All right, for announcements, I'll be leaving tomorrow afternoon to fly to Kiev. Pray for travel, that things would go smoothly. Connections, this year I connect in Frankfurt. Haven't been to that airport in 20 years, so pray that all the connections, everything will go smoothly. I talked to Jim Myers today. Jim's going to be teaching on Thursday, Sunday, and Tuesday. Now, this will be interesting. He's going to teach on Matthew 13, and he and I have talked about this several times. He's listened to what I've taught. I've never been fully satisfied with what I have taught and worked through on those parables in Matthew chapter 13. There's always some things that bothered me about the general context. And so, if you recall, in Matthew chapter 13, you have the parable of the soils, or sometimes called the parable of the sower. And it is often taken to be salvation. That is so embedded in us that it's hard to get away from that. But it's this whole string of parables that really is difficult. And one of the things that impressed me more and more as I went through Matthew was the context. What is the message of Matthew? Pop quiz. What's the message of Matthew? The kingdom, the king is coming, the presentation of the king. It's all about the kingdom. What happens in Matthew chapter 12? Matthew chapter 12 is when the king is rejected. That afternoon is when Jesus teaches these parables. The context is so important there because the parables have to do with the kingdom, and the context is it's just been rejected. I don't think, and this thought has gone through me for some time. We've had discussions. I think Jim finally articulated it to me today in a way that I think is right. So what he says is not going to be exactly what I have taught on it, but I think we're getting closer. I know that Dr. Toussaint at Dallas Seminary took a different view, but I don't think he articulated it well. As many times as I read it and talked to him, I just couldn't get it. And that is the idea that the gospel of the kingdom is the seed. That's not talking about the gospel. It's not talking about the response to the gospel, but the gospel of the kingdom. Contextually, the gospel of the kingdom, it was, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. So this is still talking about Israel. All of the kingdom parables, I have come to believe, all the kingdom parables of Matthew all relate to Israel, not the church. So this is talking about why there is a postponement of the kingdom and what happens in relation to Israel in that intervening period. It is not talking about, this is not an illustration of individual reception of the gospel for salvation. Just think about that, okay? It's something I've struggled with. I remember a situation, this was 20 years ago now, I was given the assignment when I was an editor at Pastor Thiem's ministry to rewrite the book on tongues. I had done a study on the last part of 1 Corinthians 12-13 where you have two different words for now. One means now, right now, one means now in this general time frame. So I went in and I explained the position to him and how this really reinforced the view that we've always held on 1 Corinthians 13, but it refined it, made it sharper, and made it more accurate. And he said, you know, there's always been something that bothered me about Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face-to-face, taking that as face-to-face with the Lord. Contextually, if you understand it the way that I've taught it all these years, it's not face-to-face with the Lord, it's face-to-face with Scripture. And now we see through a mirror enigmatically. That's now in the apostolic period because the mirror is the Word of God and it's incomplete. But when the Word of God is complete, when you have a complete canon of Scripture, Then you move out of this early apostolic period to the now of the church age when what abides in contrast to that which doesn't abide was tongues. Tongues, remember, would die out. Knowledge will be abolished. Prophecy will be abolished. Tongues will cease. And so that's a bottom line. So when I told him that, he said, that's it. He said, that's what I want in the book. It was nothing he ever taught. So you get the tongues book after 95, that's not like anything that he ever taught from the pulpit. That's how sometimes we as pastors come to understand things. We grow in our knowledge of the word and through our study over a period of time. And what we know in the first 10 years of our ministry is refined in the next decade and refined even more in the next decade. So I'm just saying that so if anybody is listening or comes in on Thursday night or Sunday morning and Jim is teaching something, say, well, that's not what Robbie taught. Well, it's okay. I think he's done a good job with this, and I appreciate that. Sometimes it's just how somebody articulates it, so he's done a good job. So Jim is teaching on Thursday night, Sunday morning, and next Tuesday night. Then John Williams will do the next Thursday, Tuesday, Thursday. And on the second Sunday, Albert will have the pulpit. So that's the schedule. I want to remind you again, the Republican primary is coming up. Make sure you do some homework. You have state representatives that are up for election in this area. Dwayne Bohack is not up for re-election, so it's a new slate. Be sure to do your research on that. And also pray for the Chafer Conference. cast your burden on the Lord and He will sustain you. He will never suffer the righteous to be moved. Delight yourself also in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord. Trust also in Him and He shall bring it to pass. In God I have put my trust. I will not be afraid what man can do to me." Let's bow our heads together, and after a few moments of silent prayer, then we will begin our study of God's Word. Let's pray. Our Father, we're thankful we can come to you this evening in prayer and the study of your word, knowing that the Holy Spirit teaches us, guides us, directs us, that he's revealed your word and yet we have to study, we have to prepare ourselves, we have to meditate, reflect, study over and over again. Nothing just pops in our minds. That's not the gift of pastor-teacher. We have to study. We have to dig. We have to be educated, trained over and over again. And Father, we just pray for each of us as individual believers that we all grow in stages. We grow incrementally at times. We grow by leaps and bounds at times. but it's all related to our walk by the Spirit. And Father, we pray that you would challenge us to keep short accounts, to walk consistently, more and more consistently. And Father, we pray too for this congregation that you will continue to expand our influence and that you will continue to increase our and develop our maturity. And we pray this in Christ's name, amen. While you're opening your Bibles to 2 Samuel chapter 15, I want to give you a little historical notification. This came across this morning. I get these emails from a Christian history ministry. At one time, they had published a journal, and now they just send out emails. Most of it's electronic or on the web. And it was, I thought this was a fascinating, fascinating story. If you've never heard of the book, through Gates of Splendor by Elizabeth Elliott, or have never read the story about Jim Elliott and four other missionaries in Ecuador in the 50s, I think it was in 1956, then that's a fascinating story. They were with a mission organization. They went down to establish a beachhead and initial contact with the Alca Indians who are referred to in this article as the Harani and they were all brutally murdered for their witness and that made worldwide headlines. And this today is the anniversary of the death of The headline caught me just by the name, and I said, who in the world is that? The Death and Life for Waiwai. I guess that's how you pronounce it. On this day, some 22 years ago, 23 years ago, on the 11th of February, 1997, Gikita Waiwai died. He had been ill for some time and had declared two days earlier that he had lived long enough. Now what is it that made the death of this Ecuadorian tribesman significant? The answer means to go back to that time in 1956. In January of 1956, on January the 8th, Jim Elliott, Pete Fleming, Ed McCauley, Nate Saint, and Roger Udarian had landed on a sandbar in a Piper Cruiser and were beginning to make contact with the Alka or Harani Indians. And the Indians had fiercely resisted encroachments to their forest. They had killed many outsiders who had attempted to contact them over the years. And so they also attacked these men, and they were led by Gikita Waiwai. So, of course, he later became a believer. One of the Alca women named Dayuma, I remember reading her story, the Dayuma story, when I was in seminary, I read several of these books as part of an assignment in a missions course, that she fled the tribe and she lived with a nearby tribe where she became a Christian. And then she began to teach her native language to other missionaries, and two years later her sister came out of the forest looking for her, and she led her sister to the Lord. And they in turn were able to lead most of the tribe to the Lord. And through her they invited Rachel Saint, who was the sister of Nate Saint, as well as Elizabeth Elliott, who has gone on to her own renown, and she was the widow of Jim Elliott, to come and live with the tribe And there they continued the witness, and many of the Alcas believed in Jesus Christ as their Savior. At first, Gikita paid little attention to the message. He said, when I die, I'm just going to turn into worms. A lot of people have that idea. They think that and they're committed to it. However, within a year he began to pray to God before he entered into the forest to hunt. And eventually he too trusted in Jesus Christ as his savior. So here is a man who had been responsible personally for killing a couple of these missionaries and then eventually he became a believer. We never know. We look at the deaths of those five men as a tragedy, but that was the means that God used to eventually bring that tribe to Christ. And it's a great story. So if you've never read about them, that's a tremendous story of martyrdom in our own time, in our own generation. There's a live stream working back there. No. No. Okay. My phone is blowing up. Okay. All right. Let's, we've turned in our Bibles, or your phone, or your iPad, or whatever device you have, to 2 Samuel chapter 15, and let me just review you a little bit on what we're talking about. In this section, there's a contrast that goes on as you read through between Absalom and David. You read a section, 15 or 20 verses on Absalom, and then it shifts to David, goes back to Absalom, and the writer intends to provide a contrast between the foolishness and the arrogance, those always go together, the foolishness and the arrogance of Absalom, and the wisdom and the humility of David. Wisdom and humility go together, arrogance and arrogance and foolishness also go together. So we see in this next section, which begins in verse 13 of chapter 15, we made it through the first 12 verses last time, and it extends down through the middle of 16, 1614, and that is this time of David's fleeing Went too far. David flees. Absalom is returned. That's the first 12 verses. Now David flees, and that's covered in this section, and then it will shift back to a focus on Absalom when you get to 16, 16, 15, and then eventually David will return. This shows you the map of Israel, and I want to just use it to show you several things. This is Jerusalem down here, just to the west of the northern tip of the Dead Sea. Just to give you a perspective, it's about 14 miles, 14 to 15 miles from Jerusalem down to Jericho on the Adamim Ascent. And if you go a little further down to the Jordan River, it's about 17 miles. So that's not very far. So that gives you a good perspective of distances when you're in Israel. Up to the north in the area of the Golan Heights is Gisher, which is where Absalom's grandfather lives. And he left for a while and went up there. But this is not a good situation to have him in the area. The Arameans are up in this area. an enemy of Israel at times. And so he's brought back to Jerusalem. And then David will flee. He flees across the Kidron Valley. I've got pictures for you. He flees across the shoulder of the Mount of Olives. If you remember when we've gone to Israel, so we've been there, we would sometimes stop at Mount Scopus. And Mount Scopus, you're looking south, right down the Kidron Valley. Mount of Olives is on your left, and the Temple Mount is on your right. And there's a little valley between where you are at the Hebrew University and Mount Scopus, and then it goes up on Mount of Olives. And that's the area that we're talking about. So here's just another map showing the location of Gesher and Aram. So what we saw last time is that Absalom deceives the people by acting like their friend. He goes out past the gate, the gate is where many times there would be the city magistrates waiting to deal with people's problems. He goes beyond that to get people coming on the road and he tells them he likes them, wants to know where they're from. He's figured out just how to work and manipulate the people. And he demonstrates a compassion and care for the people, but like with many leaders, many political leaders, it's just a pseudo-compassion. It's just a fake superficial sympathy. And during this time, he is going to also ask what their problems are, what's going on. He says, oh, it's too bad. David's just not doing anything about this. The king just is too busy, he's too distracted. He's just not really listening. Now we know that's a lie because the widow of Tekoa in chapter 14 had no problem getting in to see David. And there were so many that were coming, they were coming because they knew that they could get in to see the king. But he's diverting them and he's deceiving them and he's lying to them. He is also gathering chariots, and he has a group of 50 men that go with him before his chariot everywhere he goes, so he's taking on all the trappings of leadership. One of the things that's happening here is he is accusing David of this. He's saying, you really can't find justice. If I were the king, you could get justice. This is a typical ploy from the ancient times to now. Today, it's social justice. In the ancient world, you're just not getting a fair shake. The government just isn't paying attention. But if I were king, you would get real justice and you would be provided for. Now that's important. We live in this political era and right now we're going to be getting the results from the New Hampshire primary today. We have to go back and think a little bit about the role of government biblically. The role of government is not to make sure everybody has enough money. The role of government is not to make sure everybody gets a good education. The role of government is limited to two things biblically. Number one, they are to provide justice. So that when there's conflict between people or there's criminal action, the criminals are punished. And when people have conflicts with one another, then that is properly adjudicated according to the law. So when you read in the scripture that there's justice, remember the word for justice and the word for righteousness are the same word in Hebrew, tzedakah. And so Righteousness has to do with the standard. Now, where do you find the standard of righteousness in the Old Testament? See, it's pop quiz night. It's in the Mosaic law. That's the standard. So when you get into the prophets and you find these statements about the people not taking care of the widows and the orphans and all this, don't read modern welfare system, the modern state, and all that other stuff into this. It's talking about they're just not fulfilling the law of Moses, where you have partial responsibility in a minimal way given to the theocracy. the bureaucracy of the priesthood. They were to take three tithes, the third tithe was only every three years, and that tithe was to give a little bit of a safety net to widows and orphans. Where did the primary safety net come from? Divine institution number three, the family. That's why when you have a modern nation today like we have, Satan has done such an excellent job of tearing down the family and tearing down marriage. Because once you break a nation down into just autonomous individuals, where you atomize from the word atom, meaning you're separating everything out into basic individual atoms, you you just compartmentalize every individual you put the emphasis on individuals rather than uh... marriages and rather than families then what happens is you don't have a support base and we're gonna see this a lot of bad things happening in terms of health care in the coming twenty years because we're gonna see this this massive people known as the baby boom reaching the senility age and they're going to be developing all forms of dementia and senility, they're going to be homebound due to various illnesses and things of that nature, and yet they've been divorced for 30 years, they chose not to have children, the support network that God designed, which was the family and marriage, has been destroyed. So they're going to be left all alone and who's going to take care of them? Who's going to provide? This is going to be a horrible situation when it comes up. But the number one issue for the government is to provide justice, to deal with criminality in the land and to adjudicate conflicts between people. The second thing is that they are to defend the nation from foreign enemies. That's it. That's how the Founding Fathers understood the role of government. It's limited. People are to be responsible. That's divine institution number one. People are to be responsible for their health care. People are to be responsible for their retirement. People are to be responsible to take care of their bills. And this is why many of the Founding Fathers recognized that, A, if you don't have a moral people, you don't have a responsible people. And if you don't have people who are responsible for their lives then you can't have freedom because sooner or later the government steps in to start mandating responsibility. And that's exactly the kind of thing that we see today. And this distortion of the biblical role of government and the biblical role of the king. Today, everybody is touting, at least on social media, in other areas, social justice. And we have an array of social justice warriors running for the Democrat nominee. And there's not a whole lot of difference. Some talk, oh, so-and-so's more moderate. For example, Pete Buttigieg, I have a hard time with that name, he is running for the nomination for president and everybody thinks oh he's so moderate and it's surprising a lot of people don't realize he is a male homosexual married to a man and this needs to You know be known a little bit more because I think that that would catch people's attention that maybe he's not so moderate his father who immigrated, I forget where he immigrated from, from Eastern Europe, was a dyed-in-the-wool Marxist. If you're familiar with, I think his name's pronounced Gramsci or Gramsci, who was an Italian Marxist, he translated him into English. He was a Marxist. He was a professor at Notre Dame in the early 80s. So his son is not so moderate. His son grew up in a household that was rabidly committed to Marxism. All right? So all of this Marxism, socialism shifts responsibility from the individual to the government. The more you take away from the first divine institution of individual responsibility and put it on the fourth divine institution of human government, the more you destroy freedom and you destroy liberty. And yet this is the drift that we see in our culture. The Bible completely rejects anything related to socialism and Marxism, goes against everything that is emphasized in the Bible. I wanted to tell you about a recent survey and people were asked about what they thought about a wealth tax. They were asked that if people reached a certain amount of wealth, should they pay a percentage of their total income, their total wealth in taxes every year as a wealth tax. And that that money would then go to those who didn't have so much. And there's a lot of people, maybe some of you, who think, well, what in the world does somebody need with $3 trillion? Most of those people don't have it stuffed in their mattress. They're using that, they're investing it in business, they're buying things. Great! There are people who work in jobs that build those things. And we're glad that there are people who have enough money to buy expensive yachts, airplanes, all this, because that keeps other people in work. And so that money that they have isn't just sitting somewhere doing nothing. It is out there providing jobs for other people. So if you were to take their money away, then that in turn impacts jobs and careers. So anyway, according to this survey, 39 percent of the respondents strongly supported a wealth tax. 39% of Americans between the age of 25 and 65 support socialism or Marxism. Strongly supported this. 33%, so that takes us to 72% of the population. 33% supported it, but not strongly. That's where we are today. That is a failure to understand personal responsibility. And as a result of not teaching personal responsibility wherever, whether it's parental, whether it's in schools, whether it's in Boy Scouts, no matter where it is, failure to teach responsibility to children, which means facing negative consequences, not giving participation prizes for everything that they do, not based on performance. then this destroys that sense of personal responsibility. So we have to understand what the nature of the nation is, the biblical concept of government, and vote accordingly. We may not like the choice But you have to look at the platforms of the parties, not the individuals in many cases, and which party platform most closely aligns to emphasizing personal responsibility and limited government. And that's the choice that we should make if we're concerned about the biblical categories. Third, we see that Absalom takes on the trappings of power and authority. That just feeds powerlust. And so often that's exactly what we see in government, is powerlust. And part of powerlust is deception and manipulation. And one of the things that is used is what is called the big lie technique or the public lie technique. And if you say the same thing long enough and loud enough, then people believe it. And so David isn't responding at all to what the charges that Absalom is making, and so over time people began to believe what he said, that David didn't really care, that you can't go to see him, he's not really concerned about the people, and he's really lost it. Ever since his sin with Bathsheba, he just isn't the spiritual and moral leader he was at one time. So there he's doing that, and he is also talking about that if he were king, they would have it so much better. And then he gets to a point where he emphasizes his religion. He uses that as a tool. And so we're told in 2 Samuel 15, 7 through 9 that he went to David to go to Hebron. He's really setting this up. He's got a plan in place to raise an army and come back and take Jerusalem. But he's going to use this subterfuge. He's going to use the cloak of religion, which is what a lot of people do, is they use religion in order to try to in order to try to convince people they're really good and they really have their best interest at heart, when the only thing they have in mind is getting more power. So we're told where we finished up last time, he goes down to Hebron, While he's on the way, he manages to persuade Hithophel the Gilonite. He's from Gilo, which is just to the north of Hebron. And he is saying that this is the wisest counselor that David has. And so this is going to really concern David. This is going to be a crisis that will send him to the Lord in prayer. And so then he goes and he sends spies out. throughout the land and he gets crowned king in Hebron. So sending out spies, conspiring to be proclaimed king, he deceives 200 men in David's administration. So if 200 men leave, And there aren't that many of people living in the city of David. Some of you have been there. It's less than 30 acres, 30, 35 acres maybe at the most, that that's pretty small. And so people, you lose 200 men who are coming in and forming part of your administration, you know that that something is up. But the text says they didn't know what was going on and he also convinces Ahithophel to join him. So that brings us to where we are in our study in verse 13. So David is now forced to flee Jerusalem and to go into exile. He knows that he has been outmaneuvered, he has lost key people in his administration, he's lost Ahithophel, he's lost other key leaders, and he's not in a position of strength to defend himself against Absalom. He has been aware that Absalom's up to something, but what he has been up to was hidden from David, and now he knows. What's interesting here is we see that during this period, up until about the end of this, or the middle of chapter 16, is that David is unaware of what Absalom is doing, and Absalom is in control, but David is going to be faced with a series of about six tests. We won't get through all of them tonight, but about six tests, which he handles very well. They are tests from the Lord, and he handles them very well. He handles them with grace, and he handles them with wisdom. And part of what he does is he sets up an intelligence network. He sets up a spy network. And so he's going to send one of his best friends into Absalom's camp, Hushai, and Hushai is going to report back through this spy network, which is comprised of the two high priests who are serving in the temple, because at this time there's two high priests. We'll look at that in a minute. And then their sons, who are going to be the runners, who are going to run to David's location and give him the messages. And so after David gets out and after he crosses the Jordan, sets up his spy network, then David is the one who will know what Absalom is doing. And Absalom won't have a clue as to what David is doing. And that's the result of his wisdom, his skill, his leadership, and we'll see also his grace orientation. So one of the first things we see, we start here in verse 13. Now, a messenger came to David. I'm saying the hearts of the men of Israel are with Absalom. The men of Israel is almost a technical phrase for the army. So the men of Israel have turned Absalom, he's turned their hearts and so David knows that he has to flee so that he can fight another day. So he calls all of his servants who are with him in Jerusalem and he says, rise and let us flee, or we shall not escape from Absalom. Make haste to depart, lest he overtake us suddenly, and bring disaster upon us, and strike the city with the edge of a sword." So he immediately recognizes they have to take action. And so he organizes his thoughts very quickly, gets people together, and says, okay, we have to go, go get whatever you can quickly, quickly, quickly, we have to get out of here. Remember, it's only about 12 miles from Hebron to Jerusalem, and Absalom's army is already on the way, and so David knows they have to get out of town. Actually, they're going to get out as fast as they can, but when they get to that shoulder on what would be the north slope, of that little valley that's between the Mount of Olives and Mount Scopus. When they get there and they have to climb over that shoulder over Mount of Olives and head down the descent of Adamim going down to the Jordan River. When they get there, they're less than a mile from the Old City of David and Absalom is coming into the Old City of David. So it's very close, it's touch and go, but he is going to get out of there. So he needs to escape, this is verse 14, and let's make haste and he's going to come and strike the city with the sword. The king's servants respond and say, were your servants ready to do whatever my lord the king commands? And then the king went out with all his household after him, but the king left ten women concubines to keep the house. Now a concubine is not always a woman with whom the king would have relations. They would be part of the harem, but they would have other responsibilities in taking care of the domestic chores and the household, things of that nature. Not that they personally were cleaning the house, but they would oversee the different responsibilities in running the household. So he chose 10 of them that would have been loyal to him. and puts them in charge of taking care of things, because once Absalom and the others come in, then he knows that this is going to be a problem. So he doesn't want them to come in like some administrations have come into the White House And they have, or as they've left, they've taken everything with them, all of the plumbing and different things like that. That's what happens when the Clintons left the White House. People just took whatever they wanted to and left it a mess. So in verse 18, We see that there is a review. The king leaves and all of his people leave and they stop at the outskirts. That's at the end of verse 17. They stop at the outskirts of the city of David. If you've been to Jerusalem, don't think they've gone very far. They're just at the outskirts of the city of David. So think about this. They're on the edge of the of the Temple Mount. If you can get in your mind's eye what the city looks like, the city of David, they're just at the edge. They haven't started going north along the Kidron Valley to what we now refer to as the Garden of Gethsemane. They're just on the outskirts of that city ready to go north. And then he's looking at the people that he's responsible for. He's going to take them into the desert, into the wilderness, crossing the Jordan River. He's responsible for them, and he knows it's going to be difficult to get all of the food, all of the resources, everything he needs to take care of all of these people. And so he's reviewing them, probably has a couple of men with him. They're counting heads, determining how many men, how many women, how many children. are there, and the first group that comes by are mentioned in verse 18. Then all his servants passed before him, and all the Cherethites, all the Pelethites, and all the Gittites, 600 men who had followed him from Gath. So if you're from Gath, you are a Gittite, that is That's the term. So he has all the Gittites of these three different groups. There are 600 men who pass before the king. So as we go through this, we have to identify and talk about who these key people are, who are the Kerathites, Pelathites, and the Gittites. So this is a first group, the Kerathites, were, and the Pelethites, were probably different groups of Philistines. And these Philistines had allied themselves with David. They were mercenary troops, that served within the army of Israel. They were solid, solid troops. They lived in the, the Karathites, for example, lived in the southern part of Judah and This is later identified that it's on the border with Philistia in Ezekiel 25, 16. And the Karathites also lived in that same area. And they were mercenaries, they were shock troops. The Pelathites also served as bodyguards of David, and they were extremely loyal to him, as were the Gittites. Now, the leader of the Gittites is a man named Ittai, Ittai the Gittite, and he joins himself to David here, and he has his 600 men along with him. So this is the first test. How is David going to handle this? Because he knows from his own experience when he was serving in the army of Achish, remember Achish was the king of Gath, and he is serving as a mercenary with Achish, that he wasn't completely loyal to Achish. His loyalty was to God, his loyalty was to Israel, but because Saul had run him out of Judea he had to ally himself with Akish for a while in order to in order to survive. They put him in a bad situation because as Akish and the Philistines were going against Saul, he was concerned that he would be put in a situation where he would have to fight fellow Israelites. He wasn't going to do that. But God rescued him. Others identified him as a Jew. And they said, we don't trust him. We can't take him into battle with us. And so he was sent back. So Ittai has followed him. Ittai is the commander of these mercenary troops. And David has to make a decision. How is David going to make this decision? He has to look at all the details and he has to recognize that it's a possibility that maybe they won't be loyal that they won't be loyal when things really get tough. And so he's got to think about how do I handle this? So remember, David's a warrior. He's always at his best when there's a fight going on. He trusts in the Lord for everything. And yet at this point, one of the things we notice in these chapters is there's no word from the Lord. The high priest doesn't bring him any information, there's no revelation, there's nothing with the Urim and Thummim. And so what this calls upon, the test, really all of these tests, have to do with David and his spiritual maturity? Is he, having gone through his sin with Bathsheba, the murder of Uriah, and all of this stuff, is David recovering enough to continue to be the leader of Israel? Is he going to trust in God, or is he going to fall apart? Is he going to call upon the Word of God that he has hidden in his heart and exercise wisdom, or is he going to sit there like a lot of Christians who don't know enough about the Word of God and just say, well, I want God to speak to me and tell me what to do. And so what we see is he exercises wisdom. Wisdom is the application of the doctrine, application of the Word of God that is in your soul, that you have learned, that you've internalized, you've assimilated, and it's part of your thinking. And so he shows wise leadership by not jumping at this chance to make Ittai's warriors part of his army. A lot of people would say, oh, you know, I've got this army coming in. They're going to defeat me. I'm really in a bad spot. And now I've got 600 warriors. That's good. I'm going to take them. Take what you can get when you've got them. David is cautious, and he is going to sort of establish a little test to see if Ittai is really, truly loyal to him. And so in verse 19, The King. Notice the difference. In some of these passages, David's referred to as the King. In others, he's referred to as David. When it's talking about David, it's talking about David individually dealing with his own issues, his own spiritual life, his own problems, challenges. When it talks about him as the King, it's focusing on his leadership role as the King. Then the king said to Ittai the Gittite, why are you also going with us? You don't have to go with us. Go back and remain with the king. Notice he refers to Absalom as the king here. He says go back to the king. It's interesting he doesn't tell him to go home to Gath. He says, go back to Jerusalem, stay with the king because you are a foreigner. Now this is an interesting term here because it emphasizes the fact that he has a foreign background. He's not Jewish. It doesn't use the word ger. Remember, we had a speaker last year at the Chafer Conference, Stephen Gerr. Gerr is a Hebrew word. Sometimes it's translated as a sojourner or traveler, something of that nature. This would be somebody who would be maybe an itinerant immigrant. Okay, they come and they go, maybe they come to work for a while, maybe they leave, so it's somebody who is more nomadic. And then there is another term that is used that would refer to somebody who is an immigrant, but they are what we would refer to as a legal immigrant who has come to live in in the city, so he has to determine if he can trust him. He's got two issues that he faces. The first is he knows that he has to provide for them. If you look down in verse 33, look down into verse 33, this is when Hushai, the Archite, comes to him and Hushai wants to go with him. And David says, you're just going to be a burden to me. Now if one person's a burden, what's 600? One person's mouth to feed is a burden. 600 mouths to feed, that's 600 times a burden. So he's looking at this logistically, how am I going to provide for these 600 men? And the second issue, of course, is can he trust them? So he says, you're a foreigner, you don't have a dog in this fight, okay? You're a foreigner. And second, you're also an exile from your own place. And then he says, in fact, you came only yesterday. Now, that's not a literal term. An idiom you may have heard today, a lot of people talk if they haven't seen somebody in a while, they'll say, it's been a minute since I saw you. And so they're using a figure of speech called an understatement to talk about the fact that it may have been five or ten years since they saw this individual. And they'll just say, well, it's been a minute since I've seen you. Well, this is the same kind of thing. But David is emphasizing the fact that he has just been there a short time. He hasn't grown up there. He hasn't lived there for all of his life. but he is now present. So he really doesn't have a dog in the hunt. So he says, should I make you wander up and down with us today? Since I go, I know not where. Return and take your brethren back. And then he says something interesting. This goes back to part of a an oath loyalty that was used in Israel. You've run into this same phrase several times in the Psalms, mercy and truth be with you. The first word mercy is the word chesed, God's, so he's asking, it's a blessing statement. May God's covenant loyalty and his emmet, his truth, be with you. So David brings that in, but he never mentions anything about loyalty to Israel. He doesn't mention anything about Yahweh. And look at Ittai's response. Ittai answers the king, this must have Two things, it must have stunned David, number one, and number two, it must have made him quite happy to hear this. It wasn't what he expected. Ittai answers and says, as Yahweh lives, this is an oath formula. He's taking an oath as Yahweh lives on, he's basically swearing an oath on the living God. It's not just some generic God statement. As Yahweh lives and as my Lord the King lives. So that is his statement of loyalty to David. He is loyal to Yahweh. He is loyal to Yahweh's King, my Lord the King. And so this is a very strong statement of his personal loyalty to David. He says, surely in whatever place my Lord the King shall be, whether in death or life, even there also your servant will be. And he's speaking for all of his men. We are 100% behind you. Where you go, we will go. And it is a reminder and sounds something like the statement that is made in Ruth. Remember, Ruth was David's great-great-grandmother, and Ruth is left as a widow, and her, she was married to one brother, the other wife was also left a widow, both these two brothers died, and the mother, Naomi, was left a widow. And so the other, the sister-in-law left, and Naomi says, well, why don't you leave? And Ruth replies, where you go, I will go. and your God will be my God." So it is a statement of her loyalty to God, and so she sticks with Naomi. So this is the same kind of statement that Ittai is swearing his loyalty to David. So David says to him, go and cross over. And Ittai, all his men and all the little ones, so they're coming with their families, they're coming with their wives, their children. They are fully behind David. So this is a tremendous thing. Now, the next test is going to involve another group of people. The two key people are Zadok And all the Levites were with him and his two sons, Ahimaaz and Jonathan. He is mentioned first. The other high priest is Ahimelech. Ahimelech is from the line of Eli. Well, I got a chart on that. And Zadok is from the lineage going back to Eleazar and going back to Aaron. So God has made a covenant in the past with because of the way he stood up after the whole problem with Balaam, the diviner who convinced the Moabite king that the way to really break down the Jews is just send all your women into the camp and they'll give up their god and they'll commit adultery with these women and you'll win them over and you'll destroy the Israelites that way. And so when Eliezer heard about what had happened he goes in and he stands his ground and he defeats the enemy. I mean he defeats the Jews, kills the Jews that are involved with these women. He warns them to get away and they don't. And so as a result of that God promises that his descendants will be the high priest. So that goes through the line of Zadok and it's the Zedekite priests that will be the priests who take care of the millennial temple in the future. So this is David's second test and really there's three elements to this. First of all, will he compromise the spiritual life of the nation to serve his purposes? Because what has happened is that when they show up they are bringing the ark of God with him. I think I said Himalayk earlier, it's Abiathar. Abiathar is the other high priest and they bring the ark to him. And so he's making a point out of the fact that this isn't about a spiritual issue. It's not about a revolt against Yahweh. The Absalom isn't going after Absalom's not going after false gods or anything of that nature. So he's not going to allow this to impact and destroy the spiritual life of the nation. He could easily have said, okay, bring the ark with me, and then he's making that a personal agenda item. He's going to start using God to fight the battle, and he recognizes this isn't about holy war. This is about whether or not Absalom's going to be king or I'm going to be king, and at this point he's going to say he's not sure. Remember, the Davidic covenant, as I told you when we talked, really comes at the end chronologically of David's life, not early. And so he's not sure if God's going to allow as part of his discipline for Absalom to take the kingdom away from him. But in the course of this episode, he's going to show his trust in God rather than trying to take control and manipulate the circumstances for his own good. He's not going to try to use God and use the ark in a way that would be out of line. And so this shows David's wise leadership. And the last thing is he shows his wise leadership by setting up a communication network. He's going to have tell Zadok and Abiathar to take the ark back to the temple. We're not going to stop the sacrifices. We're not going to affect the spiritual life of the nation and make that a part of this, take it back to the nation. But one thing that we're going to do is we're going to set up a spy network so that you can send messages to me through your sons and tell me what is going on with Absalom and what's going on inside the city. At this point, they're going to move a little further down the Kidron Valley, and we're told in verse 23, and all the country wept with a loud voice. And all the people crossed over. They're crossing over the Kidron Valley. They're just there below the Temple Mount, crossing over the Kidron Valley somewhere in the vicinity of where the Garden of Gethsemane is today, and then walking up the side of the Mount of Olives. And so this is the way toward the wilderness. Now here's a couple of pictures so you sort of get a visual in your head because everybody thinks all this territory is so large and expansive and it's just very, very small. All of this would fit within an area between here and I-10. Okay, it's a very small, small area. So the picture here is taken north, looking due south. I took the picture from Mount Scopus. And so the hill, the slope on the left is the Mount of Olives. The valley here, going along down through here, follow the arrow, that is the Kidron Valley. The walls that you see here, and the next picture is going to go in for a close-up, the walls here are the walls surrounding the Dome of the Rock, and the Dome of the Rock is located right about here where the top of the arrow is. The city of David itself is just right here at the other side of the corner of the wall. the, around the Dome of the Rock. And that wall is roughly where the wall was around, around the temple. So this area here is, or here's the Dome of the Rock over here, excuse me. This is the Al-Aqsa Mosque that I was looking at before. So this area right here is the temple mount. This valley is the Kidron Valley. So when we start, and they're just outside the city there, where my arrow is right now, just below the edge of the, that would be the south, southeastern part of the, southeastern corner of the wall. And now they move along, they cross the valley and come up on this side. This greenery here is the area around the Garden of Gethsemane. And they're making their way up here and then they have to ascend the Mount of Olives and cross over to get to the route that goes down to the Dead Sea. Here's a close-up. Here's the city of David down in this area right here. Here's that southeastern corner. This valley right here is the Kidron Valley. This area here is the area of the Garden of Gethsemane. So they're just moving from here to here. You can walk that easily in about six minutes. So that's not a huge, huge area. And Absalom is coming in from the south. So we've looked at the Kerathites, Pellethites, the Gittites, we've looked at Itti, the Gittite, we've looked at Zadok and the Levites that were with him, and Abiathar. Now here in 2 Samuel 15-24 we read, there was Zadok, or Zadok also, and all the Levites with him bearing the Ark of the Covenant of God and they set down the Ark of God as if the people are going to pass in review between the Ark as the Ark was set down or held up rather in the crossing of the Jordan River and the whole nation passed before the Ark of the Lord. It's that kind of a scenario. And they set down the Ark of God and Abiathar went up until all of the people had finished crossing over from the city. Now, they had these two high priests because of what's happening. Abiathar is a descendant of Eli. Eli was the corpulent high priest with the two sons, Hopni and Pinhas, who were lazy and paganized and were destroying the worship of the tabernacle. And so God brought judgment on the house of Eli. And so we have in this chart, we have Levi. Levi had three sons, Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. These were the three clans of the Levitical priests. From Kohath came Aaron and Moses. Aaron and Moses are brothers. Aaron had four sons, Nadab, Abihu, who were taken out through divine discipline while they're in the wilderness, and Eleazar and Itamar. The line went from Itamar down to Eli and then to Abiathar. That's the end of that line. Eleazar goes down to Pinchas I, and I misspoke. I said it was Eleazar in the event in Numbers, but it's Pinchas who is the one with whom God makes the covenant. And so that covenant is that his line would be the line of the high priesthood, and that goes down to Zadok. Okay, that's covered in Numbers 25, 11 to 13. And this is identified in verse 25, God says, I give him my covenant of peace and it shall be to him and his descendants after him a covenant of an everlasting priesthood because he was zealous for his God and made atonement for the children of Israel. So then David sends them back into the city. He says, if I find favor in the eyes of the Lord, he's not sure at this point. If I find favor in the eyes of the Lord, he will bring me back and show me both it and his dwelling place. But if he says thus, if God says, I find no favor, no delight in you, here I am, let him do to me as seems good to him. So in verses 29 and 30, therefore, Zadok and Abiathar carried the ark of God back to Jerusalem and remained there, but they are going to operate as undercover priests to report to David what was going on. And so in verse 30, David went up by the ascent of the Mount of Olives and wept as he went. So all the people are weeping, they're grieving This is not a sign that they are in any way in some sort of spiritual collapse. It is that they are losing their homes. They're going to be away from their livelihoods and their farms. All of the stability that they have known is now threatened. And so they are weeping because of what is taking place, and they're praying and calling upon the Lord. So this is their path. They come along through the Kidron Valley and then up this slope. And so here you have David, he's an older man at this time, and he has his head uncovered, and he is weeping. He's in a position of despondency. This is what we'll see, and when I come back, we'll finish this up and look at Psalm 3, 3 through 5. It's a short psalm, and it is written while David is fleeing from Absalom. And the core of this psalm, he says, but you, O Lord, are a shield for me. My glory and the one who lifts up my head. I cried to the Lord with my voice and he heard me from his holy hill said law. I believe that David is composing this at this time while he is going up that the hill. Now he's not writing out it as in its final form but he is he is putting this prayer together and later he will refine it and shape it and everything all under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. And then he says I lay down and slept I awoke for the Lord's sustainment." He's claiming the promise of God, he's praying to God here, and he knows that God is going to sustain him so he's able to relax, have a relaxed mental attitude, calm down, go to sleep, get a good night's rest, because he knows the Lord is going to protect him. And then the next thing that happens is he gets the bad news of Ahithophel. And this is the third test of betrayal by a friend and a counselor. Ahithophel is actually Bathsheba's grandfather. And he's probably got a problem with David because of how David treated Bathsheba and also with the murder of Uriah. And so he was easily swayed by Absalom to join him. And so he goes over to Absalom's side. And what's so dangerous about this is that Ahithophel's counsel is considered counsel is from the lips of God. In verse 31 we read, Then someone told David, saying, Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom. And now David prays again. He says, Lord, I pray turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness. Now, how did this happen? Ahithophel would give wise counsel, but God would veil the mind of Absalom so that Absalom would look at it and go, that's a bad plan. I'm going to go with another plan. That's a good prayer to pray in a political season, that God would turn the counsel of many into foolishness, so that they cannot carry out their evil plans and evil schemes. Ahithophel was a big hit for David. He heard a lot because of this. In verse 23 of 2 Samuel 16, 2 Samuel 16, 23, We're told the advice of Ahithophel, which he gave in those days, was as if one had inquired at the oracle of God. So was all the advice of Ahithophel, both with David and with Absalom. So the last guy that we're going to meet is Hushai. And Hushai's a close friend of David's, and he wants to join David. And David says, no, I want you to go back and go undercover, and I want you to turn the advice of Ahithophel. I want you to counter it so that his good, wise advice is not going to produce anything. And the interesting thing is when this is the first time we're told that David prays. So David is going to turn to God in prayer because he knows he's in trouble. Later that's developed into Psalm 3. I ran across this quote. It's from a Jewish author Later, Israeli by the name of Isaac Bashevis Singer, who's a Nobel Prize winning novelist. If you saw the film Yentl, he wrote that film. And he said, I only pray when I'm in trouble, but I'm in trouble all the time. So I pray all the time. Good advice. So we've come to the end of this section. Our last person is Hushai the Archite who comes out to me. David, his robe's torn. He's got dust on his head. He's grieving over what has taken place. But David says, I don't need you here. I need you to go as a spy, as a mole in the in the cabinet of Absalom so that you can defeat the council of Ahithophel for me." And so he goes on to say, verses 35 and 36, that When you do this, you can go then to the temple, give word to Zadok or Abiathar, and they will send their sons to me and Ahimaaz and Jonathan, and they will get word to me. And so the chapter, it's a bad place for break-ins, Hushai, David's friend, goes into the city and Absalom came into Jerusalem. Then next time when I get back from Kiev, we will look at what happens in the beginning of chapter 16 with these two figures from Saul's, who are on Saul's side, and they still have vengeance in their hearts. Ziba, who's the servant of Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, and Shimei, who is from the house of Saul, a servant in the house of Saul, and they're going to come out, and then we'll get into, at that time we'll take a break and go into Psalm 3, which probably cover those two things and Psalm 3 easily in that next class. Father, we thank you for this opportunity to study these things, to see the contrast between foolishness and wisdom. As David's wisdom is not just for spiritual things, but it has to do with his administration, his leadership, thinking through the various circumstances, problems, difficulties that he has. We see that he trusts in you, exercising the faith rest drill, that he is He is grace-oriented toward the Gittites and the Karathites and the Pelathites. He is gracious even towards those who would be his enemies. And Father, we learn many positive things from studying how David responds in the midst of this adversity. And above all, his prayer, his dependence upon you as his shield and his fortress. Pray that we too would imitate that. In Christ's name, amen.