2 Samuel chapter 14, verse 25. And I'm going to continue reading on
into chapter 15 a little ways, just to verse 6. But start with
me there in 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 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
unto Absalom there were born three sons and one daughter whose
name was Tamar. She was a woman of a fair countenance.
So Absalom dwelt two full years in Jerusalem and saw not the
king's face. Therefore Absalom sent for Joab
to have sent him to the king, but he would not come to him.
And when he sent again the second time, he would not come. Therefore
he said unto his servants, see, Joab's field is near mine, and
he hath barley there. Go and set it on fire. And Absalom's
servants set the field on fire. Then Joab arose and came to Absalom
unto his house and said unto him, wherefore have thy servants
set my field on fire? And Absalom answered Joab, behold,
I sent unto thee, saying, come hither, that I may send thee
to the king, to say, wherefore am I come from Geshur? It had
been good for me to have been there still. Now, therefore,
let me see the king's face, and if there be any iniquity in me,
let him kill me. 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. And it came to pass after this
that Absalom prepared him chariots and horses and fifty men to run
before him. And Absalom rose up early and
stood beside the way of the gate. And it was so that when any man
that had a controversy came to the king for judgment, then Absalom
called unto him and said, Of what city are you? And he said,
thy servant is of one of the tribes of Israel. And Absalom
said unto him, see, thy matters are good and right, but there
is no man deputed of the king to hear thee. Absalom said, moreover,
oh, that I were made judge in the land, that every man which
hath any suit or cause might come unto me, and I would do
him justice. And it was so that when any man came nigh to him
to do him obeisance, he put forth his hand and took him and kissed
him. And on this manner did Absalom to all Israel that came to the
king for judgment. So Absalom stole the hearts of
the men of Israel. In chapter 13, we're introduced
to Absalom. And I want us to read there also
in chapter 13, verse 20. 13, 20. And Absalom, her brother, Tamar's
brother, and of course this is when David's son Amnon, his oldest
son Amnon, had raped his sister Tamar and Absalom finds out about
it and says in verse 20 unto her, hath Amnon thy brother been
with thee? But hold thou now thy peace,
my sister, he is thy brother, regard not this thing. So Tamar
remained desolate in her brother Absalom's house. So Absalom presents
himself as a comforter to her. Don't worry about it. But then
behind the scenes, he plots to avenge her. And as we read in
the rest of the chapter, he does that very thing. He kills Amnon
at the big feast of the sheep shearing. But we see early in
our consideration of Absalom that he has one thing in mind,
his eyes on the throne. Amnon stood between Absalom and
the throne. He sees that his father is not
the man that he used to be. David at this time is nowhere
to be found really. He's hurting so bad from God
confronting him with his sin and then what happened between
his children. And he's got more grief on the way and he's hurting
and it's obvious because he's just letting things happen that
shouldn't be let go. And Absalom sees this and he
sees that only Amnon really stands in the way. And he would be next
in line. So he plots to kill him and he
pretends to be doing justice. He pretends to be doing the right
thing. Amnon deserved to die. There's no question about that.
But Absalom doesn't do this in order to honor the law. He does
it for his own purposes. And we need to think about who
Absalom is in the spiritual message that God has for us in this passage.
Because that's critical. We're not just here to talk about
the sordid affairs of David's family life. This is a spiritual
message. And what Absalom is, plain as
day, is the rival to the throne of God's appointed king. We'll
see, we started right there. He plots to kill Amnon. That's
where it begins. And he comforts, you know, pretends
to comfort his sister Tamar about Amnon. But really, he sees an
opportunity here. He thinks that he can kill Amnon
and get away with it because everybody hates Amnon now that
knows about this. And so this makes it pretty clear
who and what Absalom represents spiritually. He's anti-Christ.
He's got one thing in mind, and we see that a little bit here.
We're going to see it more and more as we see more of his story. But he's anti-Christ. He represents the rival to Christ and His sovereignty
and His glory. And religion talks about Antichrist
as some evil ruler who will rise up during the seven-year tribulation
and so on and so forth. Antichrist is our nature. Antichrist is the false gospel.
It's what we are by nature. We're Antichrist. We're against
God's Son. We proved it at Calvary. We proved
it from the day of His birth. and we proved it in the garden.
So don't think of, when I say Antichrist, I'm not talking about
what they call the Antichrist. And this is key now, remember,
we're talking about who is Absalom, who does he represent? And then
we're gonna see some things in this passage about how that spirit
of Antichrist operates and what's at stake. This is vital. Antichrist just means against
Christ. Remember in the book of Acts
where it says, against thy holy child Jesus, both Pontius Pilate
and Herod and the Jews and the Gentiles, and everybody rose
up against him to slay him, but they did what God's hand and
counsel determined before to be done. But listen, instead
of thinking of the Antichrist as some person at the end times,
we see in the scriptures that Antichrist has been deceiving
people and been presenting itself as a rival to Christ for a long
time. Listen to 1 John 2.18, little
children, it is the last time. And as you have heard that antichrist
shall come, even now are there many antichrists. There are preachers,
he's talking about preachers going around preaching another
gospel. Anything that robs God and Christ of His glory that
speaks against His sovereignty, that deifies or glorifies man,
is anti-Christ. Even now there are many whereby
we know that it is the last time. 1 John 4, 3, and every spirit
that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is
not of God. And this is that spirit of anti-Christ. If you confess not Christ, then
you are Antichrist. Everybody is one or the other.
You either belong to Him, or you're against Him. He said,
he that's not against us is with us, and he that's not with us
is against us. It's one or the other. And this is that spirit of Antichrist
whereof you have heard that it should come, and even now already
is it in the world. Thousands of years ago. In Absalom,
we see how all rivals to the sovereignty and glory of Christ
operate. All of them. He presents himself
as the good guy, doesn't he? To Tamar, I'm going to avenge
you. You just let me handle it. It's
all going to be fine. He kills Amnon, and Amnon deserved
to die. No question about that. But under
the law there was a right way to handle that and the way Absalom
did it was not it. The law does not allow every
time you think somebody should die you just go kill them. That's
not how it works. So he didn't care anything about
actual justice. He's thinking about himself.
He's got his eye set on the throne. And that's the spirit of Antichrist. Let's get God's King off the
throne and let's sit there ourselves and do what we want. We've got
a free will. We can do whatever we want. We decide our own destiny. But he would seem like the one
who brought justice. I'm sure there were a lot of
people in the land that said good for Absalom. Amnon deserved
to die and he killed him. Good for him. So he presents
himself as the arm of justice and righteousness, but is not
according to law, not according to the law of the true king.
Likewise, religion presumes to honor the law. They're all moral,
aren't they? They clean the outside of the
cup, the Lord Jesus said. You may clean the outside of
the cup. And they tried to dot every I
and cross every T according to the letter of the law, at least
when people were looking at them. They have a form of godliness,
Paul said, but in fact they were breaking God's law. They were
dishonoring God's law in presenting their own works unto God for
acceptance with him rather than submitting to the righteousness
of God in Christ. Paul talked about that in Romans
chapter 10. Did they had a form of godliness,
but denied, it says the power thereof in Romans 10. What that
word is, they deny the authority thereof. Absalom usurped the
authority of David. Amnon should have been brought
to David. David should have made the judgment concerning him,
not Absalom. They deny the authority of God.
They say, well, we'll just do this our way. Which is, I'll just, you know,
I'll do what needs to be done. That's what Absalom was saying. Anything that needs to die, I'll
do that. No, that's not how it works. That doesn't please the
king. And that's what you gotta do. Absalom took to himself authority
he did not rightfully possess. He pretends to be the arm of
justice, but in that very act he proves he has no real interest
in honoring God or his law. He just wants to be God himself.
He just wants to rule himself. His eye is on the throne, and
this is man by nature, this is man's religion. When we say Antichrist,
we're talking about our nature, our religion, everything by nature,
and Satan, it's Satanic, isn't it? Satan said, I will, and so
do we. Same spirit of Antichrist. We're told what Antichrist is
in Revelation 13, 18. And most people completely miss
this. And by God's grace, let's see
this tonight. Listen to Revelation 13, 18.
Here is wisdom. You wanna know what this is,
this mysterious antichrist that's supposed to rise up? Here is
wisdom. Let him that hath understanding
count the number of the beast. And I'm gonna skip a phrase and
read the end of the verse. And his number is 600, three
score and six. Everybody says 666. You know,
people are going to go around with that tattooed on their forehead
or something. I don't know where they got that
from. But I'll tell you, the phrase that I skipped is this.
You want to know what that significance of 6 is? It's the number of man. Antichrist is man, man, man. The unholy trinity. It's us. The only way to truly honor God's
law is in Christ. We say, well, we know what needs
to happen. Amnon needs to die. This needs
to be done. That needs to be done. We need
to walk it out. We need to make decisions. We need to act right.
We need to be moral. No, you don't know what needs
to be done. What needs to be done is God's son's got to come
down here and live for us and die for us. Instead of our eye
being on the throne in the sense that we want to sit on it, our
eye ought to be to the throne to look to God's King, David,
and David's son, and David's Lord, and bow to Him, and find
out what His judgment in the matter is, find out what His
will is, and bow, and serve Him, and love Him, and believe on
Him, and trust Him. That's how sinners stand righteous
in the sight of God, not by anything we do, or say, or think. past,
present, or future. And that's the last part of Romans
3. By the deeds of the law shall
no flesh be justified in the sight of God. The righteousness
of God in which we stand acceptable in his sight is Christ Jesus. When we say that a man cannot
be saved by the deeds of the law, are we dishonoring the law?
Well, the law is insufficient then. No. Paul said, no, we establish
the law by saying you can't keep it, by saying you can't be saved
by it. We establish the law by looking
to Christ, by trusting him. Read the last part of Romans
3 when you have time to look into that. We won't have time
tonight. We look to him who kept it. And we bow to him and by
grace, by God's grace, through faith in him, I am united to
him in that. He's my representative in his
life. He's my mediator and substitute in his death. And I stand in
him before God, accepted in the beloved. Absalom presumed to
be the one dispensing justice, but he was actually the criminal.
And that's how it is with religious man. They say, oh, look, we're
doing the good. We're the good people. No, you're
the ones trampling underfoot the blood of Christ and spitting
in God's face more than anybody else in the world. Religion. And any and all who go about
to establish their own righteousness apart from the righteousness
of God in Christ are criminal, law-breaking, godless, anti-Christ,
rebels against God. And unless God breaks them by
His grace and gives them a new heart, they'll burn forever for
it. They are not honoring God. They want to be God. That's the
truth of the matter. And they prove it by insisting
on being rewarded on their own terms. In the last part of chapter 14,
in the first part of chapter 15, we see how Absalom goes about
getting closer to the throne. Everything he does, he does with
this in mind. He's taking me one step up to
the throne. And here we'll see in the last
part that we read, And how he does that, he uses two methods
to manipulate people. And this is the title of the
message tonight. Fires and kisses. That's religion. That's what
they use too. Satan's still doing that. Man's
still doing that. Fires and kisses. And remember
what it says now in chapter 14 verse 25. Absalom's beautiful
now. He's a beautiful man and he knew
it. He was vain. I don't know why somebody would
weigh their hair except I got a feeling vanity had something
to do with it. Antichrist is all about impressing
people's senses. beautiful palatial cathedrals
and gold and silver and candles and incense. Man's antichrist
free will religion is all about the outward. It's all about impressing
people with visual and audio and say things and do things
and look at things while on the inside. Absalom
was a monster. He was an absolute monster. He's
killing people. He's conniving and scheming to
usurp the throne of his own father who had done nothing but love
him, show love to him. He brought him home and kissed
him. And I don't understand this.
I know that Judas was a devil from the beginning. The Lord
said so. I know that. But I know this too. When He came up to the Lord Jesus
in the Garden of Gethsemane, the Lord said, Friend, betrayest
thou the Son of Man with a kiss? Friend. And our Lord's not insincere.
Now, I know He didn't love Judas. But he had been a friend to him,
hadn't he? He had kissed him. And Judas gave him the kiss of
treachery and betrayal in return. And that's what we see here in
Absalom. That's man's religion. Absalom was a deceptive, selfish,
murderous monster. And that's what our Lord said
about the Pharisees. You're beautiful on the outside
now. Everybody thinks so, except me and anybody that can see. But on the inside, you're full
of corruption, you're full of dead men's bones. That's man's religion. And remember,
throughout every thought we see in this study, that Absalom's
one ambition, the point of all that he did was to get God's
king off the throne. If they can dethrone him now,
they'll flatter him in every other way. Oh, he was a perfect
man, he did all kinds of good things, he's our example. But
if they can dethrone him, then they can sit on the throne themselves,
flattering him all the time. But don't, I will not have this
man to reign over me. This is the ambition of anti-Christ
religion to dethrone God's son and deify man, glorify man, make
man to be God. It's all up to man. It's man's
free will, man's decision, man's glory. That's what Absalom represents. But there were two methods that
Absalom used in order to get people to do what he wanted them
to do. Fire and kisses. When Joab did not cooperate with
Absalom's scheme to dethrone David, what did Absalom do? He set his barley field on fire.
There's a real stand-up guy for you. Now probably not much actual
damage was done. I suspect it was a small field.
And why are you saying that, Chris? Well, because Joab didn't
kill him. And Joab didn't have a problem
killing people. He didn't have a problem with
it. So I suspect there wasn't a whole lot of damage done here,
or Joab would have ended Absalom right there on the spot. He does
ultimately, by the way, kill Absalom. We'll see that in several
weeks probably. But it was the threat of loss
that got Joab's attention. If I don't go listen to this
idiot, he's going to burn everything I've got. That's how religion
works too. They will threaten you with infinite
eternal loss in order to get them to do what they want you
to do. Not what God said, what they
want you to do. People who are religious and
still hate God, all they care about is what is in it for me. And one of the ways that anti-Christ
religion preys upon that nature of man is by threatening loss. And of course it's you're going
to go to hell if you don't do what we say. You know, we're
the authorities, the Catholic Church for many years and still
to a great extent presumed to be the only authority. Don't
even bother. They still don't encourage you to read the Bible.
Let us tell you what God said. And it was forbidden for centuries.
But that's the way all religion is. And you know how they get
away with it? Because nobody reads their Bible.
Anyway. They can say read your Bible
and you're not going to read it. If you're just religious. They can show you how to do it
in a year. They know that you're not going to read it. If you
ever read it, you wouldn't listen to another word they said. Because
you'd see the contradiction. You'd see the lies that they're
telling. They preach hell, fire, and brimstone
and suggest there's more fire where that came from. It's going
to be fire your whole life. But hell is just part of it now
because false religion understands that people don't really think
in terms of eternity anyway. They're all thinking about right
now. What's in it for me now? And so they threaten loss in
that too. You're not going to be rich and
prosperous and do as well as you ought, as blessed as you
should be. You're losing out. That's what
Satan told Adam and Eve. You're losing out. That's the
one tree if you're going to eat anything, you ought to be eating
that one. Religion's still that way. You're missing out. You're
not living your best life. One infamous reprobate wrote
a book called that, I believe. How to Live Your Best Life. Well, there's a hot corner of
hell in there somewhere. It's by God's grace that we're
not all going to meet one another there. But to murder men's souls
all the while pretending to be the good guys. You're going to have debt and
heartache and trouble and all this unless you do what we say.
Pay us and we'll tell you what you need to do. Live the way
we tell you to now and everything will be fine. And of course the
other side of that coin is in the first part of chapter five.
Let's read verses one through six again. I'm sorry, I said
chapter, it's chapter 15. I think I said five, it's chapter
15. And it came to pass after this that Absalom prepared him
chariots and horses and 50 men to run before him. There's still
the threat of fire, isn't it? Still the threat, it's still
there. It's always there. It's always there. But Absalom
rose up early and stood beside the way of the gate. And it was
so that when any man that had a controversy came to the king
for judgment. They didn't come to Absalom.
They're coming to David. David's the one that God has
blessed. David is the one that God has
anointed. David is the one that God has used to save Israel.
David is the one that they looked up to and sought to honor. And
then Absalom called unto them as they came to David. He said,
hey, where are you from? Let's get to know one another
a little bit here. Where are you from? What city
were you from? And they'd say whatever tribe of Israel they
were from. And Absalom, verse 3, said, see, thy matters are
good and right, but there's nobody. And David, sure enough, apparently
he wasn't in the gate. judging these matters like he
should have been. And let's face it, David's not at a high point. He's suffering. He's hurting.
He's seeing not only these things come to pass, the most horrible
and unthinkable things happening to his family, but he knows it's
his fault. He knows it's a direct result.
God said, because you despised me, All of these things are gonna
happen, and now they are. And it's killing him on the inside.
So Absalom sees an opportunity. There's no man deputed of the
king to hear thee, verse four. Absalom said, moreover, oh, that
I were made judge in the land, that every man which hath any
suit or cause not come unto me, and I would do him justice. If
I was just, you know, in that position, I would make sure that,
you know, that you're taken care of and that you're heard. And I don't see anywhere that
anybody ever gave him that authority, but here he is with it in the
next verse. Just took it. And it was so that when any man
came nigh to him to do him obeisance, he put forth his hand and took
him and kissed him. Religion will threaten you with
loss, with fire. But they'll also bribe you with
heaven, with blessing, with glory, with their idea of heaven and
everybody else's idea of heaven. See, they know how people think
by nature. What people want is to be infinitely rich and be
able to do whatever they want. They want to be God. And so they
present heaven in those terms. You're going to have a mansion? And on this manner did Absalom
to all Israel that came to the king for judgment. They came
to the king for judgment, but they didn't get it. So Absalom
stole the hearts of the men of Israel. Antichrist religion's
method of stealing people's hearts is to go around setting fires
and kissing cheeks. That's what they do. I was in
it for a long time. They do it over and over and depending on
your situation they'll do both in the same message now. They
will threaten you and bribe you in the same message to get you
to do what they want you to do. And what they want you to do
is make them God. Make yourself. Everybody's going
to be, everybody's going to be heard and vindicated and everybody's
going to be, you know, everybody wins here. They threaten people with hell
and rob them with promises of heaven and it works. It works
real good. That's why they've been doing
it for a long, long time and they get better and better at
it as time goes on. It works, the flesh loves it.
They heap to themselves teachers having itching ears. What are
their ears itching for? They want to be threatened. They
want you to preach against sin, don't they? They want you to
tell them what not to do and what to do so that when they
at least outwardly do their best, they can think that God will
accept them on that basis. And of course they want to be
bribed too. They want to say, oh, you know, One day at a time,
we're heading to Beulah Land, you know, and all that kind of
nonsense. Notice how Absalom stole their
hearts. He said this, has somebody done
you wrong? You have a good, you have a good
point there. Your cause is just, verse 3.
And he didn't even hear what they said. He didn't even listen
to them. He just told everybody that. Apparently nobody was ever
wrong. That's how it is in religion. Everybody's somebody, aren't
they? Everybody's somebody. Can't spell church without you.
He made everybody feel like they were good and right. God doesn't
do that. He don't play that way. That's
not the gospel. The true gospel is just the opposite.
Paul said, yea, let God be true and every man a liar. The gospel
of Christ never compliments the flesh. It never flatters man. It always reveals what you are
by nature. And this is part of it. The true
gospel of Christ puts man in the dust and causes them to honor
God's king. Absalom is not God's king. And
everybody that's not God's king is not God's king. Well, that's
kind of obvious, Chris. Think about that. It doesn't matter who you are
now. You don't need anybody but Christ. You need Christ. And as he uses his people in
your life, thank him for it. But you need him. I need him. People came to get to him. And
they were intercepted by Absalom. Christ gets all the glory in
God's gospel. Absalom intercepted people from
going to God's true anointed king. Not only did he refuse
to honor God's king, think about it. Absalom was born into the
royal family. What could he possibly want that
he didn't have? You think about that. Riches
and honor and anything. All he would have to do is say,
Dad, I need some of this or that or the other. I want to go here.
Done. What about man in the garden?
What did we not have? What did we not have? What's
the one thing we didn't have? The throne. That's Absalom. That's us. That's Antichrist. And listen, not only did he refuse
to honor God's true king, but he prevented others from doing
so. Does that ring a bell at all? Listen to Luke 11, 52. Our
Lord Jesus Christ said that when he calls them lawyers, he's not
talking about people that advocate in a court of law. He's talking
about those who studied the law of God. They were scriptural
theologians. Luke 11, 52, Woe unto you lawyers,
for you have taken away the key of knowledge. And here's how
you did it. You entered not in yourselves,
and them that were entering in you hindered. Not only do you
hate God, but you're going to make sure everybody else does
too if you've got anything to say about it. That's religion.
murdering men so, the key of knowledge. You've taken away
the key of knowledge. What was it that Absalom took
away from the people of Israel? An audience with God's King. If we can just get to Christ,
we'll be fine. Everything will be good. Whatever
He says, it'll be well. If I can just get to Him. Hey,
where are you from? Let's talk a while. He took away
the one thing they needed. An audience with the King. And
notice in 15.2 now, they came for the King to decide their
case. And Absalom called to them. He called to them. Absalom stole
the hearts of the people. Our Lord used that word too.
Listen to this, Mark 4, 14, the sower, our Lord told the parable
of the sower, how that God sends his preachers out sowing the
word of God as seed on the ground. And some fall on different types
of ground, stony ground, thorny ground, good ground. But listen,
after he had told that parable, he interpreted it, he told them
what he was saying, the spiritual meaning of it. In Mark 14, for
the sower soweth the word, and these are they by the wayside.
Some seed fell by the wayside, where the word is sown, but when
they have heard, Satan cometh immediately and taketh away the
word that was sown in their hearts. You see what Absalom represents
there? They're going to the king. We're going to hear from the
king. We're going to do business with the king. Absalom said,
come on over here. Let's you and I do some business.
The key of knowledge is Christ and his judgments, his word,
his truth, his way of justice, his own precious. Sin atoning
blood is the only way that there can be justice and mercy. And that's what we need. We don't
just need mercy. We need justice because God can
only, he can only save us if he can do so in a way that's
just and right. But we don't just need justice
either. We need mercy. The only way God can be just
and justify a wretch like me is by the precious blood of Christ. A true sinner comes before God
to submit to his judgment. Lord, I agree with you in condemning
me. Now have mercy on me. Will you
have mercy on me? Lord, if you will, you can save
me. I can do nothing, but if you
will, you can save me. I've spent all I have, and I'm
just only grown worse. But if I can just touch the hem
of his garment, if I can just get to him. Listen to this beautiful
song. I guess it was a song at one
time. I just know it as a poem. I don't know any music to it.
But this is what I'm saying. All to the gracious King approach. whose scepter mercy gives. Perhaps he will receive my touch,
and then the sinner lives. I can but perish if I go. I am
resolved to try, for if I stay away, I know I shall forever
die. Perhaps he will admit my plea. Perhaps he'll hear my prayer.
But if I perish, I will pray. and perish only there. This is the song of a sinner
who by the grace and revelation of God knows he's a sinner and
that his only hope is to come to the foot of the throne of
God's King and plead for mercy. Come before the righteous judge
of men and plead mercy on the basis of the precious blood of
Christ. God be merciful to me, the sinner,
that publican said. And that word merciful means
propitious. And propitiation in the scriptures
is always connected to blood sacrifice. Receive the blood
for me. That's what he was pleading. The finished, perfect salvation
accomplished by the Redeemer of sinners, the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's our plea before God. And this is the picture in the
text. Sinners need to come and take counsel with the King of
glory. He says to sinners, come now and let us reason together,
saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet,
your cause is not right and good. Absalom will tell you that. And
they say, well, you've walked and now you repeat it after me.
Everything's good. No, it's not good. But you come
and reason with the king about your sins. And he'll tell you
how they can be made white as snow. Though they be red like
crimson, they can be as wool. They shall be if you reason with
him. If you come before him seeking
mercy, you'll have it. And that's the picture now. They've
come to take counsel with the King. For Him to hear their matters. Oh, that we might do that. Come before God's King with our
matters. And say, Lord have mercy. If
you will, you can have mercy. And Absalom kisses them and tells
them all is taken care of. It's going to be alright. But
it's not alright. You see, God has a King. And
in the earthly providence of things, David right now is really nowhere
to be seen for a while. And think about this in your
life now. Maybe it's that way in your life. Maybe Christ appears
to you to be nowhere to be found. Where is He when I need Him?
When I'm suffering? When I'm in trouble? I'll tell
you where He is. He's on the throne. That's where He is. And
He's God's King. And He's still the one to look
to. Don't listen to Absalom. Don't listen to anybody. that
would take your eyes off of Christ, that would stop you from coming
before God's very throne and saying, Oh Lord, have mercy on
me. Bow to the king. Absalom pretends
to represent the king, but when the king finally rises up now,
when the king finally rises up, and we'll see that in the days
to come, Absalom and all that follow him are going to perish
by the sword. in God's providence, and Absalom's
threats and bribes will mean nothing then. Whatever he promised,
it's not going to mean anything. Because God's already put his
king on the throne. And sooner or later, you and
I have got to do business with God's anointed. We're going to
have to. And there's only one way to come
before him. God be merciful to me, a sinner. Lord, if you will,
you can make me clean. Let's find out what the king
says. I don't know if he'll have mercy on you or not, on me. But I sure do want to know, don't
you? I want to find out. Actually, I do know that if you
come to him, if you go to him for mercy, He had never turned
anybody away yet. It's his prerogative, but I know
he has never turned anybody away. Well, may God, may we, may he cause us, give us a heart
to get to Christ and not be stopped, not be hindered, not be in any
way distracted from him. Paul said, I fear lest you be
removed from the simplicity that's in Christ. By God's grace, may it never
be so. Caitlin, I don't want to embarrass
you, but I must.