Have you ever witnessed a scene like this? You drive up to a crosswalk and stop because there is a pedestrian. But as that person starts to make his way to the other side of the road, you nervously watch a car in the opposite lane. The driver of this car doesn’t seem to see that there is a pedestrian about to step across his lane. In fact he flies through the crosswalk almost hitting the individual! If there is no police officer to witness the scene and pull the careless driver over, he’ll just continue his reckless ways.
I think we can all agree that there should be consequences for reckless driving. So why do we complain when there are consequences for our reckless words and actions? The author of the New Testament book of Hebrews chided his readers: “And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says, ‘My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, 6 because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.’ Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children…God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. 11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:5-6, 10b-11).
In our Agents of Grace sermon today, we’ll see how God used the rebellious Absalom to chastise King David for his sins against Uriah. God gave David a taste of hell at the hands of Absalom so that he would never give up striving for heaven. Let’s find out more.
Last Sunday we learned how David committed the sins of adultery and murder. He eventually repented and was assured of forgiveness, but he also learned that there would be consequences for his sins. His pastor Nathan relayed this message from God: “Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own… Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity on you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will sleep with your wives in broad daylight.12 You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel” (2 Samuel 12:10-12).
Those words were fulfilled years later when David’s third oldest son, Absalom, rebelled. Absalom was handsome, but also very vain. He quietly stole the hearts of the people by sitting at the gate in Jerusalem and intercepting those who had come to see King David. Absalom would ask them their business, then sigh and say, “If only there was someone willing to listen to you, then you would get justice. Look, King David doesn’t care about you, but now if I were king…”
When Absalom felt he had enough support, he proclaimed himself king and advanced on Jerusalem. David was forced to flee just like the days when King Saul had pursued him. Only then David had been much younger. Plus now one of David’s most trusted advisors had gone over to Absalom. He instructed Absalom to sleep with the concubines David had left behind because this would make Absalom look as if he had control of his father’s domain. The humiliation David must have felt, should have reminded him of how he had humiliated Uriah by sleeping with his wife Bathsheba. It’s no wonder David wept as he climbed the Mt. of Olives, the hill opposite of Jerusalem. And his suffering only increased when a relative of King Saul’s hurled rocks, clods of dirt, and insults at David as he fled. David took all this as fulfillment of what Nathan had promised: consequences for his sins against Uriah.
David took refuge on the eastern side of the Jordan River and that’s where Absalom caught up with him. Although David himself had wanted to lead the fight against the rebels, his men wouldn’t let him. But as his army marched out, David pleaded with each one of his generals to deal gently with Absalom. David’s army routed Absalom, killing 20,000 of the rebels. Absalom himself fled and as he did, his head got caught in the branch of a tree where he was suspended in midair. When General Joab heard about this, he stabbed Absalom to death, in spite of David’s plea to deal with Absalom gently. David of course should have been happy at his army’s victory. Instead he wept bitterly for his son. David was so sad that Joab had to tell David to get hold of himself or he would lose the support of his men. This was all part of God’s chastisement for David, who had not shed a single tear when Uriah died. David now understood the grief that Uriah’s family must have felt.
OK, but doesn’t God come off as being petty? David had already confessed his sins, why put him through such angst years later? And are we to understand that Absalom was some sort of fall guy—used by God to teach David a lesson? Let’s start with that question first. The New Testament book of James is clear, God does not tempt us to sin (James 1:13). Therefore when Absalom made his plans to rebel against his father, those plans came from his own sinful heart. But God decided to use that sin to chastise David for his own sins.
But why bother if David had already repented? Because the sinful nature doesn’t respond to the encouragement of the gospel like the new man does. The sinful nature is a bully, and it only responds to being bullied. David needed to experience just how damaging his sins had been so that he wouldn’t give in to them as easily the next time. You see, God treats us the way a good coach treats his team. When they’re not executing a play the way they should, a good coach won’t just keep yelling at the players. He’ll stop the play and make the team run sprints. He’s not punishing the players. He’s simply getting them to realize that there are consequences for sloppy play! Better to experience those painful consequences in practice, rather than in a game where sloppy play will lead to a loss. Or compare God’s actions to that of a parent who holds a child’s hand close to a hot stove so the child gets an idea of how dangerous it really is to play near the stove. The motivation behind such an action is love. That’s why we can say that Absalom was an agent of God’s grace, not his anger.
Is there an Absalom in your life? If you gave your parents all sorts of grief as a child, you might be in for the same challenge from your children. The experience should humble you, and drive you to repent for how you did act as a child. And if you never did apologize to your parents for your behavior, do so! Another way God may chastise us is by allowing us to suffer the effects of our poor choices. If we drink and drive, we may get into an accident. If we do drugs, it may cause us to lose a job and we may have to put up with poor health later on. If you cheat on a test and get caught, you could lose your scholarship.
When bad things like that happen, it’s easy to conclude that God is punishing us. But he’s not! He’s chastising us. What’s the difference? If God were to punish us for our sins, we would end up in hell, forever separated from his love. God doesn’t want that to happen so he chastises us when we stray from his Word so that we won’t keep playing with sin.
We can be certain that God does not punish us for our sins because he’s already punished Jesus for them. We’ve been drawing parallels between the Old Testament characters we’ve been learning about and between our savior, Jesus. Do you see any parallels in today’s story? It struck me how David wept on the Mt. Olives as he was fleeing Absalom. That is also where, 1000 years later, Jesus would weep as he thought of the suffering that awaited him in Jerusalem. The difference of course was that David had brought on his own pain, while Jesus was going to be taking on the sins of the world, and that’s why he would endure pain. Another parallel is that David was betrayed by someone close to him just as Jesus would be.
But perhaps the most interesting parallel is how David was distraught at Absalom’s death. It’s the part of the story that makes me scratch my head. Shouldn’t David have been glad, or at least relieved that his son was dead? After all his son had for years been working against his father by stealing the hearts of the people. He had openly mocked his father by sleeping with David’s concubines. And as if that wasn’t enough, Absalom had been intent on killing David! And yet when David wept for his son he went as far as saying that he would rather have died in place of Absalom! (2 Samuel 18:33)
Do you see the wonderful parallel between David and our God? Like Absalom, we secretly try to undermine our God’s authority when we insist on living according to our rules rather than his. By doing so we’re saying that it’s not enough to be counted as God’s children; we want to be God’s boss, just as Absalom was not content to be the king’s son, but wanted to be king himself. And as if secret sins were not enough, we often openly defy our God when we don’t even bother trying to hide from others how we flaunt God’s laws. Perhaps there was even a time in your life when you were just as intent on driving God from your life as Absalom was intent on killing David. While God’s angels were no doubt ready to attack us and throw us in hell for such behavior, God wept for us. He was so sad about the thought of living without us for eternity that he would rather take our place and die than let that happen. And that’s exactly what God did when he sent his Son Jesus to take our place in hell. Wow. Can there be any doubt that our God loves us?
Remember that when he’s chastising you, because Satan will say, “See I told you so. He doesn’t care about you. He just wants to rule over you and make you miserable.” No! Our God rules over us because he wants us to one day to rule with him in eternity! God chastises us to give us a taste of how fearful it would be to fall into the hands of the just God forever. That chastisement should move us to daily repentance so that in the end we are sure to fall into the arms of a loving Savior (Koester). Amen.
SERMON NOTES
List at least three things you learned about Absalom.
What was surprising about David’s reaction regarding his son Absalom’s death?
What parallels are there between David and Jesus in today’s sermon text?
How could you use today’s sermon text to speak to someone who thinks that God must be punishing her for her sins?
