Who do you follow? I invite you to follow along as I read from 2 Samuel and chapter 15. 2 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 vowed a vow while I lived at Geshur in Aram, 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 two hundred 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 Ahithophel the Gilonite, David's counselor, from his city in Gilo.
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 Cherithites, and all the Pelethites, and all the six hundred Gittites who had followed him from Gath, passed on before the king. Then the king said to Ittai the Gittite, 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 Ittai 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 Ittai, Go then, pass on.
So Ittai the Gittite 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 Abiathar came up, and behold, Zadok 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, Ahimaz your son and Jonathan the son of Abiathar.
See, I will wait at the fords of the wilderness until word comes back from you to inform me. So Zadok 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, Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom. And David said, O LORD, please turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness. While David was coming to the summit where God was worshiped, behold, Hushai the Archite 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's servant in time past, so now I will be your servant, then you will defeat for me the counsel of Ahithophel. Are not Zadok and Abiathar the priests with you there? So whatever you hear from the king's house, tell it to Zadok and Abiathar the priests. Behold, their two sons are with them there, Ahimaaz, Zadok's son, and Jonathan, Abiathar's son. And by them you shall send to me everything you hear.
So Hushai, 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 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 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 is actually quite a patient fellow in some respects. He had waited for two years to avenge Tamar his sister. He had then managed to spend three years 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 before he got into a meeting with David. And although that ended 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 gulf. 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 we were making a film of this, then the opening scenes of this particular movie would just be absolutely filled 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 twelve 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 as 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.
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 hair cut, 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 twelve 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 fifteen begins after this. After this.
That simply, I don't think, gives us the timeframe, which it obviously does. It tells us that this took place after these events had taken place. But after this, after what?
Well, 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 think it's an amazing beginning to the whole story, isn't it? It seems almost funny. After this, Absalom got himself a chariot.
I mean, 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 I'd look good. I mean, I think I'd look good in a chariot, don't you?
He's talking to himself now. And himself says, Yeah, I think you'd 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 fifty men to trot out in front of us everywhere we go, so that no matter where we go, everyone will say, Here he is!
Here comes Absalom! Now, what is he doing? He's 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 the 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 seventeen pastors. Oh, she says, Why would they want seventeen 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 at 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 8. And it's when Samuel responds, in 1 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 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 haven't seen 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 sight 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. 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 we're told what he was doing.
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, 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. Well, some of the people loved 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. And the 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 6. 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 straightforward and not unusual. And the plot is then given to us in verse 7 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. Now, previously, he had waited two full years, you will remember, to finally inveigle 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. If I were David, I would have said, Why is it taking so long for you to pay your vow? You make a vow to God, and it's taking you four years to finally get round to it? What's that about? And why are you going to Hebron? Why Hebron? 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, 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 time he mentions God, and he does so deviously, he takes his name in vain. You're listening to Alistair Begg on Truth for Life.
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