FRIDAY May 13, 2016
Deviousness
Now it came to pass after forty [four] years that Absalom said to the king, “Please, let me go to Hebron and pay the vow which I made to the Lord. For your servant took a vow while I dwelt at Geshur in Syria, saying, ‘If the Lordindeed brings me back to Jerusalem, then I will serve the Lord.’” - 2 Samuel 15:7-8
Absalom had been home for only four years before his final attempt to forcefully take the kingdom for himself. He had stolen the hearts of the men of Israel. Now he came before his father in utter deceit, lies and hypocrisy to ask permission to go to Hebron. It was not for the purpose in which he intended. Paying a vow to the Lord and serving Him was the furthest thing from his evil mind.
David would gladly have given his son permission to go, as vows to the Lord were solemnly kept. It was the perfect excuse to be where he wanted. Interestingly, Hebron was the same place where David was anointed and then crowned king (2 Samuel 5:1-3), and also where Absalom was born (2 Samuel 3:2-3). Both of them were from Hebron but sadly we see before us two completely different people.
Do you see the nature of man without God? We are devious, deceptive and rebellious. Ephesians 2:1-3 describes us well before Christ:
And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath…
Who is really working in your life God or the devil?
One of the marks of spiritual rebellion is deviousness.
~Jan Barclay~
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