Please turn in your Bibles to 2 Samuel chapter 15. The battles God calls us to range and vary in scope and in manner. Beginning at verse 1. After this it happened that Absalom provided himself with chariots and horses and 50 men to run before him. Now Absalom would rise early and stand beside the way to the gate. So it was, whenever anyone who had a lawsuit came to the king for a decision, that Absalom would call to him and say, What city are you from? And he would say, Your servant is from such and such a tribe of Israel. Then Absalom would say to him, Look, your case is good and right, but there is no deputy of the king to hear you. Moreover, Absalom would say, Oh, that I were made judge in the land and everyone who has any suit or cause would come to me, then I would give him justice. And so it was, whenever anyone came near to bow down to him, that he would put out his hand and take him and kiss him. In this manner, Absalom acted toward all Israel who came to the king for judgment. So Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel." And we will end there. Father God, We pray that as we dig into your word, that we would catch a glimpse of your heart, what you are communicating, and that we ourselves would adjust our lives, our prayers, and that you would help us to advance the cause of your kingdom, not just here in Omaha. but wherever your church has manifested. We love you and we desire to see the glory of King Jesus lifted up. And we pray that you would continue to receive our worship as we respond to your scriptures. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, this chapter records a remarkable takeover, a pretty puzzling takeover, actually. of the kingdom by Absalom, David's son. And when you see puzzling, unexplainable criticism, envy, hatred, bitterness, rebellion, or other things that don't make any sense, it's probably wise to start looking underneath the surface and see if there is any demonic activity that needs to be prayed against. This week and next week, we're going to be looking at what experts call the Absalom syndrome, But many of them, because there is the demonic involved, call it the Absalom Spirit. And that's what I've titled the sermon this morning, The Absalom Spirit, Part 1. And it very much applies to modern American politics. You can see it everywhere. And it applies to modern American churches. Now, I'm going to be focusing today on churches where I think it's so obvious in the political realm that I don't even need to mention that. But many scholars believe that the current American church's the most destructive demonic influences are the spirit of Jezebel, which if you want one word to summarize what that's about, it's attempting to control, control those who are in authority. You know, the book of Revelation deals with other things that are in that spirit of Jezebel. But she was seeking to control through her husband Ahab. The spirit of Ahab is really a guy who's desperately trying to maintain control through manipulation, through coalition building and politics. And then Absalom is somebody who is undermining and seeking to gain loyalty, seeking to gain authority himself. And obviously, there are a lot of other demonic spirits at work, but as we pray for revival and reformation of the church at large, these are three spirits we need to be praying against. And I think it's very, very important to understand it. Now, there are a lot of different manifestations of the Absalom spirit, but I want to start by telling you a true story of a large church that was, not too long ago, maybe about, well, I'm not sure how many years ago it was, was destroyed here in America. And it was destroyed by young Absalom, who manifests a lot of the principles we're going to be looking at this week and next week. Now, the pastor of this church, he had started the church 20 years before. By this time, it had grown to about 1,000 members. And the board of directors thought it might be a good thing to help the pastor out and to hire on a youth pastor to deal at least with one aspect of the ministry. And so they did. It was a very talented, bright young man that they hired. And the senior pastor really liked him a lot. Anyway, over time, he wanted to take on new responsibilities, and the pastor encouraged the board to go ahead and give him some more responsibilities. And then he wanted more authority. And so they made him an assistant pastor. Then over time, he wanted more authority. He said, I'd really like to start a ministry to reach those who aren't being addressed during Sunday morning. Perhaps I could start a Saturday evening worship service and try to grow the church through that. And the pastor thought, well, I guess that sounds like a pretty good idea. And so they talked to the board about that. The board thought, yeah, let's go ahead and do that. And the problem was that the Saturday night group, as it started growing, he encouraged the people to make that the only worship service that they involved themselves in. The pastor and the board didn't know that, but it became the only church service for some. Then the young man started attending the Sunday morning worship services. And he started recruiting people from the Sunday morning worship services to the Saturday night one, using subtle criticism of what was going on in the church, as well as praise. And here's a typical praise that we found out later. You seem really hip and insightful. You seem like a person who really ought to be an authority. And I could use you to help me build Saturday night programs. Pastor and the elders support me, and I think the church could use some fresh blood and leadership. I see potential in you. We've got some programs that I think you ought to consider." Of course, he didn't tell the elders or the pastor about this. Everything seemed hunky-dory. So he was involved in recruiting people from the Sunday morning service to go to the Saturday evening service and make that their only service. Saturday evening became bigger and bigger because it was largely growing at the expense of Sunday morning. The Sunday morning services became smaller. That in turn led criticism to the pastor. How come you're losing all of these people? You really need to be working harder. He was already working his tail off, but he was trying. He was working harder at that. And I think it's important to know this pastor was extremely well-respected by the whole church and by the whole community prior to this time. But at one point, along with some appreciative comments, the youth pastor told the senior pastor that there were a number of people in the Saturday night worship service who really wanted to have the service on Sunday morning. And since his group was much smaller, he thought it might be a good idea if they switched places and he could have his group on Sunday morning and senior pastor could have his worship service on Saturday night. Well, the pastor was feeling really queasy about this at this point, but because the elder board was already on board with this suggestion, He really thought it kind of difficult to say no to this. And he already thought of this guy as being a potential future senior pastor to replace him anyway. So he said, well, why not? He didn't want to appear to be a person who was selfishly and pridefully holding on to ministry. So he agreed. Then at some point, the young man had a special meeting. He talked to the elders and to some of the big money givers. some others, and he convinced them that if they were going to be effective in reaching out to the community, especially to the young people, they needed to ask the senior pastor to retire. And there were a heff of fills in the congregation who were very, very effective spokespeople in this movement. The senior pastor realized too late what was happening. And even though there was a huge contingent who said, no way, we're not going to let you step down. We love you. We want you to be here. He realized that if he fought this, that there was going to be a huge fight on his hands. It would cause a church split and probably destroy the church. So like David, he decided for the sake of the church, he was going to leave. So he retired from the church and he started a ministry and it's become a very effective ministry apparently in Europe. And anyway, He's got a very sweet attitude about it. And he realizes, though, that this young man had shown the signs of the Absalom spirit right from the beginning. Anyway, God's sovereign. And he used that Absalom conspiracy to get him involved in a very vital, very important, much more influential work in Europe than he would have been involved in if he had remained the senior pastor. So God was working all things together for good. But the story is not over. The Absalom spirit is never blessed by God. The results of it are endlessly troubled church and often the death of the church. That church died within six years, completely died. And here's the weird thing. If this man had been humble, had not had selfish ambition, had served the church faithfully, had been loyal to the current leadership, he was slated to become the senior pastor anyway. And he would have become the senior pastor with a very loyal church, very loyal leadership. But because of his spirit of undermining that he was generating, it not only destroyed the church, it completely destroyed his opportunities for the future as well. And the reason is, Absaloms breed other Absaloms, and so it generates an endless kind of a situation in the future. And it grieves me that so many churches in America are troubled by exactly the same demonic strategies that are behind Jezebel, Ahab, and Absalom. I think this is in part what completely tore apart D. James Kennedy's church as well as his seminary. in your prayer life for the church in America, please do not neglect prayers against these spirits. So let's dive into the text and let's take a look at the characteristics that can help us to identify Absaloms. The first principle is that the undermining of a David often comes from those whom the leadership loves the most and has invested the most into. I mean, when you look at the previous chapters, you realize, and the future chapters, David loved Absalom very, very much. He was overindulgent as a father, but he loved his son. He forgave his son, and we saw that there was issues there, and brought him back into the kingdom, gave him a second chance, again, because he loved him. Even after Absalom dies, he grieves over him. He wants the best for Absalom. Joab stuck his neck out on Absalom's behalf and he actually risked a lot in doing so. And how does Absalom pay Joab back? Well, we saw in the previous chapter that when Joab did not return Absalom's calls, he burns all of Joab's crops down. He's only grateful so long as Joab can continue to be used. And though we'll see that an Absalom knows how to schmooze, he knows how to pretend love and pretend to care for the leaders, it's all self-serving and any leader can be expendable if he no longer serves Absalom's advancements. And when you look at the tragic Absalom stories in America, what you will see, what you'll discover is that there are a lot of Joabs, a lot of Davids who have loved and invested in, believed in, given second chances to leaders who have come in and they have ended up being stabbed in the back by these Absaloms. Okay, the second point shows that the Absalom spirit is rooted in pride and yet gives the illusion of humility. It's rooted in pride and there's a relationship between points one and two. David Rhodes once said, Pride flourishes in good soil. The danger of pride is that it feeds on goodness. Well, he experienced a great deal of goodness and favor and second chances and help from other people, but it didn't matter how much David, Joab, and other people invested in Absalom, it was just feeding this pride. It was fertile soil in which it was to grow. But the main point I'm wanting to give here is the pride is masked with the illusion of humility. And you can see this in a number of places. On all of these points, this Absalom spirit is just exceedingly difficult to pinpoint. It's hard to put your finger on it, but you just know something smells wrong. It's just not right. And verse 1 is definitely not right. Take a look at it. After this, it happened that Absalom provided himself with chariots and horses and fifty men to run before him. Now there's pride written all over that, but You know, he could claim he's not praising himself. In fact, other people could say, well, you know, he really is fulfilling Proverbs 27 verse 2, which says, let another man praise you and not your own lips. He didn't even have to praise himself. He's got these 50 people, you know, these who are running before him, who are doing the praising. He gets others to do it for him through this passage. And it makes him look somewhat humble when he doesn't ever praise himself. He gets other people to do it. Well, he maybe probably slips up and praises himself sometimes. But he makes sure that he does enough humble looking things that his pride does not get in the way of progress. Take a look at verse 5. And so it was, whenever anyone came near to bow down to him, that he would put out his hand and take him and kiss him. So he's pretending to be an ordinary, humble man. Now, nobody would dare to be that familiar with a prince, somebody who had the potential of being the next king. But when they would bow down to him, he would say, no, no, no, don't bow down. He'd lift him up, he'd hug him, he'd give him a kiss. He would give this pretense of being a humble common man and identifying with the common man. And yet the inspired record tells us that it's really not another man praising him. It says he provided for himself. those chariots and those horses and those 50 men to run before Him. He longs for recognition and praise. This is one of the key characteristics of the Absalom spirit. He longs for recognition and praise. He wants to be somebody. He doesn't want to be in the shadows. He's the kind of person that when you're praising the accomplishments of some other person, he says, oh yeah, I could do that. He hasn't. You know, he can do anything that other people can do. When others are being praised for what they're doing, he somehow manages to bring the conversation back to discussing his own accomplishments. And if he can't do that, he tears down in some way, he criticizes the other person. But it's all rooted in pride. Point three, it's clear that Absalom was self-indulgent. Okay, verse one speaks of chariots, plural. I mean, how many chariots does he really need? We're not told, but it's like having a bunch of automobiles. How many horses does he need? How many people does he really need to run before him? 50 servants? He probably had a lot of other servants, but 50 who were dedicated to running in front of his chariot to prepare the way for him? It just gives a tiny hint at his luxury and self-indulgence, and yet, This too is camouflaged by the constant image of his Nazirite long hair that spoke of being totally devoted to the Lord. Everything I have has been given over to God. It's sort of like some of those TV evangelists who've got two jets and several houses and they live in incredible luxury, but they portray the image, oh yeah, everything I have is devoted over to God. Another thing that masks the self-indulgence is industry. You will rarely find a lazy Absalom. You know, they are very, very industrious. Look at verse 2. Now, Absalom would rise early and stand beside the way to the gate. He was up at the crack of dawn and ready for work. Okay? There was no laziness in Absalom. In fact, this is one of the reasons why Absaloms are so effective in undermining leadership is they can outwork anyone, okay? They can do things and they're willing to do things that other people many times do not do. And the rest of verse 2 shows that he worked with the people constantly. I want you to notice the whenever in verse 2. So it was, whenever anyone who had a lawsuit came to the king for a decision, that Absalom would call to him and say, What city are you from? And he would say, your servant is from such and such a tribe of Israel. And this is a condensation of the speech. You get that impression when you look at the difference between verses 2 and 3. But he's talking with them and apparently seeking to win their hearts by showing service. In effect, his selfish ambition is disguised as service. In fact, it looks the opposite of selfish ambition. Here's a hard-working guy, cares about the kingdom, he's got a real servant heart. And this is the image that virtually all Absaloms have, that they are the best servants of the people. Servants of the servants. This is what makes it so difficult to expose an Absalom, because you're going to look like a jerk if you start criticizing him. I mean, how dare you criticize such a talented, hard-working, service-oriented person, okay? It's very, very difficult. You won't likely be able to expose such a person with ordinary means. What you're going to need to do is say, Lord, we pray against this spirit. Either help him to repent and break off this demonic attachment, or you expose him and you judge him. The fourth characteristic of this dangerous Absalom is that he's a people person. He's affable. He's fun to be around. He mixes it up with the crowd, you know. He's the kind of person that very easily draws people into his confidence and into his circle of influence. Not all Absaloms are affable. I know of a couple really snarky ones in the PCA. I won't tell you their names, but my understanding is that most Absaloms really are affable people. And you can see this all the way through verses 1 through 6. In verse 2, he shows interest in where they're from. Verse 3, showing sympathy with their problems. He's a caring guy. Verse 4, he claims that he really wishes that he could help them. So people feel like, this is a guy that identifies with my problems, with my hurts, with my pains. And verse 5, he's so gracious. So he's a people person, and if you even dared to suggest that he was dangerous, wow, there would be a bunch of people who would take offense on his behalf. You can bet your bottom dollar, you'd be the one in trouble, not him. This is just the way that it works. And so it makes Absalom extremely tough to oppose. Sometimes you can get Absalom to repent if you deal with him early on, but it's very, very tough. OK, the fifth characteristic that we see in this section is that Absalom's are opportunistic. They are opportunistic. They can smell a hurt, a problem or a controversy a mile away, and they are right there. Why? How they can smell it? I don't know, but they can find every controversy in the church, right? Every controversy in the kingdom. They're right there taking advantage of that hurt. and becoming co-complainers and sympathizers with them. And verse 2, he's looking for the opportunities to find Hertz. What better place to find it than in the gates of the city? Because that's where the court was often held, right? So people who had Hertz who felt like there were injustices that were done to them in lower court, they would bring their case to the gates of the city and they would ask for an appeal. And so He is right there to sideline these people before they can make it to the gate and to say, hey, you know, there really are no deputies available here who can deal with your case, who can talk to you about it. And he would commiserate with them and say, you know, I really feel bad about that. There should be people ready to listen to your case. And they believed him because after all, he's the son of the king. He ought to know whether there's a deputy there or not. And so instead of David being able to deal with the problems, all of the problems are being discussed behind his back. OK, and because he doesn't know about the problems, he can't deal with the problems. And the perception is created he's a do-nothing king, a king that really does not care about the problems that the people are going through. But it's Absalom who's created this environment where the king can't do anything. He doesn't know what's going on. And of course, it is human nature to like to have a shoulder to cry upon. It's human nature to like to complain. But Absalom is opportunistic of all of the hidden agendas in the human heart, and he uses those to draw loyalties to himself. And at this point it really is only heart loyalties that he's stealing. There's no open rebellion. You might suspect that there's rebellion under the surface, but you can't really see it openly. But understanding human nature makes it easy for him to manipulate people. Now salespeople sometimes do this. Did you ever hear about the salesman who closed hundreds of sales with this line? Let me show you something. Several of your neighbors said you couldn't afford. And it's very subtle, but he's wondering, what in the world would it be that I can't afford? And why would the neighbors be saying I can't afford it? Why would they be talking about me anyway? And I want to prove them wrong. But in much the same way, Absalom was a salesman who was opportunistic of every hurt and problem and controversy that came along. And here is the point. There will always be hurts, problems, controversies that can be taken advantage of by an Absalom in every kingdom and in every church. Wherever you've got humans, you're going to have problems, right? And so there's going to be this spirit that's going to say, how do we take advantage of these hurts and these problems that exist? And pastors tell me it doesn't matter how many fires that they put out in order to satisfy an Absalom's criticisms, Well, the next day there's another one and another one. It's just going from crisis to crisis to crisis. There's always new controversies that come up. The same demonic expertise that helped Absalom moves these people. And by the way, don't think that Satan cannot use true godly believers. He can. In 1 Chronicles chapter 21, you look at the first couple verses there and you will see that Satan moved David's heart to number Israel and it brought disaster upon Israel. So if Satan can use and motivate and move David, he can move you and he can move me as well. We need to be constantly on guard against this kind of satanic temptation. So Absalom is opportunistic because demons are opportunistic. And Absalom himself was probably manipulated by these demons. So Christians really do need to be on guard. By the way, the bigger the church is, the more opportunity for Absaloms to be at work. It's usually in the larger churches that you see this. Almost every megachurch has Absaloms at work. It's something we need to definitely pray about. The sixth principle that I see in this passage is that self-advancement comes through tearing down a leader rather than through building up or serving a leader. Now, they will point out gaps and weaknesses in a leader or multiple leaders, but they won't seek to help the leadership fill in those gaps. They won't try to cover for the leaders or say, hey, I can help fill in some of these deficiencies here. Look at verses 3 through 4. Then Absalom would say to him, Look, your case is good and right, but there is no deputy of the king to hear you. Moreover, Absalom would say, O that I were made judge in the land, and everyone who has any suit or cause would come to me, then I would give him justice. The O that I were made judge in the land is not only a complaint that there is injustice going on in the land, but it's saying, Hey, I'm the solution. to your problems. But the thing I want you to notice under point six is that Absalom doesn't approach David to help David solve those problems. He doesn't approach a deputy to try to get this guy's problem solved. Now, he's not looking for a solution for that person. In fact, he doesn't want David or any deputy to hear this because it would take away the discontent if it gets solved, right? And he wouldn't have anything. than to take advantage of. Instead he claims there was no deputy of the king to hear you. And so the assumption starts floating around that the leadership is not interested in doing anything about it. Now I find it extremely hard, and all the commentators I have, find it extremely hard to believe there really was no deputy ever at the city gates to deal with this, okay? But what's going on is that Absalom wants there to be lots of discussions of the problems behind the leadership's back, not in front of the leadership's back, because that might resolve them. Now he does say, if I were made judge, then I'd give them justice. That's not a solution. That's a complaint. And in many churches across America, there are problems being constantly complained about by members with no intention of a solution. No intention of a solution. In fact, the elders and the deacons who might be able to solve that problem, they only hear about the problem through the grapevine. They know there's discontent, but nobody comes forward with any of the information for them to be able to solve that problem. Okay? So it's very frustrating. The absolums who keep bringing up new problems to complain about make themselves seem like caring people by tearing down the leadership. It's demonic. It's demonic. If Absalom had been godly, he would have found a deputy to hear the case, even if he wasn't there at the gate. He would say, look, I'll see if I can rustle up a deputy for you. In fact, I'm the king's son. I'll go talk to the king for you and see if we can't get this case heard. He would have helped David to solve some of these problems, but he loves discussing problems without solving them where the real solution would be. He leaves the leadership out of the discussion. Now while point six deals with self-advancement by tearing down, point seven camouflages the accusations and undermining by giving the illusion of being very sympathetic and humble. Absalom undermines and criticizes in verses three through four, yet it's hard to get on his case because, wow, he just seems so loving, so sympathetic with these guys, interested in their spiritual welfare. He's humble. In verse five, he's just lovable. Now, he may not have been that way with everybody. In fact, I think he probably was not when he was talking with an Ahithophel whom David had already embittered, because remember, that Ahithophel was related to Bathsheba. There was probably some real bitterness that was going on there. So when he's talking with an Ahithophel, he might be very open. He might be very bold in his criticism and even in his rebellion. But when he's talking with a David, like in verses 7 through 9, wow, everything's hunky-dory. He loves David. He's spiritual. He's ready to go forward. And even with the common citizen, he is going to discern, is this person somebody who's open to gossip, is open to some of these things, or is he not? It might not be a frontal criticism. It might be, please pray for Elder so-and-so or for Deacon so-and-so. And then they share a little bit of gossip and possibly some innuendo that may or may not be true. Prayer groups are sometimes gossip groups masquerading as sympathy and humility. It's one of the chief weapons of an Absalom to sow discord among the brethren and still look spiritual. Okay, the eighth characteristic that I see in verses 4 through 6 is that Absalom's destructive fault-finding and bitterness and accusatory statements begin to spread to others. It spreads to others. If there is an Absalom in a church, it's extremely unlikely that he's the only one who is undermining and criticizing the leadership. It almost always spreads like a virus to other people. I should point out that there are other principles that we're not dealing with in verses 1 through 6, and we didn't so much tie in with the Absalom spirit before, but bitterness. You know, what we looked at before when when Amnon raped his sister Tamar, it was a tragedy that would have lodged some bitterness in his heart. And when his dad refused to do anything about it, that would have lodged further bitterness. And then when his dad banishes him, here he is, the good guy, he's taking care of the problem, Amnon, and there's no respect, you know, here he is banished, that would have caused that bitterness to continue to grow. That is one of the keys of the Absalom spirit, Jezebel spirit, and the Ahab spirit. So there's other things. One of the things that we looked at earlier is that the Absalom person is going to make decisions that only leaders should be making. He's going to take things into his own hands. That's when he dealt with Amnon. So I'm just pointing out that this is not an exhaustive list that we're going to be looking at this week and next week. There are other motivators as well. But back to point eight, the virus spreads, verses four through six. Moreover, Absalom would say, oh, that I were made judge in the land and everyone who has any suit or cause would come to me, then I would give him justice. And so it was, whenever anyone came near to bow down to him, that he would put out his hand and take him and kiss him. In this manner, Absalom acted toward all Israel who came to the king for judgment. So Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel. It's almost like there is this urge to dump. He just feels like he's got to talk to people about the things that are frustrating him. He has to find malcontents, and if he can't find any malcontents, he creates them. Okay? It's a demonic urge. Now he's very, very careful not to, we find out in a later chapter, he's very careful not to dump on a person like Hushai, close friend of David. Because if he were to dump on a Hushai about his frustrations, Hushai would immediately say, now wait a minute, before you say anything more, have you talked to your dad about this? If not, we need to go. We need to talk. Why don't you come with me? We'll talk to your dad. We'll get this settled. No, no, no, no, no. He's not interested in talking to a Hushai who might talk to the king about this. He's smarter. He's smarter than that. Hushais refuse to hear criticism unless they can become an immediate part of the problem via a Matthew 18 process, or via counseling, or some other biblical, godly method that the scripture gives. But otherwise, they just say, no, that's gossip. I'm not going to listen to that. You should not be talking to me. You need to go talk to the deacons or you need to talk to the leaders that you have a criticism of. But your average citizen will assume the best of an Absalom and over time will be corrupted little by little. The Absalom syndrome is a virus that spreads. Now, we're going to continue looking at the Absalom spirit next week, but there's one more characteristic. that we are going to look at this morning and that is that Absalom subtly stole the loyalty of the people away from David's leadership. Now you might not think of loyalty as something you can steal, but you can. Take a look at verse 6. In this manner Absalom acted toward all Israel who came to the king for judgment So Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel. And the Hebrew word for stole is the ordinary word for theft. It's exactly the same word that's used in the 8th commandment in Exodus 20 verse 15, thou shalt not steal. Okay? And keep in mind, this is not David speaking, this is God the narrator speaking. God says that Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel. Now that phrase implies four things, and we'll deal with them all together, but let me quickly outline the four things. First, heart loyalty must be given, not taken. I need to be the one who gives loyalty in a covenant pledge with somebody. It's given, it's not taken, and it's given through covenant, and Absalom was ignoring that, trying to undermine it. The second implication is that once that loyalty was promised, that heart loyalty belonged to someone else, in this case, David. The third implication is that an intangible thing like a heart can be stolen. You might think theft is only related to very tangible physical objects, but we're going to be seeing that that's actually not the case. The fourth implication is that the theft of hearts away from leadership is at the core of the Absalom syndrome. It's really at the core of the Absalom syndrome. So let's think about those four things all at the same time. This phrase implies that the hearts of those men belong to David, not to Absalom. You cannot steal something that belongs to no one. Now, in an absolute sense, their hearts don't belong to David, they belong to God. God's the only Lord of the heart. He's the only one who ultimately owns our hearts or anything else. But you don't want to carry that too far, because if you do that, then by definition, you can't have that from anybody, can you? Because God owns everything, I can take from Him. I'm not taking, I'm not stealing. So what we're talking about here is that heart loyalty is a stewardship trust that I'm committing to a David and that God is committing to a David. And that means that to take that loyalty away from David to Absalom is a form of theft. It's taking what is a due that's rightfully in David's hands. And it's theft every bit as much as stealing property from David would have been theft. So let me repeat that first implication. This phrase implies that the hearts of those men belong to David in some sense, not in an absolute sense, but in some sense belong to David, not absolum. You cannot steal something that belongs to no one. The second implication is logically connected. Loyalty of heart is something that God expects us to give to legitimate authorities in family, church, and state. Let us trace this through. One example, Proverbs 23, verse 26 says that a father very legitimately says to his son, my son, give me your heart and let your eyes observe my ways. He's calling for loyalty and you children O, loyalty to your parents. God wants you, your hearts, to be loyal to your parents. This is a concept that is so absent in modern America, and yet it is something that is a parent's rightful due, and to fail to give it is a violation of the Eighth Commandment. When you trash your parents in front of other people, you are removing loyalty from your parents. Okay, it's something that's owed them. Now, if such loyalty conflicts with loyalty to God, then loyalty to God trumps your loyalty to your parents. Why? Because your parents have stepped out from under, if they command you to, you know, I want you to help me steal something for the neighbor's house or something like that, that'd be very obvious, right? They're stepping out from under the chain of command from God. So if you're going to continue to be loyal to God, you would have to say, no, we ought to obey God rather than man on that particular issue. But we're not dealing with exceptions. We're dealing with the norm. What's the norm in terms of relationships between children and their parents? It is heart loyalty that God expects them to have. First to your family, then to your church, and then to constitutional civic leaders who have not been rejected by God like Saul was. But if to steal a heart means to steal loyalty, then theft cannot be said to be only of tangible goods. Now, this may or may not impact the whole copyright and patent argument. I'm not even going to get into that. We can talk about that later, maybe. It may not impact that, but I want you to be clear that it's possible, according to the Scripture, to steal someone's time, to steal someone's reputation, to steal their freedom. And in this particular passage, it is possible to steal their heart. So it's something worth considering. But let's dig into the concept of stealing hearts a bit more. Proverbs 31 says that a good man can safely trust his heart into his wife's hands. Now that's not true of all husbands and all wives. Some people have had the loyalty of their spouse stolen by someone. You know exactly what I'm talking about. Let me give you another example. In 2 Corinthians 6 verse 11, Paul says that he had opened his heart wide and kept it open to the Corinthians. But in 2 Corinthians 7 verse 2, He asks them, when they have closed up their hearts to Him, to open their hearts up to Him again. Their hearts, for some reason, had been closed off and stolen from Him. The loyalty that they used to have was gone. Why? Well, you read through 1 and 2 Corinthians, and you discover that there were false apostles who were using Absalom's techniques, exactly the techniques we see in this chapter, to undermine Paul, take away loyalty from Paul, make these people upset with Paul. They were doing exactly what Absalom did here. And so those false apostles who were undermining the apostle Paul were Absaloms, and at the core of their Absalom syndrome was a theft of heart loyalty away from leadership. Let me give you another example. Romans 13 verse 8 says that we owe love to each other within the body. Why? We owe it. It's a debt. And if we don't pay it, we're stealing it, okay? How could we owe love to each other? Why? Because we have covenanted to each other in this body to be in mutual submission to each other in the Lord. Okay, so that means that when we withhold love from each other, we are taking away from each other their rightful due. Their rightful due. And so I think you can see it applies in many, many different contexts. Now this whole concept has gotten me thinking a lot. If loyalty and heart faithfulness is expected in godly civics, if it's expected by Paul and Church, If it's expected by God of husband and wife and parents and children, then to the degree that we trivialize loyalty, we trivialize authority relationships, and we are in rebellion. Okay? The Scripture gives one of the characteristics of a deacon, that he is loyal to authority, and it applies it to all people who are in a service relationship. I'm called a servant. A deacon, I'm a deacon of the word, there are deacons in other areas of the church, and they are leaders who are modeling for the whole congregation on how they ought to be serving. Okay, so a deacon is a model to you of loyalty within authority structures. So let's apply this a little bit. We can see this in marriage. We can see a lot of different areas. But we need to ask ourselves, have you children truly entrusted your hearts in a godly sense to your parents? You should. They are saying, give me your heart. Give me your heart. The last verse of the Old Testament says that one of the signs of revival is that God will, quote, turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers. lest I come and strike the earth with a curse." That's how important heart loyalty is to God. He says, without a return to such heart loyalty, God's curse remains on the earth. He treats it very, very seriously. So if you are praying for revival in America, and I hope you are praying for revival in America, you cannot ignore this issue of heart loyalty. Another question. Have you members truly entrusted your hearts in a godly sense to your deacons and to your elders who are authorities within this church? Have you gone to them and say, how can I bless you? How can I serve you? How can I help you deacons to do the work of ministry within the church? I think it's a good question to ask. And we need to ask, has an Absalom tried to rob your hearts away from your Davids? Loyalty is a subject that we need to study a lot more. In fact, it's one of the reasons I didn't preach on the whole section. The next few verses, I've divided it up into two parts. So next week, it's going to be Absalom Part 2. We're going to be looking at a few more principles on it there. But loyalty itself, I should state, can become idolatry. if it's not a loyalty subject to the restrictions of the Bible. And we've seen in some churches where, man, the leadership is tyrannical. They're asking for idolatry. They're like Ahab. Ahab actually is demanding loyalty, right? He's demanding heart loyalty and it's a blind one. So it can become idolatry when it goes beyond the scripture, but at least be willing to think about it and to ask God to show you if there's any area and which your own heart needs reformation. I started with the story of a pastor who had an indulgent love toward this underling like David did. He was partly at fault, just as David was partly at fault. And one of the mistaken notions that people have concerning Absaloms is that they can be loved back into the kingdom. They cannot. They cannot be loved back into the kingdom. Bringing Absalom back was the worst thing that David could have done in the previous chapter. In fact, we saw it violated God's law. Without thoroughgoing repentance, there should be no restoration of a man who sows discord. Titus 3, verse 10 says, reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition. And people will say, well, that's not very loving. That's not very kind. That's not very patient. I mean, after the first and second admonition, give me a break, can't you wait until about the 50th? Aren't we supposed to forgive one another, you know, what is it, 70 times, 7 times? And no, that's such a serious offense in God's sight. He said, no, after the first and second admonition, You reject it. And in our day and age, it's so easy to believe the criticism that it's a hard thing to obey God on this issue. But if Paul was speaking to David, I'm convinced that he would have said to David, Titus 3 verse 10, reject the divisive man after the first and second admonition. Absalom's had his chance. Don't bring him back. To fail to do so is to invite disaster to Israel and to fail to love Israel in the name of loving Absalom. And that's exactly what Joab accused him of later on. He said, you know, you would have just been fine if Absalom had survived and we had all died. It was probably overstatement there. He would have grieved over that too. But he said, you love your enemies and you hate your friends. That's exactly the problem that David was manifesting. Let me tell you something, leaders are quitting the ministry in droves across America. Some months as high as 1,500 to 1,700 ministers are permanently leaving the ministry. Now in part it's because they have been absolutely worn down by Jezebels and by Absaloms, but in part it's because they've not responded properly themselves. They've become Ahabs using the same kind of demonic manipulation and the using of people and building coalitions and trying to stay in power. But it is a problem that we need to pray for in the Church of America. And by quickly outlining, very briefly, some of the differences between Absalom, Jezebel, and Nahab. They've got so many similarities that some people fail to distinguish them, but they are distinguished. Let me give the similarities first, very quickly. All three are rooted in bitterness and pride. All three use manipulation. All three use deception. All three are willing to destroy. All three try to control others. All three use others. But here's seven ways in which they differ. First, Absalom wants to gain someone's authority. Jezebel uses Ahab's authority. And Ahab desperately tries to retain his authority by manipulating the people underneath him. He would pit one person against another just to stay on top. Second, Absalom stole the heart of the people. Jezebel stole the heart of the king. And Ahab demands the heart of the people. Third, Absalom tries to overthrow the king. Jezebel tries to use the king. And Ahab tries to control and use authorities that are under him. Fourth, Absalom anointed himself to become king. Jezebel married the king. Ahab was the king. Fifth, Absalom is outwardly nice. Jezebel doesn't need to be nice, and Ahab doesn't really need to be nice. Sixth, Absalom manipulates citizens, Jezebel manipulates the king, Ahab manipulates the authorities underneath him. And then the last difference is Absalom uses charm, Jezebel uses charm and threats. Ahab uses threats and promises. And history tells us, even secular history tells us, Ahab was one of the most remarkable coalition builders and controllers of those who were pitting one against the other. He was just an amazing coalition builder and politician. But whether you can clearly and immediately distinguish between those three, it really doesn't matter. Pray against all of the manifestations of all three in the church across the world. Pray against bitterness, pride, manipulation, deception, using people, criticism, undermining leadership, and leadership using deception and demonic manipulation in politics as well, which is the Ahab spirit. And if we are to be used by God to effectively pray for revival of the church in America, we have got to understand who are the chief enemies of revival and pray against them. And I believe Jezebel, Absalom, and Ahab are three well-known enemies of the church of Jesus Christ. Do all you can to pray against them, and may God bind those spirits, and may He bring revival to the church. Amen. Father, we thank You for the clarity of Your Word. and the illustrations that your word gives, such as the illustration here that Ahab provided, help us to heed, to learn, and to learn how to pray for revival and to engage in spiritual warfare against all of these demonic hosts that are seeking to undo the church and to divide and conquer and to destroy. Father, it grieves us to see so many churches that have been taken out and so many good leaders who have been taken out. Some of these leaders who have left the ministry probably should have left the ministry. But we pray, O God, that you would bring health and peace and shalom to the church. Cause it to be strong in you. Cause it to operate not with power politics, but cause it to operate with true authority, standing under your authority. And may you be glorified, Father, as the church once again finds revival and reformation And instead of using the political manipulations of the world, it simply operates out of your authority. May every father and every mother in this congregation follow your authority rather than seeking to use power. May every deacon and every elder in this congregation do the same. May you raise up political leaders in our community and across this nation who would be statesmen standing in authority, not seeking to force, not seeking to use the manipulative power of the Absalom, Ahab or Jezebel spirits. Father, we long to see revival and reformation and we pray that you would help us to be cognizant at all times when we ourselves are being manipulated. and for sure not to use manipulation ourselves. We give you the glory, we give you our lives, and we bless you in Jesus' name. Amen.