Hope From the Word

Guest (Male): Maybe you're tempted today to get back at someone and exact a little revenge, but God doesn't want you to take matters into your own hands. We're about to see an example of revenge gone wrong on today's Hope From the Word. Here's Pastor Bill Luebkemann talking about Absalom's problem.

Bill Luebkemann: But he's got this problem of bitterness. He's bitter because his sister was raped by his brother, and his father didn't do anything about it. And he's bitter that after two whole years of his father not doing anything about it, when he did something about it, it managed to get him banished. And he was banished for a period of years. And now he's been back in Jerusalem for a period of years, but he's only recently been able to see the king's face, and he doesn't have much of a relationship. And you can see that this guy, Absalom, is not a happy camper.

Guest (Male): Do you ever feel as though the whole world is against you? That's the sort of feeling David must have had in this season of life. He was experiencing family trouble, a friend's betrayal, and a troubled nation. But God never left his side through it all, and that's all that matters.

We'll learn from this heartbreaking season of David's life today here on Hope From the Word. Let's join Pastor Bill Luebkemann in 2 Samuel chapter 15 and take a closer look at David's son, Absalom.

Bill Luebkemann: So last time we looked at chapters 13 and 14, and we saw how Amnon, who was the firstborn of David, raped his half-sister Tamar. And Tamar's full brother Absalom was none too happy about it. And Absalom, because King David did nothing after two years, Absalom took it upon himself to kill his half-brother Amnon, firstborn of David, in retaliation or revenge or as payback for what David did to his sister.

And we saw that David mourned the loss of his firstborn son, and Absalom ran off to another town where he stayed for quite some time. And we saw in chapter 14 this whole ploy put together by Joab, who was the commander of the army, to bring Absalom back to Jerusalem. And he came back to Jerusalem in chapter 14. He lived there for something like three years, but he never saw David's face. David said, "Well, he can come back to Jerusalem, but I'm not going to talk to him." Finally, at the end of chapter 14, Absalom does get an audience with his father, King David.

And so, as we enter here chapter 15, I want to remember or think about or consider Absalom's mindset, what he was going through or thinking. If you look back in 2 Samuel chapter 3, you'll see the firstborn to David was Amnon, and the second-born Kileab, and the third-born Absalom. And Amnon is dead now, and Kileab is never mentioned again except here where it says he was born, so nobody really knows what happened to that guy. But it's thought that perhaps he passed away at a young age. And it's most likely that Absalom was the oldest son right now.

So rightfully, he may have been thinking he's next in line for the throne because he's the oldest son of the king. And he may have and he probably had some legitimate reason for thinking that. But he's also got this problem of bitterness. He's bitter because his sister was raped by his brother, and his father didn't do anything about it. And he's bitter that after two whole years of his father not doing anything about it, when he did something about it, it managed to get him banished.

And he was banished for a period of years. And now he's been back in Jerusalem for a period of years, but he's only recently been able to see the king's face, and he doesn't have much of a relationship. So this strained relationship really between him and his father has been going on for maybe six or eight or ten or twelve years—a very long time. And you can see that this guy Absalom is not a happy camper. He's bitter. He thinks he's going to be the king next. He thinks, "Well, I can do a better job than my father, certainly be more fair than my father. My father doesn't mete out justice. My sister got raped, he did nothing about it."

And so he starts to think about ways that he can take the throne here a little sooner, which was quite a bit different than the way his father was. Father David was anointed king but waited 20 or 25 or maybe 30 years until he actually was able to take the throne—certainly 20 years anyway. He didn't do anything to speed it up. David didn't. Many opportunities that David had to kill Saul, who was king before him, and he didn't do it. He allowed God to work.

And you see here Absalom quite the opposite, not allowing God to work. Absalom deciding to take matters into his own hands. He's bitter. He's unhappy. He's the crown prince. You can understand why he did what he did. You can understand why he'd be frustrated that his sister got raped and nothing was done about it. You can understand why he killed his half-brother, although it wasn't his place to do that. You can understand why he's mad at his father, but he's going to cross another line here when he decides to take it upon himself to try to make himself the king.

And like anybody who wants to be put in a special office, political office, this guy takes up campaigning. And this is perhaps one of the earliest recorded examples of campaigning. Chapter 15 verse 1: "In the course of time, Absalom got himself a limo and some Secret Service men. Oh, no, sorry. In the course of time, Absalom provided himself with a chariot and horses and with 50 men to run ahead of him." So he wants to present this image.

It would seem that the whole thing about political campaigns and images is also not a new idea. There are people who will run for political office today, and it's all about the image. Some of them have no record. They never did anything. They never held an office that was significant. They haven't done so long enough. Nobody knows what they're going to do. But they can speak eloquently and rapture the crowd, and they have this image, and everyone says, "Oh, we'll vote for him. We'll vote for him."

Well, that's why Israel wanted Saul to be the king, because he was this great, good-looking guy, tall, commanding presence. They thought, "Well, what a great guy he's going to be," and he was, as it turned out, an ungodly king. David, on the other hand, the youngest son when he was anointed king, the least likely in his family, and yet he was the one that God chose. So you see a very clear difference between what kind of person God chooses—in David's case, a man who is after God's own heart—as opposed to Saul, which was a man who was, I guess, after his own heart.

And in this case here, Absalom beginning his campaign here by putting together this image that he's an important guy. He's got a chariot. He's got horses. He's got 50 men to run ahead of him. So people would say, "Oh, here comes Absalom! Boy, this guy must be important. Look at him. He's got the limo and the Secret Service guys and the helicopter and whatever. He must be something." And so it buys credibility, really. That's what he was doing with it. That's what politicians do with it today.

The image, the credibility. We must be something because we've been here or been there, and you look at really what they did and they really didn't do anything. Some of these politicians today never worked an honest job, never held a hammer, didn't build anything, make anything, didn't contribute to the economy at all, didn't do anything to help the gross national product at all. They just simply are good-looking and people vote for them because they're silly. And this guy here, Absalom, is setting out with that whole thing here, this image campaign.

He would get up early and stand by the side of the road leading to the city gate. Now, you know often the city gate is where the elders of the city did the judging. So if you had a dispute with your neighbor where they ripped you off or you ripped them off or whatever, you would go see the elders at the city gate for a ruling. And in ancient times, if you weren't happy with what the elders at your city said, you could oftentimes appeal to the king.

So here at the city gate of Jerusalem, there might have been the elders that might have been sitting out there from time to time, but furthermore, within the city was King David himself. And so you could appeal to the elders, you could appeal to King David. And what he did is he went out and he stood along the road that led to the city gate. In other words, he got the people before they got to the city gate. They're coming down the road, they want to see the king, they're fighting with their neighbor or something, and he's out there early in the morning, catching them. You got to give him credit for working hard and having the wherewithal to be a self-starter.

And he would get up early and he would stand by the road. And then when someone came with a complaint to be placed before the king for a decision, he would call out to them, "What town are you from?" And they would answer and tell him, "Your servant is from one of the tribes of Israel." In other words, "I'm from this town" or "I'm from that town." Whoever it was coming, he'd say, "Hey, what town are you from?" "Oh, I'm from over here, I'm from over there, I'm from this town, Hebron," or "I'm from..."

Then Absalom would say, "Look, what are you doing here? What's going on?" "Well, my neighbor here, he sold me a car and as soon as I started it up, the door fell off and the trunk popped open." Did you see that TV commercial that's on TV now? The guy's, he bangs on the radio. He can't get the radio to work and he bangs on it really hard and then the camera backs out and about three seconds later all the doors fall off, the wheels fall off the car, just sits down. "Well, this guy sold me a car and I found out it was rusting afterwards and the door fell off and he won't make good on it."

"Or he sold me a horse and it was dead, or he sold me a mule." Did you hear about the farmer that went into town and he didn't have much money, his horse died, and he went into town and he went to where they kept the horses and he said, "I only have 100 dollars." And this other farmer said, "Well, I can't give you much for 100 dollars. I can just give you this one old horse nearing retirement age." And so the guy said, "Well, I need to plow my fields, I'll take what I can get." He gave the guy 100 dollars.

And the farmer said, "Can you hold the horse one more day so I can come back with a trailer or something to pick up the horse in?" So the next day he went back to pick up his 100 dollar horse and the guy that sold it to him said, "I really hate to tell you this, but last night your horse died. But I'd be happy to give you back the 100 dollars. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. You paid me 100 bucks, you didn't take delivery, I'll give you back the 100 dollars." And the guy said, "Nope, nope, nope, a deal is a deal." And he took the dead horse, went to his farm, paid the 100 dollars, took his dead horse home with him.

And some time later, the horse salesman got to wondering how this farmer was doing, and he went out to his farm and he noticed the guy was driving a brand new 4,000 dollar John Deere mega tractor and had no more need of horses. And he said to the guy, "I don't understand. How'd you get this thing? You didn't have any money. You only had 100 dollars to buy a horse. This thing costs 4,000." The guy said, "Well, easy, I had a raffle. I raffled off farm equipment. I sold 2,000 raffle tickets for two dollars apiece. And the winner got the dead horse." And the farmer that sold him the dead horse said, "Well, weren't they mad?" "Well, just the guy who won. I gave him back his two dollars."

I'm sure I could have done a better job with that. But I made 3,998 dollars off the other 1,999 people and got my John Deere mega tractor thing. Look, these people would come to town here, and this was the way they got justice. It was probably a cleaner system than we have today. Sometimes today you never get justice, and if you do, it might take forever. Lawsuits go on for years. Here you went down, you saw the king.

But what Absalom did is he would go out on the road, stop these people before they got there, and he would make friends with them. "I want to be your buddy. How can I help you? What are you doing here anyway?" And they'd tell him their sad tale of woe, and then Absalom would say, "Look, your claims are valid and proper. Too bad the king doesn't have any time for you. Too bad the king doesn't have anyone here to take care of you." Now, I don't know if the king did or didn't, but he caught these people before they got to the city gate. He may have been turning them away before they got to the king.

And Absalom would add to this, "Not only is it too bad that there's no one here to help you, but if only I were appointed judge in the land! Then everyone who had a complaint could come to me and I would see that he gets justice." He said, "If I was just a judge!" You know, you could look in this and say, "Well, why wasn't David out there saying, 'What in the world are you doing, son? Get back inside'?" You could wonder why wasn't David following up on this, and why didn't David challenge him.

But maybe David did challenge him, because he didn't have to admit what he was doing here. He could have said, "Hey, I'm just trying to help the people, Dad! That's all. Just these people need help, I'm out there, I'm just trying to help them. If you would make me a judge, then I could help them." Well, whatever happened between him and his father, why his father didn't put a stop to this or even if he knew about it, I don't know. But I do know he was buttering up, trying to get close to, be friendly with, reach out to.

This is nothing more than kissing babies and shaking hands. You know, going to a factory when the bell goes and all the people go by and you shake their hand. "Hi, I'm running for office. I hope you'll vote for me. I don't care anything at all about you and I'll never see you again, and I don't know your name and if you tell me, I'll forget it in five minutes, but I sure would appreciate your vote." And that's what this guy was doing here.

But also, it says in verse 5, whenever anyone approached him to bow down before him, Absalom would reach out his hand, take hold of him, and kiss him. In other words, he didn't even let them bow down to him. You bow down to the king. "No, no, get up! Give me a hug! I love you so much. I'll give you a kiss. We're brothers, we're equals," and make the person feel like, "Wow, he really cares about me!"

And you can see that that goes on in campaigns as well because there's not a politician that's been alive in the last 100 years that cares about anybody except themselves. Maybe there's three in the whole world or something. Well, this guy here was doing the same thing. He'd reach out his hand, take hold of them, kiss them, and he behaved this way toward all the Israelites who came to the king asking for justice. And so he stole the hearts of the men of Israel.

You know, what he wanted was to be king. Only thing is, it wasn't his choice to decide which of the sons of David would get the throne. Who knows? Maybe if he hadn't done this, maybe he would have been the next king. And he headed off these people at the gate. He got in good with them. He convinced them that David didn't care, that nobody was going to help them. "If I could just—if I was just the guy here! Man, if I just got elected, you know, we'd have plenty of gas and global warming would stop and the moon would even go backwards and rewind itself."

You know, this was flattery, if you will. It was kind of like making friends with the boss. It's having your own agenda, that kind of thing. And that's what Absalom was all about. And this went on for quite a while. In fact, four years, it says in verse 7: "At the end of four years, Absalom said to the king, 'Let me go to Hebron and fulfill a vow I made to the Lord. While your servant was living at Geshur in Aram, I made this vow: "If the Lord takes me back to Jerusalem, I will worship the Lord in Hebron."'" The king said to him, "Go in peace." So he went to Hebron.

So now, either there was some kind of vow here or he's lying. I'm not really sure which. But David had ruled in Hebron for seven years before he came to Jerusalem where he was now ruling and where he did rule for 33 years. And Absalom's saying, "Look, when I was banished and when I never was allowed to come back to Jerusalem, I made this vow. I made this pledge, this commitment to the Lord. And I said, 'If you ever get me back, Lord, to Jerusalem, then I'm going to make this vow or this pledge. I'm going to go to Hebron and fulfill this vow.'"

While your servant was living at Geshur in Aram, I made this vow. If the Lord takes me back to Jerusalem, I will worship the Lord in Hebron. So I think I said he was living in Hebron; he wasn't, he was living in Geshur. That's where he was when he was somewhat banished, but he made this pledge or this commitment, or so he says. And he tells this to his father. "I promised the Lord I would do this if I ever got back." So he hoodwinks his father.

And his father says, "Go in peace." Isn't that amazing? Because what he's about to do is try to kill his father. It's very foolish to try to kill someone who just told you to go in peace, especially when the person who told you that is the king, and especially when the person who told you that is the king that God anointed and made the king, and you're not. And somehow this guy has somehow got things twisted around in his mind that he thinks that somehow he can be entitled to or deserves or should have this throne of his father.

God made David the king, and God was very capable of deposing David and making someone else the king when He was good and ready to do so. And God does things on His own timetable, not the same as ours. Well, this guy Absalom was trying to bring about his own taking over being king. So he was trying to bring about his own will, and he was trying to do it in his own timing, and he was trying to do it his own way. And everything that you read about this is the flesh, the flesh, the flesh. This is his humanness. This is him doing this because it's what he wants, it's what he desires, it's what he's lusting after—the power, that the people would look up to him, come and kiss him, bow down before him, whatever.

Then Absalom, now he says to his father, "I want to go and worship the Lord. I made this pledge, I made this vow to the Lord that I would do this," and his father says, "Go in peace." So he went to Hebron. But meanwhile, he's secretly on the side putting his plan into action. Verse 10: "Then Absalom sent secret messengers throughout the tribes of Israel to say, 'As soon as you hear the sound of the trumpets, then say, "Absalom is king in Hebron."'"

200 men from Jerusalem had accompanied Absalom. They had been invited as guests and went quite innocently, knowing nothing about the matter. While Absalom was offering sacrifices, he also sent for Ahithophel the Gilonite, David's counselor, to come from Gilo, his hometown. And so the conspiracy gained strength and Absalom's following kept on increasing. So this guy puts this plan into action. It's been four years. He's been thinking about this for a long time. He's been planning it for a long time. He's been wanting to do this for a long time.

And finally, he puts it into action, and he sends the secret messengers throughout all the tribes of Israel to spread the word around. This is like posting something on your blog or putting it on your website or putting it on the front page of the New York Times or whatever. He sent secret messengers and said, "Look, when you hear the sound of the trumpets, then say, 'Absalom is king in Hebron.'" We're going to start blowing trumpets, and as that spreads around the land, that's going to be your cue that Absalom is king.

Now, he was deceiving people because it says here that 200 men from Jerusalem went with him. They thought they were guests. And they were going along quite innocently. And maybe they thought this was all okay. You know, David was getting older. This guy is, after all, the crown prince, you know, the oldest son. God's promoting him. People like something that's new. They like somebody that's younger that has pizzazz and that cares about them or at least pretends to care about them. And someone that's old and tired and worn out and whatever, they don't like as much. And so here's David and here's Absalom, and some people may have been truly deceived into thinking this was all an orderly transition of power that David had orchestrated himself.

Guest (Male): You've been listening to Hope From the Word. We're currently in a study of 2 Samuel. You can hear this message or more Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann by going to ccmarlton.org. Pastor Bill's messages can also be found by downloading the Hope FM app on your smartphone or tablet. Or if you'd prefer to listen via podcast, go wherever you find your podcasts and sign up there.

We'd love to have you join us at Calvary Chapel of Marlton either in person or online. Our Sunday service begins at 10:00 AM, and there's a Wednesday evening service at 7:00. To catch us online, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel at Calvary Chapel of Marlton, or just go to our website for the link at ccmarlton.org.

And if you'd take a moment to write to Pastor Bill, it would be such a blessing to us. We're thankful each and every time we hear what God is doing in our listeners' lives, and we want to pray for you, too. Either email us through the website at ccmarlton.org or call 856-983-1662. We'll continue our study in 2 Samuel next time on Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann, a presentation of Calvary Chapel of Marlton.