And actually, we'll begin with the last verse we ended up with last week, verse 33 of chapter 18. And the king was deeply moved and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept. And as he went, he said thus, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom, if only I had died in your place. O Absalom, my son, my son. And Joab was told, behold, the king is weeping and mourning for Absalom. So the victory that day was turned into mourning for all the people. For the people heard it said that day, the king is grieved for his son. And the people stole back into the city that day as people who were ashamed steal away when they flee in battle. But the king covered his face, and the king cried out with a loud voice, O my son Absalom, O Absalom, my son, my son. Then Joab came into the house to the king and said, Today you have disgraced all your servants who today have saved your life, the lives of your sons and daughters, the lives of your wives, and the lives of your concubines. in that you love your enemies and hate your friends. For you have declared today that you regard neither princes nor servants. For today I perceive that if Absalom had lived and all of us had died today, then it would have pleased you well. Now therefore, arise, go out, and speak comfort to your servants. For I swear by the Lord, if you do not go out, not one will stay with you this night. And that will be worse for you than all the evil that has befallen you from your youth until now. Then the king arose and sat in the gate, and they told all the people, saying, there is the king sitting in the gate. So all the people came before the king, for every one of Israel had fled to his tent. Father, we thank you for your word. It is our desire to understand it, to grow in terms of it. We pray that you would anoint me as I preach your word and anoint each one as we hear it. We love you. We continue to worship as we respond to your word. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, today we're going to deal with a subject that could be very sensitive to some people, and I will be the first to admit that we do need to be very, very careful to never minimize the pain that people are going through, even if that pain is being expressed in ways that are inappropriate, just like David did here. God understands our pain, He counts our tears, He ministers to us in the midst of our grief, and He commands each of us to weep with those who weep. But that needs to be carefully balanced with the biblical fact that Christianity is not all about our feelings and there is some ungodly weeping. For example, some people manipulate with their tears. That is ungodly. There are other people who mourn over the wrong thing. Joshua, in Joshua 7, verse 10, was rebuked for crying over the wrong thing. Sometimes we need to have our thinking, our perspective adjusted. So for our weeping to be godly, it needs to have the right motive, it needs to have the right goal, and it needs to conform to all of the standards of the scripture, which includes standards of self-control and caring about other people, not just about our own feelings and timing, things like that. Some of you may have never thought of sanctifying your emotions by God's grace. You might think, what's to sanctify? You either weep or you don't weep. But scripture speaks a great deal about the importance of sanctifying our emotions to the Lord. And just as one example, my lack of weeping during my teens and my early twenties, did not conform to the Word of God because I thought, you know, okay, men are not supposed to ever cry and I would always hold my emotions in. And yet I would say to you that Romans chapter 12 verse 15 is not just addressed to women when it commands us to weep with those who weep. We men need to learn how to weep appropriately just like Jesus did. There is actually an entire book of the Bible that's devoted to teaching us about godly weeping. It's the book of Lamentations. It comes right after Jeremiah and it's written by Jeremiah the weeping prophet. There is a right place for weeping. What I'm wanting to focus on this morning is giving you a little bit of an introduction to the subject of ungodly weeping. Now obviously from this one little passage I'm not going to be able to say everything that could be said about ungodly weeping, but I think the scripture is quite clear that David's inordinate weeping was inappropriate. Ecclesiastes chapter 3 verse 4 says, and a time to laugh, a time to mourn, and a time to dance. And one commentator on Ecclesiastes says, the point that Koalath stresses here is that we should do these things only when it is appropriate. So God is saying that there are times when it is not appropriate to laugh no matter how funny the situation may appear to be. And there are times when it's not appropriate to weep, no matter how sad you may feel your heart being. Our emotional expressions must be sensitive to the context. And David here was weeping in a way that was not sensitive to the context. Even though his heart was breaking, he should have held it in for a time and let the dam burst, you know, when he was by himself. Now last week we looked at Ahimaaz, who was shocked at David's insensitivity to their love, to their faithfulness, and to the sacrifices that they had made. Now David, we saw, probably had no intention whatsoever of hurting anybody's feelings, but his insensitive words, because he was so focused in on his own pain, was in effect treating their love and their faithfulness and their sacrifices as being utterly inconsequential. It was like they had been kicked in the stomach with what he had done. But today we're going to focus on David, not Ahimaaz. And before we look at what was wrong about David's weeping, I want to quickly mention what was not wrong. And we know that these first points here were not wrong because of the inspired Psalms that David gave, as well as numerous other scriptures we won't be getting into, from Lamentations and other places that talk about godly weeping. First of all, it was not wrong for him to love his rebellious son. Chapter 18, verse 33, I think is one of the most remarkable expressions of a father's love to his son that you'll find in the entire Bible. And let me just read that again. Then the king was deeply moved and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept. And as he went, he said thus, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom, if only I had died in your place. O Absalom, my son, my son. This love is incredible. It's like God the Father's love for us. Despite Absalom's rebellion, despite his lack of love for David, despite the fact that he was trying to kill David and anyone else associated with David, David did not respond in kind. Okay, he loved Absalom deeply. Now we've already seen in the past that his love was mixed with some inappropriate expressions. It was also having some idolatry that was mixed up with it. But the love itself was a good love. It was an unconditional love that very faintly reflects God's love for us. Second, it was not wrong for David to be deeply moved and brokenhearted over his son. Now God, the inspired text here says that his heart was deeply moved. And who would not be deeply moved over a son who had shown no signs of repentance? You know, from one perspective, that is the ultimate grief, to have a loved one who is, at least from all outward perspectives, heading toward hell. From the Psalms that we looked at before, it sure seems like Absalom was headed toward hell. And so the Psalms do not appear to fault David for being moved. Jeremiah was moved to tears on behalf of unbelievers in the book of Lamentations. The Apostle Paul was moved to tears on behalf of his unbelieving brethren in Romans chapter 9. It would not have been wrong to go into a room to hide from the crowds if the context had been right. But he was a king who had some more responsibilities he needed to engage in, and he should have held his emotions in for a time. and then gone to a truly private place where he could sob his heart out before the Lord. There are times when we cannot hide and when we must not try to escape until after we have dealt with our responsibilities. Fourth, I'm not saying that a man sobbing and sobbing over the loss of a son is wrong. I would have probably done the same thing, hopefully in private, and I can even understand that David couldn't hold it in any longer. I think we do need to be understanding when people sinfully express their emotions like this. I mean, it's very understandable from a human perspective. But it's what was said along with the sobbing that is especially disturbing. But even on the tears themselves, sometimes try as we might, we can't hold the tears back. And there are situations where I would just say we must try. And if we cannot hold the tears back, we need to explain to people we're not against them. We love them. We're not doing this. It's just we're so emotional. We need to at least explain that we're not upset with them. And then lastly, It would not have been wrong to wish that God would have allowed him to die instead of Absalom dying. Saying it in front of these people was totally wrong, but feeling it, wishing it in secret would not have been wrong. I mean Jesus actually fulfilled his wish that he could die on our behalf, didn't he? And you see the same thing. I already mentioned Romans chapter 9. Paul says, I'm not lying. I mean, three times he emphasizes that he's not lying, that he wished he could be accursed for his brethren's sake if they could be saved. And that was a spirit-induced desire to have his life substituted for those. So every one of us was an Absalom from a divine perspective, and yet Jesus had the balance of judging us as guilty and worthy of hell. So He did not in any way excuse our sins, but He also at the same time took our place. And it really is a marvelous, incredible love of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now of course David did not completely measure up to Christ's life and I think it's pretty obvious just on the surface of it. There are times when we simply do not understand those unruly emotions that are going on inside of us. A lot of what David was experiencing is understandable and even his blowing it here I think is perfectly understandable. He actually did quite well in holding back his emotions for the previous three days. We saw in a previous sermon that David did not want to fight against Saul, I mean Absalom. He would have preferred to just leave the country, let Absalom rule, but he had a calling before God. He had responsibilities before God, and he knew that he had to fight, and he did the right thing. So for three days, he has been maturely holding back his emotions on this whole situation. But now the floodgates burst open, and he lets it all hang out. So what is wrong? with doing what David did. And I'm going to outline 11 things that were wrong. First, it is wrong to let it all hang out when your mourning robs other people of their rightful joy. We saw last week that Ahimaaz and the other men had been given a miraculous victory by the Lord. And I won't repeat what I said back then, but look at the general impact that this had on the men. They were incredibly joyful, but verses 1 through 3 say, And Joab was told, Behold, the king is weeping and mourning for Absalom. So the victory that day was turned into mourning for all the people. For the people heard it said that day, the king is grieved for his son. And the people stole back into the city that day, as people who were ashamed steal away when they flee in battle. The context for the mourning was highly inappropriate. It would be sort of like you going to somebody's wedding, and then later to their wedding reception, and the whole time you're there, you're bawling out with a loud voice about your child who has died. Now, we can understand your grief over the death of your child, but the context is inappropriate. You just don't go there, okay? Maybe that person should be ushered out of the wedding. Understandable, but the wrong context. In Nehemiah chapter 8 verse 9, Ezra and the Levites commanded the people to stop weeping, to stop mourning because the context was so inappropriate. They were commanded to stop weeping. The Gospels, Jesus told the Pharisees that they were missing the context when they insisted that the disciples mourn and weep and fast on their legalistically imposed fast days. Jesus said, can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? And the obvious answer that Jesus expects is, no, you can't mourn. That's an inappropriate context. Okay? Now, some people might respond, but I can't help it. Okay? The weeping, the mourning just comes out. I just cannot help it. And that may be true that you can't help it if your emotions have been utterly unsanctified. But the more mature you become, the more self-control you will exhibit, and you will eventually get to a place where you're actually going to be able to give joy to people in a joy context, even when you do not feel like giving joy. And then later you can retire to yourself and cry your heart out to the Lord. That's exactly what Jesus did. Do you really think that Jesus felt like giving his disciples joy and comfort and building them up and taking away their sorrow when they were in the upper room, you know, the Last Supper? I doubt it very much. His heart was very, very heavy and yet he was a joy giver in that context and he waited until the Garden of Gethsemane to pour his broken heart out before the Lord in deep anguished tears when it was in a different context. So the context is the first issue that needs to be examined. in terms of maturity of our emotions. We need to train our children on what is appropriate to various contexts. There is a time to weep. There is a time to laugh. And we've got to disciple our children in what are appropriate displays of emotion. The second issue is station of life. All of us have different responsibilities, and when mourning makes us abandon our God-given responsibilities, then we need to be challenged just like David was. He had a responsibility as king to his citizens. He had a responsibility as a king to put murderers to death, and that included his son Absalom. But when it came to his son, he had a hard time doing the right thing. And even after God completely took that decision out of his hands, he still had responsibilities to move his nation forward, but his grief did not allow for that, and he almost lost the kingdom over it. So what is your station in life? If you're a child, You have responsibilities to your parents. And parents who let their children get away with rebellion simply because the child is brokenhearted over not being able to do what he or she wants to do, if the parent lets them get away with that, they're not doing their child a favor. And children who are not trained to control their tears and cryings are not being done a favor. And we'll look at that a little bit more later. But parents have emotional responsibilities to their family. They are called to nurture, to cheer, to encourage, to admonish, and through discipline to bring their children to tears. So there's a whole range of emotions that parents are responsible for. And when Jacob, in the book of Genesis, when he brought only tears and weeping into his family day after day, year after year. He was utterly derelict in his responsibilities as a parent, as a duties. Certainly the pain of his lost son would hurt, but his weeping was tearing his living family apart and Judah finally couldn't stand it any longer. He had to leave. Church officers. That's another area of calling in life. We are required to bear the burden and the pain of people who are suffering, and then we move on to people who are rejoicing, being able to deal with joy and pain at the same time. Sometimes there is walks of life where it takes a much more complicated and a much more mature control of emotions. God rebuked Moses for crying when he should have been leading the children of Israel with emotional confidence. That's Exodus 14 verse 15. God even required that Ezekiel not publicly mourn the loss of his dearly beloved wife. Now that's absolutely incredible when you think about it. Yet Ezekiel had matured to a place where he could hold those emotions back while in public and just weep while he was alone. Let me read the scripture for you. It can be done. God told Ezekiel, son of man, behold, I take away from you the desire of your eyes, that's his wife, with one stroke. Yet you shall neither mourn nor weep, nor shall your tears run down." Ezekiel 24, verse 16. So some stations of life require a much more complicated control of our emotions. But it's still a calling for every Christian's sanctification. You can't always do what you feel like doing. The excuse, I don't feel that way, is utterly irrelevant. Our feelings must be sanctified and under control of the Holy Spirit. The third question is focus. When your morning is in private, it's a side issue. And it's a side issue, even if people find out that you have been mourning. But when your mourning is front and center and becomes the focus of attention, then there are problems. And that's exactly what happened with David's mourning. The second part of verse 2 says, So there wasn't anybody who wasn't talking about the mourning. And there wasn't anybody who was around that part of the city who didn't hear his loud cries for his son. And in verse 3, there wasn't anybody who wasn't negatively impacted by his mourning. His mourning had become front and center. He was like a huge elephant in the room that could not be ignored. And this is what went wrong with Jacob's mourning for 21 years. in chapters 37 through 45 of Genesis, 21 years. I mean, the scripture doesn't approve of the seven stages of grieving anyway, but even if it did, that would be taking it to an extreme. His constant weeping for 21 years in front of his family negatively impacted everything. And it says that when people tried to comfort him, he refused to be comforted. He said, I'm going to keep weeping and mourning until I die. Sometimes a refusal to be comforted is an issue of sin. It's willful sin. And in the process of picking at his scabs, he made life messy for his family. Now there are other ways that mourning can become the center of attention. I've been in homes where you could slice the air. I mean, it was so tangible because of the bad attitudes of the woman of the home. You've heard the expression of mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. Well, actually, I've seen exactly the same thing with the men. So don't pick on the women, the mamas. I've seen the men do the same thing. And either way, it isn't right. Just because you are heavy hearted does not mean you need to make everybody else miserable and heavy hearted themselves. Now there is a place for coming around a person, you know, putting your arms around them. We've already dealt with that at the beginning of the sermon and seeking to minister comfort to those people. If a person's emotions are displacing, constantly displacing everyone else's, there's likely some emotional immaturity that needs to be replaced. And actually, what I've said under point C overlaps into point D. When you're mourning is a source of embarrassment to others. Verse 3 says, and the people stole back into the city that day, as people who were ashamed steal away when they flee in battle. They were so embarrassed and ashamed by David's behavior, they didn't know how to deal with it. And there are times when displays of emotion are just awkward for everyone, and yet you'll find the people who are bringing this embarrassing emotional display justifying what they're doing, saying, hey, I can't deny my feelings. Well, that's nonsense. Sanctification is always about self-denial. And God calls us to be sanctified in our emotions. Verse 4 gives another factor to consider. Is the display of emotion inordinate? In other words, is it too loud and too prolonged? Now, if you've worked with children for very long, you've probably noticed that some children Anytime you give a rebuke, a no, or you give a discipline, their crying is way out of proportion to what they have received, and they just keep crying and crying and will not let up with a loud voice, and they're following mom and dad around. You know exactly how that number goes down, right? In our family, when that happened, we made it very clear to our children that when you cry, you need to cry softly. And if you're crying inordinately, you're going to get extra discipline. And you cry inordinately about that, you're going to get more discipline. They understood that they had to learn self-control over their emotions. And if you don't learn it as a child, you're going to be a troubled adult. You're going to be trouble for everybody else when you are an adult. David was not showing that self-control in verse 4. But the king covered his face, and the king cried out with a loud voice, O my son Absalom, O Absalom, my son, my son. Now he'd already been saying that. We saw in verse 33 of the previous chapter. These runners, they had run as fast as they could to bring the message. That's when he starts crying. The whole army is coming much slower. So for quite a bit of time, David is going on and on and on with this loud crying. It would be one thing to be sobbing silently in this room, but he's crying out with a loud voice and the things that he is saying are highly insulting to those men. In the book of Exodus, that first generation of Israelites had not even developed the level of maturity that David had. God faults them and they're crying because it says, quote, they did not heed Moses because of anguish of spirit and cruel bondage. Now we can understand the anguish of spirit and the cruel bondage that they were going through. In fact, Exodus says that it was precisely because of their anguish of spirit that God had come to visit them. He cared about them, but God was not going to put up with their inordinate mourning, their inordinate weeping any more than a parent should put up with his children crying inordinately. Verse 5 starts by saying, then Joab came into the house to the king and said, and what he says indicates Joab was very angry. Your mourning may be ungodly if it legitimately angers others. And of course, the big question is, well, how do I know if they are legitimately angered or not? We all know people. can get angry over anything, even the slightest little thing, and they can use anger to manipulate. So this is not an obvious or an absolute point, but Joab is here taking offense on behalf of the people. Let me just use an illustration to try to let you know where I'm going at. Think of it this way. If a previously convicted murderer and rapist had gotten out of prison and had started killing and raping more women, you'd be very upset with the government for having paroled this person. And if the person who had paroled him was the father of this person, that would be even worse. But let's say that the last person that he attempted to rape had shot him and killed him, and then the news media comes out, and all that the news media covers, day and night, is this father weeping and grieving over his wonderful son that he has lost, and they're not picking up at all on all of the hurt that has happened to the raped women. I think you'd be extremely upset, very legitimately upset, with this front and center highlighting of emotion. Well, that's not too far off from what happened here. Absalom had indeed engaged in murder three years before. His dad had let him back into the country. From his banishment, he had given him a parole, so to speak. And then after having raped now several of his dad's concubines, this Absalom went on a rampage against David's followers, being willing to kill anybody that gets in his way. And all that the people see is David weeping and wailing over the loss of a son who was a horrendous criminal. They don't see him weeping over the people who have been raped and killed, so to speak. That's ungodly, no matter how hurt David may have felt. The seventh thing to evaluate is whether your mourning disgraces those whom you love. So again, we've got some overlap between these points, but they are distinct. Verse 5 goes on to say, today you have disgraced all your servants. A child who gets a present, it's a very nice present from somebody, and starts crying because it's not the present that they wanted has disgraced the gift giver. So I think you can see how weeping can disgrace a person. When Samson's first wife wept over the fact that he wouldn't tell her the meaning of the riddle, which she was planning to give to the Philistines, she disgraced her husband. In David's case, it was an unintended consequence, but Joab was exactly right that his mourning had shamed his loyal soldiers who had laid down their lives for his safety. It was shameful weeping. The eighth thing to evaluate is whether your mourning ignores your true blessings. Verse 5 continues, today you have disgraced all your servants who today have saved your life, the lives of your sons and daughters, the lives of your wives, and the lives of your concubines. When mourning ignores the incredible blessings that God has showered out upon us, it is ungodly. over and over again in the Old Testament, God was very angry with the Israelites for focusing in on the fact of what they did not have, weeping over what they did not have, instead of thanking God for the incredible blessings that he had poured into their lives. And David here is not only ignoring the fact that God has spared his life and the lives of his sons and his daughters and his wives and his concubines, but God has given a miraculous victory. It was absolutely miraculous. 20,000 soldiers against over a million soldiers. And God had even spared David the task, which it would have been an inevitable task, of having to try his son for murder in a court and go through that whole process. And yet David just does not see it. And so this means that David's weeping would have come under the same judgment that Israel came under in the book of Exodus if he had not repented, but he did indeed repent and we're thankful for that. The ninth thing that Joab brought to David's attention was that this morning was completely disregarding the feelings of those who loved him. He was so focused in on his own feelings, he was ignoring the feelings of others. In fact, Joab says, it looks like you love your enemies and you hate your friends. It says, in that you love your enemies and hate your friends. I mean, it's a bit of a misrepresentation, but it sure looked that way to Joab. And it's so easy for people who are focused in on their own feelings to disregard the feelings of those who love them. In the book of Genesis, Jacob was utterly oblivious to the emotional train wreck that he was making of his family by his selfish, prolonged mourning. Point J says that mourning can be wrong when it disregards our responsibilities to the chain of command. Joab said, for you have declared today that you regard neither princes nor servants. It's just about you, David. The whole world revolves around you, David, and you don't seem to give a blankety blank about the leaders or the servants, either one. That's in effect what he was saying. And then the last reason given by Joab shows that he had completely misunderstood David's heart values. He accused David saying, for today I perceive that if Absalom had lived and all of us had died today, then it would have pleased you well. Now David really did value these people. We know his heart values because the scripture tells us he loved these people. But here's the point. His actions were saying otherwise. He was oblivious to that, but his actions were saying otherwise. So mourning is ungodly when your mourning completely miscommunicates your heart values. See, weeping is a form of communication just like all of our other bodily nonverbal communication. And if it's miscommunicating, it is wrong. Now, emotions can blind us to all of these 11 reasons that we've gone through, and it's sometimes necessary for God to bring a messenger into our lives to correct us. And what you do with that messenger can make all the difference in the world as to whether you improve for the better or you get worse. Some people go on the attack against the messenger and they don't care that their lives are spiraling out of control. Now, I would admit that you would wish that the messenger who comes into your life is going to be a little bit more sensitive than Joab was. But if someone calls you to get mature and to control your emotions, treat the advice as welcome. Don't go on the offensive. David would have been ruined If Joab had not brought this advice, it was absolutely needed advice. And I'll look a little bit later on for a bit at Joab, but let me quickly look at six steps for undoing the damage that may have been caused by our ungodly weeping. The first step is to listen to the message and not react to the messenger. Now it's true that Joab was threatening his own revolt in verse 17, verse 7 I mean. At least it's implied. He had ungodly attitudes. He was insensitive, uncaring. In fact, he probably doesn't love David at all now. There's been such a rift that's been put between him. He later on ends up rebelling against David with another son. But despite that, David listened up. He listened to the message that was true. He took heed to it. So it doesn't matter how much of a curmudgeon God's messenger into your life might be, Listen to God's voice speaking through that curmudgeon. OK? Listen to the message, not just the way the message is brought. And it takes crucifying your pride to do that. Now, David had humility. So he immediately listens. He realizes, whoa, Joab is right, and he does the right thing. And some of us need to develop a little more tough skin to the Joabs around us. Second, get up from your pity party. Verse 7 says, now therefore arise. When we are dejected, it is so easy for us to sit in our puddle of tears indefinitely. Now, we already started the sermon by affirming it's not wrong to cry, but when weeping is ungodly, we need to immediately take action. While we do want to be sensitive to people's pains, you have plenty of examples of God telling people to stop engaging in a pity party. Elijah. You look at his, everything that was going wrong with him, he had plenty of reason to be engaging in a pity party. And God says, no, I want you to get up. Now God does affirm him emotionally, unlike Joab. He does affirm him, but he tells him to get up, to get action, get moving. The worst thing that you can do for a person who wants to crawl into a hole and make the world go away, is to let him crawl into the hole. If Joab had let David crawl into a hole, the next day he would have been without a kingdom. He would have been all by himself in that city. Emotions tend to blind us to consequences and it's important that we grab ourselves by the scruff of the neck and we get up. Thirdly, go to those who need you. In David's case, it was his wives, his children, and his soldiers. In your case, it might be your parents, your spouse, your children, or your work. Verse 7 goes on to say, go. We need to go and minister to others. The best therapy that I have had when I have been depressed and discouraged is to think about the needs of other people. And the Apostle Paul over and over again calls us to minister to the needs of others when we are hurting. What's with that? I mean, when people are hurting and dejected, that's the last thing they want to do. They don't want to minister to the needs of others. But you know what? When you actually do that by faith, there is healing that is brought within us when we start ministering to others. Fourth, speak EQ. That means emotional quotient into the lives of those for whom you are responsible. Joab said, go out and speak comfort to your servants. I have found comfort coming to my own heart when I have sought to bring encouragement to others. It's hard to bless others emotionally without being blessed yourself. Fifth, begin to enter into normal daily routines. Verse 8 says, Then the king arose and sat in the gate, and they told all the people, saying, There is the king sitting in the gate. So all the people came before the king, for every one of Israel had fled to his tent. So the first half of the verse speaks of sitting in the gate. This is where kings and judges normally sat. And so it speaks of David getting back into normal routines. And there is something emotionally stabilizing about doing that. And the second half of the verse speaks of re-engaging normal relationships with others. Now that's hard to do when you're sobbing your heart out, right? And from the Psalms we know that David still was needing to sob his heart out to the Lord from time to time over this loss, but he engaged in normalizing life to some degree. I think this is the biblical method. Now those of you who have studied psychology at all, as I have in college and reading books since then, you'll probably notice that everything I have just said in this sermon is quite contrary to the modern wisdom of the seven steps of grieving. Modern humanistic wisdom says all seven steps are inevitable. are healthy and are critically important to follow through in exactly that order. You will not find a shred of biblical evidence to support that, that prolonged pity party. God's grace is far greater than that and I have seen times actually where there have been terrifically evil consequences that have flowed from people who have followed these seven steps of grieving. Let me go ahead and list them for you. I took the diagram that's in your outlines there from one psychology book, but there's lots just like that. And I want you to notice the do not do sign that I placed over it. Okay, their first stage. that they give is shock and denial, and it's said to last for weeks and even months. Second stage is incredible pain and guilt. Third stage is anger at God and anyone else that you can lash out at. And psychologists say, hey, you've got to unleash these bottled up emotions. You've got to unleash this anger. And in the process, there are months and sometimes years of people self-centeredly hurting others by unleashing their emotions. The fourth stage is depression, reflection, and loneliness. During this stage, supposedly, you isolate yourself on purpose. You focus on memories of the past. You have feelings of emptiness and despair. And psychologists tell you, you're not supposed to get through this too quickly. They say it's not healthy to skip any of these steps or to shorten any of these steps. And for sure, don't listen to Phil Kaiser, they'll tell you. Don't listen to pastors who want to talk you out of going through all of these steps. And there are some people who stay in that fourth stage for years. The fifth stage is an upward turn. Sixth stage, you start getting responsible and working through financial problems that the first stages have ignored. And I'm thinking, wow, and you've got two, three years where you're financially irresponsible? Not a good idea. Seventh stage is acceptance and hope. And during this stage, you learn to accept and deal with the reality of your situation. However, psychology books will insist, many of them anyway, that you will never again be able to return to the carefree, and I'm almost giving a direct quote here, the carefree, untroubled you that existed before this tragedy. Perhaps eventually after years you will no longer have that pain. So that's kind of a summary of where they say people need to go through their grieving. And some of you may have read the seven steps in Christian counseling books that have been way, way too influenced by psychology. They may even throw a scripture in here and there from Jacob or David or from somebody else who is grieved, but if those steps are indeed as essential as they say that they are, then Scripture portrays God as a pretty lousy counselor. That's the fact because God did not allow people to go through those stages when He counseled Adam and Eve or when He counseled Noah or Abraham or Job or Ezekiel or many other people that you can think of in the scripture. God wants us to get past the pain much more quickly and much more maturely than psychologists do. I have known pastors who have practically destroyed their families and have almost destroyed their churches because they have insisted on months for each one of these stages of grieving in their lives. And it has been so destructive to the people that are around them. It's not biblical. It's not mature. It is a self-focused way that shortchanges everyone around you. The seven stages of grieving prolong ungodly grieving, prolong the consequent hurt in the lives of others. Now, that's not to say that everybody's going to, you know, get through their grieving as quickly as others. Every person is unique. No two people are alike. But the typical seven-stage approach to grieving mandates that everybody go through all seven stages and skip none. And there is no biblical evidence for that. Now I do want to give one final word of caution, this time to the would-be counselors who try to help a David who is going through inordinate weeping. Verse 7 doesn't show a very caring person, does it? Joab said now therefore arise go out and speak comfort to your servants for I swear by the Lord if you do not go out not one will stay with you this night and that will be worse for you than all the evil that has befallen you from your youth until now. Now while it is appropriate to show the damage to others and the damage to self that could be caused by unrestrained emotion you do not want to be an insensitive curmudgeon like Joab. Joab really Didn't care about David. David was his job security. Because Absalom didn't want him. So what is he going to do? I mean, he's a general. He's got to stick with somebody. And so Joab was really reacting out of his own ungodly emotions that sprang from issues we're not going to deal with right now. We've dealt with them in the past. Now, if you are to be a counselor of those who weep, you need to first of all learn the principle of empathy commanded in Romans 12, verse 15, which commands us to weep with those who weep. So if we're to be people. And we're to get people past their pain rather than adding to their pain, we must approach them with caring hearts. Second, we must have the humility that Galatians 6, 1 through 5 calls for, calls upon us to recognize any one of us can fall into any sin. We could be exactly where David was in our own lives. And so Paul in those verses tells us that we should be humble, gentle, willing to bear one another's burdens, that's verse 2, as we are helping them to start beginning to bear their own burdens, verse 5. And there are other things that the Peacemaker's book, which I highly recommend, Ken Sandy is the author, but anyway that the Peacemaker's book encourages us to put on before we can effectively help the emotionally distraught through their issues. Just as one example, one of the problems when people are emotionally distraught is they don't tend to think logically. So if you try to preach at them, all of these different things, they're probably going to get mad at you. Okay? So just be understanding that they're not going to probably respond like they should. You're going to maybe have to go into a back door or continue to work with them. In fact, who knows? Some of you might be mad at me for preaching on these things right this morning. But don't get frustrated at these people. Love them as yourself and you will likely avoid some of the mistakes that Joab made. So my final admonition. is may God help all of us, whether we are Joabs or Davids, to sanctify our weeping to the Lord. And may He use the principles that we have looked at this morning to cause us all to grow in His grace. Amen. Father God, the subject of weeping is not the most fun, pleasant topic to talk about. And yet weeping is a part of every one of our lives. And I pray that you would help us to sanctify our own emotions to you. And to not allow our emotions to do unwise things or sinful things or things that hurt others even if it's unintentionally hurting others. Help us to mature in every area of our lives and help us to have the wisdom to instruct and to guide our children to help them mature emotionally as well. We commit our emotions to you and realize that sometimes we just struggle and struggle over our emotions just coming unleashed and not doing what we want them to do and regretting what we say later. And so we pray that you would subdue our emotions under the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ and help us to grow up into you in all things. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.