#211 is a song of invitation and we're so thankful for everybody
who has made it here this morning to worship God.
We have a lot to be thankful for.
We have a lot of answered prayers.
There's people here that are back with us that haven't been
with us in a in some time. We're so thankful that they were
able to make it back with us. And it's as Frank mentioned also
as well. It's so thankful to see the
visitors that we have with us. And you're welcome back each and
every time you have the opportunity.
I invite you to open the Second Samuel, chapter 15.
If you want to follow along in your Bible, I'll have the
scriptures up here on the screen as well.
If you want to follow along, I'm going to read the entire
chapter, but we're not going to get through the whole chapter,
but I want to go ahead and read it.
And we're actually in our reading in the afternoons.
We're in Second Samuel or few couple chapters behind this.
So it's some really intriguing stories that we can see in the
life of David and his sons. So beginning in verse one of
second Samuel 15, it says there after this it happened that
Absalom provided himself with Chariots and horses and 50 men
to run before him. Now Absalom would rise early and
stand beside the way of the gate.
So it was when everyone, when anyone who had a lawsuit came to
the king for a decision that Absalom would call him to him
and say, what city are you from? And he would say your servant is
from such and such tribe of Israel.
Then Absalom would say to him, look, your case is good and
right, but there's no deputy of the king to hear you.
Moreover, Absalom would say, Oh, that I were made judge in the
land, and everyone who has any suit or cause would come to me.
Then I would give him justice. And so it was when anyone, so it
was whenever anyone came near to bow down to him, that he would
put out his hand and take him and kiss him.
In this manner Absalom acted toward all Israel who came to
the king for judgment. So Absalom stole the hearts of
the men of Israel. Now a messenger came to David,
saying, The hearts of the men of Israel are with Absalom.
So David said to all his servants who were with him at
Jerusalem, Arise, let us flee, or we shall not escape from
Absalom. Make haste to depart, lest he
overtake us suddenly and bring disaster upon us, and strike the
city with the edge of the sword. And the King's servant said to
the king, We are your servants, ready to do whatever, my Lord,
the king commands. Then the king went out with all
his household after him, but left.
But but the king left ten women concubines to keep the house.
And the king went out with all the people after him and stopped
at the outskirts. Then all the servants, all his
servants passed before him, and all the Cherithites, and all the
Pelathites and all the Gaitites. 600 men who had followed him
from Gath passed before the king.
Then the king said to Itaya the Gaitite, why are you also going
with us? Return and remain with the king,
for you are a foreigner and also in exile from your own place.
In fact, you came only yesterday.
Should I make you wander up and down with us today?
Since I go, so I go and I know not where.
Return and take your brethren back.
Mercy and truth be with you. But it's I answered the king and
said, as the Lord lives and as my Lord the King lives, surely
in whatever place my Lord the King shall be, whether in death
or in life, even there also your servant will be.
So David said to Itaya, Go and crossover, then it's higher to
get tight. And all his men and all the
little ones who were with him crossed over, and all the
country wept with a loud voice. And all the people crossed over.
And the king himself also crossed over the book Brooke
Kidron. And all the people crossed over
the way of the wilderness. There was Zadok also, and all
the Levites with him bearing the ark of the Covenant of God, and
they set down the ark of God, and Avatar went up until all the
people had finished crossing over from the city.
Then the king said to Zadok, Carry the Ark of God back into
the city. If I find favour in the eyes of
the Lord, he will bring me back and show me both it and his
dwelling place. But if he says thus, I have no
delight in you, here I am. Let him do to me as seems good
to him. The king also said to Zadok the
priest, Are you not a seer? Return to the city in peace, and
your two sons with you, Amas your son, and Jonathan the son
of Abathar. See, I will wait in the plains
of the wilderness until until word comes back from you in the
form to inform me. Therefore Zadok and Abathar
carry the ark of God back to Jerusalem, and it remained
there. So David went up by the ascent
of the Mount of Olives and wept as he went up, and he had his
head covered and went barefoot. And all the people who were with
him covered their heads and went up weeping as they went up.
Then someone told David saying, A Hippothel is among the
conspirators with Absalom. And David said, Oh Lord, I pray
turn the counsel of the Hippothel into foolishness.
Now it happened when David had come to the top of the mountain
where he worshipped God, there was there was Hushai, the
archive coming to meet him with his robe torn and dust on his
head. David said to him, If you go on
with me, then you will become a burden to me.
But if you return to the city, say and say to Absalom, I will
be your servant, O King, as I, as I was your father's servant
previously, so I will now be also be your servant.
Then you may defeat the counsel of a Hippothel and do not have
Zadok and Avatar the priest with you there.
Therefore it will be that whenever you hear the from the
King's house, you shall tell Zadok and Avatar the priests.
Indeed, they have there with them their two sons, Ahimas,
Zadok's son, and Jonathan, Avatar's son.
And by them you shall send me everything you hear.
So Hushai, David's friend, went into the city and Absalom came
to Jerusalem. So as we have been reading
recently of the king, of the story of King David and learning
of his journey to the king of Israel after a man, after God's
heart, as he's described, the story we've been reading
together is also the story of God, kind of.
He's really setting King David in place, setting him on a holy
hill. If you want to say as a
psalmist, put it in IN26 Psalm 26, I put the House of David
here, the family tree. I was trying to wrap my head
around just reading the scripture of everybody that's
associated with David and I needed something on paper if you
want to say to look at it. So it's going to be up there
just for a couple minutes so you can kind of just look at it.
But along the journey of David's life, they've begun, you know,
things have become to start Creek and crumble.
If you want to say, now we've discovered that his Kingdom that
has been promised to David is at least on shaky ground and a
collapse seems almost inevitable.
And not simply a collapse because of result of what's
going on outside of the king, but really what's going on
inside of his Kingdom is where the collapse is really going to
happen. And Amnon has been killed by
Absalom and Absalom has been away for a while in hiding, and
now he has returned to Jerusalem.
The Bible takes really a slight shift here on the focus of who's
who they're talking about here in Second Samuel.
The focus has shifted really from David and now it's shifting
over towards Absalom a little bit.
And so Absalom is now the focus of things.
He's actually made the focus if we read back in chapter 13 one,
but it begins, it says now Absalom, David's son had a
beautiful sister. And that's really the
introduction for a long section where it's kind of focused on
Absalom. And it of course it was.
We'll get through our study ends in the tragic death of Absalom
himself. He had been her.
Absalom had himself actually is really quite a patient man in
some respects. He had waited for two years to
avenge the rape of his of Tamar, his sister, and then he had
managed to spend three years in the company of his maternal
grandfather. And he returned then to
Jerusalem and he was able to wait for two years before he got
to meet back with David, his father.
And although that at the end of chapter 14 and Second Samuel,
you'll see that it ended with a kiss from David to his son
Absalom. And even though it ended with
that kiss, I think we can see that there is a large, large gap
between David the king, and Absalom, his son trying to be a
pretender to the throne. There's a significant gap there,
even though they had that kiss at the end of, you know,
basically David was welcoming back into Jerusalem.
And if you go back into chapters 13 and 14, if you read those,
they're really a prelude to what we now discover, of course, in
chapter 15. And so now the focus is really
entirely on Absalom at this point.
And as about we're about to discover, that's exactly the way
Absalom wanted it. He wanted all the attention, he
wanted all the focus, and he's going to go ahead and get it.
It was going to suit his purpose.
So there's three points that I want to make that help me guide
through these first 12/12/13 verses we're going to cover this
morning. Absalom's persona, Absalom is
his politics and Absalom's plot. So I want to see if I can do
this chapter some justice. Like I said, we're only going to
get through half of this chapter, and my intent is to to
continue this study all the way through Absalom's death in the
upcoming months. So Absalom's persona we're
given, his public image is really distinct from his private
character. His public image is distinctly
different from his private character.
And that ought to give us an immediate cause for concern,
because back in Samuel 1425, it says that there wasn't a man and
all of Israel who was talked about as Absalom when it came to
being handsome, when it came to having good looks, when it came
to be having a striking personality, Absalom was that
guy. In fact, the the the writer of,
of Samuel tells us that there wasn't a blemish on him from
head to toe. Everything apparently was as
perfect as it could be. And he had a peculiarly
peculiar, Well, I'm going to say the word 1.
He, his hair was very distinct that he had very distinct.
And it's so much, it was a feature of him that a
description that they say that every once a year he would cut
his hair. And there was, they said 200
shekels of hair. And if you weigh that out to
pounds, that's 5 lbs of hair they would cut off every year
off of his head. That's a lot of hair.
I, I, I asked Lizzy, I said, how much do you think of 5 lbs of
hair issues? That is a lot of hair.
A lot. I mean, I can't imagine this
picture, that this is an AI produced picture and there's a
lot of hair on that guy's head and but you can imagine how that
would be 5 lbs of hair. Now with that as a description
of his physical frame, when you read and look at 15, the first
verse in chapter 15, it says after this, after this, well,
after what? After what?
I don't that doesn't give us a time frame which, you know,
something happened before. So after at least some measure
maybe of reconciliation with his father, after he had met up with
David, after there had been a kiss as a symbol of that
reconciliation. After that it says then he got
himself a chariot. And I thought that was kind of
amazing. You know, it almost seems kind
of funny or comical. You know, Absalom got himself a
chariot. Well, why is that?
OK, the King's son got himself some Chariots.
You know, you you can see Absalom saying, you know what
I'm going to do? I'm going to go get some
Chariots. I'm going to go ahead and do
that. And I'm going to go ahead and
get 50 men to run before me. You know, I'm going to go ahead
and try try riding a chariot. I want to be that guy.
I want to be, I want to look like the king and ride on that
chariot and and think high of myself.
You know, that would look really good.
And we'll have maybe we'll get some horses, you know, and let's
have 50 men right out before me. And then everybody could kind of
say, you know, here comes Absalom on his Chariots.
You know what he is doing? He's really absolute.
Absalom is building in his own image.
He's establishing his brand. If you want to say he is making
sure that he has style in the way that he looks, in the way
that he is. So the Chariots, what were the
Chariots for? The Chariots were for style.
If you want to say he was flexing, if you will, you know,
as the King's son. So we're not too far from this.
You know, we see the cult of celebrity.
It's not something that is just out there in the social media
world. You know, the cult of celebrity
we can see actually in in is out there.
You know, we see false preachers and false doctrines being taught
where they want the spotlight on the preacher, not on the word of
God, you know, so that celebratism is out there.
And in chapter 8 of First Samuel, Samuel's response to the
desire of the on the part of the people for a king, you remember
that Samuel was not crazy on that idea of the people wanting
their own king. He didn't like that idea.
He was a judge and so on. And and on that occasion, he
issues a warning to the people. He says, you know, if you want
to follow through on this key and have a king like all the
other nations, because that's what they wanted, that's the
key. They wanted a king just like
everybody else. They wanted to be like the other
nations of the world. He said if you get a king like
the other nations, and if you read First Samuel 8 verse 11, it
says then you will need to know this, that he will have Chariots
and horsemen to run before him. And the Chariots that Absalom
was taking was actually came from King David's spoils of war
earlier in. He was, David was just setting
those aside for the time being. There was actually no specific
use for Chariots in that, in that area that we're at in the
area of Jerusalem, it's really hilly, really rocky.
You know, riding a chariot was really not a good thing to do
and couldn't be done in that area.
But Samuel issued the warning and we find that Absalom is on
the wrong side of We can read in Psalm 27 it says some trust in
Chariots and some trust in horses, but we trust in the name
of the Lord our God. And Absalom is on the wrong side
of that fence, building his persona.
And really we get to Absalom's politics because he is a
politician at the core. He really is a good politician,
some may say. There's no question about it.
And depending on the perspective that we look, and there's more
to him than just simply creating news about him, if you want to
say. And his his, his main objective
was to assert the role and the rule of his father.
He wanted to take over that and be the king himself.
He wanted to see him in the position of king of Israel.
And we'll notice that in verse 7, we're told again of his
patients that it was displayed because for 40 years he had been
working to build this case. And that doesn't just pop out of
nowhere where he gets a chariot and decides it's time to go.
It's over a period of time of 40 years that he was working the
crowd, laying the foundation, putting people in place, if you
want to say he was preparing for this opportunity.
And we're told what he does in verse 2, whenever the people
came out to the city gate, which was the place where the king
would execute judgments, as we learn in the Old Testament, he
would deal with matters of justice and so on.
Absalom decides, well, you know, I'm going to go ahead and do
that. I'm going to sit at the city
gates and I'll position myself there and I'll, they'll have to
come through me. And so when that people are
coming looking for judgment, looking for a king, I'm going to
intercept those people coming in.
And that's exactly what he does. He says them, he says to them,
from what city are you? And that's in verse 2 that we
can read. And when they answered that he
would say to them, well, you know, you have a very strong
case, but you know what, you only have a slim chance of
getting any any resolution to it because there's nobody here.
There's no deputy. The Bible says that can hear
your case that can give you resolution.
And he says, however, if only I were to become now I want to
notice very carefully. He doesn't say, oh, if if only I
were to become the king. He doesn't say that.
He says only that I were made judge in the land.
Well, the only one judge that it is the king.
So he knows what he's exactly saying.
He's saying if only I were to become judge and I'd be able to
settle all matters fair and square.
And so we can understand what what's going on here.
We don't you know, we you can you can breed a seed of
discontent and then you can offer your hand to resolve that
discontent at the same time. And that's exactly what Absalom
was doing. Well, some people love this so
much that we're coming through the gate.
They began to pay him homage. And whenever a man in verse 5,
it says, whenever a man came near to pay homage to him, he
would say, oh, don't do that. Let me, he says.
I'm going to, I'm going to. I'm going to go to you, he says.
Now I'm going to be, he wants to be a man of the people.
If you want to say you don't need to be, bow down before me.
Come and shake my hand. Let me give you a kiss and a hug
instead. And the people begin to say,
well, this is a nice guy coming to us, shaking our hand, giving
us hugs and kisses. He's not like the other ones.
We can never actually see the other guy who's supposed to be
doing this. The King's never here.
King David's never here. I don't know where he is, but
he's always out. And, you know, but he's, we're
actually, we're told what's really going on.
In the final sentence of verse 6, it says Absalom stole the
hearts of men in Israel, of Israel.
That's what he set out to do. And that's what happened.
And he's successfully doing that.
So as the persona is established, his politics are
fairly straightforward and not unusual.
And the plot is then given to us in verse 7 and following.
And we'll notice that it's at the end of 40 years, 40 years
which time he's been able to sow seeds of discord and discontent.
40 years during which he's had enough time, if you like, to
turn his resentment, if you want to say, into courage.
Previously had he had waited 2 full years in Second Samuel, 14
and 28 to to finally finagle a situation to where he got into
the presence of King David. And now 40 years have elapsed.
And now he comes to tell David, the king, that he made a promise
to God and he made a vow. And it's really quite
surprising. You know, if if I were David and
my son came to me and said, you know, I made a vow to God 40
years ago that I'm going to do such and such, well, I think I
would have said, or any parent would have said 40 years ago,
why in the world are you taking so long to do what you made a
vow to do? You know, I would think there'd
be some resistance from David or some, some sort of lashing from
words or correction or something like that, that that David would
have done to Absalom. But you know, 40 years before
you fulfill a vow. But we as we read, there's no
pushback from David, none at all.
And it's interesting actually, because back in the sheep
shearer's incident, where where if you read back in chapter 13,
David kind of holds him back a little bit and says, now wait a
minute, you know, hang on, if we can read that in Second Samuel
1326. But in this case, David didn't
say much of any questioning at all to Absalom.
So why Hebron? He had to go back to Hebron.
That's where he said, well, Hebron had a history.
Hebron was the royal city before Jerusalem.
Hebron is the Abraham's base. Hebron is where David was first
anointed king. It's where Caleb's inheritance
was the city of refuge. There's many things that
happened in Hebron and Absalom knows exactly what he's doing
back in Hebron. He can make an approach and
establish a base in a way that he desperately wants to do and
what he's actually going to do. In verses 8 and 9 where he says
For your servant took a vow while I dwelt in Gesher and
Syria saying if the Lord indeed brings me back to Jerusalem, he
says he says then I will serve the Lord.
And what he's actually doing here, he's actually taking the
the the name of the Lord in vain is what he's doing.
If I'm correct. And I've read a couple scholars
on that so you guys can check if you want.
But I believe this is the last time he ever mentions God for
the rest of his life. And unfortunately he does it so
deviously. He takes the name, his name in
vain. Now the response of David is
striking. Verse 9, he says it says go in
peace, go in peace. And this is either an expression
of a trusting father to his son, the trusting nature of David's
character, or perhaps he's just weary of the whole procedure, if
you want to say, or that he's supremely confident in his
position. I think either reason, you know,
maybe you could say is acceptable.
But he says go in peace. Something else that's
interesting is these are the last record of words of David to
his son Absalom. Last record of words says go in
peace. And how ironic that he would be
invited to go on peace when actually he was going to do what
he was going to make war and not love.
And we'll notice that he is strategically strategic in what
he's doing in verse 10, Absalom sent spies throughout all the
tribes of Israel. So he's working the system.
He's making it secure that when the right moment comes, when the
when the when everything's set in place, he can blow the
trumpets if you want to say and cry and go out through all and
and everybody can say Absalom is king and he in Hebron, he's
setting it all up. So he's working the system,
making himself secure. He takes with him, we're told in
verse 11200 men from Jerusalem who were invited guests.
They went in their innocence and they knew nothing.
They knew nothing of the plan at all.
They knew nothing of what Absalom was doing.
But it was also of look, it would have looked good, of
course, for Absalom. Again, you know, having all
these people come with him. It looked like he would have a
real band of supporters. If you want to say and then to
add to all the corruption he is managed, we see in verse 12 a
hippophile, the Gilanite. What happened?
A hippophile the Gilanite was actually David's counselor.
He was one of the key players in in the David's strategy.
He was Bathsheba's grandfather. And how it is that a Hippothel
makes the shift from being a key commander or a key counsel maybe
to David, he makes that shift to being part of this insurrection.
It's pretty amazing. It remains a question that we're
not going to know because, you know, we can think of maybe a
Hippothel resented the fact that David, the king who's supposed
to execute justice, did exactly the opposite.
He did nothing to execute justice because if remember that
what David did to Bathsheba's husband, he had him killed for
to cover up his own sin. We can read that back in Chapter
11. In fact, what he executed was
very reverse and and in the impact it had on a Hippothel's
family was going to be felt for a very, very long time.
So maybe that's the reason we don't know.
So those are the 1st 13 verses. Hippothel gives his skills, all
of his experience, all that had been so valued by David and puts
it at the disposal of Absalom and the rebellion.
So what's the response? What's David's reaction to
what's starting to happen here? And if we're reading this
through from the first time, you know, we can, we're kind of on
the edge of what David's going to do.
You know, you would think David would would put an end to that
real quickly. But we're going to see
differently what happens here. And he says in verse 14, we're
told that David issues the command arise, let us flee.
Arise and let us flee. Now, I don't want us to lose
sight that David knew exactly where his security lay.
He knew exactly knew that his his security didn't lie in the
cedar house that he had built for himself, which is what he
was going to leave behind. His security didn't lie in the
really nice house that he had. It didn't lie in the mountain of
the Lord. It it didn't.
In fact, we can read in the third Psalm it says because
there it's a cross French reference.
If you want to say he knows where his confidence lay, we can
find it out. David writes it there.
This is David writing about him fleeing from Absalom.
So if there's any doubt, it says, Lord, how have they
increased to trouble me? Many are who rise up against me.
Many are those are they who say to me, there is no help for him
and God, so where's the security?
He says, but you, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory, and
the one who lifts up my head and you should say, well, OK, well,
that's enough, That's enough. That's all it should take,
right? Just having security in the
Lord, knowing the Lord who he is, He's a shield about us.
It's not in our house. It's not in the mountain, Lord.
It's in the Lord. So why is David running if he's
got that shield about him, if he knows where security is?
Well, I think the answer is because he's really sensible.
David understands what's going on.
He still has his head about him. If you want to say he's saying
you know, we need to get out of here because I know my son
absence coming for us and if we stay here, we're certainly going
to be overtaken. Remember, David is a military
commander and he understands the art of war and all that goes
along. He he knows that that we don't
allow yourself to be trapped somewhere when forces are coming
against you. It's not sensible no matter how
much you say the Lord is a shield about you.
Now listen, the Lord does not disengage our mind when he
promises us security. He expects us to be reasonable
and sensible. He expects us to exercise our
own wisdom that came from God in the 1st place.
And that's exactly what David does.
You know, we, we just don't throw caution to the wind
because our, our security is in God.
You know what He gave us the wisdom, He gave us knowledge, He
gave us experience so we can execute that for His glory.
And so he says we're going to prevent the possibility of us
taking down all of us being taken down at the edge of the
sword. And verses 14 and 15, his
servants respond to them saying we are ready to do whatever my
Lord the king decides. And we might actually notice
that the emphasis on the word king here in these 3 verses, it
comes again and again and again. It says in the King's servant
said to the king, We're your servants ready to do whatever my
Lord the king commands. Then the king went out with all
this household after him, but the king left ten women
concubines to keep the house. And the king went out with all
the people after him and stopped at the outskirts.
So we need to remember that there's, when there's a
repetition of things that we're seeing in the Bible, we need to
pay attention to those repetitions because they're
there for a reason. There's, there's, it helps us to
grasp things and says, remember, you know, as we're reading, you
know, we need not to forget who the king is at this time.
It's King David. It's not absent yet.
It's King David, the king, the king, the King David is the
king. He has been set by the Father,
by God on his holy hill, and it is God who promised him a house.
Second Samuel 7, verses 5:00 and 11:00.
This is paraphrase. It says you, you're concerned
about a house for me. Well, I'll build a household for
you is what God told David. We keep that in mind when we
look again at verse 16. It says the king went out with
all his household after him. Well, the Lord had promised him
that he would build his household.
And now it looks as though there's an entire household
collapsing around him. One son is dead, the other one
is seeking insurrection. And so he says, what we're going
to do is we're all going to going to, we're all going to go,
but we'll leave these 10 concubines behind.
And that actually is a really bad decision on his part when
especially related to Absalom in the future.
We'll get to that. But actually the king goes out
and all the people go after him. And we're beginning to actually
see the king, King David, in a way that he actually used to act
before. He's becoming very decisive now.
Again, in all of his actions. What he knows that needs to be
done, He he's he's done as well as a well, you know, he was a
fugitive in the past. He did fine at that point.
He's not unaware of the wilderness, where he's going to
go. He spent many times in the
wilderness and so on. And and they go on their way.
And then we're told in verse 17 it says and the king went out
with all the people after him and stopped at the outskirts.
And that's an interesting little phrase, stopped at the
outskirts. Why would he stop at the last
house? This is King David exiting
Jerusalem on his way to exile, knowing that Absalom is coming
to take over. So Dave is getting out of town.
He's getting out of Dodge, if you want to say so.
He would stop at the outskirts. Some translations say the last
house. Well, we're told they stopped in
order that they may have, I think, what is called a military
parade. You know, we see in the
following verses here that it's exactly what's happening by far,
but at a higher, higher level. They're on the outskirts of
city. It's the Last Post if you like.
And and so all of David's servants passed by him.
And we'll notice here who's in verse 18, the Cherithites, the
Palathites in the 600 of the of the Gitites from Gath.
Now in Gath is is another interesting city, David.
When David was running away, he decided in first Samuel 21
versus 10, he says if I go into any enemy territory, I'm going
to be safer in enemy territory then I'm going to be here.
So he escaped to enemy city and it was quite a move and clearly
it impressed many people. And during that time he picked
up many friends and established for himself a base that extended
beyond even the tribes of Israel.
He did that in Gal, and what we're looking at here is that
these foreigners were now actually more faithful to the
king than his King's own people. And the Kingdom is, his Kingdom
collapses and the foreigners are there to pick up the pieces if
you want to say they're there to support him.
Years after this, Isaiah is going to prophecy.
We can see it in Isaiah chapter 2.
Two of a day that will come when all the nations of the world
will flow up to the mountain of God.
All the nations will flow up to the mountain of God.
Your rivers don't flow up, right?
Streams don't flow up. Streams flow downhill.
But it's an amazing picture that we can see running against the
tide of history. If you want to say running
against the normal expectations, there will be it.
There will come a day, says the prophet, when the nations of the
world will flow up to the place of God's authority.
And then if we go on, you know further in the Bible on
Bethlehem and follow Jesus as he moves around, we can hear him,
you know, in Matthew talking to the centurion, he says, the
centurion says, I need your help.
And Jesus responds to him. And the centurion says, you know
Jesus, you can just say the word and it will be fine, and my
servant will be healed. Because I have servants and.
I say, you know, to this guy, do this, this one, do that, and
they do it just because of who I am.
And remember what Jesus says. His response to me says I've
never found a faith like this in all of Israel.
Matthew 88 through 10. It's a foreigner.
It's it's a person from the Roman army who's who's has this
faith, not somebody from the tribe of Israel.
And then Jesus says in Matthew 8 and 10 says, truly, I tell you,
I've not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.
Verse 11. Says I say to you many listen,
listen, I tell you, many will come from east and from West and
from the West, and reclined at the table with Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob in the Kingdom of heaven.
Last point. I want to make here verse 9
starting in verse 19. It tie the Gethite.
It tie the gethite. The king said to I tie the
gethite. Why are you going with us
speaking as a representative of the 600, basically saying
David's telling. This guy go.
Back. Go back, you don't need.
To come with us. He says remain or.
Stay with the king, stay with the king.
And of course, David's talking about Absalom.
Stay with the king because that's who's going to be king
very shortly. Verses 20 and 21 tells us that
it's tied. To get tied is letting David
know that that David, you are the king.
I want to stay. With you.
You are the the King that God has set in place.
And David said, well, not according to the people are
here. You know, Absalom is the future.
Stay with the king. You're a foreigner.
You're in exile. You've only just shown up.
You know I'm and now you're going to ask you to wander
around with me and I don't even know where I'm going.
I don't have no idea so. David again says go back, take
your brothers with you, that the Lord may show steadfast love and
faithfulness to you because that's what he needs.
Stay here because you're going to get care.
You're going to get love. You need to know the covenant of
the love of God. You need to go to know God in a
steadfast. You need to know that God is
faithful. He's telling Hittite to stay in
place. We can kind of see.
Here that maybe David's talking to himself a little bit.
You know, if we know ourselves and we're trying to give
somebody advice on something or we try to press something on
somebody, you know, you need to do this, you need to do that,
you need to do this. You know, a lot of the times
we're telling ourselves the same thing, You know, maybe that's
what's going on. I don't know.
We made this, you know, we can say, hey, we're now we're in
this predicament. There's no question about this.
A lot of this is in my own doing.
I made these foolish choices. I'm in this mess.
But you are a faithful God. It's high, you need.
To know that I'm concerned in time about your spiritual
warfare, what David was telling him, but it's high in verse 21
said to the king, as the Lord lives and as my Lord king lives,
surely in whatever place my Lord the king shall be, whether in
death or life, even there also your servant will be.
Verses 22 and 20. Three.
And David says, well then in that case, go on, he says.
Come on then, if. That's the case, then.
It's hard to get Titan. His men and all the little ones
we were with him crossed over, and all the country wept with a
loud voice, and all the people crossed over.
The king himself also crossed over the Brook Kidron, and all
the people crossed over toward the way of the Wilderness.
Like I said, my intent. Is next month.
It's to capture the second-half of this chapter, but I want us
to recognize maybe a little statement here.
Sounds a lot like another person that we can read about.
Not a man, but a lady Ruth the Moabite.
Ruth the Moabite is Naomi. Says to her, go back, go back,
you come with me. I'm triple bereaved.
Go back is what Naomi tells Ruth.
And remember what Ruth said to her.
Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after
thee. Wherever thou goest I will go,
and where thou dwellest I will dwell.
Thy people shall be my people, and thy God, my God, it's.
How you saying the same? Thing I'm going to go with you
wherever you go, King David, no matter, no matter what, and I'm
going to trust in God because God has put you a king of Israel
and I'm going to follow you wherever are you trusting God in
our life and our family, our future, and that's the question.
There's a little map up here of. Kind of the the.
I guess the exile of. David, if you want to say I'll
probably put this in some future ones, but it's just up there.
Shows how David gets on from Jerusalem and heads to Gilgal,
crosses over the the Jordan and the Henan M and then the great
battle at the Forest of Ephraim. Will read about in the future.
Maybe there's? One here who needs to hear the
gospel plan of salvation. Hear the word.
Of God Romans 17 So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by
the word of God believe Hebrews 11/6.
But without faith it is impossible to please him, for he
who comes to God must believe that he is.
Acts 238 teaches. Us that we need to repent it
says then Peter said repent and that everyone of you be baptized
in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins confess
that Jesus is the Son of God. We see that in Acts 3836 and 37,
the the eunuch and went down into the water with a man and he
said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
And they were baptized right there.
He was baptized right there and baptized ISM of course.
And then and only then we come in contact with the blood of
Jesus Christ. Mark 1616 says he who believes
and is baptized will be saved, but he who does not believe will
be condemned. Maybe there's one here who needs
that. We can accommodate that very
quickly. Maybe there's one here who needs
the prayers of the church or needs to make a public
confession in any manner. We actually come while we stand,
while we see.