Well, whenever I say go live on this thing, it gives a countdown. I'm just going to blow up. Three, two, one. Well, I'm just one minute. I'm just trying to see. All right, second Corinthians, good grief. Maybe I should take a little nap here. You all talk among yourselves. I'll wake up in 15 or 20 minutes and feel fresh. Let's seek the Lord's blessing. Our father, your son told us, without me, you can do nothing. Apart from me, you can do nothing. And we realize that, Lord. And yet, we also know that anything can be done with God. All things are possible with God. And Lord, right now, we're not looking for miracles in the flesh or anything like that. We pray for that miracle of spiritual understanding, that miracle of the truth being told in our hearts and minds, being ready to accept it. We pray that we'll learn from this portion of Scripture that speaks to us of David's life. In the name of Christ, we pray it. Amen. All right, we began last week with chapter 15. Now, all these chapters, since we read about David's sin with Bathsheba, have been an accounting of all the trouble that came upon David's household because of his sin. And the Lord had said, the blood or the sword will never depart from your house. And indeed, it didn't. And in this particular scripture, we're going to find another one of the Lord's words by the prophet Nathan being fulfilled. Now, we got through verse 12 last week, so we'll pick up at verse 13. And Absalom has disenfranchised the hearts of the people away from David and on to himself, because he wants to be king. And it says in verse 13, a messenger came and told David, the hearts of the men of Now, if there's any proof of how fickle the people of Israel were, and evidently always were, not only with regard to the Lord Himself, but even to His servants, why would they ever choose one like Absalom, whose actions should have proved him for the kind of man he was, and choose him over David? who had shown good character. I mean, a few notable exceptions, but among the Israelites, he was a remarkable good character. But that's the way it is with people. They're fickle. Their hearts are easily turned. And so the news comes today that the hearts of the men of Israel are with Absalom. Now, I'm thinking when it says here the men of Israel, it means primarily the military men. In other words, he's got an army. This isn't just the people in Israel saying, we like Absalom to be the king. Absalom could back that up with a powerful army to defend his claim to the kingship. And so David receives this word and he says in verse 14, then David said to all his officials who were with him in Jerusalem, come, we must flee or none of us will We must leave immediately or he will move quickly to overtake us and bring ruin upon us and put the city to the sword. Now, David is acting wisely here. You know, sometimes and I guess it makes for good movies and things like that, but it doesn't make for wise military strategy. If you know you're overmatched, you leave and you regroup. And I'm sure David did not want to leave Jerusalem. I mean, he built it. He did not want to leave his palace. He didn't want to pack everybody up and go. But if he would have stayed there, that all got wiped out. And not only that, in the process, Absalom probably would have put the whole city to the sword. So for the protection of the people in Jerusalem and the protection of his own household and his court advisors and all that, he decided to leave. and that was a wise choice at that point. But it says, the king's officials answered him, your servants are willing to do whatever our lord the king chooses. Now here we have, of course, David is a picture of Christ in nearly everything he did. In fact, some aspect of the person and work of Christ can be seen even in his sin, because that pictures the Lord bearing our sin. Of course, David was bearing his own sin nonetheless. You know, when we bring it into the New Testament and try to understand it in light of Christ, Christ bore our sins. Well, David, and as a result of bearing our sins, judgment fell upon him, His blood was drawn. The sword didn't depart from him. And he, for a time, was made lower than the angels. He was, as it were, deposed from his throne. And it seemed like anyway, for a while, the devil had the upper hand on him. And so that's kind of what's being pictured here. But note this. The king's officials answered him, your servants are ready to do whatever our Lord the king chooses. Now, here is a good example of what our hearts should be towards the Lord at all times, in all circumstances. We follow the king. We are his servants. Now, servants are not advisors as such. That is, we're not supposed to tell the king what to do. We can make our requests known to God, but our requests always are to be offered in submission to His will, and then to be ready to do whatever He says to do, to take whatever action He says to take. Now, you and I are not going to hear directly from God, as the prophets of old did, and we're not going to be able to have a meeting or something like that and come to a determination of God's will in any particular circumstance. We have His basic will laid out for us in the Scriptures, and we apply the Scriptures to our lives the best we can according to our understanding and make our choices that way. Nonetheless, if we know God, We are ready to do whatever he says. Once we are convinced that is the right direction to go. Now, our biggest problem, and I say our, mine, is often in knowing the right direction. I usually don't have problems acting on what I believe to be the right direction. The most difficult time is when it seems there is no light. There is no, and what do you do then? Nothing. Until you know what to do, don't do anything. And Henry told us in the preacher's class in dealing with church decisions. And I think he was talking about a building program at that point, you know, not that was going on at that point, but I mean, in this particular lesson, he was talking about one time when he wanted to do some building. and it did not seem as though the church was behind it, at least not much of a majority was behind it, and he didn't know exactly how to proceed. And Henry made this point, you know, the only thing we have to do is worship Christ. Everything else can wait for a proper time, and you know, the right circumstances in clear direction. And there have been a lot of things over the years that I've wanted to do, that I thought would be good to do, but I couldn't see a way to do. And so I didn't do anything. I've seen churches bring themselves to great harm when they have in mind something they think should be done, would be a good idea to do, they can't find the means, and they say, well, we're just going to step out on faith. Well, brethren, you cannot be stepping out on faith unless you've got a promise to step out on. And if God didn't promise you an educational wing on your church, you can't step out in faith and build one. And I know actually of a church, it wasn't the one I attended in my youth, but it was one that One of my friends did and this was again back in the late 60s and early 70s and churches were in this, you know, we got to grow and then bus ministries and, and, you know, new buildings and all that. And the pastor of his church has got in his mind, they're going to be one of those kind of churches sunk the church in so much debt. They nearly never recovered. Just really became a horrible burden. Well, the king's official said, we are ready to do whatever the king chooses. We know that whatever the king chooses will be done, but it's good when we can learn to follow his will willingly and cheerfully. The king set out, it says in verse 16, set out with his entire household following him, but he left 10 concubines to take care of the palace. Now, you kind of wonder what are 10 concubines going to do to take care of the palace once Absalom shoves up? And, you know, it doesn't seem, I mean, certainly they can't fight him off. I doubt that he has any concern about making sure the place is cleaned up for Absalom to move in. or anything like that, I don't know why David did except for this. Look over at chapter 12, verse 11. God has a way of bringing his word to pass. Now this is when Nathan is talking and confronting David about his sin with Bathsheba. He says, this is what the Lord says, out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. You did it in secret, but I will do this in broad daylight before all of Israel. Now look over at chapter 16 verse 11. I've got something down here wrong. Let me... I hate it when I do that. I write it down thinking I got it right, and then I don't. Okay, 21. Not 1D1, 21. 1621, well in verse 20 it says, Absalom said to Ahithophel, give us your advice, what should we do? Ahithophel answered, now, Absalom's in Jerusalem, he's in the palace. Ahithophel answered, lie with your father's concubines, whom he led to take care of the palace. And all Israel will hear that you have made yourself a stench in your father's nostrils, and the hands of everyone with you will be strengthened. So they pitched a tent for Absalom on the roof, and he lay with his father's concubines in the sight of Israel. The Lord said in broad daylight. So why did David leave these ten concubines there? Well, I don't know what David's motivation was, but I know why God moved him to do it, to fulfill the prophetic curse that God had put on David. And these ten concubines ended up to be the ones through whom that prophecy was fulfilled. That someone would lie with his wife in broad daylight, someone from his own household. Now, we're beginning to see what a scoundrel this Absalom was. I mean, how much worse can you get? I can't, you know, the things he's doing, I can't imagine how a person can imagine the new things worse, but that's what he's doing. And So the Lord arranged for the fulfillment of his prophetic curse against David. The scriptures say, be sure your sin will find you out. And if the Lord, he certainly has forgiven us a lot, hasn't he? And has caused it that maybe our sins didn't find us out. That is, they were not made public. But we cannot live our lives thinking the Lord will always hide our sins from others. He will hide them, as it were, from Himself. He will never take vengeance. But particularly if our sins are spiteful to His grace, like David's was, and done in great pride and arrogance, like David's was, the Lord very well may bring us low and humiliate us. Now, it's never for our destruction. It's for our good, just as parents discipline their children. So it says in verse 17, the king set out with all the people following him and they halted at a place some distance away. Now we find out later it wasn't very far away because they had not yet crossed and broke Kidron, which was quite close to Jerusalem. But he set out with all the people following him, that is all of his court. And we're going to read of some others. It says in verse 18, all his men marched past him. Now, that probably included the people who served in his court. and also whatever of his army was present in Jerusalem with him, his guards, things like that, along with the Karathites and Pelophites. Now, as near as I could figure out, these were not Jews. They were Gentiles who had sided with David. And having sided with David, they say loyal to them. You know, as much as we might want to think that everything in Israel followed a very simple pattern, you know, and all the Jews were always doing the right thing and all the Gentiles always doing the wrong thing. No, that's not the way it was. The Jews were like other people. And actually, most of the Old Testament is a record of them rebelling against God. And then God, in order to show the greatness of his grace and also kind of cast a prophetic eye towards what would happen in the days of Christ, there would be the Gentiles that got mixed in. I mean, our Lord's ancestry is full of Gentiles. Ruth. Who was who got married to Well, it was a liminal X, one of the liminal X sons. I can't remember which one. Huh? Well, later it was Boaz, but got married and a liminal X son died. Yeah. And but he had married a Moabitess. Not a Jew. Not supposed to do that, but he did anyway. And then she came back with Ruth and then Boaz married her and redeemed and in so doing redeemed a liminal X name, his property, his ancestry, and all that. But that one born of Boaz and Ruth is a direct ancestor to the Lord Jesus Christ, as is Rahab of Jericho. And here we have David leaving, and who's with him? A bunch of Gentiles. And our Lord has always had people from all over the earth. Most of them were in Israel there for about 1500 years. But by no means all of them. And it says all 600 Gittites who had accompanied him from Gath marched before the king. Now, probably these were also Gentiles, people of Gath, and David had overthrown Gath at one point. And sometimes I guess folks just decided whoever conquers them, that must be the king now and continue fighting. They just joined forces with him. And then the king said to Ittai, the Gittite. And this would have been the leader of these 600 Gittite men said, why should you come along with us? Go back and stay with King Absalom. You are a foreigner, an exile from your homeland. Now, if he sided with David, that makes him an exile in his own homeland. They were like him there. And you know something? When we lay hold of Christ, when we confess him, we are an exile and a foreigner to the rest of the world. And, uh, So David was saying to him, now he said, in verse 20 there, he says, you came only yesterday. I don't think he meant like the actual literal day before. He meant, you know, you haven't been with us that long. You aren't heavily invested in me and my kingdom. So he's saying, David goes on to say in verse 20, "'And today shall I make you wander about with us when I do not know where I am going. Go back and take your countrymen. May kindness and faithfulness be with you.'" Now, David is showing more of his, you know, that character that makes him the man after God's own heart. Here's this Enti and the Gittites, and they're going to leave with him because they incited with David. And David can certainly use all the meaning he can get. But he says to these fellows, look, you know, really, you're not involved in this yet. And you didn't come here, you know, expecting this. David gave him a way out. And, you know, as we follow the Lord, and particularly as we follow the Lord in those times when following the Lord is unpopular, the Lord may arrange for us to be tempted with such words as David. He said, why don't you just let, it's just a line with Absalom. After all, he's David's son. He's going to be the new king. And it's a test. I don't know whether David was testing him. David may have been very sincere in what he was saying. But if the Lord sends some trial such as that or some temptation like that to us, it's a test to prove us. And here's the thing, here's the thing. Sometimes words like that come to a person and they go back. And what does that prove? Well, they may have been doing what they thought that was their duty, but it was not what they wanted to do. Their heart wasn't with the king. They just felt they had no choice. And once presented with a choice, they make the wrong one. And yet, notice what Ittai says. Verse 21, but Ittai replied to the king, as surely as the Lord lives, and as my Lord the king lives, wherever my Lord the king may be, whether it means life or death, there will your servant be. Now, what's Ittai saying? He said, look, I didn't come here to be a Jew. I didn't come here to live in Jerusalem. I can't be with you. And you know, that's what's in the heart of every believer. That's his attitude towards the Lord Jesus Christ. Now like this, he says, as surely as the Lord lives. Now what the name Jehovah, you know, you'll notice Lord is in all capitals, meaning it's the name Jehovah. That's the I am. Well, of course the Lord lives. He is the I am. And he says, and as my Lord, the King lives. Now David is saying, you may as well go back to King Absalom. And the Antichorixian says, Absalom's not the king, you are. You are. Don't anyone in the world ever fool you into thinking that anybody other than the Lord Jesus Christ is king? I was reading, again, it was these atheists railing on something. Well, railing on the Christian religion. One of them saying, a hundred years from now, Christianity will be gone. And I just thought, do you realize how many people have said that? I mean, you know, they said it back when Christianity was essentially identified with the Jews, back in the Old Testament days, destroy Israel. They never got it done until the Lord was ready for it to be destroyed. And that was only because he set up the church. There have been people thinking, trying to destroy the church since it started. And people thinking, well, it'll die out. Never has. And here's the reason it never has. The king has never died. I mean, I don't care, but you know what I mean? The king lives. As long as the king lives, the kingdom is present. And it may go underground. It may be that nobody will see it. It moves from place to place. For several hundred years now, it had quite a presence in the United States of America. I don't know how much longer that will be, but there's revival, as it were, going on in India and other places in this world. God always has his people, always has had them, always will. Let us be like Itai, though we came only yesterday, though we be new to this, though we be Gentiles. Wherever the Lord the King may be, whether it means life or death, there will your servant be. David said, go ahead, march on. And, you know, that was. What would you put a day? I don't want to say a kindness, but that was a nice thing for David to do. He was applauding it. If he really didn't want it, he said, no, go back to Jerusalem. I guess I'm getting texts, I can hear my phone. At any rate. Rather, he was saying, I'm glad to have you. So Etiadi Gittai marched on with all his men and the families that were with him. So it wasn't just 600 men. There's a 600 men and their wives and their children. When David left Jerusalem, a whole lot of people were with him. Now, verse 23, the whole whole countryside wept loud as all the people passed by. He also crossed the Kidron Valley and all the people moved on toward the desert. So evidently, David, of course, led them out and then he stopped at Kidron Valley. Now, this Kidron Valley is the valley that Jesus Christ crossed on the night that he was betrayed. I believe Garden of Gethsemane was on the other side of Kidron. And interesting enough, the word means turbulent. Now, the Brook Kidron, as I think it's called in King James, the only time it has any water in it is in the winter. I believe that the official word for a body of water like this is a wadi. W-A-D-I. It's a place, you know, in those areas, they'll have a rain and it might be a torrential rain. And these low spots fill up. They flow like a river. They flow for a little while, but no rain comes along and just dry up. So most of the time, this place was dried up in the winter. It would be full of water and flow, but it was turbulent. And I read that it flows Oh, some 20 to 25 miles is all the length it is. But in that 20 or 25 miles, it drops over 3000 feet. Now, that's a steep. Course. And I guarantee you, from Sioux Falls to Sioux City, the Missouri River does not fall 3000 feet. So you see a picture there, turbulence, trouble, turmoil across that line. And we end up crossing that line quite often in our lives. But it's where the Lord led for whatever reason. Now, the whole countryside wept aloud as the people passed by, so the king leaves out his entourage, he stops at Kidron and watches as the people pass by. And then he also passed by and the people moved on toward the desert. Now, remember when it says desert, In the Bible, it does not necessarily mean a desert like we think the Arizona desert or something just means an uninhabited place, a deserted place. Actually, I think wilderness would be a better word for them to use. It would be better understood in English. But they just went out, you know, where there were no cities or anything, just out in the wilds. I said Zadok was there. That's the priest. and all the Levites who were with him carrying the Ark of the Covenant of God. They sat down the Ark of God and Abiathar offered sacrifices until all the people had finished leaving the city. Now, there was no temple, there was no tabernacle. David had built a tent that they kept the Ark in. But they brought that Ark out there. Of course, it would have been covered because no one saw the Ark. with the high priest, and that only once a year. But they sat him down, and then Abiathar, or Abiathar, however it's pronounced, he offered sacrifices in the presence of the ark until all the people had finished leaving the city. Now, then the king said, Zadok, take the ark of God back into the city. If I find favor in the Lord's eyes, he will bring me back and let me see it and his dwelling place again. But if he says I am not pleased with you, then I am ready. Let him do to me whatever seems good to him. Now, the Jews were somewhat suspicious about, not suspicious, superstitious about the Ark of the Covenant. They would take it with them into battle sometimes, you know, and It's true that the ark was representative of the presence of God, but just because the ark was there doesn't mean that God was there. And, of course, they brought out the ark with them because I'm sure some thought, well, it would be to our advantage to have the ark with us. But David expresses a better understanding. He says, take the ark back to Jerusalem. Why? Because God had appointed that city as his place. Secondly, he says, he says, take it to the city. If I find favor in the Lord's eyes, he will bring me back. I don't mean to have a gold covered wooden box to get me back to Jerusalem. If the Lord wants me back, if he's pleased with me, he will bring me back and I will see it. That is the ark and his dwelling place again. But if he says, I am not pleased with you, David says, I'm ready. And David understands this is not, he's not talking about eternal things. David is not fearing that God is going to destroy him eternally. He just realizes that he has sinned against the Lord grievously, and the Lord has every right. to exile him from Jerusalem and exile him from his presence on earth. And David said, if that's what the Lord wants, he can do to me whatever seems good to him. Now, why would David say a thing like that? I think he said a thing like that because he knew and trusted the Lord. He knew that it would be better for him to live in the wilderness at the Lord's will. and to find his way back into Jerusalem, contrary to the Lord's will, that it would be better for him to suffer exile the rest of his life under the Lord's hand than to live in Jerusalem in peace and prosperity without the Lord. So David said, whatever it is his purpose to do, I am ready. The king also said, verse 27, to Zadok the priest, Aren't you a seer? Go back to the city in peace with your son Ahimeaz and Jonathan, son of Abiathar. You and Abiathar take your two sons with you. I will wait at the forge in the wilderness until word comes from you to inform me. So David, he's being exiled by his son. And for a little while, he'll not officially be the king, but he's still acting like the king. He's making plans. He's sending, he's leaving the priests. And you know, the priests being in Jerusalem would not have been considered God. That's what they're supposed to be. And so he sends these priests and their sons back to Jerusalem. They are his friends. They will be in the court of Absalom. They will, as it were, have their finger on the pulse of what's going on, and they can report back to David. And so Zadok and Abiathar took the Ark of God back to Jerusalem and stayed there. But David continued up the Mount of Olives, weeping as he went. His head was covered and he was barefoot. Signs of humility, signs of mourning. It says all the people with him covered their heads too and were weeping as they went up. The Lord does send us into times of great trouble, sometimes for reasons we know, sometimes for reasons he never tells us. It's not for us to know always why the Lord is doing what He is doing. Rather, it is for us to accept whatever it is the Lord is doing. It doesn't mean we have to be happy about it. The idea that, you know, serious things come into our lives that, you know, the Christian is just going to continue being happy, they were weeping the whole way. Now, They were not angry at the Lord. They were not charging him with foolishness. They were not doubting his wisdom or his right to do what it is that he was doing. In fact, they were actually showing respect unto the Lord, for he sent them grief, and they acted like those who'd been grieved. Solomon said, and I just, this chapter, I've quoted this so many times in my preaching, obviously it had quite an effect on me, but Ecclesiastes chapter three, he says, there is a time for this and there's a time for that and then the time for this. And when it's time for this or that, act like that's what time it is. Are you full of joy? Rejoice. Are you brought down to tears? Cry. Has the Lord showed you pleasant times? Act like somebody who's having pleasant times. Has he poured upon you an ocean of trial and trouble? There is no, what's the opposite of virtue? There's no virtue in acting like you're not undergoing trial. And there is no weakness to be shown. by acknowledging that what the Lord has sent is difficult. It's hard. All right, that brings us to the end of that chapter, and we'll pick up there next week. Well, yeah, we've gone long enough. I thought that's what happens. You need to scroll down one more page. There we go. Yeah. Okay. I already said we're done. So we're going to be done. Okay.