Dark Days Part One

i invite you to follow along as i read from second samuel and chapter 15. second samuel 15. and once again i'm going to read the whole chapter after this absalom got himself a chariot and horses and fifty men to run before him and absalom used to rise early and stand beside the way of the gate and when any man had a dispute to come before the king for judgment absalom would call to him and say from what city are you and when he said your servant is of such and such a tribe in israel absalom would say to him see your claims are good and right but there is no man designated by the king to hear you then absalom would say oh that i were judge in the land then every man with a dispute or cause might come to me and i would give him justice and whenever a man came near to pay homage to him he would put out his hand and take hold of him and kiss him thus absalom did to all of israel who came to the king for judgment so absalom stole the hearts of the men of israel and at the end of four years absalom said to the king please let me go and pay my vow which i have vowed to the lord in hebron for your servant vow davao while i lived at geisha or in eram saying if the lord will indeed bring me back to jerusalem then i will offer worship to the lord the king said to him go in peace so he arose and went to hebron but absalom sent secret messengers throughout all the tribes of israel saying as soon as you hear the sound of the trumpet then say absalom is king at hebron with absalom went 200 men from jerusalem who were invited guests and they went in their innocence and knew nothing and while absalom was offering the sacrifices he sent for a hitherfell the gilanite david's counselor from his city in gila and the conspiracy grew strong and the people with absalom kept increasing and a messenger came to david saying the hearts of the men of israel have gone after absalom then david said to all his servants who were with him at jerusalem arise and let us flee or else there will be no escape for us from absalom go quickly lest he overtake us quickly and bring down ruin on us and strike the city with the edge of the sword and the king's servants said to the king behold your servants are ready to do whatever my lord the king decides so the king went out and all his household after him and the king left ten concubines to keep the house and the king went out and all the people after him and they halted at the last house and all his servants passed by him and all the cherethites and all the pelothites and all the six hundred gitits who had followed him from gath passed on before the king then the king said to it i the get eyed why do you also go along with us go back and stay with the king for you are a foreigner and also an exile from your home you came only yesterday and shall i today make you wander about with us since i go i know not where go back and take your brothers with you and may the lord show steadfast love and faithfulness to you but it i answered the king as the lord lives and as my lord the king lives wherever my lord the king shall be whether for death or for life there also will your servant be and david said to his eye go then pass on so it's either gets out passed on with all his men and all the little ones who were with him and all the land wept aloud as all the people passed by and the king crossed the brook of kidron and all the people passed on toward the wilderness and abby ather came up and behold zayd out came also with all the levites bearing the ark of the covenant of god and they set down the ark of god until the people had all passed out of the city then the king said to zadok carry the ark of god back into the city if i find favor in the eyes of the lord he will bring me back and let me see both it and his dwelling place but if he says i have no pleasure in you behold here i am let him do to me what seems good to him the king also said to zadok the priest are you not a seer go back to the city in peace with your two sons ahamas your son and jonathan the son of abby arthur see i will wait at the forge of the wilderness until word comes back from you to inform me so zayd out and abiathar carried the ark of god back to jerusalem and they remained there but david went up the ascent of the mount of olives weeping as he went barefoot and with his head covered and all the people who were with him covered their heads and they went up weeping as they went and it was told david a hippophel is among the conspirators with absalom and david said oh lord please turn the council of a hitherfell into foolishness while david was coming to the summit where god was worshiped behold hush i the archive came to meet him with his coat torn and dirt on his head david said to him if you go on with me you will be a burden to me but if you return to the city and say to absalom i will be your servant o king as i have been your father servant in time past so now i will be your servant then you will defeat for me the council of a are hithert zadok and abeather the priests with you there so whatever you hear from the king's house tell it to zadok and abiath or the priests behold their two sons are with them there ahimas zadar's son and jonathan a beathard's son and by them you shall send to me everything you hear so hush i david's friend came into the city just as absalom was entering jerusalem our gracious god we thank you that you have given us your word we thank you for the presence of the holy spirit and we ask that he might illumine to us the pages of your word and that beyond a mere human voice we may hear your voice the voice of the living god the one upon whose words we depend and we ask it in christ's name amen well some of us have been on this journey journey for a long time others have made intermittent visits to it and some perhaps are here for the first time the story that we've been discovering together is the story of god setting his king david on his holy hill as the psalmist puts it in psalm 2 but along the journey of life things have begun to creak and to crumble and now we have discovered that this kingdom that has been promised to david is at least on a shaky basis and collapse seems almost to be inevitable not simply a collapse as a result of what is going on outside of that kingdom but actually as a result of what is taking place inside the kingdom and ammon has been killed by absalom and absalom has been away for a while in hiding and as we saw last time he has returned absalom is now the focus of things he actually is made the focus as of the first verse of chapter 13 which we didn't make much of but it begins now absalom david's son had a beautiful sister and that really is the introduction to us of a long section in which we find ourselves which ends of course with the tragic death of absalom himself he had been he is actually quite a patient fellow in some respects he had waited for two years to avenge the death of tamar his sister he had then managed to spend three years uh in the company of his maternal grandfather and he had then returned to jerusalem as we saw and he was able to wait for two years uh before he uh got into a meeting with david and although that ended uh with a kiss from david it was clear as we ended our study last time that the gulf that exists between david as the king and absalom the pretender to the throne is a significant golf and so chapters 13 and 14 are really a prelude to all that we now discover in chapter 15. and as we had absalom in our sights at the end of 14 so here he is at the beginning again now the focus is entirely on him if this we were making a film of this then the opening scenes of this particular movie would just be absolutely filled uh with screen time for absalom which as we're about to discover is exactly the way that absalom would like for it to be it was going to suit his purpose now let me give to you the three words that i have used to guide myself through the first 12 verses the first word is persona the second word is politics and the third word is plot all right so persona why well because we are given to us absalom's persona his public image is distinct from his private character and that ought to give to his immediate cause for concern we saw last time and again we didn't make much of it back in verse 25 of chapter 14 that there wasn't a man in all of israel who was as talked about as absalom when it came to being handsome when it came to having good looks when it came to being a striking personality in fact the story writer tells us that there wasn't a blemish in him from head to toe uh ever everything apparently was as perfect as it could possibly be and he had a peculiarly significant head of hair so much so that that features in the description of his persona and apparently on the day the annual day when he had his haircut his visit to the barber was quite an occasion and when they weighed his hair they were all astounded that somebody could have made their way through the past 12 months carrying all of that on the top of their head now with that as the description of his physical frame we then read and look at how 15 begins after this after this that simply i don't think gives us the time frame which it obviously does it tells us that this took place after these events had taken place but after this after what while after at least some measure of reconciliation after he had met up with david after there had been the kiss as a symbol of that reconciliation after that he then got himself a chariot i i think it's an amazing uh beginning to the whole story isn't it it seems almost funny after this absalom got himself a chariot he said to himself you know what i think i'm going to get a chariot. well what do you want a chariot for there's nowhere to ride the thing you live in jerusalem no but i think it looked good i mean i think i'd look good in a chariot don't you he's he's talking to himself now and himself says yeah i think you look great in a chariot and how about some horses well of course you need horses what are you going to do just have it as a monument and sit in it no no we'll have horses and you know what let's have 50 men to trot out in front of us everywhere we call so that no matter where we go everyone will say here he is here comes absalom now what is he doing is actually building his image he is establishing his brand he is making sure that he has style style when i wrote that in my notes i said to myself this reminds me of huckleberry finn remember in huckleberry finn that great encounter where he's having a conversation with a girl he keeps telling lies he gets himself worse and worse and worse he tells a lie about the church he tells a lie about the pastor she said but that wasn't the pastor he said no it was another pastor she says well how many pastors are there oh he says i think there's 17 pastors oh she says why would they want 17 pastors what do they all do he says oh not much they take up the offering they do different things well then she says well what are they for and then he says why they're for style don't you know anything and that's it right here what's the chariot for it's for style now let's stand too far back from this the cult of celebrity is not something that is just out there in the social media world the cult of celebrity has not been abolished from the church world the cult of celebrity pastors while i was sitting at my desk and thinking about this i received actually out of the blue an email from someone and in the course of the email not knowing where i'm sitting not knowing what i'm doing not knowing what i'm thinking part of the email says this i have become wearied of unusually younger men wanting to be somebody instead of being willing to be a nobody who simply loves the people he serves both inside and outside the pulpit weary of those of us wanting to become a somebody just like absalom now those of you who have been on the journey for a long time will perhaps have a little bell going off in your head and you've remembered something from way back you need to go find it i did i finally found it and i can help you it's in chapter eight and it's when samuel responds in first samuel to the desire on the part of the people for a king you will remember that samuel was not keen on that idea he didn't like the idea he was a judge and so on and on that occasion he issues a warning to the people he says you know if you want to follow through on this and have a king like all the other nations because that was the key we want to be like everybody else we want to be as the nations of the world if you get a king like all the other nations then you need to just you need to know this that he will have chariots and horsemen to run before him now you may have been saying to yourself as we've gone through i'm seeing a lot of chariots the chariots actually we had a thing about chariots and david was burning some of them he was setting them aside they were actually of no particular use at all in the territory in which they were waging warfare and certainly not in the context of jerusalem but here we have it samuel issues the warning and here we find that absalom is in the wrong side of psalm 20 verse 7. some trust in chariots and some trust in horses but we trust in the name of the lord our god absalom is on the wrong side of the fence building his persona secondly what about his politics because he is a politician there is no question about that and a pretty good one depending on your perspective he is obviously more there is more to him than simply creating news about him and his objective is to usurp the role and the rule of his father it is to see himself in the position of king and you will notice that in verse 7 we're told that again his patience is displayed because for four years he was working to build his base this doesn't just pop up out of nowhere where he gets a chariot and decides uh it's time to go no over a period of four years he was working the crowd he was laying the foundation he was preparing for this opportunity and we're told what he was doing uh whenever people came to the city gate which was the place where the king would execute judgments it would deal with matters of justice and so on uh he decides absalom decides well what i will do is i'll position myself in the thoroughfare that leads to the city gate so that when people are coming there looking for judgment looking for the king i will be able to intercept them and that is exactly what he does and we need work all the way through it he says to them from what city are you that's there in verse 2 and when they answered that he would say to them you know you have a very strong case are you you have a very strong case but you know what you only have a slim chance of getting any resolution to it because frankly there's nobody here who can give you a resolution to it however if only i were to become notice very carefully he doesn't say oh if only i were to become the king that might be a bit precipitous no no no no if only if i were to become the judge well the only one who judges is the king so he knows what he's saying if only i were to become the judge then i'd be able to settle all the matters fair and square is we're used to this aren't we you breathe a spirit of discontent and then you offer yourself as the answer to the discontentedness i mean you don't have much of a chance of being heard well some of the people love this so much they obviously began to pay him homage and whenever a man verse 5 came near to pay homage to him he would say oh don't do that no now he's going to be a man of the people you don't need to bow down before me come shake my hand let me give you a hug you know people began to say what a nice fellow he is what a super chap not like the other one you can never see him i don't know where he is but he's always out there a fine fellow but actually we are told what was really going on in the final sentence of verse six absalom stole the hearts of the men of israel that's what he was setting out to do and that's what he was successful in doing so his persona is established his politics are fairly uh straightforward and not unusual and the plot is then given to us in verse seven and following again you will notice that it is at the end of four years four years during which time he's been able to sow the seeds of discord and discontent four years during which he's had enough time if you like to turn his resentment into courage previously he had waited two four two full years you will remember to finally invigo a situation where he got into the presence of the king and now four years have elapsed now he comes to tell david the king that he had made a promise to god and he had made a vow now clearly this is an unbelievable story um if i were david i would have said how why is it taking so long for you to pay your vow you make a vow to god and take you four years to finally get around to it what's that about and why are you going to hebron and can you make a vow to god in jerusalem i mean god is everywhere but there is no there is not there is no pushback it's interesting actually because remember in the sheepsheaders incident uh david says to now wait a minute hang on but in this case it just flows through why heparin well hebron had a history hebron was the royal city before jerusalem hebron is abraham's base hebron is where david was first anointed as king this fellow 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 doing in verses 8 and 9 where he says i vowed and if the lord will bring me back to jerusalem then i will offer worship to the lord he's essentially taking the lord's name in vain actually as i read it through and you can check to see if i'm right on this this is the last time he ever mentions god in the whole story of the balance of his life the only the only time he mentions god and he does so deviously he takes his name in vain now the response of david is striking is it not the king verse 9 said to him go in peace this is either an expression of the trusting nature of david's character or perhaps that he's just weary of the whole procedure or that he is supremely confident in his own position choose one of the above i've already made my choice go in peace do you want to know something else interesting these are the last recorded words of david to his son the last recorded words to his son shalom go how ironic that he would be invited to go in peace when actually what he was going to do was make war not love and you will notice that he is strategic in what he's doing absalom sent secret messengers throughout all the tribes of israel so he's working the system and he is making it secure so that when the right moment comes for the trumpet to be sounded then the cry can go up throughout these various tribes absalom is king at hebron he takes with him we're told in verse 11 200 men from jerusalem who were invited guests they went in their innocence and they knew nothing they knew nothing at all but it also would have looked good it would have looked as though he had a real company and so on and then just to add to the corruption of it all he has managed to secure a hiffelfel the gilanite david's counselor as one of the key players in his strategy now a hiphophil interestingly was bathsheba's grandfather and how it is that a hiphophil makes this shift from being a key member of david's cabinet to becoming part of this insurrection there remains a question it possibly be that a hiphophil resented the fact that david the king who is supposed to execute justice did nothing to execute justice in fact what he executed was the very reverse and the impact that he had on a hifel's family was going to be felt forever and a day well i leave it with you there you have the first 12 verses a hitherfell gives all of his skill all of his experience that had been so valued by david and puts it at the disposal of absalom and the rebellion well what is the response what is the reaction of david if you're reading this through for the first time some of you may have just heard it for the first time then you have the excitement of waiting to see what happens next and in verse 13 we're told that david issues the command arise and flee arise and let us flee now let's not lose sight of the fact that david knew exactly where his security lay david knew that his security did not lie in the cedar house that he had built for himself which is what he's going to be leaving behind right remember i live in a really nice cedar house and the ark of the covenant is only in a tent and we did that some time ago now his security didn't lie in his house his security didn't lie even in the mountain of the lord in fact if you want a cross-reference and it's a helpful one you can put your finger in the third psalm because if you really want to know where his confidence lay you can find out because he pens the third psalm which we're told is a psalm of david when he fled from absalom his son so we're not in any doubt oh lord how many are my foes many are rising against me many are saying of my soul there is no salvation for him in god here we go where's his security but you o lord are a shield about me you are the glory and the lifter up of my head well you say that should be enough then shouldn't it he knows that his security is not in the mountain it's not in the house it's in the lord so what are you running for if you're secure why would you run because he's sensible as well as secure and he explains exactly why very very clearly so let's get out of here because it wouldn't do for us to be besieged remember he's a military commander he knows you don't allow yourself to be trapped somewhere when the forces are coming against you that's just not sensible no matter how much you say you the lord is a shield about you the lord does not disengage your brains when he promises to you security he expects you to exercise your wisdom the wisdom that he has given you and that's exactly what he does and so he says we're going to prevent the possibility of us all taking down at the edge of the sword verse 14 and in verse 15 his servants responding to them say we are ready to do whatever my lord the king decides actually you might just want to notice the emphasis on king there in those three verses it comes again and again and the king's servants said to the king my lord the king decides then the king went out and the king left the concubines and the king went out now remember we've said that repetition when we're reading the old testament is there in order to help us grasp things and so it's being said again remember as you read the story who the king is he's the king the king the king the king the king david is the king he has been said by the father by god on his holy hill it is god who has promised him a house remember you're concerned about a house for me i will build a household for you keep that in mind and look again at verse 16. so the king went out and all his household with him well the lord has promised him that he will build his household and now it looks as though the entire household is collapsing one son is dead the other one is seeking an insurrection and so he says what we're going to do is we're all going to go but we'll leave these 10 concubines behind don't read too far ahead but that was going to prove to be a really bad decision on his part especially as it related to absalom but actually the king goes out and all the people go after him we're beginning actually to see the king the way he used to be the king a little more decisive he has he knows exactly what it is to be a fugitive he's done well as a fugitive in the past he's not unaware of the wilderness he's spent many times in the wilderness and so on their way they go and then we're told and they halted at the last house it's an interesting little note isn't it again you see when we think about the way in which the story is told to us there's nothing extraneous in it why would you stop at the last house well we're told that they stopped at the last house in order that they might have a march past the military people know what a march past is i know what a march past is because i used to be a life boy boys are very good for you but we used to go on sundays on parade and when we went on parade after the church service we had a march passed and the minister would come out to the front of the church and a couple of the officers as well and then the entire group of pathetic little life boys would march past out in the front of the street and they would look to see what they had in their little company and we felt very proud of the fact that we were part of the assembled force so to speak that is exactly what is happening here but at a far far higher level they are on the outskirts of the city it's the last post if you like and so all the servants of david passed by him and notice who's here the cherethites the pelothites and 600 of the gites from gath now isn't that just fascinating remember when he had spent that time in gath remember when he was running away he decided if i go into enemy territory i might be safer in enemy territory than i am here it was quite a move and clearly it impressed many people and during that time he picked up many friends and establish for himself a base that extended even beyond the tribes of israel and what we actually are discovering here is that these foreigners for foreigners they wear were now actually more faithful to the king than the king's own people his kingdom collapses and the foreigners pick up the pieces now years after this isaiah is going to prophesy you can read it in isaiah chapter 2 of a day that will come when all the nations of the world will flow up to the mountain of god rivers don't flow up rivers flow down but what an amazing picture running against the the tide of history running against the normal expectations there will come a day says the prophet when the nations of the world will flow to the place of god's authority now then go from there from the prophets go into bethlehem go beyond bethlehem follow jesus as he moves around listen to him as the centurion comes and says to him i need your help and jesus responds to him remember the centurion says you know well listen you can just say and it will be fine because i have servants and i say to one man go and he goes and i say to another man come as he comes and remember what what jesus says he says i have never found faith like this in all of israel it's a foreigner that tells us this and then jesus says truly with no one in israel have i found such faith i tell you many listen to this listen i tell you many will come from east and from west and recline at table with abraham isaac and jacob in the kingdom of heaven and here all these years before pushed persecuted humiliated debased the king's struggles out and on and in the company of those whom god in his purposes has assigned to his army behold the mountain of the lord in latter days shall rise or perhaps just one further little observation i just wrote in my notes go back go back okay go on let me say where did you get that from well just from the text then the king said to itai the getite why would you go with us speaking as a representative of the 600 go back notice stay with the king stay with the king but you're the king well not according to the people around here he's the future stay with the king you're a foreigner you're in exile you've only just shown up and now i'm going to ask you to wander about with us and i don't even know where so again he says go back and take your brothers with you and may the lord show steadfast love and faithfulness to you because that's what you need that's what you need you need to know the covenant love of god you need to know god is steadfast you need to know that god is faithful don't you suggest don't you feel that david is speaking to himself you know when you press something on somebody you say you know what you need you find yourself saying this is exactly what i need i need to be reminded of the fact that your steadfast love never ceases that your mercy's never come to an end that you are the faithful god who has established me i'm in this predicament now there is no question about that and a lot of it is all of my own doing i made those foolish choices i am in this mess but you are a faithful god it i you need to know that i'm concerned it's i about your spiritual welfare but it i verse 21 said to the king as the lord lives and as my lord the king lives wherever my lord the king shall be whether for death or for life there also will your servant be and david says well then in that case go on so it i the guitar passed on with all this man and all the little ones who were with him and all the people and the land wept aloud well we'll need to come back to this in the evening to do justice to the chapter i think you would recognize that um a statement there sounds a lot like uh another foreigner not a man but a lady you got her ruth the moabitess naomi sister go back go back you come with me i'm triple bereaved go back she says no remember and treat me not to leave thee or to return from following after thee for where 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 i says the same thing he basically says well in that case i'm going to trust in god are you trusting in god your life your family your future that's the question let us pray lord help us to lay hold of that which you provide for us in the food of your word as we realize that we have here now something of an unfinished symphony we pray lord that you will help us that in the balance of our thinking we may ponder these truths we live in a very political world discontented and with solutions provided on all sides with the pomp and ceremony of strategy devoid of character lord help us to affirm today that we do want to trust in you as you have made provision for us in jesus for we ask it in jesus name amen

Channel: Parkside Church

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Keywords: Church, Parkside, Bible, Teaching, Alistair Begg, God, Jesus, Sermon

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Length: 42min 18sec (2538 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 04 2021