Show Notes
2 Samuel 18:19-19:8
Pastor Christopher Chelpka
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Let's pray.
[00:00:05] Our Heavenly Father, we ask that you would bless to us with the word of Christ the good news of the gospel, that the glorious King, with all authority in heaven, on earth, your beloved Son, to praise his name and to remember that he came to die for us so that we would be saved.
[00:00:31] And not just from our broken hearts, but from the ways in which we have broken your heart, the ways in which we have loved death and loved unrighteousness and clamored after all kinds of evil and vile things.
[00:00:52] Lord, the heart of a man that's been poisoned by sin is desperately wicked.
[00:01:01] We need healing not just from our miseries and our sadnesses, Lord, but from the sin that is in us. We need your forgiveness and your love given to us so that we might be justified and not condemned, so that we might be sanctified and drawn closer and closer and deeper into your abiding love.
[00:01:35] Lord, we thank you for King Jesus and ask that as you help us to see our own brokenness and the brokenness in our world, that you would give us more and more reason to flee to him as we gain greater clarity about the light that he is, the light that has come into the world and has overcome the darkness.
[00:02:01] We pray this both for ourselves and for other believers throughout Tucson, Southern Arizona and throughout the world.
[00:02:11] Lord, we pray for our missionaries in our presbytery and in many other places and ask that you would bless them today, encourage them and establish more and more outposts, places where the kingdom of God is proclaimed in her King.
[00:02:30] The good news about Jesus, which is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe.
[00:02:38] Lord, help us to believe. Today we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:02:44] You may be seated.
[00:02:51] Let's turn to 2nd Samuel, chapter 18, 2 Samuel 18:19, Second Samuel, chapter 18, verse 19. And then I'll read through the first eight verses of the next chapter.
[00:03:31] Here we have what happens the events that follow the death of Absalom.
[00:03:39] Absalom, of course, tried to lead a rebellion against his father, against the Lord and his promises.
[00:03:46] He seemed to be very successful, was doing great as this Antichrist, we could call him an anti anointed one. He was against the Lord and his anointed one seeking to replace him, to establish himself as king, as a false king.
[00:04:07] And he rose, and very quickly, because of the Lord, he fell.
[00:04:13] But this Absalom was no random enemy.
[00:04:18] He was David's son.
[00:04:21] And David finds himself in this position where he is, on the one hand won the victory through the hand of the Lord. What has Happened is the right thing, what was supposed to happen. And yet his son is dead.
[00:04:42] How will David hold together his duties as a king and the victory that he has earned with the suffering he's experiencing as a father, and perhaps guilt and shame for his own sin and lots of other things likely going on inside of him.
[00:05:03] A tough position. Let's hear about it. Second Samuel 18, beginning of verse 19.
[00:05:11] Then Ahimaaz, the son of Zadok, said, let me run and carry news to the king that the Lord has delivered him from the hand of his enemies.
[00:05:20] And Joab said to him, you are not to carry news today. You may carry news another day, but today you shall carry no news, because the king's son is dead.
[00:05:33] Then Joab said to the cushite, go tell the king what you have seen.
[00:05:37] The cushite bowed before Joab and ran.
[00:05:40] Then Ahimaaz the son of Zadok, said again to Joab, come what may, let me also run after the cushite. And Joab said, why will you run, my son, seeing that you will have no reward for the news?
[00:05:53] Come what may, he said, I will run.
[00:05:56] So he said to him, run. The Nahimaaz ran by the way of the plain and outran the cushite.
[00:06:03] Now David was sitting between two gates, and the watchman went up to the roof of the gate by the wall. And when he lifted his eyes and looked, he saw a man running alone.
[00:06:14] The watchman called out and told the king. And the king said, if he is alone, there is news in his mouth. And he drew nearer and nearer.
[00:06:23] The watchman saw another man running, and the watchman called to the gate and said, see another man running alone. The king said, he also brings news.
[00:06:33] The watchman said, I think the running of the first is like the running of Ahimaaz, the son of Zadok. And the king said, he is a good man and comes with good news.
[00:06:43] Then Ahimaaz cried out to the king, all is well. And he bowed before the king with his face to the earth and said, blessed be the Lord your God, who has delivered up the men and who raised their hand against my lord the king.
[00:06:58] And the king said, is it well with the young man Absalom?
[00:07:03] Ahimaaz answered, when Joab sent the king's servant, your servant, I saw a great commotion, but I do not know what it was.
[00:07:11] And the king said, turn aside and stand here.
[00:07:14] So he turned aside and stood still.
[00:07:18] And behold, the cushite came. And the cushite said, good news for my lord. The king for the Lord has delivered you this day from the hand of all who rose up against you.
[00:07:29] The king said to the Cushite, is it well with the young man, Absalom? And the Cushite answered, may the enemies of my lord the king, and all who rise up against you for evil, be like that young man.
[00:07:41] And the king was deeply moved and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept.
[00:07:48] And as he went, he said, o my son Absalom.
[00:07:52] My son, my son Absalom.
[00:07:55] Would I had died instead of you. O Absalom, my son, my son.
[00:08:06] It was told Joab, behold, the king is weeping and mourning for Absalom.
[00:08:11] So the victory that day was turned into mourning for all the people.
[00:08:15] For the people heard that day, the king is grieving for his son.
[00:08:19] And the people stole into the city that day, as people steal in who are ashamed when they flee in battle.
[00:08:25] The king covered his face, and the king cried with a loud voice, o my son Absalom. O Absalom, my son. My son.
[00:08:34] Then Joab came into the house to the king and said, you have today covered with shame the faces of all your servants who have this day saved your life and the lives of your sons and your daughters and the lives of your wives and your concubines, because you love those who hate you and you hate those who love you.
[00:08:55] For you have made it clear today that commanders and servants are nothing to you. For today I know that if Absalom were alive and all of us were dead today, then you would be pleased.
[00:09:07] Now, therefore, arise.
[00:09:09] Go out and speak kindly to your servants for all. For I swear by the Lord, if you do not go, not a man will stand with you this night. And this will be worse for you than all the evil that has come upon you from your youth until now.
[00:09:25] Then the king arose and took his seat in the gate.
[00:09:29] And the people were all told, behold, the king is sitting in the gate.
[00:09:33] And all the people came before the king.
[00:09:38] May God bless his word to us.
[00:09:54] What would you do if you were David?
[00:10:00] Tough stuff.
[00:10:05] The people, as Joab describes it, I think probably accurately, are expecting a celebration, a victory. They just won the battle, but they're coming back, sulking into the city as if they had just lost, is the way it's described for us.
[00:10:28] Because of the king's reaction now, we have to say Joab, as always, has a very.
[00:10:39] I don't know how to put it, an aggressively political mind here, right? He sees and senses the need, often accurately.
[00:10:47] He recognizes that David needs to Pull it together and get out to his people, or things are going to be even worse than, than before.
[00:10:57] And David does, David follows, and things are set right for a time.
[00:11:04] But it's worth noting that Joab himself killed Absalom. We would need to remember doesn't sort of uses the weakness of David at this moment to move the light, the spotlight, move the focus.
[00:11:23] Joab comes in power and strength, and he wants David to act the same. But David is struggling to do so.
[00:11:33] Oh, my son Absalom, would I had died instead of you.
[00:11:38] He wants to substitute his life for this son who has been rebellious, but he's unable to for a whole bunch of different reasons.
[00:11:52] And because he's unable to do that, and because his heart is breaking because there's so much suffering. And this whole thing is tragic.
[00:12:01] The kingdom is starting to fall apart, even in victory, at the moment when everything's supposed to be coming together, when the king is finally back on his throne, when all things are being set right and the Lord has won the battle, it. It's still not coming together because David is struggling to hold these things together, to hold both his love for Absalom, who was a traitor and tried to kill him and is now dead, but also his love for the Lord and his love for the people and his calling to be king.
[00:12:39] And so we have this tension in David, which brings out this really important question.
[00:12:47] How can a king execute judgment against real guilt while still loving and having sympathy for the people?
[00:13:02] In this case Absalom, who sinned against him, how can he do this? Because if he doesn't, as we see here, the kingdom can fall apart.
[00:13:17] God's answer to this, of course, is providing Jesus for us.
[00:13:23] What Jesus is able to do in the kingdom, which this kingdom is kind of a little shadow model type, preparing us for the final kingdom. What Jesus is able to do is he is able to fully love and even enter into that suffering.
[00:13:42] He is able to become even a substitute the thing David's unable to do. And in doing so, he makes the kingdom possible instead of ignoring all of our sin, for example, and just saying, well, I love them so much, I wouldn't want to exercise judgment against them and just letting it go and letting sin and rebellion and treachery and all those kinds of things remain. Jesus comes in judgment against sin, but he does it in a way that doesn't destroy us all, which would also destroy the kingdom. If the Lord came in judgment, in total judgment for our sin, and just wiped us all out, judgment would be had but there'd be no kingdom left.
[00:14:30] God accomplishes in Jesus what no other man was able to do.
[00:14:37] Because Jesus, of course, was the God man.
[00:14:41] Jesus was able to come, and he was able to exercise that power of divine judgment in substituting himself for us and rising victorious over sin and over death.
[00:14:57] Which means that when we put our faith in Jesus and not kings like David, we gain both a just verdict. Our king is we see his justice and his righteousness, and we also see his mercy and his forgiveness and his love. And he establishes even guilty sinners, even rebellious sinners, as citizens of his kingdom, loyal citizens of his kingdom forever.
[00:15:29] So I want to think about this a little bit more with you in depth.
[00:15:33] Think about what is it that Jesus, what's special about him? What does God do through him that enables him to be David's greater Son and do all those things about these things we sung about in Psalm 72, three things this morning.
[00:15:51] First, Jesus as a substitute for was qualified to be one.
[00:15:57] Second, he had the capacity to enter into judgment and still reign.
[00:16:03] And third, he had a scope that was beyond what David's was.
[00:16:09] David says, if only I could have died and substituted myself for Absalom. Jesus doesn't just do that for one person.
[00:16:18] He does it for countless people, all his people.
[00:16:23] And because of that, he establishes a kingdom that is amazing and to which we belong.
[00:16:31] Let's meditate on our Lord this morning.
[00:16:35] First of all, if Jesus, in order for to be. In order for Jesus to be qualified, he cannot be a sinner.
[00:16:45] In order for Jesus to qualify as our substitute and enter into judgment with God and come out on the other side, he cannot be a sinner. David can't stand in Absalom's place because if he was implicated in the guilt that Adam sorry that Absalom had sinned, right, he would deserve to be judged just along with it, along with all of his own sins.
[00:17:13] And then what righteousness could he offer to turn away God's wrath?
[00:17:21] Part of the whole mess with Absalom and everything here is because of David's sin.
[00:17:25] It's likely he feels that.
[00:17:28] But Jesus is sinless.
[00:17:31] He can bear judgment that is not his own. He can enter as a substitute and be a perfect sacrifice for sin. He is a qualified substitute. He can go before God as the sinless one.
[00:17:49] He can impute to us his righteousness. He can take on our sins.
[00:17:56] David's wish is kind of impotent, isn't it?
[00:18:01] He can't do very much except I wish that I could take his place. Jesus actually takes the place of people like Absalom.
[00:18:11] 1st Peter 2:22 confirms this. He says he knew no sin.
[00:18:16] The Scriptures also say, for our sake, he made him to be sin who Knew no sin. 2nd Corinthians 5:21.
[00:18:26] A debtor, for example, cannot go just pay another person's debt. With what money, right, do they pay it with?
[00:18:35] Right? Jesus is able to pay our debts because of his sinlessness and other things.
[00:18:45] So what Jesus does as our king is he doesn't just pity us.
[00:18:52] He's not just emotionally there with us and sorrowful about our situations. He actually enters into them and pays our debt.
[00:19:03] He enters into them, into our sinfulness and becomes a substitute so that, like we sang, O sacred head, now wounded, he goes to a cross. He wears a crown, yes, but of thorns.
[00:19:23] And this is how he does his work of salvation.
[00:19:26] Now Jesus is not only qualified to be our substitute in a way that David is not, but of course he has the capacity to endure this judgment and come through out on the other side.
[00:19:41] Imagine if David went in and said, I will take Absalom's place in some other version of the story. I will take Absalom's place. Kill me instead. And so let's say God says, okay, and he kills David instead. And now what?
[00:19:59] No king, right? No king.
[00:20:03] The anointed one is gone. And because of David's, because of David's own sin and because he's not God, there is no coming through that judgment in resurrection.
[00:20:19] What does Jesus do, though?
[00:20:22] Jesus undergoes judgment fully for every sin of all his people, every. And he rises victoriously over it.
[00:20:34] Jesus work in resurrection proves that the penalty has been paid and that he now reigns.
[00:20:43] David has to be compelled to come back and to rule again. Christ doesn't have to be compelled to rise from the dead. He doesn't have to be convinced to ascend into heaven.
[00:20:57] He doesn't have to be cajoled into ruling over his people. This is what he does, and this is who he is. And then this is what he is capable to do.
[00:21:08] Because of the nature of Jesus Christ, he is both able to be our perfect substitute, to affect our salvation, to rise from the dead, and to rule over us today.
[00:21:24] And as I mentioned before, he does this not just for one person, but for many, many, many people.
[00:21:32] Our problem that we have is not just a singular problem. There's not just one person we need to get rid of. And if we got rid of that one person, everything would be fine and the kingdom of God would come into its consummation and glory.
[00:21:50] This effect of sin happened in every single person.
[00:21:56] All of us born in unrighteousness, all of us born loving unrighteous things, wanting to wander after sinful things, wanting to stray away from the Lord, wanting to love death and enter into it.
[00:22:18] And so when Jesus comes, he comes not just to save one, but many.
[00:22:25] And so when we think about the suffering of Christ, we think that how much he suffered must have matched the scale of the guilt that was born, as all of our sins collectively were paid for by the suffering servant.
[00:22:49] In Isaiah 53, 6 we read, the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
[00:22:56] The righteous first Peter 3:18 says, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God first. John 2:2. He is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world.
[00:23:13] I'm helping, I'm asking you to consider this contrast between David the king and Jesus our king, so that our hearts might be filled with praise and confidence, too, in what he has done.
[00:23:29] When we look at ourselves and our difficulty to hold these various things together right, how do I continue doing the things that I'm called to do when my heart is so sad?
[00:23:40] How do I solve solutions which are unsolvable by somebody like me? When we feel the kingdoms of this world constantly falling apart and our leaders unable to hold them together in all of these moments and more, we can look to Jesus Christ as the one who is provided by God to resolve all of these things and establish a kingdom that is forever.
[00:24:08] And he can do that, beloved, because of who he is.
[00:24:12] He's different.
[00:24:14] He's the Son of God.
[00:24:17] And so God comes into the world and does what David is unable to do.
[00:24:22] God Himself gives His life for ours, and he takes on the sin not just of one, but but of many. We need a king who can both judge our real guilt, bear its cost, and still remain king.
[00:24:40] And of course, Jesus does that in all of his perfection, in all of his glory, in all of his might. He came into this world to do exactly that, and he has done it.
[00:24:54] Which means we can now go out into the world with boldness and confidence and tell people about that king, to call them unto a kingdom that is everlasting, that isn't going to be broken apart by temporary rulers and men who can't figure out how to pull themselves together, and who have many flaws and failings and difficulties and sins.
[00:25:21] Because our confidence is in the sinless One and the Glorious One in. In the Eternal One.
[00:25:29] This also means we can stop trying to be our own substitutes.
[00:25:34] When we see ourselves as Absalom, when we see the ways that we've rebelled against God, when we see the ways that we have sinned against him, we can look to Jesus and we can say, lord, forgive me, and know that he will, because he has authority to forgive sins.
[00:25:54] Beloved, put your trust and your faith in Jesus and in Jesus Christ alone. He's a king who will never fail you. He is a king who loves you, who has died for you. And he is coming again to bring all these things into their consummated glory.
[00:26:11] Let's pray.
[00:26:16] Our Heavenly Father, we ask that you would humble our hearts as we consider the nature that we share with Absalom, the nature that we share with Joab, the nature that we share with David, a sinful, broken nature that is inherited even from our very first Father, Adam.
[00:26:39] Lord, as we see ourselves in these various people, these people that are part of our family histories, we are now belong to the people of God.
[00:26:52] Our hearts break.
[00:26:54] They break with David at his grief and his loss.
[00:26:57] They break when we see Joab aggressively trying to cover his sins and lean on all the wrong things.
[00:27:05] They break as we think, as we consider the many gifts and pleasures and joys and privileges that we have given up, like Absalom gave up for choosing his own way.
[00:27:17] As we consider all of these things in our own hearts.
[00:27:21] Lord, we fall down before you and ask that you would forgive us, that you would, through the work of Jesus Christ, who offered himself for our sins, that you would cleanse us of all of our unrighteousness, and that you would assure us that this work has been done and that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, that in his conquering, we also are conquerors, more than conquerors, and that in his rising, we who put our faith in him rise also with him.
[00:28:02] And as we find our faith situated and strengthened more and more in our King, our Savior, Lord, teach us to follow him and to sing praises of his name every day instead of praising our own name and trying to establish our own pillars and our own fame and our own glory, Lord, teach us to see all things through him. And through his light may we bring our gifts and ourselves and our resources and our talents, our thoughts and our hopes, our fears, bring it all to him, to pray and to praise every day in the name of Jesus and Lord, through your continued work in us, we ask that your light would shine so that others may do the same and that the people of your kingdom might grow and grow until all things are set perfectly according to your plan.
[00:29:00] We pray all this in Jesus name, our great king, Amen.
