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Numbers 14:1-4; 26-28 & Psalm 142
When I was a young pastor, I used to meet weekly with another pastor who was about 18 years older than me. His name is Kevin McClure. We met almost every week for about seven years. Kevin and I encouraged one another, learned from one another, and became friends. I don’t see him very often any more (2 times in the last two years) but I still consider him a dear friend, and precious brother in Christ.
Kevin writes a weekly email called the E-pistle. The E-pistles are generally fairly short and pithy. Kevin might take several weeks to offer short teachings on one subject, and then move on to another topic. Recently, he started an E-pistle series on the topic of Lament and Grumbling. I found his thoughts interesting and helpful.
For the next several weeks, I’m going to be laid up after rotator cuff surgery, which will add a layer on top of my “normal” pain. So, I got Pastor Kevin’s permission to use his E-pistles on Grumbling vs. Lamenting. I know that many of you prefer to listen. Kevin is retired, which means he is too busy to record these as sermons 😊. So, with Kevin’s permission, I’ll read what he has written, and, at times, add a few thoughts of my own. I probably won’t mess much with what Kevin has written, because I won’t be able to type for a few weeks. So if you normally read, you might want to consider listening to this series instead; otherwise you might miss some of the sermon. Usually, I’ll probably use 2-3 E-pistle episodes as one sermon. In general, I would say that 80-95% of what I say in the recording will be Kevin’s words, and, depending on the message, 5-20% will be clarifications or other comments that I add.
If you are blessed by this series, please consider leaving a comment below, and I’ll share the comments with pastor Kevin McClure.
Ever grumble? If you are familiar with Scripture, you know that God doesn’t look kindly at it (Numbers 14:27). He was very upset by the grumbling and murmuring of some of the people whom He liberated from Egyptian slavery. In spite of what God had done for them when He provided a miraculous deliverance from Egyptian oppression, in spite of the way He led them through the Red Sea and demonstrated His presence quite supernaturally in a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of loud by day– in spite of all of this, some of His people whined every time it looked like they’d be facing another trial. There seemed to be little trust in God. Grumbling and murmuring dishonors God and sets you up for additional trouble.
The New Testament isn’t soft on grumbling either. Check out the following words by Paul: “Do everything without complaining or arguing…” (Philippians 2:14,15). James takes a dim view of it too: “”Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you will not be judged…” (5:9)
On the other hand, God seems to welcome laments. These have the tone of a complaint but they are different. How? The people who are recorded as lamenting are worshippers, psalmists, who like the murmurers are suffering, but unlike them, they turn to God in their pain. They ask the questions every suffering person will eventually ask if he or she is actually paying attention. They ask, “Why?” and “How long?” and “Where are You?”
Jesus Himself lamented. Remember, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?” That’s a lament. Lamenting is an honest way to pour out your troubles and invite God into them.
Over the course of the next few weeks I want to address the upside of being absolutely honest with God about the pain you are feeling in your suffering– identifying it and presenting it to Him to invite Him into it. We’ll explore a number of things, eventually getting to the three questions the lamenting psalmists ask.
During the days of Moses’ leadership, grumblers incurred God’s wrath because they were ungrateful and because they did not invite God into their concerns. In essence, they spurned God, belly-aching, but not inviting Him in. Lamenters also face pain. But in their suffering they cry out to God. Consider Psalm 142:
A psalm of David, regarding his experience in the cave. A prayer. 1 I cry out to the LORD; I plead for the LORD’s mercy. 2 I pour out my complaints before him and tell him all my troubles. 3 When I am overwhelmed, you alone know the way I should turn. Wherever I go, my enemies have set traps for me. 4 I look for someone to come and help me, but no one gives me a passing thought! No one will help me; no one cares a bit what happens to me. 5 Then I pray to you, O LORD. I say, “You are my place of refuge. You are all I really want in life. 6 Hear my cry, for I am very low. Rescue me from my persecutors, for they are too strong for me. 7 Bring me out of prison so I can thank you. The godly will crowd around me, for you are good to me.” (Psalms 142, NLT)
David probably prayed this before he wrote it. This “complaint” bubbled out of him when he was in a cave. When was he in a cave? He may have been in a cave a time or two when he was shepherding his dad’s sheep, but more than likely, he’s talking about the time he was hiding from King Saul, who was trying to kill him (1 Samuel 24). In this psalm, he specifically mentions being in trouble. So, if he’s referring to the incident I think he is, his very life was at risk. That’s serious trouble. Unlike a grumbler who would simply harp about his situation, he talks to the Lord. Why? Because God had shown David many times that He is trustworthy. David didn’t hide from God that he didn’t like his situation. It’s okay to do that, especially if you invite God into it.
It takes faith to invite God into your troubles. You might be low on faith at the moment. When you go through trouble, your faith takes a lot of hits and it can influence you to question whether God really cares. You might feel like you are really shaky. That’s okay. If you’ve never gotten to that place, it’s probably because you haven’t been tried to the extreme. When you have faced extreme pain, pain that leaves you feeling unstable, when you feel like your soundness of mind is hardly hanging on by a thread, you are probably not feeling strong in faith. That’s okay! It’s okay! That’s a great time to talk to God and ask Him to bolster your faith. Ask Him to help you find Him in the pain. It’s certainly fine to even ask Him to deliver you out of your suffering– remember Someone saying, “Father, if possible, let this cup pass me by…?” Yes, even Jesus prayed that way. Yes, we know he also added, “yet not my will, but Yours be done” but we sometimes fail to linger in that place where our pain instructs us to cry for deliverance. This is another subject that I hope to explore some day in an E-pistle, but for now I just want to mention that Christians are far less in touch with their humanity than Jesus was.
If you’ve never done this, write out your prayer-complaint to God. What is it that you are facing that is so distressing? What would you like Him to do about it? Add that too. More on this next week.
God shines his glory not just through David, but also through the many people who were part of what the Lord was doing at the time of David. As each part of this epilogue shows, once again we see that salvation does not come from David, but from the Lord. He used some amazing people to build the kingdom of Israel. Just as those people shared in David’s hardship, and then, finally, David’s glory, so we too will one day share in the glory of Jesus, even when we suffer with him in this present life.
To listen to the sermon, click the play button:
For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen. You can also find us on Spotify at https://open.spotify.com/show/6KKzSHPFT466aXfNT2r9OD
To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 2 Samuel Part 27
2 Samuel #27. 2 Samuel 23:8-39
As I have mentioned before, 2 Samuel chapters 21-24 are a carefully crafted epilogue to the book of Samuel. The content is arranged in a common ancient middle-eastern pattern called chiastic structure. We are now in part B1.
A. The need for atonement
B. The Giant-killing warriors who took over that role from David
X. David’s psalm declaring that the Lord alone saves his people
X1. David’s last words depending on God’s promise alone to bring an eternal messiah
B1. The warriors who helped David throughout the years
A1. The need for atonement and the provision for it.
One of the purposes of this epilogue is to encourage people to hope not in an earthly leader, not even a really good one, like David, but rather, to put all of their hope in the Lord alone. We can see looking at part B, above, that when David could no longer fight there were other warriors who stepped up. The point was, the Lord is the one who saves his people, and he is not dependent on any one person. That point is being reiterated now. Now, the author of Samuel is saying, “Look, even when David was young, it wasn’t only David whom the Lord used. He was surrounded by these amazing warriors, even in his prime.” Again, the message is that we shouldn’t look to any single person like David. The Lord is the one who saves.” There’s something else too. The beginning and end of this epilogue are focused on our need for salvation. Ultimately, there is something deeply ugly and rebellious at the core of every human being. But the Lord also made humans in his own image, and people are not only sinful: they are, at the same time, beautiful and amazing too. So here we see some of the amazing things done by David’s closest associates.
We are introduced first to “the three;” that is, the three most famous and honored warriors led by David. First was Josheb Basshebeth, also known, in 1 Chronicles 11, as “Jashobeam.” He killed 800 enemies with his spear in a single battle. Next of “the three” was Eleazar. He and David stood alone together against the Philistines at a place called Pas Dammin. They fought so long and furiously that Eleazar’s hand cramped around his sword, and he couldn’t let go of it for some time afterwards. Although David was a part of that battle, the point in this passage is not about David, but his men. Third was Shammah, son of Agee from Harar. He defended a field from the Philistines, apparently all by himself, and won a great victory. Apparently, one of the “thirty mighty men,” a man named Jonathan, was the son of this Shammah.
In verses 13-17 we have another exploit that “the three” undertook together. Some translations, in verse 13 say something like: “And three of the thirty chief men went down (ESV).” This casts doubt on whether it was “the three” or just three unidentified men out of “the thirty.” However, the text has not yet introduced us to “the thirty” and verses 16 and 17 seem to be talking specifically about “the three.” So I prefer the NLT. “The Three (who were among the Thirty—an elite group among David’s fighting men) went down to meet him there.” There is a bit of interpretation, or clarification, added to the Hebrew here by the NLT, but I think it’s the right interpretation, and it is supported by the context.
In any case, the incident took place when David was in the cave of Adullam, and the Philistines were in the valley of Rephaim, and had spread out all the way to Bethlehem. Although this could have been before David was king, when he was hiding from both Saul and the Philistines, I think the context best fits 2 Samuel 5:17-25. In fact, we looked briefly at this story in 2 Samuel #5.
David had only recently become king, and the Philistines invaded up the valley of Rephaim, getting as far as Bethlehem, which was David’s hometown. David, being a great strategist, had already taken his army and concealed it in the caves that were found in the south side of that valley. They were in a good strategic position, but it broke David’s heart that he had to let the Philistines occupy Bethlehem. It was probably a hot day, and he exclaimed how much he wished he could have a drink from the well at Bethlehem, the clear, cold water he grew up drinking. He was certainly wishing for that drink because he was hot and thirsty. But he was also wishing that the battle was over and the Philistines were defeated, and his hometown was safe. But “the three” took David at his word, and broke through the Philistine lines, drew water from the well, and brought it back to David without getting hurt themselves. David’s response is interesting
But he refused to drink it. Instead, he poured it out as an offering to the LORD. 17 “The LORD forbid that I should drink this!” he exclaimed. “This water is as precious as the blood of these men who risked their lives to bring it to me.” (2 Samuel 23:16-17, NLT)
The reason the author of the book of Samuel tells that story here, and not in chapter five, is because it illustrates his main point in this epilogue. David is not the hero. Salvation does not come from David. Instead, David is just a servant of the Lord. It is through the Lord that salvation comes, and even David himself consistently testified to this.
When I first read this, I thought, “I’d be angry if I were one of those three warriors.” But actually, I think what David was saying was this: “I am not worthy of such a costly drink. I can’t claim it. Only the Lord is worthy of that kind of effort and self-sacrifice.” He was actually honoring the men more by pouring it out than by drinking it. He “poured it out to the Lord.” He was saying that the lives of these men were precious to the Lord. There was a type of offering called a drink offering, where a drink (usually wine) was poured into the ground. The idea was to say, “this is God’s, not mine, and I pour it out to show that everything I drink ultimately comes from God.” So, David did not consider himself worthy of that kind of sacrifice from his men, and he directed their attention to the Lord. Life wasn’t about him, it was about God. The Lord was the one who gave them the strength and flat-out guts to do this amazing deed. He was the one who was to be honored, not David.
The hero of this entire story is the Lord. David consciously realized this, and made statements to draw attention to the Lord, rather than himself.
The author of Samuel goes on to tell about a few more people whom the Lord used to establish the kingdom of his people, Israel. The next one is Abishai. There are some differences of opinion about the original wording of verses 18-19, about Abishai. Here’s one way it could be:
18 Abishai, Joab’s brother and son of Zeruiah, was leader of the Three. He raised his spear against 300 men and killed them, gaining a reputation among the Three. 19 Was he not more honored than the Three? He became their commander even though he did not become one of the Three. (2 Samuel 23:18-19, HCSB)
Or:
18 Now Abishai, the brother of Joab, the son of Zeruiah, was chief of the thirty. And he wielded his spear against three hundred men and killed them and won a name beside the three. 19 He was the most renowned of the thirty and became their commander, but he did not attain to the three. (2 Samuel 23:18-19, ESV)
This difference is known as a “major variant” in textual criticism. Basically, the main Hebrew textual traditions have it the way the HCSB says it. But there are some early Hebrew texts, as well as a translation of this passage into Syriac (an ancient middle eastern language) that have it as the ESV translates it. The ESV contains a note explaining this.
We don’t know which one of these is closest to the original. You can see that it doesn’t matter theologically at all. What we can know for sure either way is that Abishai is one of the four most honored warriors of David. He’s either number one, and the chief of the three, or he is number four, the chief of the other thirty most elite soldiers.
As we’ve gone through the book of Samuel I’ve found myself admiring Abishai more and more. He shared David’s troubles while David was still an outlaw. He and David performed the amazing feat of sneaking into the camp of Saul and stealing his spear and water jug. He was clearly a fearsome warrior. He often didn’t understand, or agree with, the decisions David made, but he went along with David anyway, and submitted to David’s leadership. For instance, when they were standing next to a sleeping Saul, Abishai wanted to kill Saul, for David’s sake. David said, “no,” and Abishai acquiesced. Much later, Abishai accompanied David when he left Jerusalem in shame, fleeing from Absalom. The man named Shimei insulted David in a cowardly way, and Abishai wanted to kill him, but when David said no, Abishai did as he was told. When they returned in victory, Abishai wanted to kill Shimei again, then, but David still said no, and Abishai, again, obeyed. In other words, he followed David, and obeyed him, even when he didn’t understand, or agree. It boils down to this: he trusted David and David’s leadership even when he didn’t understand it. In that respect, he shows us how we ought to follow Jesus Christ.
In all of this, Abishai was very different from his older brother, Joab. We know that Abishai killed at least 300 enemies in a single battle. He certainly fought in many other battles, presumably killing other enemies. But the scripture never mentions Joab killing enemies in battle, except as a general, in which case he, personally, was not likely involved in the fighting. The only time we know for sure that Joab killed anyone was on the three occasions when he committed murder. And Joab committed those murders explicitly in defiance of David. Joab himself is not honored in this text as one of David’s elite warriors. Even though he was the overall commander of the army as a whole, here, he is only mentioned as Abishai’s brother. He also gets a mention because one of the thirty, Naharai, was his armor-bearer. Abishai had the strength of character to be a better man than his older brother, following God’s chosen leader faithfully, even when he didn’t understand, or fully agree.
The final person singled out for special praise is Benaiah, son of Jehoiada. If you want to think about what kind of a warrior he was, simply remember these things: on a snowy day he chased a lion into a pit and killed it; and on another occasion he faced an imposing Egyptian warrior with a spear, while he only held a wooden staff. He took the spear away from the other warrior, and killed him with his own weapon. Benaiah was younger than many of those named here, and only served David later on in his reign. However, he went on to serve as the chief bodyguard of king Solomon as well. In that capacity, he executed both Shimei and Joab.
Next, we come to the list of “the thirty,” who are, along with the others mentioned, the most fearsome, elite warriors of David. You may notice that the list of “the thirty” includes more than thirty people. It’s not clear whether Abishai is to be counted among them, or Benaiah son of Jehoiada. We know that some of those listed died when David was still relatively young. Asahel was killed before David became king over all Israel. We know, of course, that Uriah was killed when David was middle aged. So “the thirty” is obviously a round number, and there was some change in the composition of the group, but it was a special and exclusive company.
As we read about these people, their names are very foreign to English speakers. Even worse, most of them are also identified by their family or clan name, or possibly the town they are from, and those names are difficult as well. These things make this text hard to follow. Because of this I recommend reading a translation like the New Living Translation, since it simplifies and clarifies the names. The God’s Word version helpfully puts each name on a new line so we can keep track of them more easily, and that also helps us separate the first names from the family names and place names. Of course, what remains are still names that are strange to us.
But maybe these names are there for a reason. After thirty centuries, these names have never been forgotten. God knows his own people, by name. He knows you, too, and your name, if you trust Jesus, is also written in God’s book.
Even though we humans have been broken by sin, there is still part of the amazing image of God that shines through our brokenness. David’s gang of thirty were people who willingly gave themselves to serve David; ultimately, to serve God. Because of that, we see God’s glory through them. We too, are called, broken as we are, to let the glory of God shine through us, as we serve God’s chosen one, Jesus Christ.
Another thing I think we are meant to understand is that David did not become king all by himself. Though he was a remarkable man in many different ways, he needed the help of many others. No one really does anything significant without help from others.
We all need each other. We each need to find our own “gang of thirty” and guard each other’s backs, deal with life side by side together, and cheer one another on. Start with a “gang of three or four,” and build from there. In other words, we need close fellowship with a few other believers who will stand with us when we need it. We need to be prepared to stand with them in times of need, as well. If you don’t have a gang of three or four, or a larger support network, start by asking the Lord to provide that for you, and then keep your eyes and ears open to hear from the Lord who you should spend time with to develop that support network. Remember that these people will not only be there for you, but you should be there for them, as well.
Most of “the thirty” joined David when he was still an outlaw. Some of the others were children, who grew up in David’s nomadic camp, and then joined the thirty when they were older. They traveled with him, fought alongside him, planned, did chores and simply lived life together. They willingly shared David’s hardships and suffering, and, at the end of it all, they also shared in the success and honor of David. They were an important part of the kingdom that David was building.
David was not the messiah, but the Lord used him to show us some things about the true Messiah, Jesus Christ. Jesus invites us into close fellowship with himself. He invites us into everyday life with him. He also sometimes invites us into hardship and suffering; but that suffering is to be alongside him—we are not alone in it. In fact, if our lives truly belong to him (as they do, if, in fact, we trust him) then it is really his suffering that we are sharing in. David’s followers encountered that hardship and suffering as, and because, they went through life with David. Though they all suffered, it was, in a sense, David’s suffering; they shared in it because they were connected with him. In the same way, even our own sufferings are not really our own. We encounter them as we are part of the people of Jesus. So, we are not alone as we suffer. We have God’s own promise that one day the suffering will end, and we will share in the glory.
16 For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. 17 And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering. 18 Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. 19 For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. (Romans 8:16-19, NLT)
When we see the earthly glory that David’s followers shared, we should be encouraged to look beyond. Jesus is better than David. His promises are powerful and real. We can learn to have peace and joy now, no matter what is going on, because we know that one day glory will far outshine the worst sufferings we experience.
16 That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. 17 For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! 18 So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18, NLT)
Finally, we should be reminded that hope does not come from earthly leaders, even really good ones. True hope that lasts is found only in God’s promised messiah, Jesus Christ. In Christ we will be led to our support network. In Christ, we will share in suffering, and in Christ we will share in eternal glory and joy so amazing that we will consider the sufferings of this life not worth mentioning.
The writer of Samuel is using his epilogue (closing part of the book) to emphasize certain themes again and again. One of the most important of these ideas is this: The Lord is the only source of salvation and hope. Even if the people imagined that a king like David could save them again, David’s own words point them not to any human leader, but to the Lord himself.
To listen to the sermon, click the play button:
For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen. You can also find us on Spotify at https://open.spotify.com/show/6KKzSHPFT466aXfNT2r9OD
To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 2 Samuel Part 25
1 SAMUEL #25. 1 SAMUEL CHAPTER 22:1-51.
Let’s remember where we are. The narrative history of the book of Samuel ended with 2 Samuel chapter 20. Chapter 21 does describe a historical incident, but it’s out of chronological order—it happened much earlier in David’s reign. Chapters 21-25 form a six part epilogue, organized according to an ancient writing style called chiastic structure. I want to remind us of the overall picture of this epilogue, because we have now come to the center of the structure.
Part A: A sin, and the need for atonement
Part B: God’s provision of salvation for his people, even when David becomes too old to fight
Part X (our section today): A psalm of David proclaiming that the Lord saves
Part X1: A psalm of David proclaiming that the Lord works through leaders
Part B1: The warriors who helped David save and lead Israel
Part A1: A sin, and the need for atonement, and God’s provision for it.
So we see that our section today (which is all of chapter 22) is building on what has come before.
2 Samuel chapter 22 is almost identical to Psalm 18, but there are quite a few differences between the Hebrew text of 2 Samuel 22 and Psalm 18, and some of those show up in the English translations. Almost all of those differences are due to the fact that the book of Psalms was gathered together and compiled a few centuries after the book of Samuel was written. During those intervening centuries, written Hebrew changed somewhat. Whoever collected the Psalms into one collection updated and standardized them so that all of the psalms used the same, latest form of Hebrew. Our verses today were written in the older form of Hebrew. The small differences between 2 Samuel 22 and Psalm 18 do not change any major teaching of the Bible (nor indeed any minor one).
The beginning of 2 Samuel 22 says:
“1 And David spoke to the LORD the words of this song on the day when the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul.”
Because of the mention of Saul, and a few other things in the psalm, most Bible scholars think that David wrote this when he was a fairly young man, probably around the time when he first became king of all Israel.
Remember, the first section of this epilogue was about the seriousness of sin and the need for atonement. Next came the crisis of the giants, and how the Lord made sure to provide a warrior to save Israel from each one. Now, in the first part of the psalm, David makes the overall theme perfectly clear: God alone is our salvation:
“The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, 3 my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold and my refuge, my savior; you save me from violence. 4 I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies. (2 Samuel 22:2-4, ESV)
The people of Israel may have begun to feel that David was their savior. He saved them from the first giant. He fought the Philistines and won many battles for Israel. He outlasted the unstable, volatile, king Saul. As a new young king, he defeated the Philistines again, more completely. But here he says clearly that salvation and deliverance come only from the Lord. He, David, is not Israel’s savior. That title belongs to the Lord.
Verse 4 is a concept that appears throughout the Bible. To call on the name of the Lord is to worship him, and to give over your life to serving and worshipping him. Abraham “called on the name of the Lord.” So did Isaac and Jacob. Moses and the prophets urged the people to “call on the name of the Lord.”
The apostles made it clear that to call upon the name of the Lord was, in fact, the same thing as receiving and worshipping Jesus Christ. The apostle Peter quoted from one of the prophets when he urged people to receive Jesus:
21 And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ (Acts 2:21, ESV)
Paul wrote:
13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:13, ESV)
To call upon God’s name is to look to him earnestly and trustfully for help. It is to recognize that the only true help comes from the Lord, the only true salvation or deliverance comes from him alone. And as I said, the apostles taught that this was the same thing as receiving Jesus.
So calling on the name of the Lord is not simply saying the name “Yahweh,” or even “Jesus.” It means to worship the Lord, and to follow him, to allow your whole life to belong to him. David, for all his faults, did indeed do that.
In the next section of the psalm, verses 5-7, David talks about being in very serious distress. He called out to God for help in his particular situation. The way I read it, he is talking about the precarious way he lived for almost fifteen years. King Saul wanted him dead, so it wasn’t safe for him to go north into Israel. The Philistines wanted him dead, so it wasn’t safe among them, to the west. If he strayed too far south, the Amalekites were ready to get him. The wilderness he lived in was no picnic either. At different times during that period of his life, David faced all of those dangers.
The person who put together the book of Samuel included this psalm because he wants us to remember that following God did not always mean life was easy for David. We can therefore expect that sometimes life will be hard for us, even if we are faithfully following God.
Next, David gives us a very pictorial, metaphorical representation of how God responded to save him. The most remarkable thing about this is that God in all his majesty and power, cared deeply about David, and came to save him. Again, it was not David who delivered Israel, but the Lord who saved both David and Israel. David ends this section with this:
17 “He sent from on high, he took me; he drew me out of many waters. 18 He rescued me from my strong enemy, from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me. 19 They confronted me in the day of my calamity, but the LORD was my support. 20 He brought me out into a broad place; he rescued me, because he delighted in me. (2 Samuel 22:17-20, ESV)
The next section of the psalm, verses 21-25, is probably the hardest one to stomach. In it David claims that God dealt with him according to his (David’s) own righteousness. In the first place, that can make it sound like we have to be good people before God will help us. Second, we know that David was far from perfect. We know that even before the terrible sins he committed in the Bathsheba incident, he still sometimes forgot to ask the Lord for guidance, or, at other times, he was hot-headed and angry. He didn’t listen to what the Lord said about having many wives.
However, remember, David wrote this in his youth, long before he sinned with Bathsheba and had Uriah murdered. And I think that David, when he talks about being “blameless” here, means that he faithfully followed the Lord in not killing Saul, and in not trying to steal the kingdom for himself. In other words, he isn’t claiming to be blameless in every area of his life, but rather, he is talking specifically about the way he waited patiently for God to make him king, and the times he refused to kill Saul.
Remember when Saul promised that whoever killed the giant would marry his oldest daughter, and be made rich? Saul broke those promises to David. Not only that, but he added conditions onto his public promises. Saul made David kill an additional 100 Philistines before he allowed him to marry his youngest daughter. David did not complain about the broken promises, nor use them as an excuse to serve Saul poorly. Instead, he continued to faithfully serve Saul, even when Saul treated him badly. David is thinking about specific things like this when he says he was “blameless.”
He is saying, in fact, that he knows the Lord gave him the kingdom, because he did get the kingdom for himself. He was “righteous” in not assassinating Saul, and in not leading a rebellion. He goes on:
26 “To the faithful you show yourself faithful; to those with integrity you show integrity. 27 To the pure you show yourself pure, but to the crooked you show yourself shrewd. (2 Samuel 22:26-27, NLT)
This section includes amazing promises, and serious warnings. First, this isn’t about earning our salvation. It’s more like this: if we allow the Lord to build a straight, open pipeline within our hearts and minds, then God can show us his love and goodness directly. When we trust the Lord, He uses that to build an open channel to show us his love and goodness.
On the other hand, when we don’t trust God, we tend to make deals with him, or try to manipulate him into giving us what we want, no matter what. We ourselves throw twists and curves and complications into our relationship with God, and then we blame him because he seems tricky and shrewd to us.
This isn’t actually all that complicated. Imagine a good human father who has two sons. He showers both sons with love, and he also creates strong boundaries with discipline. The first son, Peter, responds by trusting his dad, even when he isn’t always happy about the boundaries, or when he doesn’t understand them. The second son, Eric, wants what he wants, right now. He doesn’t see his dad’s boundaries as loving—he only sees that his dad appears to be denying him what he wants. So he tries his best to subvert the rules, and manipulate his dad, and get what he wants. Peter’s relationship with his dad is likely to be warm and loving, and not super complicated. But Eric will have a totally different experience with the same loving father. Because Eric himself has not responded to his dad in love and trust, his dad will have to find additional ways to discipline him, different ways to relate to him, and get through to him. Because Eric is so fixated on what he wants, his perception is that his dad is standing in the way of that. Therefore, Eric will not easily be able to have an open, honest, loving relationship with his dad, even though it’s the same dad that Peter has, who loves Eric just as much as he loves Peter.
Honestly, I think perhaps David was thinking of Saul when he wrote this part of the Psalm. Both David and Saul served the same loving God. But they had a totally different experience of God because David responded to God in trusting faith, while Saul only tried to use and manipulate God. When we try to make deals with God, or manipulate him, we find that these things backfire on us.
David finished this part of the psalm with this thought:
28 You save a humble people; but your eyes are on the haughty to bring them down. (2 Samuel 22:28, ESV)
This is another concept that is echoed and re-echoed throughout the Bible—in both the Old and New Testaments.
Here are two examples from the New Testament:
6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. (James 4:6-10, ESV)
Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, 7 casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:5-7, ESV)
If we try to claim that we have something worthwhile to offer God, something with which to bargain, we will find God hard and inaccessible. If we think we don’t really need God, or that we can stand in judgment of him, we find that he opposes us. But if we approach him with true humility, with a understanding and attitude that we have nothing whatsoever to bargain with, no claim on him, no reason he should be kind to us, we find that he reaches out toward us in love and grace.
David continues in this psalm with a lot of words about his victories in battles, but if we pay attention as we read it, we notice that David always insists that it is the Lord who brought him victory, not his own skill or athleticism. He can “run through a troop” because the Lord enables him to do it. Over and over, in different ways, David tells us that the Lord alone is the source of hope and salvation. He is not king because he is an amazing person. He is king because God chose him. He did not win battles because he was a great warrior. He won them because he looked humbly to God, and God fought for him. We are meant to hear it clearly: God is the only source of hope and salvation.
One thought is that the way we approach God can have a large influence on our relationship with him. If we approach him like Saul, if our ultimate commitment is to ourselves, or to our own goals and desires, we might find that God seems difficult and tricky. If we approach him with pride or preconditions, we might feel almost like God opposes us. But if we approach him with open faith, and the humility to receive everything from him, even if some of what we receive we’d rather not have, we will find that God is kind and gracious and loving. He opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. If you feel like God has been opposing you lately, give thought to whether you have been humble enough to trust him in all things.
Finally, we need to train our hearts and minds to look to the Lord alone for salvation. And “salvation” doesn’t mean “everything goes the way we want it to.” It means that God has us in his hands, that he will be with us no matter what we face in this present life, and in the life to come we will find joy beyond imagining with the Lord, and with his people.
We have now entered the final section of 2 Samuel. It is arranged according to a typical ancient middle eastern pattern: chiastic structure. This first section shows us that the problem of sin is much worse than we usually imagine. It is meant to show us that we have no hope unless God does something to save us. Thankfully, he has, through Jesus Christ.
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2 SAMUEL #23. 2 SAMUEL 20:1-14
If you look at 2 Samuel chapters 21-24, they seem, at first glance, a bit messy, and even random. These chapters don’t seem to fit with everything else that has been going on. One of the things that is confusing is that up until now, the life of David has been going on mostly from beginning to end. In this last section, however, things appear to be more random, and there are stories from all throughout David’s life.
Some skeptics use this last section as the basis for claiming that these were all just stories that were embellished and put together more or less randomly over time, rather than a carefully written book by an author who had reliable source material and who wrote close to the time of David.
In fact, I myself believe that the narrative arc (that is, the main story) of 2 Samuel ends at chapter 20. However, in chapters 21, 22, 23 and 24, we have a kind of epilogue, a carefully structured end to the book of Samuel. It is not random or haphazard at all.
In our modern western way of thinking we often use outlines like this:
Introduction
Part I
Part II
Part III
Summary/Conclusion.
In ancient middle eastern societies, they also had their own practices in making points. One of them is called “chiastic structure.” A chiastic outline looks like this:
Part A
Part B
Part X (Middle Part)
Part B1 (connects back to part B in some way)
Part A1 (connects back to part A in some way)
If you just look at this arrangement on the page, it looks like the left-hand side of an “X,” or , possibly, a “greater than” sign from mathematics, with the wide end on the left, pointing to the right. This is where it gets its name, since the Greek letter “Chi” (pronounced “kai”) looks like an English “X.”
There are variations on this structure, but you get the idea. As it turns out we can see that 2 Samuel chapters 21-24 form a chiastic structure like this:
A. Plague that ends with an atonement (21:1-14)
B. Battles and Warriors (21:15-22)
X. David’s Psalm (22:1-51)
X1 David’s Last words (23:1-7)
B1 More about warriors and battles (23:8-39)
A1 Another plague and atonement (24:1-25)
When we see it like this, it becomes apparent that this material was carefully arranged, not randomly thrown in at the end. It is arranged differently than a modern author might do it, but by looking at the arrangement, we can better understand what this material would mean to the original readers, and then think about how that meaning could apply to us.
So, in the first place, we need to know that this material is not chronological. Meaning, we are now done with the story of David moving from his youth to his older years. These chapters do add to David’s story, but we are not meant to think that all of these things happened in order, or after the rebellion of Absalom. In fact, it is quite clear that the incident in chapter 25:13-17 actually happened before the one described in 21:15-17. In fact, the one in chapter 25:13-17 occurred when David was much younger, during the events described by chapter 5:17-25.
We will take this section piece by piece. The first piece is in chapter 21:1-14. It could have happened any time during the reign of David. I’m inclined to think it happened before Absalom rebelled, mostly because there is no mention of David’s sin with Bathsheba, or any other disturbance in Israel. Also, because it concerns the family of Saul, I expect it was earlier in David’s reign.
The situation was this:
It started with a famine. This is equivalent to a modern-day economic recession or depression. Times were tough, families were struggling. After three years of this, David began to wonder if there was a spiritual reason for the hardship. When he worshipped and inquired of the Lord (probably through the prophet Gad, and through the Urim and Thummim, the “holy dice”) he learned that the famine was because of something king Saul had done.
There was a group of people known as the Gibeonites. They were not Israelites, but when Israel invaded in the time of Joshua, the Gibeonites had tricked the leaders of Israel into swearing an oath that they would not destroy the Gibeonites. So they had lived for more than four hundred years in Israel’s territory. According to the old agreement, they were essentially a tribe of servant-class people for the Israelites. They kept their part of the agreement, working as laborers for the Israelites, and remaining peaceful. But at some point not recorded elsewhere in the bible, Saul had tried to wipe them out. Essentially, he tried to commit genocide, similar to what Adolf Hitler did to the Jews in the 1930s and ‘40s. Apparently he slaughtered a great many of them, but obviously not all.
Stop for a moment here. The famine came along years later. Saul was dead. The whole nation had repudiated Saul’s family, and chosen David. David had never done anything like Saul’s slaughter. David is now leading the nation, and he had never hurt the Gibeonites. But the entire nation was still punished, years later, for what Saul did.
My first response to this is to think that it was not fair. Why should David’s kingdom pay for something David did not do? Why should the people suffer for a crime they had no part in?
But there is another question here also, and it is equally valid: Why should the Gibeonites suffer? Why should they be denied justice? Would it be right to ignore the crimes that were done to them?
When David heard what the problem was, he spoke to the Gibeonites directly.
He asked the Gibeonites, “What should I do for you? How can I make atonement so that you will bring a blessing on the LORD’s inheritance? ” (2Sam 21:3, HCSB)
There is a key concept here: atonement. The idea is that harm done must be made right; justice must be appeased. When you break a window, you atone for it by paying for a new window. But how do you atone for something like genocide? It would be appalling and offensive to simply suggest we should “just forget about it.”
The Gibeonites told David that they would like to execute seven of Saul’s descendants. David made sure to protect Mephibosheth, son of Jonathan. The seven who were executed were Armoni and Mephibosheth (a different one) – sons of Saul by his concubine Rizpah. The other five were sons of Merab, Saul’s oldest daughter (thus, they were Saul’s grandchildren). If you remember, Merab was originally supposed to be David’s wife. They were hanged, and their bodies were left exposed.
I think there is an important cultural difference between the ancient world and our own. We think of the individual as the most important unit of society. So, we defend the rights of individuals to be free. Our laws primarily protect individuals. But in the ancient world, a person’s family identity was much more important than their individual personhood. So, even though the individuals who were executed did not themselves, murder the Gibeonites (at least we don’t know for sure that they did), both the other Israelites, and they, themselves, would recognize that guilt upon their family is the same as guilt upon them. The execution would not have seemed as unjust to ancient Israelites as it does to us. Family identity, and family honor and shame, was much more important to them than the rights of individuals.
Does this story disturb you at all? I hope so. In such passages, we are meant to be shocked, horrified and put off. This is how bad sin is. This is how completely unattainable holiness is.
In many areas of our lives, we accept that things must add up. If we want lunch from a restaurant, we must pay for it. If we aren’t willing to pay the price, we do not get the food. If we work for x number of hours, we should get paid for those hours. If our employer is unwilling to pay what was agreed, the employment contract is broken. The only way to fix it is for the employer to give what is owed. If we break something that doesn’t belong to us, we must pay for it to be repaired, or replaced.
For another example, we sometimes say, “there is no such thing as a free lunch.” Someone pays for it, even if it isn’t you. The food had to come from somewhere. Someone had to work to grow it, harvest it and cook it.
We understand that similar things are true in the laws of physics that govern the universe. If you jump off a cliff, you will fall to the bottom of it, and if the cliff is high and the bottom is solid, you will die. No one says, “That’s not fair. I want to be able to jump off this cliff without dying.” We understand physical actions have real world consequences.
But for some reason, we seem to think that in terms of moral actions, nothing must be paid for, and nothing has to add up, nothing has to have consequences. We readily accept that there is no such thing as a free lunch, but do we know that there is no such thing as a free lie, or free adultery, or free robbery? Why in the world would we think that moral behavior is exempted from the laws that are so clear in the rest of the universe? Immoral behavior incurs a “moral cost” that will be paid, one way or another.
Imagine you get drunk, and crash your car right into my living room. That action incurs a physical cost. Someone will bear the cost of that accident. If you, or your insurance company don’t pay, then I must bear the cost. If I say, “I’m not paying,” and you also refuse to pay, then I will bear the even greater cost of watching my house become unlivable because the front wall is open to the weather. The cost is there, whether we want it to be or not. It will get paid, one way or another.
This is also true of moral behavior. When we sin, it MUST be accounted for. The balance must be reconciled. Deep down, we know this. It would be a permanent obscenity upon the human race if no one had tried to bring justice upon the perpetrators of the Jewish holocaust. We know that. If someone entered a school and shot dozens of schoolchildren, it would be an insult to all humanity if we simply let the murderer go free. In the case of both of those incidents, however, the moral cost is even more than can be paid by the perpetrators. Executing the school shooter will not eliminate the horrible burden of grief and loss that he caused all of the families of his victims. Such a person cannot make up for his actions. The cost is too great.
If sin isn’t atoned for, it lasts. The cost is too great, and the consequences last. There is no statute of limitation. In the case of the Gibeonites, the atonement required was gruesome and was itself full of tragedy.
This passage shows us the futility of what some religions call “karma.” If it is true that “what goes around, comes around,” then we are doomed. If we need to make up for all of our sins not only in this life, but also for past lives, we will never find rest for our souls. If the sins of previous generations are on our heads, there is no hope. If even “only” our own sins are accounted to us, there is no hope.
Now, if you read this passage, and you think about what I’m saying, there are two possible responses. One response is to say, “Wow! I really need to straighten out my act and get serious.” If that’s your response, you still don’t get it. If this makes you think you need to get it together, you still don’t understand how bad this is.
The only appropriate response to this passage is: “If this is the way things are, I’m dead meat.”
We are all dead meat.
Saul’s sons and grandsons were dead meat. There wasn’t anything they could do to avoid a shameful death. According to the moral law – according to God, if we understand this passage correctly – they deserved it. Nothing would be right until they got what was coming to them.
This is how it stands in the universe. The moral equation must add up. The only way to make it add up is for you to suffer and die. But even though that is the most any of us can pay, that is not really enough. Too many Christians don’t take it seriously enough. When someone tries to straighten out her life and live morally, to be a good person for God, she isn’t taking this seriously.
Imagine a homeless bum who is stupid-drunk. In his intoxication, he kills a woman – someone else’s wife and mother. Now imagine he sobers up, and realizes he’s done something bad. In response, to try and make up for it, he offers the family all the money he has, which amounts to $17.
“I’ve given them everything I have,” he says. “It’ll just have to be enough.”
It’s an insult. It is offensive that he would even offer it, let alone that he would try to pretend that it could make up for what he did, even if it is everything he has. That is just how ridiculous and offensive it is to suppose that we can be good enough to make up for the times when we sin. We are dead meat.
That is what this passage is all about. You have no hope. You have no options. You deserve to die and your attempt to make up for things is so pathetic that it is offensive.
Thankfully, these are not the only verses in the bible. Thankfully, the Lord loves us too much to leave us without hope. But get this straight: there is no hope in your behavior. There is no hope in you straightening out and doing better next time. You can’t dig yourself out of this pit – the walls will come crashing in and bury you.
Too many churches give the impression that Christianity is about getting your act together. It isn’t. That’s entirely false. If you think you can get your act together enough to make up for your moral failings, you aren’t a Christian. Sometimes I think Christians don’t get excited about the “Good News” because they haven’t taken the bad news seriously enough.
The accounts of morality must be balanced. But we can’t do it. And that is why Jesus came to earth. The most appropriate response should be profound gratefulness.
Jesus took our sins upon himself. The balance was paid out through his torturous death. Through faith in him, we were punished by his death. That is what we call atonement. There is no other hope of settling the score.
But in Jesus, that hope is real and true. There isn’t anything you can do. And so he did it all. Our part is to trust that, and accept it with gratitude, and live like it’s true. When we truly believe both the bad news and the good news, Jesus changes us from the inside out. When we know we truly don’t have to measure up, there is a tremendous freedom and joy that brings us even closer to God. We will actually start to live better lives, but not to try and make up for something, rather because we trust that God has already done it,
Pause now, and let the Holy Spirit speak to you today.
As we consider the events of 2 Samuel chapter 20, we can see that David’s prayer for a new heart, and a willingness to obey God have been answered. After his awful mistake with Bathsheba, he returned to following the Lord faithfully, as he did when he was young. The way people responded to David at this time can inform us as we think about how we respond to Jesus Christ.
2 SAMUEL 2024 To listen to the sermon, click the play button:
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2 Samuel #22. 2 Samuel Chapter 20:1-26
Last week we spoke of the political situation at this point in time in Ancient Israel. There are more politics here, but be patient, I think we’ll find some good stuff.
If you remember, after David’s men defeated Absalom and Absalom was murdered by Joab, David waited, to make sure that the Lord wanted him to be king again. I think this is a really important point, and I want us to see how significant it is. If you remember, David had spent at least a couple of years “sliding” further and further away from the Lord, until he was willing to commit adultery, and then murder to cover it up. But after he was confronted by Nathan the prophet, David repented. We looked at his repentance in 2 Samuel #14. During his time of initial repentance, David wrote psalm 51. In that psalm he prayed (among other things):
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me. 11 Do not banish me from your presence, and don’t take your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you. 13 Then I will teach your ways to rebels, and they will return to you. (Psalms 51:10-13, NLT)
We can now see, by David’s actions, that God answered this prayer. David has a new heart, and he is now, once again, willing to obey the Lord, and to teach the Lord’s ways to rebels. He didn’t force his way back into the kingship. In addition, he reached out to the rebels. The key leaders of the rebellion were from his own tribe, the tribe of Judah. Many of the leaders of Judah had betrayed David to follow Absalom, and afterwards they felt ashamed, and concerned about David’s attitude toward them. Even so, David reached out and forgave them, even before they came back and said sorry. He gave Judah the honor of escorting him across the Jordan River on his way back to Jerusalem.
Now, this act of forgiveness and kindness offended the leaders of the other tribes. They had not provided the key support of Absalom’s rebellion, like Judah had; they had talked of bringing David back as king even before Judah had. So they were offended that David reached out to Judah and gave them the honor of escorting him back to Jerusalem.
Apparently while David was returning to Jerusalem and all this was being discussed, a man named Sheba, from the tribe of Benjamin (Saul’s tribe), stepped up and said, essentially, “Fine then. If that’s how David wants it, let’s leave.”
He left, and most of the people of the other ten tribes followed him. The text doesn’t make this clear, but at this point, the leaders of the other tribes simply went home. They were simply choosing not to escort David to Jerusalem.
But Sheba, the man who instigated the walk-out, wanted to take it one step further. He wanted to immediately start another rebellion. However, Sheba was not like Absalom. This was not a carefully laid plot with long preparation. He was only able to get the Berites to join him. Some translations say “Bichrites,” but that is based on the Greek and Latin text of this passage. The original was written in Hebrew, and it says, “Berites.” These “Berites” were probably citizens of the town of Beeroth in Benjamin; it was almost certainly Sheba’s hometown. The Greek and Latin texts probably used “Bichrites” to make it clear that these were the followers of Sheba son of Bichri, who were almost certainly limited to the members of his own extended family (the family of Bichri, so “Bichrites”). The point is, this wasn’t a large rebellion: it was limited to the families from the town of Beeroth, or to put it another way, to the “family clan” of Bichri. So Sheba’s influence was quite limited.
Even so, David thought it best to stamp out the small rebellion quickly. He didn’t want to give it a chance to spread. So he ordered his new military commander, Amasa, to gather the troops.
When Absalom rebelled, he (Absalom) had chosen Amasa to be his general. After the rebellion failed, one of the ways that David reached out to the tribe of Judah was by promising Amasa that he was forgiven, and that he would command the army in place of Joab. Joab had murdered Abner years before this, and at that point he had David’s tolerance, but never again did David approve of him. More recently, Joab murdered David’s own son, Absalom. It happened when they were at war with Absalom, but when Joab came upon him, the battle had already been won, and Absalom was alone, unarmed and helpless. Moreover, David had commanded Joab to capture and spare Absalom if he could. Instead, Joab killed him while he hung helpless and trapped in a tree. So Joab was in disgrace, and David wanted no more part of him. So he replaced Joab with Amasa.
Another reason David made Amasa the new general was to try and mend the relationships he had with the leaders of the tribe of Judah. It was a peace offering to them, showing them he had forgiven them, restoring them to normal relations. In addition, Amasa, like Joab, was one of David’s nephews. In fact, he was Joab’s cousin.
Amasa took too long to gather the army, so in the meantime, David sent Abishai, Joab’s younger brother, after the rebel, with David’s personal force of elite warriors. Joab went along, supposedly to assist his brother. Eventually, Amasa and the army he had raised, met up with David’s forces under Abishai. Joab went up to Amasa. He deliberately allowed his sword to fall out of its sheath as he approached his cousin. He bent down and picked it up, and then, still holding the sword, reached out as if to greet Amasa. Instead, he stabbed him, killing him. This was very similar to what he had done to Abner. Immediately, he took control of the whole army again. He had one of his loyal followers cry out
“Whoever favors Joab and whoever is for David, follow Joab! ” (2 Sam 20:11, HCSB)
The implication is that if you didn’t follow Joab you were against David and for the rebel that they were pursuing. Eventually, Joab’s flunky hid the body of Amasa, so it wouldn’t distract the soldiers as they marched by.
They pursued Sheba and his followers to the northern borders of Israel, where he took refuge in a walled city. There Joab negotiated with a woman with a reputation for wisdom. She begged Joab not to destroy the city. Joab made it clear that their war was against the rebel, not the city. So the citizens executed Sheba, and thus ended the rebellion, and saved their city from destruction.
Now, what do we make of this? It’s a petty, bloody and gruesome chapter in the history of Israel. What would the Lord say to us through it? Well, let’s remember that the whole bible is about Jesus. This chapter is here to show us something about Jesus, or something about ourselves and how we relate to him.
Let’s start with the people from the ten tribes. They began by insisting how much they wanted to honor David, but ended up snubbing him deliberately because they were offended and hurt by the way he forgave his enemies.
Sometimes we might be tempted to behave this way with Jesus. It’s easy to get disappointed with him when he behaves in ways we don’t expect. Sometimes it’s hard to accept that he loves our enemies as much as he loves us. Sometimes what he does or doesn’t do, or the things he allows to happen in our lives, are difficult to understand. Maybe he’s not answering our prayers about our marriage. Isn’t God pro-marriage? I might think: “I’m trying to do the right thing, and work on our marriage instead of giving up on it, but you’re still not answering!” It’s disappointing. Or maybe we’ve been praying for someone we love who isn’t a believer. Doesn’t God want them to be reconciled with himself? Why isn’t he answering my prayers the way I expect him to, based upon the bible? Maybe we feel like God led us to take a certain job, and now it’s not going well. It’s tempting to think: Why would you let me believe that this is what you wanted, Lord? Why would you let me take this job? There are many other possible scenarios, but you get the picture. And so, we feel disappointed in him.
Often we respond by withdrawing from him. Maybe we aren’t overtly rejecting him or rebelling, but we just “go home.” We back off. I understand the hurt feelings we can have sometimes when God doesn’t come through the way we think he ought to. I’ve had them myself, frequently. But he is the king. He can do what he wants to. He is wiser than us, and he sees things we don’t. It’s better to trust him and stay engaged.
Maybe it’s not even Jesus himself, but something he’s doing that he wanted us to be involved in. For example, suppose you feel called to help out with a ministry to the poor. You do, and you truly make a significant difference, but no one recognizes your efforts. In the meantime, they honor people who seem to deserve it less than you. So you back off. I understand backing off a situation like that. But the question is: did the Lord call you to back off, or are you just withdrawing because your feelings were hurt? That can be tough, but the way of maturity in Jesus is to listen to him more than your emotions.
What about Joab? Joab comes across as someone who was always loyal to David, even though David did things he didn’t like. But was it really loyalty? He was loyal when he agreed with David. But we see now, for at least the third time, that when Joab had different ideas, he chose his own way. In fact, this was the third time he committed murder. He did what he wanted, no matter what the king commanded. Loyalty and submission to leadership are only really revealed in hardship and especially in disagreement. If you are only loyal when you agree with a leader, then you are not loyal at all. As we have seen, whenever there was disagreement, Joab chose himself over David.
By and large, Joab looked like a loyal and faithful servant. And, throughout his life, he did a lot for David. But ultimately, he did not buy into who David was and what he was all about. He was offended by David’s compassion and forgiveness. He liked the part where they got to kill their enemies together. He didn’t like the forgiveness part, so he didn’t do that, and he did not let David’s will thwart his own designs. Joab was aligned with the right side. But his heart was all about Joab and what he felt and what he wanted. He did not actually accept David’s wisdom and judgment if it was different from his own.
Sometimes Christians can be that way with Jesus. Usually, these days, it is the reverse of Joab. We like the love and forgiveness stuff. But when it comes to giving up our favorite sins, we choose our own way. Or maybe we’re fine to go to church and sing songs. But when it comes to forgiving someone who has hurt us badly, we hold on to the right to nurse our grudges. We like to be perceived by others as believers, but we won’t listen to the Spirit’s call to be intimately involved in the lives of other believers, or to study the bible. Jesus said something very scary in Matthew chapter seven:
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord! ’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of My Father in heaven. On that day many will say to Me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in Your name, drive out demons in Your name, and do many miracles in Your name? ’ Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me, you lawbreakers!’” (Matt 7:21-23, HCSB)
You can look like a Christian, act like a Christian and talk like one, but not really allow Jesus to change your life. You can even do things for Jesus, but those things won’t count if you don’t really receive him as your savior and king. Joab looked like a friend, but his actions revealed him here as someone completely separated from David and his values. We see how terrible and ugly that was in Joab. In fact, we can see that the fruit of it was pure evil: murder. The same is true for us: the fruit of our own self-will when it is asserted as better than the will of Jesus, is never good.
Finally, consider the wise woman in the town of Abel. At first, the townspeople probably received Sheba into their town willingly. But when they realized the destruction he would bring and that there was no righteousness to his cause, they were willing to get rid of him in a very final way.
This also reminds me of something Jesus said:
If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell! (Matt 5:29-30, HCSB)
The people of Abel realized that they had something in their midst that would lead to their downfall. They got rid of it with awful finality. Sometimes maybe we need to do something similar. Maybe you have a habit of going out after work and having a few drinks before you head home. It might be fine for now, but it could be the kind of thing that ruins your life some day. Or, maybe you fudge the numbers a little bit at work, to make it look like you are doing better than you are. You could justify that because your bosses are themselves dishonest and unfair. But someday, probably sooner than you realize, you need to come clean, or your “fudging” could destroy your life.
Perhaps you have some activity or habit that seems OK at first, and you like it, but Jesus has made you aware that this is a problem in your life. The time to get rid of it is right now, with finality. The people of Abel were considered wise for choosing to get rid of the rebel rather than having their town destroyed. We too, sometimes need to make a wise choice that is hard, even drastic.
Let the Spirit speak to you through the text today.
After Absalom was dead, and his rebellion put down, David encountered various individuals and groups who had conspired against him, or used the situation in some way to their own advantage. These people ranged from cowards to treasonous quislings. David, once again with the power of kingship, chose not to punish them, but rather, to forgive them. His kindness and grace to such despicable people comes across as offensive; outrageous, even. In this way, David reminds us once more of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, whose forgiveness to undeserving people is also outrageous. God’s grace is for those who don’t deserve it. We must never forget that.
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2 Samuel #21 . 2 Samuel Chapter 19:9-43
The second half of chapter 19 appears to be mostly a detailed record of the political history of that time. This was valuable and significant to the ancient Israelites who lived not long after David’s time. It is still interesting today to historians, and bible-geeks like me. But what is the point of it really?
I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I think it is important to revisit it periodically. We all tend to forget. The Holy Spirit made sure first that this history was written; second, that it was preserved through the years; and third, that it was included in the bible. So there must be some reason for this. There must be some way the Lord wants to speak through it to Christians living today.
Sometimes, in order to hear what the Lord wants to say today, we first need to understand it better. So please bear with me. I think we’ll find some fruitful bible application here if we pay attention to details that might otherwise seem tedious.
Here’s the situation. David’s army has defeated and killed Absalom, who had rebelled against him and set himself up as king in David’s place. There were no computers or telephones or newspapers in those days, so it took a while for the news of David’s victory to spread. Meanwhile, David seems to have waited. This might seem a little bit strange. But remember who David is. He has many faults, to be sure, but he has never grasped at power. Instead, he always waited for the Lord, even refusing to take opportunities to gain the kingdom when he was younger. It is my opinion that once Nathan confronted him about the Bathsheba incident, David once again became like the person he was when he was younger. All of his confidence was once more in the Lord. So here, he once more waits until he is sure that the Lord still wants him as king. He doesn’t want the civil war to continue, so he waits until he is sure he can return in peace. This is David once more at his best, trusting the Lord.
The writer of Samuel often makes a distinction between the tribe of Judah and the other eleven tribes of Israel. Often when he writes “Israel” he appears to mean the tribes as distinct from the tribe of Judah. This shows us that there was some tension between those two factions even in the time of David. In the time of David’s grandsons, the nation was split. Judah absorbed most of the tribe of Benjamin and became a separate nation named “Judah” (from which we get the word, “Jew”). The other ten tribes formed a kingdom to the north of Judah, which was called “Israel.” I’m of the opinion that it was shortly after this split that someone took the writings of the prophets Samuel, Nathan and Gad, along with some official court history, and made it all into the books of First and Second Samuel.
After Absalom’s rebellion, people from the other tribes began talking about inviting David back officially, and officially receiving him once more as king.
Now Israel had fled every man to his own home. 9 And all the people were arguing throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying, “The king delivered us from the hand of our enemies and saved us from the hand of the Philistines, and now he has fled out of the land from Absalom. 10 But Absalom, whom we anointed over us, is dead in battle. Now therefore why do you say nothing about bringing the king back?”
Apparently, the people really had committed to Absalom. They said he was the one they had anointed to be king over them. This wasn’t as strange as it might seem. After all, he was the king’s son and heir. I’m sure many people assumed that sooner or later, Absalom would be king anyway, and why not have him in the full vigor of his youth? But now, he was gone. I would have thought that at this point it was a clear choice to go back to David, but the people still seemed at a loss. Even so, from most of the tribes, sentiment turned back toward David.
But the tribe of Judah did not seem to know what to do. At first, this seems strange, since David was from the tribe of Judah. But then, so was Absalom, David’s son. Absalom’s rebellion was conceived and carried out in Hebron, the chief city of Judah. Absalom’s military commander, Amasa, was a relative of his (and David’s) from the tribe. In fact, most of his inner circle were probably from Judah. In other words, although they were David’s people, they were also Absalom’s people, and they were probably chiefly responsible for the rebellion.
David reached out to them. He sent a message to the leaders of the tribe of Judah, saying,
‘Why should you be the last to restore the king to his palace? The talk of all Israel has reached the king at his house. 12 You are my brothers, my flesh and blood. So why should you be the last to restore the king? ’ 13 And tell Amasa, ‘Aren’t you my flesh and blood? May God punish me and do so severely if you don’t become commander of the army from now on instead of Joab! ’ ” 14 So he won over all the men of Judah, and they sent word to the king: “Come back, you and all your servants.” (2Sam 19:11-14, HCSB)
As David made his way back, he was met at the Jordan river by a host of people who wanted the honor of escorting him to Jerusalem. What follows was a slightly sickening display of sycophancy. People ended up arguing amongst themselves about who got to show David honor, and who was honoring him more (19:40-43).
Along with the leaders of the tribe of Judah, one of the first people to come meet him was Shimei. You may remember him from 2 Samuel 16:5-13, which we covered in Part 18 of this sermon series. This was the man who cursed David and pelted him with rocks and dust as he fled from Absalom. When David was down, he piled on with insults and taunting, rubbing David’s face in the humiliation, exulting in David’s misfortune and shame. Shimei did not just mess up and make a mistake – what he did was clear and deliberate. Now that David was king again, Shimei came fawning to him like a disobedient dog, begging forgiveness. Clearly, he wouldn’t have had this attitude of Absalom had won. I don’t know about you, but I think that Shimei was pond-scum. His behavior and attitude are despicable, detestable, the lowest and ugliest forms of hypocrisy and cowardice. He is a jerk, plain a simple, the kind of person I want nothing to do with.
And David forgave him.
Stop for a second, and think on that. Let it sink in.
Let’s be honest. David’s forgiveness and compassion are offensive. Abishai, brother of Joab suggests, as he did before, that Shimei would be a more attractive person if his head was removed. I tend to agree with Abishai. But David did not.
Does this remind you of anything? The love and compassion of Jesus were also offensive. The Pharisees were offended that he would eat with tax collectors and known sinners. He allowed a prostitute to kiss his feet in public, and wash them. It offended them.
I think once more, this text is a far-off picture of Jesus, the ultimate anointed savior of God’s people. It isn’t really about David, it is about Jesus, his wisdom and love, and how people respond to him. So let’s consider the rest of this text in that light.
We’ve been talking about Shimei. His sin was obvious and deliberate. There was no excuse for it. It wasn’t a momentary slip. It revealed an ugly character. Even so, David offered him forgiveness and redemption. Jesus does the same. That’s right, Jesus came to redeem and forgive class-A jerks, cowards and crawling hypocrites. It is offensive sometimes, to think Jesus would forgive someone that I want to hate so much. But he does.
Abishai was like me. Shimei’s character was clear to him. He was offended by David’s compassion and mercy. But David rebuked him. Sometimes we really are offended by the idea that Jesus would forgive certain people. Would he forgive a child-molester? Based on what I know of the bible, the answer is “yes.” Jesus is king, and he can forgive who he pleases. He does not answer to us.
But as an illustration, I do want to finish the story of Shimei, though it does not end for many years. When David was dying, he told Solomon to watch out for Shimei. So, even though David forgave him, he certainly saw the truth about what kind of person he was. Solomon made a just and fair ruling for Shimei, allowing him to live in peace if he would show his obedience and faithfulness by never leaving Jerusalem. Shimei, revealing his true character, agreed, but then ignored the agreement when it became inconvenient. As a result, Solomon had him executed. So in the end, forgiveness did Shimei no good, because he did not allow it to touch his heart and change the kind of person he was.
In the same way, the forgiveness of Jesus does not help those who don’t truly repent, who don’t allow him to work in their lives. Jesus sees all, so we can let ultimate judgment rest with him. He knows what’s really in each person’s heart, and responds accordingly. You can’t be truly repentant without letting God’s love change you.
Back to David, the next person to arrive was Ziba. At this point, Ziba was revealed as a trickster and manipulator, because right behind him was Mephibosheth, whom Ziba was supposed to serve. Mephibosheth revealed how Ziba took advantage of his disability, and took the donkey that was supposed to be for him, and lied, telling David that Mephibosheth rejoiced over David’s trouble. Mephibosheth had not washed his clothes, or cared for his hair or feet since David left. In those days, anyway, it was not possible to fake long fingernails and toenails. Mephibosheth’s physical condition proved that he was telling the truth.
So, David reversed his previous declaration, that Ziba should have all of Mephibosheth’s property, which was, no doubt, why Ziba lied in the first place.
Even so, even though he tried to trick his master Mephibosheth, David told Mephibosheth to divide the land between him and Ziba. This amounts to forgiveness, and even a reward, for the trickster and manipulator, Ziba. There it is again, that offensive forgiveness.
Mephibosheth’s response shows that his loyalty was always true. He didn’t care about the land, as long as David was safe, and king again. I mentioned before that Mephibosheth is a great picture of God’s grace. Unlike Shimei, the grace he received through David changed him permanently. He didn’t just want what David could give him. He wanted the best for the king that saved him, and he wanted fellowship with him, whether he had blessings from him or not. Mephibosheth rejoiced that David was back and safe, far more than he rejoiced about being vindicated in the dispute with Ziba.
This is an encouragement to me to have a similar attitude. It isn’t about what Jesus can do for me in this life. It isn’t about me getting what I think I deserve, or being proved right. It is about loving Jesus and being in relationship with him. You can’t manufacture that. It only comes when you love Jesus for who he is. If you feel like you lack that kind of love (as I often do), ask the Holy Spirit to give it to you.
One of the people who helped David in his exile was an old man named Barzillai. David blessed him and rewarded him, though again, Barzillai wanted no other reward than the safety of the king, and in fact, was too old to enjoy any of the blessings David wants to bestow. So too, I find it helpful to remember that even though Jesus sometimes offends me by his radical forgiveness of people whom I think are undeserving, he does also love his faithful servants. He does not forget them, or offer them less than anyone else. Maybe, like Barzillai, we don’t enjoy the blessings in this life. Even so, Jesus offers us blessing and joy that can never spoil or fade.
Another group to consider is the leaders of the tribe of Judah. They made a deliberate choice to follow Absalom instead of David. But before they even repented, David was reaching out to them, forgiving them, restoring them to a relationship with him. So Paul writes about Jesus in Romans 5:
For while we were still helpless, at the appointed moment, Christ died for the ungodly. For rarely will someone die for a just person — though for a good person perhaps someone might even dare to die. But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us! (Rom 5:6-8, HCSB)
Jesus’ love and forgiveness is given time and again to those who don’t deserve it – because no one deserves it. So, if you think you are unworthy, you are correct. But that doesn’t stop Jesus from giving you grace and forgiveness anyway. You may think someone else is unworthy. You are also correct about that. But if you don’t want the Lord to forgive them, you cannot have forgiveness yourself. We are all unworthy. Instead of being resentful about how God forgives others, be grateful about how he forgives you.
Abishai was not the only one who took offense at the mercy of God that David showed to all who would see. The ten other tribes of Israel were also offended that even though they were the ones who first talked of bringing David back, it was the tribes of Judah and Benjamin who got the honor of doing so.
In Jesus’ time, the Pharisees were also offended at Jesus’ graciousness. In those days, the Roman government and the provincial government were corrupt and horribly oppressive. Roman soldiers often raped local women and got away with no repercussions. Government officials took whatever they wanted, including, at times, the daughters of Jewish families. Tax collectors were Jewish people who worked for these awful Romans and got them the money they needed to maintain their power. Not only that, but they could collect whatever tax they wanted. So if the Roman and local taxes equaled six months labor, the tax collector could add whatever he wanted on top of that to make himself rich. Some people ended up as slaves because they couldn’t pay their taxes. Therefore, tax collectors were deeply hated, and with good reason. They were like Nazi collaborators in German occupied Holland or France during WWII. And yet Jesus forgave tax collectors. He fellowshipped with them. It was offensive.
God offers not only amazing grace. He offers outrageous grace. This is good news, and a tremendous comfort for those who know they need it, but it can be dangerous when we think only certain people should be allowed to receive God’s grace. The very essence of grace is that it is given to those who don’t deserve it.
I think that may be a key. If the forgiveness and mercy of God to others offends you, is it possible that perhaps you do not realize how much you yourself need that same grace? Jesus said:
“Blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” (Matthew 11:5-6, ESV)
These two chapters of the Bible show us that David has returned to the confident, humble faith of his youth. He is willing to take on personal danger in order to spare others. When people insult him, he refuses to punish them, but patiently entrusts himself to the Lord. In this, he reminds us of Jesus, the Messiah. The way people responded to David at this point in his life also show us the ways that various people react to Jesus.
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2 Samuel #18 . 2 Samuel Chapters 15:1-16:29
Some weeks we get into details about a text. This week, we’re going to fly through two chapters. Even so, we’re only going to cover one part of a much larger story concerning David’s son Absalom. There is a kind of smorgasbord of spiritual truths here. Feast on whatever the Lord has to say to you through this today.
After David restored Absalom to his official position as prince, Absalom began laying the groundwork for a coup. He started by running a popularity contest against David – a contest David didn’t even know was going on.
Absalom was good looking. Once he was “official” again, he began to act charmingly also. He spent time with the people. He appeared to sympathize with their problems. Very subtly, he planted doubts in their minds about David. When they tried to honor him as their prince, he forestalled them, and treated them as equals and good friends. By doing this, Absalom won the hearts of a great many people.
David was a worshipper of God and a warrior. Though he failed at times, he rarely compromised his principles. Almost always, David cared much more about what God thought of him than what the people thought. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about his people—it’s just that his way of caring and leading was oriented toward seeking the Lord, and leading the nation based upon what God wanted. For David, it wasn’t about being popular or satisfying the desires of the people. He felt, rightly, that if he was right with the Lord, then the Lord could use him to do his will for the nation of Israel.
However, the people were not as concerned with God as they were with themselves. So they were susceptible to someone like Absalom, who also appeared to be concerned with their desires. Absalom made sure he looked good. He always appeared sympathetic and engaging.
David was “old school.” He wasn’t a friend to the people—he was a leader. He stuck to his guns, because he believed right was right.
The people loved Absalom because they loved themselves more than God. If it was a choice between someone who followed God or someone who made them feel good, they wanted the one who made them feel good. We’ve already seen some things about Absalom’s character. He was ambitious for himself. He was arrogant. He wanted his own way, and worked to get it, regardless of the cost to others. He never admitted wrong, never repented, never said “thank you,” or “sorry.” But the people saw only the engaging, personable, friendly guy. They were too concerned with outward appearances.
There is no record of Absalom ever consulting the Lord about anything. And ultimately, he was not the Lord’s choice for king. But the people didn’t think about such things. They were already ready to repeat the mistake they made with Saul.
There is a classic scene in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. The four hobbits have met a tall, stern, grim looking man. He tells them that he was sent by their friend, the wizard Gandalf to help them. They discuss whether or not they can trust him. Finally, Frodo, leader of the hobbits says something like this:
“I think one of the enemy’s spies would – well, seem fairer and feel fouler, if you understand.”
In other words appearances are often deceiving. So it was with Absalom. He seemed fairer and better than David. But on the inside he was already rotten. He looked and seemed like the better leader. But it was the grim, steadfast old David who was the best king the people could have had, in fact, as history showed, one of the best kings Israel ever had.
I spend time on all this because I think we are often like the people who were duped by Absalom. It’s so easy to judge by external things like looks and charm. It’s so easy to fall for a leader or lover who looks good and makes you feel good about yourself and himself – at least superficially. This is also true of ideas. Ideas and principles that make you feel good about yourself can be very seductive.
I want to encourage the people of God to not judge by shallow things like appearance or personal charm, or even by feelings. Sometimes it takes some hard work to realize that goodness doesn’t always immediately feel good.
In any case, Absalom was able to win over enough people to attempt a coup to dethrone David (and probably kill him). It is interesting to see David’s attitude toward his son. He had no illusions about Absalom. As soon as he heard the news, he knew that his son would kill him if he could. Even so, that never changed David’s love for him. Later we’ll see that when it came to battle, David tried to protect Absalom, and he was deeply grieved when his son was killed. David did what he had to, to protect himself and take care of the kingdom God had given him – but he never wavered in his love for his son.
That is sometimes how it is with us and the Lord. The Lord has no illusions about us. He knows who we truly are—the good, and also the bad. And yet, God loves us with an unwavering love anyway. He’s always hoping we can be saved from destroying ourselves. He’s always hoping we will reconcile with him rather than be killed.
Here is where we begin to see that David has returned to the steadfast trust in the Lord that he had as a young man. Absalom began his coup in the city of Hebron. David got the news when he was in Jerusalem. If you remember, Jerusalem at that time was a walled city on top of a ridge, with an internal water source. Years earlier, David and his men had conquered the city through the water shaft, but David quickly built defenses to stop that happening again, now that he had the city. Before the water shaft was protected, people had considered Jerusalem to be unconquerable, and so now it was even more so. Therefore, the commonsense option for David was to shut the gates of Jerusalem and make Absalom try to conquer the city. Even if Absalom were able to surround Jerusalem entirely, it would have taken a year or two to starve them out. During that time, other allies might have come to David’s aid, or Absalom’s followers might have second thoughts. However, that route would have involved a lot of hardship for the people of Jerusalem, and many of Absalom’s men would also have been killed. David said:
“Hurry! If we get out of the city before Absalom arrives, both we and the city of Jerusalem will be spared from disaster.” (2 Samuel 15:14)
So, instead of staying where it was safe, David left the city, and allowed Absalom to come in unopposed. This shows that David was willing to trust God. He didn’t need to hold on to the advantage of the walled city. Instead, he spared the people much suffering, and took the burden upon himself.
Because of this choice, David had to run for his life. This had to be tough for him. When David was a young man, for more than a decade he had lived on the run in the wilderness. Life was physically difficult in those days. He was not respected or honored for who God made him to be. He was not recognized for his gifts. God’s promises did not seem to be fulfilled. Finally, he came through all of that and became king. If you remember, just a few years later, he ended up back in one of his old hide-outs, eluding the Philistine invaders (2 Samuel 5:17-25). He came through that. And now, well into middle age – perhaps almost sixty years old, he was back yet again, running for his life, not respected, not living out what God had promised him. In some ways, this might have been even harder. When he was young, he didn’t know exactly how it would feel to be king. But now, he knew what he was missing. And now too, he had a family to take care of. He brought his wives with him. Solomon was probably about ten years old at this point. There were other children also. I should note that he left his ten concubines behind him, because that comes up later on.
But in spite of this hardship, David did not turn away from the Lord. This would have been a time when it would be very easy to be bitter. David followed God faithfully for most of his life. True, he had failed at times, but he certainly had more than his share of trouble. Did he really deserve things to be this bad, for this many years of his life? Following God did not spare him from trouble and hardship. But he had a better hope than just a comfortable life on earth. And so as he went, we can see the grace oozing out of him. When people insulted him, he was not angry. He didn’t demand help from anyone. He went out in humility and trust.
The people seemed to have had three basic reactions to David during this period of his life. The first is shown to us in the person of Ziba. If you remember, Ziba was the man whom David made manager of the estate of Mephibosheth, son of Jonathan, whom David had treated so kindly. Ziba gathered some much needed supplies and brought them to David. This was a welcome thing, and a great help to David. But it turns out that perhaps Ziba did this deceptively, for his own gain. We find out later that Ziba lied about Mephibosheth, slandering him in the hope that if David triumphed over Absalom, he, Ziba, would be rewarded with Mephibosheth’s estate. Mephibosheth, if you remember, was lame, and so Ziba took advantage of that to come see David, while not allowing his master to come. So Ziba supported David, but with the purpose of gaining something in the end. On the other hand he likely had very little to lose by doing what he did if David never came back. After all, it wasn’t his own food that he gave David. He surely took it from Mephibosheth’s supplies. There were others who doubtless supported David by way of hedging their bets, hoping to gain his favor if he triumphed, and having little to lose if he didn’t.
There was a second common reaction to David in all of this. Shimei was a relative of Saul’s, and he cursed David, throwing dust and stones at him as he left Jerusalem. David’s response reveals that he is once more a man whose heart belongs entirely to God. David’s nephew Abishai, one of his great warriors, offered to go relieve Shimei of his head (Abishai was the brother of Joab). But David restrained him. Nathan had told David (2 Samuel 12:10-12) that one of the consequences of his sin would be rebellion from within his own family. David was back to his good place in his relationship with God. His circumstances were a mess, but once more, his heart was fixed entirely on the Lord. So when Shimei cursed him, David humbly accepted whatever the Lord was doing. He trusted the Lord to straighten things out, if Shimei was wrong. There were others, obviously, who sided with Absalom and rebelled against David. David’s personal advisor, Ahithophel was one prominent one. It may be that David wrote Psalm 55 at this point. The close friend that David refers to in that Psalm was very likely Ahithophel.
Finally, a third group of people remained steadfastly with David, come what may. Ittai was a Philistine warrior who had left his home; he led a battalion of six hundred Philistines who had pledged allegiance to David. David released them from their pledge and urged them to return to their homeland, but they refused. For them it was not about being blessed or having good times. They were in it for forever, for good or for bad, no matter what. The two priests, Zadok and Abiathar, were like that, as was one of David’s advisors, Hushai. David sent them back to Jerusalem as spies, and they remained loyal to him.
Remember how David is a “type of Christ?” It shows up again here. Jesus did not return the curses and insults of those who reviled him. I think it is helpful for us to look at how people responded to David, and see ourselves, in how we respond to Jesus.
There are some people who follow Jesus, or at least, who are sympathetic to him, because even though they aren’t sure about him, they want to keep their options open. Maybe they want something from him. So they hedge their bets. They come to church. They try to manipulate Jesus into blessing them, in case he is in a position to do so. But they aren’t following him because he is the chosen one of God. They are doing it in hope for their own gain.
Others simply reject Jesus, particularly when it seems like he’s not a winner. These folks may seem to go along with the Lord for a while. But when something comes along that seems more attractive, or that makes them feel better about themselves, they desert the Lord and go along with the new thing. Sometimes they may reject Jesus because they mistakenly thought that the main thing he was supposed to do was make their lives on earth better, and when trouble came, they weren’t spiritually prepared.
And finally, there are those who remain faithful through everything. Sometimes their faithfulness costs them a great deal of suffering and hardship. Sometimes it brings peace or joy. But they follow in the certain hope that this life could never hold everything they want or desire. They are seeking their heavenly home. The book of Hebrews talks about them, and people like those loyal to David:
13 These all died in faith without having received the promises, but they saw them from a distance, greeted them, and confessed that they were foreigners and temporary residents on the earth. 14 Now those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they were thinking about where they came from, they would have had an opportunity to return. 16 But they now desire a better place — a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them. (Heb 11:13-16, HCSB)
Let the Holy Spirit speak to you today. Maybe you need correction because your focus is on external things. Perhaps, like those who listened to Absalom, you are swayed by what looks good or what makes you feel good, and you need to be reminded not to judge based upon shallow appearances.
Or, maybe you need to be reminded that the life of faith always has ups and downs, that real saints throughout the ages have had many struggles in their lives. The trick is not to avoid struggles, but to let God’s grace surround you, and come out of you, when you are in them.
Maybe you are being challenged about the way you follow Jesus. Maybe you have been focusing more on your own personal gain. Perhaps you are susceptible, because of pain or struggle, to rejecting Jesus all together. Hear God’s gracious invitation to faith today.
This Old Testament narrative reveals profound insight into redemption, forgiveness and the tension between Truth and Love. This scripture points beyond itself to Jesus Christ as the only satisfying answer to our need for both justice and reconciliation.
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2 SAMUEL #17. 2 SAMUEL 13:37-14:24
Remember the horrible story: David’s firstborn son, Amnon, the crown prince, raped his half-sister, Tamar, who was full sister to David’s next son, Absalom. Absalom killed his half-brother Amnon, and then ran away to Geshur, which was the kingdom of his grandfather.
David mourned for his firstborn son. He had turned out to be a rapist, but nobody is just one thing, and that’s important for us to remember. This isn’t just a story, it’s about real people, who are usually a very complicated mix of good and bad. David probably mourned for what Amnon had become, as well as the loss of any opportunity for Amnon to become a better man. And certainly, David simply mourned because he lost someone he loved.
But after three years, David put Amnon’s loss behind him. Now he mourned for the second son he had lost—Absalom. But of course, Absalom wasn’t dead, just banished from Israel. Remember, when it came to Amnon, David did not know how to reconcile both love and justice, and he erred on giving love without justice.
Now, with Absalom, he is making the opposite error. He has banished him forever, which was his attempt at justice, but he has not provided for any way to love Absalom.
It is interesting that Joab is the one who does something about this state of affairs. A little history about Joab is useful here. If you remember, Joab was the son of David’s sister, Zeruiah (therefore, he was David’s nephew). He had two brothers, Abishai and Asahel. After Saul’s death, during a battle with Saul’s son’s men, Asahel insisted on fighting Saul’s old war leader, Abner. Abner didn’t want to engage with Asahel, and it seems that when he did kill him, it was almost by accident (2 Samuel 2:12-23).
Joab did not forgive Abner for killing his brother in battle, and he later tricked him and murdered him while there was a truce between them (2 Samuel 3:20-30). This shows us something about Joab. He was not like David. He did not have any use for grace or forgiveness. He didn’t even have a sense of honoring any kind of agreement with an adversary. Instead, once someone was his enemy, he wanted to kill him, no matter what. There was no change of heart for Joab. You saved the people on your own side, and you killed the ones who weren’t.
With regard to Absalom, I think Joab was thinking two things. First, Absalom had killed a rapist and I’m sure that such a thing met with Joab’s approval. That’s the sort of thing that Joab himself would have done, and had done. Joab understood it, he probably had sympathy with Absalom because he was suffering for doing the kind of thing that Joab himself would do. So, I think that Joab approved of Absalom as his kind of prince. Second, Joab knew that David did not trust him since his murder of Abner. He wanted to get back into David’s good graces. Joab thought, rightly, that David needed some kind of excuse to forgive Absalom, so he cooked up the scheme that the wise woman presented to David in chapter 14.
To finish out the story, at Joab’s prompting, a woman came and presented a story to David, much like Nathan the prophet had done in confronting David about adultery and murder. The story was basically the same situation as the one with Absalom. As expected, David got into the story, and proclaimed that the woman should not have her only remaining son executed for murder, but that he should be given mercy.
Obviously, the point of the whole exercise was verse 13, in which she says that David’s own judgment tells him he should forgive Absalom.
13 She replied, “Why don’t you do as much for the people of God as you have promised to do for me? You have convicted yourself in making this decision, because you have refused to bring home your own banished son.
However, there are important differences in this event compared to the story told by Nathan the prophet. First, David had not sinned in any way. Absalom should have been banished. In fact, he should have been executed. Second, Absalom’s situation is actually not really like the fake situation cooked up by Joab and the woman. In her scenario, her sons got into a fight, and in the heat of the moment, one of them was killed. She had only the one remaining son, and if he was executed for murder, she would be destitute, and her family name would be erased from the people of Israel. That is not like the situation of David and Absalom at all. Absalom did not kill his brother in the heat of the moment. He waited two years, and schemed it all out carefully. It was utterly premeditated. And he was not David’s only remaining son, either.
Even so, David was willing to listen, and respond graciously. I think sometimes we in the 21st century don’t understand what a big deal that was. David was king in 1000 BC. We read his psalms in the Bible, and we see his heart for God. We see, rightly, that he was God’s man. But culturally, he was still an ancient king and warrior. Such people were held in great awe, and had as much power as any dictator that has ever lived. If you got him angry, even accidentally, you could end up dead in a heartbeat. So, the woman who told him the story was, in a very real way, risking her life. So was Joab. That is, Joab was risking both her life, and his own.
I think Joab was a complicated person. There is no doubt he felt personal loyalty to his uncle, David, and probably even admiration. He also got very frustrated with David at times, and felt that David sometimes looked weak or cowardly. Joab had seen David do amazing and courageous things, so he couldn’t believe David was actually weak, or a coward, but it is clear that he never understood David’s heart for God, and therefore he deeply disagreed with many of the decisions that David made. In addition, Joab in the past had utterly refused to forgive or reconcile with those he thought had done wrong (like Abner). Because of that, he would have no standing at all to tell David to forgive. David could rightly call him a hypocrite for suggesting that he forgive Absalom.
In any case, Joab knew that David wanted someone to tell him to bring Absalom back, and Joab knew it couldn’t be him, because David hadn’t trusted him since he murdered Abner. So Joab was trying to help David. But I think that Joab also admired Absalom for being bold enough to kill his enemy. Finally, I think perhaps Joab thought that Absalom might be king one day, and it wouldn’t hurt for the next king to owe him a favor.
So, David allowed Absalom to return to Israel, but he was forbidden to see David, the king. It was a kind of combination of justice and love, but it was a weak and ineffective one. Absalom was not grateful to either David, or Joab, and he didn’t thank either one of them. Absalom was not repentant in any way. He was, however, ambitious, and he needed to have the king’s official blessing for a little while in order to fulfill his ambitions. So, he tried to get Joab to help him again. When Joab ignored him, Absalom set fire to one of his fields. Finally, Absalom got Joab to do what he wanted, and David fully restored him as a prince in Israel. But I think Joab realized at that point that Absalom was not likely to remember that he owed favors to anyone except Absalom. Absalom’s mistreatment of Joab, and his lack of gratitude, had fatal consequences for Absalom in the future. Again, it is significant that nowhere here did Absalom show any sign of repentance or remorse.
One of the things that jumps out at me from this chapter is the tension between justice and reconciliation, between truth and love. We talked about this last time, but I want to draw out the importance of this in our relationships and churches.
We human beings are very bad at holding truth and love together at the same time. Usually, we err on one side or the other. David certainly did so. With both Amnon and Absalom, David tended to prioritize love and mercy at the expense of justice and truth. With both people, that backfired in spectacularly tragic ways.
Many churches, and even whole Christian movements, also tend to err on one side or another. I know of a small church near us where the pastor often publicly shames people who come to Sunday morning worship. I heard from someone who was there that one day he proclaimed to the church that a young woman was sleeping with her boyfriend. The pastor made this declaration while the young woman herself was present at the worship service. If his information about her was correct, the pastor was right about one thing: the young woman and her boyfriend were sinning, and they needed to know that their actions were jeopardizing their relationships with the Lord. But the way the pastor went about communicating that makes me sick to my stomach. There was no love or kindness in that pastor’s actions. He had truth, yes, but no mercy or compassion. His approach would likely generate anger, or shame, or both, but I doubt it led to repentance.
To make it perfectly clear: scripture does tell us in several places that we ought to speak to Christians who are openly sinning, and to make the truth known to them. For example:
1 Brothers and sisters, if a person gets trapped by wrongdoing, those of you who are spiritual should help that person turn away from doing wrong. Do it in a gentle way. At the same time watch yourself so that you also are not tempted. 2 Help carry each other’s burdens. In this way you will follow Christ’s teachings. (Galatians 6:1-2)
It is not OK to deliberately, consistently, live a lifestyle of sinning. The truth of scripture should be proclaimed generally, including clear words about things that God declares are sinful. Also, people who have meaningful relationships with a Christian who is living in sin should speak to that person specifically in the hopes of leading them to repentance. But the Bible tells us clearly that such a process should be done first of all in love and gentleness, and when applied to a specific person, it should begin with a private conversation. So, truth without love can be harsh and legalistic, and drive people either to despair, and sometimes to turn away from God.
On the other hand there are churches who prioritize “love” over truth. In such places, out of sensitivity to the feelings of others, the leaders proclaim that some things that the bible calls sins are not, in fact, sinful. Not even people who are openly living sinful lifestyles are confronted. The message seems to be that God affirms and loves everyone, so the way you live doesn’t actually matter. The truth about God’s holiness and justice is lost.
And frankly, love without truth ceases to be loving. If you truly love an addict, you won’t “affirm” him in his addiction. If someone is walking toward the edge of a cliff but believes she is perfectly safe, it is not loving to affirm her course of action.
I think one of the most damaging lies these days is the idea that to tell someone the truth, when the truth will force them to face the idea that they are sinful and wrong, is less loving than simply accepting them how they are, no matter what.
So, Truth without love is harsh, condemning and legalistic. It offers no hope.
Love without truth leads to compromise and eventually it fails to be loving at all. It also offers no hope for change.
I know that here in the Southeast USA, there are a number of Christians and churches who emphasize truth at the expense of love. I do not give them a pass. Truth without love ultimately condemns all people, even those who prefer truth over love. This approach does not honor Jesus Christ.
On the other hand, I think the overall practice of our culture, including a majority of churches in America and the Western world, is to try to prioritize love over truth. We don’t like to suggest that anyone is wrong, or sinful, or needs to address things that are painful, but true. We offer only affirmation, and not correction. As I just said a minute ago, when this is pushed very far, it ceases to be loving. We end up affirming people every step of the way on their journey away from God.
The wise woman who confronted David said something very profound:
14 All of us must die eventually. Our lives are like water spilled out on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. But God does not just sweep life away; instead, he devises ways to bring us back when we have been separated from him. (2 Samuel 14:14, NLT)
This was said one thousand years before the time of Jesus. I think it was a kind of prophecy, because it sounds exactly like the gospel as we find it in the New Testament.
6 When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. 7 Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. 8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. 9 And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. 10 For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. 11 So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God. (Romans 5:6-11, NLT)
21 For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ. (2 Corinthians 5:21, NLT)
27 And just as each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment, 28 so also Christ was offered once for all time as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people. He will come again, not to deal with our sins, but to bring salvation to all who are eagerly waiting for him. (Hebrews 9:27-28, NLT)
One of the remarkable things about this is that the New Testament writers don’t ever explicitly quote this verse from 2 Samuel. In other words, it’s not like someone thought of this verse in 2 Samuel, and then constructed the gospel to fit it. And yet, you can see that the basic idea is the same: human beings are separated from God, and are doomed to die in despair. God, in his mercy provided Jesus as a way to reconcile to God all of those who will receive him. Once again, we find the gospel in the Old Testament, but in such a way that we can see it was intended by God, rather than clever human beings.
Jesus is the answer to the struggle between truth and love, justice and reconciliation. The truth of our sins is fully evident in the things that Jesus suffered for us. Our sins—all of them—were severely punished by God through the suffering and death of Jesus. God doesn’t just give us a pass—he deals with sin as it deserves. We see how serious sin is. Sin is terrible. We can’t just say, “it’s no big deal,” when we look at the death of Jesus. We can’t say, “no, that’s not really a sin.” As it says in Romans 6:23, the wages of sin is death.
At the same time, when we look at the death of Jesus, we cannot claim, “God doesn’t love us.” We cannot say that God doesn’t want us, or that we must be cut off from him forever. We cannot say that love is too weak to help us, or that there is a limit to God’s love for us. We cannot say that anyone is beyond redemption, because to say that would be to claim that the sacrifice of Jesus was not enough.
In 2019 there was a movie called “Unplanned.” It is an extremely powerful story about a woman who became the director of a Planned Parenthood clinic because she wanted to help women. After several years working for Planned Parenthood, she was called to assist with one of the abortions – the first one she had ever witnessed. She saw the baby in the ultrasound—clearly, a tiny human being—writhing in pain, and trying to move away from the needle that was killing him. This experienced caused her to see abortion in an entirely new light. She came to believe that abortion was morally equivalent to murder. One night she broke down sobbing about her own part in the deaths of so many children. She said something like: “How can I ever be forgiven?”
This was the worst moment in the film, in my opinion, because the question was not answered satisfactorily. But there is a satisfying answer. It isn’t enough to say, “It’s OK, no one is perfect.” That is an entirely inadequate response to such turmoil of soul, and the horror of sin. On the other hand, It is horrible to say, “There is no hope, you’re going to hell.”
But what if your sins were fully punished and paid for? Could someone then be welcome in God’s kingdom? Of course.
And that is what Jesus accomplished for us. We can’t say sin doesn’t matter. If we do, we are also saying that the death of Jesus was pointless, and we are actually really good people. But if we are honest with ourselves, we know we don’t have enough goodness to make up for our selfishness.
On the other hand, we can’t say that we, or anyone else, must still pay for our sins. To say that would be to claim that the death of Jesus was not enough, that we demand more than God himself asked for.
In Jesus, love and justice are perfectly fulfilled and balanced, opening up for us a way to be fully reconciled with God, even though we deserve to be separated from him.
Receive Jesus today. Trust him. Trust the love of God that he was willing to suffer for you. Trust the justice of God that your sins have already been paid for.
After his son committed a horrific crime, David was caught between the need for justice, and his love for his son. He didn’t know how to reconcile justice and love, so he did nothing. God faces the same dilemma with us, his children. But God did satisfy the demand of justice, while at the same time, satisfying his great love for us. 2 Samuel 13 reminds us of why it was so important for Jesus to do what he did for us.
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This is surely one of the most difficult passages in the entire bible. There are a few others like it, but that doesn’t make it any better. The first twenty verses describe a rape. The detail of the actual sin is not graphic, but the writer takes time to describe the premeditation that went before it. It is all the more awful because it was also incestuous. The bare facts are that David’s eldest son Amnon raped his half-sister, Tamar.
Leviticus 18:9 and 20:17 expressly forbid sexual relationships between brother and sister – even half-siblings, which they were. In fact, it is forbidden, even between adopted siblings. And of course rape—of any person—is always forbidden. But this is one of the cases where even the most non-religious do not need to be told that this was a vile, despicable, evil act. Even without the bible, the vast majority of human beings still know that this is wrong at every level.
Amnon, the one who committed the crime, was the firstborn son of David, and heir to the throne. He was the crown prince. Chileab, David’s second son, is not mentioned anywhere here, so it is probable that he died when he was younger. Therefore, the next in line after Amnon was Absalom, David’s third’s son, full brother of Tamar.
A quick language note. When it says that Amnon “loved” Tamar, it is the Hebrew word ahab, (pronounced something like uh-hahbv). This is a flexible word with many different meanings, just like “love” in English. It can mean romantic love, or friendship love. But it is not the word hesed, God’s unfailing covenant love, which we have previously learned about.
When we read the passage, modern readers might be surprised and wonder at Tamar’s attitude after the rape. Ancient Israelites thought very differently about certain aspects of sexuality than we do. Of course it was a horrific act of violence that was done to Tamar. But following that, she seemed to want to remain with Amnon. Amnon, however, once he had satisfied his lust, despised his sister:
15 Then suddenly Amnon’s love turned to hate, and he hated her even more than he had loved her. “Get out of here!” he snarled at her. 16 “No, no!” Tamar cried. “Sending me away now is worse than what you’ve already done to me.” But Amnon wouldn’t listen to her. 17 He shouted for his servant and demanded, “Throw this woman out, and lock the door behind her!” 18 So the servant put her out and locked the door behind her. She was wearing a long, beautiful robe, as was the custom in those days for the king’s virgin daughters. 19 But now Tamar tore her robe and put ashes on her head. And then, with her face in her hands, she went away crying. (2 Samuel 13:15-19, NLT)
Of course the rape was horrible and traumatic. But why would she say that sending her away was even worse? It’s like this: Even worse than the sense of personal violation was her sense of public shame in the culture of that time and place.
Because Amnon had raped her, she was no longer a virgin. Because of that, no other man would ever consider marrying her, even though it wasn’t her fault in any way. It’s unfair and stupid, but that’s the way the culture was at the time. So, if Amnon had not kicked her out, but instead had gone to David and gained permission to marry her, Tamar would have at least been able to retain a respectable standing in the community. Her only chance of living an honorable life was if Amnon married her.
The brutal reality is, she would have had no expectation of marrying for love, anyway. She was a princess in 1000 B.C., and her marriage would probably have come about as part of a political bargain. She would not expect to even know her husband before hand. So if Amnon had married her, it would not have been much different, from her perspective, than what she expected anyway.
But his rejection meant that she now would never be married. Not only that, but in those days, having children was a very big deal. If Amnon rejected her, Tamar could be certain that she would never have children, because no one else would ever marry her. The rape was one event that was over quickly. I’m not minimizing it, but clearly, for Tamar herself, there were other factors that were equally important. Because Amnon refused to “make an honest woman of her,” her shame, and her loneliness were going to continue for the rest of her life. So he not only violated her personally and stole her virginity, but by also kicking her out he doomed her to lifelong shame and loneliness. In one way you might say that in Tamar’s mind, it wasn’t fully rape until Amnon revealed that he didn’t want to marry her. Once he showed that, the full weight of her tragedy came down on her.
This is probably difficult for most people in Western culture to understand. I have spoken to Muslims, and people who live in Muslim nations, who, even today, understand Tamar’s perspective.
Obviously, it was horrible for Tamar. This event also had to be hard for David. He surely must have thought that Amnon was following in his own footsteps: He sees a woman he wants, and he takes her. Only, Amnon’s sin was even worse than David’s, because it was rape, and incest. So David’s sin has been multiplied and is even worse in the second generation. Nathan’s prophetic words are beginning to come true.
Two years later came another horrific crime. Absalom, Tamar’s full brother, was furious with his half-brother Amnon, for the rape. We learn a great deal more about Absalom later, and so I think it is safe to assume that Absalom also saw that taking revenge for the rape would clear the way for himself to become the crown-prince – David’s primary heir, and heir to the throne.
So Absalom waited and schemed. Eventually (two years later), he invited Amnon and his other brothers to a feast, where he had Amnon murdered.
Not only did Amnon follow in David’s footsteps with lust and sexual sin, but now Absalom has followed David by committing conspiracy to murder.
There are clearly so many troubling things in this text, but one of them is a bit subtle. If we pay attention, we notice that David, apparently, did not do anything about the rape. Why is this? It might be that this frustrated Absalom, and led him to the sin of murder, and later on, rebellion. So what do we make of David’s inaction?
There are several possible explanations, of course, but I want to focus on three main ones.
First, in all fairness, the text doesn’t actually say when David learned of the crime of rape. It just says that he was furious when he found out. So there is the possibility that he found out only shortly before Absalom held his murderous feast. The text does show that David hesitated when Absalom wanted to invite Amnon to the feast, perhaps thinking of the rape, and wondering if there would be strife between his two sons. If David had only learned about the rape shortly before the feast, then it could be that Absalom took matters into his own hands before David himself had a chance to do anything.
A second way to look at it is this: Amnon committed a terrible crime. But David had done something similar, himself. Thus it might be that David found it too difficult to judge his son harshly for doing something like what he himself did. He might have felt like a hypocrite. What David did was lust. Lust is not merely sexual – lust means demanding that we have what we want, on our own terms, no matter what. So you can lust after food, power, money, success, the perfect body – anything that you demand to have, and work to get, regardless of the consequence. So the root sin—lust—was the same in both David and his son Amnon, though it took different outward forms. Therefore, David’s own sin may have cost him the moral fortitude to be a just and righteous ruler of his own family and kingdom. I see this quite often in our own culture. There is so much sin going around, that everyone is afraid to call any of it wrong, because people might point the finger back and say, “what about you?”
But if we have accepted God’s judgment of our sin, repented and received forgiveness, we should not feel bad calling sin the evil that it is. If we can agree that it is evil in us, it shouldn’t be a problem saying it is evil everywhere.
But there is a third possibility, and this is the one I favor, because I think it is true to the character of David, and to the overall message of scripture. I think David did not hold Amnon accountable, because he was trying (though failing) to reconcile justice and mercy; truth and forgiveness. The crime was real, and heinous. It had to be punished. And yet the punishment, at the very least, (according to Leviticus 18:29) was that Amnon should be stripped of all of his rights as a prince, and a citizen, and exiled for life. Some interpretations of the law might have even meant the death penalty. So to bring justice meant that David would be separated forever from his first born son. David clearly loved Amnon, as shown by the fact that he grieved for him for three years after his death. David, manifesting the heart of God, had a deep commitment to justice. David, manifesting the heart of God, had a deep love for his children. But David could not find a way to reconcile both that justice and that love. To follow love would mean justice would not be satisfied. To follow justice meant love would be forsaken.
And here, once again, is Jesus. God faced the same dilemma as David, only on a much larger scale. All of his children—all of us—have harbored sin and wickedness in our hearts. We have all fallen. We may not have sinned outwardly as heinously as Amnon, but the thing in Amnon’s heart that made him sin is also in our hearts. Amnon manifested what is in every human heart, and that shows us the deep need for justice. The law says we should be punished by eternal separation from our heavenly king and father. God will not violate that law. But he also loves us with an everlasting, deep, wild, love and he will not compromise that, either.
David could not reconcile love and justice, so he did nothing. But God did do something to reconcile the two. He sent Jesus. Justice for all of our sins was done—upon Jesus. Our unrighteousness was severely punished. It was punished in the person of Jesus Christ. Justice was done upon his body and soul. Jesus became a human precisely so that he could take that punishment upon himself. But because he was pure and remained God, that punishment did not destroy him like it would have destroyed us. And so, because of Jesus, justice was done. And because of Jesus, God can show his love to us, with no barrier.
We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are.
For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he declares sinners to be right in his sight when they believe in Jesus. Romans 3:22-26 (New Living Translation)
As I said last time, we do need to receive, through faith, the justice and love offered by God. It has been accomplished for us, but if we do not believe we need it, or if we do not trust we have it, or if we don’t want it – it does us no good. If we are unwilling to repent, if we want our sin more than we want God, we are rejecting the sacrifice of Jesus.
Unfortunately for him, Absalom shows us that this is true. He did not seek justice from his father. He did not trust the king to satisfy the demands of justice. Instead, he took matters into his own hands. In the next chapter, we see that when Absalom wanted something from David he knew how to get it. When he wanted to be pardoned, and later restored, he was persistent and cunning until David responded. But in the case of Amnon and Tamar, Absalom never even tried to get David to do anything. In fact, from the start, he pretended that the incident meant nothing to him.
Perhaps he didn’t trust David to be both loving and just. I think also, he didn’t trust his father, the king to take care of him.
I think it is also almost certain that Absalom realized there was an opportunity here for him. Tamar’s rape gave him an excuse to remove Amnon, the one person ahead of him in the succession to David’s throne, so that it would not look like ambition, but rather an attempt at justice. The reason Absalom had for murdering his brother might just make David and the people sympathetic enough so that when it was all over, they would still accept Absalom as the next heir to the throne. I think is likely that at some point, Absalom decided to do this for both revenge and in order to become the next king.
Absalom did not seek justice from David for his sister. But even if he had, and David refused, it did not give him the right to commit a sin himself. We might do this with God in lesser ways and in lesser situations, and in some ways, it is worse for all that. David was king. He had the right to deal with Amnon however he saw fit, even if it didn’t meet Absalom’s expectations. As it turned out, David gave Absalom himself mercy rather than justice. Absalom surely had no right to demand that David withhold mercy from someone else.
God is our king. He has the right to deal with his creations however he sees fit. When it comes down to it, at great cost to himself God offers us mercy rather than justice. Do we have the right to demand justice for some person or situation, even while we depend upon his mercy for ourselves?
Sometimes we try to take matters into our own hands because God doesn’t seem to be doing anything. I think when we do that, it can lead us down a path toward rebellion, just as it did with Absalom.
What Amnon did demands justice. Justice was given, through Jesus. That allows love to also be given, and reconciliation to happen. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you today about the need for both, and about accepting both things from the Lord.
Sometimes it can feel like God is punishing us for our sins and failures. Thankfully, the Bible tells us that only Jesus received the righteous punishment for our sins. However, often, our sins do have natural consequences, which is one reason God wants us to stay away from sinning. At times, even though we are truly forgiven, we have to face those consequences. David, a man with a heart for God, shows us the way, and highlights the incredible grace of God’s forgiveness and ongoing presence with us.
To listen to the sermon, click the play button:
For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.
To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer:
Download 2 Samuel Part 15
I felt it was important to spend an entire message talking about repentance, and David’s beautiful psalm when he finally turned back to the Lord after the affair with Bathsheba. But we sort of skipped over another part of what Nathan said to David, and it is also significant:
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.’ 11 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. 12 For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.’”
13 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. 14 Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the LORD, the child who is born to you shall die.” 15 Then Nathan went to his house. (2 Samuel 12:10-15, ESV)
David was truly forgiven. But Nathan declared that even so, David’s sin would result in some terrible things. He says first that “the sword shall never depart from your house.” What he means is that David’s family, and even his descendants, will be constantly engaging in violence, war and strife.
Next he says that evil, or disaster, will rise against David from within his own house (again “house” here means family).
Nathan goes on to say that just as David secretly had an affair with someone else’s wife, a person close to David will sin sexually in public. In fact, as it turned out, two of his sons sinned in this way, as we will see.
Finally, Nathan declares that though David is forgiven, and will not be killed for his sin, the child conceived in adultery will die.
When we read all this, it sounds like God said, “I forgive you, but I’m still going to punish you.” Here’s where we must interpret the Old Testament in the light of the New Testament.
We know that the punishment for sins fell upon Jesus Christ, not on sinners. This was true even for people like David, who lived before the time of Jesus:
23 For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. 24 Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. 25 For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, 26 for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus. 27 Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on obeying the law. It is based on faith. 28 So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law. (Romans 3:23-28, NLT, italic formatting added by me for emphasis)
This text clearly says that God held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, because he was looking ahead and including them in “what he would do in this present time;” in other words, in Jesus Christ. Therefore, we cannot say that God was punishing David for his sin. But if God isn’t punishing David, what is going on here, then?
I think Nathan is revealing to David not a punishment for sin, but rather the consequences of it.
Think of it this way: If you throw a rock and break a window, the owner of the window may forgive you. But the window will still be broken. Because of the window-owner’s forgiveness, you won’t be prosecuted for vandalism. Because of that forgiveness, you won’t have to pay for the window. But forgiveness does not un-break the glass. There will still be a mess to clean up and a gaping hole in the house. Rain might come into that hole before it is fixed, and cause even greater damage to the surrounding wall. Burglars or vandals might use the broken window to enter the house and cause more problems. The forgiveness does not automatically eliminate those consequences. A burglar doesn’t say, “Look, an open window that I can use to sneak into the house! What’s that you say? The guy who broke that has been forgiven? Rats! Foiled again.” No, the burglar just goes on into the house. The fact that the window-breaker is forgiven is irrelevant to him, as it is to rain, and all sorts of other possible damage.
Or suppose I tell my young child not to touch a hot stove. The child does so. Now, she has disobeyed me. She has also burned her hand. Did I burn her hand as a punishment for disobedience? Of course not. The burn was a natural and unavoidable consequence when she chose not to obey me. In fact, the very reason for my commandment “do not touch the stove” was to keep her from suffering any burn. I will certainly forgive her for disobeying me. But that won’t change the fact that she burned her hand. Depending on how bad it is, she may carry the scar of that burn for the rest of her life.
Remember, David’s greatest failure prior to this was also due to his sin concerning his relationships with women. He had married six wives before this (2 Samuel 3:2-5), and in addition, had many concubines, who were, in effect, mistresses with official, legal standing. All this was in clear violation of what the Lord had said through Moses (Deuteronomy 17:14-17), or, to put it clearly, it was against God’s revealed word. In other words, he sinned by marrying more than one woman and by having mistresses. I think when Nathan tells David what is going to happen in his family, it is not just about Bathsheba – it is about his whole problem of lust and ignoring God’s word about marriage. You might say that the Bathsheba incident represented the tip of the iceberg of David’s sin. And so I think the “punishment” here that Nathan pronounces is simply a natural result of the way David had been sinning for many years.
David’s many sexual sins also created a severely messed up and dysfunctional family. His children did not grow up in the family structure that God intended from the first to be a blessing to human beings. As a result, David’s own children were emotionally and spiritually unhealthy, and much strife came about from that. In fact, most of the consequences that Nathan prophesied were brought about by David’s sons. Thanks to David, his own sons grew up with a twisted view of marriage and sex, which led to rape and ultimately rebellion.
You see, there are reasons for what the Lord tells us to do, and to not do. Not only does our sin trample on God’s holy character, but it also hurts us when we commit it. Very often, if we disobey God, we suffer painful consequences. So, because David ignored God’s commands about sex and marriage for years, he generated enormously negative consequences for himself and for others.
Now, what about the child dying? How is that a mere consequence of David’s sin? Honestly, I don’t have the answers, I just know Jesus, who does. He doesn’t always share them with us. But I have two thoughts.
First, infant mortality was fairly high in those days. It may be that the child was going to die anyway, and the Lord was simply predicting it, and telling David ahead of time that he wouldn’t change his mind.
Another possibility is as follows. In those days it was a very shameful thing to be born as a result of adultery. This is what we call an “illegitimate child.” The other word for such a child is “bastard.” I’m not being crude – that’s what the word means. The fact that even today that word is a very derogatory and demeaning insult shows how shameful it was in times past. I’m not saying it makes sense – it is never the child’s fault, of course. But an illegitimate child in those days would have suffered for the sins of his parents all his life. If instead that child went on to be with Jesus, it was a mercy that he didn’t live long enough to be reviled and cursed and shamed all his life.
Now, I said you can’t out-sin God’s grace. That’s true. I want you to hear that and believe it. You cannot do something that Jesus’ death on the cross did not pay for. But there are two important things to bear in mind, things that are taught by this passage.
First, David was able to receive God’s grace because he admitted he was wrong, admitted his need for forgiveness, and turned away from sin. In short, he repented. You can’t out-sin God’s grace, but God’s grace does you no good if you pretend that you don’t need it. It does you no good if you do not accept God’s judgment upon the evil of your sin, and repent of it. Grace is there and there is plenty of it, but we can only receive it through repentance and faith.
Let me be clear about repentance, as well. Repentance means you turn away from the sinful things you have been doing, and go the opposite direction, toward the Lord. While you are turned toward the Lord, you may fail and sin again, but repentance means you earnestly intend to do differently in the future, even if you can’t quite always make good on that intention. To put it another way, repentance is not merely asking for forgiveness. It is a deep commitment to stop sinning. You may still sin, but in your heart you do not want to sin, and you do not intend to keep on sinning deliberately.
Some people, who do not understand repentance, use God’s grace as an excuse to keep on sinning. They want what sin offers, and think something like this: “Well, it doesn’t matter, because God forgives me anyway. I know it’s wrong, but I want to keep on doing it, and since God forgives me anyway, I might as well keep sinning.”
Brothers and sisters, that is not repentance. That is an attitude that will eventually separate you from God’s grace. You have to choose between your sin and God’s grace. You can’t deliberately continue in both at the same time.
The apostle Paul recognized that some people might take the attitude that they can keep sinning without repentance, but he makes it very clear that this attitude shows that you have not really repented:
1 Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? 2 Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? (Romans 6:1-2, NLT)
7 “But,” someone might still argue, “how can God condemn me as a sinner if my dishonesty highlights his truthfulness and brings him more glory?” 8 And some people even slander us by claiming that we say, “The more we sin, the better it is!” Those who say such things deserve to be condemned. (Romans 3:7-8, NLT)
Again, I’m not saying that if you repent you will never sin that way again. But I am saying that when you repent, it is your genuine intention to never sin that way again. You may not achieve that intention, but even if you fail again, you continue on the path toward God and away from sin.
I’m not putting it all back on you to repent correctly. But I’m just trying to make sure everyone understands – this isn’t universalism. God offers grace to everyone, but not everyone believes they need it, and not everyone believes he offers it, or that it is sufficient. And if you believe you can have God’s grace without turning away from yourself and your sinful desires and habits, you do not know the Bible:
17 From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 4:17, ESV)
14 Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:14-15, ESV)
45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. (Luke 24:45-47, ESV)
30 The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. 31 God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. (Acts 5:30-31, ESV)
20 I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house, 21 testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentancetoward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. (Acts 20:20-21, ESV)
In the verses above, I have italicized the word repentance so you see my point more quickly. You do see it, right? Repentance is an essential part of the gospel. It is the beginning, and it is necessary if we are to receive God’s grace.
David, when he was confronted with sin, repented. He believed he needed forgiveness. He sought that forgiveness from God, and he received it. He was forgiven. Most of the evidence seems to indicate that after this, he went back to trusting the Lord with all of his heart. Psalm 51 certainly seems to show us that. In addition, we’ll see that when David faced the real-life consequences that Nathan predicted, he remained steadfast in faith, responding like the David of old to trouble and adversity.
So what does all this say to you?
First, read the bible. The bible serves us like Nathan the prophet served David. It shows us God’s perspective on things, it helps us to see things in a new light.
Second, this passage shows us the importance of repentance. Through Jesus, God has done everything needed to restore our relationship with him, and forgive us. But we have to believe we need it, and believe he offers it. We need to turn away from our own self-oriented life, and let our life belong fully to the Lord. Again, repentance doesn’t mean perfection. But it means your heart is turned away from sin and sinful desires, and toward God. Sins become an aberration, not simply a matter of course.
Third, do not let the consequences of your sins make you doubt God’s forgiveness. Sometimes, when we experience the difficult consequences of what we’ve done, or failed to do, it feels like God is still angry at us, like maybe we are not forgiven. That’s a trap of the devil. If you have repented in faith, you are forgiven. But sometimes, those consequences remain. The Lord will give you extra grace to face those things also, if you seek him. In fact, the next several chapters in 2 Samuel are all about the consequences of David’s sin, and how David faced them. We’ll see that it seems like David returned to being the man who leaned wholly on God in trouble and sorrow. So, if we face consequences for our sins, we too can be close to God and lean entirely on him, even if what we face is our own fault. God has indeed forgiven you. Trust him, trust his forgiveness and love, and lean on him in every situation you face in life.
Pause right now, and ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you.
Clear Bible 