Good morning. Let's open this
morning's service with hymn number 223. 223. And if you read music,
we sing this to a different tune that's written there. So let's
all stand together. You'll recognize the tune. Number 223. Arise, my soul, arise, shake
off thy guilty fears. The bleeding sacrifice in my
behalf appears. ? Before the throne my surety
stands ? ? My name is written on his hands ? ? My name is written
on his hands ? ? He ever lives above for me to intercede ? His
all-redeeming love, His precious blood to me, His blood atoned
for all my sins, And sprinkles now the throne of grace, And
sprinkles now the throne of grace. Five bleeding wounds he bears,
Received on Calvary. They pour effectual prayers,
They strongly plead for me. ? Forgive him, O forgive, they
cry ? ? Nor let that ransomed sinner die ? ? Nor let that ransomed
sinner die ? ? The Father hears him pray ? ? His dear anointed
one ? He cannot turn away the presence of His Son. His Spirit answers to the blood
and tells me I am born of God, and tells me I am born of God. My God is reconciled His pardoning
voice I hear He owns me for His child I can no longer fear With
confidence I now draw nigh, and Father, Abba, Father, cry, and
Father, Abba, Father, cry. Please be seated. We're gonna be in 2 Samuel chapter
18 this morning for the first hour, 2 Samuel chapter 18. Let's ask the Lord's blessings. Our merciful heavenly Father, We rejoice to know that you are
completely satisfied in the work that thy dear son did in redeeming
us and atoning for our sins. Father, we pray that you would
be pleased now to bless your word cause faith to spring up
in our hearts and enable us to be satisfied also with Christ. Lord, that our hearts would be
set affectionately on him. Lord, that we would rejoice. Rejoice in his perfect accomplished
work. And rejoice in his glorious person,
as he sits at thy right hand and intercedes on our behalf,
Lord, we pray that you would find us, for Christ's sake, acceptable
to thee. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. You have your Bibles open to
2 Samuel chapter 18. And we'll begin reading in verse
1. And David numbered the people
that were with him and set captains of thousands and captains of
hundreds over them. And David sent forth a third
part of the people under the hand of Joab and a third part
under the hand of Abishai, the son of Zariah, Joab's brother,
and a third part under the hand of Ittik. the Gittite. And the
king said unto the people, I will surely go forth with you myself
also. Now Absalom has led in rebellion
against his father David and has taken the throne. And David
has been forced because of the number of people that sided with
his son. to leave Jerusalem and flee into
the wilderness. And now he's taken his three
commanders and divided up the people that are with him, which
are far smaller than the number of people that are with Absalom. The number of David's army is
only a portion of the number of Absalom's. David says, I'll go with you.
And the people in verse three answered, thou shalt not go forth
for if we flee away, they will not care for us. Neither if half
of us die, will they care for us. But now thou art worth 10,000
of us. So David's commanders knew that
David needed to be protected. David's an old man now. The first
time David stayed behind during a battle, if you remember, was
the story of Bathsheba and Uriah. And he should have been in battle.
We know what happened as a result of that. But now David stays
behind to wait on the Lord. Now therefore, the last part
of verse three, It is better that thou succor us from the
city. You stay in the city. And this
word succor is just an old English term that we have in our King
James Bible that means to help. It means to help. You help us,
but you do it from the city. What help could David be from
the city? What help could he be without
actually going into battle? Well, he could pray for them.
Surely that's what he does now. Because David is confident, though
he's far outnumbered, he's confident that he's gonna win the battle. Why would he have such confidence?
Because God had promised that to him. And he was certain that
the Lord was faithful to his promises. We can't, Brian and
I were just talking about this before the service. always have
confidence that the things that we pray for are going to come
to pass as we wish them to be. But if we're confident that what
the Lord Jesus did is perfect, complete, and satisfying before
God Almighty, then whatever else happened doesn't matter. And
herein we can be confident. David was sure that the promises
that God had made in the covenant that he made with David were
going to be fulfilled and that David's throne was gonna continue. In verse four, and the king said
unto them, what seemeth you best, I will do. And the king stood
by the gate side and all the people came out by hundreds and
by thousands. And here's our text. And the
king commanded Joab and Abishai and Atei, saying, Deal gently
for my sake with the young man, even Absalom. And all the people
heard when the king gave all the captains charge concerning
Absalom. David knew that his men would
prevail. in battle against his son. And
he pleads with his commanders to be gentle toward Absalom. In 1 Samuel chapter 14, Jonathan
takes his armor bearer and goes up against a garrison of the
Philistines and he defeats them. But here's what Jonathan says
to his armor bearer, just two of them. He says this, there
is no restraint to the Lord to save by many or save by few. God is not dependent upon the
strength of the arm of flesh in order to accomplish his purpose.
What comfort do we have in that? To the contrary, the Lord will
We'll weaken our flesh in our own eyes in order to demonstrate
His power and get to Himself the glory for the victory. What
power do we have in saving ourselves? What power do we have in our
own works, in our own will? And what does the Lord do before
He's pleased to reveal the glory of Christ? He puts us to death,
doesn't he? He shows us our weakness. He
causes us to see that it is not of him that willeth, nor of him
that runneth, but it is of God that showeth mercy. And so the
Lord is, don't you love the story of Gideon, who was going up against
the Midianites, this great army, and Gideon chooses thousands
of men, and God whittles them down to 10,000, and then God
says, no, there's still too many. Still too many. Send them down
to the river. And he told them the ones that drank out of their
hand, the ones that lapped the water from the river. And you
will divide the two. Anyway, Gideon ends up with 300
men. 300 against a multitude of the Midianites. And God gives Gideon the victory. Oh, brethren, let us be strengthened.
and knowing that God doesn't depend on horses, he doesn't
depend on chariots, he doesn't depend on the swords of men,
he doesn't depend on all the things that men look to for the
hope, not only of their salvation, but of their daily sustenance. He doesn't depend on those things.
There is no restraint to the Lord to save by many or by few. David believed God. May the Lord
give us the faith to just believe God, to just rest our hope in
him. The second thing I see in the
beginning of this story is David's affection and compassion for
Absalom. Absalom is in rebellion against
his father and yet David says to his commanders,
be gentle with my son for my sake. We see the same thing with Abraham,
when God promised to give Sarah a child, Abraham pleaded with
God that Isaac would receive the blessing. We see the same thing with Jacob,
who certainly had more affection for Esau than he did for Jacob. I mean, Isaac than he did for
Esau than he did for Jacob. We see it in the natural realm
of life, don't we? Where a parent will show more
affection for that child that has the greater need. David had
Solomon, who would be his successor. And yet, he shows great affection
and concern for this son who is in rebellion against him. We see something of the Lord's
care for his children. As a father pitieth his children,
so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. Lord, I've got a greater
need. The rebellion of my sin is unjustified. I have no claim for your mercy. Lord, if you don't find it in
your heart to have compassion for me as a special child, a
child of sin, a child of rebellion, Lord, that's my need. That's
my need. And so it is with David. and Absalom. Now, as the story progresses,
we will find that Absalom dies. Look at verse 9. And Absalom
met the servants of David, and Absalom rode upon a mule, and the mule went under the thick
boughs of a great oak and his head caught hold on the oak and
he was taken up between the heaven and the earth and the mule that
was with him went away." We're going to see in this story that
Absalom pictures the Lord Jesus Christ who could not be shown
mercy when he went to Calvary's cross. If the Lord is going to be gentle
toward us, for his namesake, he could not
be gentle toward his own son. David, Absalom's name, You know it, Abba, Father, Shalom,
peace. Absalom's name speaks of our
peace with God. Sometimes we hear men say, have
you made your peace with God? What am I gonna do to make peace
with God? I can't make peace with God. What offering am I
going to provide him that will satisfy his justice and establish
a place of standing for me in the presence of a holy God? How
can I make peace with God? The Lord Jesus Christ is called
the Prince of Peace. And the Bible tells us that we
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. He has to
make peace for me. I cannot make peace for myself.
Turn with me to the Colossians chapter one. Colossians chapter
one. We'll begin reading in verse
18. And he, the Lord Jesus, is the head of the body, the church,
who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, speaking of the
Lord Jesus. And that's a reference to his
resurrection. So he was the firstborn among many brethren. And because
of his conquering death, the hope of our salvation is placed
in him and in his accomplished work. He's the firstborn from
the dead, that in all things he might have preeminence. He
gets all the glory. He gets all the praise. He did
all the work. For it pleased the Father that
in him should all fullness dwell. The fullness of the Godhead bodily
in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. God became flesh and
dwelt among us. and having made peace. Notice the verb tense. We don't
make peace with God, having made peace with God. When the Lord
Jesus shed his precious blood on Calvary's cross and bowed
his mighty head and cried, it is finished, Father, into thy
hands, I commend my spirit. Everything required. for the
covering of our sin and for us to have peace with God was accomplished. It was accomplished. And having
made peace through the blood of his cross by him to reconcile
all things unto himself, by him I say, whether they be things
in earth or things in heaven. And you that were sometime alienated
and enemies in your mind, Notice thy the Lord, those for whom
Christ died were the ones that God elected in the covenant of
grace before the foundation of the world. They are the same
ones that the scripture says, I have loved you with an everlasting
love. They have never been at enmity
with God on God's side. The Lord Jesus entered into a
covenant promise with his father and became the lamb slain before
the foundation of the world. And God's people, God's elect
in Christ have always, have always been objects of his mercy and
always been objects of his love and grace because of their union
with Christ. But in our mind, we were at enmity
with God. We raised our fist to heaven
and we said, we'll not have that man reign over us. And you that were sometime alienated
and enemies in your mind by wicked works and the wicked works don't
necessarily refer to shameful acts of behavior that we don't
want other people to know about when the When the goats stand before the
Lord in the day of judgment and they say, but Lord, we have done
many wonderful works in thy name. They weren't speaking of men
are not going to claim their bad deeds as the hope of their
salvation, they're going to claim their good deeds. And the Lord's gonna say to them,
depart from me, you workers of iniquity. Those things that you
saw as meriting you favor with God and earning you your salvation,
I'm calling wicked works. So men are alienated from God by their wicked works. What is
it that keeps us from Christ? Is it not our righteousness? Is that not what hinders us? Is that not what keeps men from
coming to faith in Christ? The hope of salvation based on
something other than the Lord Jesus? God calls them here wicked
works because you were alienated and you were enemies in your
mind by wicked works yet now hath he reconciled in the body
of his flesh through death to present you holy Separated, unblameable, not a
charge can be made against you. And unreprovable, unreprovable. There is now therefore no condemnation
to them that are in Christ Jesus. Having been made perfect, we
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. This is who Absalom represents
in our story. In the volume of the book it
is written of me, the story of Absalom and his rebellion against
God, is the Lord Jesus Christ taking our rebellion on himself. And as Absalom was hung in the
bough of a tree by his hair, Now hair in the Bible often represents
glory. The scripture says that a woman's
glory is her hair and an old man's glory is his hoary hair. And oftentimes bald men are spoken
of in shameful ways in the scriptures. That's the picture there. And
when the Lord Jesus comes in the book of Revelation, the scripture
says that his hair is black like raven. Absalom was known for
his hair. He's riding on a mule and his
hair gets caught in the bow of a tree. When the Lord Jesus Christ went
to Calvary's cross and hung on that tree, he put aside his glory and took
upon himself the shame of our sin. And he died there. Now, Joab's
name is as easy to understand as Absalom's name. Absalom, Abba,
Shalom, Joab, Jehovah. That's the J-O of Joab and Abba. Jehovah, Father. God, the Father. Now, what's Joab gonna do in
our story? Go back with me to our text in
2 Samuel 18. And a certain man saw it, verse
10, and told Joab, behold, I saw Absalom hanged in an oak. And Joab said unto the man that
told him, and behold, thou sawest him, and why didst not thou smite
him there to the ground? I would have given thee 10 shekels
of silver and a girdle. And the man said to Joab, though
I should receive a thousand shekels of silver in mine hand, yet would
I not put forth my hand against the king's son. For in our hearing,
the king charged thee and Abishai and Atai saying, beware that
none touch the young man Absalom. Otherwise, I should have wrought
falsehood against mine own life. For there is no matter hidden
from the king." Joab saying, why didn't you kill him? He's
an enemy to the king. And this young man heard the
charge that David gave, be gentle with my son. He said, if I had
killed him, the king would have found out and it would cost me
my own life. I would have been disobeying the king. Halfway through verse 13. For
there is no matter hid from the king, and thou thyself knowest,
and have set thyself against me. You would have turned against
me had I killed him. Then said Joab, I may not tarry
with thee, thus with thee. And he took three darts, and
that word darts is spears, took three sharp spears. Joab did this. And thrust them through the heart
of Absalom while he was yet alive in the midst of the oak. In the story, Joab's disobeying
David as we look at it historically. But in light of the gospel, in
light of the gospel, in the light of Absalom taking our rebellion
and going to the tree and laying aside his glory and Joab being
a picture of God the Father What do we see? Turn with me to Isaiah
chapter 53, verse 9. And he, the Lord Jesus Christ,
made his grave with the wicked. He died for sinners. And with the rich in his death, oh, the Lord said it's easier
for a rich man to enter, it's easier for a camel to go through
the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom
of heaven. Who then, Lord, can be saved? He's not talking about
just material wealth. He's talking about the problem
that all men have in the richness of their own righteousness. the
wealth of their righteousness, presenting their wicked works
before God as the hope of their salvation. Not looking to Christ,
not resting in Him, not confessing or agreeing with God that they
are sinners and they have no claim on God whatsoever. No,
men won't do that. Who then can be saved? With man,
it is impossible. That's what the Lord Jesus said.
You can't just decide you're going to lay aside your righteousness
and look to Christ. But with God, all things are
possible. This is a work of grace that has to be done in the heart,
isn't it? And so he made his grave with
the wicked and with the rich in his death. Not just talking
about Joseph of Arimathea who gave them the tomb, it's a spiritual
picture here. Because he had done no violence,
neither was any deceit in his mouth. God made him sin, who
himself knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him. That's the gospel. And that's what all these pictures
represent. And all these stories point us again and again and
again to the Lord Jesus and show us more of his glory and more
facets of his person and his work. Look at verse 10. Yet,
this is Joab now, Jehovah Abba, God his father, yet it pleased
the Lord to bruise him and he hath He, the father, hath put
him, the son, to grief. It wasn't the Jews that killed
Christ. It wasn't the Romans that killed Christ. It was the
father that sheathed the sword of his
own justice in the heart of his son. Here's what Joab's doing. Piercing
the king's son through the heart with a spear. It's exactly what
the Lord, what happened on Calvary's cross. When the Roman soldier
came in and those soldiers knew exactly which rib to go between
in order for that spear to go right into the heart and around the heart And the
death of crucifixion would have been a large collection of water,
fluid. And that spear would have pierced
the pericardium before it got to the heart. And so water would
have come forth first and then blood. And that's exactly what
the Bible says happened. And the water representing our
cleansing, our sanctifying. The blood representing the covering
of our sin. There's why Christ went to the
cross. The only hope. And what hope he is. Oh, it pleased
the father to bruise him. Now that word, that word pleased
doesn't mean that the father took some sort of delight in
the sense that when you're happy and pleased to do something.
It pleased him in that it was his purpose. It was required
in that it was his justice. His ordained purpose had to be
fulfilled and the covenant promises God would be pleased to be faithful
to himself. His justice must be satisfied. God is only pleased when his
justice is satisfied. His love? Here's what pleased
him. His love for those for whom Christ
died. And greater love hath no man
than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. It pleased
God for the purpose of his own faithfulness, for the purpose
of satisfying justice, for the purpose of expressing and fulfilling
and performing his love for his people. Put his son to death. He hath put him to grief. Look
at verse 10. When thou shalt make his soul
an offering for sin. This just wasn't a physical death.
The soul of Christ had to be made an offering for sin, the
whole person of the Lord Jesus. This is not just a, the Lord
didn't just bear our sins like a package on his back. He bore
our sins in himself and he suffered before God almighty all of the
consequences of sin, the shame, the sorrow, the separation of
sin, And here's what our story with Absalom is representing.
Joab must be the one to put him to death. And he, halfway through verse
10 now, and he, the father, shall see his seed, the son's seed. and he shall prolong his days
and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand." Oh, all the benefits, all the blessings,
all the accomplished work of salvation that the Lord Jesus
performed for all his people and his God was pleased. He could not allow his Holy One
to see corruption. He raised him from the dead to
say to me and you, I'm satisfied. That's what the resurrection
of Christ is about. God saying to us, the debt's
been paid. Justice has been satisfied. Sin's
been put away. He did it all. He gets all the
glory. Joab had to be the one to put
him to death. And don't miss the fact that
Joab pierced his heart with three darts. Three darts. And we know what the number three
speaks of in the scriptures. The triune Godhead. We call it the Trinity. What
do we believe about the Trinity? We believe what God has revealed. Can we understand the Trinity?
No. We know that our God is one in
nature. He is self-existent. He's uncreated. He is the creator of all things.
He's holy. He's other than we are. He's
immutable. He cannot change. He's omnipotent. He possesses all power. He's
sovereign over the living and the dead. He's God. And all of
those things that we just said refer to the Father, they refer
to the Son, and they refer to the Holy Spirit. And so our God
is one in nature, but three in persons. And he revealed himself
all throughout the scriptures as the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit. The father, the scripture says,
elected a people. The son redeemed those people
and the Holy Spirit regenerates them. What do we see a picture
here? With Joab, a picture of the father
piercing the heart of his son. It takes us all the way back
to the covenant, the eternal covenant of grace. God elected,
the father elected a people. The Son entered into that covenant
promise to redeem them and the Holy Spirit makes them willing
in the day of his power. You see, when Christ was put
to death on Calvary's cross, no man took his life from him.
He laid down his life willingly. He was in agreement with his
Father and with the Holy Spirit. He was the Anointed One. He was
the Christ. This wasn't God God, arguing
with God or competing with God or trying to figure out another
way? And when the Lord Jesus cried from the cross, my God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Quoting Psalm 22 one. He wasn't calling into question
what the father was doing. He was revealing to me and you
why it is that God must forsake him. Christ being made sin, The father
had to satisfy his justice, but he did it willingly. It's been said and it's right.
Our God is one in nature and three in persons. Try to explain
it any further than that and pick your heresy. Pick your heresy,
because you're going to be in one. And what has destroyed the
gospel in churches and in men's lives is trying to take what
the scripture teaches about our triune God and explain it beyond
what God has revealed. We don't understand anything
we believe, but we believe it because God has said it. Our
God is one in nature. and he is three in persons. And
that's it. And in this story of Absalom
hanging in a tree and being pierced through by Joab's darts three
times, we are being told that God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit have always been in perfect agreement
with one another particularly when it comes. And I don't even
like saying that, particularly when, they've always been, but
especially to our hope and to our salvation when it comes to
the salvation of God's elect. What comfort we have. Would it
be possible? Would it be possible for the
three persons of the triune God who are in perfect agreement
with one another to fail in saving the people of God? Here's our
hope. Our hope is not based on anything
that we've done. And notice, go back with me to
our text. We have to see this before we
finish. Verse 15. And 10 young men that
bear Joab's armor compassed about the smote Absalom and slew him." Ten young men. We know what the
number 10 represents in the Bible. It's the law, isn't it? It's
the Ten Commandments, which is a summary of all of God's law. Men go about trying to establish
their own righteousness by their keeping the law. But Christ, being ignorant of
the righteousness of God, they're ignorant that Christ is the righteousness
of God, they go about trying to establish their own righteousness.
For Christ Jesus the Lord is the end of the lawful righteousness
to everyone that believeth. Oh, these 10 young men had to
join in with joy. The law demanded justice. It was the law that had to be
satisfied at Calvary's tree. Mercy, we'll close with this. Mercy and justice cannot coexist
in our human realm. They never can, they are diametrically
opposed to one another. If a judge in a court of law
gives mercy, then justice has not been satisfied. If a judge in a court of law
exercises the full strength of the law, then mercy cannot be
enjoyed. Mercy and justice can never go
together except in the gospel. The only place the mercy of God
was not at the expense of his justice. The mercy of God was
at the expense of his son. Christ satisfied the justice
of God. What did David say? For my sake. Joab had to put Absalom to death. The father had to bruise his
son. The law had to be satisfied.
But these words that David speak go to us. Be gentle. on my sons and my
daughters for my sake, for my sake. We enjoy the mercy of God because
the justice of God was satisfied in Christ. Herein is love. Herein is love,
not that we love God, but that he loved us and gave his Son
to be the propitiation for our sins. Now, we don't use that word much
in our English language anymore. But to be propitious means to
have justice satisfied. It means to have wrath appeased. It means to have an atonement.
It means to be redeemed. It means to be acquitted for
the judge to have all the reasons of his wrath to be put away. And in place of his wrath and
in place of his justice, why? Because he poured out the full
the full weight of his justice on our substitute, our sin-bearer. In closing, a term of me to Romans
chapter 3. Look at verse 23. Romans 3 verse 23, all have sinned. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. I love that verse because to
me that verse defines sin. I know that sin is a violation
of God's law. I know that sin is missing the
mark. I know all those things but Sin is anything that falls
short of God's glory. And what in your life falls short
of His glory? Yeah, everything. That's why
when we say that we are sin, sin is not, we commit acts of
sin because sin is what we are. We are by nature sinners because
everything in us falls short of His glory. There's only one
There's only one who measured up to the glory of God, only
one whose hair was caught in the tree and laid down his glory. Being justified, justified. That means I have no sin before
God. being justified freely by his
grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom
God has set forth to be a propitiation. Wrath has been put away, nothing
but mercy. Psalm 85 says that mercy and
truth met together Righteousness and peace kissed each other. How could God remain righteous
and we have peace with him? How could he be merciful and
still maintain truth? Through faith in his blood, to
declare his righteousness back in Romans 3, for the remission
of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God, to declare,
I say at this time, his righteousness, that he might be just and the
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." Where's boasting then?
Where's boasting? What do I have to boast in? Now, where men will boast will
be in their faith. They think that, well, I made
a decision. If faith is a decision, then
you got something to boast in. If faith, on the other hand,
is the gift of God, you have nothing to boast in. Be gentle for my sake. God could not be gentle with
Christ, but because he pierced him through
with three darts and 10 spears and hung him by his hair in a
tree, he can be gentle and he is gentle
with all those for whom Christ is their propitiation. All right,
let's take a break.