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Barry, seeing how you're visiting with us today, would you open us up with a word of prayer? I'd be happy to.
Heavenly Father, we gather with other saints to hear your word preached and to gather in corporate worship.
We ask that you would bless this time, that you would give Mike the words to say that we need to hear, and that you would just open your word up to us in a way that we can apply it to our lives at large.
In Jesus' name, amen.
All right, I'm going to, I'm just going to read from 15 to the end of the chapter.
I don't know if we'll finish, because we're going to get into a difficult subject, dealing with the loss of his child and God's judge, all that.
So let me just read, and then we'll discuss or argue or however you want to talk about it.
Then the Lord struck the child.
I'm sorry, so verse 15.
So Nathan went to his house, and the Lord struck the child that Uriah's widow bore to David, so that he was very sick.
David therefore inquired of God for the child, and David fasted, and he went, and he lay all night on the ground, and the elders of his house all stood beside him in order to raise him up from the ground, but he was unwilling and would not eat food with them.
Then it happened on the seventh day that the child died.
The servants of David were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they said, behold, while the child was still alive, we spoke to him, he did not listen to our voice.
How then can we tell him that the child is dead, since he might do harm to himself? But when David saw that his servants were whispering together, David perceived that the child was dead, so David said to his servant, is the child dead? And they said, he is.
So David arose from the ground, he washed and anointed himself, changed his clothes, and he came into the Lord's house and worshiped.
And he came to his own house, and when he had requested, they set food before him and he ate, and his servant said to him, what is this thing that you have done? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept, but when the child died, you have now arose and ate food.
And he said, while the child was still alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, who knows, the Lord might be gracious to me and that the child might live.
But now that he has died, why should I fast? Can I bring him back or will I go to him, but he will not return to me? Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba.
He went to her and lay with her, and she birthed to him a son and named him Solomon.
Now the Lord loved him and sent word through Nathan the prophet and named him Jedidiah for the Lord's sake.
Now Joab fought against Rabbah, the sons of Ammon, and he captured the royal city.
Joab sent messengers to David and he said, I have fought against Rabbah and have captured the city of waters.
I'm sorry, captured the city and its waters.
Now therefore, gather the rest of the people together, camp against the city, capture it, and I will capture the city myself and it will be named after me.
So David gathered all the people and he went to Rabbah.
He fought against it, captured it, and they took the crown off the king's head there, and the weight of it was a talon of gold, and it was presented with precious stones, and it was placed on David's head, and he brought out the spoil of the city in large amounts.
He also brought out the people who were in it and put them under saws, sharp iron instruments, axes, and passed them through the brickling.
And he said, and he did to all these cities and to the sons of Ammon, and David and all the people returned to Jerusalem.
So last time we were together in this passage, we had got to where David had been fasting and praying that the Lord would spare the killing of his child.
And that's hard, that's difficult for people to swallow.
One, does anybody remember other times in scripture where God actually strikes a man? We know that all death comes from God, but just remember back, there are times in scripture when God striked, anybody remember Ur? God struck him, did he did evil in the sight of God, and what did he do? He said that God struck him.
Now we could even go back to Nabal.
Do you remember what God, what does it say about Nabal? Just the last book or part of 1 Samuel.
It says that God struck Nabal.
The same words used here when it says that the Lord struck the child of Uriah's widow that was born to David.
I don't know about y'all, man, that's hard.
The child was not at fault, but does anybody remember why God said why he was going to do this? Does anybody remember when we read through it or if y'all read it on your own? God said, I'm not gonna have this blaspheme my name.
Remember, what he has done was an adulterous relationship.
The child was birthed out of adulterous.
He tried to cover it up with murder, and God says, I'm not gonna have my name defamed, and I'm going to strike the child dead.
And David, in an act of contrition and repentance, he fasted and prayed, hoping that the Lord would stay the execution of the child.
Is fasting, does fasting always work? That's a good question, isn't it? Because we do see at times when the people fasted, God's heart is turned.
You take Esther, remember when all that was fixing to happen? They fasted, and God's heart was turned, and the people were saved, God's people were saved.
Just think about the Ninevites, yeah.
And they called it a national fast, and God stayed the execution of that city.
But in the- You can think about like Hezekiah, when Rabshakeh came up against the city.
Yep.
And he put the poor Lord- Oh, man, that's a rough section.
And he tells him he's going to make him eat dung and all kinds of- That is, yeah, you want to make your soldiers eat, drink urine, and eat dung? And it's like, yeah.
Yeah, you're right.
And he did.
And then he also extended his life.
Hezekiah's life by what, 15 years, wasn't it? So when we see this, David was praying and fasting that God would not kill his child.
And I do believe that there is, that is an act of repentance on David's part.
I mean, his offspring.
If we just look at David's life, we're fixing to see in the next few chapters that David's going to lose three children.
He's going to lose this one.
Although the relationship with that child was not nearly as long as it will be Amnon and Absalom, okay? But still, it's a child.
And speaking of experience, that's tough.
And anyone else that's lost a child, and there's, the grief is unbearable.
So in this, it almost, when David prays, he's fasting, God does not answer his prayer the way he wants.
Does God always answer our prayers? He does.
He may not always answer the way we want, okay? Just like, you know, my experience, pray and ask God that he would, you know, raise my boys up from this hospital bed, put his head back together, make his heart start beating, whatever, okay? And God answered the prayer of no.
That's hard.
Just like David, it was hard.
But David knew at that point when he was done praying and the child was dead, what did he say? Is there any reason for me to fast? The reason for I was fasting and praying was that God would maybe be gracious and God chose not to.
And for some people, that's hard.
God, for in his purposes, says I'm not, it's more important that my name be glorified than this child live in.
That's hard, man.
But he did it.
Yeah, and it was a long track record of praying and praying and seeking the Lord and seeking the Lord.
In this case, it looks like David maybe prayed seven days.
It's interesting, I think we brought this up last time, that he died before he was ever circumcised.
He died on the seventh day.
Now, the difficult part that we're gonna get to is how should we understand verse 23? It says, but now that he has died, why should I fast? No problem.
Can I bring him back again? What's the answer? Can David bring the baby back? No.
Is God able to raise that baby up at that moment? Sure, there's nothing impossible for God, but at this point, we know it's over.
And then David says this.
I will go to him, but he will not return to me.
Now, the question has been asked, well, I should say the question.
This is a proof text that all infants go to heaven.
I'm gonna tell you, I do not believe that's what this text is saying, okay? I don't believe that.
I don't believe that's a good proof text, because in the same way that the word that's used here, I will go to him, or he can't come to me, but I will go to him, is the same way it was when Samuel came before King Saul.
Remember, he had the witch of Endor call him up.
Do you remember that? And he came up, and he was calling the condemnation down on Saul and his sons.
He says, look, tomorrow, you're gonna be with me.
Does anybody in here believe that Saul was converted? So what does the context mean? He's going to be in the grave.
That's how we understand that.
That's how I understand this.
Can David bring the child up from the grave? No, but I can go to the grave where he is at.
Now, you brought up a couple of weeks ago, do we all in here believe that all infancy go to heaven when they die? I'm gonna say something that's probably, I don't, okay? And here's why.
We have instances in scripture where God condemns all.
Let's just take a look at these here.
Let's take the flood.
How many pregnant women do you think were at the flood? How many kids? It's hard, I'm just gonna be honest with you.
It's hard, okay? How many souls were saved? Eight, right? Yes, sir.
Now, in the flood, I would say Ham probably was, but he was saved through the flood, okay? So I would say, but I don't, I think he wound up being off his rocker He wound up being the father of the Canaanites and all, okay? But we know this, that through the flood, through God's judgment, he only saved eight souls.
And where do we know that? In 1 Peter, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1, 2 Peter.
So we look at the flood, what about Solomon Gamorrah? How many children do we think were in that city? I'm sure plenty.
Okay, that's what I'm saying.
I want us to, but remember, God condemned the whole world here.
Solomon Gamorrah, he condemned the two cities and everything in it.
So if God condemned that, are we making a distinction? Oh, well, he killed all of them and then everybody, I'm just gonna use this, under the age of 10, okay? Or whatever.
The Bible doesn't say that.
The Bible specifically says here in Peter, but that's what he did.
Solomon Gamorrah, there really wasn't 15 righteous in Solomon Gamorrah.
What's that? We know there wasn't 15 righteous because that was the negotiating point that Abraham negotiated.
I think it was 15 or 20, might have been 10.
Couldn't even get five.
Yeah, couldn't get five, yeah.
But there was something like that, but there wasn't that many righteous.
Yeah, and then as you spoke about the Ninevites earlier, now this is a good point for argument and when we talk about the situation with Jonah, remember what was said towards the end of the book when Jonah was very angry with God? God says, who are you to be, you got a right to be mad at me because I was gracious.
And do you remember what God told him? He says, do you not understand? I would be pouring out my judgment on 120,000 people that can't make a distinction between their right hand and their left.
And then he puts something in there that seems kind of odd to me, but hey, it's the Lord and the cattle.
That's what it says.
So when you think about that, we do see that God was going to pour out his judgment on that city and would we say that that 120,000 were probably, you can't make a distinction between their right hand and their left, what would we say they were? Most likely children? I mean, is there any? They're likely, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, now if you disagree with my inference on that, that's fine.
We could say that could have been people that were mentally handicapped.
We can get to all of that.
But we see that God says, I'm just gonna pour out my judgment on them.
And I chose not to.
But in these two cases, it's hard for me to say that everybody died, all of them were condemned in the wrath of God except for the children.
Same thing here.
Think about when he sends in and says, you go in, and when he told Saul, you go in and you kill every man, woman, boy, girl, and infant, and child, and suckling as an act of judgment.
It's, if I remember correctly, it's the word khorazin, which means to be dedicated over, given over to God as an offering of destruction.
That's the word.
It's hard for me to say, okay, I'm gonna make a distinction where God doesn't.
Now, I would say that this was not the norm for children.
Okay, you understand? You follow me? Am I making sense or not? Why not? We see God making large acts of judgment on people and groups.
This is, I don't think, was the norm, okay? So that's why I can say, in good conscience, not all babies go to heaven when they die, okay? That's why I can say that in good conscience.
If you disagree with me, no problem.
I just want you to understand where I'm coming to my conclusion from.
If somebody is gonna sit here and say, Mike, I disagree with you.
I believe that they all go, okay, I'm not, I'm not.
Ultimately, none of us really don't know, do we? Okay? And neither did they.
No.
The Old Testament revelation of the immortality of the soul was there.
But we don't see it fully correct.
Yeah, a matter of fact, we don't even have, in the Old Testament, when we think of hell, God's wrath and judgment, we think of this, but we don't think of it in an eternal state like Lazarus and the rich man.
Because it had not fully developed in the redemptive revelation.
So if you were gonna teach the doctrine of hell from the Old Testament, you would have to start developing just how God's wrath had developed on people and groups and how that one day would point to a greater day of judgment.
Because even when you go through the prophets, the great day of God's wrath, the day of the Lord, was always pointing to the final day of judgment, if I'm correct.
Always pointed to the final day of judgment.
So, I don't believe all children, babies, went to heaven when they die.
Good.
This is just a question.
If you disagree with me and you wanna throw a chair at me, go right ahead.
This is where I'm at.
If you stuck me in the eye.
Sick of my javelins going.
But, so, you would say because those, the babies were judged with the adults.
Yes, I do.
That the babies.
Correct.
Were also in sin.
Now, I don't believe in covenant children, but I know that, is that where you're? Well, because I'm just saying.
That's the logical conclusion, though.
Because it's just interesting because, you know, those instances, they were never a selected people.
They were never a chosen people.
I mean, think about the Amalekites and all the kind of, if you go back to, oh man, I can't remember, First Kings, maybe chapter 11.
Don't, don't say for sure, but it is First Kings.
What was the reason God created the Canaanites for? It says explicitly, for destruction.
So, you think about God created a whole people for destruction.
Now, I'm not saying that God doesn't save people out of that, he didn't save, I'm not saying that, but they were created for the purpose of destruction.
That is their purpose.
So, go back to what you were saying, I'm sorry.
Well, I'm just saying, it's just essentially in each of those instances, those were never people that God, people groups that God had chosen.
In other words, set his affection on.
Hebrews, you know, the Israelites, God had set his affection on them.
Abraham said, I'll make your sea as the sea, call it.
I don't ever see large-scale evidences of judgment being poured out, large-scale, on, now we see the carried away, but that's a carried away, it's not a complete, you know, annihilation.
A wiping out, yeah.
Those are interesting, those are all, the way I look at it is, you know, Ninevites, he would have destroyed Ninevites.
And he did, a hundred years later.
Right.
He did.
I'm just saying they were never like, they were never, we never see that in Israelites, and so that's what I always look at it as like, well, if they were, that's where I can see where people can get the argument of covenant children, because he didn't ever kill large-scale, his chosen people.
Yeah, not three.
By killing adults, kids, the whole nine yards, he would kill pagans.
Except for 586 and 70 AD.
That's true.
Except, now, there was remnants within those, I'm not trying, I'm not being argumentative, I just.
Yeah, no, in like 70 AD, we could make the argument that he had transferred his affection from, to the Christians, you know.
Yeah, we know this, that those, there was, Jesus said, when you see these things, and when the army's surrounding, when you see the abomination, desolation, or the abomination that makes things desolate, run to the hills.
So we do know this in history, from what Josephus, and I think it was Tacitus, and maybe Eusebius, he was a church, one of the church historians, not at that time, but further on.
And he, they all said, hey, large amounts of Christians, when they saw this taking place, the civil war that broke out in 67, and it went on through the destruction at 70, man, they ran to the hills.
Some went to Pella, some, they listened to what the Lord had told them, and they left.
But those who did stay, which they would have understood them still to be covenant people, because they were the Jews, God laid waste to all of them.
And it's very ironic, that in that very passage, he says, woe to them who were childless.
Yes, he does.
Woe.
One thing that really supports you.
Nursing, don't do it on the Sabbath, because he's making it into a Jewish context, because if they're gonna have to leave in the winter, they can't get out up to the hills, and if it's in, on the Sabbath, as they're making their run away, the Hebrew people, regardless, they would still wanna help one, the Jewish people would still wanna help one another, but they ain't gonna say nothing on the Sabbath.
They're not gonna help you glean or whatever on the Sabbath.
Go ahead, I'm sorry.
Well, one thing, though, that supports your thing is even looking at Romans 9, God choosing a set of affection on people before they were born.
Yes.
In other words, Jacob, I love, Esau, I hated.
That's from birth, that's from pre-birth.
You know what I mean? Before eternity passed.
Yeah, that wasn't a reactionary thing on God's part.
In other words, it was a proactive thing.
So that's just what, like you said, is what makes it.
Now, I'm not one to point to a confession.
Like, this is what the confession says, okay? I'm not one to do that.
But I do believe that the Baptist confession, the Second Lenten Baptist confession, does make a good point, because, and you're like, no kidding, Mike.
When I say it, you're like, no kidding.
All elect babies go to heaven.
And I think that's a good way of saying it, is because we don't know whom, what God has chosen and what He has not.
Is, if God, not if, since God judged all of them, would God be wrong in sending those little children to hell? Are they born in iniquity? Are those children born in iniquity? That's hard.
That's what it said, but that's hard.
It's hard.
And we don't want to think that way.
No, we don't.
You're right, but when I worked through this, when I first come to faith in Christ, and I'm reading, and I was to the point to where, he who has the Son has life.
That's what the text says.
That's a wooden head thing.
We shouldn't just, that means anybody that doesn't goes to hell.
And that's where I was at.
Now, that is a wrong way of explaining the character and nature of God.
Because when you say that, okay, who has Son has life and everybody else goes to hell, but then you are dealing with, okay, is it possible that God can still show grace on those who don't have the ability to make a cognitive decision, right? Can he? Of course he can.
And if God does save them, are they not saved the same way we are, by God's grace, correct? Okay.
So he's merciful to third and fourth generation.
And we know this, that the God of all creation will do what is right.
What is right.
But let me, let me.
What would have been perfectly right here is to nuke David, I mean.
All of them.
Yeah, like the whole situation.
It's interesting that God stays the execution of David in this very passage.
Remember when Nathan comes to him and he says, hey, God's not gonna kill you now.
You're not gonna die.
But what does he do? He stays the execution of David.
But what does he do? He kills his son.
And that also then brings up the question of, well, doesn't the scripture say that the sins of the father and aunt passed on aren't to be paid for by the sins of the children? Well, this was a consequence of David's action.
The child died for the consequence of David's action.
He didn't bear the wrath of God in David's place.
And that's what I do believe that the Ezekiel passage is saying.
Look, if Luke's not gonna pay for my sins, but Luke, my son, he could certainly bear the brunt of my bad, my sinful decisions that he would have to live with those consequences.
I think we brought this up last time we were together.
I mean, just take our incognitive president.
He launches a missile to one of these countries over here, Russia or China.
That's not mine or your fault, is it? No, but would we not bear the brunt of that? Okay, that's basically, hey, it's not our fault.
We didn't do it.
But him as being our leader, he would cause much problem on us, grievous problems.
And then we get to that theological concept.
Does his mercies extend to the consequences? Or does his mercies just extend to the sin? And we do see at times where it does extend to the consequence and God can wipe them clean.
But God's not obligated to.
God's not obligated to.
And I know that this has been tough and I know that y'all may disagree with me.
Okay, I'm fine with that.
I'm just not, I can't in good conscience say based on these two instances, say that all babies, all children go to hell.
I mean, go to heaven.
And I'm certainly not comfortable saying that they all go to hell.
I've certainly not, because we do see passages like this where David did have hope though that he would see his child again.
But was this hope for sure? It's not a, this isn't hope of salvation.
It had a lot of maybes, tons of maybe.
Yeah, maybe, because we just don't know.
We really don't.
And when it talks about our hope being steadfast in the Lord, I hope in the Lord, I hope that in our salvation, we know that our faith will one day be made sight.
And the hope that we have in our salvation is not like, hey, when I go to the football game today, I hope we don't get rained on.
Okay, that's not it.
Our hope is our salvation is we are steadfast.
We know rock solid, I drop dead today, that I will be in the presence of the Lord and my sins are forgiven and I'll be clothed in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ when I stand before God.
We believe that.
Hold fast to that.
That's not the type of hope Dave has here.
Go ahead.
It's just a struggle to reconcile that with kind of our Baptistic view of how we look at salvation.
You put it in your mouth in confession and those sort of things.
And even people on the cross type stuff where realization of his sin, that sort of thing.
That always to me has always been the hardest.
And I know, and then it opens up the whole conversation of you have an age of accountability, all that stuff.
And I don't believe it, do I? I think you're accountable for your iniquity from the time you are conceived.
Can the Lord be gracious and lay that sin that you're conceived in on the back of Christ? Well, of course he can.
And that child, whatever age, whether it's seven months or seven years, God can choose to save that child.
I want you all to believe God saves children.
I want you to think that God doesn't.
Of course he does.
But when we get to, like you're saying, when we don't, we're so caught up in the fact of how you and I have made our decision to follow Christ was an act of regeneration of our heart.
There was a cognitive to recognize the sinfulness, recognize that, hey, I am bankrupt spiritually before God.
And I have now gonna turn from my unbelief and I'm gonna turn to the repent and turn to belief in the Lord Jesus Christ and embrace him as the Lamb of God that takes away my sin.
That's how we understand salvation, right? Well, we don't, it's hard to say that when you're dealing with incognitive, people that are unable to make that choice.
Okay, yes sir.
I got a question.
I'll have an answer, you might not like it.
Okay.
This is two, three years ago, I don't know, a church had their 100 and some odd people in there worshiping and a tornado hit it.
And it killed something like 20 something people, children and adults.
How can you explain it? I know God's good and all, but people come out and say, well, why did he do this? We were in the house.
I couldn't answer that, I didn't know him.
I'm gonna tell you what I, when the flood hit in Haiti, that bad one that hit a few years ago, 10 years, whatever it was, and they didn't like what I said.
I was asked that question, I was at the church, I was asked, hey, what do you do about all those kids and everything that died? So I'm gonna tell you like Jesus said, when that tower fell on them people, you, if you do not repent, you too likewise will perish.
That's all I can say.
Yeah, well, was it a direct result of someone's sin? Well, of course not, a tornado's not.
Is it a direct result of the fall? No doubt.
Who do you think said, and spun that tornado or hurricane or tsunami? Who did that? God did, and every time we see, anytime you see death in the Bible, child, grown up, doesn't matter.
You understand that God is being faithful to his word.
We don't like that, especially when you're, I mean, you're looking at someone who's lost two children.
Okay? I don't like it, okay? But God's faithful to his word.
The soul that sins will die, and God can choose to do that however he wants.
Think about this, man, even converted people gonna die.
Right? Okay.
That's why the book of Job to me gives so much hope.
Job's tough.
What I'm just saying is that whole counsel of God thing, that you realize that nothing happens to a person without, nothing happens to a believer without God's, yeah, consent, oversight, whatever you wanna say.
Without God doing it.
God did it, and that's hard.
God did it.
However those circumstances, that's a very difficult thing, especially when you're facing something very close to you to go, man, God did this, and I don't have an explanation.
Don't have an explanation of why God did it.
Don't have an explanation of, I mean, think about Job.
Job never knew what happened.
Even I preached a few weeks ago about Jeremiah.
You go, well, man, if Job would have known the conversation that took place in heaven between Satan and the devil, he would have handled things better.
I don't believe that.
I don't believe that one bit, and I'm gonna tell you why.
Because Jeremiah was told exactly what he was gonna happen to him for 41 years.
And Jeremiah's lament and hurt and desire to die and a desire for God to remove him from the face of the earth and a desire to wish he had never been born were the same laments that Job had and Jeremiah knew what was going to happen.
That's why in the time of grief, let's just take for instance, if Job would have known that God was going to strike everything that he had, do you think that would have lessened the blow of grief? I don't think anybody would say that.
I don't think, if you knew that you were gonna lose everything that you had, okay, you think you'd wake up in the morning and go, you know what? Yeah, this is what God's doing, and eventually God's gonna give it all back to me.
No way, man, in the moment of that, you're dealing with loss and grief and hurt and confusion, and you're trying to work through that.
You're not looking at going, hey, whatever my God ordains is good.
I can promise you that.
You're not thinking that.
Even with God, even though you know God is on your side.
Sure.
That's what Job, he knew God was on his side, but he didn't know what, because he said, I've been considering my servant, Job.
God knew he wasn't going to turn.
Yeah, and he knew because God was gonna hold him fast.
Yeah, and that's how it gets into him, you know.
But the theology books didn't seem to help Job very much at that point.
No, no, and we know that God works out all things for the good, for those who are called.
Called, we know that, but that doesn't sound good in the midst of grief.
Is that true? No.
That is so true, but that's not consoling.
Okay, that's not consoling at times.
It is, once you're getting through it, you can look back and go, you know what, I can see that God was working this out.
And there are times as you're working through that, you can say, hey, that God was doing this in my life, through this, but in the immediate of it, man, you can't say that, because you don't know.
You don't know.
So, back to where we were at.
Was David grievous that he had lost his son? No doubt.
David knew at that point his child was gonna be laid in a tomb.
He could do nothing for him anymore, so what did David do? He got up, took a shower, basically is what it says.
He cleaned himself up, and he went about doing his business.
Now, we don't, I don't think we're gonna have much time to.
He came into God's house and worshiped.
Wow, talk about that.
That's, that's.
But there's a lot to be said even about that, because there's never a time that we should not worship God.
There is not, even in grief, and in hurt, and I'll be a little candid with you guys, the hardest thing in my experience, I know we can't always make emphatic or dogmatic an experience, but being thankful in a time like this is very difficult.
Being, finding joy through, count it all joy when you go through various trials.
I know that's what the Word of God says, but it's hard, I'm just gonna be honest, man, it's hard.
It's hard to do that.
It's hard to go, hey man, this is good.
Well, it doesn't feel good.
It doesn't feel good.
And I know that at some point, God will wipe away all of our tears, but I'm just gonna, it's not gonna be in this life.
It's not gonna be in this life.
But there's never a time that the believer should not worship God.
Do I think David was thankful that God struck his kid? Well, of course not.
But was he thankful that God had forgiven him? No doubt, no doubt.
David was thankful that God had forgiven him.
He knew he should be laying right next to him.
He should.
Oh, there's no doubt in my mind that David knew that.
Yeah, no doubt.
So you get to verse 24 and it says that David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and he went into her and lay with her and she gave birth to a son and he named him Solomon.
Now the Lord loved him and sent word through Nathan the prophet that he named him Jedidiah for the Lord's sake.
Now, I brought this up early in the book.
I'm not fully convinced that this is in correct chronological order.
This Bible at times does not do things chronologically to bring its point.
It at times, this is showing in my conclusion, my understanding that God has already promised that he was gonna have a child sit on the throne for David, right? This is now the first time we see Solomon enter the picture.
And this is why I believe that it's put here by the narrator under the inspirational, that this is going to be the promised child.
We know that God loved Absalom, right? Created being.
God loves all his creatures.
Did he love Anna? Did he love Daniel? All these other children that David had.
We know that, but do we ever see God? Now look what it says here.
It says that God loved Solomon.
It's the first time we see that when dealing with his children.
So that's what I believe here.
And if you go back, I can't remember, it's in maybe 1 Chronicles chapter four.
I think it's chapter four.
It gives the child, the children that were born to David in Jerusalem and it gives Bathsheba's children.
Solomon's actually the fourth in it.
Let me see if I can find it real quick.
I should have wrote it down.
So I remember the first time I said that in here, a couple of my, even my two.
Because it does look like, hey, she had a baby.
The baby died.
David goes in and comforts her.
They have intercourse and boom, here's Solomon on the scene.
That's what it does look like, but I think it's in 1 Chronicles chapter four.
Okay, yeah it is.
I'm sorry, chapter three.
1 Chronicles chapter three and it says the family of David.
And you go down and I think it's in verse four.
Six were born to him in Hebron, and there he reigned seven years and six months, and in Jerusalem he reigned 33 years.
These were born to him in Jerusalem, Shemiah, Shobab, Nathan, and Solomon, four by Bathsheba, Bathsheba, which is Bathsheba.
Does everybody say Bathsheba there? Okay, see it? Solomon's the last one listed from Bathsheba.
So if we're following all the other chronological orders that it gives dealing with Amnon being the first, Absalom being the second, Kiliab or whatever they all were, and when we get to the Bathsheba's children, he's listed as the fourth.
If you disagree with me, I don't care.
That's fine.
Ultimately we know this, that Solomon was the one that God was gonna set on his throne.
And that is why I believe it's placed right here, is to show that Solomon was going to be the heir to the throne.
One, we're fixing to get into, and we won't get to it next week.
Maybe.
We might.
Amnon would have most likely have been the heir to the throne, being the oldest child.
He winds up being killed by Absalom.
Well, who then now is the heir to the throne when David dies? It would have been Absalom.
And I'll hold another conversation we're gonna have, is man, there was, my opinion, okay, understanding, there was two reasons why Absalom won the day Amnon gone.
One, for what he did to his sister.
Two is, man, I get rid of him, not only do I get some vengeance, but, yes sir, I've come up, yeah, I've climbed up the corporate ladder a little bit.
So, what's that? My hair becomes a little more dry.
Oh yeah.
That seemed like an event, cutting his hair, didn't it? Oh man.
Just like, get all the women around and see how much he can hold.
Well, I don't know, let me, we got five more minutes.
Let me walk through the last few verses.
I might be able to finish it up, because this is basically just showing the restoration of David.
So in verse 26, now, Joab fought against Rabbah, the sons of Amnon.
Remember, that's where this all goes back to where it pretty much started.
David had sent them to besiege the city in the time which they, then it was time to go out to war.
The city had already been besieged.
He's now going to take the city.
Man, Joab, as much as Joab's ruthless, he is a man about the kingdom.
And he's saying, look, I've got the city surrounded.
We're ready to take it.
He says, if I take it without you being here, I'm going to get the glory of the city.
And what does he do? He calls for the king.
We can say one about Joab.
Ruthless.
Dude, you get in his way, he's going to kill you.
If you're going to threaten him, he's going to kill you.
Threaten his position, he'll kill you.
But he sees this as, hey, David, if I take the city and you're not here, I'll get the glory.
The glory needs to go to the king.
So you need to get here.
So this is another reason why I do not think that David's sin was not going out to battle.
Remember when we talked about that early on, where it says, hey, it was a time when kings go out to battle.
The sin of David was not not going out to battle.
It was not getting off the roof when he saw a naked woman.
That was his sin.
As we get to chapter 18, once again, David's not at battle.
He's actually told, hey, it's better for you to go back to Jerusalem and you give us direction as of what you want us to do.
And if you back up before you get to chapter 11, he sends them out to fight and then right before they take the city again, David comes in to battle so that David once again gets the glory.
It's always about the king capturing the city.
So they're about to capture the city.
He tells him, hey, you gather everybody together.
Verse 29 says, so David gathered all the people and he went to Rabbah.
He fought against it.
He captured the city.
He took the crown of their king from his head.
Anybody remember the king's name? It's been a few weeks.
Nuhan, Nunan, one of them.
It was Nahash's son.
Remember, that's what started this whole thing.
He sent messengers because Nahash had died.
I'm gonna send messengers.
Nahash was good to David.
He says, I'm gonna send messengers over there to Hunan or Nunan, whatever his name was.
I'm gonna send them over there.
And when his guys got there, what'd they do? Remember, they cut half their beards off and gave them buttless chaps and sent them all on their way.
And David said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
You go to Jericho, let your beard grow out, sew you some pants back together, and then we're gonna go kill them guys.
It was Hand of Nothing.
So now, here it is.
They've captured the city.
He took the crown from the king's head.
I understand that, too, is not only did he didn't just take it off his head, he took off his head.
And then he took that weight.
It was a talon of gold, and probably, what we understand, the talon, about 75 pounds.
Now look at David's neck.
Yeah, I mean, he had a neck like this.
He had a 75-pound crown set on his head, full of precious stones.
It says here it was placed on his head.
He brought out the spoil of the city in great amounts.
And what do we know that David did with the spoils? Do you remember? What David always did with the spoil.
He didn't take it for himself.
He split it.
He sent it out to the people in the city.
He put it into the Lord's treasury.
He didn't do like Saul.
Remember, Saul would gather it all.
He was a take, take, take, take, take.
Every time David took spoil, man, he passed it out.
He was very benevolent.
He wanted to be a, he was a giver.
It says he also brought out the people.
And he set them under Saul's sharp iron instruments, iron axes, and he made them pass through the brickling, and did all this to the city of the sons of Ammon.
David and all the people returned to Jerusalem.
I understand this, after David being sinful actions with Bathsheba, committing adultery, trying to cover it up.
We would say that his sinful act against Bathsheba was a, I'm thoroughly convinced it is a form of rape, whether it's flattery or force.
That's what David did to her, okay? God forgive him for what he did.
Then, he restores him by letting him overthrow that city, and then shows him that David is still king.
David is still king.
And what did David do? He returned with all the people.
They returned back to Jerusalem for David to sit on a throne with another conquered city.
They were supposed to always conquer the Ammonites and the Moabites.
Remember, he killed this guy earlier.
It's crazy.
It's all these here, here, and up here.
When David was on the run, who helped him? Those people.
Those people.
When David was on the run, who's that? When David was on the run, he got married.
He got King Gesher's daughter.
That's actually Absalom's mama.
Yeah, that's Absalom's mama.
So anyway, so we'll pick up next week with Amnon and Tamar.
And if you remember, when I started 12 and 13, I was showing you that we have sexual crimes and murder in both these chapters.
And I showed you there was two types of rape.
One would be flattery.
The other one's gonna be by force.
And even though King David was re-established, time and time again, this phrase went through his mind, the sword shall never depart from thy hand.
And it started with that little child.
The little child.
All right, you'll pray for us, Bert.
Thank you for today.
Thank you that we're able to come around your Word.
What prepares for us.
Thank you for the discussions.
Oh, we know you're merciful.
And we do know one thing.
You love us and care for us.
We may not have all the explanations, but you still do.
And we just have to wait for those.
Give us the patience and the mercy to do that.
Yes, Lord.
Amen.