We're going to 2 Samuel chapter
14. And we're just going to read
a few of the verses. It's a long chapter and we have
to just, for the sake of time, curtail our reading today and
also recognize that we are speaking to some of the younger people. So we're going to 2 Samuel chapter
14. 14 and we're going to read from
verse 1 then as we go through I'll jump about a little bit
to different verses 2nd Samuel 14 verse 1. Now Joab the son
of Zeruiah perceived that the king's heart was toward Absalom. And Joab sent to Tekoa, and fetched
thence a wise woman, and said unto her, I pray thee, feign
thyself to be a mourner, and put on now mourning apparel,
and anoint not thyself with oil, but be as a woman that had a
long time mourned for the dead. and come to the king and speak
on this manner unto him. So Joab put the words in her
mouth. And when the woman of Tekoa spake
to the king, she fell on her face to the ground and did obeisance
and said, Help, O king. And the king said unto her, What
aileth thee? And she answered, I am indeed
a widow woman, and mine husband is dead. And thy handmaid had
two sons, and they two strove together in the field, and there
was none to part them. But the one smote the other and
slew him. And behold, the whole family
is risen against thine handmaid, and they said, Deliver him that
smote his brother, that we may kill him, for the life of his
brother whom he slew, and we will destroy the heir also. And
so they shall quench my coal which is left, and shall not
leave to my husband neither name nor remainder upon the earth.
And the king said unto the woman, Go to thine house, and I will
give charge concerning thee. The woman of Tekoa said unto
the king, My lord, O king, the iniquity be on me and on my father's
house, and the king and his throne be guiltless. The king said,
Whosoever saith aught unto thee, bring him to me, and he shall
not touch thee any more. And then to jump over briefly
to verse 13. And the woman said, Wherefore
then hast thou thought such a thing against the people of God? For
the king doth speak this thing as one which is faulty, and in
that the king doth not fetch home again his banished. And
then we will summarize this account later. But going down to verse
19, we encounter Joab again. And the king said, is not the
hand of Joab with thee in all this? He's speaking to the woman.
And the woman answered and said, as thy soul liveth, my lord the
king, none can turn to the right hand or to the left from aught
that my lord the king hath spoken. For thy servant Joab, he bade
me. and he put all these words in
the mouth of thine handmaid. To fetch about this form of speech
hath thy servant Joab done this thing, and my Lord is wise according
to the wisdom of an angel of God, and to know all things that
are in the earth. The king said unto Joab, Behold
now, I have done this thing. Go therefore, bring the young
man Absalom again. And then to drop down once again
to verse 33 right at the end and it says there, So Joab came
to the king and told him. And when he had called for Absalom,
he came to the king and bowed himself on his face to the ground
before the king. And the king kissed Absalom. Amen. May the Lord bless this
reading to us. And I do apologise that it was
a little bit disjointed, but we'll get the summary of the
story in the next few moments, I trust. After Absalom slew Amnon,
Amnon was the heir to the throne, the king's eldest son. After
Absalom slew Amnon, he fled to Geshur, where relatives on his
mother's side lived. And there he remained for three
years. And as this time passed, these
three years passed, David's grief for Amnon began to subside. It began to ease. When we lose someone who is dear
to us, when we lose someone who is important in our lives, when
that person dies, And we all will lose someone at some point
in our life or another. The empty space that they leave,
it never truly goes away. But practically, practically,
we should note that grief will ease and reduce as time passes. And this is a lesson that perhaps
older people who have lost a loved one can testify to. And here it is evidenced in the
Bible. At the beginning, David was very
sad. His emotions were raw and he
was greatly troubled because of the death of his son, Amnon.
For a variety of reasons, I'm sure. But as time passed, so
his grief eased. When someone precious to us dies,
remember this fact as well. The days of our lives, and that's
all of us, and the day of our death is appointed by God. and hard to bear as it is, these
matters are in the will and the purpose of our good and wise
God. And the Lord is still in control
and he will help us to cope with the loss and the sadness that
we feel. Even when it's the death of a
son, as far as the father is concerned, or if it was the death
of a parent as far as the child is concerned. The Lord is in
control and he will help us to cope with our loss and our sadnesses. David's grief for Amnon began
to subside then, and also at the same time we discover that
his affections for Absalom, his estranged and banished son, began
to grow. And Joab, who was general of
the king's army, noticed the change in David's attitude. And so he formed a plan to bring
Absalom back home from where he was and to bring him back to Jerusalem. Now why Joab should wish to do
that is not entirely clear, but his plan was clever. He hired a wise old woman to
bring to the king a case to be judged. The king was the ruler,
but he was also the judge. in the land. And if someone had
a particular need or a particular case that had to be adjudged,
then often they would try to get the judgment of the king
because his judgment came with authority and power. So this
lady came with her case to be judged. I wonder if you remember a few
weeks ago, Nathan the prophet came to David with the story
of a man who had a little lamb. And that lamb was taken by a
rich man and it was slain. Well, this is another story like
that. It wasn't actually a true story.
It was a made up story. It was made up with the design
of getting David to make a ruling, getting David to pass a judgment,
which would then be a standard, a precedent, and force David
to apply his ruling to his own case concerning his own family
and his own case concerning Absalom. The story was of a widow, this
woman, who had two sons and these brothers fought in a field and
one killed the other. And now the rest of the family
required that the surviving boy be tried for murder and punished
with death. And if this happened, the woman
says, the widow woman said, if this happens, then I will lose
both my sons and the inheritance of my dead husband will pass
to these family members to their own gain, to their own enrichment,
to their own advantage. And David saw the point of the
woman's case. And he ruled in her favour to
protect her remaining son. And then the woman revealed her
true intention. She plightly but firmly points
out the contradiction in David's ruling. He promised that her
son, and he swore it before God, he promised that her son, who
had killed his brother, should not die but live in safety. And yet he was threatening by
his actions to put his own son, Absalom, to death for the very
same crime. And this lady says to David,
that's inconsistent. David at once discerned the work
of Joab behind this ploy. And when Joab admitted it, David
sent him to bring Absalom home. However, we discover that David
would not yet meet Absalom. for another two years. And Absalom had to remain in
his own house in Jerusalem. We didn't read these verses,
but he had to remain in his own house in Jerusalem and he never
got to see his father's face for two years. He was not received
at the court. And this was probably intended
as a punishment because David clearly was struggling with his
feelings. and his sense of justice. He had these fatherly feelings
of love and affection towards Absalom but he also knew that
as the judge and king in the land there was justice to be
upheld and this was a problem to David. There were many who
supported Absalom's return, but there were some who would be
offended that once again, retribution for a capital crime was not being
applied and a murderer was going free without any consequences. After two years, Absalom actually
forced David's hand. He pressed Joab reluctantly into
advocating for him with David. And then we read in verse 33. So Joab came to the king on Absalom's
behalf and told him that Absalom wanted to see his father. And they called Absalom to the
court and he came to the king and he bowed himself on his face
to the ground before the king and the king kissed Absalom. It was five years since Absalom
had killed his brother. And now he was back. And now
he was being publicly honoured with a kiss from David the King. Here are some lessons that we
can learn from today's verses, I think. It appears, first of
all, that Absalom was popular and admired amongst the people. We're told about his good looks. Now I didn't read those verses
either. But we're told about Absalom's good looks. We're told
about his beauty. We're told about his skin complexion. And we're told about his amazing
hair. His hair was long and thick and
heavy and famously he cut it once a year because it weighed
so much. Now we're probably told these
things to prepare us for what is yet to come in this story
about Absalom and to emphasize that Absalom was loved, adored
by many of the people, and his outward appearance was very impressive
to the population. However, at no time do we read
of Absalom's interest in spiritual things, or of him ever worshipping
God. Absalom was ambitious, he was
arrogant, and he was attractive. but he was not a believer in
God. Nevertheless, despite having
killed his own brother, the people liked him. And he knew how to
work that to his advantage. He had an outwardly good appearance,
but no inward heart for God. And I want us to notice this
disparity. I'm not saying that good looks
are bad. I'm not saying that our appearance isn't important. But what is in our heart and
the condition of our soul is the most important thing. The
people looked on the outward appearance of Absalom and they
liked what they saw. And Absalom played upon that
for his own advancement and his ambition, as we will see. However,
God looks on the heart of a person. David sinned, but he asked God
for a new heart, creating me a clean heart, O God, and renew
a right spirit within me. Absalom sinned, but he never
sought forgiveness and mercy from the Lord. His skin was without
blemish, but his heart was full of evil and sin. This world is
very keen on looks and beauty and appearance, but it is better
to be beautiful within than beautiful without. May the Lord teach us
all to seek a new heart. And there's another picture here
that I want to mention to you that may cast some light on God's
love for his people. His own wayward children, if
you like, who have sinned against him and despised his goodness. David was Absalom's father. David was offended at Absalom's
actions. But he could not deny his fatherly
affections towards his son. He had these emotions of love. And so David was conflicted in
his natural paternal affection, his fatherly love, and his sense
of justice and righteousness. God does not forget his love
towards his elect. And he has loved us from eternity
with an everlasting love. He tells us that in Jeremiah.
I have loved thee with an everlasting love. So here is David, and he
has this conflict in his own soul, in his own mind, in his
own emotions. this conflict about justice and
rightness, and this conflict about affection for Absalom.
Joab had a plan by which David's natural desire to recover his
son would be brought about. David was happy to agree to Joab
bringing Absalom home. And that's what God has done
for his people. He has brought his sinful children
home. But he has done it with one major
difference. David as a man was unable to
reconcile justice and love. He knew what ought to have been
done to Absalom. He knew that the law required
Absalom to be held accountable for his sin and to be put to
death. But David could not display both
his love for his son and uphold justice at the same time. The
two years that Absalom spent under house arrest without seeing
his father's face was part of David's struggle with this irreconcilable
dilemma. But God has done a wonderful
thing in reconciling justice and love in the person of our
Lord Jesus Christ. What David could not do, our
loving father has accomplished by the substitutionary death
of his son in our place. He found a way to uphold justice,
to do what was right, to punish sin, to honor his own righteousness
and holiness, and yet deliver his people from condemnation
and bring them home that they might see his face, that they
might experience his affection, and that they might receive his
kiss of peace. These parables that David heard
from Nathan about the lamb and from this woman, this wise woman
about the widow and her two sons, they affected David. They got
David to think and to listen to what was being said. And types
and pictures like this that we see in the Bible are helpful
to us insofar as they go. but nothing can compare to the
highest work of Christ's redemption and the greatest achievement
of all, the reconciliation between God and man by the sacrifice
of Jesus Christ. In the New Testament, in Luke
chapter 15, there is a story of the prodigal son. And the
father there saw his son coming home just as Absalom had come
home. Saw his son coming home and we
read, when he was yet a great way off his father saw him and
had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. how
highly we should value the Father's love and cherish the lengths
to which he has gone in sending his only begotten Son to die
in our place and obtain our deliverance from judgment. May we, by God's
free grace, by his mercy, learn to love him who first loved us
and gave himself for us. Amen.