2 Samuel 16-17:14

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2 Samuel 18:16-19:43

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Could you open us up with a word of prayer, please, sir? Father, we do thank you for, we especially thank you for today, the
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Lord's Day, that we can come together and worship and just enhance and just be in your glory.
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Father, we just ask you now for Brother Mike, we know he's prepared, he always is, and we just ask you to, what he has prepared, that we will take it in and be able to use it to effectively affect our lives in Jesus' name, amen.
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Right, let's open up 2 Samuel. We're just gonna move kind of quick.
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You see, I really wanted to cover, because we're not doing an exposition, I did want to cover 16 and 17 together, reason being it's because of the council that happens.
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So I'm gonna try, don't know if we'll do it, but obviously if we don't, then we'll just pick out, because it's the, the council of Ahithophel is turned to bad, and there's two parts of them that we would say, oh, well that was, might have been good council, because it says that, but then the other part of it shows that it was to his detriment, to Absalom's detriment.
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But we'll read chapter 16, and then we'll walk through it. Now, when David had passed the little beyond the summit, behold,
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Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth, met him with a couple of saddled donkeys, and on them were 200 loaves of bread, 100 clusters of raisins, 100 summer fruits, and a jug of wine.
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I don't know about y 'all, but when I read that for the first time, I'm like, got all this suss in it, and one jug of wine.
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They're like, man, that's some thirsty dudes. Yeah, so the king said to Ziba, why do you have these?
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And Ziba said, the donkeys are for the king's household to ride, and the bread and the summer fruit are for the young men, and the wine for whoever is faint in the wilderness to drink.
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And then the king said, where is your master's son? And Ziba said to the king, behold, he is staying in Jerusalem.
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And he said, today the house of Israel will be restored to the kingdom of my father and to me.
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So the king said to Ziba, behold, all that belongs to Mephibosheth is yours.
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And Ziba said, I prostrate myself and let I find favor in your sight, O Lord, the king.
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And when the king came to Bahurim, behold, there came out from there a man of the family of the house of Saul, whose name was
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Shimei, the son of Jerob. And he came out cursing continually, and he came, and he was throwing stones at David and all the servants of the king of David and all the people and all the mighty men who were with him on the right hand and at his left.
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And thus, Shimei said, when he cursed, get out, get out, you bloodshed, you worthless fellow.
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And the Lord has returned upon you all the bloodshed of the house of Saul in whose place you have reigned.
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And the Lord has given the kingdom into the hand of your son Absalom. And behold, you are taken in your own evil for you are a man of bloodshed.
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And then Abishai, the son of Uriah said to the king, why should this dead dog curse my
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Lord, the king? Let me go over there right now and cut off his head. But the king said, what I have to do with you, old son of Uriah, sons of Uriah?
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If he curses and if the Lord has told him to do so, curse David, then who shall say, why have you done so?
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And then David said to Abishai and to all the servants, behold, my son who came out from my,
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I'm sorry, and my son who came out from me seeks my life. How much more shall this
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Benjamin? Let him alone and let him curse for the Lord has told him to do so. Perhaps the
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Lord will look upon my affliction and return good to me instead of his cursing this day.
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So David and his men went on the way and Shimei went along the hillside parallel with him cursing, casting stones and kicking up and throwing dust at him.
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And the king of all the people who were with him arrived weary and he refreshed them there.
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Then Absalom and all the people and the men of Israel entered Jerusalem and Ahithophel with him.
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Now it was about when Hushai, the archite, David's friend came to Absalom that Hushai said to Absalom, long live the king, long live the king.
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And Absalom said to him, is this your loyalty, your friend? Why did you not go with your friend?
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And then Hushai said to Absalom, no, for whom the Lord, for whom the
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Lord, this people and all the men of Israel have chosen, his I will be and with him
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I will remain. And besides, whom shall I serve? Should I not serve in the presence of his sons as I served in the presence of your father?
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So I will be in your presence. And then Absalom said to Ahithophel, give your advice and what shall we do?
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And Ahithophel said to Absalom, go into your father's concubines whom he has left to keep the house and all of Israel will hear that you have made yourself odious or a stench to your father in the hands of all those who are with you will be strengthened.
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So he pitched a tent for Absalom or they pitched a tent on the roof for Absalom. And Absalom went into his father's concubines in the sight of all of Israel.
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And the advice of Ahithophel which he gave in those days was that of the inquire to the word of the
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Lord. So it was that the advice of Ahithophel regarded both David and Absalom.
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So we come to where David, he was going over the Mount of Olives.
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He has now reached the crest of it. He is at the peak. And it says that as he's coming there,
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Ziba runs to him. Do you remember who Ziba was early on? And David said, correct.
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And he was, when David says, hey, can somebody please find, is there anyone left that I can extend love and compassion to the house of Saul for Jonathan's sake?
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Because remember he had made a covenant with Jonathan. And they said, yeah, there's one dude left. It's the one that ran and his legs were broken and he's all jacked up.
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And he says, well, you bring him to me and I'll care for him. And he did. So what he did, he took all of Saul's property.
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And if you remember correctly, who had it? Whose possession was it in? Ziba had it.
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And what did he do? He goes, I didn't know this was yours now, but now you're gonna till it and you're gonna give it to this guy. And this guy, all he's gonna do is eat and live off of it.
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This guy can't even, he can't do anything. So basically Ziba becomes the servant of Mephibosheth.
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Say it for me, Mike. Mephibosheth. Thank you. Mephibosheth. He wasn't a servant before. He just kind of got elevated when everybody else got.
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He basically became de facto Saul's estate. But now, because of what had happened, he becomes
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Mephibosheth's servant and Ziba's working the land for him.
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He was supposed to give him the produce and all of that. That's what David told him. And he willingly, if you remember what he said, whatever the
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Lord says, I'll do. But now we're coming to a point to where he has the opportunity to kind of backdoor the guy.
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So yeah. Oh, from what we know, because we know the whole story. David doesn't know. So we know. We got a couple more chapters.
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Sure, we can read ahead and figure out what's going on. So he comes, and like I said, he's got a hundred loaves of bread, a hundred clusters of raisins, summer fruits, and one jug of wine.
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He brings all this food for his men. And we don't know exactly. We remember last week, it said the 600 men went with him.
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But as we get on further, this is all taking place within about a 24 -hour period of time, how
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I understand it. We're gonna see to it that there were thousands that came with David.
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So we, in our mind, we remember last week, 600, because we think of the 600 mighty men, and that is true, the 600 men that fought with him.
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But understand, too, there was women and children. They didn't leave their families back for Absalom to do whatever he wanted to.
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So as David comes over the crest of the summit of the
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Mount of Olives, here they are. They bring him food. And I do wonder, how did
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Ziba know that this is where David was at, and was his purpose for doing so, was it really to reach out to the king, or was it to make
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Mephibosheth look bad? And my opinion, or I should say my understanding of it, is to make
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Mephibosheth look bad. That's my understanding of it. And how
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I'll come to that conclusion is because he, yeah, he says right here, the king said, where is your master's son?
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And he says, behold, he's staying in Jerusalem. He said, hey, today's gonna be the day that God's gonna restore it to my family.
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In other words, he's saying that Mephibosheth thinks he's gonna be king.
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And do we think for any reason that Mephibosheth ever thought that? One, we saw the house of Saul continually get weaker and weaker and weaker.
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Could Mephibosheth even lead as a king, even if he was made king, could he lead them out to battle?
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No, he was crippled. So I think Ziba was looking for a way to get back what had been taken from him.
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I do wanna back up a little bit real quick and say to this here, he brought donkeys for the king's household to ride on, and bread, the food and the bread.
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And he said that they, and he brought the wine for them to drink. They would not, as those who were fainting in the wilderness.
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Understand that wine had a medicinal purpose, okay? In the ancient age, it had one, it did have a high sugar content.
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And just to let you know that for those prohibitionists that think that wine will become fermented on its own is absolutely wrong.
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Wine does not become fermented on its own. How they put them in wine skins, reason why they said don't put new wine in an old skin is because as they put that new wine in there and they put a little bit of yeast in there to let it ferment so that it could preserve itself, it would swell.
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And as it would swell, if you put it in an old skin, the skin can't swell anymore. And what would happen? It burped.
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Yeah, instead of being able to burp, like you could burp a bag, you can't burp a wine skin, it would burst. Burp and burst, sorry.
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So that's what would take place. So it had a medicinal purpose. It's one, there was enough sugar content within it.
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Hey, if a person's weak because they haven't eaten, you give them a little bit of sugar, what happens?
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Remember Jonathan and his armor bearer when they were running across the land in 1
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Samuel and the honeycombs were dripping? And as he was running, in my mind,
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I'm thinking of him running with his stick and he just reaches down and pops up some and licks off the end of his stick and it says their eyes lit up because they were refreshed from the sugar content.
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So that's how I understand it. Not that they, hey, we're gonna, they were getting lit off this one jug of wine, okay?
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It says verse four, that then the king said to Ziba, behold, all that belongs to Mephibosheth is yours.
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So I believe now Ziba's goal has come to pass.
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He's making out Mephibosheth to be a traitor. Mephibosheth, David had done nothing but good for him, had taken care of him, he's making him out to look bad.
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So he says, you know what? You, whatever I have to him, it's all yours now. Remember, David's only acting on the information that he has.
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And you're gonna see in later chapter, he says, hey, both of you are playing the fool.
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So what I'm gonna do, I'm just gonna split it down the middle. And that's what, that's another, ask another myself a question, okay?
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He splits it down the middle. So he splits it down the middle. Does he still make Ziba, does he still make Ziba care for his land?
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And we don't know. So now it brings us to verse five when
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David's being cursed. It says that the king, David came to Bahirom.
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Anybody remember the last time we saw Bahirom? Or Hirom, or Hureim, I'm not even gonna say it. Paltiel, you remember?
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David sent for Michael. As he was bringing Michael, his bride that he bought for 204 skins,
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Paltiel was told by Abner, all right, I know you're crying, dry it up, go home.
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He's going with the king. That's the last time. And what we do know about Bahirom is it's most likely from what we understand from scripture, the place, was the place of Nab.
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You remember, or know, however you want to say that as well, where the slaughter by King Saul, that's where this took place.
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It's just outside Jerusalem. So it says, as he came to Bahirom, behold, there came out a man from the house of Saul whose name was
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Shimei. He was a son of Gareth. He came out cursing David continually. He was throwing stones at David.
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The servants of the king of David and the mighty men were both on his right and his left. Now, Shimei, from his mindset, let's think like him for a second, does he have a legitimate reason to be angry with David?
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He sees David as the usurper of Saul's kingdom. Yeah, and based on what he says, he does see
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David as a man of bloodshed. And I don't think there's anybody in here that would disagree that David was a man of bloodshed.
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Even God said, you can't build my house because you've been such a man of war and you've shed so much blood. But my understanding of this part, the way he's saying it, because he's of the house of Saul, as he's calling down this condemnation and curse on David, he believes that David had something to do with the death of Saul and Jonathan.
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And he usurped it. And here's the reason why. Because he goes on to say, he's cursing him, get out here, you bloodthirsty man, or you bloodshed, you worthless man.
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And the word that's used there in the Hebrew is the word for Belial. And a lot of, does anybody say that?
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Son of Belial? Okay. Yeah, that's basically saying you evil, almost,
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I mean, it can sometimes be said, you son of Satan. He said, what you have done, you have shed the blood of the house of Saul.
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Well, that's how I understand it. Him thinking that he had something to do with him dying in Gilgal.
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And we know this, that God supernaturally removed David from that. Remember when he was supposed to be going to fight the battle of Gilgal?
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Remember what the Philistines said? Hey man, this guy goes with us. What if he turns on us and he starts whacking off our heads?
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So Achish said, go home. And that removed David from being in the place where Saul had,
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I do often wonder about that passage when David's gone. Cause you know, David in those years, he was just flying on the seat of his pants.
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He was kind of winging it. He's like, wow, I really got myself into this. What am I going to do now? How am
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I going to get out of this? You know, I've deceived Achish for all these years, going out, making these raids, saying it's against Judah and all that.
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And he's been killing, yeah, basically. And he's coming back and he hadn't got caught.
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Now he's going, okay, now they're going to make me fight my own people. And he says, okay. And God removes him from that.
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So that's why, how I understand Shimei for having a, although what he's doing is wrong in his mind, what he is saying, he thinks what he's saying is true.
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Okay. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt. He thinks that what he's saying is true. Although you should not curse the king.
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You don't talk bad about the king, but listen to how David understands it. Okay. He said, well, hang on, it says here first, he has taken your kingdom and he's given it to Absalom.
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Is that true? From what we know right now? Yeah. How did
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David leave the, who providentially led David out of Jerusalem?
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God did. Okay. God did. And in many ways, because of David's sin, and if you disagree with me, just tell me, in many ways we can see this because of David's sin, he is now being somewhat exiled from Jerusalem.
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Anybody disagree? Because we're going to see, not only does he, is he going up this way, he does something that is often thought of leaving the promised land.
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What is he going to do here shortly? He's going to cross the Jordan. And where does he land? He lands in Mount Hinnom, where a dude set up, where Ishtar Sheff set up his home base, which is basically when the civil war started between the two early on.
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So just keep that in mind. God has led him out. God's the one who's providentially, through the conspiracy, moved him out of the land of Israel.
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And now who's looked as the king in Jerusalem? Absalom.
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Absalom. Whether it's usurped, or hearts of the men are taken to Absalom.
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Hey, and God said it would be this way. God said it would be this way. Not specifically this way, but he said, hey, there was a sword that was going to be in the house.
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So here it is. He says, you bloodthirsty man, and then you have the most consistent killer of them all, opens up his mouth and says, why should this dead dog curse the king?
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Hey, you got to give, at least give Abishai one thing. That dude is, he is, he was protecting the king, and he's consistently wanting to kill
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David's enemies. Yeah. And we've often said through the last few chapters, where's
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Joab through this? I don't know if y 'all noticed, when he responds to him, he says this, what have
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I to do with you, oh sons of Zariah? So my understanding at this point, maybe
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Joab's here. Joab hasn't said a word, but maybe Joab's here.
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Who were the two commanders? Basically, it was Joab and Abishai. So my understanding is maybe
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Joab's here at this point. And here's how David understands what Shimei is saying.
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If he curses, and if the Lord has told him curse David, then who shall say, why have you done this?
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Now, David obviously believes in the sovereignty of God. Yeah, and the sovereignty of God, and God carrying out his purposes through providence, he is saying, hey, if this dude's gonna curse me, and God's told him to do it, leave it alone.
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Who am I to say he's not to do it? Now, as Shimei is calling him a bloodthirsty man against the house of Saul, how is
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David hearing this? He's saying what this man is saying is right.
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Anybody see it a different way? He's saying, hey, this man's been told to curse, and why would David say that his cursing against him may be right?
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There's no doubt in my mind that he cannot get out of his conscience, although forgiven,
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God's grace been extended to him, that he slept with Bathsheba, he killed
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Uriah, and not only did he kill Uriah, but all of those other innocent men that got thrown up against the wall when they got killed, and then not only that,
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God struck his baby dead. Now, because of the curse that was given to him from Nathan, Amnon's dead, and now this has rose up, that my own son has set his sword against me.
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So David understanding that, you know what, this is of the Lord. Now, we won't get into 1
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Kings, because I'm gonna do Daniel after that, after we finish here. That's actually probably in six or seven weeks.
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But anybody know what happens to Shimei? He says, all right, I'm gonna let this go.
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Shimei comes to David in next chapter, I'm sorry, in 18 or 19.
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He comes to him once he sees that, oh man, Absalom ain't gonna make it. So he comes groveling.
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David says, I'm not gonna kill you. But as David's given his departure speech, basically the
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Godfather speech, in chapters two of Kings, he says, here's some dudes you got to take care of.
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You got to take care of Joab. You got to take care of Shimei. Joab killed two men at a time when it was not warring.
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And that was Abner and Amasa. And he says, and Shimei accursed me. And he needs to pay for what he did.
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But didn't he put a boundary on it? He did. And I think that was intentional.
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I think it was intentional. Because he wasn't where we know this, he's not in Jerusalem here.
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So he basically brings him, my understanding of that is that he would bring him from wherever he was at, brought him to Jerusalem, put a perimeter around him and said, yeah, as long as you stay here, you're good.
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As long as you stay here, you're good. He brought all of his servants back and one of them servants ran off.
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And when he went, and he said, hey, you swore before the Lord that if you went, you was dead.
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And what'd he do? Struck him dead. So God took care of it. But he took care of it through his son, Solomon.
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So that brings us to 12.
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Perhaps the Lord will look on my affliction and return good to me instead of easel of his cursing this day.
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Look, David's saying, look, I am a man of bloodshed. But maybe God would be more gracious to me again and return good instead of this curse on me.
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It says that Shimei continued to go along that side parallel to them. It's funny to me, man, casting stones and kicking up dust.
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It's seeing this old guy just throwing rocks and cussing and kicking and you know, it's like man in my mind,
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I see these images in there and it says that the king and all the people who were with him when they arrived, they were weary and they refreshed themselves.
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Obviously, what did they refresh themselves? Food, beverages, and one jug of wine. You know, one jug of wine.
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All right, now, meanwhile, back in Jerusalem. So here it is, we had Mount of Olives. Now, if this was a movie, we're gonna pan back.
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Meanwhile, back at Jerusalem, Absalom comes in.
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And as he comes in, all the men of Israel enter Jerusalem, Hithophel was with him.
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Remember, who was a Hithophel? He was a counselor, he was
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David's counselor. He has now betrayed David. His betrayal of David, my understanding would be, because that was
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Bathsheba's granddad. That's how I understand it. He has the opportunity to kind of whack
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David. See David's, well, he wanted David, from my understanding of it, he wanted David dead. From his counsel coming soon, he wanted
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David dead. And I believe he wanted him dead for what he did to Uriah, the family, and the stuff that happened with Bathsheba.
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Although, Elyon was one of his, that was his son, which would have been,
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I'm sorry, that Elyon would have been Bathsheba's dad.
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That was one of David's mighty men, if you go through. And we'll actually, when we get to the end of the book,
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I think it's in chapter 22 or 23, he's listed. Yeah, the list of the hit man, basically. So Ahithophel was with him.
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And about that time, Hushai the Archite. So we have two counselors. Both of them
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David's counselors. One of them has defected and joined the conspiracy.
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That's Ahithophel. God providentially has sent Hushai to hear whatever this.
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So imagine being in the king's court, or wherever he's at, or in his palace, wherever Absalom's set up.
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Here's Ahithophel fixing to give him something. And lo and behold, who walks through the door? Hushai.
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And he says, all right, I want you to give me, I want you to give me counsel.
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And Absalom's gonna get counsel from Ahithophel. But before then, as he walks in the door,
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Hushai says, Absalom says to Hushai, loyal, this is how you show your loyalty?
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I mean, that is kind of smart mouthed. And hey, and rightfully so. Okay, rightfully so.
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He walks through the door and he says, so this is how you're gonna show loyalty to your friend? Look, man, this guy's already betrayed.
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He didn't say this, but this is what I'm hearing. This guy's already betrayed him and joined me. So you're gonna do the same?
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And he uses little whimsical words, a little, hey, look, I'm not here to join forces or play sides.
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I'm saying, whomever the people do it, I serve the throne, that's it. My loyalty is to the, what's that?
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He said the Lord first. Yeah, but his loyalty is to the throne. He is making loyalty to the throne.
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Whoever the Lord anoints, basically, he will serve. But is that not using the Lord? Lord's name in vain, yes, ma 'am.
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Well, we've seen that how many times so far? He kind of used it as leverage. Yeah, loses leverage, yeah. And honestly, I don't think that bothered
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Absalom one bit, because Absalom don't care nothing about the Lord. He's used it, too. Yeah, he used it, too, before he went to Hebron.
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He's trying to tell him, I'm an open -minded, all this stuff, man, it's okay. Yeah, look, whoever the people anoint, whoever the
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Lord anoints, that's where my loyalty will be. My loyalty is to the throne. What's that?
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That Marvel movie where the people of Wakanda, they serve the throne, whoever the king is, no matter whether he's good or bad.
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Good or bad, that's who we're gonna serve. Yep, so that's what he said, we're gonna serve. So, and Hushai says, no, my loyalty's to whomever they choose, and that's where I'll remain.
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Besides, whom shall I serve? And he does this, hey, and I want you to understand, man, Hushai is good about playing into Absalom's pride, okay?
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Understand, Ahithophel's, I think, the reason why he is over, his counsel is obviously providentially through God because it's thwarted through David's prayer, that because Ahithophel's, in the conspiracy to get
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David killed, why is it making Ahithophel the object of David's death, when who wants to kill?
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Absalom. So Absalom doesn't become the main, the lead actor in that.
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So here it is, he says, hey, I'll serve you, shall
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I not serve his son? So he's playing into his pride, I have served in your father's presence, therefore
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I'll serve you. It's about you, Absalom, you, you, you.
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Now, here Absalom says to Ahithophel, give me your advice. What shall we do? And Ahithophel says to Absalom, here, in short,
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I'm gonna paraphrase it. He says, here's what you need to do. You need to go into the concubines that were left here to take care of the palace, and the reason why you need to do that is because in doing so, they'll know that you're now the man and that you have now taken over not only the throne, but you've taken over all of his possessions by going into the concubines.
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Once again, what's Ahithophel doing? He's playing into the pride and the self -centeredness of Absalom.
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Now, briefly said this last week, so they get up on the palace or on the roof, interesting enough, the same roof where he looks down and sees
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Bathsheba and says, bring her to me. Now they put a tent up there to where he can consummate, quote, the kingdom through the taking of the concubines.
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I don't see this as all of Israel gathering around the palace to watch 10 sexual acts, okay?
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That's not how we should understand that, but we should understand it as it was plain knowledge that what was going on up in that tent was sexual intercourse with the concubines to usurp
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David's authority because he was now the man, okay? So I don't want anybody to think it's some type of voyeurism or some type of perversion on the people's part.
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Perversion on Absalom's part? Yeah, this book, man, this plays into his pride. So he does that.
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He goes in, once again, for Absalom to be very upset for the sexual intercourse that happened, the rape that happened to his sister.
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He does this, okay, to 10 concubines, understand?
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They're not his concubines. He has now used his authority. Remember, what is rape?
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Rape's not always a violent, it's not always a violent, forceful act by physical overpowering.
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It can be coercion by authority over someone. What's happening here?
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He's doing the very same thing that David did to Bathsheba, used his authority to coerce them or to force them into sexual intercourse.
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That's what he does. He does it on the roof. It says that the advice of Ahithophel, which he gave in those days were that as inquired of the word of the
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Lord, so was all the advice of Ahithophel regarded to both David and Absalom.
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So here it is, the advice of Ahithophel, was that a fulfillment of the prophetic word of God?
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Was them going into the concubines? Yeah, and why do we know that, Mike? Go ahead. It was already predicted that this would happen.
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Yeah, what you have done, he told David through Nathan, what you have done - It's gonna come back.
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It's gonna come back to get you and it'll be done in plain sight so all will know. So what David did in secret inside the palace of intercourse and sexual -
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What's that? Back in chapter 12. Yeah, what he did now, God, through the fulfillment of the prophecy and through the counsel of Ahithophel, you're gonna do it on top of the roof and all will know.
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And this will show that David's kingdom is falling into ruin. Now that brings us into chapter 17.
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And we'll probably just go through maybe the first section.
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Maybe just 14. The discipline of God, yeah.
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Yeah, because we don't see him pushing back. I do understand that David does not want to kill
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Absalom. I in no way, shape, form, or fashion, and I know there's people that would disagree with me,
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David did not flee because David was scared of Absalom. David fled because if he stayed there, he was gonna slaughter the city.
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So once again, David being that anointed king that points us to Christ, hey, for the sake of the people,
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I'm going to put myself aside, I'll be like a servant and leave. Hey, that person's now the king.
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You remember how many times he said, go back to the king? What did he tell Idiot? He said, go back, man. You just came out yesterday.
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You're only in this for one day. Yeah, go back. You and your family, go serve the king.
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So David understands that what's happening here is the judgment of God, judgment not meaning the wrath of God, but the judgment of the consequences of his sin.
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Hey, we all know this. We sin, God's gonna forgive us, right? Let's say a guy kills 500 people.
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He's on death row. And he truly repents. He's still gonna either get the electric chair, lethal injection.
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I mean, it might take another 30 years to do it. Whatever, it doesn't remove the consequences of his sin.
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And David knew that because God told him, hey, today you will not die. Remember when Nathan came to him?
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When he, and he said, oh man, I've sinned. And he says, well, today you will not die. And I do believe that God was going to strike him dead if he didn't repent.
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Now we don't look at it as well, God was never going to do that.
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We need to understand how revelation is unfolding. Unfolding, it would have been, hey, if David would not have recognized his sin,
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God was gonna strike him dead. The oracle of judgment that came from Nathan was to create the, yeah, the big pointy finger was to create the brokenness in his heart that he had sinned against God.
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So yeah, I do believe that he is taking this in a very passive way. He's not trying to get the war together, although we are going to see in a few chapters that a clash does happen and it says some 20 ,000 people are killed.
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Some of that. Sometimes it's even driving out the consequences of that sin, even rougher than that sin itself.
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Yeah, but there was a desire for Absalom not to be killed. There was a desire.
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He tells his man, don't harm the lad or whatever. Be gentle. He says, be gentle with him.
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Be gentle. Yeah, be gentle. So when we get into 17, and we won't go far today, obviously,
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Ahithophel said to Absalom, please, and here it is, once again, Ahithophel is playing into his own desire here.
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He wants to be the guy to do this. He tells Absalom, let me choose 12 ,000 men that I may rise,
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I may pursue David. I will come upon him. He will be weary and exhausted and terrified so that all the people who are with him, and then as he will flee,
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I will strike him down, only the king. I can tell you right now, that didn't sit well with Absalom.
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Because who becomes the one to kill the king, and then, yeah.
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Yeah, when the Saul has killed the thousands and David has 10 ,000. And that's what's gonna be
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Ahithophel. Yeah, it'll be, hey, Absalom's a good king, but man, Ahithophel took the dudes and did it.
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And once you get back, you may take me. That's a good, yeah, if he gets this amount of people to follow him, he may, like you say, he could raise a coup up as well.
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He says, and I will bring back all the people to you. The return of everyone depends that you may, the return of everyone depends on the man you seek, then all the people will be at peace.
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So the plan pleased Absalom and all the elders of Israel. All right, so at this point, he's like,
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Absalom says, all right, this makes it easy. I really don't have to get my hands dirty.
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I really don't have to do this. Maybe this is the way to go. But then Absalom said to this, now call
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Hushai the Archite also, let us hear what he has to say. Oh, if he really thought in his mind, this is the best plan of all, he wouldn't even ask
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Hushai for plan B. Now we know under the providence of God, how did
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Hushai the Archite get in there? God sent him, on his way, remember what David's prayer was?
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Please turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness or something along that line.
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Let it be thwarted. And then lo and behold, as he prays that, who came across the top? It was
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Hushai the Archite, clothes torn, dirt on his face, mourning. And now he says, you go in, you go talk to him, and you see what's going on.
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So he's basically sending him in there to be a spy. Then Hushai had come to Absalom, Absalom said to him,
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Ahithophel has spoken, thus, shall we carry out this plan? If not, you speak.
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And he immediately says, this time the advice of Ahithophel is not good.
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Does anybody's other translation say anything different than that? Okay. The advice he has given is not good at this time.
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At this time. I like that. Yeah, so do I, because what we do know about Ahithophel, everything else that he said was like speaking the oracles of God.
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And what he did tell Absalom to do with the ten concubines was the oracle that God had of doom and punishment towards David.
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So when he says at this time, I think that is a better way of saying that. Is hey, what he has just told you right now is not good.
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He says, Ahithophel was thus, shall we carry, I'm sorry, yeah, moreover,
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Hushai said, you know your father and his men, that they are mighty men, they are fierce.
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Once again, this is where I say, you know that David's not a coward. Hushai knows that hey, these men are ruthless, they're fierce.
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You're not going to just run up on these people in the wilderness, and they're going to lay down their arms.
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He said, they will be fierce like a bear robbed of her cubs in the field. And your father is an expert in warfare and he will not spend the night with the people.
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Behold, he has now hidden himself in one of the caves or in another place and it will be that when he falls on them and on their first attack, whoever hears of it will say, there has been a slaughter among the people who follow
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Absalom. And even the one who is valiant, whose heart is like a lion will melt with fear and they will lose heart.
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For all of Israel knows that your father is a mighty man and he is valiant and those who are the men with him.
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And here it is, but I counsel that all of Israel be surely gathered to you.
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Once again, what does he say? What has he played into? Now, he's played into, don't let
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Ahithophel do it, you do it. Man, this makes him feel like the man again. He says,
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I counsel that you gather all of them to you from Dan to Beersheba. And what was the reason for Dan to Beersheba?
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From A to Z. A to Z, top to bottom. Dan was the highest part, Beersheba was the lowest part of the known lands, the consolidated land.
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As the sand that is by the sea in abundance and that you personally go into battle.
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What did Ahithophel want him to do? He wanted him to stay back at the palace. If you're a warrior king, you gotta go out and fight.
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So what does Hushai say? Hey dude, you gotta get out. If you're gonna really be the man, you gotta prove you're the man.
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And he's like, oh yeah, you know what, you're right. I gotta be the man. To be the man, you gotta beat the man.
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So, he says, you're gonna have to go out and you're gonna have to fight. So we shall come to him in one of the places where he can be found and we will fall on him as the dew falls on the ground and on him and all the men who are with him.
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Not one of them should be left. What would Ahithophel say he was supposed to do? Remember what
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Ahithophel said? You give me 12 ,000 men, I'll go kill the king only. And all the people will follow.
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He's saying, no, no, no, no, no. What you need to go do is you gotta go out and you gotta kill the king and you gotta kill all of his followers.
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And from a coup standpoint, that's what you gotta do. Do you think that David's men, once they saw
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David dead, they're gonna lay down their arms? I doubt it. I don't think Joab and Abishai and those 36 valiant men or at this point, 34, 35 because Uriah's gone, they're not gonna say, here man, hands up, keep me in a place of authority.
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No, they're gonna fight. And if he withdraws in verse 13, and then we'll wrap it up here as we get to verse 14.
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If he withdraws into the city, then all of Israel shall bring ropes to the city. We will drag it into the valley, not even one small stone will be left there.
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Then Absalom and all the men of Israel said, the council of Hushai, the archite, is better than the council of Ahithophel.
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Here it is. Why is it better? For the Lord had ordained to thwart, here it is, the good council of Ahithophel, the good council.
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So it was good. It was good, but it wasn't good at that time. It wasn't good at that time. And as we're reading that, we're going, man, that's a little confusing.
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Ahithophel's desire was to see David die for his transgressions. I mean, for his transgressions.
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We would agree. Is God's desire to see David die for his transgression? No, God had extended grace.
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And I'm telling you, there is no doubt in my mind, it drove Ahithophel absolutely mad that God showed grace to David.
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I don't know about y 'all, but sometimes I read it, I go, man, he showed David a lot of grace.
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If I had 15 more minutes, I would. Yeah, because my plan was to get through both of them so we could see that you had the council that was actually heeded and was part of God's plan to where the other council really wasn't.
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It was part of God's plan in the narrative, but it wasn't God's plan to have
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Absalom taken out. Look, Absalom has to be removed out of the picture. If Absalom stays alive,
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I know we're going a little bit further ahead a week or so. We go further ahead.
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If Absalom, if life had been spared, do you think that Absalom would have been fine being the prince?
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No, man, it's always been, I'm the man, and I'm gonna be the man. If I gotta kill
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Ammon and get him out of the way, he'd rape my sister, but then I'm next in line.
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Then I'm gonna go over here to my granddad's, you know, let it simmer down. Then he gets called back.
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He comes back and he's not in the king's palace. Therefore, he gets very angry. And what does he do?
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Sets Joab's field on fire to get the attention. He was not a coward. We gotta understand that, man.
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This guy was not a coward. He was whimsical to the people. The people did desire and did love him and wanted to make him king.
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He was without blemish. He was valiant, and he was the one that God had been using to chastise
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David. And we'll stop there. Mike, you're first. Dillard, we thank you for this example that when we see grace extended to those that we feel your wrath should come upon, that we should consider your grace was extended to us.
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We pray, Lord, that we would not think that we are the ones who call down condemnation, but we trust that you are
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God and you are sovereign and you are omnipotent. We pray, Lord, that you would be with the service, be with Keith, give him strength as he preaches, and bless the preaching of your word, the singing, the giving, the supper, and we pray that all that's said and all that's done would be pleasing to you, and we'll thank you for it.