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A Grief Observed (Part 1 of 2)

Truth for Life / Alistair Begg
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January 22, 2025 3:04 am

A Grief Observed (Part 1 of 2)

Truth for Life / Alistair Begg

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January 22, 2025 3:04 am

As mere humans, we’re unable to set the parameters for God’s deliverance. Listen to Truth For Life as Alistair Begg examines the unfolding events as David sought a decisive victory over his enemies while trying to protect the son who instigated the revolt.



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This listener-funded program features the clear, relevant Bible teaching of Alistair Begg. Today’s program and nearly 3,000 messages can be streamed and shared for free at tfl.org thanks to the generous giving from monthly donors called Truthpartners. Learn more about this Gospel-sharing team or become one today. Thanks for listening to Truth For Life!









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Music playing As human beings, we're in no position to try to put parameters around God's deliverance. Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg examines the events that unfolded when King David was seeking a decisive victory over his enemies and at the same time trying to protect his rebel son who had orchestrated a revolt against him. To Samuel 18 and from verse 1. Then David mustered the men who were with him and set over them commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds.

And David sent out the army one-third under the command of Joab, one-third under the command of Abishai the son of Zeruiah, Joab's brother, and one-third under the command of Ittai the Gittite. And the king said to the men, I myself will also go out with you. But the men said, You shall not go out. For if we flee, they will not care about us. If half of us die, they will not care about us.

But you are worth ten thousand of us. Therefore it is better that you send us help from the city. The king said to them, Whatever seems best to you I will do. So the king stood at the side of the gate, while all the army marched out by hundreds and by thousands. And the king ordered Joab and Abishai and Ittai, Deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom. And all the people heard when the king gave orders to all the commanders about Absalom. So the army went out into the field against Israel, and the battle was fought in the forest of Ephraim. And the men of Israel were defeated there by the servants of David, and the loss there was great on that day twenty thousand men.

The battle spread over the face of all the country, and the forest devoured more people that day than the sword. And Absalom happened to meet the servants of David. Absalom was riding on his mule, and the mule went under the thick branches of a great oak, and his head caught fast in the oak, and he was suspended between heaven and earth, while the mule that was under him went on. And a certain man saw it and told Joab, Behold, I saw Absalom hanging in an oak. Joab said to the man who told him, What, you saw him?

Why then did you not strike him there to the ground? I would have been glad to give you ten pieces of silver and a belt. But the man said to Joab, Even if I felt in my hand the weight of a thousand pieces of silver, I would not reach out my hand against the king's son. For in our hearing the king commanded you and Abishai and Ittai, For my sake protect the young man Absalom. On the other hand, if I had dealt treacherously against his life, and there is nothing hidden from the king, then you yourself would have stood aloof.

Joab said, I will not waste time like this with you. And he took three javelins in his hand and thrust them into the heart of Absalom while he was still alive in the oak. And ten young men, Joab's armor-bearers, surrounded Absalom and struck him and killed him. Then Joab blew the trumpet, and the troops came back from pursuing Israel, for Joab restrained them. And they took Absalom and threw him into a great pit in the forest and raised over him a very great heap of stones. And all Israel fled every one to his own home. Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and set up for himself the pillar that is in the king's valley, for he said, I have no son to keep my name in remembrance.

He called the pillar after his own name, and it is called Absalom's monument to this day. Then Ahomaz the son of Zadok said, Let me run and carry the news to the king that the Lord has delivered him from the hand of his enemies. And Joab said to him, You are not to carry news today.

You may carry news another day, but today you shall carry no news, because the king's son is dead. Then Joab said to the Cushite, Go tell the king what you have seen. The Cushite bowed before Joab and ran. Then Ahomaz the son of Zadok said again to Joab, Come what may, let me also run after the Cushite. And Joab said, Why will you run, my son, seeing that you will have no reward for the news? Come what may, he said, I will run. So he said to him, Run.

Then Ahomaz ran by the way of the plain and out ran the Cushite. Now David was sitting between the two gates, and the watchman went up to the roof of the gate by the wall. And when he lifted up his eyes and looked, he saw a man running alone. The watchman called out and told the king. And the king said, If he is alone, there is news in his mouth.

And he drew nearer and nearer. The watchman saw another man running. And the watchman called to the gate and said, See, another man running alone. The king said, He also brings news.

The watchman said, I think the running of the first is like the running of Ahomaz the son of Zadok. And the king said, He is a good man and comes with good news. Then Ahomaz cried out to the king, All is well. And he bowed before the king with his face to the earth and said, Blessed be the LORD your God, who has delivered up the men who raised their hand against my lord the king. And the king said, Is it well with the young man Absalom? Ahomaz answered, When Joab sent the king's servant, your servant, I saw a great commotion, but I do not know what it was. And the king said, Turn aside and stand here.

So he turned aside and stood still. And behold, the Cushite came, and the Cushite said, Good news for my lord the king! For the LORD has delivered you this day from the hand of all who rose up against you. The king said to the Cushite, Is it well with the young man Absalom? And the Cushite answered, May the enemies of my lord the king and all who rise up against you for evil be like that young man.

And the king was deeply moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept. And as he went, he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom, would I had died instead of you. O Absalom, my son, my son. Amen. Father, thank you that your Word is living and active, that it cuts to the very quick of our lives. Thank you that you speak to us by the Holy Spirit, in it and through it. And for your voice alone we listen now. In Christ's name.

Amen. Last week, our focus was largely on the way in which the love of God and the justice of God coalesce in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we considered this great dilemma. How can love be expressed, and how can justice be executed except in the work of the gospel? Now we come to chapter 18, and as we've read it through, what we immediately are confronted with is an illustration of when love and justice do not meet. Here in this chapter, we have the great concern of the loving heart of David, and yet at the same time his desire and a justifiable desire that justice might be exercised. So the chapter begins with the strategy of David for defeating the rebel king, and then it ends with the agony of David on the bank of that victory. It is a chapter in which we are made perfectly clear—it's made perfectly clear to us that what David desired—namely, treat the young man gently—and what God had ordained in 1714b, those two factors are on a collision course. And reading through the chapter and allowing the story to unfold, we are left to find out, Will love set justice aside, or will justice prevail over love? And what makes this, of course, so poignant is the fact that the rebel who has conspired against David, who is the Lord's anointed, this rebel is none other than his son. And so he has this dilemma.

He wants a decisive victory but without any damage to his son. That is a tall order. That is a difficult order.

And so I just made a scribble in my notes. I said, Surely chapter 18 is a grief observed, which those of you who are C.S. Lewis fans will get, and those of you who don't are now becoming C.S.

Lewis fans. A grief observed. Here we observe it. And what we have to realize is that 17 and verse 14b remains for us a control verse.

You understand what I mean by that? It is a point that has been made in such a way that it exercises control on the way in which we interpret everything that flows from it. And you remember verse 14, And Absalom and all the men of Israel said, The counsel of Hushai the Archite is better than the counsel of Ahithophel.

Here we go. For the LORD had ordained to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, so that the LORD might bring harm upon Absalom. God is behind the death of Absalom as he is behind the deliverance of David.

Now, let's just try and work our way through this storyline. In verses 1–5, we have essentially the battle strategy. At the end of chapter 17, you remember, they were having a picnic, as it were. The men of Israel were living in the light of the fifth verse of the twenty-third psalm. You remember, at Psalm 23, 5, you prepare a table before me. In the presence of my enemies you anoint my head with oil.

Well, if you look back to the end of chapter 17, that is largely what they were enjoying there. You come into chapter 18, and David musters his army. He puts his commanders in place.

Joab, his brother Abishai, and Ittai the Gittite, who, as we have seen previously, had commended himself to David by bringing many of his friends to join David's forces. So David, having put the commanders in place, now finds that he himself is put in his place. And the people say to him, You shall not go out. He's already announced that he's going out.

I myself will go out with you. It's quite fascinating when you think about Ahithophel's counsel that we noted before. Remember, Ahithophel said to Absalom, Now when I go out there, my strategy will be just to take the king out. All we need to do is to take him out. If we get him, then the rest of them will collapse like a broken deck chair.

It will be over. That was Ahithophel's counsel. And, of course, that was not accepted by Absalom. And so here it is, that the people say to him, understanding what Ahithophel was actually saying, although not referencing it, Listen, it's far better that you stay, and we receive help from you, guidance, strategy, whatever it might be, from headquarters. And David acquiesces. And so he says to them, Well, whatever you actually think is best, then I will do that.

I paused in my thinking there for a moment, and you might pause with me too. Because remember, when we think about the incident, the rooftop incident, which begins with, At the time when kings go out to war, David remained in Jerusalem. And almost inevitably, our criticism of that goes along with most of the commentators. You see, that was the problem. He should have been out there fighting, and instead of going out there fighting, look at where he was. Well, this actually puts a little twist on it, doesn't it?

It at least raises the possibility that on that occasion back in 11, they were operating on the exact same principle. Namely, you're worth ten thousand of us. They take you down, it's all over.

We're largely dispensable. Maybe that's why he stayed. You say, Were you trying to justify the rooftop?

No, not for a moment. But if he stayed back for that reason—it was an entirely legitimate reason—what he did with the use of his time is another subject entirely. He stays back, they will obey orders, and his order is very, very clear. In fact, we have the record of only one, verse 5, and the king ordered Joab, Abishai, and Etai, … deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom. And what we need to keep in mind here is that David is who he is. He is the king, he is the man after God's own heart, he is the man with the history that we have been rehearsing now for weeks and months and into years, but he is also a father. And it is surely hard to imagine the turmoil that he knows in establishing his fighting force in this way. In fact, the nature of his grief is grounded in the extent of his love.

It is because he loves so much that by the time we get to the end, he grieves so badly. He knows what is unfolding here. He knows that those who stand against the Lord's anointed are to be destroyed. Be wise, O kings of the earth!

Kiss the sun, lest he be angry with you. Psalm 2. David knows that.

Now, go out and deal with that, he says. But let me say to you, deal gently with that lad Absalom. Now, that's in verses 1–5. In verses 6–8, we have the record of the decisive victory. Both the buildup to the battle and the death of Absalom subsequent to it are covered, actually, extensively.

In many ways, this whole thing has been leading up to this for a long, long time. And the way in which the whole section of all of these chapters is to be understood is in light ultimately of this. So it's therefore quite interesting that you only really have three verses providing for us the summary of the battle itself.

And you will notice what it says. That they went out. That they fought in the forest. That the men of Israel were defeated. That there was great loss.

That the battle spread all over the face of the country. It actually took place in the forest of Ephraim, and, fascinatingly, the forest devoured more people that day than the sword. This is a video game?

Or is it, you know, one of those things that children watch? You can do this graphically with a forest, and the forest swallows them. The forest is eating them up.

How can the forest do this? It's clever on David's part, isn't it? He has limited forces in comparison to the extensive numbers that are ranged against him under the control of Absalom. So if you're out in a vast open space, it would mean dealing with it in one way. But when you're in a context like this that provides unfamiliar territory to many of them, the chances are that they will collapse in ways beyond simply human interference, if we might put it that way.

And this, interestingly, is not without precedent. Those of you who know your Bibles, remember that great story in Joshua. You'll find it in chapter 10. Read it for homework, where Israel is up against the Amorites. And in the course of the battle, you read this. And the LORD threw down large stones from heaven. Hailstones. And then this is what it says, And there were more who died because of the hailstones than the sons of Israel killed by the sword.

Robert Gordon says, We may see here a suggestion that nature was enlisted on the sight of David, that a sovereign God, who is sovereign not only over the affairs of men and women, is actually sovereign over all of nature. The forest devoured them. And notice, the forest is going to play a very significant part in the end of Absalom. It's interesting, isn't it, what you really see here? Just three verses.

The hidden hand of God, the exercise of human ingenuity, and the one coalescing with the other. How are the mighty fallen? Now, what of Absalom? Well, verse 9 to verse 15, I wrote under the heading, Absalom's Destiny. Absalom's Destiny.

Let's keep in mind this Absalom fellow. He's handsome beyond measure. No blemish from the sole of his feet to the tip of his head. He had a hairstyle that was quite remarkable—enough for it to get mentioned in the local newspapers. He had decided that, having established himself in a position of erstwhile authority, that he would get a chariot for himself.

That's back in chapter 15. And along with that, he decided he would have fifty men that would ride in front of the chariot, because an entourage is very, very important. He also, in dealing with the people, told them what they wanted to hear. He's the consummate politician. And he then stole their hearts by telling them what he wanted to hear.

Look at him. He happened to meet the servants of David. He has himself set up.

His father wishes him no harm. But the LORD has ordained the defeat of Ahithophel's counsel, so that he might bring harm upon Absalom. Because God is the one who brings princes to nothing—scarcely has their stem taken root, scarcely are they sown—then the wind blows over them, and they wither. And so what we have here in 9–15 is that the forest—we might put it this way—the forest is up to its tricks.

The forest is up to its tricks. One minute he's on his mule, and if you remember, on a previous occasion, we're told that all the sons of the king left on their mules. At least one minute he was, and the next minute he wasn't. Because in the next minute the mule keeps going, and he is left dangling. His head caught fast in the oak. Now, why is it we want it to be his hair that got tangled up in the oak? Well, we don't know if it was his hair or it wasn't his hair. We know he had his hair. But the chances are, it would seem that if, let's imagine, that he happens upon the servants of David, he begins to make a run for it, he looks over his shoulder to see how close they are behind him, and he nails the branches of a tree which close around his neck.

And as they close around his neck and grab him, the mule leaves without him, and there he is, verse 9b, suspended between heaven and earth. Quite a picture, isn't it? Nothing his good looks can achieve now. No ability to influence the people by telling them what they want to hear. Now, look at him there.

The picture is clear. He hangs helpless, hopeless, and humiliated. Even his mule has gone. And meanwhile, back in the city, David is waiting, hoping that Abishai and Ittai and Joab will have obeyed his order to deal gently with the young man Absalom. You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg, and we'll hear more about Absalom's destiny tomorrow. If you're enjoying this study in 2 Samuel and you'd like to hear this Old Testament narrative from the very beginning, you can listen to Alistair's teaching through both 1 and 2 Samuel for free using our mobile app or on our website at truthforlife.org. Simply use the search feature to look for a study in 1 and 2 Samuel. You'll follow the story from the birth of Samuel through the reign of King Saul, ultimately to King David's reign. This is a foundational study that sets the stage for the arrival of God's eternal King. This complete series is also available for purchase on a USB at our cost of just $5.

It's easy to pop the USB in your car's player, listen to it on your daily commute or when you're taking a road trip. Look for the USB online at truthforlife.org slash USB. And if you'd choose to add a donation to your purchase today, you can request your copy of the Daily Devotional New Testament. This is a book that will guide you through a daily reading plan that makes it possible to read the entire New Testament by this time next year. The book is yours today just for the asking when you give a donation of any amount to support the ministry of Truth for Life. You can give your gift online at truthforlife.org slash donate or you can call us at 888-588-7884. Thanks for studying God's Word with us today. Tomorrow we'll examine God's providential role in tragedy as well as victory. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.
Whisper: medium.en / 2025-01-22 05:13:55 / 2025-01-22 05:22:36 / 9

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