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Episode 532: In this episode, we jump into 2 Samuel 14. We delve into the story of Absalom, who, after committing a grave act of revenge against his brother Amnon, is banished from the kingdom. Joab, one of David's top generals, recognizes David's longing to see Absalom and devises a plan to bring him back. A wise woman from Tekoa is brought in to present a parable to David, which ultimately leads to Absalom's return to Jerusalem. However, in a surprising twist, David allows Absalom to come home but refuses to see him, highlighting the complexities of David's feelings and the consequences of his past actions.
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You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in practical ways. Hey, everybody, Welcome to the Bible. Guys. Here we are. I was watching that rolling a minute ago. I'm a big boy that rolling. You were definitely bigger than you are now. Yeah yeah, yeah, you look good, baby, I'm almost back to fighting. Wait, that's funny. Yeah, actually I'm bigger on that rolling too. Yeah. Yeah. And for those watchings for. This, if you're watching, if you're listening, you can't tell unless it just sounds like we have a stuffed mouth while we're talking. Welcome to the Bible. Yeah yeah. Well, if you're just listening, and you've only just listened, you can just imagine us looking like Greek gods. Yeah, that's I'd imagine that's how they think it is. Anybody that ever only has listened to us, they're like, these guys are so smart and so handsome. Yes, yes, And. Then if you accidentally see us on YouTube, you're like, what, it's one of those never meet your heroes things. Yeah, well you know what somebody said to me. Literally last Sunday, Once again, they came up to me, and they said, who says this out of their mouth? This is what this lady said. She's up and she goes, oh, hey, you look way taller on stage. Yeah. People tell me that all the time. Yeah, and I'm like, oh, thank you, question Mark. I mean not as tall as I thought you were. Yeah, I'm five seven, Like, don't remind me. I want to be I want to be six foot. Yeah, so be quiet about it. She is. It's funny. So anyways, on that video, yeah, I think I was fifty pounds heavier than I am. Now, wow, maybe time to make a new roll in. Yeah, maybe so Yeah, and I'm at least fifteen. And for the people that are watching or that are listening and have never seen the video, just whatever amazing picture you have of us, just put fifty pounds out of that. That's what I look like, right right, And I'm like fifteen pounds, probably lighter. Than in the rolling video. May we're doing We're doing that fun better than we were. All right, So here here, Jeff. This is a new game called twenty five Words or Less based off of some famous talk show that I've never heard of. And it says, Chris, you are going to give Jeff clues, so you can guess five keywords. However, you can only use a max of twenty five words. So can we say a total of twenty five words? And you have to try to get me to say next words? So I'll just count them on my fingers. That's a hard one. Yeah. And by the way, I've not thought this through. Okay, so I got I gotta set this up. To where I can see it to wear hang on. Okay, So are you ready? Yes, sir? All right? Ready? Words, structure, punctuation. Language, grammar books, speech, complete communication, man live. This is a hard one, dude, Okay, Can I pass and come back to this one? Period? I said punctuation words? What did you say? Words? Words, structure, that's a big one. Structure. That's why I said grammar language, English. I don't know. I don't know. Can I skip that one? Let's move on Monopoly game, board game? Mm hmm. Okay, not allowed to use our hand signal or something, but okay, six words, six words, one answer. Type milk, chocolate, chocolate, milk, almond, milk, soy milk, fortified milk, I don't know, pasteurized milk, I don't know fat, two percent milk. I don't know two percent milk, low fat milk, low fat milk, low fat I don't know, uh, zero percent milk. I don't know zero percent fat milk. I don't know what you want me to say. It's another word for what you're saying. What is that called, Jeff, I don't know what is no fat milk called no fat milks? What I call it? I don't know, Man, you say no fat milk. I don't know what am I supposed to say? Zero percent skim milk, skim milk? Okay, Okay, I can't believe I blew it. Okay, I'm sorry. So we blew that one. We blew. So we're one for one. We've tried three words. We've tried three words. We got one. Okay, let's keep all here we go. Football soccer? Yes, yes, we got two words, one hundred years a century. All right, we got three. So I'm only on twelve words here. Okay, So we've done four okay, yes, yes, okay, So now we got to go back to the one that we didn't get, and you got thirteen words to use. Okay, Okay, here we go, uh right, a complete thought with punctuation. Right, a complete thought sentence. Yes, okay, yes, yes, I can't believe you said no fat milk. That is hilarious. I'm like, I'm like, yes, okay, keep going. So we got four out of five, and you know, our listeners were screaming no fat milk right right. They were saying, skim, skim, buddy. Hey, you don't scream so hard at your at your radio while you're driving down the road because the people next you think you're crazy. Yes, radio, Yeah, you mean phone. Well, if they're driving down the road, they'd be listening. To Oh you're assuming they have a new car. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Our listeners are very sophisticated people. They are sophisticated people. I know. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. Well, good. That was an interesting game. That was hard. It was It was tremendously anxious for me. Yeah. Well, you know what, here's the thing. When when you see that word hang on, when you see that game show on TV, they do all of that in sixty seconds or less. Yes, so they give you a they give you a timed limit on using twenty fist. Why I was trying to pass. Let us get to them who we would have gotten two in the minute. We we butchered that whole game because it was a fun one. Yeah, yeah, we butchered it. That was a good one, all right. So for those of you that are just tuning in for the first time, we're doing highlights of the Old Testament, and we're just a couple of guys who talk about the Bible in front of fun and practical ways. Right, that's that's about. So we're not super sophisticated. We're doing what anybody can do, we think, and that's sit down, open the Bible with a friend, look at what's on the page. Maybe can it through. You know, if you use any kind of a study Bible, there's going to be cross references and stuff like that kind of connects some of the pieces and then figure out what's the application. How does this apply to me today? And so because the Bible says in a couple of other places that God wrote all these things for our example. So it's not like it's just telling words for a story for no reason. It's for our example. So King David is one of the greatest kings of Israel, the greatest king of Israel, but he had an issue in his life that wound up, causing a lot of things to cascade out of control later in his life, especially among his family. Which, by the way, side note this Sunday, the message that we're preaching this Sunday coming Up talks a little bit about that. We touch on the fact that a lot of these stories in the Old Testament they either point to something symbolic the coming of a Messiah. They emphasize law versus grace. You know, those kinds of things. You know, how people cannot fulfill the law and be perfect, or they predict or they point to so in other words, all that to say, these stories that seem sort of independent and random, if you piece them all together, you can see this scarlet thread that is the story of Jesus and God's love that God set into motion honestly in the garden of Eden. And it's really one big, long love letter. You know. The Bible is God's love letter to us and how God demonstrates for us everything we need to know. Looking back at these stories and saying I understand now you know what is needed for heaven and what Jesus has done for me. Right yep. So by the time our listeners hear this, we will have already preached that message. Yes, of course, so you can if you didn't get a chance to be a part of that. Heritage Church dot com. Heritage Church dot com is our church website. You can watch the message on archives. Yeah, and the message I'm referring to is called Fall Kickoff and it's September twenty second, twenty twenty four. There you go. So here we are. Anyways, this cascading issue in David's life where things start to fall apart a little bit because of bad choices. Ultimately, his son Absalom kills his other son, Amnon, because Amnon raped a half sister. It's just crazy. So after Absolom kills his brother, he runs away and he hides for a few years with his grandfather, who's a king of a tribe not far away. And joe Ab is one of David's top generals. And so you pick up in Second Samuel chapter fourteen, and it says joe Ab realized how much the king longed to see Absolom, and so he sent for a woman from Tacoa who had a reputation for great wisdom. And he said to her, pretend you were in mourning wear mourning clothes and don't put on lotions, act like a woman who's been mourning for the dead for a long time. Then go to the king and tell him the story I'm about to tell you, and Joeb told her what to say. When the woman from Tacoah approached the king, she bowed with her face to the ground in deep respect and cried out, O King, help me. What's the trouble. King asked, Alas, I'm a widow, She replied, my husband is dead. My two sons had a fight out in the field, and since no one was there to stop it, one of them was killed. Now the rest of the family is demanding let us have your son. We will execute him for murdering his brother. He doesn't deserve to inherit his family's property. They want to extinguish the only coal I have left, and my husband's name and family will disappear from the face of the earth. Leave it to me, the king told her. Go home, and I'll see to it that no one touches him. Oh, thank you, my lord the king. The woman from Takoa replied, if you are criticized for helping me, let the blame fall on me and on my father's house, and let the King and his throne be innocent. If anyone objects, the King said, bring him to me. I can assure you he will never complain again. Jesus. Then she said, please swear to me by the Lord your God, that you won't let anyone take vengeance against my son. I want no more bloodshed. As surely as the Lord lives, he replied, not a hair on your son's head will be disturbed. Please allow me to ask one more thing of my Lord the King. Go ahead and speak, She replied, why don't you do as much for the people of God as you have promised to do for me. You have convicted yourself in making this decision. Because you refuse to bring home your own banished son, All of us must die eventually. Our lives are like waters spelled out on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. But God does not just sweep life away and stead he devises ways to bring us back when we've been separated from him. I've come to plead with my Lord the King because people have threatened me. I said to myself, perhaps the King will listen to me and rescue us from those who would cut us off from the inheritance. God has given us. Yes, my Lord the King will give us peace of mind again. I know that you are like an angel of God in discerning good from evil. And may the Lord your God be with you. I must know one thing, the kind replied, and tell me the truth. Yes, my Lord the King. She responded, did you have put you up to this love that's so great? And the woman replied, my Lord the King, how can I deny it? Nobody can hide anything from you. Yes, Jeb sent me and told me what to say. He did it. The place the matter before you in a different light. But you are as wise as an angel of God, and you understand everything that happens among us. So the King sent for Joeb and told him, all right, go and bring back the young man Absalom. Joeb bowed his face to the ground in deep respect and said, at last, I know that I have gained your approval, my Lord the King, for you have granted me this request. Then Joeb went to Giescher and brought Absalom back to Jerusalem. But the King gave this order. Absolom may go to his own house, but he must never come into my presence. And so Absolom did not see the king what a story. Yeah, it's interesting because the only thing that we're starting with is the knowledge that David longed to see Absolom, and yet when Absolom comes back to the Kingdom, David is the one that refuses to see him. So it's interesting because at first, when we're told that David longs to see his son, you assume that David longs to be in the same room with him, that David wants to you know, have him back in the house, that he wants to hug him, that he wants to you know, see him again face to face. But really, what it's meaning now that we know the end of the chapter is we know that David misses his son terribly, but is absolutely convinced that that Absolom should not come home. He's absolutely convinced that Absolom should not have any grace or mercy to come home. And so Joe Abb does this thing, which, by the way, give it up to this woman for having enough. Course, yes she had some guts, although she did say she was threatened. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right. He made me do it, right, yeah. And but then David finally brings you know, he sees the light, he brings Absolom home, and then he just refuses to meet with him or even see him. So it's very interesting to me because you sort of have to connect the dots on what David really is thinking and feeling here. Yeah, you know what I mean. Yeah, it's a pretty amazing transition here because Joe AB's looking saying, hey, this isn't good. One thing that sometimes can be missed is, you know, not only did Abslham get revenge against his brother for raping his sister Tamar, but he also took out the first in line, and now he's first in line, right, So there's this complicated element that we hadn't really dealt with yet, and that is now Absolom goes, oh, hey, I'm next in line to be king, right Well, this is going to be good problem later, but right now. Joe Ab also is very savvy and goes, we need the heir to the throne to be with the one on the throne. We need the one coming behind to develop up the same character and knowledge and wisdom that the one sitting there has. Right we need and Joe Ab remembers David when he was at his best, so Joe AB's thinking. Man, if David would just spend more time with Absolom, maybe maybe David can help overcome some of the bad behaviors of Absolom. You know, David's a bloody man. David's you know, kill people in battle. David's done some pretty rough things, but overall he's a good king. Maybe you know in this situation, Absolom what he did, while you and I would view it as sinful, it's a shocking thing. It was somewhat permitted within the law of Moses that if somebody committed a crime against a family member, there could be the What wasn't what was the title of the person who was allowed to the one that would get revenge for the family? Oh, in goodness, you remember the title there was. There was a specific title for the kind of person who get revenge for the family because somebody else did something evil. If if you killed somebody, or or if you rape somebody or whatever, then the family could go get justice. It was the revenge giver, the revenge giver, that's that's not the title. Now you may be mistaken there working on Yeah, maybe what do you so some of our geniuses that know the Bible like this. You you'll know what I'm talking about. But this is within the law. It's within the law that if there is no government justice available in that time, because remember they were little city states all over the place, really is what they were. And in between the walled cities was oftentimes just lawless right and so if you lived. Outside universal government, there was no universal law. That's right, and so then the people would have to bring justice in a fair way. It's not a vigilanteism, but it kind of leans that way a little bit, right, So Absolom could have justified his behavior saying I did what the government refused to do. And I'm not saying that's the right thing. I'm just saying that's what he did. And Joe Abb could have looked at it and said, come on, David, you know, I'm sorry it was your sons. But the reality is that guy needed justice. Nobody was bringing it. He brought it. So let's get over it, and you need to do something because as is going to be the heir. And so I think Joeb has some wisdom in him here, and then he's also pretty savvy on how to deal with a guy who kills people who bring bad messages right. And honestly, this is sort of the same thing that worked with Nathan. With Nathan exactly, tell a story. Yeah, So the king would have a court and there would be an audience with the king, and the king would sit up on his throne and part of his job was to solve people's problems. So people would. Come to him with a problem and they'd say, hey, we need the government to step in, we need the law to step in because we can't handle this on our own. So what says the king? And so that was sort of what Nathan did. When Nathan was confronting David, he said, hey, let me tell you a story that happened. He pretended like it was a real story, and he said, there's this neighbor that I know. He's got one sheep and this rich man took his sheep and blah blah blah blah. And then what did David do. He executed judgment discernment and said, surely this man is going to die. And then he says, well, it's you, right, And then David's like, oh, my goodness, he's right, it is me. And and by the way, he said it publicly and accepted it and repented, yes, publicly. And so and so here it is again. Yeah, here it is again. Everybody knows what happened with with Absolom and Amnon. Everybody knows that absolute or excuse me, yeah, absolutely fled. Uh you know, it's been. Gone for years now and uh, and so everybody sort of knows, and it's just you know, it's and this is longer because again we've pointed out yesterday that the that the scandal of David and Bethsheba was within the timeframe Ofheba's pregnancy, so it was only months. This is years. So the kingdom knows. And so here's this woman publicly decides to call David out in the same manner, and Joe abb he saw it work before, and he's. Like, very smart. He's like, I know, I know, David's a great tactician. Yeah. So Absolom is handsome like his dad, he's intelligent like his dad. He's a great communicator like his dad. He just doesn't have the character that his dad had when his dad rose to power. Right, that's the issue. He didn't have to walk with God. Something happened with David where he was occupied or preoccupied with military success he was he had a walk with God personally, he didn't pass it on with to his kids, and so none of his kids, you don't see any of his kids until you get the Solomon. You don't see any of his kids that are like, oh, God is the center of my life. And you know, this is one of the dangers of coddling our kids and giving our kids all the privileges in the world that we never had, is a lot of times they don't develop the character that we developed. And so that's one part of it. The other thing that I really see here, and this is I think very significant, is that David declines to discipline his sons for the things that are in his own life. And what happens is then this becomes almost like generational sins, where the family just keeps committing the same kind of sins. So many of his sons do the things David did, but they do it to excess, and it becomes a greater and greater and greater issue. And for some of our listeners, maybe you're looking at it and you know what your family sin is. You know the thing that your grandfather did and your great grandfather did, and your father did and now you think, well, I've got to live that life too, I'm going that way. Or maybe you're a young adult and you're growing up right now, going man a life. My family always has these issues. The different sins run in families for a long time. Suicides tend to run in families. Alcoholism tends to run in families. Physical violence tends to run in families, divorce tends to run in family. So many of these things. And if you look at it, going well, that's just what our family does, it's possible for you to be the one to say no more. Right, you can step up and through God's grace and the power of the Holy Spirit in your life, you can be the one to say I'm going to break that cycle. I'm going to break that chain. Yeah. And you can change your family's legacy. Yeah, by moving back to God. Way that your family moved away from God. Somebody led your family away from God. You can lead your part of the family back to God and break that cycle. Yeah. And so I have a good friend and you know him where his legacy was, you know, handed down from his grandfather. It was womanizing and alcoholism and chasing money, and it was just that way that's what that's what the men and that family were known for. And so this guy decides to completely turn and you know, becomes you know, a servant. Of God and goes into ministry. And now all of his sons are in ministry and love God, and they're raising their kids the same way. And it's exactly what you said. So think about, you know, how they just will describe their grandfather right, and and all of a sudden, you know, it's it's it's amazing to think how one change life can change a legacy. It really, it really is. But in my life it was that way. I mean, my biological father is different from my dad. So if you ever hear me tell the stories, I always differentiate between my dad, who's a godly man who raised me. Well, my biological father was abusive and a very bad alcoholic. But so was his father, and so were his brothers, and so was his grandfather, and so was his mother, and right early on when he was growing up, it was that way, and everybody in his life was that way. And so all the males up through him, in my past and in my heritage were violent alcoholics. And so it's not unreasonable to say I probably would be a violent alcoholic too. But my two things, God rescued us. And my mom said, you don't have to be that. You can be the one who breaks that chain. And I remember I was a young teenager. She said, you know, you have the opportunity if you choose to never touch alcohol, you have the opportunity to never have your children run and hide from you, right, And I remember that that was a huge thing for me, and I went, Okay, want to be that man. I don't want my wife to ever duck when I raise my hand. I don't want my children to ever run from me and hide from me. Because I'm in some rage because probably I am that guy. I don't know. I've told people before when they wanted to give me a drink and I wanted to let them off the hook, I'll say, oh, I'm sorry, I'm an alcoholic. I've never had a drop of alcohol in my life, but I'm probably an alcoholic, right because genetically everybody in my family is. And so I'm like, I'm going to break that chain. And then I've raised my children to say, hey, we don't have to go down that path together. And so it's not me and it's not my character. It's the grace of God having intervened in my life and taught me, Hey, you don't have to be what the people before you were. You can break that chain. And I really see, man, this was an opportunity right here, right for David to hit reset on the family. He doesn't. He brings the Ebiso one home and it says, but I don't want to look at you a rate when Absolom needed him the most, I think, and if he'd experienced grace, and if David had talked about and taught absoloumly about how God extended grace to David, and I'm going to extend grace to you. This is what kings do. And let's be men who chase God together. I think Absolom came home right, this was an opportunity. Well, we're about to see that Absolom. The only thing that Absolom wants to do is get approval and love from his father. And so it's going to turn into bad things because of the way that David responds. And so if you still breathe in breath, it's not the end of the road. You can still change the legacy of your family. That's if you just go God's way. So that's right, that's right. Oh hey, that is our time. What a great story, and we'll continue on and hopefully see you then next time on the babble, guys,