Are you ever surprised that the Almighty God can actually use you —yes, you—in his plans and purposes? Today on Truth for Life, we'll learn how God often fulfills his plan in unexpected ways and how he uses some of the most unexpected people in the process. Alistair Begg is teaching from 2 Samuel chapter 17. that the LORD had ordained to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, so that the LORD might bring harm upon Absalom.
And we said this morning that those fourteen words in Hebrew were the key words, more significant than the forty-two words of Ahithophel's counsel or the hundred and twenty-nine words of the counsel of Hushai. And it is in light of that pivotal statement in the heart of the chapter that we then continue to follow the storyline. We follow it in the awareness that all that is unfolding is unfolding according to God's plan. According to God's plan, because it is God's plan that matters, and it is God's plan that is the only plan that actually matters. Now, we're not in any doubt about what God's plan is in this context. It is to establish David's kingdom.
And because he has determined that he will establish his kingdom, no one that stands against that kingdom will be able to prosper, in much the same way that when we come finally to King David's greater Son, namely to Jesus, the gates of hell will not be able to prevail against God's plan in God's Son. Now, we know that, but we've been led into a secret because we're reading the story. And what we need to understand is that we know what the actors in the story themselves don't know. Hushai doesn't actually know what's going on beyond the parts that he knows about what's going on. So he's actually unaware of the way in which the matter is going to be resolved.
At this point in the record, he doesn't even know whether Absalom is going to go with the Ahithophel plan or whether he is going to go with his plan. And it's important to keep that in mind. And the way in which the narrative is provided for us is in order that we might then follow the story and that we might get under the burden of it, and we might be held in suspense by it.
Now, I didn't find it very easy to diagram this or give an outline that is particularly easy to follow, but I just wrote a number of things down in my own notes. I just decided to write down, down by the riverside, down by the riverside. Because what has happened between verse 14 and verse 15 is a change of scene. It is moved now to this context where David and his group have been hanging around, if you like, and waiting. You say, Well, how do we know that?
Well, because we already learned that. If you turn back a page in your Bible to chapter 15 and to verse 28, the word was given to Zadok the priest and to Jonathan as well. Make sure to Jonathan the son of Abiathar, I will wait at the fords of the wilderness until word comes from you to inform me. If you go to verse 35, we learn there that Zadok and Abiathar the priests are with you there. He tells Hushai, and he says, So whatever you hear from the king's house, you tell it to Zadok and Abiathar the priests.
Now, that's the background. You come back to verse 15, and here we are with the process unfolding. Then Hushai said to Zadok and Abiathar the priests, This is what Ahithophel said, and this is what I have said. And so we have two competing plans.
And again, Hushai was unable to be sure that Absalom was going to heed his advice. And at this point, he doesn't know. Therefore, he recognizes that time is of the essence. And indeed, it unfolds in the anticipation that the plan of Ahithophel will actually be executed. You see that as you read on in the text. And so, because time is of the essence, he wants to make sure that everything takes place quickly.
And as you allow your eye to go down through the text, you will see that quickly is a recurring adverb, and importantly so. It's clear to us as we read on that the protracted speech of Hushai is not exactly, I would say, drawn out, but the way in which he unfolds it clearly has been a mechanism in part to buy time. Because, remember, Ahithophel said, We'll get on this tonight. Let's see what Hushai has to say. Then Hushai starts. It's like he's speaking rather slowly. Well, of course. And, you know, why are you speaking so slowly?
Well, I'm buying some time. Because of what he seeks to achieve. Now, the priests' sons, Jonathan and Amahaz, were charged with the responsibility of getting the news to David. Right? That's verse 17.
Jonathan and Amahaz were waiting at En-rogel. What the name means is actually, possibly, the well of the spy. The well of the spy.
It would be quite fitting if that were the case. Now, they were located—that place was located—about a quarter of a mile south of the city itself. And it was very important that they were not obvious in what they were doing.
That's the balance of the verse there. You will see, towards the end of verse 17, they were not to be seen entering the city. Well, how are they gonna handle it? If they were to get the information from the city and get it to David, but they don't go into the city, well, here's the answer. A female servant was to go and tell them.
A no-name female servant is given the responsibility of bringing the messages to them so that they will not be seen entering the city. Despite the undercover approach in relationship to this, we're told that a young man saw them and told Absalom. So both of them went away quickly. Here's our second quickly.
Two of three. They went away quickly, and they came to the house of a man at Bahurim. But pause for a moment and say to yourself, now, listen, what is happening here? Is this chain of communication going to be broken? Is the plan about to come crashing to a halt as a result of the very humanity of the way in which it is seeking to be completed? And how could we ever be assured that the plan of God would prevail? And the answer is, because it's God's plan. It's so human, isn't it?
It's so ordinary. They went away quickly, and they came to the house of a man at Bahurim. Presumably, they knew that he was a sympathizer. They must have known, perhaps, that he had a well in his courtyard. And they went down into it.
Wait a minute here. We're talking about the kingdom of God, for goodness sake. We're talking about this vast, unfolding drama. And we've got these two fellows who are supposed to be doing their best, getting the message from the female servant to get it to King David, and as far as we can tell right now, the whole thing has come to a crashing halt because the two of them are hiding down a well. Well, is it over?
It's actually not very impressive, is it? The kingdom of God is unfolding. Where? Well, at the moment, it's at a guy's house in Bahurim. He has a well, and they're down the well.
Are you surprised that God would use you, you funny little man? You unknown lady! Who is she? She's the woman of the house.
What did she do? She covered the top of the well with a piece of fabric. And because she was skillful, she covered the fabric then with grain.
To make it look as though, in the routine of life, the grain was simply being dried in the sun. The people who came searching on behalf of Absalom clearly weren't doing a very good job. And she lied to them that the men had gone over the brook. They seemed to pay scant attention to that, and eventually they returned, verse 20, to Jerusalem. Did it matter what she'd done? It was absolutely vital. But didn't she tell lies?
Yes, she did. Does that mean that the Bible then condones the telling of lies? No, it doesn't. But what it does remind us of is simply this—that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him. It reminds us that God controls evil, but he does not create evil. And when you consider the unfolding of the providence of God, whether it's in the life of Joseph, whether it's in the life of Esther, and so on, or certainly here in this chapter, you realize the wonder of it all.
So, what happens? Well, the men, when they had gone, the group, the searchers leave, and the men came up out of the well. And then they went and did what they were supposed to do in the first place, and that is, they told King David. And no surprise, but they said to him, you should get up and go quickly over the water, for thus and so has Ahithophel counseled against you. In other words, the Ahithophel plan may well unfold, and if it unfolds, it's vital that you get out of here, and it would be better that you left now rather than later on. And so what you actually have in that little incident is, from a human perspective, what is actually a rather narrow escape. But it is all proceeding according to plan, including the tragedy that is contained in verse 23. What are we to do with Ahithophel?
Here is a picture. It is a tragedy. It is marked by a measure of dignity. It establishes unequivocally his memory. We're told that when Ahithophel realized that his counsel had not been followed, that things had not gone according to his plan, there was no future for him at all. And so, in a methodical, clinical, organized fashion, he went off riding on his donkey, back to his own city, set his house in order, hanged himself, died, and was buried in the tomb of his father.
I thought that I would write in my notes a tragic end to a good man. You say, Well, he wasn't really a good man. Well, yes, but he wasn't actually particularly wicked man either, was he?
He's not presented to us in the text as a wicked man. He's presented to us in the text as a wise counselor. Indeed, his counsel was as if one consulted the Word of God. That's this man.
That's this gentleman. He was a wise counselor, and his advice was good counsel, 14b, for the Lord had ordained to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel. Woodhouse, I think, puts his finger on it when he suggests that Ahithophel's big failure was his failure to accept the grace of God that was extended to David.
He couldn't handle that. And his failure to accept that the purpose of God was to establish a kingdom through somebody like David. God did not prefer David over Absalom because David was better than Absalom. God preferred David because God preferred David. Remember, I did not love you because you were brighter, larger, more significant than any other people.
I loved you because I loved you. Oh, it is a mystery, isn't it? And God, according to plan, works it out. Ahithophel's plans were doomed to failure, because he was on the wrong side of history, because God had chosen—chosen David, promised David that his kingdom would endure. And so, actually, Ahithophel's suicide is not just the account of a government official who is embarrassed by the fact that his plans have been rejected and he's lost face and he's lost honor and he's lost hope and he's lost purpose.
It's not that at all. His suicide is the record of the adversary of God's chosen King and therefore identifying him as the adversary of Yahweh and his kingdom. Well, in many ways, the story ends there, because in verse 23, with his suicide, the chapter is essentially closed.
Well, you say it's not, because you've got from verses 24 to 29—all those difficult names to read. Well, what this is actually building towards is this great battle, as we will find, those of us who have passions, to get in to chapter 18. The negotiation time is over, the preparation time is essentially over, and the confrontation is about to begin. And so what you have there in those names is the record of the assembling of the forces, first of all of Absalom and then of the forces of David himself.
These individuals are going to line up on one side or the other as a kind of choose you this day whom you will serve moment. And when the teams are put together, the personnel, the friends of David, bring all of these provisions in order that the progress might unfold. And I find it quite interesting that the final sentence of the chapter, as we have it, affirms part of Ahithophel's counsel. Because remember, if you look back up the passage, you can go and get him while he's weary and discouraged. And Hushai comes, and he says, You know, Ahithophel's counsel's not good. You shouldn't think of him as being weary and discouraged. You should think of him as enraged.
You should think of him as being like a bear seeking to go for the creature that has invaded the cubs. Well, who was right? I think Ahithophel was right. Because there's what it tells us.
There they were, hungry and weary and thirsty in the wilderness. So he was right about that. But in the end, he was foolish. Because he should never have defected. He should never have deserted the king. You wouldn't defect, would you? It's not unusual in pastoral ministry to come across someone who has defected, someone who has deserted, someone who once marched alongside the others. And when you press, you may find yourself in a circumstance not dissimilar to Ahithophel's. When you press, you find that there was some moral degeneracy, something that happened in the family along the pack, something that enraged and disappointed and confused and sidelined the individual, and they've lost out. Because they can't believe that God would forgive that person.
They can't believe that God would continue to use her or to use him. It's the same problem. It's the same issue. Woodhouse is right. Ahithophel got to where he was because he couldn't believe that God would forgive somebody who did that, and he found it hard to believe that God would build his kingdom through somebody like him. Let's make sure tonight that we deal with the issues that may tempt us to defection or to desertion. And don't sit on your high horse, for let those of us who think we stand take heed, lest we fall. Take your side on the king's side.
Do not be foolish. Trust the counsel of God. Rest entirely in his providence. In the end, all will be well.
The bits and pieces that we can't fix are under his sovereign control. And whether we've got a name like Berzillai or Shobi or Machir, whether we're a name, as it were, in the unfolding story of God's purposes as limited as we might understand it to be, or whether in eternity we will just find that it was fine for us to be the female servant, it was fine for us to be the man who had a house with a well, it was fine for us to be a young boy from Cleveland, to be a little girl from Israel. I have a Maker. He formed my heart. Before even time began, my life was in his hands. He knows my name. He knows my every thought. He knows each tear that falls. And he hears me when I call. I forget people's names.
He never forgets a name. And sweeps the good, the bad, and the ugly into the vast panoramic drama of his purpose from all of eternity—to put together a people that are his very own, who are the utterly undeserving beneficiaries of his relentless love and his amazing grace. And so the story of the kingdom continues. So whether you're down a well this week or crossing a ford—or driving a ford, for that matter—perhaps it will do you well to remember that when you're just about to press for the buttons on the TV thing and press mute and go into one of your mini tirades about, I don't know what's going to happen to the future of this place, I can't believe what'll happen to my grandchildren if this thing continues the way it's going to continue. We might as well all just ship out and move on and be done with it.
Say, Hey, wait a minute. Don't you believe there's a higher throne than all this world has known? I hope so. You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. As we reflect today on God's providence, along with Alistair's Bible teaching, we like to recommend to you books that we choose with great care and with our mission in mind. You may have heard me mention the book we're recommending currently called The Daily Devotional New Testament. This is a well-organized devotional that will help you spend a few minutes in God's word each day. And over the course of a year, you will have read completely through the New Testament. Each passage of scripture is followed by a brief reflection to help you think about what you've read. Here's an example of what you'll read as you reflect on Romans chapter eight. Any threat, Satan, circumstances, or even our own sin shrivels in the presence of the risen Christ, who is our advocate in heaven.
There's nothing in the universe that can ever defeat God's people because of what he has lovingly done for them in Jesus Christ. That's an encouraging message for each of us to remember. You will benefit from the daily meditations like this one when you request your copy of The Daily Devotional New Testament today. It's yours when you donate to support the ministry of Truth for Life. You can do that at truthforlife.org slash donate or call us at 888-588-7884. I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for joining us today. Tomorrow we'll learn that not only does God use unexpected ways and unexpected people to accomplish his plan, he also uses nature to accomplish his purposes. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.
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