For us, O Lord, as we now come to Your Word, we thank You for Your Word. We know that Your Word is sufficient. We know that Your Word tells us everything that we need to know about You, about ourselves, about our need for You, about our sin, about our inclinations and our ambitions. O Lord, use your word to instruct us, to guide us, to strengthen us, and above all, to point us once again to our faithful Savior, who lived a perfect life that we have all failed to live, and yet died in our place, in order that you may look upon us as if we had lived His life, because you looked upon Him as if He had lived our lives. Thank You for Your grace, Father. We pray that You would give us now our daily bread, and that You would bless the preaching of Your Word. In Jesus' name, Amen. Well, if you've got your Bibles with you, please turn to the book of 2 Samuel, as we'll be continuing our study of 2 Samuel, looking at verses 1 to 12 today. I had hoped to be able to get through the whole chapter. Forget it. This first passage in this chapter is so important. It's actually kind of a repetition of some lessons that we've already learned in 1 Samuel, as we were looking at the life of King Saul. But today we'll be looking at chapter 15, verses 1 to 12. You know, one of the things that we made note of in our previous lesson last week is that David's son, Absalom, was remarkably similar to a character that we were pretty sick and tired of, to be honest, back in 1 Samuel. Somebody who we at least grew very wary of, and that character, of course, was none other than King Saul. King Saul was essentially the personification of the type of worldly and depraved, unregenerate, wicked ambition that characterizes the world, that characterizes unregenerate humanity. Rather than trusting in God, King Saul put his trust in himself. Rather than obeying what God instructed him to do, King Saul did whatever at the moment might have seemed right in his own eyes. And what we've learned from Absalom so far is that he exemplified all of these same qualities. And as we're gonna see, he not only exemplified these qualities, he'd magnified them. He was perhaps worse than King Saul. We might liken Absalom to a new and improved vehicle that does all the same things that the old vehicle does, but he does it in a much more efficient way. He has more shrewdness, he has more intelligence, and he maybe has a closer relationship with David. But what we need to start out by understanding, and this is really important, this is fundamental to this whole passage, we need to understand that the flesh of man is always at odds with God's Spirit. Paul writes this in Galatians chapter 5 verse 17. He says, the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, the Spirit being the Spirit of God, of course, the Holy Spirit. And he continues, and the Spirit against the flesh, for these are in opposition to one another. So the flesh desires to exalt the individual, giving the individual a sense of autonomy, giving the individual a sense of independence from God, but the Spirit of God would have us see that we are totally, not just somewhat, we are totally dependent upon God. And He works in us in such a way so as to help us not only see that, but to cause our desires and our ambitions to conform to His ways His will and to shudder at the idea of us ever, ever being independent of God. He goes on to say this. He says in verses 19-24, Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. But then he goes on to contrast them with the fruit of the Spirit, saying, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, Faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. And then he gives us this very important statement. He says, now those who belong to Christ, Jesus, have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Let me repeat that last part. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. The flesh creates a mindset that leads to sin and death while the Spirit leads us to life, joy, and peace. This is essentially what Paul says to the Romans in Romans chapter 8 verses 5 to 8 where he writes, For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God, for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. All this is to say that as we study this chapter and the chapters that are coming up about the rise and fall of Absalom as he attempts to usurp the kingdom of Israel from David, it's not only real and literal history, it's also essentially a picture, an illustration of the battle that goes on between the flesh and the spirit, because Absalom exemplifies and personifies all the desires and all the ambitions and all the faults and flaws of the flesh. All the wickedness of the flesh. Absalom's ambitions are as high as they can be. He aspires to reach a level of greatness that is just unprecedented in Israel at this point. And he isn't going to hesitate to run right over his father, if that's what it takes to get there. He wants to be great, not only great in his own eyes, but he wants to be great in the eyes of the world as well. And while this should go without saying, I think that what I'm about to say needs to be said in our generation, in which it's very tempting and indeed it's very easy to make much of oneself, especially on places like social media. But all of this is antithetical to the way of Christ. Greatness in God's kingdom does not look anywhere near the same as it does in the world's kingdoms. In fact, it's the very opposite. It's not about being exalted, it's about being humbled. Jesus said this, Matthew chapter 20 verses 25 to 28, He said, You know the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It is not this way among you. But whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant. And whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many." So Christ is the example. He didn't come to make himself great in the world's eyes. He came very humbly to serve, not to be served. In the words of John Woodhouse, one of the commentators I've enjoyed reading through our studies of 1 and 2 Samuel, he says this, he says, quote, the pursuit of worldly greatness is profoundly inconsistent with faith in Jesus Christ, end quote. Do you believe that? I think it's undeniably accurate. Is there not a status that is essentially at the level of celebrity that many with good intentions, even in Christian circles, aspire to? There absolutely is. We used to call this thing Big Eva. That's what Carl Truman called it, Big Eva. Big Eva refers to basically mainstream, popular, evangelical Christianity. And it involved all these conferences and books and so on and so forth. We called, eventually, you know, especially the Reformed part of Christianity started calling for the demise of Big Eva because she became very worldly. In fact, she became almost indistinguishable from the world, especially with the rebirth of the social justice movement about 10 years ago. And yet there are still hundreds of pastors and authors and social media influencers who have sought to create a new Big Eva. We don't need a new Big Eva. We need Christ and we need to focus on being faithful to Him and to let that just be enough. But needless to say this is a lesson that every Christian must learn because our flesh always has ambitions that are opposed to the ways of Christ. And yet it's a lesson that's anything but easy to learn. Nevertheless, many Christian leaders in America have a long way to go in yielding to the words of Jesus, who again said, it is not this way among you. For a season, David's kingdom strongly resembled the kingdom of God. And we loved, we fell in love with David during those chapters. In the chapters leading up to David's sin, which was back in chapter 11, we saw David accomplish so much good. He was a good king. He was a godly king. He was a picture, a foreshadowing of Christ who valiantly fought back God's enemies and who blessed so many who were unworthy of being blessed, like Mephibosheth, if you remember him. Prior to David's appointment as king of Israel, if you remember, he had adamantly refused to take the position of king by force, even when he could have, even when King Saul was vulnerable, despite the fact that God had anointed him already as the next king of Israel. But once David became king, Well, he had a good start, a good and godly start. It wasn't long before he became very comfortable taking things. He developed a mindset, I think, of conquering. So he began to take things, even things that he wasn't Privy to taking. He shouldn't have taken. He took Bathsheba. He took the life of her husband. God forgave David. He brought him to a point of repentance and forgave David. But David would never be the same king again. And the good that he did as Israel's king in his early years would never be repeated. After David's repentance before God, the Lord had promised David that there would nevertheless be consequences for his actions. He told David through the prophet Nathan, I will raise up evil against you from your household. And from there we saw that start to play out in David's life. David's son Amnon raped David's daughter Tamar, which led to her brother Absalom murdering Amnon in cold blood two years later. But notice, as you consider those things now that we're way past them, notice that David's sins of sexual immorality and murder were repeated by his sons. It would seem that the Lord wanted to teach David to really, really despise those kinds of sins. From there, David has been demonstrated to not have been very good of a father. Maybe he was crippled by his own moral failure, his own sin at one point in his life, but he turned out to be less than the ideal father in that he failed to teach his children to love and to honor and to obey the Lord. His sons would be known for stirring up conflict. His sons would be known for being unrestrained and undisciplined. And they would be known for raising up evil against their father, King David. And none of his sons exemplified this more than Absalom did. Nobody ever posed a threat to David's kingdom, not the Philistines, not King Saul, or King Saul's replacement, if you remember, for a time. He wasn't appointed as Israel's king. They instead had Ish-bosheth as their king. But nobody ever posed a threat to David's kingship the way that Absalom would. Nobody. We should remember that after murdering Amnon, Absalom fled to Geshur, but that David's military commander Joab used a woman from Tekoa to deceive David as a means of convincing David to allow Absalom to return to Jerusalem, which David did. But the Absalom that came back was not the same Absalom that had gone into exile. He came back much worse. He was not repentant for his sin of murdering Amnon in the least bit. And so for two years, Absalom was allowed to live in Jerusalem, if you might remember, but he wasn't allowed to stand in the presence of his own father, King David. Two years later, however, he grew tired of these conditions, and so he took action by instructing his servants, ultimately, to burn Joab's barley fields, all as a means of getting Joab to deliver a message to King David that he needed to be seen. And if there's any iniquity in him, let David himself identify it and deal with it. But of course, David doesn't. Instead, chapter 14 concluded with Absalom bowing before David and David kissing Absalom, which is a sign of forgiveness, a sign of reconciliation, even though Absalom had not repented of his sin. And so as we begin to look at Absalom's uprising, which again is going to take a few chapters, The point of the passage we come to today is that true greatness is found by walking in obedience to God, and not by pursuing greatness by the world's standards of greatness. Friends, this is such an important lesson for us to grasp. It's such an important lesson for us to live by. Greatness is found not by exalting yourself, but by humbling yourself. being served, but by serving it's by walking in obedience to God. Absalom exemplifies the opposite of true Christian greatness. So let's start with verses 1 to 6 as we consider 2 Samuel chapter 15 verses 1 to 12. It says, Now it came about after this that Absalom provided for himself a chariot and horses and fifty men as runners before him. Absalom used to rise early and stand beside the way to the gate, and when any man had a suit to come to the king for judgment, Absalom would call to him and say, From what city are you? And he would say, Your servant is from one of the tribes of Israel. Then Absalom would say to him, See, your claims are good and right, but no man listens to you on the part of the king. Moreover, Absalom would say, O that one would appoint me judge in the land! Then every man who has any suit or cause could come to me, and I would give him justice. And when a man came near to prostrate himself before him, he would put out his hand and take hold of him and kiss him. In this manner Absalom dealt with all Israel who came to the king for judgment. So Absalom stole away the hearts of the men of Israel. having just received a kiss from the king himself, which represented, which symbolized forgiveness. At the end of the previous chapter, we're to see that Absalom immediately starts to undermine David's kingship. As our chapter begins with the words, now it came about after this, we should understand that this, the word this, refers to that kiss from King David, which is a symbol of Absalom's pardon. It's perhaps at this point that we start to see why maybe Absalom was David's favorite son. We saw in the previous chapter that he was a good-looking guy. He was visually appealing to the eye, as we were told, but he's also exceptionally intelligent and perceptive. At least he's intelligent when it comes to knowing how to get his way and how to manipulate people. Absalom was gifted in all the ways that turn people today into rock stars and celebrities and influencers. But above all, he understood, he knew people. And when I say that, I mean he understood and knew what people desired, what motivated them, and what people wanted to hear, what people wanted to see. And he knew how to use these things to his benefit. We've already seen that the people of Israel fawned over this young man, not because of his godly character, not because of a strong sense of godly virtue that he might have had, but because he was physically attractive. Period. End of story. In fact, he was completely lacking in godly character and godly virtue. You'll remember how fond of King Saul, all of Israel was back in 1 Samuel, despite the fact that Saul was not only lacking in godliness and virtue, but he was also lacking in any kind of potential political experience to speak of. But here's the thing that we learned back then and we need to be reminded of today, and that is that worldly-minded people are always quick to make judgments on others based on external factors. God on the other hand considers and looks upon the heart of a man and his children should follow his example. Well how do we look upon the heart of a man? Remember what John Calvin said, the tongue exists to reveal the heart. So in what they say we can take a glimpse, get a glimpse of what's going on in their hearts which is exactly what we're going to get from Absalom here in just a moment. But knowing how easy it is to manipulate people, Absalom began a political campaign, really, to unseat his father David as Israel's king. The first thing he does is he gets himself some horses and a chariot and 50 men to go running before him. Now this is kind of an odd thing to do since Israel's in a time of peace. David has already obliterated all of Israel's enemies surrounding them. So, you know, what he's doing here by getting in a chariot and having 50 men run before him is typically what a leader would do in preparation for war. But what's odd is that Israel's not at war. So why is Absalom doing this? Well, like everything else that we're going to see that he's doing, it's all being done with the purpose of winning the hearts of the people. None of it has any purpose but to gain their applause and approval. And as we consider the significance of Absalom riding around Jerusalem in a chariot with 50 men running before him, there are a couple things that we should consider. First of all, we should realize that Samuel, the prophet and judge of Israel, warned the people of Israel that if they rejected God as king, and if they put a man in God's place, This is exactly what an earthly king would do to them. He warned the Israelites back in 1 Samuel 8, verse 11, saying, He will take your sons and place them for himself in the chariots and among his horsemen, and they will run before his chariots. So here's that coming to fruition. It's actually literally happening. The second thing to keep in mind is that chariots were typically not even used by Israel's army. Who were they usually used by? They were usually used by Israel's enemies. In fact, Psalm 20 verse 7 reminds us of the danger of putting our trust in chariots. David writes, some boast in chariots and some in horses, but we will boast in the name of the Lord our God. Hopefully when you hear that, hopefully when you read that and consider it, you notice that trusting in chariots is entirely at odds with trusting in the name of Yahweh. Chariots are what people who don't trust in the name of Yahweh end up putting their hope in. It's what they end up boasting in. Chariots were essentially a picture of worldly greatness by the world's standards. how easy it is for us to aspire to greatness as defined by the world, by the world's standards. And yet the words of Jesus echo through the age. It is not this way among you. Greatness and power by the world's standards are entirely at odds with trusting in the name of our Lord and our God. Think of what Jesus has said in Matthew 6, where he said, you know, be careful not to practice your acts of righteousness before men. That's what we've been studying in our series on the Sermon on the Mount. But think of what he said about the danger of those who love to draw attention to themselves from their fellow man. He's told us that we aren't to be motivated to do things primarily for the sake of drawing attention to ourselves or impressing our fellow man. We're born in sin and thus we have a natural inclination to be motivated by a desire to please and impress others, but the Christian's audience is God and God alone. We should be motivated by a desire to glorify God, but the flesh is constantly looking for ways to impress people and to thereby glorify self. That's exactly what Absalom is doing here. The next thing Absalom does is he starts to create what you might call in modern terminology a felt need among the people of Israel. Now make no mistake about it, there is usually a huge difference, a very significant difference between a felt need and a real need. Felt need is It's based on your feelings. So it becomes a very subjective term because our feelings are very subjective, aren't they? Do you guys ever wake up grumpy some days and you don't know why? We all do it, right? That's how subjective our feelings are. Do our feelings always tell us the truth? I mean, far from it. They're constantly lying to us about reality. The felt needs can very easily become nothing more than feelings of just covetousness and envy. And that's exactly what Absalom starts breeding among the people of Israel. Covetousness. We're told that Absalom used to rise early and stand beside the way to the gate. And when any man had a suit to come to the king for judgment, Absalom would call to him and say, from what city are you? And he would say, your servant is from one of the tribes of Israel. Then Absalom would say to him, see, your claims are good and right, but no man listens to you on the part of the king. See, the city gate was where the elders of the city would gather. It's where the wise people of the city would gather. We're all familiar with Proverbs 31, or if you're not familiar with it, it's a chapter that famously describes the character and the virtue of a godly woman. And in verse 23, it says this about her husband. It says, her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land. Now why would they gather there? Because it was a place where people could receive counsel or where their complaints could be voiced and where adjudication could be made. So Absalom starts getting up first thing in the morning, early bird gets the worm. He wants the best spot by the gate and he ends up going there so that he could find people who were in need of counsel or adjudication where he would engage them, first by asking where they're from. That's an easy enough, basic enough question. It's a harmless question, at least on the surface. And after ensuring that they were indeed citizens of Israel, Absalom would establish that as kind of a common ground between them, which, by the way, is fundamental to manipulation. Look for it next time you are confronted by a salesman who wants to sell you something. But he essentially says to them and establishes common ground with them by saying, Oh, what do you know? I'm a citizen of Israel too. Then upon hearing the complaint of the person who had come to the gates of the city for counsel or for adjudication, Absalom would say to them in a nutshell, you know, wow, you know, you're right. You're completely in the right. You've really got a rock-solid case here, and you would win, but guess what? King David hasn't appointed anybody to help you, so I guess you're just out of luck. You see, Absalom had discovered what he perceived to be a flaw and what many people may have perceived to be a flaw in David's administration. That being that David hadn't delegated judicial authority to other wise and godly trusted men. And with a nation that was growing and that was thriving and that was you know, seeing so much, so many new things unfold the way that Israel was, there was simply no way for David to hear absolutely everybody's case. But Absalom didn't really care about that. Let's be honest. We know that as the reader. We know that Absalom didn't really care about. He wasn't actually there to help anyone except himself. All he wanted to do was create a sense of discontentment in the people. And then he wanted to be the one who was there to lament the injustice of it all with them. Verse 4 tells us, Moreover, Absalom would say, O that one would appoint me judge in the land! Then every man who has any suit or cause could come to me, and I would give him justice. Again, that's not what he's really there to do. What he's there to do is stir up discontentment and then to show sympathy to them as victims of this unjust system that David is overseeing. In fact, notice that the text doesn't even tell us that Absalom ever actually took the time to hear anyone's case. Instead, he is said to have gone straight from, great, I'm a citizen of Israel too, straight to, you're surely good and right, but you're out of luck. Too bad my father won't appoint me to actually have the authority to do anything to help you out. I would if I could, but I can't, so I won't. We should also realize that this is what Absalom was doing with absolutely everyone, regardless of their case. He wasn't telling anyone that they didn't have a case. He wasn't telling anyone that they were in the wrong. He wasn't telling anyone that there was no injustice in what had already happened to them. What Absalom is doing is convincing everyone that he can, that King David either didn't care enough to help the people out, even though they're in the right, or that King David wasn't wise enough to create a system that allowed for everyone's case to be heard. Maybe he's doing both. Maybe he's convincing them of both. That David doesn't care enough and that David isn't wise enough. Whatever the case, he was actively and he was deliberately breeding discontentment toward David. The fact that this was a brilliant tactic to use in order to stir up a revolution against his father is revealed in the fact that we see salesmen and we see politicians in our own day and age using this same exact manipulative strategy even today. Establish some common ground, convince the people that they're in the right, that what they want is good and just, and then create a sense of discontentment and provide yourself as the solution to all of it. Why create the sense of discontentment? For that very reason, so that you can present yourself as the solution. I mean, how often do you hear a politician say something like, you know, my opponent, who's currently in office, is actually doing a fantastic job. In fact, I can't point to anything that he's done wrong. Of course they don't say that. They'd never even have an election if he was saying that, right? You'll never hear them say that, even if their opponent is doing a fine job already. But Absalom would say, oh, one would appoint, who could that be? Who could that one be who could appoint me judge in the land as a way of showing that he was the answer to all of their problems in life. that all the problems that they had traveled all the way to Jerusalem to have addressed couldn't be dealt with as the way it is, but if only he was in charge, if only he had authority, he could help everyone. Now, notice that he didn't say, too bad I'm not the king of Israel. That would have shown his courage just a little bit too much, right? It wouldn't have been subtle enough. It would have revealed his intentions, but it was enough. to plant the idea that David is an unjust king and that Absalom would make a much better king in people's minds. And this would be sealed by the practice described in verse 5 where we're told that when a man came near to prostrate himself before him, he would put out his hand and take hold of him and kiss him. That's something that the king would do. And we've seen that it was a symbol, a gesture that represented forgiveness or extending the proverbial hand of fellowship to somebody who had done wrong. It's what David did with Absalom again at the end of the previous chapter. But I want us to notice one other very subtle but very significant detail in verse 5. It says that Absalom would take hold of him. And if you take those words and you look for them in your Bible again, you'll see that those were actually the exact same words that were used back in chapter 13 verse 11 when we saw Amnon take hold of Tamar for the sake of sexually assaulting her. And so what we can see is that this expression, take hold of, suggests the strength of one person overpowering and overcoming the weakness of another person. And the craziest thing about Absalom's strategy is that it worked. that people didn't look at it and say, hmm, I wonder what he thinks he's doing. I mean, it seems to me, hey Fred, don't you think that it looks like Absalom here is trying to turn our hearts against David and to turn our hearts to him? The crazy thing is it worked. Nobody questioned him. Verse 6 tells us, in this manner Absalom stole away the hearts of the men in Israel. Yes, we as human beings are so easily manipulated. But the real warning here isn't primarily that we need to be wise and to be on guard against being duped like the men of Israel were. Yes, we do need to be wise. Yes, we do need to be discerning. But the real warning here is against the danger of becoming like Absalom. The real danger here is having ambition in our hearts that does not align with God's will or His ways. This past week I was listening to a clip of a man who calls himself a pastor preach a sermon, if you want to call it a sermon, I actually don't know what text he was preaching from, and in fact, if some of you may know who Michelle Leslie is, she's issued a challenge for anyone to show this guy actually preaching from the Bible, actually preaching from a text, and so far that challenge, which is over a month old, has been unanswered. But there was this clip that surfaced this past week of this man who calls himself a pastor, preaching a sermon, again if you want to use that word, on how God created people like himself to be superior to others like his own congregation, whom he condescendingly referred to as the peanut gallery. And I'm going to assume, I'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt here, and assume that he was trying to expound on 1 Corinthians chapter 12, where Paul likens Christians to members of the body of Christ. But one of Paul's points is that nobody in the body of Christ is superior to anybody else. Not in any way. Paul writes this in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 verses 14 to 16. He says, for the body is not one member but many. If the foot says, because I'm not a hand, I'm not a part of the body, it is not for this reason any less a part of the body. If the ear says, because I'm not an eye, I'm not a part of the body, it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body. So one of the points that Paul's making here is that there is nobody who's superior in the body of Christ. I think it's also probably worth noting that elsewhere this pastor has referred to himself as being the best that the American church currently has. Talk about some unrighteous ambitions, some ambitions that don't align with Scripture at all. Friends, this is not how Christians are to think. This is not how we are to act. This is not what you or I are to aspire to. And when we do aspire to things like that, God, by God's grace, may we have somebody who can hold us accountable and pull us back and say, your ego is out of control and you need to be humble. We are so easily caught up by worldly ambitions and worldly aspirations and worldly desires, the desire to make much of ourselves before man. But we must understand that the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, as Paul said to the Romans. We must see that the way of Christ is not self-promotion. The way of Christ is self-denial. The way of Christ isn't to have one's self brought high, it's to have one's self brought low. But Absalom is so worldly-minded. He is all about self-promotion. He's all about having himself brought high. And thus it's not too surprising that after feeling that he had won the hearts of enough of Israel's people, he moved to step two in his plan to remove David as the king of Israel. Let's continue looking at verses seven to 12. It says, Now it came about at the end of forty years that Absalom said to the king, Please let me go and pay my vow which I have vowed to the Lord in Hebron. For your servant vowed a vow while I was living at Geshur in Aram, saying, If the Lord shall indeed bring me back to Jerusalem, then I will serve the Lord. The king said to him, Go in peace. So he arose and went to Hebron. But Absalom sent spies throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying, As soon as you hear the sound of the trumpet, then you shall say, Absalom is king in Hebron. Then two hundred men went with Absalom from Jerusalem, who were invited and went innocently, and they did not know anything. And Absalom sent for Ahithophel the Gilanite, David's counselor, from his city Gilo. while he was offering the sacrifices, and the conspiracy was strong, for the people increased continually with Absalom. Now you may have noticed that the translation which I'm preaching from says that Absalom did this, you know, stood at the gate pleading with people and winning their hearts for 40 years. But if you have the NASB 95 translation, which is what I preach from, you'll see that there's a footnote on that word 40, which tells us that some manuscripts say 4 instead. I think it's probably safer to go with 4 than 40. I think it's very unlikely that we're just fast forwarding, you know, skipping ahead 40 years here. So let's assume that it's 4 years. That seems like a more realistic time frame after four years of sowing disharmony and discord and discontentment in the hearts of the men of Israel. Absalom finally comes to his father King David with a request that on the surface not only seems innocent enough but which even seems as though it would be a righteous request. That is a fulfillment of a vow that he had made unto the Lord in Hebron to worship the Lord if he, if Absalom, were ever brought back to Jerusalem, which has been now six years. It's been six years since he came back from that region. Now if David had been thinking, the fact that Absalom waited six years, or 42 years depending on which one you go with, but at least six years to do this would have been a major red flag. He would have said, wait a minute, you've had six years to do this and you're doing this now? But Absalom requests to leave and go to Hebron, which was located about 19 miles to the south, southeast of Jerusalem. What's the significance of that place? Well, it's where Absalom was born, which we learned back in chapter 3. It's also where David was first appointed as king, even when the rest of Israel rejected David, if you remember. But it was also Abraham's town, and thus served as kind of a connection between the covenant promises that God had made to Abraham so many years prior, and so the covenant promises that God had made to David. Absalom doesn't provide any kind of details or description about what exactly he's going to be doing in Hebron as an act of worship unto God. But the odder thing is that David doesn't even ask. And that's really a shame because the easiest way to identify and to expose a lie is to ask a lot of questions. Sooner or later, there's gonna be a question. See, there are questions in the mind of somebody who's lying that they have already come to expect, right? But if you ask enough questions, eventually you're gonna ask a question that they weren't expecting, and that's when answers will start getting less than coherent, they'll start contradicting other answers that they've given, and then the lie just starts to unravel and fall apart. If you watch crime documentaries, interrogators use this tactic all the time. Just ask as many questions, coming from as many different angles as you possibly can, even sometimes repeating questions, all trying to find inconsistencies, because things really start to unravel from there. But David does no interrogating. Apparently, He suspects absolutely nothing. What's strange is that if you remember the woman from Tekoa said that David was so wise he knows everything that goes on in the land. But apparently David was so far removed from what was going on in the city of Jerusalem that he had no idea that Absalom had been going to the city gates for four years and winning the hearts of the people. And so he apparently suspects absolutely nothing. I mean, was he completely oblivious to what Absalom had been doing for four years? It's hard to say. All we know is that he tells Absalom, go in peace. Shalom. And thus Absalom heads out of town. Ironically, he's heading out of town not in peace, but to start a war against his father. Of course, Absalom's story was all a lie. He's not going to worship the Lord. Absalom wasn't going to do anything related to the Lord. He had cloaked his true intentions with a lie that sounded righteous. We would think that only the devil himself would be so brave to do that. But people cloak unrighteous intentions with religious and righteous language all the time. But rather than worshiping the Lord, we're told that Absalom sent spies throughout all the tribes of Israel saying, as soon as you hear the trumpet, the sound of the trumpet, then you shall say, Absalom is king in Hebrew. So these spies go throughout the land and they're telling people what to do when they hear the trumpet and what it means when the trumpet sounds. And nobody hears this instruction from the spies and takes it to King David. We're told that Absalom was accompanied by 200 men from Jerusalem who knew nothing about Absalom's conspiracy to usurp the kingship from David. These were innocent people, 200 innocent people, very likely, in fact, almost definitely, these were people who had served in King David's administration in various capacities. So what Absalom has done here is he has removed 200 of David's officials from Jerusalem, where they would be threatened with death if they didn't comply with Absalom's plot to unseat David. Once he's out of Jerusalem, Absalom sends for Ahithophel the Gilanite, who had been one of David's most trusted advisors. You may remember that Ahithophel was actually the grandfather also of Bathsheba. And so, to be honest, I doubt that Absalom needed to do much to sow discontentment in Ahithophel to persuade him to help him to overthrow the king. But Ahithophel was a wise and trusted counselor and an advisor. But David's treatment of Bathsheba had turned Ahithophel's heart against the king. The passage ends by telling us that the conspiracy was strong for the people increased continually with Absalom. He's not out there at the gates trying to win their hearts anymore. Rather, the message is spreading that a trumpet is going to sound, which means that he's king in Hebron. And as this news spreads, their hearts are glad. Their hearts are with Absalom. Evil was certainly rising up against David from within his own household. This would be a painful trial for David. It would be a crippling trial for David. He would have to run for his life again. Something that he got really good at doing back when King Saul was the king. But the reality is that David had become a weak king. Due in part, I'm sure, to his sorrow over his sin. Sorrow over sin has a way of kind of slowing us down and crippling us. If we aren't sure that we have been forgiven, if we aren't sure that we have been cleansed, it has a way of just holding us back like an anchor. But whatever the case may be, David has been a weak king. And if we consider what we've seen in David ever since he was forgiven, we have never seen David do anything related to being faithful to the Lord. We don't see that David's walk with the Lord has even been noticeable since his son with Bathsheba, who was conceived in their adulterous affair, died. But all of this would serve, in the end, a holy and blessed purpose in David's life. That purpose being not only driving David back to God, but driving David to a place where he was closer to God than he had ever been. Many of David's psalms would be written during these years, including Psalm 3, which begins with an inscription that tells us it was written when he was fleeing from his son Absalom. But David would write in this psalm, O Lord, how my adversaries have increased. Many are rising up against me. Many are saying of my soul there's no deliverance for him in God. So he starts out the psalm by saying in verses 1 and 2, And yet he talks about how he rises because of God's grace. God gives him the grace to be able to go to sleep and he wakes up. Perhaps he was afraid of going to sleep because he knew that somebody was coming for his life. That'd make it pretty hard to sleep, I think. But he wakes up and he writes in verse six, I will not be afraid of tens of thousands of people who have set themselves against me roundabout. And he would conclude in verse eight by writing, salvation belongs to the Lord. Your blessing be upon your people. It is a beautiful, wondrous, blessed thing when God brings us to the point where we are forced to recognize that we cannot save ourselves, but that we depend entirely upon God and His mercy and grace to save us. In the shadows of the Old Testament, the term salvation often referred to a physical deliverance, a physical saving, a physical salvation. But in the New Testament, we see that the term applies to the whole person. Jesus came to bring salvation to all who would believe in Him, trusting in Him for salvation. But that salvation doesn't always mean a physical deliverance. after all consider for an example that the thief on the cross next to Jesus wasn't taken down and allowed to go on living. He was given something better than that. He was given a salvation better than a physical deliverance. He was given the promise that he would be with Jesus in paradise on that very day. All who have trusted in Christ have received the same promise, that you will be with him in spirit the moment that you die. Which is why Paul said, to live is Christ, to die is gain. Is it better to go and be in his presence or to do his work here on earth? I guess I'll just go with what God has given me and I'll keep doing my work here on earth, is basically what he says. Those who have trusted in Christ have that same promise, that we will be with Him in paradise, that we will see Him in glory. Those who haven't trusted in Christ, on the other hand, will be cast into a place of darkness, a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. But Jesus will come again to raise the living and the dead, the living to everlasting life in his presence, and the dead to a second death in hell, where they will experience conscious torment forever. Friends, the greatness to which Absalom aspired was not true greatness. It was a fleeting worldly greatness. No true greatness is found by walking in obedience to God, not by pursuing greatness by the world's standards of greatness. Psalm 3 reminds us of the wonderful truth that salvation belongs to the Lord. You won't find it anywhere but in Him, in the person of Jesus Christ. And so praise God for trials that, like David's trial here, remind us of this truth. Remind us of our dependence, our 100% utter, complete, total reliance on God. Our need for grace. Indeed, our need for Christ. In Him, you will not only find salvation, but you'll find the calling and the grace to experience true greatness. Not greatness by the world's standards, but by God's standards. Walking in humble obedience to the Lord, in service to Him for His glory. That's true greatness. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, thank you for your word. Oh Lord, we can only confess to you that these desires and these ambitions that we see in Absalom, we shudder to see them in ourselves. And yet we know that in one way or to some degree or another, they do exist within us. And we know, Lord, what your word says. We know that your word says that the ways of the flesh are contrary to the ways of Christ. Oh God, give us grace to pursue the ways of Christ. Give us grace to go to war against the desires and the ambitions and the inclinations that are so sinful and yet they're so ingrained in our flesh. Lord, our desire is not to please or to impress people. Our desire is to please and impress and glorify You. And were we left to ourselves, we would never have a desire to please you. But God, you have given us grace to even put the desire in us to please you. And so we pray, Lord, that you would grow us in that conviction. Grow us in the conviction that our lives were given to us to glorify you. and that seeking worldly greatness in the end is always, without exception, a futile endeavor. Give us grace, O Lord, not to be great in the world's eyes, not to be great by the world's standards, but to be humble before you in order that we may offer ourselves in service to you, that you may be glorified in us. In the name of Christ we pray, Amen.