole procession seems more worshipful this time around and at least is trying to follow the guidelines given. So that's what's happening. It's accompanied by sacrifices. And they're going. And
> David danced before the LORD with all his might. And David was wearing a linen ephod.
David is celebrating. It's still worshipful, but he's dancing before the Lord with all his might. A lot of dancing, aggressive dancing. You've been at a wedding before where you saw someone dance with all their might. Like all that they could muster to dance, they were doing that. That's what David's doing. He's wearing an ephod, which is what priests wore. It's normal priestly garments. They're actually at times described as those who wear the ephod. So he's wearing priestly garments. This whole thing is more worshipful and the people would have recognized it as a priestly garment. The same way that you can, you know, play a game called Spot the Nun. And it's easy because of the way they dress. Same kind of thing. All right.
> So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouting and with the sound of the horn.
So still celebratory, joyful, and this time, though I think more worshipful. As the Ark of the Lord came into the city of David,
> Michal the daughter of Saul looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD, and she despised him in her heart.
David's coming in, leading this procession, leaping, dancing with all of his might. She sees him and she hates him. Now we'll quick note to married couples, be careful the types of thoughts in your heart that you harbor towards your spouse. Be mindful of the way that you talk to yourself and think about your spouse. They are going to do annoying things at times it will feel like that's their main thing they do. But it's up to you to consistently seek good and joy and hope and love for your spouse. That's not what this passage is about, so I'm going to stop talking about it, but I just thought I'd give you that little aside.
> And they brought in the ark of the LORD and set it in its place inside the tent that David had pitched for it. And David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the LORD.
> And when David had finished offering the burnt offerings and the peace offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the LORD of hosts.
> And he distributed to all the people, to the whole multitude of Israel, both men and women, a cake of bread and a portion of meat and a cake of raisins. Then all the people departed, each to his house.
> And David returned to bless his household. And Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David and said, "How the king of Israel honored himself today, uncovering himself today in the eyes of the servants of his servants, as one of the vulgar fellows would shamelessly uncover himself!"
> And David said to Michal, "It was before the LORD, who chose me above your father and above all his house, to appoint me as prince over Israel, the people of the LORD—and I will celebrate before the LORD.
> I will be more lightly esteemed than this, and I will be abased in your eyes. But by the servants of whom you spoke, by them I shall be held in honor."
> And Michal the daughter of Saul had no child to the day of her death.
And they brought the ark, brought in the ark of the Lord and set it in its place inside the tent that David had pitched for it. So it's been in. It had been in the tabernacle, which is a tent. David sets up a tent for it in the city of David. The tabernacle still is set up somewhere else and they don't come together until they build the temple. So just so you know, the tabernacle still somewhere else with all the instruments of the tabernacle. But the ark now is in the city of David in a tent. And David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord. And when David had finished offering the burnt offerings and the peace offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord of hosts. So this whole thing is worshipful. And it's unclear. We don't know if it would have been approached the same way the first time, but it certainly is now. And he blessed the people and distributed among all the people, the whole multitude of Israel, both men and women, a cake of bread, a portion of meat, and a cake of raisins to each one. Then all the people departed, each to his house feeds everybody bread, meat, cake of raisins. Which I learned this week that a cake of raisins is not cake with raisins in it. It is just raisins smushed together, which they loved. It was a treat to have it's high, high calorie food that they were excited about. Some of you don't like that because you don't like raisins. But they were pumped. But it's like David has this and then he gives everybody like a half rack of ribs, some cornbread and banana pudding. He just feeds everybody. It's a celebratory moment. That's what's happening here. And so they just highlight that David feeds everybody instead of just sending them home.
And David returned to bless his household. So he's blessed the people he's now going to go back bless his household. But Michal, the daughter of Saul, came out to meet him. So he's coming back joyfully going to bless his household. She comes out to meet him and said, now we're going to read what she said in a second. But this is our second instance where we're going to see the self centered view, the man centered view, coming in contact and conflict with the God who centered view. It's on a different level than the situation we saw with Uzzah. But it's the same kind of thing at work here. And so we're going to see what she says. She says how the king of Israel honored himself today, uncovering himself today before the eyes of his servants, female servants, as one of the vulgar fellows shamelessly uncovers himself. Okay, so she says, well done. Made a big deal of yourself today, how you've honored yourself today. That's sarcasm. She doesn't mean it. Then she says, you've uncovered yourself like a shameless, vulgar fellow in front of the eyes of your female servants. Sorry, your servants. Female servants. Now, we were told what he's wearing, which is an ephod, he's not scantily clad. Ephods aren't like highly revealing outfits. It wasn't like when you went to see the priests. They were all not wearing much. They were wearing ephods. But ephods are thin linen garment, a very simple linen garment. And it was something that priests wore. It was not something a king should wear. We're also told earlier in the text when she saw him leaping and dancing, she despised him. It doesn't say when she saw him almost naked. So it's not just what he's wearing. That's what she's saying to him. But there's something else about the leaping and the dancing. And the whole thing is just dishonoring in her viewpoint. Now, I think to a king, it would look odd to see a king in an ephod. And I think in her eyes it would be very odd. It's a little bit like, because it's not a revealing outfit. But I'm going to try to help you have a connection point here. My grandmother, both my grandmothers would wear a house coat. My mom sometimes would wear a housecoat. And then if someone came around or if you went in, they'd say, I'm sorry, I'm in my house coat. Or, I can't do that, I'm in my house coat. Or, oh no, my house coat. Like that. Now a housecoat starts here Goes to here and then all the way down to your ankles. It's one of the least revealing pieces of clothing that you could possibly wear, but it feels like underwear somehow. And you don't want people to see you in your house coat. To be fair, I wouldn't want any of you to see me in a house coat. So I understand the. You know, but I think that's a little bit. What's happening here is. It's not revealing as much as what are you wearing? What is this? You're the king. And in her mind, it says that she's the daughter of Saul. It doesn't call her the wife of David, which it could say calls her the daughter of Saul. And I think that's to try to help us key in on how Saul would have handled this and how she would have understood what a king is supposed to do. That's how she's framed it up in her mind. This was a day to honor David, and oh, my goodness, how he's dishonored himself today. It was a day to put on display his kingliness. Bringing the ark to the city was to establish more of his power and his control and his position and his kingliness. And what he's doing done, wearing an ephod and really flopping around, dancing and bouncing and whatever that was. Oh, my. What on earth. That's what she meets him with. What are you. What. What. What are you doing? You look like a shameless fellow. What a. What a moron. Nobody wants to see their king jumping around like some goon in the street. That's what. That's what she's coming at him with. So he responds.
And David said to Michal, it was before the Lord, who chose me above your father and above all his house, to appoint me as a prince over Israel. The people of the Lord and I will celebrate before the. The Lord. She says she was viewing it through the eyes of servants. What did the people think about what's happening? That's what she was doing. And David says, irrelevant. Don't care. That's not who I was dancing for. It was before the Lord. I will celebrate before the Lord. It's about his eyes, not anybody else's.
I will make myself yet more contemptible than this, and I will be abased in your eyes. He said, oh, you're going to think worse of me, but the female servants of whom you've spoken, by them I shall be held in honor. So she's dishonored him, disrespected him. He said, it's going to get worse. I'm going to be more abased. He said, but the people that you're worried about, they'll hold me in honor of.
And Michal, the daughter of Saul, had no child to the day of her death. Which is an interesting note at the end of that story, because it doesn't tell us why. Which is a thing that people do, though, when they tell you a story. Sometimes they'll be like, buddy was never seen again. Yeah, but he never came back to that side of town. Yeah, but they broke up after that. And it's like, what does that mean? It's like just saying that's what this feels like. It is accomplishing that there will be no grandson of Saul on the throne. So him marrying into the Saul's lineage is. That's not going to continue. So that's accomplished. You can then infer either a rift between her and David or God not blessing her from this point on, because their. Their understanding was that children certainly were a blessing from God, and God oversaw that whole process. And so it just makes the note. And then you're like, why'd you write that? And it's like, all right, let's talk about chapter seven. It's just in there now. She comes to David and says, the point of today was to honor yourself. The point of today was like, you've dishonored yourself. Because in her mind, it's. It's. You're putting yourself on display in front of people. And David says that this is about the Lord. The day was for the Lord. I'm in front of the Lord. This is before the Lord. That stuff doesn't matter. And there's a way. This is why I said it's. It's Michal's interaction with this self versus the this man center versus God center is lower than the one when we're considering Uzzah. Because when we're considering Uzzah, we're considering are there sacred things, lines that God can't cross? But Michal's, on a much more practical basis of what's the point of today? Who's the point of today? What's the point of worship? What's the point of celebration? How often have you walked through life with Michal's lens on, which is, what do other people think of me? How am I being viewed in the eyes of other people? It's really interesting when you can begin to see this in children. Sometimes children for a long time are just kind of free. They're just doing whatever the heck they want. And then you'll see them start being able. And it's real obvious, but they're thinking about how you're thinking about them or how these people are thinking about them. They begin to be more aware of the eyes of the people on them. And there's something to Paul talks about, like, work as unto the Lord, not as unto your boss. There's a way for us to live as if my goal, my highest hope in life is to enjoy life, have life, be good and have everyone else around me, affirm me and be excited about me. And what I'm doing is actually putting myself on display to them. And there's a way to walk through life where it's about God is the one viewing me and he's the one who matters. And let me live in a way that honors him, let me live my life before Him. And one of those puts him central and one of those puts us central. So that David seems genuinely like, what are you. This today was about the Lord. It's not about anything else. It's not about me. Bringing the Ark of the Covenant to, to this city shouldn't be about me. Okay, so I said my hope was that we would begin to move ourselves out of that central position. Because there are distinctions between a man centered viewpoint and a God centered viewpoint. A God centered viewpoint says that God comes first, that he created everything and that there are actual morals that come down to us, that we are to live in line with the way he's designed the world and we're to relate to him the way that he tells us to. A man centered viewpoint says, no, we I get to decide. And if there is a God, he has to respect my boundaries. Which just so you know, the I'll decide what's right and wrong began in the garden. That was the first sin of humanity. Will be the ones who have the knowledge of good and evil. Thank you very much. We'll be the ones who choose what's right and wrong. So this idea that we'll pick, we'll decide what's good, we'll decide what's bad, we'll decide what's right. And God has to. And you'll hear people at times say things like, well, God couldn't do that because. And then their reasoning is some, some way that he would cross a boundary with us. There are times even where you're reading a text and they'll go, well, God can't do that, because he can't do. And it's like, well, he just did it. So you maybe need to go back to figuring out how you understand God. It says he does that. And there's part of us that doesn't want that. We don't want a God who chooses. We don't want a God who chooses winners and losers. We don't want a God who gets involved in life. We don't want a God who steps in and does things. We don't want a God who respects and defends his own holiness. There's a lot of things that bother us as humanity, and it's because we're trying to sit on a throne that's designed for him. That's why we don't like it. There are things God doesn't do, but it's because of who he is, not who we are. We're downline from Him. And then on a much more daily basis, there's a way for you to just walk through everything like it's about you. There's a way for you to show up in worship this morning like it's about you. You can get in the habit where you don't sing songs you don't like. Why are we singing? You can hang out there and go, yeah, I don't really. I'm not, you know, singing is not my thing. So you hang out and come in a little later. And your thing is people. So you talk to people. They're trying to sing or whatever. Hey, it's good to see you. You sit there, you get your phone out, you do other things because you're confused about why we're. There's a way for us to do that in our community group. And you'll hear it. You need to listen to yourself. You can hear it. Sometimes you'll say, yeah, I just am not really getting what I need out of that. What. What you need out of it is obedience and an opportunity to serve people. Doesn't sound like you're getting that. I'll agree with you. What you get out of that is belonging to the people that God tells you to belong to. But there's a way to show up to your group and be asking, are they treating me the way I want to be treated? Not am I treating them the way I want to be treated? Which is the way Jesus says it. I don't feel like they care about me enough. I don't feel like they love me enough. I don't feel like they do this enough. You find this one. It's real easy to not show up to your group meeting times. Because I just had some stuff going on, right? Because that group's about you. It's not about the other people who need you there so that you can love them, so that you can serve them. You're complaining about your group instead of making things better. Usually when you're frustrated with your group about something, it's an area that you're good at. And I'm thankful to Jesus that you're in that group so that you can make it better, not tell them that they're the worst. There's a way for you to exist in church family. Like, this is about you, and you're confused. And I'll add, probably miserable, because that's a terrible way to go through life. Michal had a day that could have been joyfully worshipful. She's miserable. Have you ever felt that? Have you seen that in yourself? You're just upset with everything, frustrated about everything. I'm willing to tell. My guess is that you're trying to sit on a throne that's too big for you and in a seat that doesn't belong to you, and therefore you're miserable because you weren't ever supposed to be there. But if you get in a position where everyone just annoys you, everyone bothers you, everyone falls short of your expectations, I will tell you who is central in your life and who matters the most. And I will tell you that you're wrong and you won't find joy there. We hear this stuff all the time. People will say things like, well, God just wants me to be happy. As if he centered that in his viewpoint for how life would work, our individual happiness. The reality is he does want you to be happy, but you don't know how to get there. You've picked something that won't actually accomplish your joy. It's actually only found in Him. It's only accomplished by Him. It's only carried out by Him. It's only kept by Him. And that when he calls us to him, he's actually calling us to joy. But when you read your Bible and you go, well, I know it says that, but I know that God wouldn't want me to be unhappy, so I get to do whatever I want. You're wrong and you've centered the wrong thing. In a moment, we're going to take communion together, which is a celebration of what Jesus has accomplished for us, that he died on a cross to rescue us, to pay for our sin. We're. We're going to. At the Last Supper, he said, this is my body broken for you. As he broke bread, he said, this is my blood poured out as a new covenant for you. That we would be forgiven, that we would be redeemed. But if we don't understand the glorious, unapproachable holiness of God, then we won't see the beauty of the gospel. You won't. You won't be able to wrap your mind around what you're getting to partake in. That he came as someone who could be touched, that he came as someone who died for us. If you've centered humanity, then you'll put it somewhere in like, well, of course he would. You won't see his humility, you won't see his suffering as glorious. You won't see it as wonderful. You won't be captivated by it. It won't break your heart and make you fall in love with him all at the same time. If we don't understand how big and how glorious he is and how much he did not have to come save us, except for the fact that he is really, really good and really, really loving. And he chose to redeem and to rescue people who did not deserve to be redeemed and rescued. And it is only by his grace and glorious goodness that we are welcomed in, not by some sort of centered excellence of humanity that he had to come get us. The band's gonna come back up. We're gonna sing in a moment. We're gonna take communion first. I want you to just ask the Lord, where have I centered myself? Is it in my philosophy? Is it on a high level in the way that you're supposed to interact with humanity as a whole? Or is it just in my daily life? Where have I failed to see that I'm supposed to live out in front of you and just talk to the Lord and then repent and then celebrate that we are saved by grace and grace alone, through the work of Christ and not through our ability to get this right, That God in his goodness, graciously removes us from the center. We have a hope in Him. Let's pray, Father. As we come to the table, as we come to partake in something more glorious than the ark of the covenant, that your Son would come and die to rescue us, to bring us hope, to bring us life and that we might celebrate together and remember together his sacrifice on our behalf. Lord, we pray that we would come in a way that helps remind us that you are central so that we might have the joy of self forgetfulness. In Jesus name, Amen. If you are not a Christian, we. We would ask you to refrain from participating in communion, but we would invite you to come know Christ as your savior. When you're ready. Let me take.
2 Samuel 3-4
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
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2 Samuel 1
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
Good morning. Through snow and ice and disconnected H VAC units, we have finally gathered together, and we are getting ready to finally start Second Samuel. So if you're with us in the fall, we finished up First Samuel. We. We took a break with the Remember series and Give series, and now we get to start Second Samuel. We kind of jump into the middle of the story. First and Second Samuel actually were written as one book together. If you remember this when we first started, it's written as one book together because of how scrolls worked back in the day, they had to divide it in two separate scrolls. So it's one story. And we're jumping in the middle of a story at the beginning of 2 Samuel chapter 1. And we jump in the middle of a sad moment. And what we're going to see today is a lament that David has wrote for the people of God. And there are times where it's good to be sad. And when tragedy hits, when loss hits, there's something in us that aches for a response. I remember in 2001 when 911 happened, that as a nation, we were just collectively at a loss of words, and there was just a deep sadness for what many of us witnessed on TV and all the horror and the pain that came with that. And in November, two months after. I remember at the cmas, which is the Country Music Awards, Alan Jackson, he performed a song that he had written just a few weeks before. It's called Where Were youe In the World? Stop Turning. And the whole song is. It's a lament. It's country music, but it's a lament that captures how everyone felt in that moment as we witnessed all the pain and suffering at 9 11. And I just remember watching that with my parents and just being. Just felt it. You felt it in the room. And, you know, people outside of country music that don't even like country music, which is quite a few people, they actually, some of them very much appreciated the moment because what he was doing was capturing what we just felt. And that's what lament does. It captures this. This suffering, this. This loss, this pain that we feel. And it's good for. For us to sit in that. And poetic songs and poetic laments capture that. And that's what we get to see today as we jump into the middle of a story where we finish up in Second Samuel. We see the death of Saul and Jonathan and the defeat of Israel. We're going to walk through how David finds out about this. Then we're going to see how he laments and then as Christians, we're going to be able to sit in this and understand the importance of. Of what it means to be a people who lament. Well, so I'm going to pray for us, and then we'll walk through this together. Heavenly Father, I thank you for your word. It is precious, it is a gift, and it communicates wonderful, eternal truths that mold and shape us and conform us into your image in new and better ways. And I pray that you would do that to us this morning as we read and study and sit under the authority of your precious word. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen.
Okay, so if you weren't here for First Samuel, let me just give a quick summary. If you were here and it's been months, let me just help us remember. In 1st Samuel, God calls the final judge and the period of the judges and prophet Samuel. Because first and Second Samuel in the Old Testament is the beginning of the age of the kings. So the people are longing for a king. They want a ruler. They had God as their ruler. They had God as their king. And God used judges to reign them in at times. But this moment, they want a king. They go to Samuel. Samuel listens to the Lord, gives them their first king, which is Saul. And at first it goes well. Saul fits the bill. He looks like a king. He's tall, he's handsome. He leads the people, and they beat, they defeat the Ammonites. They do all kinds of things like this. And it's wonderful. And then as you keep reading, you see that his heart actually isn't fully for the Lord, that he has moments of deep faithlessness. And in his faithlessness, God rejects him as king. He anoints David, who is the next king of Israel. If you're familiar with anything in first and Second Samuel, you're probably familiar with the story of David and Goliath. That is when David steps onto the national scene after he's anointed by Samuel and he becomes a hero. He defeats Goliath, and then Saul appreciates David for, like, 10 minutes. It seems it's not very long. He, like, invites him to marry his daughter. He marries into the family. Things are good for a moment. And then quickly, I think Saul realizes, oh, David is the next king, and he becomes a threat. And the whole rest of 1st Samuel is Saul trying to kill David over and over and over again until finally we get to chapter 31 of 1st Samuel, when finally God brings judgment upon Saul and his house, and they're defeated by the Philistines.
In 1st Samuel 31 it says,
> Then the battle went hard against Saul, and the archers hit him, and he was badly wounded by the archers.
> Then Saul said to his armor-bearer, "Draw your sword, and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through and mistreat me." But his armor-bearer would not, for he was very afraid. Therefore Saul took a sword and fell on it.
> And when his armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he likewise fell on his sword and died with him.
> So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armor-bearer, and all his men, on the same day together.
So that is the end of Saul and 1st Samuel, or 2 Samuel chapter 1 picks up right where that leaves off a few days later. Verse 1.
> After the death of Saul, when David had returned from striking down the Amalekites, David remained two days in Ziklag.
> And on the third day behold, a man came from Saul's camp with his clothes torn and with dirt on his head. And when he came to David, he fell to the ground and paid homage.
So while Saul was fighting the Philistines, David was facing off with a band of Amalekites who had kidnapped him and his men's families. So he goes, he defeats them, and this is them kind of resting after the battle. And then all of a sudden, verse two, it says, and on the third day, behold, a man came from Saul's camp with his clothes torn and dirt on his head. And when he came to David, he fell to the ground and paid homage. So clothes torn and dirt on your head. That was an immediate sign to David and his men that something bad has happened. That's a sign of lament. You're in your garments, you put dirt on your head. Something major has happened. Which David said to him, verse three, where do you come from? And he said to him, I have escaped from the camp of Israel. And David said to him, how did it go? Tell me. And he answered, the people fled from the battle. And also many of the people have fallen and are dead. And Saul and his son Jonathan are also dead. So this is the first that David hears of this, that Saul, Jonathan, his friend, they're gone.
Now, put yourself back in when we finish this up in the fall, and remember all that David went through to get to this moment and understand the complexities of how he must have been feeling. Saul tried to kill him over and over and over and over again, hurling spears, chasing him in the wilderness, chasing him in and out of towns, and finally it's over. And David had opportunities. He had opportunities to kill him himself. He had two opportunities with his hand in his life, and he spared him because he would not raise his hand against the Lord's anointed. He said, God will bring judgment on Saul. I will not. And it's finally happened. So that's in the background. And then also, Jonathan was one of his closest friends. Jonathan was a dear friend to him. If you remember when we walked the story of David and Jonathan, we got to see Jonathan, who was the next in line to be the king. Saul's son was. He was beloved by the people. He was a mighty warrior. And when David steps on the scene, he yields. It's very clear that he trusts that God has anointed him to be the next king. And that doesn't happen in the Old Testament, that doesn't happen in history. People don't give up their right to the throne like that. But he's a faith filled man and he trusts the anointing that David has. And you see, even when they talk, he longs to be serving in David's court one day. And he also. We saw how much Jonathan honored his father. He called him out at times for how he was pursuing David, but he honored him and stood by him in this battle. And his friend Jonathan is dead. So there is a lot happening in the soul of David as he receives this.
And then in verse five, it says,
> And the young man who told him said, "I happened to be on Mount Gilboa, and there was Saul leaning on his spear, and behold, the chariots and the horsemen were closing in on him.
> And when he looked behind him, he saw me and called to me. And I answered, 'Here I am.'
> And he said to me, 'Who are you?' And I answered him, 'I am an Amalekite.'
> Then he said to me, 'Stand beside me and kill me, for anguish has seized me, and yet my life still lingers.'
> So I stood beside him and killed him, because I was sure that he could not live after he had fallen.
> And I took the crown that was on his head and the bracelet that was on his arm and brought them here to my lord."
Okay, if you're reading first into second Samuel, just chapter 31, straight into this right here. That's quite jarring because those aren't the same stories. That is two different tellings of what happened. And I just want to show you the differences in this. I've got a chart up here. And first Samuel, chapter 31, the narrator tells us that archers surrounded Saul and badly wounded him. But when the Amalekite retells, he says, no chariots and horsemen were close upon him. And in 1st Samuel 31, the narrator tells us that Saul turns to his armor bearer and asks to kill him because he doesn't want to be mistreated. But Amalekite says no. He called out to me. He said, I'm. He said, ask me to kill him. In 1st Samuel 31, we see that the armor bearer refuses. So Saul kills himself, but the Amalekite says, no, I killed him. The only part where. Where it is similar and you can line them up in compatibility is when it says in 1st Samuel 31 that the Philistines recovered just the armor. And then we get in the Amalekite retelling that the crown and the armlet he had so that you can line up, but everything else is different. So when we come upon situations like this in the Bible where there's. There's two differences there, that's an opportunity to lean in and to ask why? Why are these accounts different? And if you are undiscerning and you hop on the Internet and you get into the deep pages of Reddit or Google or wherever you go, you might find the lazy approach that's like, aha. Contradictions. See, your Bible is not trustworthy. And that's an opportunity to just sit in it longer, to ask deeper questions, to be more thoughtful and discerning. And once you do that, it's very clear what's happening. The Amalekite is lying. He's a liar. He's an opportunistic liar. He stumbles upon the battle. He sees Saul. Everyone knows that if Saul's dead, David is the next king. This is an opportunity for him to be rewarded in his mind. Grabs the crown, he grabs the armlet, he makes up a story, he leaves. And then he comes and he tells David the story. So he tells him this. Now David begins to really lament.
Then David took hold of his clothes and tore them, and so did all the men who were with him.
> Then David took hold of his clothes and tore them, and likewise all the men who were with him.
> And they mourned and wept and fasted until the evening for Saul and for Jonathan his son, and for the people of the LORD, and for the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword.
For Saul and for Jonathan his son, and for the people of the Lord and for the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword, which is just a picture. When, when the leader mourns and laments, everyone does. They follow suit. They tear their clothes, they weep, they fast. Which just as a thing to think about, that's one of the reasons for fasting. Like we're in the south and when someone dies, we eat. Which I think can be fun, but also have a category for fasting is good for the people of God to actually to. To fast and to pray and depend upon the Lord. And that's what they do until evening.
And David said to the young man who told him, where do you come from? And he answered, I am the son of a sojourner and Amalekite.
> And David said to the young man who told him, "Where are you from?" And he answered, "I am the son of a sojourner, an Amalekite."
David said to him, how is it you who. How is it you who were not afraid to put out your hand to destroy the Lord's anointed? So this is about the moment the Amalekite begins to realize that he has made a massive mistake. Because David had multiple opportunities to do just this. David could have ended Saul's reign, could have taken the throne, could have seized power. But he feared the Lord and he trusted the Lord. And he was not going to do and raise his hand against the Lord's anointing. He was going to trust the Lord when the Lord decided to bring judgment. So how in the world could this Amalekite, this person who belonged to a people who were enemies of God, think that he could raise his hand against the Lord's anointed and this would somehow be rewarded? This is not the case. And he realizes he has made a mistake, that condemnation is coming.
Then David called out, called one of the young men and said, go execute him. And he struck him down so that he died. And David said to him, your blood be on your head for you, for your own mouth has testified against you, saying, I have killed the Lord's anointed.
> And David said to him, "How is it you were not afraid to lift your hand to destroy the LORD's anointed?"
> Then David called one of the young men and said, "Go near and execute him." So the young man struck him down, and he died.
> And David said to him, "Your blood is on your head; your own mouth has testified against you, saying, 'I have killed the LORD's anointed.'"
So the Amalekite, his reward for opportunistic lying is execution. And that's is another example from the scriptures of the dangers of lying. You can do a whole sermon on that right there. But that's actually not the main point of this story. And we're going to move on to what is the main point, which is this moment of loss for David and the people. And David is going to enter into a lament that he has written. We get the setup for that in verse 17 when it says,
> And David took up his lament over Saul and his son Jonathan, and he ordered that The Song of the Bow be taught to the people of Judah; behold, it is written in the Book of Jashar.
So what we're about to read is a lamentation, a poetic sadness that the people of God are meant to read for centuries to come. And we also see that it's recorded in the book of Joshar, which. That is a Jewish history book that's referenced a few times in the Old Testament. It's lost to history. We don't have any more copies of it, but it was written in the Book of Joshar for the people, and it was recorded here in these scriptures for the people to remember and to lament together. So we're going to read this lament. But as we read this, I want us, as we catch this poetic capturing of the sadness of the people of God and David, we should remember the complexities of how David is feeling in this, of everything that's happened to him and everything that even Saul and his relationship and how complicated that was, that Saul was his enemy, that Saul wanted him dead, but Saul was also his father in law. Saul was also his king. Saul was also his commander. And now he's gone and so is his friend Jonathan. So there's a lot happening here. And we'll read this lament together. He said.
> Your glory, O Israel, lies slain on your high places! How the mighty have fallen!
> Tell it not in Gath; proclaim it not in the streets of Ashkelon, lest the daughters of the Philistines be glad, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised rejoice.
> O mountains of Gilboa, may you have neither dew nor rain, nor fields of offerings; for there the shield of the mighty was defiled, the shield of Saul, not anointed with oil.
> From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan did not turn back, and the sword of Saul returned not empty.
> Saul and Jonathan, beloved and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided; they were swifter than eagles; they were stronger than lions.
> O daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who clothed you with crimson in luxury, who put ornaments of gold on your apparel.
> How the mighty have fallen in the midst of the battle! Jonathan lies slain on your high places.
> I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; very pleasant have you been to me; your love to me was extraordinary, surpassing the love of women.
> How the mighty have fallen, and the weapons of war perished!
If you have a title for this lament, it's how the mighty have Fallen, which I got curious and I was wondering, and as best I can tell, that is where we get the sarcastic play on Lament, oh, how the mighty have Fallen. So this is. It comes back to this. It's how the mighty have fallen. One of the things he laments in the loss of Saul and Jonathan and this army is that the daughters of the Philistines rejoice. And this is. This is a picture of the people in Gath and Ashkelon. These are cities in Philistia. They're all celebrating. So not only have they lost their leader, but also their enemies are rejoicing and they're sad.
You mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew or rain upon you, nor fields of offerings. For there the shield of the mighty was defiled, the shield of Saul not anointed. With oil. Mount Gilboa is where this battle happened. It's where Saul died. And David curses it. He curses it. He wishes this place to be as desolate and devoid of the life that was taken there. Cursed be Mount Gilboa. Says, from the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan turned not back. And the sword of Saul returned not empty. Which, every now and then the ESV translations get a little clunky. I think it's helpful if you reverse this. The bow of Jonathan turned not back, and the sword of Saul returned not empty from the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty. What that is saying is that they once were mighty warriors. They. They once fought for Israel, they slayed their enemies, and now they're gone and they're lamenting the loss of their mighty warriors. So Saul and Jonathan, beloved, beloved and lovely in life and death. They were not divided. They were swifter than eagles. They were stronger than lions. And we've seen this, we talked about this, that they, that. And through everything that was going on with Saul and David, Saul or Jonathan, honored both his friend and also his father. And they fought together, and they were mighty in battle. You read that in First Samuel. Together they were mighty warriors who defeated their enemies. They were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions.
You, daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who clothed you luxuriously in scarlet, who put ornaments of gold on your apparel. Remember how when he reigned, how prosperous we were. How, how the daughters of Israel had scarlet and gold. He says, oh, how, he said, how, how the mighty have fallen in the midst of the battle. And this refrain leads into David reflecting on his friendship with Jonathan. Jonathan lies slain on your high places. I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan. Very pleasant have you been to me. Your love to me was extraordinary, surpassing the love of women. So we catch this final glimpse of David's great love for his friend. And he describes this brotherly love that he had with Jonathan as surpassing the love of women, which we talked about this in the David and Jonathan sermon in First Samuel. If you weren't here, I'd encourage you to go back and listen to it. But just a moment to sit in that idea. It is good to have deep friendships like this. And more specifically, it is good for men to have deep friendships with other men. And a time where it is regularly written about that, that male. That male loneliness is a crisis. It's talked about as an epidemic, that men, especially young men, suicide rates are through the roof, substance abuse is through the roof. Drug overdoses has been through the roof. Sports gambling is an absolute disaster right now for young men. And on and on and on. It's just, it's regularly observed there's something wrong and that they're. There's a need for men to have deep friendships. And we aren't culturally set up well to do this. The men aren't culturally set up well to do this. In fact, it's very apparent that culturally we don't understand a depth of friendship like this. Because people read this and they, they, they jump to, oh, something, something sexual in nature must have been going on between those two. I mean, that is, that is, that is what some people will argue that this is evidence that something was happening between those two men. And it's like we've so misunderstood and are so underprepared to understand how important is to have deep relationships with other men that you can walk side by side and that you can see as brothers. So we, we need to, to grow in this. And especially if you're, if you're married. Let me just say this very clearly. If you're married and your wife is your only friend, nowhere in the Scriptures do I see that as wise. You should absolutely have friendship with your wife. Also, you should have depth of relationship with other men. She should not be your sole confidant. We have care nights where we separate the men and women. And one of the reasons we do that is so that men can grow in friendship and brotherhood and accountability and depth. And that matters. So you can go back, listen to that sermon. More was said there, but I'll move on. And he is just lamenting the loss of this great friend that he had. Verse 27. He ends, how the mighty have fallen and the weapons of war perished. So he ends that refrain, the reminder of what they lost in Jonathan, what they lost. And when you think about what David's doing on behalf of the people of God and personally, and thinking about this, it's very peculiar because you have to recognize that ultimately for David, this is a good thing for him. He's not going to have to look over his shoulder. He's not going to have to be on the run. He's not going to have the threat of death hanging over him over and over and over again. Saul for years has made his life miserable. And you can see this very clearly not just in First Samuel, but when you read the Psalms, particularly the Psalms that David wrote while he was on the run from Saul. You see this in Psalm 57. 4. It says, My soul is in the midst of lions. I lie down amid fiery beasts, the children of man, whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp, sharp swords. I mean, you see the distress as. As Saul and his men, and all the lies and all the. All the slandering, all the. The threats. In Psalm142.3, another Psalm he wrote on the run from Saul, it says, when my spirit faints within me, you know my way in the path where I walk, they have hidden a trap for me under the threat of being captured continuously. Psalm 54, another Psalm that he wrote while on the wrong from Saul, he says, for strangers have risen against me. Ruthless men seek my life. They do not set God, God before themselves. They seek Saul and his ambition, but they don't consider the Lord. And you see the turmoil that David was in for years. So it's reasonable to assume this moment that he hears of Saul's death, that he's relieved. But that's found nowhere in this lament, not for a moment as you celebrate this, even though ultimately this is for David's good and he knows now I'm able to step into the throne that God has prepared for me, he still appropriately laments. He laments the loss of this nation's leader. He laments the loss of his king, he laments the loss of his friend. And he does this for himself and the people of God to remember. And I think David's response is exemplary. I think it's a very helpful example for us to have this category of lament, even though good things may await us, because I think as Christians, we are just in America. I think we're weaker here. And I see this in a few different ways. I see this in the way that some Christians approach funerals. And I'm not here to attack you. If you've said this or if you believe this, I do want to correct you. I've heard Christians say, well, this brother or sister died, and we're not having a funeral, we're having a party. We're having a celebration because we know where they are, and where they are is far better. So there will be no tears. We will celebrate. And I just go, where do you get that from the Scriptures? Where do we get that idea that we smile in the face of death? Where do you get the idea that we should just be happy? We know that good things just. David knew that good things awaited him. But in the moment of death, the appropriate response is lament. I see people when they lose a job, some Christians come alongside them and they're quick to just want to point out things and they'll say things like, yeah, you know, but it's an opportunity for you to trust the Lord. And it seems like you're really upset about losing this job. You might want to check your heart. It's possible that you have some idolatry for this job. It's possible that you have some control idolatry, that you're trying to control everything. And this is an exposure. God is working in this trial to teach you you should be joy filled. And it's like, whoa, he just lost his job. She just lost her job. There's a moment that it's appropriate to be sad. And certainly we can work through the other things later and count it joy for sufferings. But must we jump straight into the good things that might away? This happens with health trials, various members of our church going through all types of health trials and battles. And I appreciate some of the optimistic culture that surrounds all of that. You hear people say, you know, God's got this and, and, and we're, you know, just. And I appreciate aspects of that that rally in a way that's appropriate and good. But there also, there's a moment and there are days that it's just okay to be sad. It's just okay to lament the reality of suffering. And we should hold these together because human emotion is far more complex than this. We as Christians should be the best at this, y', all to have moments where we are just sad for the reality of death and loss and suffering, while also having our hope secured and tethered to the reality of the future promises that await God's people. We should be able to hold both intention together. And no one exemplifies this better than Jesus Christ.
When you get to the Gospel of John in chapter 11 with the recounting of the story of the death of Lazarus and his resurrection, when you read that in verse 11, it says, after saying these things, he said to them, our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him. And that's important because Jesus absorbs the reality that his friend is dead, that Lazarus is dead, while also saying, I'm going to raise him. Jesus knows exactly what he's about to do. He's about to raise Lazarus from the dead because that resurrection is going to point forward to later, not far actually down the road where Jesus Christ will be resurrected, which again points to the future resurrection. So he's doing something bigger here. He knows what he's about to do. He knows the good things that are about to happen. And yet when he meets his friends Mary And Martha, verse 32, it says now, when Mary came to see to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews would come with her, also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, where have you laid him? They said to him, lord, come and see. Verse 35. Jesus wept. And I think that's important because I think if some American Christians would have written this story, they would have said, Jesus comes on the scene and he sees them weeping and he says, dry your tears because I'm about to do something big, I'm about to do something good. I'm going to do something glorious. But he doesn't. He sees his friends who are broken and in tears, and he's deeply moved in his spirit and he weeps. It doesn't say he cried a few tears, it says he weeps. What a wonderful example we have in our Savior. And seeing the need to lament, knowing that good things may await. But the reality is, is that death stings. Yes. Oh, death, where's your sting? That's future looking. But the sting is now. And there are moments where that recognizing that and living in that reality is beautiful and good for our souls. We should be a people who do this well. We should be a people who both hold the reality of death in front of us and cry. And also hold the reality of the future resurrection and new heavens and new earth, where there is no more death, where there is no more sting, where there is no more tears. And hold those both together. I mean, that's when Paul is writing to the Thessalonians. In 1st Thessalonians 4, he says, but we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others who do not have hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. And I think some people just jump to the we have hope. We have hope. And it's like. But it presupposes what he just told them. He says, may not grieve as others who do not have hope. But he doesn't say, don't grieve. He says, no, we're going to grieve, but we're going to do it as those who have hope. Those who are grounded in the hope of the future resurrection. And that's what we're called to do. That when someone dies, the appropriate response is, if they're a Christian, is not, let's have a party. It's like, no, no, Death is awful. Now, we had a funeral here three weeks ago for one of our members, Ms. Valerie. And she was 93 years old. And y', all, she suffered greatly in the last few years of her life. And I could hold the thought in my head that says, I'm so thankful for where she is now. But when I sat with her family, I said, y' all should feel this death stings and it's okay to be sad. And we could hold both of those thoughts together. That when you experience loss, when you lose something, that you can be sad while also having your faith anchored in the reality that one day there will be no more losing, there will only be gain. That we as Christians can have sufferings. And know what James 1 says, when it says, count it all joy. My brothers know what Romans 5 says, that suffering produces character, care produces endurance. Like we can have all these together while also being faith filled and sad and also putting our hope in what is to come and growing and maturing along the way that we should be able to hold these both together. Because we as Christians live between the already and the not yet. We live between the reality of present suffering and the future promises that await. And we should be a people who lament well personally, but also we should help others lament, brothers and sisters. Do not rob others of the opportunity to both grieve and be sad and let God meet them in their grief. Because I think sometimes because we're uncomfortable, because we don't like the silence, or because we lack the theological depth to understand how we should respond. And we'll just offer shallow truisms or Christian niceties. We need to grow in helping other brothers and sisters who are lamenting suffer well and lament well so that God can meet them in their grief and grow their faith in wonderful ways.
I was on the Internet the other day and I saw one of my friends from college post this, one of the most moving things I've ever read on grief. And him and his wife had struggled with infertility for years. They six months ago had twin boys and were excited and did the gender reveal and all the things. And we're all very excited. And at 22 weeks, everything fell apart. They had emergency delivery and their boys lived for only a day. And then this past week, after six months of reflecting, he wrote this. And I Want to ask permission for me to read this because I found it to be very moving, very helpful. How God can meet us in our grief and our lament. And here's what he wrote. He said, grief is about allowing loss to enlarge my heart and increase my capacity to hold both joy and sorrow. Grief is teaching me that my boys live on in me and will always be a part of me. Grief is instructing me to cry out to God and complaint and lament long enough to hear him whisper, I know what it's like to lose a son. Grief is increasing my longing for heaven and the renewal of all things. Grief is daring me to believe that despite our loss, God is still writing a good story. Grief is consistently inviting me to choose life in the face of death. I'm a different person than I was six months ago. But as a friend who knows what it's like to lose a child, has told me I want my child back, but I don't want the old me back. I think I'm just starting to believe him. So it is through grief that I echo the words of Nicholas Wolterstaff in his book of Lament of a Son. I shall look at the world through tears. Perhaps I shall see things that dried eyed I could not see. I read that and I just was like, you don't arrive at that conclusion without having your faith so deeply anchored. The reality that one day he will make all things new, but he's sufficient to meet us in the moment of lament that comes through faith filled lament. You don't see God like this without him meeting us in our grief like this, knowing that God in our suffering gives us eyes to see, even if those eyes are stained with tears. You don't embrace this without faith filled lament. You don't refuse it. You lean into it. And that is something that we need to grow in as Christians. We need to grow in learning to lament well. We need to grow and having this trusting the Lord in the middle of the suffering and the loss.
And one of the ways we get to do that is through taking the Lord's Supper and through singing, which we're going to do in a moment. We're going to take the Lord's Supper and we're going to sing a song of lament. As we come to the table as Christians, we're reminded of what Jesus instituted for us on the night that he was betrayed. He took bread and he broke it. He said, this is my body that was broken for you. And he took the cup of the new covenant. He said, this is my blood that was shed for you, that as often as you eat and drink this, you proclaim my death until I return. Jesus instructs his church to practice this practice, to remember that he secured salvation for us on the cross while also pointing forward to one day when the final feast happens. And that we as Christians live in the middle between both. So we don't come to the table all the time with just joy filled hearts. Sometimes we come with heavy hearts, and that's good. If you're a Christian, you get to consider your sin, you get to consider our sufferings, and we also get to consider our Savior who meets us in our sufferings. And in a moment you'll come to the table and I invite you to. If you're not a Christian, we don't want you to come to the table. We want you to come to our Savior. That walking through this life will be filled with suffering, it will be filled with trials, it will be filled with death. And I hope that reality is impressed upon your heart to see that there is someone who can meet you in that and can point you to the hope that we have that is secure. So don't come to the table, come to Jesus Christ in faith. But the band's going to come up now. They're going to take the Lord's Supper, and then we're going to sing a song of lament that is meant to help us learn how to grieve well, how to lament well. And we will sing this out together.