2 Samuel 13:23-39 The Apathy of a Father

Of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak is preaching from his series, The Warrior Poet King, Study of Second Samuel. Let's listen in.

The Church Gathers in Community

Welcome, everybody. As Linda said, I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here, and I am really glad that we've gathered together to remember that we are not alone in the ups and downs of life. How many of you are glad for that?

You're not alone. Are there others around you? God, in his kindness, has established his church through his son, Jesus Christ. And I wanna point out that everything we do this morning, kinda counterintuitively to state this so directly, but everything that we do here this morning, you could have done at home.

It's the truth. You could sing some songs on your own at home. You could pray on your own at home. You can read the Bible on your own at home. You could even tune into a sermon and hear somebody preach at home.

But there is something fundamental to God's call on our lives that you can't do alone. You can't, to the best of my understanding, gather together with others alone. You can't do that. We need each other to be what God wants us to be as individuals.

We need to be in community. We need a connection, a commitment, a commitment to unity, a commitment to love that works through issues and a recognition that God has more projects that he's working on than just me.

Thank you for being that for me, church. As I look out every Sunday morning, I go, oh, it's not just me. Oh, that's right, I'm not the only one in this battle. Oh, that's right, I'm not the only one who's trying to fight for faith in a world that is broken.

But we're in it together, amen? You guys glad to be together? This morning, we're gonna be continuing on in the book of 2 Samuel. No, this is not a message about America or eagles or freedom. This is a message going right through 2 Samuel.

That's what expository preaching does is it just takes the next chapter and off we go. So we're gonna pull back to a 30 ,000-foot view as we see the painful reality that King David's sin and apathy have produced really dire consequences in his family life.

We saw earlier in 2 Samuel, a couple chapters ago, sexual sin and murder in the life of David. And after our text this morning, we will see that that has replicated itself in the next generation of his family.

The kind of idea behind these few chapters that we're in in 2 Samuel over the course of the last couple of weeks has been summarized by the old adage, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. But before we read this text this morning, I would like to set some ground rules for us that will help to flavor our understanding of what we're looking at in this text because there could be some confusion over what is justice in this era of time?

What is really going on here? So here are six things really quickly that I just want you to have in mind as we read the text. The first is that Amnon deserves punishment for his assault against Tamar that we read about last week.

The second thing that you need to keep in mind is that David is Amnon's father, but he is also the king of Israel. And that makes his role as king the one right person to carry out justice in his kingdom.

He is the rightful judge, and he should be the one who is taking this to his son. So that ties in with the third thing, and that is that Absalom in this text that we're seeing here is usurping his father's role by what he does in this text.

The fourth thing that you need to understand is that Absalom is motivated by hatred. And we don't get that right in our text, but we get that in verse 22 of the previous text. So it's important that we start this text remembering what was at the end of our text last week.

And that is simply that Absalom hates his brother Amnon for what he did to their sister Tamar. The fifth thing is that Absalom enlists others to do his dirty work. You'll see it in the text, just like his daddy did.

The sixth thing, fundamentally, that you need to understand, and this is most important, is that what we are reading about in the text is stone-cold murder. It is murder. So let's open our Bibles to 2 Samuel chapter 13.

Starting in verse 23 through the end of the chapter is what we're gonna read together. And you can go there on your device. You can open your scripture journals. If you have your own copy of the Bible, grab that.

You can also open the Recast app and click on the Faith tab at the bottom. Every week you can do this. And that pulls up an option for sermon notes. And under that sermon notes is the current text and a place there that you can take your notes if you would like.

So if you like kind of digital copies of notes, that's available there. But 2 Samuel 13, 23 through 39. Recast God's holy and precious word to us on this holiday weekend, what he desires for us to hear here in America in 2022.

After two full years, Absalom had sheep shears at Baal Hazor, which is near Ephraim. And Absalom invited all the king's sons. And Absalom came to the king and said, behold, your servant has sheep shears.

Please let the king and his servants go with your servant. But the king said to Absalom, no, my son, let us not all go lest we be burdensome to you. He pressed him, but he would not go, but he gave him his blessing.

Then Absalom said, if not, please let my brother Amnon go with us. And the king said to him, why should he go with you? But Absalom pressed him until he let Amnon and all the king's sons go with him. Then Absalom commanded his servants, mark when Amnon's heart is merry with wine.

And when I say to you, strike Amnon, then kill him. Do not fear. Have I not commanded you? Be courageous and be valiant. So the servants of Absalom did to Amnon, as Absalom had commanded. Then all the king's sons arose and each mounted his mule and fled.

While they were on their way, news came to David. Absalom has struck down all the king's sons and not one of them has left. Then the king arose and tore his garments and lay on the earth and all his servants who were standing by tore their garments.

But Jonadab, the son of Shimea, David's brother, said, let not my lord suppose that they have killed all the young men, the king's sons, for Amnon alone is dead. For by the command of Absalom, this has been determined from the day he violated his sister Tamar.

Now therefore, let not my lord, the king, so take it to heart as to suppose that all the king's sons are dead, for Amnon alone is dead. But Absalom fled. And the young man who kept the watch lifted up his eyes and looked and behold, many people were coming from the road behind him by the side of the mountain.

And Jonadab said to the king, behold, the king's sons have come, as your servant said, so it has come about. And as soon as he finished speaking, behold, the king's sons came and lifted up their voice and wept.

And the king also and all his servants wept very bitterly. But Absalom fled and went to Talmai, the son of Amahud, king of Geshur. And David mourned for his son day after day. So Absalom fled and went to Geshur and was there three years.

And the spirit of the king longed to go out to Absalom because he was comforted about Amnon since he was dead. Let's pray. Father, I ask that you would meet us here in this place. I recognize that there's so many places we could be on a holiday weekend.

I just rejoice in the gathering of your people and the opportunity that we have to come together in singing and hearing from your word and being strengthened and built up. I pray that you would allow this message to seep into our hearts, the applications by the end are going to have the potential by the power of your spirit to cut into and slice into any attentive heart, to excise things that are there that ought not to be there and to motivate us to move out in a way that is different than the way that we walked in here.

So Father, I pray that by your spirit you would meet us in this place with the power to change us, to make us more like your son Jesus Christ, more in love with you, more in love with the things that you desire of us.

And Father, as we have an opportunity to lift our voices in praise to you, I pray that that would be motivated and fueled by a gratitude and a thankfulness for what you have done for us. It's very easy for us to sing along in a gathering like this and not mean the words and not really reflect on them.

I pray that that would not be true of any of us here this morning, that we would lift our voices in gladness before you, that you would meet us here in this place. We thank you for the salvation that we share in Jesus Christ, that we have that one thing in common that is the most important thing that unites us.

We're all different people, we all come from unique weeks with difficulties and challenges, but you have brought us here to this place in unity under the cross of Jesus Christ, your son, and the hope of resurrection that he gives to each one of us.

We praise you for this gathering. We praise you for your presence here with us, and we ask that you would receive our songs now of praise, that they would rise before you, for you alone are worthy, amen.

Reading 2 Samuel 13:23-39

All right, yeah, you can go to be seated. Like I say, every week, make yourself comfortable. If at any time during the message you wanna get up and get more coffee or juice or donut holes back there, take advantage of that.

But do please keep your Bibles open to 2 Samuel chapter 13, verses 23 through 39. Grab that, get that back in front of you so that you can see I'm walking through that text, and that's what we're looking at for the remainder of our time together.

I think sometimes it's helpful, especially when we're in the middle of a series like this and an Old Testament book, to climb a little higher, to kind of get the altitude, to gain some perspective on the things that we are reading about, especially in an Old Testament book like 2 Samuel.

It would make sense if, like maybe at this point in the midst of kind of going through 2 Samuel, section by section, paragraph by paragraph, it would make sense if you began to question a little bit once in a while, why in the world are we reading about an ancient king in the Middle East?

And further, why all the graphic details about his family slide into sin and depravity? Why are we studying this? Why are we looking into these things? And the answer to that question would be found as we look at the sweep of the entire Bible, understanding that the entire Bible is one story.

If you read from Genesis to Revelation, you get a story arc, you get a plot, you get themes. It begins, the story begins with an almighty creator who creates this world and created it to be very good.

And he made humans in his image and likeness and he makes us the caretakers of this world. But we rebelled against our creator, obviously our mother and father, Adam and Eve, plunged the world into chaos and sin through their disobedience to our one creator.

But early on, God promises, he begins the plan of redemption early on. A lot of people think that the plan of redemption begins at the arrival of Jesus Christ, but it begins much, much, much earlier in the Bible.

There's a promise early on to Eve herself that one born of her line would crush the head of the serpent, the evil one. And then he sets about to complete a plan to defeat sin and the consequences of death, God working within the broken system to fix it.

Rather than, I mean, if you think about all the options available to an infinite God, which there's no way we can wrap our mind around, at least one of those options stands out to me and that's why the whole thing up, throw it in his cosmic trash bin, start over again.

Anybody ever thought that that was an option to him? Why didn't he do that, right? Because he wants to redeem from within. He wants to fix it, he wants to save it. He finds it redeemable. And so the promise begins as he meets with Noah and saves and rescues his family, an image of the way that God is a saving God.

He begins to have conversations with Abraham to set about a people for himself. He talks to Jacob and carries that forward. He talks to Moses and gives his people a law that they cannot keep that demonstrates that you're not gonna earn this, you're not gonna win your way back.

He meets with David and says one of your offspring is going to be the promised one who's gonna set all of these things right. Of course he meets with many prophets and the story of his plan of redemption unfolds one promise and one prophecy at a time and I love the way that the Old Testament reveals facets of his salvation one at a time, these beautiful gems, the life of David being one of them until we finally see that his plan is to send forth a savior who will be called things like God with us and he will be born of a woman and he will be crushed for the sins of his people but he will also through resurrection be named the eternal king over a perfect sinless and deathless kingdom.

That is the plot of the Bible. That is where things are going. And so all of those promises in the Old Testament then enter Jesus in the New Testament who fulfilled all of those prophecies, who was indeed crucified as the sinless lamb of God for his people as foretold in the Old Testament.

He was raised to new life. He ascended to the right hand of God in heaven from where he rules and reigns today and he will indeed return for his people to establish justice and usher in that final kingdom.

That's the story arc. So when we read scripture, it's good to ask ourselves where are we at in that big picture plan that begins with creation, goes through the fall, begins to be redeemed and goes through redemption and will ultimately result in a restoration, a glorious restoration.

We're learning in 2 Samuel about God's faithfulness to keep his promises. We're in a part of his redemption. The redemption has begun. He's begun the promise of working through a people to bring forth a Messiah.

That's what Israel is about. The whole relationship with Israel was about a protective people through which God was gonna bring forth his promised Messiah. We're learning about the way that God moves his plan forward despite, in our texts, despite the sinfulness of his people.

The depth of the depravity in these accounts in the family life of David are astonishing to our ears, sometimes shocking, at least scandalous, and yet they are recorded for us because they serve a vital purpose in the story arc of God's redemption because these stories of Amnon and Tamar and Absalom and David and Bathsheba remind us that God is able to keep his promises to us even when we fail to honor him as we ought, and that gives me hope.

Anyone else? Anyone else find hope that God can keep his promises to you despite your failures and your sin? Man, I need this message. I need these stories. In other words, redemption is not dependent on our ability to please him.

Oh, that is good news, church. God promised to establish David's royal lineage forever, and that was a one-sided promise. You're gonna sin, David, and you're gonna sin grievously, and you are gonna reap consequences in your family line that are gonna be devastating intentionally so that my promises stand to my glory, says God, so that you see that I'm a promise keeper and you're not.

In our text this morning, we're gonna see the promises of God right on the knife's edge. All of his sons, all of David's sons are in jeopardy. God promised to establish that royal line forever, and here is a mess, and that mess just comes a hair's breadth away from, quote-unquote, thwarting the promises of God.

Now, can God's promises ever be thwarted? Praise God, they can't, but it looks to our eyes often like, oh, man, this is the end. Oh, man, this is where his promises die. This is where his faithfulness, in our generation, his faithfulness to the church is over.

Man, we're only one generation from the church dying. How many of you ever heard that before? It's just not true, because who is the king? Who is the head of this thing? God. Got nothing to fear, church, that it's gonna carry right on until he comes back for us, because he promises, he promises, he promises that the gates of hell will not prevail against his church.

That's the hope. Every generation will have at least a remnant of people who believe the truth, preach the truth, proclaim the truth, love him to the end. That's glorious. In our text, David is, at one point in the text, he's gonna believe that the promises have failed.

He's gonna believe that all of his sons are dead. Well, God has promised that one of his lineage, one born to his royal line is going to be the promised king, the one who's going to rule for eternity and solve our sin problem, and that would spell the end of his promises if all of his kids, all of his sons are dead.

Well, we saw this devastation, right? We've seen the darkness. Amnon raped his half-sister, Tamar, in a terrible passage that we looked at last week, and if you missed that message, I recommend you download the podcast or watch it on YouTube.

Go back and check that one out. It is a really difficult passage, but I think a message that's good for us to hear. But now we find in verse 23 that two full years have passed since that devastating thing has occurred, and what must that, I mean, just a thought passing here.

What was that two years like for the characters? What was that two years like for Tamar? Amnon has been running around free, acting princely. David is aware of what has happened, and it made him angry, but not angry enough to move him to provide justice for his daughter, Tamar.

And some have observed that revenge is a dish best served cold, and it seems like Absalom's got in on that. And in two years, I am sure that some of the edge has been taken off some of these relationships.

How many of you know that relationships shift within a two-year period of time, and sometimes your anger cools, sometimes things get a little bit easier to process, and you have a little bit of time and distance and all that?

Not so with Absalom. Absalom has been busy this couple years. He's been plotting and planning. He has been biding his time, looking for the right opportunity to enact a plan. We are told at the end of verse 22 that Absalom hated his brother, Amnon, for what he did to his full sister, Tamar.

So Absalom hatched a plot. Every year, there were sheep-shearing gatherings. These were like festivals. It was all held around the same time of the year, and people would hire sheep-shearers, and then they would all go out, and there would be a celebration.

And we see this throughout various places in the Bible. In the book of Genesis, Jacob tries to flee from his father-in-law, Laban, during the sheep-shearing season, using that as kind of a diversion so that he can take his two daughters and all of his sheep and run and flee.

In 1 Samuel, earlier on in the life of David, we saw Nabal make a fool of himself against David during the sheep-shearing festival. He gets drunk, eventually has a heart attack and dies, and David married his widow, Abigail.

So even in the context of David, we see sheep-shearing factoring into some of his life here. And so sheep-shearing was a time of celebrating, a harvest of wool. This was a cash crop for an agrarian society where everything, all the clothing was made of wool.

That was a big deal. If you're dependent on animals, did you know that if you can get a product from an animal that you don't have to kill, that's a bonus? You get something from it, you can milk it, you can take its wool, and it still survives.

That's a good thing, and that makes it a cash thing. That makes it worthy of celebrating in this context. And so Absalom invites his father, the king, and all of his brothers to join him for the work and the festivities.

They're not going up there to work. The king isn't gonna go take shears and cut the wool off. This is to come and join the celebration. Come and be part of the festival is the idea here. And Absalom presses his father, but his father didn't wanna be a burden on Absalom.

And the idea of pressing there and keep pressing and keep pressing is that he's badgering his dad. Come on, man, let's just go celebrate. Come on, be part of it, Dad. I mean, you're the king. That would be awesome if you'd come up to my sheep-shearing.

But it's likely, the reason that David gives for not going with his son is, it seems kinda lame to our ears. You know, no, I wouldn't wanna be a burden to you, son. It's not that great, but it would be a burden.

He's not wrong. It's likely due to the large entourage and security detail and everyone that would be involved. It would involve the entire royal family and all of their servants and their advisors and their security and all of that.

So Absalom, you're gonna have to feed everyone. I mean, all of the family and all of the princes and all their security and all their servants and all their advisors and everyone. We're gonna be a burden to you.

This isn't even gonna be fun celebration if we all go with you. So David declined, but Absalom wore his father down and eventually he relents and agrees to let all the princes go with Absalom. Now imagine that David, in this context, had a skeptical eye toward Absalom.

I think for probably two years he's been watching him. What's he gonna do to Amnon? Have him return? Kinda watch and keep the two apart because I know Absalom has. How many of you know as a father or as a parent, you can kinda see when your kids are at odds with one another?

And I think in this context, David was seeing the hatred. Absalom won't even talk to Amnon. There's a cold shoulder going on here and David is watching it. But especially, I think his radar would go up when Absalom asked for Amnon by name in the text.

Why should he go with you, is David's question. And so how in the world does Absalom get David to acquiesce and allow his son, Amnon, to go with Absalom, who knows, hate each other? But I think all you have to do is those parents in the room probably already got it.

You already figured it out. If you have a persistent child who is badgering you for something and badgering you for something and badgering you for something, eventually you just go, yeah, you can have a candy bar at the checkout line.

You know how easy it is to give in to requests. Raise your hand if you've ever just kinda been guilty. Get off my back, yes, you can have a $20 bill. Here, take it, just get outta here. Anybody ever do that?

Kids, plug your ears. We don't want you to hear that we give in to that kinda thing. But it's true, right? We all have experienced that. And I fully believe that the plot to kill Amnon was in Absalom's heart all along.

I don't think he said, I'm gonna do it at the sheep shearing festival. He was looking for opportunity and the opportunity presented itself. It's taken two years to get this golden chance to be there without dad around, without, out away from the city, out away from the protective groupings and all of that stuff, and now he's out in the countryside with his brother, Amnon.

We see the specific plot and the execution of the plot with extreme brevity in the text. It's shocking how little detail we're given about this murder. In verse 24, we see Absalom make his plot exposed there.

Very short verse, just not much detail. But we know this, he steals from his daddy's playbook. He will enlist his servants to do his dirty work, much like David enlisted Joab to do his dirty work and to put Uriah to death back in chapter 11.

We see a lot of parallels in the way that Absalom dispatches Amnon and the way that David handles his issue with Bathsheba. It's also interesting that Absalom uses alcohol like his daddy did. He uses alcohol to get Amnon tipsy and we saw that David used alcohol to get Uriah tipsy, to try to get him to go back home and stay with his wife, Bathsheba, for the night.

The plot requires a lot of trust, by the way, in the servants of David. Nobody would want to be the one to strike down Amnon. Amnon is the crown prince. He's the next in line. David dies, Amnon is king.

That's what you gotta understand. So who wants to be the one to raise their fist against this one? Who wants to be the one to plunge the dagger? The goal is that they are all equally responsible so no one can say, here is the man who killed the crown prince.

They're all supposed to strike at once. That's the plot, that's the plan. And equally, they are all under the command of their master, Absalom. They can always say, we're just following orders. Enlisting others in sin seems to be a growing family trait in David's dynasty.

Interestingly, Absalom uses the words of nobility and honor here that was brought up by a lot of commentaries as I was reading this week. He's encouraging his servants to murder his brother and look at the end of verse 28.

Words like the words of a commander on a battlefield, like be courageous, be valiant. These are words of nobility. Words spoken in a battlefield over troops as they're about to go in to battle for a good cause.

These words are spoken during a plot to commit murder. Now there's little fanfare in the event itself. We don't even know if they beat him with fists or stabbed him with swords. The words there are so generic that when it says strike him down, we don't know what they struck him with.

That's just a generic violent action and here it's obviously violent enough to result in death. And the interesting thing is the verbiage that's used in verse 29 is just direct and straightforward. It doesn't give us the detail.

What it does tell us is they did exactly what Absalom commanded. They did what Absalom told them to do. Did it the way that he told them to. And the result, of course, is that Amnon is dead. The king's sons, for obvious reasons, arose and fled on their mules.

I imagine that they very likely thought they were in danger probably immediately as somebody strikes their brother, the oldest brother, the crown prince. As soon as that battle ensued or as soon as the first strike happens, they just scatter because they're like, coo, it's an uprising, they're gonna kill all of us.

Somebody is trying to take over dad's kingdom, get out. And so they all flee. But interestingly, they flee on mules, which I can't picture that being super fast. I was just kinda, seems funny to me, but I would think in the rugged terrain it might make more sense to us if we could see them just scattering into the night on mules.

Still a funny image to me, but. Apparently, what we do know for sure is that these mules were not super fast because fake news travels faster than mules, according to the text. And a messenger arrives from the sheep shearing, probably not on a mule, and the report is false that David first receives.

All the king's sons are dead. To David's ears, this is like saying the promises of God have failed you. God has not kept his promise. Nope, nobody's coming from your royal line. The gig is up, your kingdom is over.

Your heirs to your throne are all dead. David's advancing in years at this point in the narrative and his kingdom seems to be crumbling around him. His family is certainly falling apart. I think you could see it in the text, right?

And the king tore his clothes, so did his attendants. And they did this in ancient times as a display of their internal grief. What you need to understand back then is clothing was expensive. Not like they just go get another change of clothes, run to Kohl's, get a bargain, whatever.

T .J. Maxx, I don't know what. Target. They couldn't just run out and get a replacement of clothes. I mean, it was a big deal to tear your own robe. It was expensive. And what you're doing in that sense of grief is saying it feels like my life is over.

And I wanna show everybody that on the outside by the rent and the tear that I feel in my soul and my heart. David falls face down on the earth, but as he's there, Jonadab, his nephew, rushed in with an accurate report, convenient, accurate report.

Jonadab knows enough detail to betray to us readers, if you go back and you were to read from the beginning of this chapter, that he was likely in cahoots with Absalom. Note that Jonadab is in on the inner workings of Absalom's plans.

He is aware of the motivation for this killing, and he says as much. Well, who told him that? Who told him that Absalom was the one who did this? Who told him that it was because of Tamar? Who reasoned that to him?

He's aware of the motivation for this killing, and rather than grieving his role in the death of his friend Amnon, Jonadab is comforting the king that, oh, don't worry, he's the only one that's dead. Don't worry, it's just your son, Amnon.

Some friend, some cousin, they're cousins. He's like, yeah, don't worry, just Amnon. In this chapter, there are too many people telling each other, by the way, to not take seriously painful circumstances to heart.

You see it twice. Earlier in chapter 13, and then in this section of chapter 13, Absalom told Tamar to not take her sexual assault to heart. Disgusting. And here, Jonadab tells David to not take the death of his son Amnon to heart.

Don't let this trouble you. What? Comfort and compassion do not appear to be hallmarks of David's royal family. Agreed? They don't seem to be really good on the compassion side of things. Jonadab knows that this was a revenge killing, according to verse 32.

He knows what has motivated it. And yet, Jonadab was also part of the plan for Amnon to get alone with his half-sister, Tamar. He's a sketchy guy throughout this whole story. I don't know that any of us are gonna meet Jonadab.

Three times in the closing verses of our text, we are told that Absalom fled. David has lost two sons on this day. His inactivity at the sin of Amnon has now cost him his son, Absalom, as well. So all of the king's sons, minus Absalom and Amnon, arrive back at Jerusalem, and Jonadab says, see, I told you so.

It's just like I said, they're all still alive. He's trying to curry some favor in the king's eyes. He's sketchy, sketchy, sketchy. Well, David and his boys lift up their voices and weep over this treachery and murder.

This has been vigilante justice. Now, part of us are used to the bad guy getting it in the end, right? Like at the end, it's just kind of like every action film ends with like, how are they gonna creatively kill off this villain, right?

And how many of you just, we've gotta be careful about allowing that to get in the way of what God desires to communicate to us. And so when it comes to that, like some of us are just glad Amnon's dead.

Someone's like, I would've done it myself. He raped a woman. But there's a right pathway of justice, right? Is there a right and a wrong way to do justice? There is. This is not the right way. This has been Absalom taking on himself the role of his father, the king and judge, and he has executed justice on his own.

This is murder and this is indeed sin. Absalom fled to Talmai, king of Gesher. And that means so much to you guys. You're like, oh wow, he went there, really? That's cool. Actually, it does kinda help because it's his mom's dad.

This is where his mom comes from. His maternal grandfather is Talmai. And so he goes back to old kin. He goes back to old family. And he will remain there for three years while David mourned for his son day after day while Absalom is hanging out with grandpa.

And verse 39 makes me think that this mourning is primarily for Absalom. I think he's sad about him. Certainly he's sad about Amnon's death, but David is torn inside and the text tells us, in his heart he longs to go out to Absalom, in verse 39, because he was comforted about the death of Amnon.

What does he mean by that? What does the text mean by that? I think he has realized that Absalom has done what he was not strong enough to do. Absalom was wrong to take justice in his own hands and that places David in a deeper pit.

Now he has a murderer and a usurper in his family as well. David loves Absalom and he knows he cannot go out to be with him because it would look like he approves of this murder. David feels in his heart a catch -22.

Love for his son and equally a commitment and a pledge and a responsibility to his role as king. Note what we have going on here at the surface level of this text. There's three applications that I'm gonna draw from this.

But on the surface, what we have is David committed rape and so has his son Amnon. David took out a hit and killed one of his military officers now his son has followed daddy's ways and took out a hit and killed his own brother.

On the surface of this text there are three things that I think all of us could take to heart in various ways. It seems like a common application, it seems like I keep beating the same drum, playing the same note, but it's very vital when we are getting into the life of David that step one always seems to be flee sin.

Run from sin, flee sin. Sin has severely corrosive influence. We expect to keep it contained, but like overflowing battery acid it eats everything that it touches. Have you guys experienced that in your life?

Sin's corrosive effects, it doesn't stay contained. Playing with sin and believing the lie that we can control it is like playing with fire and it will not burn you alone. For David, the fire is spreading into his next generation and he seems to be standing still paralyzed as the flame spread from son to son to daughter to son to son, do you see it?