2 Samuel 15:13-37 Revival Through Darkness

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

Let's listen in. All right, well good morning and welcome to Recast Church. I'm the lead pastor here, and God has been so good to us, Recast. I hope you feel that, I hope you see that. I hope you're experiencing that, you're leaning into that, especially as the things that swirl around us in our culture can be kind of dark and difficult.

Let's not lose sight of the fact that God has sent his son, Jesus Christ, to rescue us from the penalty our sins deserved. He has given us new hope and new purpose in this life through forgiveness and through the promise of eternal life, that this life isn't the only one that we have, and he has given us the power to love and live well today and tomorrow through his Holy Spirit, given to all who have been embraced by Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

We have a lot to be thankful for this morning, and I want to just point out that we have all of that in common together this morning, too. It is a good day to gather in the house of the Lord to grow together.

How many of you would raise your hand and testify that you have gone through some dark seasons of life? How many of you would do that? I was kind of told this past week I should stop having everybody raise their hand because it's kind of, maybe we should try jazz hands or something.

I don't know, what do you guys think? Or raising your hand just okay, or jazz hands if you've gone through a tough time. There we go, all right. Maybe try something different to just kind of break things up.

But I mean, when I think of dark times, I mean dark like the circumstances, obviously, were painful. Every direction looked like, everywhere you looked, it looked like it was uphill from here. It was gonna be a battle to try to get out of the slump that you were in.

Maybe it was even a season that seemed to you like God was far away from you. I say seemed because God is not far from us, but a lot of times in our hearts it feels that way. It could be that you went through a season of severe emotional pain.

Maybe it was actual physical pain. Maybe it was a time of illness or difficulty physically, or even a spiritual crisis that caused dark times where your faith was wavering. But what we encounter when we're going through the book of 2 Samuel and the life of David, in particular the passage that we're looking at, and over the course of these few chapters that we're in, it's been a dark time like that for the past few chapters for King David.

Now, when we start off, and we're gonna read this text here in a minute, we need to recognize it's his own fault. And I think he would admit as much. He does in his Psalms, this is his fault. He sinned deeply, and the consequences of that sin have resulted in a spiritual malaise in his own heart.

It's resulted in significant and substantial family turmoil for him. And even it has resulted in the loss of some that he loves. He's lost two sons in the last few chapters, and he lost one son to exile who's now being restored, and then revolting in the text that we're looking at this morning.

David's been in a dark place, and the reason I ask you to raise your hand or show your jazz hands or whatever is just to identify with the main character of the text, because we're gonna see what happens to him in the midst of the darkness.

In our text and in a parallel Psalm that David wrote during the events of this text in his life, we see his heart beginning to thaw towards God. We see in our text this morning an example of what I think we all know to be true, and we don't love it and we don't sign up for it, but often it is the bad circumstances that jar us awake to our need for God.

Anybody say amen to that? We don't pray, God, give me hardship next week so that I can grow, but we also recognize that it's often in those dark times that we grow the most. A man after God's own heart can only wallow for so long in self-pity and spiritual malaise before God wakes him up.

And I would suggest to you that when bad things happen, the one who does not fundamentally trust God will challenge his authority when darkness strikes. But one of the ways that we see evidence that David was a man after God's own heart is the text of Scripture tells us it's the way that he comes back to God through the darkness.

I'm reminded of the words of the disciples when challenged by Jesus, are you gonna leave me too? Well, when did Jesus say that? You see, Jesus had a particularly rough day when many rejected him, and as hard as it can be to imagine in the life of Jesus, it was kind of a net loss kind of day for Jesus, a net loss kind of day.

And he turned to his disciples and asked them a tough question. As the crowds were turning away from Jesus and literally walking away from him, going, this guy's words are too tough for us. We don't get him, we're not understanding him, we're gonna walk away.

He turns to his disciples and said, you too? You guys gonna leave me too? And Peter responded with these very, very important words. Lord, where would we go? To whom would we go? You alone have the words of eternal life.

Where would we go? Where can we turn? And the same question posed to us today, where can you turn in your dark times? If not God, where? If you can't take it to him, where? If David can't turn to God, then where else can he go?

Where can he go with this darkness? The one who has come to trust in the God who alone gives eternal life will not remain salty and away from him for very long. We see in our text a response to crisis, but it is a character-revealing, God-honoring response to crisis.

David is thawing, his heart is coming back alive, and it is often crisis that smacks us awake to our need for closeness with God. So let's open our Bibles, the scripture journals, the app that Linda was talking through has a tab on the bottom there that you can get to the text and take notes there, but 2 Samuel 15, verses 13 through 37 is what we're gonna read together this morning.

Again, a little bit of a larger chunk of scripture, but I think it's beneficial for us to see that the things that I'm gonna be talking about are coming from God's word. 2 Samuel 15, verses 13 through the end of the chapter.

Recast God's holy and precious word. And a messenger came to David saying, the hearts of the men of Israel have gone after Absalom. Then David said to all his servants who were with him at Jerusalem, arise and let us flee, or else there will be no escape for us from Absalom.

Go quickly, lest he overtake us quickly, and bring down ruin on us, and strike the city with the edge of the sword. And the king's servants said to the king, behold, your servants are ready to do whatever, my lord, the king decides.

So the king went out and all his household after him, and the king left 10 concubines to keep the house. And the king went out and all the people after him, and they halted at the last house. And all his servants passed by him, and all the Cherethites, and all the Pelethites, and all the 600 Gittites who had followed him from Gath, passed on before the king.

Then the king said to Ittai the Gittite, why do you also go with us? Go back and stay with the king, for you're a foreigner and also an exile from your home. You came only yesterday, and shall I today make you wander about with us?

Since I go, I know not where. Go back and take your brothers with you, and may the Lord show steadfast love and faithfulness to you. But Ittai answered the king, as the Lord lives, and as my lord the king lives, wherever my lord the king shall be, whether for death or for life, there also will your servant be.

And David said to Ittai, go then, pass on. So Ittai the Gittite passed on with all his men, and all the little ones who were with him also. And all the land wept aloud as all the people passed by, and the king crossed the Brook Kidron, and all the people passed on toward the wilderness.

And Abiathar came up, and behold, Zadok came also with all the Levites, bearing the ark of the covenant of God. And they set down the ark of God until the people had all passed out of the city. Then the king said to Zadok, carry the ark of God back into the city.

If I find favor in the eyes of the Lord, he will bring me back, and let me see both it and his dwelling. But if he says I have no pleasure in you, behold, here I am. Let him do to me what seems good to him.

The king also said to Zadok the priest, are you not a seer? Go back to the city in peace with your two sons, Amaz, your son, and Jonathan, the son of Abiathar. See, I will wait at the fords of the wilderness until word comes from you to inform me.

So Zadok and Abiathar carried the ark of God back to Jerusalem, and they remained there. But David went up the ascent of the Mount of Olives weeping as he went, barefoot and with his head covered, and all the people who were with him covered their heads.

And they went up, weeping as they went. And it was told David, Ahithophel is among the conspirators of Absalom. And David said, O Lord, please turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness. While David was coming to the summit where God was worshiped, behold, Hushai, the archite, came to meet him with his coat torn and dirt on his head.

David said to him, if you go on with me, you will be a burden to me. But if you return to the city and say to Absalom, I will be your servant, O king, as I have been your father's servant in times past.

So now I will be your servant. Then you will defeat for me the counsel of Ahithophel. Are not Zadok and Abiathar the priest with you there? So whatever you hear from the king's house, tell it to Zadok and Abiathar the priests.

The priests. Behold, their two sons are with them there, Amaz, Zadok's son, and Jonathan, Abiathar's son. And by them you shall send to me everything you hear. So Hushai, David's friend, came into the city just as Absalom was entering Jerusalem.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you for your word. It is glorious and not always easy to understand, but it is always powerful and always seeking to communicate to us more than just mere information. So Father, I pray that that would be the result of going through this relatively obscure text in the life of David.

We all know about Goliath. Many of us are familiar with Bathsheba. Many are familiar with his coronation as king over Israel. But these times of darkness in his life, we can often skip through and skip over.

So Father, I pray that you would impress us in our hearts what you desire to communicate to us about these dark seasons of David's life. Thank you for your presence with us. And I recognize that some are going through dark seasons right now.

So Father, I pray that this message would be meeting people right where they're at. And then for the rest of us, we just know that there's going to be dark seasons still coming. We know that part of what it means to live in a fallen world is to go through seasons where we just don't know which way is up.

We know that there are seasons where there is pain and heartache and brokenness because of our sin and because of the sins of others and just because of the fallenness of this world. So Father, I pray that you would lift up each heart here as we reflect and remember the cross of Jesus Christ that we hold in common, that we have this hope in Jesus Christ that is eternal and secure.

Let us lift our voices, Father, and receive it as praise to you in this gathering this morning. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. All right, yeah, you can go ahead and be seated and make yourself comfortable.

And like I say, every Sunday, if at any time during the message, you need to get up and get more coffee, juice, or donut holes while supplies last back there, take advantage of that. You're not gonna distract me if you get up in the middle of the message.

And remember that for those of you that are new here, restrooms are out the double doors down the hallway on the left-hand side. If you need those. But go ahead and reopen your Bible, your device, your scripture journal, whatever you got there to get to 2 Samuel 15, verses 13 through the end of the chapter.

That's gonna be our text. We're gonna be in that. And so it's good for you to be able to follow through, follow along. And that's what I'm gonna be talking through, that text. Now, again, just to remind you, King David is reaping the consequences of his sin when we encounter him here in 2 Samuel 15.

And it goes without saying, although I'm gonna say it, sin is never a good thing. Sin is never a good thing. But it also needs to be said that David is called, in the scriptures, a man after God's own heart.

So we have to ask ourselves, at points in David's life, how can both of these be true at the same time? But let me clarify to everyone that everyone who has ever loved God has been a sinner except for Jesus Christ himself.

And so our only hope as humanity is in God saving us, in God rescuing us, in God initiating. And so from this standpoint, I'm super glad that we have Psalm chapter three. Now, I'm not gonna necessarily ask you to turn over to that Psalm, but I am gonna read it, and it's gonna end up being on the screen here.

And it compliments 2 Samuel chapter 15 very well. In our text this morning, we see what David does. And that's one of the beauties of the life of David, is that we actually see things that he does. We see his behavior, his actions, and how it's impacting the world.

And yet, we also get a lot of his heart because we see the Psalms that he wrote. And Psalm three was written during this very time of David's life. And in it, we see his heart. The subtitle of Psalm chapter three says, when David fled from Absalom his son, that's the text we're looking at.

And in this Psalm, he cries out to God to rescue him. We're seeing the thawing of David's heart during this time. It would be good to read the entire Psalm together, so we're gonna do that. Psalm chapter three says this, it's short.

A Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom his son. O Lord, how many are my foes? Many are rising against me. Many are saying of my soul, there is no salvation for him in God, Selah. Selah is a word that they think means pause or think about it.

But you, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head. I cried aloud to the Lord, and he answered me from his holy hill, Selah. I lay down and slept. I woke again, for the Lord sustained me.

I will not be afraid of many thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around. Arise, O Lord, save me, O my God. For you strike all my enemies on the cheek. You break the teeth of the wicked.

Salvation belongs to the Lord. Your blessings be on your people, Selah. I don't think there's any question that during this time and in the writing of this, we see David's heart coming awake to his need for God in the midst of crisis.

And it is taking a major crisis in his life to finally shake him awake from the spiritual malaise we've seen over his life in the past few chapters in 2 Samuel. The crisis is simple, and yet very painful.

His son Absalom has declared himself to be king. He asked permission to go down to Hebron and to take a contingency down there. He claimed he was gonna go down there and fulfill some vow that he made before God, and instead, he planted spies and secret agents all throughout the kingdom that were gonna blow trumpets, and when the trumpet sounds, declare Absalom is king over Israel.

And that is exactly what has happened. His son has declared himself to be king, and he is marching to Jerusalem to remove his dad from the throne, and I don't think there's any imagination required to say he is seeking to violently remove his father if necessary.

He is going to be king. That's the son's view. He is rebelling against not just his father, but against the sitting king of Israel coming into Jerusalem to take his throne. How many of you think that would hurt a dad's heart?

Can you imagine? This kind of rejection of a father has to hurt deeply. When David becomes aware of this plan and this plot and that all throughout the kingdom, people are shouting that Absalom is king, he sets a plan in motion.

Run, right? Run, flee. He speaks to all of his loyal advisors. Of course, he doesn't just panic, but he says, we're gonna get out of here. Speaks to loyal advisors, his servants, and he shares the plan.

We're gonna get out of Jerusalem so that there's no battle in the city when Absalom returns. David loved this city. The colloquial phrase for this city during this time, we call it Jerusalem. Back in the day, they would have called it the city of David.

That's what it would have been known as during this time. Named after him. He loves this city, and he knows that there will be a battle not just over the city, but within the city if he's still there when Absalom shows up.

So he says, I'm not gonna put the city and subject it to warfare. I'm out. I'm gonna, if there's gonna be battle, it's gonna be outside of the city gates. We're not gonna bring it to Jerusalem. So those loyal to David agreed to go with him, but David left 10 concubines behind to manage the palace.

That's gonna factor in into Absalom's plot later when we're gonna have the kids out of here on the 21st, just to talk a little bit about that. So they're gonna have a program on that Sunday, particularly, but as David's entourage headed out of the city, he's heading toward the east, and David led them, but then he stopped at the final house on the way out of the city and lets everybody else pass.

So he's out in front, then he stops and pauses at that last edge of town, and then everybody else goes past him in procession. And he's taking, I think it's wise, probably what he's doing here. It seems likely he's taking assessment.

Who's with me? Who's actually going with me? What's my force like here? Who's, what's my army and my military strength here? As everybody passes by, and it's not a small parade, and he begins his assessment.

Who is leaving the city with me? Well, certainly his mighty men. He had 30 mighty men who would have been commanders over military units. They are with him. Many of them were the Cherethites and the Pelethites.

Benaiah is named as one of the 30. He is the commander of the Cherethites and the Pelethites, and you're like, okay, I get it. Now, yeah, Pelethites, Cherethites, sweet. Well, it actually kind of is. That's his royal bodyguard, his secret service.

That's who those guys are, and they're with him, and they're going out of the city. These are mighty seasoned warriors who would have surrounded the king at any moment, would have taken the hit for him.

He has quite a loyal fighting force. He even has, according to the text, 600 foreign Gittites. And what you need to understand is that a Gittite is a way of saying those residents from the city of Gath, and they're going with him out of the city, and this is not insignificant.

They're led by a guy named Ittai the Gittite. I mean, you can't make this stuff up, right? Ittai is a foreign word, not Hebrew, but it's a foreign word for father, and it's likely that he was the patriarch of this contingency and large family, 600 men, but they all have families with them.

This is a large group moving out of Jerusalem here. Ittai is the leader of that band of Philistines who have recently turned loyal to David, according to the text. And it may be strange to our ears, it ought to be relatively strange to our ears, to hear 600 men from the city of Gath are loyal to King David.

How many of you just got a, like, that just seems strange. Jazz hands if you think that's a little bit strange, okay. There we go, we got the jazz hands going, okay. And I'm seeing them. I mean, you guys are getting it, so that's good.

Just to make sure that you're tracking with me here. The reason that that would be strange to us and should be a little strange to us is that we know a guy from Gath. We've heard of him before. His name is Goliath, and David slew Goliath from Gath.

What in the world are 600 guys from Gath doing following King David, right? Like, why in the world would they be on his side if he killed their giant? But David spent some time in exile among the Philistines, building relationships there, and he actually had a season of friendship with them.

And further, it's quite possible that he had won their respect. And further, it's implied here in the text in just a second, respect for his god by defeating the giant that they were all so familiar with.

Ittai's loyalty is highlighted intentionally in this text. And further, so is the faith of Ittai the Gittite highlighted in the text. Ittai has not been with David for long. He says, just yesterday, you came with your men and you joined me, and now today, you're going out of the city.

You came here to support me, but listen, this is not gonna be an easy road. Why would you follow me? This is like a civil matter going on here. And so David instructed Ittai to stay in Jerusalem in verse 20.

And he identifies, he says, dude, you're a foreigner. You're in exile from among your own people. By even coming over to me, you would be a persona non grata among the Philistines. And why would you come and get caught up in domestic affairs?

I'm really sorry, but you should just go back into the city and take sides with the new king if you want. I would totally respect that and understand if you wanna go with Absalom. So what happens in verse 21 is a reminder of what God has done through David and his youth.

And how often is it that God brings up the past successes, the past victories that he has wrought in our lives to shake us awake. And here's what he's doing. Here's 600 formerly pagan Philistines are being led by a man, Ittai, who respects the God of Israel.

How did he get there? How did a Philistine get to the place where he is respecting the God of Israel? Ittai here in an oath before David to pledge his loyalty to death to serve David says as the Lord lives.

And the word Lord there is Yahweh. It is not just a generic God. It is not like as the gods live so I will serve you. No, he is literally saying as Yahweh lives. He's that confident. He's like as strong as I am in confidence that God, your God is real, that strength is the thing that's holding me loyal to you, David.

That's why I'm gonna follow you to death is because I believe your God is real. Like that's a pretty significant thing that's going on here from a guy from Gath. From a pagan who would have worshiped Dagon, the half man, half fish God.

That's what his culture did. So some scholars see that this is a parallel. There's a little bit of parallel to the interaction between the Jewish Naomi and the Moabite Ruth here where Naomi tries to get Ruth to go back to Moab and says, yeah, I mean, my sons have died now and you've got nothing for you.

You've got no future in Israel. So just go back to your own people and Ruth says, no, your God will be my God and only death will part us. And that's the book of Ruth. But Ittai is a new friend. You see that in the text.

Just came yesterday, extremely loyal to David today. He has come to trust God and he has pledged to die by David's side if it comes to that. Now there's no question in my mind that this interaction with a Philistine from Gath would remind David of the very things that God has wrought through his faith in decades past.

There are still pagans coming into faithfulness to the people of God through David's past with God using him. How often does God kick us in the pants with reminders of the faith that we had in our youth?

David is not just merely waking up to his need for God here in the text, though he is, but God is shaking him awake with multiple reminders of his past grace over David's life. And further, at face value, can you imagine what an encouragement Ittai would be to David in this dark moment?

He's fleeing his own city. His son is pursuing him. And here is a spark of light in the midst of it. God is faithful to send to us Ittai's. Keep your eyes open in the dark times for the people God is sending you to encourage you and to strengthen you and remind you of his faithfulness in your past.

Desires to strengthen us in our most feeble moments and often sends people to do so. And further, realize that sometimes just sticking with a friend in the darkness may be the desire that God has for you to be in Ittai and somebody else's life.

Maybe he desires for you to have a dramatic impact in the darkness just by being there for them. Sometimes he's not gonna be fixing it. We don't always have the ability to fix it, but sometimes our presence is just a balm, a help, a soothing thing in the lives of others.

Somebody else is there. Somebody's lifting me up. Somebody's praying. And that can be just as simple as a text, can it not? I'm praying for you, thinking about you. Just wanted to let you know I'm lifting you up.

And that's where we've gotta be in community. We've gotta be connected with others who we can share those hardships and those difficulties with. Church, we need each other. We need each other more and more as the day approaches.

So Ittai and all of these Philistine families then pass on down. He says, okay, well, you're with me? Go ahead. So they pass on down into the Kidron Valley with all of the other people who were loyal to David in procession.

And the parade of sorrow and tears continues, and it made its way out of Jerusalem, and people were weeping. They still love David. Even those who are not leaving, it's indicated the land, the people, are weeping as the entourage goes on.

Even those who are not leaving with David are sorrowful over this. They still loved him. David was a good king. And David is still assessing his people when an old friend, a really significant old friend, shows up, Abiathar the priest, came up with a crew of Levites, and lo and behold, they are carrying something extremely significant.

They are carrying the Ark of the Covenant on their shoulders. They set it down, and they have a conversation with David there. And we see David in response to Abiathar, and what he does here, we see an amazing act of faith.

Abiathar and David go way back to before David was even anointed king, back to the days when he was running from King Saul. David was fleeing from Saul when a messenger came to him one day and said, Saul is put to death.

All of the priests of Nob, this entire family in the city who were priests, like 80 of them or something like that, and only one of them survived, and guess what his name was? Abiathar. This guy. He survived, and so David took him in and cared for him, and Abiathar became David's priest during all of the times of his wilderness wanderings away from King Saul while he was waiting to become king.

These guys have history. Many of us have people that we have history with. Are there those people that you reconnect with, and it's like, oh man, it's like the relationship just picks up right where it left off, and you might not see each other for a few months, and it's like, boom, we're just back in this because you know each other, and you have gone through high waters together.

You've gone through great times together. You've had great times of celebration together. This is Abiathar and David. They are tight. And David instructs Abiathar and his son Zadok to return the ark to Jerusalem.

What are you doing, David? Isn't this the David that danced before the ark? Isn't this the David that celebrated this as the symbol of God's presence? Now, I wanna point out that his dancing before the ark had absolutely nothing to do with him thinking that it was a good luck charm.

It had to do with celebrating the method by which God had given the people to recognize God's presence among the people. God's presence wasn't with the ark. You couldn't take God with you if you took the ark somewhere, but you could take with you the remembrance of God's presence with his people, with the ark, and so he goes to tell Abiathar, take your son and take the ark and take it back to the tabernacle where it belongs.

What's so stark in this response is that David refuses to use the ark as a good luck charm. Now, I say that's stark not necessarily from David's life, but it's stark from the era and the time and the culture in which David lived.

All the other nations around them believed that the gods would give tokens of power to their people, amulets, artifacts, powerful magical objects that carried the power of the God. Only a fool would not take the artifact of their gods into battle.

You're going to war? Take all the religious artifacts you can, man, because they've got the power of the gods behind them would be the mindset, and David refuses. This is significant. This is substantial.

It demonstrates David's understanding that God is not a puppet to be used. He is not a good luck charm to apply to victory. The text shows that David refused to utilize the ark in that way, and this places him in contrast to another king over Israel, King Saul before him, who did use the ark in this way.

In his final battle, Saul, his son Jonathan, are killed, and the ark is taken by the Philistines to be returned at the start of 2 Samuel. But further in verses 25 through 26, David expresses complete trust in the will of God.

Significant what's going on in David's heart here, especially after the apathy that we've seen in his life towards his family and towards his kingship. Joab even having to kick him in the pants a bunch of times to just get him to move and do stuff.

He says that he knows he will see the ark and the tabernacle again in verses 25 and 26. And he says, I will see the ark and the tabernacle again if God chooses to give me his favor. You see, David knows that the future depends on God's good plan and his divine favor.

And you say, what's the big deal there? Well, David wrote this. David loved the gathering together of God's people in the tabernacle. He loved the festivals. He wrote in the Psalms that he rejoiced when they said, let's go to the house of the Lord.

And the question mark rests over his mind and his heart in our text. Will he ever go there again? Will he ever be in the assembly of the people that he loves so much again? Or is he leaving Jerusalem for the last time?

He has no assurance and no knowledge that he will ever see this ark again, that he will ever be in the presence of the people of God singing his praises. The thing that David says, I'd rather have, better is one day in that place than thousands somewhere else.

I'd rather just have one day in the presence of God. And he's like, I don't know if, if God wants and if God shows me his favor, then I'll get back there someday. And in verse 26, David uses the Hebrew phrase that often designates a willing servitude to God.

So in this context of saying, it's up to God whether I'm gonna get back there. I hope to. I love the gathering of God's people. But here I am, says David. It's a phrase used by Isaiah to say he's willing to be used by God.

The David we see coming awake in this text is very different from the David that has been plagued with inactivity for the past few chapters. David is present to God and ready to receive whatever seems good to the Almighty.