Ron Gannon - David the Man - David the King

[0:00] Last week we were in chapter 11, we were talking about David and Bathsheba and the sin that he had there. And this morning we're going to continue with that.

[0:13] We covered what he did there last week with Bathsheba. And now we're going to be talking about what he does to cover it up. So here we have King David, a man after God's own heart.

[0:27] And all of a sudden, he's doing all kinds of things. And he's not only committing adultery, he's also planning on committing murder.

[0:43] So here we are, we have a king, and he's come to this. So if you turn to chapter 11, verses 6 through 13.

[0:54] Then David sent to Joab, saying, Send me Uriah the Hittite. And Joab sent Uriah to David, and David said to Uriah, Go down to your house and wash your feet.

[1:04] So Uriah departed from the king's house, and a gift of food from the king followed him. But Uriah slept at the door of the king's house with all the servants of his lord.

[1:15] He did not go down to the house. So David feels that he must cover up his sin for Bathsheba's sake, for his own. So he had a plan, and that plan was to bring Uriah home and send him home.

[1:30] And he would sleep with his wife. And nine months later, you know, she has a baby. And everything's great. Bathsheba's happy.

[1:42] Uriah will be happy. And, of course, the king will be happy, because now his secret will be hid, and it wouldn't come forth.

[1:53] But, of course, as we read on there, we find out that it did not happen. So, as David was in complete deniability, you know, these are the things that he did.

[2:04] So he sends Uriah, who returns for the siege of Rabbah, to Jerusalem, and he arrives. David asks some general questions about the siege, but that's when he tells him to go down to his house and spend the night there.

[2:19] The problem is, Uriah doesn't go home, but rather sleeps at the guardhouse at the gate of David's place. When David is informed and summons Uriah, the man explains, The ark of Israel and Judita are staying in tents, and my master Joab and his lord's men are camped into open fields, and they're in battle.

[2:40] And he says, I will not go and be with my family while these things are going on. You got to understand, this man is one of the chosen men of David, his chosen men for the armies.

[2:55] So he's with the generals, and this chosen men were the main military people of the army. So Uriah is a man of honor. He doesn't feel right to relax at home when his fellow soldiers are undergoing the rigors of war in the open fields.

[3:11] So Uriah is being faithful to his God. David doesn't give up, though. He goes to plan B. If you can't get plan A to work, you go to plan B.

[3:23] And this is where it really gets bad. You know, King David really steps down to the bottom rail here. Dazed at the oven to give up, he detains him another night, and he gets him drunk.

[3:35] So Uriah won't go home and sleep with Bathsheba still. So David resorts to plan B and complies to have Uriah killed. As we can see in verses 14 through 17, In the morning it happened that David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah.

[3:53] And he wrote in the letter saying, Set Uriah in the front of the hottest battle and retreat from him, that maybe he struck down and died.

[4:03] So it was while Joab besieged the city that he assigned Uriah to a place where he knew that they were violent men. Then the men of the city came out and fought with Joab, and some of the people, the servants of David, fell.

[4:16] And Uriah the Hittite died also. So put Uriah in front of the line. Here's the thing, he even sent Uriah with a letter with his death certificate in it.

[4:30] And that's amazing. But that's exactly what happened. So he put Uriah, they withdrew from him, they killed him. Joab complies with David in order, and Uriah is killed, and now there is no evidence of David's adultery.

[4:54] Well, you would think that, wouldn't you? But what happens? Hey, you're the king. You're in this big palace. You've got servants.

[5:05] You've got all kinds of people around. And things like that, you just don't keep secret. And somebody finds out, and the whispers start. Of course, everybody in the palace is soon going to know that David had an affair with Bathsheba, and he also now knows that Uriah was killed.

[5:31] So people had gossip, and the gossip kept going. So the gossip is surely told and embellished the true story so that the king's sword acts are widely known.

[5:41] Certainly David's palace servants will know that the child is David's. David marries Bathsheba after a period of mourning, and she becomes part of his harem.

[5:52] Everything seems to settle down, and the baby is born. But the thing the king had done displeased the Lord. You see in verse 27, David, who had somehow avoided blood guilt of God's grace up until now, is now covered with the blood guilt of Uriah.

[6:10] So how can a man of God do something so ugly, as despicable as this? First of Joel 3, then murder. And a lot of people will ask that and say, you know, what kind of a God do we have in your Bible?

[6:26] That these kind of things went on back there in the Old Testament. And it's just not here, but as you go through the Old Testament, you'll see a lot of stories like this that are very gruesome.

[6:36] So, you know, what kind of a God do you guys have that lets these kind of things go on? Well, what happened here?

[6:47] God didn't orchestrate these things. He allowed them to happen. And the reason he allowed them to happen was why? John? John?

[6:59] We have a free choice. Okay. We're human people. When God created us, he gave us a will of our own. And he's going to let us act upon our will. And a lot of times, when we're in different places, high places, we have everything going our way.

[7:18] The temptations come in, and they take us over. And God isn't going to allow that to happen. He will allow it. But another point to be made is all these things that happens in the Old Testament, if we read, let's go to, you know, go to Romans 50.

[7:39] You don't have to go there, but we'll just say it. In the epistle to the Romans, Paul mentions that the edifying nature of the entire Old Testament, stating, for whoever has written in earlier times was written for our instruction so that through perseverance and encouragement of the scripture, we might have hope.

[7:57] So even clear up to the New Testament now, Paul is going back and saying, folks, if you go back to the old time, the old writings, they were there for a purpose.

[8:08] And that purpose was for us to have understanding. And that goes for us today. I mean, that's why a lot of people won't go to the Old Testament.

[8:19] They say, well, why do we need to get the Old Testament for? We have the New Testament. All these promises that God gives us now. But the things that we know in grace, how do we get those?

[8:34] They are what? They're put into our heart when we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior. So he puts this longing in our heart. And if we have that, truly have that, then we try to figure out what God's intent was, what his commandments were.

[8:52] We may not have to follow the laws of the Old Testament like Moses sat down, but we need to know what they are. And they're in our conscience.

[9:02] And we do know that murder is not right. We do know that stealing is not right. And all these things, they're in our heart, and we know that. But if we give up and give in to temptation, God is going to let us go.

[9:21] He's going to let us go our way. So there's a lot of things that a lot of people that's not into Christianity and the church, they see these things going on or they hear them going on and they say, wow, what kind of a God will do those things?

[9:35] And that's why we're not going to be in church because we don't want a God like that. But God had a plan, and that plan was going to come out, and it comes out in our lives today.

[9:46] And there's no difference. We face the same type of temptations that David faced all those years back. And God is going to let the things happen to us just like they happened to him.

[9:59] So that's how God allows things like this to happen. So we see how it is easy for David to do that because this David now is what?

[10:11] He's the most powerful man in the kingdom. He has everything. As we've been reading through these last chapters, we see that he had battle after battle.

[10:21] He's conquered all the land now of Israel, and he's pretty much brought it back to where he has the ten tribes, plus he has the tribes of Judah.

[10:33] And he's pretty much conquered all of that. So he has set up. God has given him all these blessings. And sometimes when we have all these blessings, we kind of sit back and we forget.

[10:45] As Christians today, sometimes we sit back and we don't stay in the Word of God. And I've even seen that in my life. Sometimes I'll go through a period where I'm just dry.

[10:58] I don't have that desire to sit down in the morning and read Scripture and do these type of things. And, hey, your mind and your heart is not being renewed.

[11:09] And if a temptation comes along, the devil knows how to do it, doesn't he? He can put a temptation into you that just tempts you to the place where nothing makes any sense except to do what I want it to do.

[11:24] And that's the key there. Do what I want to do. And that's exactly what happened to David. And that's what happens to us today. So David was set up for the prime example for the temptation to happen.

[11:39] He had everything going for him. And sometimes we just sit back and relax when that happens. So things are going to change for David. So we're going to see that coming up here.

[11:54] And what happens with the fact that punishment? Okay. We see that the first thing that David does is he goes back to the Lord when he gets confronted.

[12:09] And we're going to see that now as we go into chapter 12. So let's turn to chapter 12. In verses 1 through 6. And we're going to see Nathan's story of the poor man with the one new lamb.

[12:23] And we're going to see Nathan, the prophet. David's prophet. He was in the court there at the king. And he's going to come to him. And the man, after God's own heart, has fallen and become hardened to God's voice.

[12:37] How will God restore him? The Lord sent Nathan to David. Praise God that God's servants can hear the voice of the Lord and respond to him. Nathan was an extraordinary sensitive assignment to help David repent of his sins without making him defensive and shutting off the communication.

[12:55] So it's kind of normal or kind of easy to believe that Nathan had this feeling that, hey, I got to go and convince the king?

[13:07] David? My commander? My commander? Yeah. I'm the chief of the army and I'm going to go to him and say, David, you have sinned. You have committed adultery.

[13:20] You have murdered. And how can you do that? Well, God gave him the ability to do that. And on the surface, it's a story they might have come from local courts.

[13:32] And this is what Nathan has come up with, with God's help. And he's going to give King David a story. And it's a story about a lamb. And we read verses 1 through 4 there.

[13:44] There are two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle. But the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought.

[13:57] He raised it and he grew it up with him and his children. He shared his food, drank his cup, and even slept in his arms. That's really loving a lamb, isn't it? He was right there with it.

[14:09] He shared his food and drank his cup. Now a traveler came to the rich man. But the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him.

[14:22] And we see, kind of get the feeling there that, hey, that was the custom back then in those days. If you were there and a traveler came in, you set up the best meal you could set up.

[14:33] And that was a custom of the days back then. But this man said, no, I'll fix the meal, but it's not going to be out of my cattle and my sheep. So he took it from the poor man who had the one ewe.

[14:45] So this was a story that Nathan told. Nathan sets up the comparisons. The rich man David, who has numerous cattle, wives, takes the only lamb, the Sheba, of the poor man, Uriah.

[14:59] Painted in those terms, the season is what American slang might call a no-brainer. No-brainer. David, you need to look at what you did.

[15:10] And this is what you did. David responds with obvious judgment. And it's very apparent here that as soon as this story is told, the king says, hmm, he got me.

[15:22] He put it right out there. And now his first response was to go back to God. So I guess maybe that's why King David has a heart of God.

[15:35] Because even though all these things are happening, the first thing that he did was go back to God. David responds with his obvious judgment, not realizing that if so judging, he himself.

[15:48] Angry now, David says in verse 5, As sure as the Lord lives, the man who did this deserves to die. He must pay for that lamb four times over because he did such a thing and had no pity.

[16:02] For that verse, he had to pay four times over. And that scripture is there. Go back to Exodus 22, verse 1.

[16:16] It says, if a man steals the sheep, he must pay four for the one that he stole. It's amazing how God set this Bible up, this Word of God.

[16:28] And there's nothing we do in our life that's not going to get traced back somewhere into that Old Testament and how God laid out how he wanted his people to live.

[16:41] And this is just another prime example. You know, he tells them, do it fourfold. And David knew what that meant. And, you know, this whole scenario here with this thing that was going on was David was the king.

[16:57] So he brought this to him like a civil thing, like a civil court. And he said, here, David, these people are doing these things. What are you going to do now? You're the judge. So what is your judgment?

[17:11] And what does he say? Hey, the man deserves death. And now Nathan confronts David with the adultery and the murder. Once he has made this statement, then Nathan nails him.

[17:27] Then Nathan said to David, you are the man. Now those are hard words for a king because he just heard this tale. And now Nathan turns it back on him and says, you are the man.

[17:44] This is what the Lord God of Israel says. I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master's house to you and your master's wives to your arms.

[17:55] I have given you the house of Israel and Judah, and at all that has been too little, I would give you even more. Look at the verbs in these verses.

[18:07] He anointed, he delivered, and he gave. So David is not deprived like the poor man. He is anointed. He has been protected by the Lord.

[18:19] He has been blessed, and he is rich. He has Saul's harem in addition to his own. He is king of Israel and Judah, and God is prepared to give him even more.

[18:31] Nathan continues, Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what was evil in his eyes? You stuck down Araiah the Hittite with a sword and took his wife to be your own.

[18:42] You killed him with the sword of the Amorites. And this is the people that they were battling in that battle. So David is guilty of adultery, but to cover up is even worse.

[18:54] He is guilty of deliberate, premeditated murder. So what's going on here is David fell from the murder. He just completely fell.

[19:06] So when we sin, that is something more than it is an abverted slip-up. A lot of times we sin, and it is a slip-up. It's just something that happens in our life, and we just quickly make a decision.

[19:22] But hey, David planned this, didn't he? You don't sit down and write a letter to your general and say, Hey, put this man out there in the front. That's premeditated, and that's exactly what David did here.

[19:35] So Jesus said, this is something that he just lost God's word, and that's something that we do today when we rest and don't pay attention to God's word.

[19:50] And we need to say that Jesus said, If you love me, you will obey my commandment, and that's what God wants us to do. Now, in verses 10 through 14, Nathan pronounces David's judgment.

[20:06] Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife Uriah and the Hittite to be your own. God promised from that day forward David would know violence and bloodshed among his own families.

[20:22] David had demanded a fourfold restitution from the man at Nathan's parable. Now, God is going to give a fourfold penalty for David, and we're going to see that as the chapters keep going on.

[20:41] David has sons. We're going to see what happens to the sons, and there's going to probably be four deaths of David's family. So this is going to get passed down, not only to David, but it's going to get passed down to his family.

[20:58] This is what the Lord says, Out of your own household I'm going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give in the one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight.

[21:13] You delight in secret, but I will do this in a broad daylight before all of Israel. David's sin was done at night. He was up on the thing late at night and saw Bathsheba.

[21:26] That was done during darkness, and that's when a lot of sins are committed. It's during darkness, and I guess that's just natural. It happens that way.

[21:37] I remember an instance, my son-in-law was a police officer up around, well, in Juliet, Illinois. That's a very, well, there's a prison there, so there's a lot of violence and stuff going on around that area, close to Chicago.

[21:54] And he wanted to take me on a driving round. I said, yeah, that sounds great. Well, I had to say, you know, all the papers and all that stuff. We started like at 8 o'clock at night, and we're just driving around.

[22:05] We stopped, and the old saying, he had donuts with the police officers. That's all they do. And that's exactly what was going on. Nothing. And I turned to Bert, and I said, Bert, I thought this was a busy, it was a Friday night, too.

[22:21] Busy night and all this stuff. He said, no, no, Dad, just sit and be patient. Wow. 11 o'clock. Everything changed. All of a sudden, his crews were 180, going 85 mile an hour down the street with all kinds of things going on, knivings, stealings.

[22:40] The rest of the night, it was like that. So, hey, darkness is when sin happens. But God told David that, you did this in darkness, but I'm going to do all these things in the open.

[22:54] People are going to know the things that's going on with you and why it's happening. Your sins are before you. So, David's response is remarkable because he wanted this sin to be covered up.

[23:07] But to his credit, he does not become angry. Though he has the power to kill the messenger, he doesn't. David's conscience has been seared by his sin and his cover up.

[23:18] But his heart is still hungry for the Lord. He has burned. So, he confesses immediately, I have sinned against you, Lord. And Nathan responds, verse 13, The Lord has taken away your sin.

[23:31] You are not going to die. But because of these particular sins, the son born to you will die. Does this seem harsh? Many would say yes.

[23:43] You are going to kill this baby? But that's exactly what's going to happen. You know, forgiveness and punishment are two different things. In discipline, our children, the way that they may say, Hey, I said I was sorry, Dad.

[23:59] What are you going to spank me for? Well, that's... That is punishment. Forgiveness has to do with relationships.

[24:10] God has restored the relationship between himself and David. He said, I'm not going to kill you, David. I know you still love me and I'll be with you.

[24:21] But what does he say? But the spanking is necessary because that is the way children learn that their actions have what? Consequences.

[24:34] Whatever we do, we have consequences. That David's son dies is part of it. That's part of the consequence. That David's son... Sons, his future sons, will also follow in the footsteps of sexual sin and murder.

[24:49] It seems hard, but hey, that's the life that we have. And it is today. A lot of times we sin and we step away from God and bad things happen.

[25:01] We repent and confess to God, but the consequences are still there. And it could be with the finances you have. It could be with your relationship with your wife and your children.

[25:13] It doesn't matter what it is. When we sin and go against God's word, he will take you back if you repent. Well, we don't... Today, we don't lose...

[25:24] He doesn't lose you to begin with. It's a little bit different back then in the Old Testament. But today, when we confess, all we're doing is telling God, God, you're right.

[25:37] I did sin. But, he's going to forgive us because he said he would forgive us. But, we're also going to receive the benefits of that sin.

[25:48] And that is the consequences that come. And, a lot of times, we don't even know what those consequences are. They may not be today. They may not be tomorrow. But, somewhere along the line, that consequence is going to come and you're going to realize, hmm, that's what this is all about.

[26:07] That's when I walked away from God. And, that is the consequences from that. And, that's exactly what I hear.

[26:21] It didn't happen immediately. But, in the future, if we get into different chapters and there's years in between, we're going to see the things that will be happening with King David. we will see God's judgment to David come to pass in the next several chapters.

[26:37] David's son, by Bathsheba, dies immediately after Nathan's departure, the new man, or the new baby, falls ill. And, David pleaded with God and he fasted and he went to his house and spent the nights laying on the ground.

[26:50] He does this for seven days until the child dies. But, when he realizes the child has died, he gets up, takes a shower, takes a shower, I don't know if he took showers in or not, but, takes a shower, changes clothes, and worships.

[27:04] Then he resumes eating. His servants can't understand it. They misinterpreted David's fasting as mourning. But, it may not have been mourning. It may have been the fact that God, David was wanting God to mercifully say, I forgive you and that all things are correct.

[27:20] And, that is not what happened. And, we'll see in the future about that. So, after that, in verses 24 and 25, if you go down to there, David comforts Bathsheba by laying with her.

[27:38] This seems to be an act of love now. Not, means, this is an act of love. It's a love, followed by her conceiving Solomon and now she has a new child and this child will become Solomon.

[27:54] God expresses his love for Solomon and gives him a special name, Jedediah, which means love by God. That God would bring blessings through David and Bathsheba shows God's great love for them.

[28:08] What had begun as an adulterous relationship ends up showing God's great mercy. And, as we can see as we read through here, if we go on through the chapters, there's an actual relationship going on here of husband and wife.

[28:24] And, it's a good relationship. And, so, all through the, through all the things that happened here, God still worked it out. And, the chapter ends up, David defeats, uh, Rabbah, Rabbah, at, uh, of the Amorites and that's the war that's been going on.

[28:44] That's the war that he sent, uh, Joab out for before we started chapter 11 and he didn't go and he stayed home and he got into trouble. And, at the end of the chapter he goes back with Joab and they finish the battle and they win the battle with the Amorites.

[29:01] So, that's how the chapter ends up. Uh, this, this chapter I think has some lessons for us to learn even, even today.

[29:13] And, there's several of them. Arrogance, God's blessings can make us feel self-sufficient. Arrogant and spiritually dull to God's voices means there becomes useless.

[29:27] Very, uh, when we become arrogant, God gives us these blessings and we just become, well, we become, what do I want to say? Eric, I don't know if Eric is the right word or not but we become very less interested in God and all his purposes and reading the word and all these things.

[29:46] So, we think, hey, things are going great. What's the problem? Everything is good for me. Temptation. Every godly man and woman can be tempted and fall. We must put a guard around ourselves that we don't run, ruin what God by his grace has built into our lives.

[30:03] You are not exempt. We are all faced with temptations. And, uh, but, uh, there in 1 Corinthians somewhere it says all the temptations that God gives us away to run from them.

[30:16] So, you know, in our life when we see something like that, put on your tennis shoes and run. Don't give in to the sin. Confession. Covering up your sin can be worse than the sin itself.

[30:28] Honesty and confession are better than covering up. Confirmation. Confronting people with their sin is a delicate task that God sometimes asks his service to perform just like he did to Nathan.

[30:40] so sometimes we see other people, maybe family members and maybe friends. It's a hard task even like Nathan. You know, he had to go confront David.

[30:53] But, uh, sometimes we just have to do it and, uh, have the heart to do it and mercy. That is one thing that God is merciful, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness.

[31:05] You can trust your future into the hands of such a God even if you have sinned grievously as we see David did here in this chapter. So God shows mercy and he does to us even today.

[31:19] So, that finishes chapter 12. Now let's turn to chapter 13. And we're going to see that things change very drastically here. We've always been talking about David and all the good things that he's done how God loves him and treats him and all these things.

[31:40] Now we have all this sin that was commutored, rape, murder, and conspiracy in David's family. We're going to see here in verses 1 through 15.

[31:51] In the following narrative, we see several things going on. Most apparent is the affair between Ammon and his sister Tamar and his death at the hands of his brother Absalom.

[32:02] But beneath this drama is the struggle for succession to the throne. Ammon is the firstborn and the heir apparent to the throne. The secondborn is not mentioned because evidently he had died.

[32:18] Perhaps he died young. But Absalom, the thirdborn, is eager to gain the throne. The narrative of this chapter is a sad one leading up to several conclusions. First, Nathan's prophecy concerning David comes to pass.

[32:34] Therefore, the sword will never depart from your house. Out of your own household, I'm going to bring calamity. Second, that the sins of the father often becomes the sins of the son.

[32:45] We do not sin in isolation. Each sin tends to foster more sin and provides precedence for others to follow. And that's definitely apparent in families.

[32:58] you know, how many sons look at their fathers and after so many years this is a lifestyle that your father has.

[33:09] This is going to be a lifestyle that you're going to have. And it's just natural because they're the ones that are training you and you pick up on it. And we're going to see that's exactly what's going to happen here in David's family.

[33:23] And you get the comparison of what's going on here. He has all these children. He has all these wives and their stepsisters, stepbrothers.

[33:36] And that's exactly what's happening here when we get into chapter 13. Ammon lusts after his half-sister Temar.

[33:46] In the course of time, Ammon, the son of David, fell in love with her. The beautiful sister, Absalom. the son of David. So here's two sons, but they're from different wives.

[33:58] And so, and Tomar was the sister of Absalom. Ammon became frustrated at the point of illness on account of his sister Tomar, for she was a virgin and it seems impossible for him to do anything to her.

[34:14] We see that in verses 1 and 2. Ammon and Tepar are half-brothers and half-sister. So they had the dynamics of this type of a family that has half-sisters, half-brothers and sometimes it can be very confusing and sometimes things happen that shouldn't be happening.

[34:33] This is, of course, what's happening here. Ammon's love could best be described as infatuation mixed with strong lust. Ammon doesn't really care about his half-sister welfare but about fulfilling his own lust.

[34:49] Ammon doesn't have any way to spend time with Tamar. The king's grown sons live in their own homes rather than in the palace. However, Tamar has the king's virgin daughter would live in the palace probably confined to the woman's quarters and carefully guarded.

[35:08] Ammon now comes up with a plan and he has a friend who says, hey, go to your father and tell him, I'm not feeling well. Have someone go to his father and say, I'm not feeling well.

[35:20] Have Tamar fix me food and bring it to me. And that's exactly what David gave in and did that. Tamar goes to him and, of course, we know what goes on there. She fixes him the food.

[35:33] Ammon sends everybody out and then he attacks her in the bedroom. And at that point she has outrageous and she screams, it is outrageous breach of the law of Israel, the things that you're going to do, that you have done.

[35:51] It will grace her publicly. It will hurt Ammon's reputation. He will be regarded as one of the wicked fools in Israel. And it's not necessary since, hey, if you just ask the king, the king could grant us legally and you wouldn't have to rape me like he is doing at this point.

[36:12] So at least we see that Tamar tells Ammon that marriage would be possible. She was doing everything she can to avoid being raped. Ammon doesn't listen to reason.

[36:23] He is stronger and he overpowers and of course he has the act with her. At that point, Ammon rejects Tamar and tells her to leave and not to come back.

[36:34] So we've come to the conclusion that is exactly his attitude to begin with. He didn't want her as a wife or anything else. He just had the lust in his heart.

[36:48] She goes to Absalom, her brother. Absalom commands Tamar, get up and, I'm sorry. Yes, she goes to her brother and Absalom and Absalom says, do not do anything.

[37:07] Now that seems kind of strange that he would do that. Why he would do that? He knows his sister has been raped from one of his stepbrothers but he doesn't do anything.

[37:21] David does nothing either because there's nothing here that says David did anything. He knew about it but he didn't do anything. He was furious but he didn't do anything.

[37:32] David was right to be angry but he didn't do anything to either protect Tamar or correct him on. Sadly, he has lost the moral authority he had as the righteous king who loves God.

[37:45] How can he judge his own son for sexual sins and not judge himself? We see that's exactly what's going on here in this chapter. But Absalom had another thing.

[37:57] He had another plan. He may have let him get away with it at this point but he knew it in the future that he was going to take care of them on. That's what happens in verses 23-39.

[38:12] Absalom's hatred simmers for two years. You see the time span. God allows these things to go on and he doesn't take punishment at the time it's happening but eventually it comes out.

[38:26] It simmers for two years and he makes his moves. spring sheep shearing is often celebrated with festivals and meals and spirits generosity as the wool is harvested. Absalom arranges a huge party at his ranch located 18 miles north of Jerusalem.

[38:42] Absalom makes a big point of trying to get his father and his court to come. Of course the king said that he was not going to come but he would send the rest of his sons which Ammon would be one of those.

[38:58] David questions this but then agrees to send all his sons to the festivities. Now Absalom can get to Ammon unguarded. Absalom orders his men to kill Ammon when he becomes drunk and they do.

[39:12] The crown prince is assassinated by the second one being in line to the throne. Absalom's primary move is to avenge his sister's rape and rejection.

[39:23] However his main goal was to become seeing himself someday. With the crown prince dead on the ground and other princes flee to Jerusalem while Absalom flees to the opposite direction north to Geshur.

[39:38] This made sense for Absalom because his mother's father was the king of Geshur. So now we see that David longed to go to Absalom after three years. He's been gone now for three years and David now longs to go to Absalom.

[39:56] After three years the sting of Ammon's murder is not as sharp. David simply longed to be reconciled to Absalom again. Without correcting his son for his evil, David now indulges towards Ammon, is repeated towards Absalom and he will meet a similar end.

[40:17] So now David is going to treat Absalom just like he treated Ammon. And we will see in future chapters again what is going to happen to Absalom.

[40:29] So what we got here, it's almost time to quit. Is there any questions or comments before we finish up here? Yeah, Roger. It was interesting to me and important to me in chapter 12 when Nathan confronts David, God's word to David was you've despised my word by committing this sin.

[41:08] and it's important for me to recognize that when I stray, it's because I'm not offering the respect to God that I'm supposed to offer.

[41:20] But it also encourages me to see David's repentance because that gave rise to that song that he had sung in the courts in Psalm 51.

[41:36] And those are Psalm 51 quoted a number of times by Paul and it has some great verses in there, especially where he says, God, you don't desire sacrifice, it's a broken and a contrite spirit that is a real sacrifice to God.

[42:03] God's desire has always been the heart of man.

[42:15] And I'm so thankful for his grace that David knew he deserved to die.

[42:26] Oh, yes, he did. but, and there's another lesson that I just thought of and that is our sin doesn't just result in consequence for us.

[42:39] Oh, yeah. It has far-reaching effects to the babies and then to the grown children. It affects people far beyond ourselves.

[42:51] Yeah. Even maybe to the next generation. Yeah. Yeah. It makes me think of, well, abortion practice here in this country.

[43:03] How many times has abortion violence happened because people are trying to hide, cover something up like David was? Oh. And those little baby boys and girls are the victims of that cover-up.

[43:20] The hardness of heart. And that becomes, because we're not in God's word. Yeah. Anything else? Okay, we're going to be getting into, well, I think probably the rest of the chapters are going to go very quickly.

[43:42] Well, for one thing, I've got three more weeks, and at the pace we're going, I don't think we'd get done if we did as much on each chapter. so, and although I've been going quickly, but we're going to see what happens to David, the picture that's going to be before us as far as the consequences of his sin.

[44:04] We're going to see how Absalom tries to take over, eventually, partially takes over the kingdom. David has to flee, and all the things that's going to go on, until we get to the end of the chapter.

[44:20] It's very, what's kind of like one of the big things you see on TV, what do you call them, the series that comes on TV now. These are the type things you're going to see, and they're usually not pretty.

[44:35] These things that's going to happen in these six chapters are not pretty. It's all from the consequences of what happened there with Peshiba. It's a lesson for us to take, because it's easy for us to fall into sin.

[44:49] It may be nothing like this, but there's still consequences, and we have to fight through those. If nothing else, all right, we'll see you next week.