2 Samuel 18 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 of the oak, and he was taken up between the
heaven and the earth. And the mule that was under him
went away. And a certain man saw it and told Joab and said,
Behold, I saw Absalom hanged in an oak. Joab said unto the
man that told him, And, behold, thou sawest him, and why didst
thou not smite him where they are to the ground? And I would
have given thee ten shekels of silver and a girdle. And the
man said unto Joab, Though I should receive a thousand shekels of
silver in mine hand, yet would I not put forth mine hand against
the king's son. For in our hearing the king charged
thee, and Abishai, and Itai, saying, Beware that none touch
the young man Absalom, otherwise I should have wrought falsehood
against mine own life, for there is no matter hid from the king,
and thou thyself wouldst have set thyself against me. Then
said Joab, I may not tarry thus with thee. And he took three
darts in his hand and thrust them through the heart of Absalom
while he was yet alive in the midst of the oak." Let's stop there and pray. Father,
thank you for your word. We do pray, Lord, again, your
presence and blessing upon your word tonight. We know that without
your blessing, without your power, then our meeting will be in vain.
We need your word to go forth in power, which is not something
I can do. We need you to bless it and to
speak to the hearts of your people. And we need our hearts open to
receive your word, Lord. We need you in all things. May we hear of our Savior tonight
and rejoice in him. Trust him, be refreshed again
at hearing of his glory and grace. In his name we ask it, amen. So you know that Absalom has
mounted this rebellion against King David and The battle finally
begins. We saw that they had sort of
arrayed themselves in our last study against each other. And now the battle begins. Before
it even gets started good, one of the first things we read is
that Absalom Has bad luck. That's what the world would call
it. It was bad luck. He was just riding under this
tree. How many times have you heard of that happening? Somebody
getting caught in a tree. And so it was just bad luck. And
we might say that too if we didn't know that God had purposed evil
against Absalom. It was not luck, it was on purpose.
what happened to him. Let's pick up reading where we
left off and read a little bit further. Verse 14, well, we read 14, look
at 15. And the 10 young men that bear
Joab's armor compassed about and smote Absalom and slew him.
And Joab blew the trumpet and the people returned from pursuing
after Israel. For Joab held back the people And they took Absalom and cast
him into a great pit in the wood and laid a very great heap of
stones upon him and all Israel fled every one to his tent. Now Absalom in his lifetime at
verse 18 had taken and reared up for himself a pillar which
is in the Kingsdale for he said I have no son To keep my name
in remembrance and he called the pillar after his own name
and it is called into this day Absalom's place So the battle look at verse 8
we didn't read verse 8 that's what I've been kind of looking
for out of the corner of my eye here For the battle was there
scattered Over the face of all the country
And the wood devoured more people that day than the sword devoured. Jump back up to verse six. I
know we're kind of jumping around here first. We get this in our
mind and we'll have some things to talk about. So the people
went out into the field against Israel and the battle was in
the wood of Ephraim where the people of Israel were slain before
the servants of David. And there was there a great slaughter
that day of 20,000 men. And verse 8 again is sort of
key here. For the battle was there scattered
over the face of all the country, and the wood devoured more people
that day than the sword devoured. What does that mean? The forest,
the wood, the trees devoured more than the sword.
You could think of maybe ways that that could happen. Perhaps
that they got stuck in a thick part of the forest, thick underbrush,
so that they couldn't flee. Because the people, David's men,
were clearly overpowering the men of Absalom. And maybe that
was what's being referred to here. Maybe animals in the forest,
some speculation in the commentaries that I read. Maybe snakes, just
different. dangers that you might face in
that type of situation. But here's the lesson, very simple,
and one I think we should always remember. When we get to thinking
that we're indispensable, that we're important, that things
couldn't be done without us, that the Lord needs us, that
he has no hands but our hands, no feet but ours, as religion
likes to say. Here is another of many places
in scripture where we're put in our place. The wood, the forest,
slew more of God's enemies than the army of David did. God used
trees, maybe thick brush, maybe some snakes, maybe some animals,
I don't know. But he used those things more
than he used men to win his battle. He doesn't need us. That's the
point. That's clear in it all through
scripture. Remember what he said in Luke
19, 37. Listen to this. When the Lord
was come nigh, even now at the descent of the Mount of Olives,
The whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God
with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen,
saying, blessed be the king that cometh in the name of the Lord.
Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. And some of the
Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke
thy disciples. And he answered and said unto
them, I tell you that if these should hold their peace, the
stones would immediately cry out. The Lord is going to be honored.
He's going to be praised. He's going to be served with
you or without you. That's all through scripture.
That's the teaching of this book. With me, without me, his purposes
of grace will all come to pass perfectly with us or without
us. All of the benefits of his work
of righteousness and the victory of his cross will be realized
and all glory will be his with you, without you, without me.
I'll tell you this, I won't in on it. But we need to understand
that religion is always about that. Oh, the Lord can't spell
church without you and things like that. God can, he can spell
anything he wants to without you. He doesn't need us. He used the
trees more than he used the people. He used the people too, but that's
him using them. And this is important now to
the rest of our text tonight, too, because this text is all
about faithfully telling what you know, what you've seen. We're
gonna see that later in the text here. It's all about that, what
you've seen and know for a fact. You're a witness of telling it. That's what this is about. And
we are called upon in scripture to do that. But it is not out
of necessity that the Lord uses us in that way. It's a blessing
to us and it is his grace upon us if the Lord uses us for anything,
much less and especially to spread his gospel, to be a witness for
him. What a privilege. If I die tomorrow, there's a
couple of things I want you to remember about what we preach
here. One of them is that, that if
you ever do anything for God, it's really Him doing something
for you. You being here tonight, is that you doing something for
Him or is that Him doing something for you? When you give, is that
you doing something for God or is that Him doing something for
you? It's God blessing us if He includes us at all in anything
that He does. That's to His glory. That's a
monument to His grace, not to our usefulness. And the other
thing is what I always say to you, my advice to everybody and
everything about everything is hear from God. You need to hear
what God says. And when you don't feel like
it, that's when you need most to hear what God says. I speak
from experience. And you know that's true from
God's word. We need to hear of Christ. Christ is all. He's all there is. Remember Brother
Jack used to always say, Christ is all there is. He's all there
is. And look what happened to Absalom.
And same lesson here. Verse 9. He didn't use a sword
to kill Absalom. He used a tree. Verse nine is one specific example
of how the Lord used the wood more than the sword. We can speculate
about what happened to all the other, we know what happened
to one of them, how the Lord used the wood more than the sword
in that case. And understand this, even when
the Lord does use us, it's him who gets the glory and must get
the glory. Joab is gonna kill Absalom, we
read that, he kills him. He thrust him through with spears.
It says darts. We think of darts, you know,
little things. You don't stab somebody in the heart with what
we call a dart. It was spears. He jammed them
into his heart and killed him in cold blood. But who really
killed Absalom? Who purposed evil against him
long before this day? and turned everything, turned
hearts, manipulated hearts and circumstances, and here he grabs
hold of him with a tree and Joab strikes the killing blow, but
God teed him up for Joab. That's how it is in the service
of our Lord. God uses men and other things,
and we will fight, we will plan, we will work, and we will strive
as God teaches us to do. Endeavor to keep the unity of
the Spirit. That's just one aspect of it. And God will work all things
to the end that all of our absolums, our enemies, will be defeated.
And David, God's King, Christ, will get all the glory. And the
cause of our King and Savior will be advanced, with us or
without us. And we will praise Him for it
all if He does it with us. He's teed up everything for me
my whole life. I don't know why He would include
me at all, but I'm glad He did. I'm glad He did. And then verse
14, we read that a while ago, but let's refresh our memory.
Verse 14, then said, Joab, I may not tarry thus with thee. He
said, I'm tired of talking about this. I've heard enough about
why you didn't do it. I'm going to go get the job done.
He took three darts in his hand and thrust them through the heart
of Absalom. While he was yet alive in the midst of the elk,
he made it clear, the Holy Spirit makes it clear that Joab, he
didn't just die of strangulation or hanging or whatever in that
tree. Joab killed him. He was still
alive. And ten young men that bear Joab's
armor compassed about and smote Absalom and slew him. And thus
ends the evil treachery of the one who dares to be a rival to
the throne of God's chosen anointed king. Absalom represents everybody
that takes that position. You don't want to oppose God.
Psalm 2, again, we refer to it a lot, don't we? Psalm 2, God
set his king on his holy hill. And you can oppose, you can spit
and fume, you can turn red in the face, and I've had people
do that. Just talking about who God is. You can hate him, you
can oppose him, you can shake your fist in his face, but he
will laugh at you and he'll go about doing what he did before
you spit in his face. You're not gonna thwart him,
you can't stay his hand, you can't change. his mind or his
purpose about anything. Absalom is an example of all
who oppose the Lord Jesus Christ. Not only did he die, but he died
in humiliation and shame. This is the man who weighed his
hair every year. You remember that? Listen to
2 Samuel 14, 25. But in all Israel, there was
none to be so much praise as Absalom for his beauty. From
the sole of his foot, even to the crown of his head, there
was no blemish in him. And when he pulled his head,
for it was at every year's end that he pulled it, and I'm sure
he made some kind of a public spectacle out of it, because
the hair was heavy on him, therefore he pulled it, he weighed the
hair of his head at 200 shekels after the king's weight. And
I had heard in the past, I was talking to somebody about this
recently, I can't remember who it was, and I had heard some
ridiculous, Speculation about how much that
is, 200 shekels, but I read something today that I think is more accurate.
It's supposedly about five or six pounds of hair every year
that he grew. And that's incredible but believable. But listen, the man who made
up this, did you remember what I read a while ago? He made a
monument to himself. He had a good excuse for it.
People always do have a good excuse for praising themselves.
Justifying themselves and glorifying themselves and promoting themselves.
Well, I don't have a son, you know to carry my name So I'm
gonna build this big monument to myself That's the kind of
man He was and look how he died. Look how he ended In verse 16,
let's go ahead and read it Joab blew the trumpet and the people
returned from pursuing after Israel for Joab held back the
people and Once he knew Absalom was dead, and Absalom was the
one running all that, he was the one that was the heart of
this rebellion, and once he's dead, Job said, just come on
back, this thing's over with now. They've got no fight in
them after Absalom's gone. And they took, verse 17, they
took Absalom and cast him into a great pit in the wood, and
laid a very great heap of stones upon him, and all Israel fled
every one to his tent. Now Absalom, now think about
that. It says this a couple of times
that the people of Israel, they ran to their tents. And the reason
they did that is because they knew David's going to be mad.
David said, be gentle with Absalom. You remember that? He told all
three of his captains, be gentle with him for my sake. Do this
for me. Be gentle with the young man. Of course, all the people heard
him say that. He specifically pointed that
out. And now everybody sees Absalom covered with stones. And they
knew what had happened to him. Now Absalom, in verse 18, again,
in his lifetime, had taken and reared up for himself a pillar,
which is in the king's dale, for he said, I have no son to
keep my name in remembrance. He called the pillar after his
own name, and it is called unto this day. Absalom's place. Many spend their whole lives
making a name for themselves in a world of people who will
burn in hell for making a name for themselves. That's the problem. That was
the problem in the garden. Who's going to get the glory? And they leave behind monuments,
estates. It's not always a statue of themselves
or some kind of a pillar. Some leave grand estates and
things like that. There's nothing wrong with that at all. Possessions,
as long as you understand this, you're leaving things behind,
mementos of your life here in a world that's going to be burned
up and forgotten. When God is through glorifying
his son in it, That's what this world is for.
It's for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. And when God is
done accomplishing that with this world, He's going to wad
it up like a piece of paper and throw it in hell. He's going
to burn it up. Absalom's place is hell. That's his place. Now verse 19. We've got to try to cover this. this chapter and it's not going
to be let's just read the rest this is interesting let's read
the rest of this and you'll see why it's all going to be kind
of put together look at verse 19 and then said Ahimeaz the
son of Zadok let me now run and bear the king's bear the king
tidings how that the Lord hath avenged him of his enemies. And
Joab said unto him, thou shalt not bear tidings this day, but
thou shalt bear tidings another day, but this day thou shalt
bear no tidings because the king's son is dead. Then said Joab to
Cushi, go tell the king what thou hast seen. Now we don't
know all of the reasons why Joab didn't want Ahimeas to go, but
one of them was he wasn't there when what happened happened.
Notice the phrase there, he said to Cushiah, go tell the king
what you've seen. Ahimeaz had not seen what Cushiah
had seen. And so David said, you're not
going. And he sent Cushiah instead. And Cushiah bowed himself, the
last part of verse 21, unto Joab and ran. When you've got news,
That's when you're on the king's business and you're carrying
a message, you run. That's what we do. Then said
Ahimeaz, the son of Zadok, yet again to Joab, but howsoever
let me, I pray thee, also run after Cushi. And Joab said, wherefore
wilt thou run, my son, seeing that thou hast no tidings ready? You don't even know what to say. Why do you want to go? But howsoever
said he, let me run. And he said unto him, run. Then
Ahimeaz ran by the way of the plain and overtook Cushiah. And
David sat between the two gates. And the watchman went up to the
roof over the gate under the wall and lifted up his eyes and
looked, and behold, a man running alone. And the watchman cried
and told the king. And the king said, if he be alone,
there is tidings in his mouth. And he came apace and drew near.
And the watchman saw another man running, and the watchman
called unto the porter and said, Behold, another man running alone.
And the king said, He also bringeth tidings. And the watchman said,
Methinketh the running of the foremost is like the running
of Ahimeaz, the son of Zadok. And the king said, He is a good
man and cometh with good tidings. And Ahimeaz called and said unto
the king, All is well. And he fell down to the earth
upon his face before the king and said, Blessed be the Lord
thy God. which hath delivered up the men that lifted up their
hand against my lord the king. And the king said, is the young
man Absalom safe? And Ahimeaz answered, when Joab
sent the king's servant, and me thy servant, I saw a great
tumult, but I knew not what it was. That's why Joab said, don't
go. You don't know what you're talking
about. And the king said unto him, turn
aside and stand here. And he turned aside and stood
still. And behold, Cushiah came. And Cushiah said, tidings, my
lord the king, for the Lord hath avenged thee this day of all
them that rose up against thee. And the king said unto Cushiah,
is the young man Absalom safe? You see a theme here. David doesn't
care about anything but one thing. And Kusha answered, the enemies
of my lord the king and all that rise against thee to do thee
hurt, be as that young man is. And that, of course, is clear.
David knew. And the king was much moved and went up to the
chamber over the gate and wept. And as he went, thus he said,
oh, my son, Absalom. You know, it's not often in the
scripture that you even really see the emotions of men kind
of recorded. You don't see this kind of thing
recorded that much in the scripture but here it is. Oh my son Absalom,
my son. My son Absalom. I would God I had died for thee. Oh Absalom my son, my son. Now in this passage there are
two messengers, Ahimeas and Cushiah. Once the battle is over and it's
evident to everybody that David's men had won, Ahimeas was anxious
to go tell David about the victory, but Ahimeas didn't really know
what actually happened. He said, I heard at Tumult, and
I know we won, everybody's happy, but I can't answer your question,
David, I can't answer your question. And I don't know that that's
necessarily why Joab, I don't know if Joab had ulterior motives.
I'm not sure what was going on in Joab's mind, but he said,
what are you going to tell him? What are you going to tell him?
You don't even have a message. But he was anxious, wasn't he?
He insisted. I got to go. You got to let me go. I want
to run. I want to go tell him. What are you going to tell him? He knew that the battle was over.
He knew that Absalom and the rebellion had been put down,
but he wasn't there when Absalom had died. And Joab wants Cushi,
who was an actual witness of what was important, the critical
event in the victory. He wanted Cushi to go and tell
David what he had seen. That word seen is key there. Go tell the king what you've
seen. And then the spiritual lesson
here, that's critical. We can't tell what we don't know,
what we haven't actually experienced ourselves. You remember that
demoniac in Gadara that the Lord cast those devils out of? And
that demoniac who had been going through the graveyard cutting
himself and broke chains, they couldn't contain him. He was
a terror to everybody. And he saw the Lord. He didn't hear about it, he saw
him. And he ran and worshipped him. And the Lord cast those
devils out of him and he said, I'm going with you. Wherever
you're going, that's where I'm going. And the Lord said, no.
Go home to your family and tell what great things the Lord has
done for you and had compassion on you. You've experienced something. Now you've got a message. You've
got something to say. And unless you have, if you're
just hearing it from somebody, A lot of people can parrot doctrine.
I heard that doctrine, I agree with it. Let me tell you about
it. But has God done anything for you? Can you tell what great
things the Lord has done for you? That's when the message
will come from your heart. Those who are witnesses of the
Lord Jesus Christ testify concerning what they have personally experienced. And you might say, well, Chris,
wait a minute. We weren't there. We weren't here when the Lord
walked the earth, when we didn't see him die. Turn to 2 Peter
1.16. This is important. This is the
heart of the message tonight. Now, these two messengers, you
see why we had to establish, first of all, that God don't
need you? Those who claim to be messengers of the Lord, they
say, you know, they sing songs like Jesus needs a few good men
and, you know, he has no hand, you know, he's got no feet, but
I, come on. He can use a tree. He don't need
you. If you don't honor him, the rocks
will. And they'll probably do a better
job than us if he chose to do that. Second Peter 1.16, for
we have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known
unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but
were eyewitnesses of his majesty. You say, well Chris, see we can't
say that. What Simon's talking about here is they were there.
Well, let's read on. For he received from God the
Father, honoring glory, verse 17, when there came such a voice
to him from the excellent glory, this is my beloved Son in whom
I am well pleased. He's talking about the Mount
of Transfiguration where Christ stood on the Mount and he talked
with Elijah and Moses and these three, Peter, James, and John,
they witnessed this. And Peter said, we saw his glory. When He spoke, He spoke of the
death that He should accomplish. And His face shone like the sun
in its brightness greater than the sun. And His garment, His
raiment was glistening. And we saw His glory. And God
spoke from heaven and said, this is My Son. And this voice, verse 18, which
came from heaven, we heard and we were with Him in the Holy
Mount. We didn't have that. We don't have that. We can't
say that, can we? No, but we can say this, verse
19, we have also a more sure word of prophecy. We've got something
better than an eyewitness account. So you see how the spiritual
truth of this applies. We weren't here when he walked
this earth. I didn't see him die on Calvary. I've got something
better than that. I've got his word on it. If I
was there to witness it, then that's subjective. I might see
something and somebody else might see something else. That's what
happened. Some people saw a savior there.
Some saw a failure. But what is certain is what God
saw. And he tells us, his word gives
us a more sure word of prophecy. Listen to him. Where unto, verse
19, you do well that you take heed, as unto a light that shineth
in a dark place. And keep on taking heed, keep
on hearing it, and hearing it, and hearing it, how long? Until
the day dawn. and the day star arise in your
hearts. You see that? The day dawn, what
are you talking about? He's talking about the day dawning
in your heart until God reveals the light of his glory in the
face of Jesus Christ. God who commanded the light to
shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts. He said, you keep
on hearing what God said until that happens for you, until God
does that for you. Knowing this first, that no prophecy
of the scripture is of any private interpretation. And people put
the emphasis on the word private there. That's not where the emphasis
is. The emphasis is on the word interpretation.
You don't need to interpret what God said. It's not a foreign
language. He's already interpreted it for us. He saw to it that
it was translated into our language. And when that wasn't possible
for lack of time, He made people hear it in their own languages
for people who couldn't speak those languages. You don't need
to interpret God's Word. I don't need anybody to tell
me what they think God said or what He meant by what He said.
Just tell me what God said. It's not for you to interpret. For the prophecy came not in
old time by the will of man, by the interpretation of man,
by the logic of man, by the deductions that man can come up with from
what he said. But holy men of God spake as
they were moved by the Holy Ghost. They just spoke for God. And
that's what we do now by His grace. There were many who saw
the Lord physically and heard His actual voice, who saw His
blood flow down the cross on Calvary, who have no idea who
He is. and have no idea what happened
on that cross. But those to whom God speaks
this more sure word of prophecy in their heart and shines the
light of His revelation in their heart to see in the face of His
Son all the glory of God, they know exactly who He is. We didn't
see Him on Calvary, but I see Him, don't we? By faith. The only one who can know who
Christ is and what he accomplished when he poured out his soul unto
death on the cross are those who by God's grace and power
see him by faith. Hebrews 11.1, now faith is the
substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. We know from just our little
experience in this world that the evidence of men's sight and
hearing and experience is unreliable. But this evidence is not. And
when God gives you faith to believe what he said concerning his son,
you have all the evidence you need. You have evidence that
cannot be replaced with physical sight or sound. By faith we know that Christ
is God manifest in the flesh, that he is God's son, the son
given that Isaiah spoke of in Isaiah chapter 9, given in order
to redeem his people from their sins. By faith we know that he
brought in everlasting righteousness, that he is the righteousness
of God for his people, and that he finished salvation for them
when he died. He said he did. He didn't make salvation available
to them nor show them merely the way of salvation. He saved
his people from their sins. That's his name. Thou shalt call
his name Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins. And
he did so when he gave himself a ransom for them on Calvary.
By faith we believe and know that we love him because he first
loved us. And that it is Him that worketh
in us, both to will and to do of His good pleasure. So that
whenever we do something, we say, well I did something for
the Lord. That was Him doing something for you. And this is our message. Christ
is salvation. Christ has lived and died for
us. And Christ in us is our hope of glory. Christ is all. And notice that Ahimeas was more
excited, he was more zealous and determined to go tell something
than Cushai was. Always be suspicious of somebody
that volunteers to be a witness for Christ. This is the zeal that Paul spoke
of in Romans 10 when he said, brethren, my heart's desire and
prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. For I bear
them record that they have a zeal of God. Like, boy, we need to
go tell, we need to go save the world. Let's go to Africa. Let's
go to Europe. Let's go everywhere. Let's say,
you know, apostolatize the world. But they don't know God. That's
what Paul said. They don't know God. not according
to knowledge, for they, being ignorant of God's righteousness
and going about to establish their own righteousness, have
not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For
Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
that believeth." So Ahimeaz was gung-ho, but he wasn't sent. He volunteered. He wasn't chosen. Remember these verses in Luke
9.57, think about this. And I'm not having you turn it
up because, but if you want to jot these down and look at them,
I highly recommend that. But listen, Luke 9.57, it came
to pass that as they went in the way, the Lord's walking with
his disciples, a certain man said unto him, Lord, I will follow
thee whithersoever thou goest. And boy, you know, you would
think the Lord would say, well, come on, the more the merrier.
No, he said, Jesus said unto him foxes have holes the birds
of the air have nests, but the son of man hath not where to
lay his head So this man volunteered I'm going
I'm gonna follow you I'm gonna serve you I'm gonna work for
you now and the Lord said You don't want to do that That's
what he's saying. You don't want to do that You
have no idea what you're signing up for. And then in the very
next verse, he said unto another, the Lord said to somebody, follow
me. Now think about that. Here's a man that's wanting to
follow the Lord. And the Lord said, I don't even have anywhere
to sleep. That was the end of that. You
know why I didn't say anything else? Because that was the end of it.
That's the end. If it's going to cost me something
to follow the Lord, oh well. That's the rich young ruler we
talked about Sunday. I want to go to heaven unless it's going
to cost me something. But then the Lord ran into somebody
else and he said to this one, follow me and the man said no.
And the Lord said, yes, you will. Listen to it. Follow me. But
he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. And
he's not saying, my father's dead. I need to go arrange the
funeral. He's saying, my father's old. And I got to stay. I'm all he's got. I mean, this
is important. I've got to do that. I've got
to stay with him until he dies and take care of that. And then
he's making excuses, in other words. The Lord Jesus said unto him,
let the dead bury their dead. If I said that, you'd say I was cold
hearted, wouldn't you? But when the Lord says it, you
better listen. Let the dead bury their dead. But go thou and preach the kingdom
of God. So we have a volunteer there. that the Lord discouraged. And somebody that didn't want
nothing to do with it, to just be honest about it. And the Lord
called him anyway. That was me. And him, he has insisted on going,
didn't he? You've got to send me. You've
got to tell me to run. I'm ready to run. And Joab said,
why? You don't have a message. That's
religion today. They don't have a message. What
are you running around talking about? Have you ever listened
to them? They don't have a message. They haven't seen anything. They
haven't heard anything. They don't know what happened.
This is false religion. They're anxious to do something
for God, but they don't know what God's doing. How are you
going to do something for somebody when you have no idea what their
purpose even is? I saw a website of somebody,
he was here one time. His website said, our mission
is to make Jesus famous. Is that what he was doing? Is
that what the Lord's... He would heal somebody and then
tell them, don't say anything to anybody about it. It sounds
like he's trying to be famous? If you're going to do something
for God, you better find out what He's doing. He's in the business of glorifying
His Son. That's what He's doing. Christ
crucified. We preach Christ crucified. When Ahimeas spoke to David,
everything he said was true. Now that's not always the case
with false religion, but a lot of times it is. It just isn't
what David wanted to know. It wasn't what he needed. He
needed to know something. There was something urgent. There
was something necessary to David. And Ahimeas couldn't tell him,
because he didn't know. He spoke in general terms about
victory and God. He said, God has given us a great
victory. And they do, don't they? They talk about God. They use
the same Bible in many cases that we do. And it was true,
but it lacked the one thing that David needed to know. You remember what David wanted
to hear about? The sun. That's all I wanted. Just tell
me about the sun. David wanted to know the truth
concerning the sun. And those who have a zeal of
God, but not according to knowledge, they can't tell about that. Because
they just don't know. And nothing else matters. We
see that in David's response both times, don't we? Nothing
else matters. David didn't care about any of the rest of it.
What about the sun? Kusha knew the truth concerning
the sun. And he was chosen. He was commanded
by the captain to go and tell it. And he did. And he couldn't run as fast as
him ass could. He wasn't, you know, maybe in
that regard he wasn't the best messenger. But he was God's messenger. And David didn't want to hear.
David didn't want to hear what Cushiah had to say. The gospel
is not pleasant to the flesh. It's utterly upsetting. It's heart rending. The gospel, the news of the death
of the son, that news causes death. And the
death that the gospel causes is not pleasant to this flesh.
It's not what we by nature want to hear. But this final lesson here, it's
necessary. This is not what David wanted
to hear, but it was what he needed to hear, isn't it? He had to
hear it. He didn't care about anything
else. And what he needed to know is that the Son has died. That's not a message we want
to hear by nature, but I tell you this, it's the only message
that puts David on the throne. Isn't that right? As long as
Absalom is alive, then there's always going to
be that question. Who's really the king? You see,
Absalom had won the hearts of the people. He got to die. You throw him in prison, there
still could be a rebellion. They could bust him out. He could
still garner support. There's always going to be that
rebellion. There's always going to be that question. There's
only one solution. He's got to die. And when the Lord Jesus Christ
died, that was necessity. That was Him dying as us. That was Him taking all of our
sin upon Himself and dying in our place. That's necessary. We don't want to die, but we've
got to die. We've not only got to die in
Christ, but we've got to die to self if we're going to live
under God. And we don't want that to happen
by nature. But it's got to happen. It's got to happen. It's the
only thing that can happen. If Absalom doesn't die, what's
the alternative? The death of Absalom is the death
of David's mortal enemy. And likewise, the death of Christ
our Savior is the death of death itself for us. It's the death of sin for us.
It's the death of every enemy we have. So the message which by nature
we do not want to hear is the last thing we want to hear. And
yet now we rejoice because God's King is on the throne and he
has accomplished salvation for us. He is our champion and we
are saved by his grace and power and precious blood. He said, I am he that liveth,
and was dead, and behold, I'm alive forevermore. And we live
in Him. He is our life. He doesn't just give us life.
He's not just the most important thing in your life. Christ is
our life. We live in him. Paul said in
Romans 6, for therefore we are buried with him by baptism into
death as a picture of us being buried with him. That like as
Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father,
even so we also should walk in newness of life. What a glorious
Savior. May God make us faithful messengers
of His clear, plain gospel truth of the death of the Son. We preach
Christ crucified. We preach that the Son is dead
and yet liveth forevermore. Let's pray.