Parents, Protect Your Children Series

Series: “How Can I Best Love My Family?”

Sermon Two: “Parents, Protect Your Children”

Text: 2 Samuel 13

Introduction:

Well, we’re analysing David’s weakness in an effort to love our families better. And I said this last week today we’re going to address our need as parents to protect our children in general, but perhaps even from sexual offenders as I remain true to the text. I noticed as of lately, this is being a big concern in our nation. I notice this week that several states want to return to the argument for the death penalty. People want toughen laws! Sexual offenders are killing so many children. So, turn in your bibles to 2 Samuel 13. What is it that God can teach from David’s family life because that’s going to be raped?

If there were ever two questions that are the most difficult to answer in everyday conversation if you’re struggling in either category of family life, these would be the two questions: (1) how are things with your children? (2) How are things in your marriage? I wish things could be better for David, just like a wish things could be better for other parents when I at times ask these questions. Things are not good in with David’s children and things are not good among his 8 marriages. Can you imagine that? He had more wives than he could give one day a week. It’s been 13 years since Nathan the prophet told David “the sword would not depart from his home.” So, today Nathan’s prophecy proves to become painfully true. For example, how are things with your children? We’re asking the question, how can we best love our children for today’s text even thought our text is perhaps difficult to wade through.

Should we let them do whatever they want? Some parents say, “Absolutely not!” Yet, I’ve been around parents that have confessed to me, “My child should have never done such of thing,” but because they lack the desire to carry through with the proper discipline, that child goes unpunished and unlearned of the wrong that has been done. This is the problem we’re going to see in David’s family life. Yes there were rising problems in David’s family life as a result of God’s judgment upon his sin, but there were also things he could have done better to avoid a painful situation, but sources say David was far too passive as a family man. You know what I mean, slap the risk and turn the other cheek.

Transition:

“How are things with the children?” I thought the best way for me to outline my thoughts in this message would be to look at the characters as points to this message. We have three characters, - Amnon, Tamar, and David, Amnon is the abuser, Tamar is the abused, and David is the passive observer.

AMNON - ABUSER

Interpretation

First-Born

What do we know about Amnon? Well, we know he was the first born in David’s family. What do we know about first-born children? Norway did a research, which I collected from the internet, that stated first-born children tend to be more successful in school and at work than their younger siblings because their achievers. However, this is debatable! One challenger being the youngest in the family said to this website, “The oldest in my family dropped out of education, had children when she was a teen and has never had a full time job in her life.” I, however the youngest of all three, have a degree, a successful career and am childless at the age of 30. The trend may be for first-borns to be most successful, but the variation from family to family is enough to render this research absolutely and completely pointless. I wonder if the researchers were first born. Well, Amnon is the first-born, but he’s got his problems as will see. This entire section of scripture is titled, “The incest of Amnon.” so much for Norway’s research of the first-born.

A Family Plot – Vs, 1-10

(V.1) – “David’s son Absalom had a beautiful sister named Tamar. And Amnon, her half brother, fell desperately in love with her.” Now, we’re going to find out this is an incestuous type of love, a time to satisfy Amnon personal gratification. Verse 2, “Amnon became so obsessed with Tamar that he became ill. She was a virgin, and it seemed impossible that he could ever fulfill his love for her. You see what I mean? It’s an incestuous love. Verse 3, “Now Amnon had a very crafty friend—his cousin Jonadab. He was the son of David’s brother Shimea.” So, together these two men are going to plot the raping of Tamar, who was around the age of 15 or 16.

Application: