2 Samuel 18:1-19:8 The Only True Victory

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.

Community in the Assembly of God’s People

Well, good morning, everybody, and welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Filsak, I'm the lead pastor here. We are gathered together here at the start of our week to lift up our eyes to the community of faith.

And so I encourage you to look around at this point in the service and just notice that you are not alone in this room. He has not saved us to be alone. He has saved us into the assembly of his people.

And so we rejoice together that we are not alone in this walk, and more so as the day approaches, more so as the days get more difficult, as there's striving and struggling in our communities, there's striving and struggling in our nation, there's striving and struggling around the world.

We need one another and we need to recognize that we are not alone. He is not giving victory to me alone, but as I stand up here and I look out at your faces, I see that he has many projects that he's working on all at once, and I find peace and joy in the connection with you, and I hope you find that with each other as well.

I hope that church never becomes merely something that you do or merely something that you attend, but I hope that church increasingly becomes a community that you're vitally connected to. As we jump back into Second Samuel, obviously I was gone for a week and I'm grateful for Dale filling in for me, but we're back in Second Samuel.

Psalm 23 and the Question of What Is Stalking Us

We're gonna be taking on a large chunk of text this morning, possibly, and I don't wanna scare you, but possibly one of the longest chunks of scripture that I've ever preached on. And yet I wanna introduce this text, funny, like as if there's not enough text there itself, I wanna start off by reflecting on a completely different text that I believe ought to flavor our understanding of the complex character of King David.

He's a very complex character in scripture. I say complex because he's one of the guys that we get to know the most. I don't know if you realize that, but in the Old Testament, he's one guy that we actually see the historical accounts, we get to see what he did through these narrative accounts, the things that happened to him, the things that he did, but then we also get to see a lot, a huge chunk of his heart, as expressed in the songs that he wrote.

So that's what makes him stand out, it's kind of unique. We can see a little bit behind the scenes. In his songs we see his heart, on the outside we see the things that are happening and transpiring in his life.

And so it's kind of a unique thing. And there's a psalm that I think many of us have read, many of us, some of you in the room have it memorized, you memorized it when you were a kid, it's a common psalm, Psalm 23.

But we can, those things that become very familiar with us, or to us, often are the things that we think about the least. They're so familiar that you could quote it, and I'm not sure how much you've thought about it.

Psalm 23, six says this, the words of David, David penning these words. And I call these provocative words, and I'll tell you why in a second. Provocative words. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, says David, and I will dwell, the destiny, the end result, is I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. David was confident he was being followed.

He was being followed all the days of his life. Now, I don't believe that David was paranoid, you know, like, what's that behind the curtain? What's following me? You know, something's stalking me. I don't believe that he was paranoid, but David here is testifying in this psalm that he was indeed being stalked.

Something was following him. All the days of his life, something was coming after him. I call these words from Psalm 23 provocative because we see a heart and a heart belief and a heart trust that doesn't seem to match the reality that we read in 2 Samuel about David's life.

But I wanna point out what David doesn't say in Psalm 23. He doesn't say, every day will be easy for me because the Lord is with me. Is that what he says? No, he says, surely goodness and mercy are following me.

They're stalking me. They're coming for me. So before we read this text and consider the deep, deep grief of David, by the end of this, he is mourning, he is nearly inconsolable. But before we plunge into the depths of this tragic victory we're gonna read about, before we consider the emptiness of even the successes that we find in this life, I want you to start off by asking yourself a question.

This is before I read the text. Ask yourself this question. What is stalking you? What's following you? What's stalking you? What is following you all the days of your life? Either it is goodness and mercy that is stalking you, ready to pounce at a moment.

Think of it that way. It's ready to jump on you. It's ready to grab you. It's ready to wrestle you. It's ready to have its way with you. Goodness and mercy. Is it ready to pounce? Be at the return of Christ this afternoon.

Wouldn't that be glorious? Anybody say amen to that? That'd be awesome. But be at the return of Christ or a car accident that takes you into his loving arms. Is it goodness and mercy coming for you? Do you feel it, church?

Or is there something more sinister stalking you? Another way to ask this question is, where do your good things lie? Is there fear that something bad out there is gonna take your good things away? Or is the feel of your life right now that someday good is going to break into your darkness and lead you to glory?

David, who experienced these things we are about to read, declared that goodness and mercy were stalking him all the days of his life. Goodness right around the corner. Mercy about to finally catch up with him.

The Battle in the Forest of Ephraim

So let's open our Bibles, your devices or your scripture journals, to 2 Samuel 18. We're gonna actually read over the chapter break all the way to verse eight of chapter 19. So we're gonna read, settle in for a good chunk.

I do encourage you as much as possible to have the Bible open so that you can follow along. I know that these are probably times when our minds are tempted to wander, but recast, this is one of the most holy things we have the opportunity to do, is to take in God's word together in the gathering of his people.

So 2 Samuel chapter 18, all the way over to verse eight of chapter 19. Follow along. Then David mustered the men who were with him and sat over them, commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds.

And David sent out the army, one-third under the command of Joab, one-third under the command of Abishai, the son of Zariah, Joab's brother, and one-third under the command of Ittai, the Gittite. And the king said to the men, I myself will also go out with you.

But the men said, you shall not go out, for if we flee, they will not care about us. If half of us die, they will not care about us, but you are worth 10 ,000 of us. Therefore, it is better that you send us help from the city.

The king said to them, whatever seems best to you, I will do. So the king stood by the side of the gate while all the army marched out by hundreds and by thousands. And the king ordered Joab and Abishai and Ittai, deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom.

And all the people heard when the king gave orders to all the commanders about Absalom. So the army went out into the field against Israel, and the battle was fought in the forest of Ephraim. And the men of Israel were defeated there by the servants of David, and the loss there was great that day, 20 ,000 men.

The battle spread over the face of all the country, and the force devoured more people that day than the sword. And Absalom happened to meet the servants of David. Absalom was riding on his mule, and the mule went under the thick branches of a great oak, and his head was caught fast in the oak, and he was suspended between heaven and earth while the mule that was under him went on.

And a certain man saw it and told Joab, behold, I saw Absalom hanging in an oak. Joab said to the man who told him, what, you saw him? Why then did you not strike him there to the ground? I would have been glad to give you 10 pieces of silver and a belt.

But the man said to Joab, even if I felt in my hand the weight of 1 ,000 pieces of silver, I would not reach out my hand against the king's son. For in our hearing, the king commanded you and Abishai and Ittai, for my sake, protect the young man Absalom.

On the other hand, if I had dealt treacherously against his life, and there's not anything that's hidden from the king, then you yourself would have stood aloof. Joab said, I'm not gonna waste my time with you like this.

And he took three javelins in his hand and thrust them into the heart of Absalom while he was still alive in the oak, and 10 young men, Joab's armor bearers, surrounded Absalom and struck him and killed him.

Then Joab blew the trumpet, and the troops came back from pursuing Israel, for Joab restrained them, and they took Absalom and threw him into a great pit in the forest and raised over him a very great heap of stones.

And all Israel fled, everyone to his own home. Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and set up for himself the pillar that is in the king's valley, for he said, I have no son to keep my name in remembrance.

He called the pillar after his own name, and it is called Absalom's Monument to this day. Then Amaz, the son of Zadok, said, let me run and carry the news to the king that the Lord has delivered him from the hand of his enemies.

And Joab said to him, you are not to carry news today. You may carry news another day, but today you shall carry no news because the king's son is dead. Then Joab said to the Cushite, go tell the king what you have seen.

The Cushite bowed before Joab and ran. Then Amaz, the son of Zadok, said to Joab, come what may, let me also run after the Cushite. And Joab said, why will you run, my son, seeing that you have no reward for the news?

Come what may, he said, I will run. So he said to him, run. Then Amaz ran by the way of the plain and outran the Cushite. Now David was sitting between the two gates, and the watchman went up to the roof of the gate by the wall, and when he lifted up his eyes and looked, he saw a man running alone.

And the watchman called out and told the king. And the king said, if he is alone, there is news in his mouth. And he drew nearer and nearer. The watchman saw another man running, and the watchman called to the gate and said, see another man running alone.

The king said, he also brings news. The watchman said, I think the running of the first is like the running of Amaz, the son of Zadok. And the king said, he is a good man and comes with good news. Then Amaz cried out to the king, all is well.

And he bowed before the king with his face to the earth and said, blessed be the Lord your God, who has delivered up the men who raised their hand against the Lord, my Lord the king. And the king said, is it well with the young man Absalom?

Amaz answered, when Joab sent the king's servant, your servant, I saw a great commotion, but I do not know what it was. And the king said, turn aside and stand here. So he turned aside and stood still.

And behold, the Cushite came and the Cushite said, good news for my Lord the king, for the Lord has delivered you this day from the hand of all who rose up against you. The king said to the Cushite, is it well with the young man Absalom?

And the Cushite answered, may the enemies of my Lord the king and all who rise up against you for evil be like that young man. And the king was deeply moved and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept.

And as he went, he said, oh, my son, Absalom, my son, my son, Absalom, would I had died instead of you? Oh, Absalom, my son, my son. It was told Joab, behold, the king is weeping and mourning for Absalom.

So the victory that day was turned into mourning for all the people. For the people heard that day, the king is grieving for his son. And the people stole into the city that day as people steal in who are ashamed when they flee in battle.

The king covered his face and the king cried out with a loud voice, oh, my son, Absalom, oh, Absalom, my son, my son. And Joab came into the house to the king and said, you have today covered with shame the faces of all your servants who have this day saved your life and the lives of your sons and your daughters and the lives of your wives and your concubines because you love those who hate you and hate those who love you.

For you have made it clear today that commanders and servants are nothing to you. For today, I know that if Absalom were alive and all of us were dead today, then you would be pleased. Now, therefore, arise, go out and speak kindly to your servants.

For I swear by the Lord, if you do not go, not a man will stay with you this night. And this will be worse for you than all the evil that has come upon you from your youth until now. And the king arose and took a seat in the gate.

And the people were all told, behold, the king is sitting in the gate. And all the people came before the king. Let's pray. Father, we know that lives, real life is messy. Our lives are messy. So much ambiguity in the day to day.

So much wrestling and struggling to get it right when we know that we're not getting it all right. So much struggling and wrestling to know the right pathway and just how to keep our heads above water.

Sometimes it just feels like we're treading and we're just about to take our last gulp of air. I know there are some here who are grieving deeply. There are some here whose lives are just going pretty well.

So Father, I pray that you would meet each one of us in this text with the glory of the one true victory. David's victorious in battle and he's broken. How much reality is there in that for us, Father, when we experience the good of this life and recognize all of a sudden it's only temporary.

It's limited. It's scope is small. Were you to bless everyone in this room with a million dollars, we'd be able to burn through it and we would still die. And so I pray that you would help us to live for the greater victory.

Live for the thing that really matters, to store up treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not corrupt and where thieves do not break in and steal. To recognize that there is a victory worth living for and it's not our own.

I thank you for the victory given to us at the cross of Christ. It's in that vein that we are able to lift up our voices in joy and gladness together in the gathering of your people today. I pray that that joy would just boil up within us with fervor and with enthusiasm, that the greatest of all victories has already been given to us at the cross of Jesus Christ, that we're forgiven, that we're set free from the consequences of sin and death.

I pray that you would inhabit our worship by your Holy Spirit with glory, with joy and with thoughts rightly invested in you. Receive these songs as worship this morning in Jesus' name. Reopen your Bibles or your devices to 2 Samuel chapter 18.

The Battle, Death, Suspense, and Grief in 2 Samuel 18–19

As we march through this text, I'm gonna give you an outline here in a second, but just to be able to see that the things that I'm saying are coming from God's word. Our text breaks down as narrative.

And so stories sometimes have movements, they have kind of like an organization or a structure to them. So sometimes my outlines during the season of 2 Samuel, as we're going through it, sometimes the outline's just kind of mildly technical, it kind of follows the order of events.

And so this is one of those kinds of outlines. The first thing is we see the battle in verses one through eight of chapter 18, that's the battle. The second thing is the death in verses nine through 18.

Then the suspense, verses 19 through 32, a big chunk of the text taken up in suspense. And then the grief, the last verse. Most scholars go, oh man, he was so close. The last verse of chapter 18 actually goes over into 19.

And so 1833 through chapter 19, verse eight is the grief. This outline helps us to frame what's going on in the text, the narrative, the flow of the historical events. But let me give you a big picture of why we need to even talk about the details of this account.

Why is it recorded for us in scripture? These events are recorded for us from the life of a real guy, real dude, flesh and blood guy who lived on this planet, his name's David. And it shows us the main purpose of this part of his life is to demonstrate to us that real life is messy.

That's why it's recorded for us. And I would suggest to you that as far as main points go, that's kind of lame. Just be honest with you. Like how many of you already knew that life is messy? Did you already know that when you came in here?

These are a lot of words to make a point that we already know. When you got here, you knew that life could be messy. You've experienced it yourself. You could stand up and testify to your own story of messes that you've experienced in your life, right?

But here's why we need to read this. Here's why so many words and so many pages of the life of David brought to a head in this one point that life is messy. It's that we are still able to be surprised by messes.

How in the world could we be alive for as many years as we've been alive on this planet and still be surprised by messes? You know, we're surprised by things like cancer. We're surprised by things like relational strife at work or at home.

We're surprised by economic downturns. We're surprised by loss of job. We're surprised by negative things. As if something novel has suddenly happened to us. You guys get what I'm saying on that? Like sometimes it's just, where did that come from?

What came from real life? I mean, how do we not expect these things? When seasons turn dark or things in our lives seem to head south, how do we respond and what are our expectations? We need long passages spotlighting for us reasonable expectations in a fallen world.

Reasonable expectations in a fallen world. And God has faithfully provided enough in his word to reset our expectations. Church, this is a reset your expectations kind of message. Now, it's not meant to be down.

You'll see that it ends as high as it's possible to take anybody to the very throne of God. Where's it gonna end? To the victory of Christ. But expectations here? Well, that's a grab bag and you all know it.

David would testify of it. But one other way to look at this before we dive into our outline is to ask yourself the question, what am I really hoping for in this broken world? What am I really striving for?

Some of you maybe are gunning for CEO. Do you have your sights on a lake house or a cushy retirement with lots and lots of golf? How about even for some of us, maybe the idol in our hearts and the things that we really value would just be something simple.

God, could you just give me something like this? Like an idyllic Christmas together with my kids and grandkids all gathered around the tree with lots of laughter and delight. Could you give me a few of those in my old age?

What do you expect out of life? What do you want out of life? And further, what's reasonable to expect? Well, let me give you a spoiler alert before we jump into this outline. This message is about deferred victory.

It's about exposing the emptiness of every victory you will experience in this life. And that sounds harsh, but you'll see what I'm talking about as we walk through this passage. It's about laying bare the trap so that you can see it with your eyes.

The trap that is found in the temporary and fleeting and actually quite chintzy victories that we gun for in this life. Now, don't get me wrong. How many of you experienced some glorious times? You've had some joy, you've had some delight, and we express thankfulness to God when he surprises us with delight, surprises us with those moments of joy, surprises us with good things, and our Father loves to give us good things.

Don't get me wrong. But we are those who live in this present life with joy, even in the midst of hardships, because we know a better victory. We are the people who know that there is only one final victory.

There is only one true and real victory. All other victories are temporary, they're fleeting, and they are reversible. Only one victory is permanent, eternal, and absolutely certain. You can take it to the bank.

David’s Command to Spare Absalom and the Battle in the Forest

So let's jump into the flow of the outline. We first are gonna see the battle here in David's life as we're kind of tying that into ours and understanding how we apply this. We've been heading towards battle for a couple of chapters now.

The lines have been drawing up. David's own son is attempting a hostile takeover and seeking the crown of his father. Absalom the son, the father David, David is the king, the one that God has chosen to be king over Israel.

His son is in rebellion against him. He's the crown prince. If he just chilled for a minute, he would become king when David dies, but he's just got no patience. He's just got no patience. He's like, no, I need to be king now.

So he's seeking that life of his own father. So David fled out of Jerusalem in force, marched thousands of people and troops loyal to his crown to a fortified city across the desert, across the Jordan River, across the desert called, to a fortified city called Mahanaim, and that's where, that's kind of the central location where David's hub of command is right now.

He's now had an opportunity to refresh his troops. He's in a position to be able to influence the location of the confrontation. David is a mighty strategist in battle. You see that in 1 Samuel. You see that at the beginning of 2 Samuel.

He is extremely powerful when it comes to strategy, as long as he has time to plan. Well, that's Absalom's problem, is he's given his father time to plan. So he's the one that's in charge of the location where this confrontation's gonna happen.

We know that David has a substantial fighting force. We see that right away in verse one by the fact that he needs to set commanders over 1 ,000s and over 100s. He has, some estimates are probably close to 20 ,000 troops is kind of the idea, because it says, it's gonna say here in a moment that your life is worth half of, is worth up to half of your troops, David, like 10 ,000.

So some people just kind of read into that a little bit. We don't know exactly the numbers. We're not given that, but he needs to set commanders over thousands. So that tells you there's a big force. And he even separates these thousands of troops into three armies under three commanders.

Two are brothers, Abishai and Joab are brothers, and they're gonna command a third of David's army. And then Ittai the Gittite, I mentioned him in a previous message, he came up. He's a foreigner who is loyal to David's crown.

He's a foreigner from the city of Gath. And in case that doesn't mean anything to you, Gath is the city where Goliath the giant was from, a Philistine city. This is a Philistine commander who is commanding a third of David's army because he is loyal to the God of David.

And he originally planned to go out, David originally planned to go out to battle with his troops in the text, but his military counselors advised against it. So David hangs back as the chief strategist.

He hangs out in the war room. He's not removed from involvement in this battle, but he is not out in the field swinging a sword on this one. And he is the one sending out reinforcements to key areas where the battle is raging and we need to send reinforcements this way.

We need to move to the flank over here and do all this stuff. So the parade is heading out to the battlefield while David stands by encouraging them and building them up. And David gives here in this moment, as the troops are marching out, he gives a lackluster and somewhat confusing speech and command to his commanders.

You begin to see the conflict develop here in David's heart right here. Says, deal gently with Absalom. Deal gently with my son. According to the ESV, there's the phrase deal gently, but some of the other translations have different phrases there.

The ones that are more accurate are the ones that would be more proactive than just merely deal gently. That sounds pretty passive. It's protect him, shield him. Protect my enemy as you go try to defeat him.

Anybody scratching your head on that one? How do we do that? It's ambiguous at best. That command is really hard to follow for a military commander. Could you protect my enemy, especially the head of my enemy, my enemy army, the enemy army, but could you preserve his life?

Could you save him? Could you protect him? As if their job is to make sure he's okay. And he gives this order in the hearing of all the people and in all the commanders. Now, I just wanna point out what we all know to be true.

David is a king. He is heading up, he's commander in chief over the armies that are loyal to him right now, but he is also a father. He's a king, but he's a father. What does victory in this battle look like for David?

Already we find reality creeping in. How ambiguous does life get, church? How confusing does real life become? How confusing can it be to measure trade-offs? Yeah, an example, just to throw out an example of a trade-off.

A lot of guys will think this in their younger years. If I really work hard and put in the extra hours, think about how better off my family will be. I'll be able to pay for college. I'll be able to get all the fun things that they want.

I'll be able to bless them. And we grow older to find out that we didn't know that our children will ultimately reject us as loving work more than them. They don't see it as love for them. They see it as love for work.

We struggle in this life to accurately assess outcomes, do we not? We live in a fallen world where things are hardly ever clear-cut and black and white. That's just the reality. There's a lot of ambiguity in this life.

And David is conflicted as seen in this command for this battle. I want you to defeat Absalom. I just don't want you to kill him. I want you to defeat him. I just don't want him dead. I want my son back the way things were when we used to play wooden swords and shields in the backyard.

How many of you know, well, I already read it, but how many of you know the story's not going back there? The story's not going back there. This text is here to show us real life expectations. But the army goes out under David's command and he's obviously not there.

He's given these three commanders over, three divisions of the army. They went out and they set up battle plans in the forest of Ephraim. That's a very fractured area of what is modern day. It's in the country of Jordan, on the east side of the Jordan River, a fractured area there.

It's on the banks of a river that's still there today. You can look it up. It's the Jabbok River. It flows through that fractured land and therefore trees will grow there, but trees don't grow like they grow here.

So when you think an oak tree, you can look out those windows and you can see some oak trees and you're not gonna reach the first branches of those trees, right? Like how in the world is someone's head gonna get stuck in one of those?

But you need to understand that in the absence of water, an oak tree will send its branch, it puts all of its focus on the roots and it doesn't get very tall. It'll stay low to the ground and it'll spread out and that's what we have in the Middle East even today.

There are oaks, there are terebinths and it's a little confusion over which tree we're gonna talk about here in a minute, but that's the area. There's trees, low scrubby trees all over this fractured area.

The danger of this forest would be enhanced by boulders, pits, cliffs. It is a naturally hilly, tumultuous area. David very likely picked this location intentionally to set up his troops. It would be very difficult for a large fighting force to obtain any advantage in the scrambled up landscape with trees and cliffs, trying to bring their entire military to bear.

David's men were more used to guerrilla warfare and therefore more equipped to handle this kind of rugged terrain. And so look at the brevity of the account. This is interesting. The entire centerpiece of this, we might think, is this battle.

Everything's been building up to a battle between David and his son Absalom, but it's only afforded two verses for the outcome of the entire battle. We just don't get much detail. It's obvious that something else is in mind here as the main point.

Verse seven says Israel was defeated by David's men. There you go. They were defeated. Israel suffered 20 ,000 casualties and the battle spread across the country, the verse tells us. A word that can mean region or countryside.

It's not as if all the way from the north of Israel to the south of Israel was battle. All around that region in the area of the forest of Ephraim. It's a way of saying there's this helter-skelter battle going on in this forest.

Nobody knows which way's up. The last phrase in verse eight about the battle, look at it with me for just a second. Verse eight says the battle spread all over the face of the country and the forest devoured more people that day than the sword.

Verse eight is not about the Ents marching to Isengard. It is not as if the trees didn't come alive and fight on behalf of King David. That's not what we're talking about here, but I take at face value what ought to be a surprising fact to us, and that's that the text of the Bible is telling us that the terrain and the context of the battle claimed more lives than the sword that day.

And it's not saying that therefore the difficulty of the terrain made killing somebody with a sword easier. It's literally saying people fell off cliffs and into pits in the middle of the fray, and certainly they might have been backed up by swords and shields as they're fighting, but they're tumbling.

Things are not going well here. And what you need to understand about this battle also that's very fundamental to our understanding is that this is family fighting family. I mentioned in an earlier message that sometimes family turmoil is the hardest, right?