David and Absalom

2 Samuel chapter 14 And we're going to read about David and Absalom. And through Absalom, David's son, David received more chastisement than any other of his family members. We know that the chastisement began when the son born to David and Bathsheba died. We know the chastisement continued sometime later when Amnon raped his half-sister Tamar. That would continue as Absalom would murder Amnon some two years later. Amnon would flee to Geshur, his home country. And there he would be and there he has been for the last three years.

We pick up the narrative in chapter 14, verse number 1. I'm going to read to you the whole chapter simply because that's what we do here. We read the text because the Bible says we are to give attention to the reading of the text.

And so as we set in your mind what is happening, then we'll begin to discuss it together. 2 Samuel chapter 14, verse number 1. Now Joab, the son of Zerui, perceived that the king's heart was inclined toward Absalom. So Joab sent to Tekoa and brought a wise woman from there and said to her, Please pretend to be a mourner and put on mourning garments now.

And do not anoint yourself with oil, but be like a woman who has been mourning for the dead many days. Then go to the king and speak to him in this manner. So Joab put the words in her mouth. Now when the woman of Tekoa spoke to the king, she fell on her face to the ground and prostrated herself and said, Help, O king. And the king said to her, What is your trouble? And she answered, Truly I am a widow, for my husband is dead, and your maidservant had two sons. But the two of them struggled together in the field, and there was no one to separate them.

So one struck the other and killed him. Now behold, the whole family has risen against your maidservant. And they say, Hand over the one who struck his brother, that we may put him to death for the life of his brother whom he killed, and destroy the heir also. Thus they will extinguish my coal which is left, so as to leave my husband neither name nor remnant on the face of the earth. Then the king said to the woman, Go to your house, and I will give orders concerning you. And the woman of Tekoa said to the king, O my lord, the king, the iniquity is on me and my father's house, but the king and his throne are guiltless.

So the king said, Whoever speaks to you, bring him to me, and he will not touch you any more. Then she said, Please let the king remember the lord your God, so that the avenger of blood may not continue to destroy, lest they destroy my son. And he said, As the lord lives, not one hair of your son shall fall to the ground. Then the woman said, Please let your maidservant speak a word to my lord the king. And he said, Speak. And the woman said, Why then have you planned such a thing against the people of God?

For in speaking this word, the king is as one who is guilty, and that the king does not bring back his banished one. For we shall surely die, and are like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again, yet God does not take away life, but plans ways so that the banished one may not be cast out from him. Now the reason I have come to speak this word to my lord the king is because the people have made me afraid. So your maidservant said, Let me now speak to the king.

Perhaps the king will perform the request of his maidservant. For the king will hear and deliver his maidservant from the hand of the man who would destroy both me and my son from the inheritance of God. Then your maidservant said, Please let the word of my lord the king be comforting. For as the angel of God, so is my lord the king to discern good and evil. And may the lord your God be with you. Then the king answered and said to the woman, Please do not hide anything from me that I am about to ask you.

And the woman said, Let my lord the king please speak. So the king said, Is the hand of Joab with you in all this? And the woman answered and said, As your soul lives, my lord the king, no one can turn to the right or to the left from anything that my lord the king has spoken. Indeed, it was your servant Joab who commanded me. And it was he who put all these words in the mouth of your maidservant. In order to change the appearance of things, your servant Joab has done this thing. But my lord is wise, like the wisdom of the angel of God, to know all that is in the earth.

Then the king said to Joab, Behold now, I will surely do this thing. Go therefore, bring back the young man Absalom. And Joab fell on his face to the ground, prostrated himself and blessed the king. Then Joab said, Today your servant knows that I have found favor in your sight. O my lord the king, in that the king has performed the request of his servant. So Joab arose and went to Geshur and brought Absalom to Jerusalem. However, the king said, Let him turn to his own house and let him not see my face.

So Absalom turned to his own house and did not see the king's face. Now in all Israel was no one as handsome as Absalom, so highly praised from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. There was no defect in him. And when he cut the hair of his head, and it was at the end of every year that he cut it, for it was heavy on him, so he cut it, he weighed the hair of his head at two hundred shekels by the king's weight. And to Absalom there were born three sons and one daughter whose name was Tamar.

She was a woman of beautiful appearance. Now Absalom lived two full years in Jerusalem and did not see the king's face. Then Absalom sent for Joab to send him to the king, but he would not come to him. So he sent again a second time, but he would not come.

Therefore he said to his servants, See Joab's field is next to mine, and he has barley there. Go and set it on fire. So Absalom's servants set the field on fire. Then Joab arose, came to Absalom at his house and said to him, Why have your servants set my field on fire? And Absalom answered Joab, Behold, I sent for you, saying, Come here, that I may send you to the king to say, Why have I come from Geshur? It would be better for me still to be there. Now therefore let me see the king's face, and if there is iniquity in me, let him put me to death.

So when Joab came to the king and told him, he called for Absalom. Thus he came to the king and prostrated himself on his face at the ground before the king, and the king kissed Absalom. This story begins the darkest period in David's life. Up to this point it's been fairly dark, but at this point now it's going to become almost pitch black. He doesn't know it yet. He should know it, but he doesn't. And yet as the story begins to unfold, especially when you come to chapter 15, and David has to flee Jerusalem, then everything begins to grow extremely dark.

But it all begins not really here, but this helps us understand a little bit more about David's relationship with his son Absalom. We're going to begin by looking at the person who is the promoter of this reunion. Then we're going to look at the pretender in the reunion.

That was the widow from Tekoa. And then we're going to look at the parable for the union, which takes up most of the chapter.

And then we're going to look at the person who was reunited with his father, that is Absalom. It's a very easy read, and yet there are certain things you need to understand about the story that help you understand the relationship between David and his son Absalom, and why it was that David was not the kind of father he needed to be. We're going to begin by looking at the promoter of the reunion. It was Joab. Joab was the commander of David's army. He was a good friend of David's. He was such a good friend of David that he was the one who understood that David murdered Uriah, because he was the one who received the orders about putting Uriah up on the front lines so he would be killed.

So Uriah, I mean, Joab knows about the situation with Uriah, Bathsheba's husband. He knows about all that in the back of his mind. David knows that Joab knows all of that. Also, he was the commander of David's army, so he was a trusted friend of David's. And Joab had been observing David for a number of years, three to be exact, because that's how long Absalom had been absent from Jerusalem. And he began to see what was happening in the life of the king, how he was emotionally distraught over David, I mean, over Absalom and what was happening in his life.

So he conjured up a plan, a plan that would somehow bring Absalom back. Now you need to understand that the plan never includes anything biblical. But it does include something relational, okay? And you have to realize that Joab had some personal interest. But more than that, he had a political interest. If Absalom was to follow David as the next king of Israel, then Joab had to get on Absalom's good side, because he would want to remain the commander of the king's army. And so all that's in the back of Joab's mind.

Joab knows that Absalom still has the popularity of the people. In spite of his wickedness, Absalom still has the popularity of the people. You see, when they look at Absalom, they see beauty.

When they look at Absalom, they see power. When they look at Absalom, they see everything external, but they don't see anything internal.

They don't see the character of the man, they just see the outer cloak of the man. And like it was with Saul, when they wanted to make him king over Israel, because he was heads and tails above everybody else, and because of his beauty. So too, they saw Absalom the same way. Well, Joab knows all that stuff, so Joab's no dummy. He's going to figure out a way that he can get Absalom back in line with the king. But it never includes a repentant Absalom. It never includes a remorseful Absalom. It just includes a reunion between father and son.

That's the whole ploy. That's the whole direction he's going to go. And so he's willing to bypass the law. So, he knows that Absalom should be executed based on the Levitical law. But Absalom's still alive. And so he's going to figure out a way for the king to get around the law. Figure out a way for the king to extend an excuse not to execute his son. That's the plan. Little does David know that at first, until the woman begins, the woman from Jekoah, speaks the truth and tells her, yes, it was Joab who set me up for this whole thing.

But he realizes that Joab's involved. But at first, he doesn't. But Joab had a selfish motive. It wasn't necessarily for the king's best interest. Why? Simply because it would encourage further law breaking. It would encourage, not for the king to enact justice, but for the king to build a relationship with his long lost son. But you can't build a relationship outside of truth. Can't do it. You can't build a relationship with someone who has sinned as gross as Absalom has sinned, without there being repentance.

There can be no restoration without repentance. All that's bypassed. And because David plays part and parcel to that, what happens is that it opens the floodgates for a huge rebellion. It's really sad. But Joab was out for his own interest. I'm reminded of the words back in Philippians, when Paul says these words. He says, Paul says, I have a man I'm going to send to you. He talks to the church at Philippi. And he's really the only guy I can send, because nobody else is concerned about the interest of Christ, except Timothy.

Everybody else is out for their own interest. But Timothy's not that way. He really is concerned about you. See, Joab wasn't too concerned about the king. He wasn't even concerned about the king's relationship with his son. Because he would encourage a reunion without repentance. And that always breeds more trouble. And this story is about that. And so, if Joab was really concerned about the king, and about his son, he would go to the son, and urge the son to repent. Urge the son to get right with his father.

To turn from his wickedness, and come and bow before the king, and worship him. But that's not what he did. He devised a plan. It wasn't an evil plan, it wasn't a good plan. He knows about Nathan, and how Nathan came to the king, and gave a parable, gave a story, gave a scenario, which caused the king to repent. But this wasn't about repentance. This was about a reunion of two people. One, the king, and one, his son. But he wanted to imitate what happened with Nathan. And the devil is a master imitator.

He's a master duplicator. And Joab would be used in that scenario, to present something to the king, that would not lead to righteousness, but would lead to further unrighteousness. Because he didn't have in mind the things of God. He only had in mind his own welfare. He only had in mind his future political venue. That's all he could think of. He wasn't concerned about the king, and he certainly wasn't concerned about the God of the king, the Lord of Israel. And so, he conjures up this plan, that would not lead to repentance, that would not lead to righteousness, but instead would lead to further unrighteousness.

So, Joab was the promoter of the reunion. He came up with a plan. He saw the king's face. He saw the king was sad. He saw the king was weighed down. What can I do to solve this, and benefit myself as well? So, he gets this woman from Tekoa. She's the pretender in the reunion. She is the pretender because she conjures up this story. And she is a widow from this place, about 10 to 12 miles from Jerusalem. And if you recall, Amos was from Tekoa. So was this woman. And so, he gets this woman to come, and gives her the words to say.

And she comes. And the Bible says these words, in chapter 14, verse number 2. So, Joab sent to Tekoa, and brought a wise woman from there. Now, you got to be careful how you read that. Because the word wise, is the same word used in the previous chapter, of Jonadab. And there it says, that Jonadab was shrewd. So, this woman's wisdom, was not a godly wisdom. She was a crafty woman. She was a shrewd woman. She would use her worldly wisdom, to pretend. To mask the truth. To trap the king, into making a vow and a commitment, that would cause him to bring his son, back to Jerusalem.

She was not a genius, that would detect, and protect people from evil. She was one who would disguise, and promote evil. That was the woman from Tekoa. And she, like Joab, had an ungodly goal. There will always be people, who will want you, to reunite with someone, for their purposes. If there's going to be a reunion, between two people, and there's been sin involved, the only way there can be a reunion, biblically speaking, is for the sinner to repent. If they don't, there is no reunion. There can be a gathering together, of two people, but it's not built on biblical truth.

But there will always be people, who will try to get families together, individuals together, just to come together to be okay. But they serve the wrong purpose. They serve, not the purpose of the people involved, but they only serve their own purposes. Maybe it will benefit them. Maybe they're about to die, and before they die, they just want to see son and daughter, back together again. It's for their purposes, not for the son and daughter's purposes. But they're going to die. And so therefore, their last wish, is somehow they'd be back together again, and everything would be okay, without there being any repentance, any contrition, any brokenness over sin.

You see, what happens to David, because he follows unwise counsel, and does this, is that the flood gates open. When you come to chapter 15, he has to flee Jerusalem. He loses his throne, he loses his crown, he loses his concubines, he loses his trusted friend, Ahithophel, and Ahithophel, who is the grandfather of Bathsheba, counsels Absalom to sleep, with all of David's concubines, on the roof of the palace. You see, simply because, David did not confront his son, David did not rebuke his son, David would receive his son, back into the palace, without there being a repentant spirit.

And therefore, it only would breed further rebellion, and further sin. You say, well, couldn't David show grace? Couldn't he be kind? Listen, Absalom was alive. That's grace. Absalom should be dead. In all reality, the king should pursue him, bring him back, and slay him in Jerusalem. That would be justice. But grace is extended, because he's still alive. He still is able to breathe. That's grace. But he needed to be confronted on a sin, but David never did that. He never confronted Amnon, he just got angry.

Two years later, Absalom sees where his father does nothing, so Absalom takes things into his own hands, and slays his brother, because his brother needed to die, and his dad didn't kill his son. So the son kills the son. So he flees. But David does nothing. What did Edmund Burke say? All that is necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing. The good man, the king, did nothing. You know, as a parent, you can't just sit around and do nothing. You gotta deal with it. You gotta handle it.

You just can't sit back and pray that everything works out okay. You should pray. But never neglect the responsibility you have to deal with the purity of your home, and the purity of your church, and the purity of the body of Christ at large. You gotta deal with it. You gotta go after it, and you gotta deal with it. Faithfully, and forcefully. That's how you deal with it. And David did not. He did not. It cost him greatly. Tremendously. And you know, when he's right in the middle of it, he's trying to play both ends of the spectrum.

He's trying to be the king of Israel, and be the friend of his family, the friend of his sons. If I confront him, and he doesn't repent, I have to kill him. So the best thing to do is just do nothing. Maybe it'll all go away. Maybe everybody will forget about it. Maybe it'll all turn out okay in the end. Instead, Amnon's dead. So Absalom flees. Well, maybe if I don't do anything with Absalom, maybe he'll repent, and come home after three years. Maybe, but David never said anything to him. David never pursued him.

David never confronted him. David just let him go. After three years, there's been no repentance. And Joab was wrong to reunite father and son based on this fact, that the son who sinned did not repent. Joab was wrong. Be careful of anybody who comes to you and tries to reunite you with someone else who has sinned without there being repentance involved. It's not from God. It's unwise counsel. Why? Because God demands that sinners repent of their sin. That leads us to the next point, and that simply is the parable.

And folks, listen. I've been doing pastoral ministry for many years, and I've heard the stories. I've seen the tears flow down the cheeks of mothers and fathers who have tried to bring family members back together again without there being contrition, repentance, and brokenness, only to reap the havoc of a broken family that becomes more and more broke as the day is long because they will not deal with their children when they've sinned. And it begins when they're young. It really does. And if you have young children, and you don't confront them on their sin and deal with them at a very young age, that as they begin to get older, you'll come to pass it off and not deal with it.

And the next thing you know, they're going to be grown adult children, and their sins become bigger and stronger and louder. And what will you do then? It begins when they're young, dealing with sin when it arises so they understand there is a holy God who is just and does not want his children to live in sin, but to live a pure and holy and righteous life. And so then comes the parable, the parable that she gives. Now, you must note something. David was a compassionate man, and we know this. David is a compassionate man.

And so the parable is set to play on his emotions. It's to deal with how he feels. And that's always a dangerous place to be. You know, once you're governed by your feelings, you're going to make all kinds of unwise decisions. And David was a compassionate man. He would receive this woman. He would hear her plea. He would hear her cry. He would feel her pain. She would know that that's where David would be. Joab would know that, and they would play on his emotions. They would play on the soft side of David.

And when they did, they got him to make a vow that he could not renege on. So she came to him and tells him a story. And the story is very clear. I got two sons. They're in the field, okay? One kills the other one. But there's a key to the story. No one was there to stop them. Okay, listen.

If no one was there to stop them, how do you know it went down that way? Where's the testimony to tell you how it went down that way? If there's two sons in the field and there's nobody there to stop them, how do you know it wasn't self-defense? How do you know that? The dead son's not talking because he's dead. The alive son, the one who slew the other son, he's not talking because he's going to save his own skin. So there's nobody there to give testimony as to what happened. So she conjures up this story.

David should discern that. David should know that. But remember, remember, David's sense of discernment had become so dulled because he was emotionally involved with his family. He was no longer objective. He was subjective. He couldn't look at things objectively.

And so he got caught up in the emotion of the story. And so she says, My family members, they want justice. They want justice. They want my other son to die. He deserves to die, they say. They want him killed. And I'm telling you, David, you're the king. Oh, and she says, Oh, you speak like an angel from God. Oh, the flattery was just over the top. It was like, oh, it was so bad. And David couldn't even pick it up. Oh, my king. Oh, my lord. I am your maidservant. You speak as an angel from God. You are so wonderful, David.

David's getting caught up in this whole emotional thing. And so she says, My relatives, they want my other son dead. If he dies, if he dies, my father's, my husband's name will be cut off. Okay? And I have nothing left. What's David going to do? Well, we can't let that happen, can we? We got to do something. But you see, again, if there was a murder, then the murderer, according to Levitical law, must die. That's justice. But again, in the story, there's nothing about a brother who's repentant. There's nothing about a brother who says, You know what?

I've sinned. I've killed my brother. All that's overlooked. See? Because Joab, nor the woman from Dekoa, was requiring Absalom to repent. They just wanted there to be a reunion without repentance. And so in the story, there's no repentance on behalf of the brother who killed the other one because she's pleading with David, Spare me the embarrassment. Spare me. I have no social security. I have no life insurance policy. What am I going to do to survive? This other son is going to have to take care of me.

I am a widow. If you kill him, that's what he deserves. That's justice. That's what he needs to have done to him. But if you do that, if you enact the law, if you follow the law of God, I will lose. Wow. So forget about what God says, and help me.

That's the parable. Forget about what God says, and help me. And David says, you know what? If someone touches you, just tell me, I'll deal with it. No, that's not good enough, David. No. Okay, if someone comes into you, you send them to me, I'll deal with it. No, that's not good enough, David. David, I need you to spare my son. Okay, not one hair of his head will be troubled. He'll be saved. Now she's got him. She got him right where she wants him. Played on his emotions. And then she turns the story around.

She flips the story. She flips the story. Listen to what she says. This is so interesting. Listen to what she says. Why then have you planned such a thing against the people of God? For in speaking this word, the king is as one who is guilty in that the king does not bring back his banished one. Let me ask you a question.

Did David banish Absalom? No. Absalom ran. He ran like a scared chicken. He ran away. He wasn't banished. He wasn't kicked out of the kingdom. He ran because he sinned. But she makes David feel like he was the one who banished his son. Now watch this. For we shall surely die and are like water spilled on the ground which cannot be gathered up again. Yet God does not take away life but plans ways so that the banished one may not be cast out from him. Folks, that's a true statement. God has planned a way so that the banished one is not cast out.

But the way God has planned it is built on a repentant spirit. Without repentance, you're still banished. Without repentance, you're still outside of God's covenant grace. But when there's repentance involved, God has provided a way for the banished person to come back. God is declaring that all men everywhere, what? Should repent, Acts 17.30. 2 Peter 3.9. God does not want that each should perish, but that all should come to what? A place of repentance. Acts 26, Isaiah 1, verses 16 and following.

Ezekiel 36. It all speaks about repentance. God has provided a way. He has. It's through his grace that he provides a way. He grants you the opportunity to repent that you might come to your senses, realize the weakness of your ways, fall before him and say, God, I am a sinner. Be merciful unto me as a sinner. And God in his grace and mercy reaches down and provides for you entrance into his glory so you are no longer banished. God does do that, but he doesn't do it to the unrepentant. God has never ever saved someone who was unrepentant.

Never has. And he never will. Because God's forgiveness is conditional. It's not unconditional. His love is unconditional. But his forgiveness is conditioned upon the repentant spirit. Because if it wasn't, we'd all be universalists. Everybody would go to heaven no matter what they did. There'd be no need to repent. But God has provided a way. Come unto me all you that labor in heaven, and I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, learn from me. He says, look, you come to me. But you can't come to me as you are.

You must come to me willing and wanting to turn from your sin. When you do, and the only way you do that is because God in his grace and his mercy, as 2 Timothy 2.25 says, has granted you repentance. And when God grants you repentance, you come and you fall before him, and he provides a way of salvation. So the woman from Tekoa was right, but she was wrong in this sense, that you don't take back the banished one without there being a repentant spirit. So she trapped David, and David bought into it hook, line, and sinker.

And David, you know, did have a little bit of wisdom. He said, did Joab put you up to this? She said, yeah. Yeah, he did. He did. And so he turns. You know, we forget. We forget. That sometimes we think that there are certain situations that allow us to bypass the law. And you just can't do that. But we think you can. You know, we call it situational ethics. We think that, you know, sometimes, you know, it's okay to lie. And we go way back to the book of Exodus, and we use the Hebrew midwives as an illustration.

But the Bible never says that the Hebrew midwives lied. So you can't use that as an illustration, but we use it anyway, okay? We'll go back to Rahab. Say, well, Rahab, she lied. And she's in the Hall of Faith. You can read about her in James chapter 2, as a woman of faith. Ah, yes, but she never knew the Ten Commandments. She never knew the law. She had not been given the law. She was a Gentile woman. And she was just converted. And so as a just converted person, all she knew was her way of life.

She knew nothing about the laws of God. She had not been taught those laws of God yet. She just lived in the way that she knew. She's in the Hebrew Hall of Faith because she believed in the Lord God of Israel. That's why she's there. And we go back to Rebecca and how she lied and how she deceived her husband when she knew that the older would serve the younger. But she had to conjure up this plan to deceive her husband, to lie to her husband, so that it would all work out the right way. And we say, oh, man, because she knew the law of God, it was okay for her to lie.

Really? Really? Listen, whenever you use that as an argument, well, you know, it was okay for Corrie Ten Boom to lie because she saved all these Jews. Was it? Is it okay to do wrong to do right? Is that okay? We think it is. Is it okay to break the law of God to do the right thing? Listen, whenever you lie, you know what you say to God? You say, God, your sovereignty is not good enough. Let me intercede and let me intervene here for you to work it out my way.

Whenever you lie, that's exactly what you say. You can color it all. Well, we're protecting innocent people. We got to do what we got to do. And so we're going to protect them. We're going to lie. We're going to cheat. We're going to deceive. And we're going to protect the innocent. We're going to break the law of God to do the right thing. Never is that ever condoned in Scripture. Never. So you got to be careful about how in situational ethics you condone your sinful behavior based on what you think is right or what you think is wrong.

Got to be very careful about that. And so this woman comes, and she presents a situation that says, you need to play on my emotions. You need to help me out here, David. You need to take care of me as a mother. I'll be a widow, but now I'm going to be, I'm going to be, I'm not going to have any children left. Please intervene. Show me some grace. Let my son live that I may live. And she played on David's emotions. And David would succumb to those emotions. You know, when she came to David, she talked to him.

But she accused David of being an error. He wasn't an error, except for the fact that he didn't confront his son. But it wasn't his fault that Absalom wasn't in Jerusalem. That was Absalom's fault. And she wanted David to think it was his fault. And so what happens is that David allows, allows Absalom to come back. He will compromise the law. He will compromise the truth. He will compromise to save his family. Listen, whenever you compromise the truth to save your family, you'll destroy your family.

Write it down, mark it down. It's said tonight. When you compromise the truth to save your family, you will destroy your family. It just happens. And that's exactly what David's doing. He's compromising the law of God, the truth of God. He knows exactly what it says. He is the king that enacts justice in the land. He's willing to set that aside based on his own emotions, based on a relationship that will not last. It's not gonna last. He thinks it's gonna last. He hopes it's gonna last. It does not last.

If you build a relationship that's not built on biblical principles, that's not based on repentant spirit, that relationship will never, ever last. It won't. And this is a classic example of that. And that's why we took you back to Eli. Because God said to Eli, you honored your sons above the law of God. You honored your sons above me. They now will die. They're gonna die. Because you did not honor me. And God was gonna say, he honors me, I will honor. You want God to honor your life? Honor him no matter what the consequences are right now.

And in the long run, you come out the winner. If you just honor him right now, in the long run, you're gonna come out the loser. You will. And you need to understand this today. Not tomorrow, not next week. You need to understand this tonight. You need to grab a hold of this tonight. So that you can begin to do the right thing, the thing that God wants you to do, for the sake of your family. So David says, bring it back. Joab's all excited. Joab, he couldn't wait. He prostrates himself and says, oh thank you king, you're so great, you're so wonderful, yada, yada, yada, yada, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah.

And just picks off the gesher and gets Absalom, brings him back. David says, now when he gets you, I don't wanna see his face. I don't wanna see him. What good is that? You can live in my house, but I don't wanna see his face. For two years, Absalom never sees the king. Comes into his chambers, speaks to the king, and meets him face to face. He's there. Now, you know that Absalom's not repentant, simply by saying this. And maybe David's thinking, you know what, if he's in the palace, he knows he's here, but he can't talk to me, maybe that will drive him to a place of repentance where he'll say, you know what, dad, I gotta see you, I am so sorry, dad, please forgive me, I was wrong.

That never takes place. Instead, he sends for Joab and says, come see me, and Joab says, I'm not gonna come. Because Joab realizes, after now five years, been three, he's been gone, two in the palace, after five years, Absalom's probably not gonna be the next king. So he's like, I'm done with Joab. Who needs him? And Joab says, come see me. He says no. He says again, come see me. He says no. So he gets his servants to say, I want you to go burn his field. Burn up his field. So they do. And Joab is ticked off.

Now he goes to see his dad and says, what are you doing? Why did you burn my field? What's wrong with you? That tells you he's got an unrepentant spirit, because an unrepentant spirit is so rebellious, it will not stop at anything to get his or her way. That's what he does. You get in here and see me now, Joab. If I gotta burn your field, if I gotta burn your house down, you get in here and see me now.

I demand you come see me. A broken and contrite heart makes no demands and has no agenda. None. No demands, no agenda. But Absalom has an agenda. He wants to be king. He has a demand. Joab, come see me. So Joab comes. He says, I want to see the king now.

And so Joab arranges it. He comes into the king's chambers. He prostrates himself. It's all a show. It's all hypocritical. He prostrates himself because his father is the king. Okay? But to put on a show, he falls down before the king and prostrates himself, but never says anything. And David could have said, Son, are you ready to repent? But he doesn't say anything. Son, are you finally ready to repent for your murder from my son and your brother Amnon?

How about this? Are you ready to repent for burning Joab's field? Can you even repent from that? But what the king does is kiss his hand to give him a pardon without repentance. And because he gives him a pardon without repentance, all hell will break loose. And David doesn't even know it yet. But it happens rapidly in his life. Listen, if you let the lawless one continue on in their lawlessness, it only breeds more and more rebellion. Listen to the words of A.W. Pink. He said, deal tenderly with evil, and it will assuredly rise to a head and crush you in the end.

On the other hand, meet evil with a face of flint and victory is sure. Folks, there is nothing more true than that. You deal with evil tenderly, it's going to rise up, it's going to crush you. But you deal with it with a face of flint, strong, forcefully, gracefully, and deal with it, you will rise up, and you will be victorious. David didn't do that. He didn't do it. And the darkest days are yet ahead. And I'm sure in David's mind he's thinking, as he kisses his son's hand, it's over. It's over.

We can move on. We can put the past behind us, and we can move on. But little does he know that Absalom has an agenda. Absalom wants to be the king of Israel. And Absalom will stop at nothing to deceive and to be disloyal and to rise to the top and win the nation. A civil war will break out. Listen, and 20,000 Israelites will die because David did not demand his son repent of his sin. And not only will 20,000 Israelites die, but Absalom himself will die. What did it get David by compromising the law of God?

The wages of sin is what? Death. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you, Lord, for your word, how it speaks to us. Our prayer, Lord, is that we would follow explicitly what you say. It's not easy. It's hard. Because it goes against everything sometimes that we want to do. But it's the right thing to do. And when it's the right thing to do, Lord, you're honored. And you have promised, if we honor you, you will honor us. And so we must stick to what your word says and follow faithfully your word. I pray for those who are here tonight.

Maybe they're dealing with sin in a relationship they have in their family, with their friends, in their church. And they have let it ride and not dealt with it. I pray that tonight they would realize how important it is to confront it and deal with the sin that has caused a breach in relationships and to cause others to realize God must be glorified. He must be lifted up. He must be honored in all that we say and in all that we do. In Jesus' name, amen.