II Samuel 11:1 to 24:25

[00:00:00] We apologize to the listener. But the end of side two, there is two minutes of Lance's talk missing from the master tape. [00:00:09] If you will turn to the second book of Samuel, chapter eleven. [00:00:14] The Book of Samuel, chapter eleven. In how David has come to the throne, first of Judah and then of Israel, the whole nation. [00:00:31] We have really already reached the heart and meaning of David's life and reign in the preceding chapters to chapter eleven. [00:00:45] In a sense, from chapter eleven onwards is really obviously the last years of David's life. [00:00:58] And whilst up to now David's life has been filled with conflict and antagonism and suffering, yet it has been really, as it were, like the sun rising. [00:01:16] It has just been a steady climb upward. [00:01:21] From this point onwards, David's life becomes one of a very different kind of trouble. [00:01:31] In a sense. Clouds come now into his life, not just around him, but into him. [00:01:40] We have already recognized, I trust, from last week, what is the meaning of David's life and reign. [00:01:50] They were summed up in these few chapters just before eleven in three things. [00:01:57] One, the capture of Zion and its establishing as the city of God. [00:02:11] That is one of the greatest, the greatest things about David's life. There's no doubt about that. Everything about his life has been, as it were, progressively moving toward the founding, the capturing and the founding of Zion forever after to be called the David city and the city of God. All that Jerusalem means in scripture. And what a lot Jerusalem does mean in a sense. It has come here for the first time into more focused views. Jerusalem, of course, is mentioned once or twice previous to this, but from this point in the Bible, Jerusalem comes to occupy a central position in God's revelation. [00:03:02] And then, too, we have found that the Ark of God has been brought up and has been placed within Zion. [00:03:11] That is the second great thing about David's reign. Not only Zion, but the Ark of God is in Zion. The third thing, of course, is the gathering together of material and the making of plans, the drawing up of plans for the house of God in dialogue. [00:03:32] This is the heart of DAVId's ways. It is the meaning of his life. It was his vocation. [00:03:41] From heaven's point of view, DAVID's life wasn't the throne, it was this. [00:03:47] Zion and the house of God were the vocation and the calling of DAVID. [00:03:56] But now, suddenly, having reached, as it were, the end for which he was brought on the theme, we are suddenly confronted with David's failure. [00:04:08] And this is not so amazing as it may seem. [00:04:15] One of the most remarkable things about the record contained in the Bible, of the history of humanity, particularly the humanity with which God is particularly related and linked up. [00:04:36] One of the most remarkable things is simply this, that at each point in the Bible where some new great move has been made by God with the cooperation of man, immediately that move is made, the man fails. [00:04:59] It is one of the most remarkable facts in scripture, and indeed it can be carried right through into the New Testament. [00:05:08] Take, for instance, Noah. God takes hold of one man out of all the men of the whole earth. He selects that one man, he trains that one man, he reveals himself to that one man, and he purposes to make that man a new beginning, a completely new beginning. He wipes out the whole HumAn race and preserves alive that man and his family. [00:05:42] As soon as the flood is over, as soon as it is abated, noah builds an ark. He is told to go out and to weeple the earth. [00:05:52] And the very next paragraph, we find him drunk. [00:05:58] Those terrible scenes of tragedy and all that came out of that. [00:06:06] Then we can move on to abrahaM. And we find that as soon as the God of glory appears to Abraham and reveals to him his purpose and all that it means, no sooner is it revealed to him than he fails. And instead of going right into the land, he settles down in Heran. He takes out his father, he takes out his nephew, he takes out other relatives and settles down with them in a halfway halt. [00:06:30] When he gets into the land, he's no sooner in the land that God is giving to him and he is told to remain in it, than he goes down into Egypt. [00:06:40] You take Moses, another great step in God's economy at Sinai. God reveals his purpose for his people and the foundation of his dealings with his people, in what we know as the ten commandments. And as soon as that law is revealed, and as soon as the covenant is read to the people, the people say, all these things we will do, and it is ratified by the shedding of blood. The very next paragraph, we find what they have made them, a calf of gold and are worshipping it. [00:07:21] Another great move in God's economy. We find that the tabernacle is revealed, God's dwelling place amongst men. That takes us right up to the end of the Book of Exodus. It is revealed in simplicity and yet in detail. [00:07:37] Every single part of it is according to the pattern in the heavens. [00:07:44] It is the dwelling place of God. [00:07:48] No sooner is it revealed than if you move on in the history. You move from Exodus to the book of numbers and you take up the history again. Then the people have completely collapsed. They come right up to the edge of Jordan and they reject the Lord and the generation dies in the wilderness. You take another great move in God's economy and Joshua takes the whole nation over Jordan into the land and they take Jericho another next minute, AI, and they are utterly defeated before the enemy. So we can go on step after step, each step forward in the economy of God with the cooperation of man. And as soon as there is divine success, man has collapsed. [00:08:39] So here we find it just as true here that as soon as Zion is captured and established as the city of God, the ark is brought in and put in its place. God commits himself to his people on certain ground. The house of God is coming into view, the materials are being collected, the plans are being drawn up. Then we come face to face with David's failure. And that brings us just to this chapter eleven and all that it really holds for us in spiritual lessons. [00:09:23] What do we really learn from David? Failure. [00:09:28] Why does the scripture deal so faithfully and clearly with the sin of David? [00:09:39] Because it is here, and I think you well know this, as perhaps our greatest ground of comfort. [00:09:48] For whilst, as I've said, all through the history of man, from the beginning of the biblical record, we have found that each time God has done something with a man or through a man, and it has been achieved, that man has failed. God has never withdrawn his grace from that man. He has never forsaken him, always he carries on to the end, punishing his child, his servant, chastening his child, but never forsaking his child, never giving him up to the enemy, never fully as it were, leaving him. So it is here for our comfort and encouragement and help in all its hoarded state. [00:10:39] It's down in the word of God, every detail about it plainly put without commentary, that we might draw from it lessons and not only learn from them how to flee them and how to seek the Lord for grace to be preserved, but also, if there be that we have failed to know the grace of God, triumphant in a scene of sorrow. So you, I think, will understand a little bit of this part of the history of David. What has it got to do with this wonderful story and record of God's dealings with man in the onward march of his purpose? It is here because this is part and parcel of man. [00:11:34] This is the stuff that we are made of. And this, if I may put it rather crudely, is the stuff that God has to deal with. [00:11:45] God is the greatest realist in the universe. He is not like us idealists. He is a realist. He does not cry over Stokement. He comes down to it. And from the very condition, situation, and often the very essence of the thing, he takes hold of those very things. And somehow from it and in it, he works out his own wonderful purpose. This we shall find. There are two psalms that you ought to go away and read. The first is the 51st psalm and the second is the 32nd psalm. These two psalms were written at this period. You can add others to them. You can add the 30 eigth psalm, if you want to, that is also written at this period. But the two psalms that deal with this in the most clear way are the 51st psalm and the 32nd psalm. Those two wonderful psalms about contrition, repentance, broken and faith are there for our help and encouragement. [00:12:54] First thing I want you to note, if you look at the chapter, chapter eleven and verse one is something I expect we've all heard at one time or another. [00:13:07] The root of the matter is found in the simple fact that David tarried at Jerusalem. [00:13:20] It says clearly, at the time when kings go out to battle, David tarried at Jerusalem. [00:13:30] This was the beginning of David's fall. [00:13:33] Let us put our finger where the Holy spirit puts his finger on the fall of David. [00:13:40] It was an inward at the beginning, a hidden collapse. [00:13:48] David always went out at the head of the army. [00:13:54] This is where the trouble began. Somehow or other, as the rabbis have said, david became indulgent. He became somehow other, more enamored of the luxuries and comforts and thorn of life. [00:14:11] And he just didn't feel like going up. Perhaps, like most of us, he became tired. The battle was a lot, had been a long, drawn out one. From his earliest days, he'd known nothing but battle. Nothing but very real conflict. And now he was crowned king. Now the whole country was, as it were, in peace. In a sense, there had not been a time in the history of God's people like it. [00:14:41] There was an empire for the first time, or something about Israel. Now that put it on the footing with the nations. [00:14:50] And David had got Zion, and the Ark of God was in Zion. And David was busying himself about the house of God. And somehow he probably felt tired. And he just didn't go out in the battle, just was not in the forefront of the battle. As many of us so often fall in the same way. Somehow or other, we just get tired. And we don't put prayer where it should be put. We don't put the gatherings where they should be put. We don't put our togetherness and other things with just the inward quiet collapse that begins to take place on the inside. [00:15:27] It comes through weariness and tiredness and strain and pressure and then the other things of life. David just did not go out to battle when the others went out. That is the vast thing I want you to notice. He stayed at Jerusalem. He put himself, as it were, without realizing it, in the very stream of temptation. [00:15:52] Something that was to have the most terrible effect upon his life. [00:15:59] And then I want you to notice one or two other things about his terrible sin. And we're not going to dwell upon it. But there are one or two things that you should notice. The scripture puts it down into black and white in all its awfulness. [00:16:16] Uriah stands out in the record as a godly man. [00:16:24] UrIah was one of DAvId's 30 great men. In the last part of chapter 23 of this chapter, you will find it included in the names of the 30. DAvId had the first three. They were called the Second three and then they were called the 30. And these 30 were the greatest, most valiant men in the land. They'd been with him, so it is believed, almost from the beginning. From the cave of Adal, Uriah the Hittite was with David from the beginning. He was a Hittite and yet he had been converted. [00:17:01] He was one who was a foreigner by birth and yet had taken the name of Jehovah is light. [00:17:08] Jehovah is light. This shows you something with the background of a man, a godly man, a brave man, a man who had given himself in utter loyalty first to the Lord and then to God's king and to God's kingdom. He had changed, evidently his Hittite name for a name like this. [00:17:31] The light of the Lord. The Lord is light. [00:17:36] And we understand also that he was not only a mighty man in that way, but he had married the daughter of one of his brother captains of the 30. There was another man of the 30 called Eliam. And this man had a daughter called Bathsheba. His father was a hitherful. [00:18:00] And Bathsheba somehow other. I suppose through Uriah's association with the 30, he came into contact with Eliam's daughter and they were married. And evidently, from what we can gather, the love of Uriah for Bathsheba was proverbial in Jerusalem. It was so proverbial that Nathan could take it up in this little parable that he told David when he said, there was a poor man who had one little ew lamb, that was all that he had. And he devoted everything to that one lamb. [00:18:39] Thus we see something in the background of Uriah which only makes this sin stand out. Inormity. [00:18:47] And then you know what happened when David had taken Bathsheba. The result was only too apparent. [00:18:56] David twice tried to cover up. He brought Uriah back from the battle on the pretense of finding out what was happening on the front line and then gave him a present and said, go home. [00:19:12] But without David knowing it, Uriah would not go home. So loyal, so bound up with the interests of God. Was he so filled with concern for the interest of the kingdom that he would only sleep on the doorstep of the king? He would not go out of the threshold of the king's house. And then, you know, two or three days elapsed and David got him drunk, brought him in, got him drunk and tried then to get him to go down. [00:19:47] Uriah would not go. Even though he was drunk he still had that sense of loyalty that made him sleep with the servants of the king. And his own words were, I could not possibly go down to my home when I know that the armies of Israel and Judah are out in the field dwelling in tempt and even the ark of God is in attempt. [00:20:10] That is the kind of man Uriah was. The third attempt was the most terrible attempt. [00:20:17] Without knowing it, Uriah took his own death world in his hands. A letter was written by David to Joab telling Joab to put Uriah in the very foremost part of the battle and then to withdraw when the fight was at its highest that Uriah be killed. Uriah had no idea in his loyalty to his king that he was carrying the letter which was his own death. [00:20:48] That is the crime of David. It is terrible. I trust that you don't feel that we're being unkind. [00:21:00] We are only pointing out to you what is here in the word itself. May it be at least of some help to you this evening to know that the word of God just states clearly without any commentary the exact details and facts of the case. [00:21:21] Uriah died. [00:21:23] Uriah put him at the point where he knew there were the most valiant men of the Ammonites. And he died. [00:21:32] And the message was sent back to David saying that some of the mighty men, his mighty men had died. And Uriah the Hittite had also died. [00:21:40] Bathsheba spent seven days in mourning and then was taken into the palace. [00:21:48] Seven days were the least that she was required to mourn. [00:21:55] And then. And this may interest you all. Nine months to a year passed without any word at all and without anyone knowing. [00:22:10] This should be a tremendous lesson to us all on the silence of God, some of us, when we do something that is really wrong and we know it's wrong, can't understand why the Lord is silent. The Lord often is silent. [00:22:29] A year goes by without a word of rebuke, without a word of correction, without any exposure, without anything happening. The heavens are silent. Everything goes on as usual. [00:22:45] After a year, when the child is born, Nathan goes into the presence of David and he tells him a parable. Of course, by then, no doubt, things were a little more distant. Although we can tell from the 51st psalm that David was having a terrible time. Inwardly, it says. It tells how his bones, how he felt on his bed, how he'd wasted away, how he groaned all night. Why? Because it says, rather amazingly, I shut it up inside. [00:23:20] David knew. [00:23:22] For nine months to a year, he hugged this secret to himself and nearly died. [00:23:29] You know what happened when Nathan went into David and told him the story? How David's wrath rose over the man, got up and said, the man's worthy to die. [00:23:39] Shall he be? Is he worthy of death? But he must restore fourfold. [00:23:44] And then Nathan said, thou art the man. [00:23:48] And then, note this, if ever you have to rebuke anyone. [00:23:55] Nathan had the wisdom of God. [00:23:59] He did not sledgehammer David. [00:24:04] He enumerated all the Lord's mercies to David. How the Lord had chosen him, how the Lord had anointed him, how the Lord had made him king, how the Lord had given him a wife, how the Lord would have done such and such and such and such, if only he had asked, and all the rest of it. And then suddenly he says, why have you done this thing when the Lord gave you all these things, surrounded you with such grace and provision and deliverance? Why did you do this thing with Bathsheba? Why did you murder Uriah by the sword of Ammon? [00:24:43] And I want you also, not only to notice the faithfulness of Nathan, but I want you to notice the reaction of David. This is where spiritual character is found out. [00:24:56] When we really are found out, we're usually a very few words. When people are wordy and excuses, you know they don't mean business. But when they say just a few words, you know that something's gone right home. And all David ever said over this terrible matter was, I have sinned against the Lord. [00:25:15] Those were real words. Those were genuine words. They came right out of experience. No excuse, no provarication, no trying to evade or avoid the issue. It was just simply, I have sinned against the Lord. And as swift as that, the reply came back and the Lord has forgiven you. You will not die. [00:25:42] The Lord always answers honesty with grace. [00:25:50] So you have there not only Nathan's faithfulness and David's reaction, but you have the grace of God utterly forgiven. [00:26:07] There are very few of us that would have forgiven in such circumstances to have taken so godly a man, so loyal a man, so trusting a man, so valiant a man, and to have done to him what David did would acquire a very great and generous nature. [00:26:29] Yet the Lord, as in so few words, utterly forgave David. [00:26:38] And it is interesting that never again in David's history is it ever flung up in his face by the Lord. [00:26:46] When the Lord forgives, he truly forgets. He never again brings it up, ever. It is forgiven, confessed and forgiven. [00:26:59] But then we must learn another lesson, that when we confess truly and say the same things God says about things in our circumstances and lives, when we confess it and God forgives us, we must never make the mistake that we escape the hand of the Lord. [00:27:20] From that point, chastening and scourging begins. [00:27:30] Neither is that straight. [00:27:33] For if anyone who has in any way failed before the Lord should not know the chastening and the scourging of the Lord, then they are going to lose in the age to come. [00:27:51] For we are punished here that we may not be condemned with the world. [00:27:57] That is why the Lord's table. If we have sinned and we partake carelessly, we can either become sick or ill or even die. [00:28:08] Why? [00:28:10] In order that in being punished in this life, we may escape any condemnation with the world. [00:28:21] Now we have to learn this lesson. [00:28:26] Whenever a child of God does something which is really wrong and sins against the Lord and confesses it and the Lord really forgives, you will never get away from God's punishment, from the chastening that come in this life, in order that we may escape that which we would have had otherwise imagined to come. There are a lot of New Testament scriptures which we're going to leave because it's not the subject, but they're there. We are told expressly that we are chastened, we are discriminated against here, that we may not be judged. Two different worlds. We may not be judged with the world, not condemned with the world. That is why at one point, you remember, Paul gave someone over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of Jesus Christ. [00:29:25] What a solemn view that opens up to us of things in this life and in that which is to come. Well, David is the very example of all that we find that God's grace forgives utterly and never mentions again his sin. Yet the punishment, the chastening, the scourging begins. First, the child must die, and that will break David's heart. And then the sword will never depart out of David's house in his life, nor from his seat. [00:30:04] And how terribly true in his life that came. First Amnon murdered, then Absalom killed, then at his death, Adonijah killed. And then right through the history of the house of David, murder after murder in his house. [00:30:24] And then he's told the very thing, forgive the word luck, which has so wrecked David, is the thing that's going to be found in his own home. And it was exactly that, Amnon and Tamar, his stepsister, which brought all the trouble with Absalom. [00:30:45] And then later on, you know how his own wives suffered at the hands of Absalom. Later, David suffered through his sin. [00:30:56] He was chastened in his life in a way that gave him an insight into it, gave him an understanding much more than just doing something he wanted to do because suddenly he was taken with a desire. He understood when he saw it happening in others, when he became, as it were, the injured party. He understood then he understood what was behind it. [00:31:22] Very few of us understand when we sin lightly what it really means, what is the context, the background of it until we become the injured party. [00:31:33] Let me give you an illustration how very few of us know the damage we can do with our tongue until we become the injured party. [00:31:43] And when we become the injured party, we understand the context of the sin, the background of the sin, the harm of the sin, the poison of the sin. And we learn to walk carefully and sacrifice in that matter. That's one thing, but you can take it up in all kinds of things, see what happens. You speak cheaply, easily, harmfully about another. [00:32:14] And there will come a day when you will be put on the rack by others and you will learn something that you did with your own dark and its effect and result. And you will learn to walk before the Lord. Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but after I was afflicted, I ran in the way of thy command. Let us then remember simply, though, that lesson from David, life. [00:32:45] You know how in chapter twelve, the last part of chapter twelve, we find that the child dies. [00:32:54] Let us learn simply from this. [00:32:58] Here is the beginning immediately of the chastening of God that David may be included in the ending, God's eternal kingdom and throne. [00:33:11] It begins with a child dying. And David is absolutely laid out in sorrow. [00:33:19] Oh, that's the suffering of that man. [00:33:23] A year had passed, a year in which he tried to forget all that he had done. But now the whole thing came back on him and he relived every moment of those brief hours and days over the murder of Uriah. [00:33:42] But the wonderful thing I want you to point out now, having shown to you, I trust, by the grace of God, what does come as a result of our sin. We are certainly forgiven utterly of God. Yet we suffer by the grace of God at his hand. Yet I want you to notice now the grace of God triumphant. [00:34:08] David's child dies, but BathsHeba bears another son and David calls him peace. [00:34:20] Now, there's something very wonderful about that. [00:34:24] That he, after such an experience and at such a point in his life, called one of his children. Peace is one of the most eloquent testimonies to the grace of God. When a person has no peace, they are wrong with God. [00:34:41] Peace is the arbitrator of whether we're in the way of God. DavId was able to call SOLOMON peace. [00:34:51] Nathan called him Jedidiah, beloved of the Lord, or the Lord loved. [00:34:58] Now, this is all the more wonderful because it is BathSHeba. Now, I will tell you something else which I think is very wonderful. Mary and JOSEph have different genealogies. That is the explanation why the genealogy in MatthEw is different to the genealogy in LukE, why they don't exactly corroborate each other. One is the genealogy of MarY, the other is the genealogy of JOSEpH. Both are of the house of David. [00:35:26] Mary comes, if I remember rightly, through SoLOmoN. [00:35:31] Or is it NAthan? The Other comes through SoLOMoN. [00:35:36] BAThSHeba Bore four sons. In the end, all are mentioned in the record. Two I will mention. SolOMOn is the first and nathan is the second. There's something very wonderful about DAvid calling the second one nathaN. He called him the name of the very man that exposed his sin and that reveals the spiritual character of David. [00:36:02] He was able to love the wounds of a faithful friend, able to so love that he was able to call his own son NAthan. [00:36:14] I think it's a wonderful thing that it was BAThSHeba who is included in the line of the MEsSIah. The woman who's so thinned through the couple that fell. So it is through her and not through the other wives. It is through her that both Solomon and Nathan are born, both of whom are in the line of the MEssiah. So whether on his father's side or on his mother's side, the lord is linked with David to Bathsheba. [00:36:48] Well, then you go on in you go on chapter 13 and 14, and you find again all the trouble. You know that in Deuteronomy, chapter 17, one thing that Moses said to the children of Israel when you remember just waiting to go over into Jordan, was, when you have a king, you must remember certain things. He must not multiply horses, he must not lead you back into Egypt, and he must not multiply his wives. [00:37:17] And we can trace, I think for you how every breaking of the commandment of God leads to disorder and to trouble. You know, David was the first king to multiply wives. And this was the very thing that was going to be the undoing of Solomon. What he saw and learned in his father's home was to be his own undoing. And we can point out to you how all the trouble in David's house simply came from the breaking of that simple commandment of the Lord. [00:37:50] Amnon was the son, the eldest of one of his wives. [00:37:59] Absalom and Tamar were the son and the daughter of another. And then, of course, there were others, quite a number of others. [00:38:08] And this is the background of the terrible situation in which Amnon and Tamar and Absalom found. Amnon developed a very real love for Tamar and the situation. You can read for yourself exactly what happened, but the result was that Absalom was absolutely outraged and swore that he would murder Absalom. Adored his sister. Table later on, when Absalom had a daughter, he called her. Table later on, you know how he got his own back after a year or two, he waited. And then the sheep shearing, he invited all the king's sons and they all came. Signal Absalom's servants slew Adlen and the king's sons fled. And Absalom fled, had to get out of the country as quickly as possible. [00:39:12] You know how David's terrible sorrow of everyone. [00:39:17] The sword was beginning to work in David's own household for quite a few years. As you read in these chapters, 1314, you find that Absalom remains in exile with his father in law until at last Joab conceives of a very cunning plan of putting some plan into an old woman's heart to go into the king and to pretend that she had a family situation. She goes through it all, speaks to the king about it and asks for his judgment. And the king gives his judgment. And then she said, now, o king, will you allow me to say a few words? [00:40:01] And he said, yes. And she said, well, what about your son? [00:40:07] And David perceived that he had been trapped and he could do nothing else but call for Absalom to come back. And he did. He wanted Absalom back, but it was a kind of impact. And Joab had, who always was a very hard but very far seeing man, had worked out a plan by which he could break the impact and bring Absalom back. [00:40:36] As you know, Absalom came back but the king would not see him. [00:40:40] For quite a few years he remained in Jerusalem, but he was not able to see. He never saw David. David would not see him. Then again, Absalom hit on a plan whereby he could get into contact with Joab and through Joab, get to the king, which he did, and harmony and a reconciliation was restored to the home. Absalom was back. But Absalom was a striking figure. It is very, very interesting to note how Absalom and his sister Tamar were evidently they striking in physical characteristics. [00:41:25] And Absalom was absolutely, as it were, the focal point of popularity in Israel. Even more so because he had a very fine state carriage. He had 50 outrunners that ran before it. When he came and went around the country, he wasn't just a sort of person who lauded it over them. He got down and spoke with them. It says he took their hands and kissed them when he came into the king's palace and saw, as in oriental palaces, all the folk waiting to go into the king to have cases tried and judged and so on. He used to say to them all, oh, dear, what a shame. There's nothing wrong with David, but there's something wrong with the government. They ought to appoint someone like myself to Sort of deal with all you folk. And then we'd get justice done. We'd get things done more quickly. And he says simply, he stole the hearts of the people. He stole the hearts of the people. They all said, he's a fine fellow, Absalom. He's not afraid to talk with us. He's not afraid to come down to us. He seems fair, he seems just. [00:42:32] And it says, after four years, Absalom asked leave of David, could he go to Hebron. He had made a vow. David said, of course you could go. They took 200 men and it says, they went in the simplicity of their heart. [00:42:47] Those 200 men did not know what was up. They went in the simplicity of that. Division always begins like that begins quietly, slowly, with all the Outward looks and legality. Legitimacy always seems to have much behind it and much for. It seems always to be very fair and just. [00:43:10] And generally, people are carried away into it and with it in the simplicity of their hearts. [00:43:18] But the secret word had gone out. Throughout HiSTory, when the Trumpet sounds in EGypt Rally to AbSalom, for he will be king. [00:43:31] And you know what happened. [00:43:35] Trumpet sounded from 15 onwards, we find the Trumpet certainly does sound, and the people are absolutely in a state of disorder. No one knows where to turn or what to do. And then we enter into perhaps the deepest lesson of David's life and one of our greatest lessons, if we can but learn it. [00:44:02] David decides that there is no point in staying in JeRusalem and trying to defend it. [00:44:10] They'll only raise it to the ground. [00:44:13] He decides the only way out is to flee. And in this, David once again shows himself to be a man after God's own heart. Whatever his faith, from the very beginning to the end, David has never taken any kind of action to either get onto the throne or to keep the throne. [00:44:34] One of the most remarkable characteristics about DAvid has been the way that when the ThRone was right in his hand, he could have had it. He refused to take any action at all when he was on it. He refused to even in any way condone the murder of his rival, IShbatheh ROShad, and he was murdered. [00:44:57] Or Adna, his arch enemy. When he was murdered, it says, he went behind his beer weeping. [00:45:05] David always refused in any way either to try and get the throne or to hold the throne or in any way to keep people down. His attitude was that if the Lord who had brought him to the throne was not going to keep him on the throne, then David was in the hands of the Lord or whatever the Lord wanted. Oh, let us always learn that lesson. Never take on, never take on defection. Never take on division. Don't come down to the roundtable competition. Don't try to thrash the thing out. You'll never get anywhere. If God has any place for you, then just learn the deepest lesson. You can. Learn that if God has a place for you, he will not only get you into that place, but God will keep you in that place whether you are driven out or not. [00:45:59] David was driven out. And as always, and this is another lesson some of us have to learn, if not all of us, in our lives, bitterly. [00:46:09] When you are kicked, everyone who has any extra grind will kick you and will kick you off. [00:46:20] It is only when you're down that you find out your real friends and your false friends. Only you never know. You never know until you're down. [00:46:31] It is absolutely remarkable the way in which the Holy Spirit draws out all the friends of David, all these people who are given lip service. All these people who'd been in the court, all these people who've been in the kingdom. Now what? Ah, you find many have gone over to Absalom. Many now are talking in very superior tones about David. Oh, who's David? Watch David. [00:46:57] You find some are prepared to go out with David. And here's one of the most wonderful lessons we can learn, these chapters. Itai the gitite is a Philistine. [00:47:10] David says to him, why do you come out with me? Itai says, wherever you go, wherever you die, I'm coming and I'm going. [00:47:18] Don't you tell me to go. [00:47:21] David had found out a real friend. [00:47:24] There were some who were prepared to stay in the city. There were others who were prepared to go out into the wilderness and die with David, be annihilated with David. [00:47:33] The 600 went out with him. The 600 been with him from the beginning. In spite of the fact that they obviously by then they knew what had happened to your eye. They were sticking with God's king. Out they went together. [00:47:45] Then you find Hushai, the architect. He comes a major man. But you find that he's going to absolutely stay with David. David should go back into Jerusalem and compound the council by his mother. Ahithophel had been David's closest counselor, his greatest, eldest statesman. He had relied upon in every way. Ahithophel was the grandfather of Bathsheba. He had an axe to grind, something that was nagging the back of his heart. And he was behind Absalom. And was Absalom. [00:48:23] David said to who shall go in and confound the council of Ahithophan? [00:48:30] Then you find others. You find people who will go with you into exile but are only with you for what they can gain. Zeba comes and he tells a lie about Mephibosheth, Jonathan's son. He says he went over to Absalom the moment it was heard. He said, I'll go to Absalom. I might get the throne back. Which was a lie. [00:48:53] David said to Zeba, very well. All that belongs to Mephibosheth shall be yours when the kingdom is restored. [00:49:03] But Zeba was alive. [00:49:06] And then, of course, there's the story of Shimei. It always makes us smile. As David went up the Mount of Olives, it says Shimei ran up and down on the other side of the ravine, casting up dust, throwing stones at him. You know, that kind of thing, taking up stones and throwing blood. You man of blood. He kept on yelling across the bean, you man of blood. Now all the judgments and he went through them all, all the judgments, Abner and Ishbasheth and Saul. And he blamed a lot on David. [00:49:44] He swore of him, cursed him. And Abishai said, let me go over that ravine and take that man's head off. [00:49:55] He said, why should you let a dead dog speak to you like that? But David said to him, and again it revealed spiritual character. Let him curse me. [00:50:05] Let him curse me. The Lord had bidden him to curse me. [00:50:12] If I am suffering from a son that came out of my own bow, how much more can I bear? Something from someone who is a benjaminite? [00:50:24] So it says. They went on and Shimi threw up a bit more dust and cast a few more stones. It was humiliating. [00:50:34] Well, that's the story of Absalom's rebellion. You know what happened? How? Absalom, in the end, when the battle was closed, they closed in battle. How? In the forest of hurries, Jonathan's mule went under a very large terabynth and his head got caught in the branches. He had very long hair, and he got caught in the branches and tangled and he swung there. So Joab went and pushed through his body three sharpened staves. And then ten soldiers finished him off and he was buried. That was the end of Absalom yet before all Israel. And here's another wonderful point of spiritual character. As the armies went out through the gates, David had been told to remain. He wanted to go out with them, but they said, no, you must not. As each captain went by, he just said, gently, for my sake, with Absalom. [00:51:28] That is just what it is, literally, gently for my sake with Absalom. And it says that the whole of the host of Israel heard David's command to the captives. [00:51:40] And I suppose most of you must have, at one time or another, read the story, this story in chapter 17. [00:51:52] Chapter. Chapter 18, you must have read sometime or another the story of Absalom death and David's reaction. But I don't believe. And this is a thing I think we should take account of. This could have been written by anyone else but an eyewitness. This must have been part one document that was written by an eyewitness. Because, you know, when people come to write up things like this, they always gloss them over and they make them much more flowery. But in actual fact, you know, when those runners came into David, he'd been watching and waiting and waiting and watching. The first word the man said was peace. [00:52:30] And the first word David said, is there peace with Absalom? [00:52:35] And when they said, no, absalom is dead. You've just got. It's a dramatic chapter, that is true. But you've just got the picture of a man struck speechless with grief. And all that can get out of him is just over and over and over again. My son, my son all the time. It's obviously an eyewitness account of what happened. Anyone else would witness it years afterwards would have certainly made it a little more flowery. [00:53:10] And then, you know how last they all come back and they want to finish off Shimei. But David says, no, you mustn't do that. You just leave him and the others who had been, had part in the rebellion. But he would not let them do it. He stood for peace on every side. The thing that stands out is this. [00:53:32] What David said to the two high priests as they took back the ark of the Lord. He said, if the Lord does not delight in me, all well and good I am in the hand of the Lord. That I think takes a lot of faith. In other words, David said, if I am to die at the hand of Absalom and this insurrection because the Lord has finished with me, very well, I don't want to live if it's not in the purpose and the will and the favor of God. That shows you the kind of man that David was. In spite of sin, his heart was for the Lord. And so in chapter 20, you just simply have yet another insurrection by a man called Sheba. It's just called worthless. A base fellow, as it says in this version, another rebellion. DAvid's closing years are filled with all this kind of strife and trouble. And that brings you really to the end of the history. As far as these two books of Samuel go, chapter 21, 22, 23 and 24 are an appendix. And they are just four appendices. [00:54:50] One deals with an incident at the very beginning of David's reign as king. And the last one deals with an incident at the end of his reign as king. In other words, these four appendices, I'm quite sure are here by the placing of the Holy Spirit as a kind of summary of the salient characteristics of kingship. What are they now? The first in chapter 21 has caused a lot of people a lot of trouble. How on earth can the Lord require seven fellows to be hanged to him? [00:55:32] But in actual fact, the story is not as simple as that. Saul waged a terrible warfare on the Gibeonites. And the Gibeonites had a covenant, a pact, if you remember, with the children of Israel. For every generation, it was a pact forever that they would never be touched, but would be allowed to be servants to the people of God in all generations. Saul dismissed that, and evidently with his sons, waged a terrible warfare of annihilation. You can find it here in these verses to destroy them out of the borders of Israel. [00:56:09] Everyone had forgotten the covenant that had been made with Gibeon. No one read the word of God and found out about it. Everyone forgot. But there was a famine which lasted three years. [00:56:19] David's first reaction when there was trouble was to get on his knees and to seek the face of the Lord. [00:56:27] That is one of the salient characteristics of kingship, the government of God, direct government. He did not decide what he was going to do. He did not decide what was wrong. He did not decide what was the answer. He got on his knees and he asked the Lord, and the Lord showed him clearly what was wrong. [00:56:49] The answer was that those who had perpetrated such deeds would have to pay the price in those days was the sons. They asked for the sons of the man that perpetrated it. [00:57:03] And David sought out the seven and handed them over to them. [00:57:07] And they were first killed. And then, as was the custom, their bodies were hung up and they were left. From the beginning of the barley harvest, right through the summer, they were left. And the mother of two of them, it says, stayed there all the way through those months, sleeping there in a tent under them, and in the day, frightening off the vultures. Terrible, terrible picture. Terrible picture. But the awful deeds perpetrated by Saul and his sons were avenged. [00:57:48] And it says, the land was healed and the Philistines were defeated. The key to this is that David got on his knees and sought the face of the Lord. [00:58:03] In the next, you get a psalm of David. And this is interesting. You get two psalms of David. [00:58:12] The first one in chapter 22 was written just after he came to the throne, and the second one was his dying work. So, as you have one incident at the beginning of his reign and one incident from chapter 24 at the end. So in chapter eight, chapter 22, you have one psalm which is the beginning of his reign and one which were his last words, his actual last words, what does this psalm reveal? It reveals a man with a deep, intimate, inwaught and utterly dependent experience of the Lord. [00:58:51] You'll never find any psalm in scripture that uses so many titles for the Lord that calls the Lord so many things, my defense, my rock, my high tower, my shield, my strength, my everything. David was simply, as it were, coming right out of his heart. How had he come to the. Because the Lord was his everything. That is the heart of kingship. That is the heart of kingship. He did not get there himself. He came there by the grace of God. He learnt to know the Lord in a very deep way. For it says in one place that when he in distress, he called the Lord. The Lord came to him in a storm, in a way that frightened him, in a way that, as it were, would seem as if the end had come. But it was the answer of God. It was God answering him. That's how the Lord really answered him. There you find that he attributes everything. The way he leaps over a rampart, the way his arms can bend a bow of grass. He attributes everything to the Lord. He says, by the Lord, I do these things. [00:59:53] You see, he had come to find that the Lord was the key to everything. The Lord was the provision for everything. [01:00:00] The Lord was the heart of it all. So we learn that. And then in the last part of chapter 23, you will find the mighty men of David named the first three, the second three and the 30. Actually, there were 31 and 30, but the title, the name of that band, was the 30. [01:00:22] These were the mighty men of David. What do we learn from that? They learned simply that in God's kingdom, we only come and get to the throne in fellowship. These were tremendous men. In chronicles, you'll find, recorded what they did. They slew bears in the time of snow, they swam rivers, they killed so many at one time and so on. They were really mighty men. If these were some of the mighty men, I don't know what the not so mighty men were like by our standards. These three, the first three, then the second three and then the 30. [01:00:59] There is something very wonderful about that isn't about God's kingdom. The first three, second three and the 30. And then the people. I wonder whether that's not a picture of what, one day, what the kingdom is going to be like when we get there. We shall find that there is the congregation, the people of God. We shall find that there are the 30, shall find there are the secondary. We shall find there are the first three. Then we shall find. [01:01:23] So we learn all those things. And lastly, in that chapter 24, you have again another incident which reveals to us the character of David. [01:01:36] There is a plague. [01:01:38] Something happens. David numbers the people and there is a plague. [01:01:43] The thing that that reveals to us is very simple. What would you have done? What would you have done if you've been responsible for this tragedy amongst the people of God and in the work of God? And the Lord said to you, I'll give you three choices. Seven years famine, three months exile, three days plague. Wonder what you would have said. [01:02:08] Wonder whether you would have said three days plague and you would have been found out. [01:02:15] That revealed spiritual character. David said, lord, I would not choose. [01:02:24] I am in your hand. If you think seven years family is what is necessary because of my sin, I'm in your hand. [01:02:36] That reveals spiritual character, and that is the heart of kingship. [01:02:40] From beginning to end, it is summed up like that. David said, from beginning to end, I am in the hands of the Lord. [01:02:49] As far as the throne was concerned in the days of Saul, as far as the throne was concerned, when he was on it, as far as the throne was concerned, when he fell is going to be stayed. [01:03:06] But it's a far, far greater thing, as we shall find in the book of king. That threshing floor is the sight of the house of God. [01:03:17] And this is just like the Lord. This is one of the greatest lessons of David. David falls with and through Bathsheba. Very well. The Lord will take Bathsheba and will make her mother of Solomon, will make her a link in the chain, in the seed, the royal line of Messiah. [01:03:42] David fell, and there was a plague. Very well. [01:03:47] Through that plague, through that terrible, terrible punishment, David will purchase the very site which is going to be the dwelling place of God. Let us take encouragement from that. Not to be loose, not to be lax, but to remember that even when we fail, and we do fail, and even when we sin against the law, when there is real contrition and genuineness and confess little, the Lord takes the very things that caused our fall and makes them the very things to fulfill his purpose concerning and concerning himself. [01:04:36] The Lord just teach us that.