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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.
The Absalom Spirit, Part 1
Series Life of David
People are often mystified by the politics, manipulation, undermining of authority, criticism, and endless fires that need to be put out in organizations. Though this sermon mainly applies the principles of the Absalom Syndrome to the church, you will immediately recognize the same principles at work in politics, military, business, and elsewhere. For those who are praying for revival and reformation in the church, it is important that they recognize and pray against the three main demonic spirits that are hindering that work: those behind Ahab, Jezebel, and Absalom. This sermon briefly discusses all three, but focuses upon those who undermine authority behind the scenes
| Sermon ID | 9953161844210 |
| Duration | 54:01 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | 2 Samuel 15:1-6 |
| Language | English |
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