[0:00] Open up your Bibles, if you don't mind, we're going to go to 2 Samuel 15, 2 Samuel 15, 2 Samuel 15, we're going to pick it up in verse 13, and then we'll read to the end of the chapter.
[0:11] So 2 Samuel 15, verses 13 through 37 will actually be our text, it's a long section of scripture, but again, we need to read it because it deals with one historical event, hopefully that we'll find application in our life and our walk with that.
[0:29] We're just making our way through scripture, and we've made our way to this point, 2 Samuel chapter 15. Let's open up with a word of prayer. Lord, I'm so thankful for this day, thankful for the opportunity we have of gathering together, and we just thank you for the grand privilege it is of being able to gather with your people, our brothers and sisters in Christ, to open up the pages of scripture, Lord, and to let you speak to our hearts and minds.
[0:51] We pray, Lord, as we read your word, that you would speak to us clearly, we would understand it, but Lord, that that understanding would lead to a greater application. Lord, let the truth of scripture have its power and way in our lives, and we ask it all in Jesus' name, amen.
[1:08] 2 Samuel chapter 15, verses 13 through 37. All right, let's put it in context, and then we'll get right into it together with one another. In context, the pinnacle of David's reign, David is the king in Israel, and I know you say, well, I've heard this over and over and over again.
[1:27] Well, that's good, because that's how we really just embed ourselves in scripture, right, because we don't ever want to take things out of context. The pinnacle of David's reign comes 2 Samuel chapter 10.
[1:39] He leads the nation of Israel to a time of prosperity, a time of peace. They're really on the offensive for the first time in their history, rather than being defensive and kind of fighting the battles within, they're offensively, they're pushing out.
[1:52] And David is the man for the time. That's how we look at it. He's the right king for the right time. He's a man after God's own heart. He's the God-appointed and anointed king, and he's doing everything God wants him to do.
[2:03] He's not perfect. We understand that. We see that in his life. But the height of his reign is in 2 Samuel chapter 10. And he's really doing all that he should.
[2:14] And then we know what follows that is just the tragedy of David's choices. He begins to make choices that aren't right. In the time of year when kings go out to war, David stayed home. David walked around with idol, and idleness and isolation, dangerous place.
[2:27] So he allowed himself to make a series of choices, which really just led to tragedy. The working out of that tragedy, what we see in the chapters which follow in 2 Samuel, were really at the height of that tragedy here with David's son, Absalom.
[2:44] David's son, Absalom, I know I'm putting it together real quick for you in a nutshell. He has a sister named Tamar. His sister Tamar was violated by his brother. He ends up plotting for two years, kills his brother, flees town.
[2:57] He's gone for another three years. Five years later, he comes back to Jerusalem. He's there another two years, never sees the face of David. So he burns Abner's field. He gets Abner's attention. David calls him back, never says anything.
[3:08] With Absalom, we see the tragedy of an unconfronted sin, right? No one ever said anything. No one ever called it out. No one ever pointed it out. No one said, hey, Absalom, you need to stop this.
[3:20] And as we've seen, we look at that, everyone knew what was going on. Everyone knew what was happening, but yet no one confronted him. And this wonderful thing that we've looked at is confrontation's not a bad thing, even though it appears to be a bad word.
[3:35] It's just stand before face to face and show one another yourself and show them their selves. So no one did that with Absalom. And now we've come to this point in chapter 15, the first 12 verses, where Absalom has stood at the gate of the king's house.
[3:51] Again, we know that that's not unnoticed. And told everyone, oh, I wish someone would make me a judge in the land. I would rule in favor of your case. Now, Absalom's treading the line because to be judge, you have to be king.
[4:03] But he's not going so far as to saying someone should make me king. He's just saying, oh, I wish I was judge. He then takes it, holds a feast. He goes back to Hebron, which is where David was coronated as king.
[4:15] And Absalom anoints himself and appoints himself as king. And he's got some people with him. He's got a great multitude with him. And that's where we stopped because now Absalom has declared that he is king.
[4:28] He's won the heart of the people over. Real quick Bible trivia question for you before we read the text. I know I'm throwing a lot of information at you. There are two kings very early.
[4:39] Now, we don't want to count Absalom as a king because he's a fake king. He's a false king. But there are two individuals who claim to be king very early in the nation of Israel who share common characteristics, Saul and Absalom.
[4:51] They both are striking figures. Everyone thinks that they look the part. They are very charismatic. They are very appealing from the world's eyes.
[5:03] The problem is, is neither one of them have a heart for the things of God. And therefore, we see the wickedness that is within them. So now we've come to this place here where Absalom has declared himself king.
[5:16] If you remember, he even uses the excuse of going to worship as an excuse to get out of Jerusalem to go anoint himself as king.
[5:26] It's really the lowest of lows. And we've come to this place now where all that's happened. And then we pick it up in verse 13. Verse 13 says, Then a messenger came to David, saying, The hearts of the men of Israel are with Absalom.
[5:41] And David said to all his servants who were with him at Jerusalem, Arise and let us flee, for otherwise none of us will escape from Absalom. Go in haste, or he will overtake us quickly, and bring down calamity on us, and strike the city with the edge of the sword.
[5:55] Then the king's servant said to the king, Behold, your servants are ready to do whatever my lord the king chooses. So the king went out, and all his household with him. But the king left ten concubines to keep the house.
[6:08] And the king went out, and all the people with him, and they stopped at the last house. Now all his servants passed on beside him, and all the Cherethites, and the Pelethites, and the Gittites, six hundred men who had come with him from Gath passed on before the king.
[6:21] Then the king said to Ittai, the Gittite, Why will you also go with us? Return and remain with the king, for you are a foreigner and also an exile. Return to your own place.
[6:32] You came only yesterday, and shall I today make you wander with us while I go where I will? Return and take back your brothers. Mercy and truth be with you. But Ittai answered the king and said, As the Lord lives, and as my lord the king lives, surely wherever my lord the king may be, whether for death or for life, there also your servant will be.
[6:52] Therefore David said to Ittai, go and pass over. So Ittai, the Gittite, passed over with all his men and all the little ones who were with him. While all the country was weeping with a loud voice, and all the people passed over, the king also passed over the brook Kidron, and all the people passed over toward the way of the wilderness.
[7:10] Now behold, Zadok also came, and all the Levites with him, carrying the ark of the covenant of God. And they set down the ark of God, and Abiathar came up, until all the people had finished passing from the city.
[7:23] And the king said to Zadok, Return the ark of God to the city. If I find favor in the sight of the Lord, then he will bring me back again, and show me both it and its in his habitation. But if he should say thus, I have no delight in you, behold, here I am.
[7:37] Let him do to me as seems good to him. The king also said to Zadok the priest, Are you not a seer? Return to the city in peace, and your two sons with you, your son Ahimaaz, and Jonathan the son of Abiathar.
[7:51] See, I am going to wait at the fords of the wilderness, until word comes from you to inform me. Therefore, Zadok and Abiathar returned the ark of God to Jerusalem, and remained there.
[8:02] And David went up the ascent of the Mount of Olives, and wept as he went, and his head was covered, and he walked barefoot. And all the people who were with him each covered his head, and went up weeping as they went.
[8:14] Now someone told David, saying, Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom. And David said, O Lord, I pray, make the counsel of Ahithophel foolishness.
[8:25] It happened as David was coming to the summit, where God was worshipped, that behold, Hushai, the archite, met him with his coat torn and dust on his head. David said to him, If you pass over with me, then you will be a burden to me.
[8:38] 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 time past, so I will now be your servant, then you can thwart the counsel of Ahithophel for me.
[8:50] Are not Zadok and Abiathar the priest with you there? So it shall be that whatever you hear from the king's house, you shall report to Zadok and Abiathar the priest. Behold, their two sons are with them there, Ahimaaz, Zadok's son, and Jonathan Abiathar's son.
[9:04] And by them you shall send me everything that you hear. So Hushai, David's friend, came into the city, and Absalom came into Jerusalem. We see here the departure of the king.
[9:16] A lot of comparison. By the way, there's so much typology in the Old Testament that finds its fulfillment in the New Testament, right? There's so much. There's so many pictures.
[9:27] It just astounds me, the consistency of Scripture. It shouldn't astound me because it has one author, right, written by many men, but it has one great author, and it tells one grand story. Years and years and years later, we're going to find another king who's living in Jerusalem, who passes the Kidron Valley, who also ascends the Mount of Olives on the night of his betrayal.
[9:45] And that is when Christ walks from the temple mount for the last time and says, The glory of the Lord has departed, and then he walks away, which, by the way, is probably one of my favorite portions of Scripture because Jesus is therefore declaring that he is the Shekinah glory and that his presence is that which filled the temple to begin with.
[10:02] I know I'm getting on a rabbit trail, but these are the good things of Scripture, right? And so when he looks at them and says, Truly, I tell you, the glory of the Lord has departed from the temple, and then he turns and walks away. He's literally saying, As I leave, it leaves too.
[10:14] And he walks across the same Kidron Valley. He ascends the same side of the Mount of Olives, and that is the night of his betrayal too because he is the ultimate fulfillment of the type of the king we see departing from Jerusalem here.
[10:26] It's so astounding how consistent Scripture is, and it should be so encouraging to us that we need to take the application thereof. So that tells us what we're reading is so much more than a historical recording of a revolt, right?
[10:38] We can open up any history book. We can open up anything throughout history, and we can read of revolt after revolt after revolt after revolt. We can go into the dark ages, and we can see where people declared themselves king and therefore took over the thrones, and these things happen time and time and time again.
[10:54] But here, what we have is a historical happening, yes, but we also have an application to us in our daily lives, and we see the fulfillment of it in Christ with the departure of the king.
[11:05] We need to understand, and I know I'm talking fast because there's a lot that we need to get in this message. Just so you understand, I did shorten the amount of, as I went through this text, I've had a lot of time the last couple weeks to meditate on this text.
[11:19] I had so much, and I had to kind of compact it, but hopefully we'll get it together. If not, we'll finish it next time we're together. But anyway, what we see here is God is still in control of all this, right?
[11:31] The temptation is to say, man, things are spiraling out of control. Nathan stood before David after David made these series of choices with Bathsheba and Uriah and all the sinful consequences.
[11:43] Nathan stood before David and told him these things were going to happen. God had declared that these things would come about as a result of David's sin. Now, be careful because we can sit here and wag our finger at David.
[11:57] This is the harvest that David has sown. He's reaping his harvest. But David is also restored and forgiven by this time because we have the penitent psalm, Psalm 51.
[12:08] He is, as Nathan declared, these things will come about, but God has forgiven you. Forgiveness does not necessarily mean removal of consequences. Forgiveness is an eternal aspect.
[12:21] Consequences are a temporal thing, right? We still get the wages of sin still come. And we see this in David's life. So there's what literally is happening because of David's choices, but there's also the picture of what's going to happen with Christ.
[12:36] And our challenge is to read it and try to balance the two, right? To see what's happening because of his sin, but to also see what's happening because of our sin, the sin of man. Because the ultimate picture, the next time the king walks out of Jerusalem, crosses the Kidron Valley and ascends the Mount of Olives, he will be sinless.
[12:53] And his harvest will be our sin. And so we want to balance the two. We want to see it in its historical aspect. We also want to see it in its spiritual application aspect.
[13:06] The first thing that we notice here, in the day of the king's departure, there's a series of things that happened. There's a series of things that we should pay attention to. The time of the king's departure had really just four aspects to it that stand out.
[13:20] The first thing is, it was a time of surrender. It's a time of surrender. So it says, and then it was told David, everything that Absalom has done, up to this point, everybody knows about Absalom's conspiring to kill his brother.
[13:34] Everybody knows about Absalom's desire to be king. I mean, these things are not done in secret. They're done in open. Nobody has confronted him. Nobody has said anything. Everybody's just kind of left well enough alone. Absalom is the heir apparent.
[13:46] He is the next in line for the throne. He is the third born of David. Evidently, the second born had died early in life. So Absalom stands to inherit the throne at David's death.
[13:59] He's just hastening that. He wants to take the place of his father. He's made it known to everyone. Everybody just kind of wants to leave him alone, and everybody just allows it to happen over there. The problem is, is that when sin is left alone, it just continues to manifest and manifest and manifest until it gets to the point where you have to do something about it.
[14:15] Right? You cannot leave sin alone and ignore it and go away. Sin doesn't stop. Sin continues to progress and to progress and to progress and to progress. And by the way, in our life, in a believer's life, but for the mercy of God or because of the mercy of God, it progresses to the point that you have to confront it and you have to deal with it.
[14:35] And what happens is Absalom does this and now he's went public with it and he's made this declaration that he is king. So the people come and tell David, Absalom has made himself king. He's won the hearts of the people.
[14:46] The people of Israel are following him. He's went down to the common man. It's just this regular conspiracy. It's a grassroots conspiracy. It's taken root. But what astounds me is that, I mean, you know David, right?
[14:58] Up to this point, Absalom, the only man that Absalom has killed that we know about has been a conspiracy. And he didn't do it. He had his servants do it. They sang a song about David.
[15:10] He slain his tens of thousands. David stood before Goliath with a sling and five smooth stones. David knew what it was like to stand in front of the enemy and say, the Lord my God will deliver you into my hand.
[15:23] David was a tried and true warrior. Absalom is a, I hate to say it this way, but it's really what it is, spoiled son of the king. Right? He hasn't fought the first battle.
[15:34] He has no soldiers behind him. He has some counselors. He has some common people. David has his 600 men, his mighty men with him, his 30 mighty men, right? He has the three. David has those cool guys that go down into a snowy day with a lion.
[15:48] David has those guys, right? David has those guys, scripture tells us, took their stand in the barley field and slung their sword until their hand got tired. He has men that won't quit.
[15:58] Absalom has David's counselor that gives political advice. But yet when David gets the news, he walks away.
[16:10] This is not a military maneuver, right? This isn't, oh, Absalom's stronger than me. Because we know beyond a shadow of a doubt, even though David is progressing in age and when David's men do fight Absalom, they tell David to stay behind unless he gets hurt.
[16:26] But he has his men. His men win the battle later on. We'll read it in the 18th chapter. But David doesn't do anything. He doesn't go on the offensive. He is the king who's leading them. He's the king who's got, and he still has the heart of his warriors.
[16:38] His warriors follow him. They go with him. But he surrenders. He walks away like a sheep being led to slaughter. And the only reason we have for that is because David says, he's going to come in haste.
[16:55] He'll strike us. And then he puts this line in here. He'll strike the edge of the city. His surrender was the sparing of the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
[17:08] Because he knew if the battle was fought there, innocent people are going to die. And this is the consequences of David's sin. And he gives it up. He walks away from it.
[17:20] He doesn't fight his own battles. He just takes it and says, okay. And he says, we've got to go in haste. We've got to leave. And everybody says, whatever you want to do, O king. And just in case you doubt the loyalty of his men that are with him, these soldiers say, okay, let's leave.
[17:39] Whatever you want to do, we'll do it. It's really hard to tell a soldier, hey, we're not going to fight. Right? It's really hard. I can imagine. Because you remember David's mighty men. You remember the people that were gathered to him in the cave.
[17:51] This wasn't aristocrats, right? These were the vagabonds, the people that nobody wanted anything to do with. These were the people that Saul had done wrong. These were the people that wanted to change in the country.
[18:01] These are the people that got tired of paying taxes and the king taking their land. That's those type of people. And then to tell these type of people, hey, let's leave. And they go, okay. Because the king surrenders.
[18:16] And he allows the enemy, who's Absalom, to appear to have his way. He walks across the valley and says, let's let the enemy have his day because the king knows ultimately it's not in his hands.
[18:32] Just as astounding and even more so is this reality. When we open up from the Old Testament, we go into the New Testament.
[18:44] And I think it's a legitimate interpretation. Many Bible scholars believe that Judas Iscariot's plotting and handing over of the Son of God for 30 pieces of silver while it was a fulfillment of Scripture also was an attempt to force Christ to play his hand.
[19:03] It was because if you know Judas Iscariot and you know the others, they didn't like the Roman rule. They wanted to flee away from the Roman rule. And we know that Satan was using him for this, but you have to kind of balance this.
[19:14] What opportunity did Satan have? Because Satan, he filled him, he used him. Satan also sifted Peter, but Satan finds an opportunity in the heart of the individual, right? The same way Satan uses us and uses other individuals around us is he doesn't just necessarily overcome when they're satanic.
[19:30] No, he finds an opportunity and a weakness and then he uses that weakness because as Tony Evans likes to say, Satan rides piggyback on a lot of people. And the piggyback in Judas Iscariot's life is that he wanted a revolution and he wanted the Jews to reign and he wanted to remove Roman rule.
[19:47] And if he could force, since he knew the power of Jesus, maybe he could put him in a position where Jesus would have to do something. But what we find in scripture is when they come to him in the garden, Jesus surrenders.
[20:00] He says, I'm he. And I've told you that I'm he. Take me away. Absalom probably assumed that he could force his dad to do something and yet here's David.
[20:11] David surrenders and walks out because that time of the king's departure was a time of surrender. And we're astounded because David surrendered, but I'm even more astounded because in the garden of Gethsemane, my savior surrendered.
[20:22] But don't forget the passage in scripture where it says and when the Roman soldiers came with all their clubs and swords and all this stuff, right, and they all came to get Christ in the middle of the night.
[20:33] There's, in the book of John, there's seven I am statements. Now, you need to pay attention to those, right? Seven I am statements. Why is I am statements important? Man, this is going to get deep real quick.
[20:44] You're ready for it, right? John writes, In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God and the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we call him Emmanuel. John has no genealogy. Of all the four gospels, the other three do.
[20:57] John has no genealogy. And the reason John has no genealogy is because Jesus is God. Right? He is God in the flesh. All the way back in the Old Testament, God revealed himself for the first time and gave his name out for the first time in the burning bush.
[21:09] He told Moses that I am. That was his name, right? We know that's the covenant name of God. That same author, John, who gives no genealogy because Christ is God in the flesh, also has seven I am statements scattered throughout it.
[21:22] And you kind of can read the whole gospel of John centered around these seven I am statements and that's where his power is being manifested. And it's just this further declaration that the God in the burning bush is the same God hanging on the cross.
[21:34] Right? It's his I am statements. That last I am statement that we find in the gospel of John is when all these soldiers come to him in the garden and Jesus is there and Jesus says, who do you look for? And they say, we're looking for Jesus from Nazareth.
[21:46] And Jesus says, I am. Now when you open up your Bibles, it's going to say, I am he. But when he said it, he didn't. He said, I am. He just declared his name. And it tells us, I love this, in the book of John, it says, as soon as he said, I am, they all fell down.
[22:01] That is, the power and the force of his name knocked them off their feet. And they were on the ground. That's the sword of the spirit, which is the breath of his mouth, which will win the battle in the end.
[22:12] The book of Revelation that he will slay them with the words of his mouth, the sword of the spirit. He would just say, it's over and it'd be over. So when he says, I am, he knocks them off their feet. And then this is even more sound. And Jesus says, get up.
[22:23] Did I not tell you that I am? I just want to go ahead and say, be on record to say, they could have never taken him away. They would have never got off the ground if he had not told them to get up. And he told them to get up and surrendered.
[22:37] The power of his name knocked them off their feet. The authority of his command made them get up and take him away. Because the day of the king's departure was a day of surrender.
[22:49] I wonder anyone ever tells you, I had a guy tell me one time, even Jesus lost one battle. I want to say, where? Because what I see is him fighting a battle of surrender.
[23:00] Nobody could take him. If they couldn't take him, there's no way they could kill him. He gave up his life. It's a day of surrender. Number two, it's also a day of submission.
[23:16] It's a day of submission. Now we're going to skip over a few things in our account of David, but we'll come back to it in just a minute. David's leaving, everybody's going with him. We're coming back to the everybody, so just hold on to those in just a minute, right?
[23:27] He says he gets to the last house and people are crossing that Kidron Valley. So if you're looking at the map, right? So they're heading east. They're heading east. Now, it's been seven years since we opened this up.
[23:43] I'll count it today just because I'm in this process of praying through where we're going to be at again on Sunday mornings and really, I have a couple of passages of scripture and I know sometimes I forget.
[23:54] But for those of you that have been here with me the entire seven years, we've preached through, I think it's 25 books of scripture so far in seven years. So I know a lot of times I'm like, oh, you remember this. It's hard to remember.
[24:07] But if you were here, you remember there's this law first mention and the first time people leave the presence of God, they go east. God put them out of the Garden of Eden towards the east.
[24:18] So the consistency of scripture is when you're going east, you're moving away from God. The wise men came from the east, so they came west, right? So they were going to the presence of God and it just runs throughout this.
[24:29] So if you're looking at this, across the Kisar on valleys to go east, he's leaving Jerusalem, he's going over there, he's going to cross that area, he's going to ford the Jordan River, go up the Mount of Olives, going to the wilderness there.
[24:40] But anyway, everybody's coming with him and then it tells us that Zadok came, Zadok and all the Levites and they have the Ark of the Covenant. They know what they're doing because David had tried to move it once before on a cart and you can't do that.
[24:54] Somebody touches it, they die. David had been so instrumental in bringing the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem, restoring biblical worship, at that time, biblical worship, and calling people back into the presence of God.
[25:06] And so they're like, okay, David's leaving, we're going to take the Ark with him. And this is where you get to the submission. Abiathar is there, they're offering sacrifices because when they set it down, that's what Abiathar started doing. He's offering sacrifices and everybody's leaving.
[25:19] And David, unlike Saul, says don't bring the Ark. don't bring the Ark. Now wait a minute, the Ark is the manifestation of God's presence among his people.
[25:31] Right? And Saul, when he wanted to go into battle, wanted the Ark there so that he could say God was going with him. David says, take the Ark back. And this is where he submitted.
[25:44] And the reason he did it is because David says, and I'm paraphrasing here, if God wants me to be back into his presence again, he'll bring me back. If the Lord wants me to come back to Jerusalem, he'll bring me back.
[25:58] If he looks at me and says, I don't deserve to be it, then I will die, so be it. Now he's a forgiven man. We have that cleaner scripture. He's restored. But yet he submits to the disciplinary actions of the Lord his God because he knows he deserves them.
[26:15] Any question why David is considered a man after God's own heart? He doesn't try to manipulate the presence of God. He doesn't try to use the presence of God for his own vainglory.
[26:28] Rather, he declares that God is so magnificent, that God is so wondrous, that the presence of God can stay there and I will trust God to bring me back to himself because this is the wages of my sin.
[26:45] And he submits to the disciplinary action of a heavenly father and said, if God doesn't want me to see it, then I'll die. That's astounding.
[26:57] He makes the Levites go back. He says, turn around, take it back. Everybody else up to this point wouldn't go into battle without him. David's not going to battle. He understands that.
[27:08] He's just reaping what he has sown and he is willing to be removed from the presence of God for that chastisement, for that rebuttal because of what he did, trusting that God will bring him back into that presence.
[27:21] He submits to the discipline. Take it into the New Testament. That same king, the day of the king's departure was a day of submission.
[27:34] The Bible tells us who for the joy set before him endured the cross. So the book of Hebrews says about the cross of Christ. Jesus says, nevertheless, not my will but your will be done.
[27:47] He says it to his father. Lord, I long that this cup would pass from me, this cup of suffering, this cup of pain. I don't want it, but father, not my will but your will be done. He submits. The Bible tells us that he sweats great drops of blood in his submission.
[28:02] It says the pain of the cross he endured. All these things. Listen, he submitted to our discipline. He submitted to the reaping of our harvest. David submitted to his harvest.
[28:15] Christ submits to our harvest. Those were the seeds I sow. Those were my rebukes and my chastisement and my sin and my disciplinary action.
[28:28] And Christ submitted to that and then the scripture tells us that the father turned his face away from him because of the sin laid upon him. He submitted to being removed from the presence of the father trusting, the Bible says, who for the joy set before him endured the cross.
[28:44] The joy is not the cross. The joy is on the other side of the cross and what's on the other side of the cross, oh, we gotta go all the way back to the book of Isaiah to see that, right? Isaiah chapter 53, I believe it is, where we start beginning to read the suffering servant passages and it says that God lovingly chastised his son so that he may bring many sons to glory, right?
[29:07] The joy on the other side of the cross was not just that the Savior would be at the right hand of the father, it's that the Savior would welcome many into the presence of the father because he knew by his submission that not only he would go back because he could go back anytime he wanted to, right?
[29:24] I mean, he knows what fellowship with God looks like on the Mount of Transfiguration. The glory from within him began to radiate and shine. It wasn't on him, it was within him and he began to be seen as he truly was.
[29:36] He submitted so that we could come back into the presence. He submitted so that we could come from the east. He submitted so that we would be welcomed back not into the presence of the ark but into the presence of the holy of holies and to the Lord our God.
[29:51] It was a time of submission. David says, I deserve it. Christ says, you're worth it. That's astounding.
[30:03] Oh, he's a surrender and submission. Number three, it's a time of sorrow. It's a time of sorrow. David leaves Jerusalem.
[30:17] He surrendered his position. He's going to let the enemy apparently take his place for a while. He submits to the discipline and trusts that God's going to restore him. And the scripture tells us that he passed on and he went weeping with his head covered which is a sign of humility for a man, especially a king.
[30:36] He was weeping with his head covered walking barefoot. Deep sorrow. Now, we have to assume, I'm sure he's weeping over the sorrow, he has some sorrow for what's going on with Absalom.
[30:50] But we also know that weeping is a result of his own sin. Weeping over the consequences, this reality of this is what my sin has brought.
[31:02] This is why I believe it tells us a number of times in scripture that God will wipe every tear away in eternity. You say, well, there'll be no weeping, no sorrow there. Well, until he wipes the tear away.
[31:15] When that happens, I really don't know. We can look at scripture and see time, but he has to wipe the tear away because there has to be sorrow. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, at least, I think I know, that when I stand in the front of my Savior, there's going to be weeping for the things I didn't do.
[31:37] And there's going to be weeping for the things that I did do. And it's only going to be the loving, merciful, gracious hand of my Savior that wipes those tears away and then there'll be no sorrow any longer.
[31:51] David here is weeping and it's a time of sorrow, it's a time of genuine, this isn't, listen, he's not fronting here, he's not doing this, but it's a sorrow that's noticed by others because it tells us, scripture tells us that those who went with him were also weeping.
[32:06] We get to the next chapter and David's weeping, he's so sorrowful and one of David's enemies is like throwing things at him and David's just like, it's okay, I deserve it. He's cursing him and David's like, God might have told him to curse me.
[32:18] He never thought, I mean, that's just, man, look at that humility. Who am I to rebuke him? I mean, he's still king, right? I know I'm getting ahead of myself but one of his guys said, you want me to go over there and hack him to death?
[32:29] And David said, no, leave him alone. God may have told that man to curse me. Man, why? Because of sorrow, genuine sorrow. That man could never tell David or call David anything that David didn't think of himself.
[32:43] That's repentance. Right? We only get genuinely offended or truly offended or we get greatly offended when we put ourselves on a pedestal and we don't really see ourselves as we really are.
[32:57] We think ourselves greater than we actually are and therefore those words offend us and hurt us and they make us angry because we feel like somebody's putting us down but when we can be like Paul and say, I'm the chief of all sinners.
[33:08] Once I'm the chief, you can't put me down anymore, right? You can't tell me anything about myself that I don't already know. So this is sorrow and it's true sorrow.
[33:21] We also know in the New Testament application of this side that the sorrow of the Savior was real. We've already talked about that. Great drops of blood, sorrow, weeping, carrying our sins.
[33:37] The day of the king's departure is a day of sorrow. Now, one good word, right? One good word. It's a day of surrender, it's a day of submission, it's a day of sorrow.
[33:48] Finally, the day of the king's departure was a day of support. God always has his man. Always.
[34:02] In the darkest of moments in scripture, in the greatest of tragedies, if we look hard enough, we see lights that shine through that are so glorious.
[34:15] God always has his man. David is a man after God's own heart. The things that are coming upon him, he deserves. We'd all amen that. The things that are coming upon him, we need to amen this too.
[34:27] That are what we deserve, right? We deserve to surrender, to submit, and to sorrow. We deserve those things. And yet, David, as he's leaving, we notice all these people are going with him, right?
[34:38] All of his servants, he leaves the ten concubines behind to take care of the house, but the servants are coming with him, the 600 men. These aren't his mighty men, and we know it's not his mighty men because it tells us where they came from.
[34:49] The Cherethites, Pelethites, and the men of Gath, the Gittites. His mighty men didn't come from there. These are people, I went back and looked at it, right? You think about it. You remember when David said to himself, there's nothing else for me to do, Saul, we messed up, and that's in 1 Samuel, he said to himself, instead of counseling God, you remember that?
[35:05] We were going through there. And when David started talking to himself and giving himself counsel, he decided it was better to move outside of the land of Israel, and he went to Gath, which is the hometown of Goliath, and they didn't remember him.
[35:16] But he went to Gath, he ended up living outside of Gath. That's where he was doing all that play. He gave himself a lot of trouble. He had a feign, insanity, and all this stuff. But he gets a city there around Gath because Achish, the king, gives him some land.
[35:28] Remember that? But when he comes back to Jerusalem, David had gained such popularity in the land, evidently, a lot of people follow him. Ittai would be one of them. Why? Because when God's man is in the right place at the right time, God draws people to himself.
[35:42] Never forget this, that the whole reason that God chose Abram out of the land of the Chaldeans was not because Abram was a cool guy that he wanted to change his name to Abraham and make a nation out of him. It's because God wanted to raise up a nation that would honor him as God so that he could draw all nations to himself.
[35:57] The whole reasoning for the existence of Israel is so that God could draw the world to worship him. Israel was to be a billboard to a watching world. David now is a billboard.
[36:09] Achish, it must not be doing too good over here so people are fleeing from there and coming and nesting under the shade tree of David's reign. Ittai the Hittite is one of them. And David declares to him when he's getting ready to leave, he says, hey, why would you flee with me?
[36:23] Now, we don't need to think that this is a literal interpretation that Ittai the Hittite just got there yesterday but the wording is like, you came as like it was only yesterday. You hadn't been here long. Why would you go?
[36:33] Go back home and he blesses him, right? Mercy and peace be with you. Go get your family. Go back to your homeland is where he's telling you to go. Go back to Gath because things are falling apart here. But look at the support that he has.
[36:45] Ittai says, as the Lord your God lives. Why? Because God always has his people. I will be with you in your life and I will be with you in your death.
[36:57] Wherever you are, either living or dying, so will I be. Now, that support, friends, it's always a good thing when you have people that will stand beside you like that. And when you have people that will stand beside you like that, you need to be just like David and say, praise be to God.
[37:10] Okay, let's go. And it's, I took his family and went with him. But we also see there are other people that come up and Hushai comes up and David's like, ah, you're going to be a burden to me.
[37:21] So that was kind of mean. Well, not really because he says, you serve me better if you go back. He sends him back to Jerusalem. By the way, when the king departed, he left people behind.
[37:33] Stay, I'm about to start preaching here in just a minute, so stay with me. When the king departed, he left some people behind. He left the Levites, there's some of the priests, the Beathau are still there.
[37:44] Hushai comes up, he's a dear friend, and the king says, you're going to serve me better not by going with me where I go, you will serve me better by going back. And then that last sentence is so amazing. So Hushai, the friend of David came into the city and Absalom came into Jerusalem.
[37:59] You know what's happening here? As soon as the enemy gets there, the friends of the king are there too. The enemy, Absalom, is present, but you know who else is present? The people the king left behind.
[38:13] And they thwart the plans of the enemy. And Hushai actually becomes the guy who says, oh, okay, I'm going to be a counselor and we'll read ahead. I don't want to get ahead of him, but he's so instrumental in what happens because if Ahilthophel's counsel is taken, David dies.
[38:28] But it's not taken because Hushai, who David sent back, those that support, he sent back to thwart that plan and then he informed Abiathar and all those and they turned, actually it's through a maid and went and told this and then David finds out about it because David says, I'm going to wait to Tafor right until I hear a word and then I'll know where to go because he left some people behind.
[38:46] The king had representatives in enemy territory. I hope you're putting this together. The king left some representatives behind in enemy territory to further the kingdom advance.
[38:58] The king was not without representation just because the enemy went into the house because the king was still ruling. He was ruling through his people because the council of the king was still taking place in enemy territory because the friend of the king was there standing before him alongside Ahithophel.
[39:19] Ahithophel was wise and he had good counsel but Hushai was there and he was the friend of the king and since he was the friend of the king he could thwart the plans of the mate-believe king and the enemy's plans led to the enemy's destruction because the king left some people behind.
[39:36] We don't have to complete this, right, because when the king of kings, lord of lords, left, he left some people behind. When he surrendered, he submitted and he sorrowed in his sorrow and he departed.
[39:50] When he ascended into glory, he left some people behind and he left some friends behind in enemy territory. Friend, that's you and I and the representatives of the king still exist in the presence of the enemy and as long as the representatives of the king serve in the presence of the enemy in the interest of the king, there will be a day when the enemy is defeated.
[40:12] The king is not without representation and the final word of the enemy doesn't come about because we see here their support.
[40:26] The authority that Hushai was exercising in the palace was based upon the authority of the king that was out of the land. Hushai had no authority but he had the king's commissioning behind him.
[40:39] Absalom, Abithar, and the Levites, the only authority they had was that the king over here told us to stay here. Friend, the authority we have in the land of the enemy is that this is where the king has left us and since the king has left us here we operate in this realm in his authority and his power.
[40:56] It's not our own, it is his authority, his power while he is not here yet, he will come back someday but until he returns he's left us here to operate in enemy territory with his authority in a different realm and the king still has representatives in the enemy land therefore the king's purposes will still come about because God always has his man and how good it is to be that man or woman in that day knowing that you serve a greater king than the one who stands before you.
[41:31] There is a prince of this world who's operating right now. There's an Absalom walking around who's made himself king for a while. The truth be told he's won a lot of the hearts of the people towards him.
[41:44] A lot of people follow that king who is the enemy of our souls. He has anointed and appointed himself the king of man but he got that appointment because he fell out of heaven. He couldn't get the throne of heaven so he thought he would take the throne of this earth and he has made himself king by winning the hearts of the common man.
[42:01] The wonder and wonder of it all is that we have the true king who came, he surrendered, he submitted and it was a day of sorrow but when he left he left behind the representatives. He's got great supports. We are the representatives of the king in enemy territory and we know this.
[42:19] Though you can't see him the king still reigns. Though he's not here yet the king's coming back. Though the enemy may look powerful and many may be with him he's still a defeated foe because our king has won all the battles.
[42:35] Last time I checked every battle I see Satan fighting in scripture he loses. You say well wait a minute he tempted Eve, right.
[42:46] I also see in the book of Daniel when Daniel's praying and God sends a messenger and Satan and his angels hinder that messenger and then they are defeated and Daniel gets his answer. Every time I see Satan fighting with the people of God Satan loses.
[43:02] He's an imposter. As long as we stay true to the king of kings and lord of lords. We see it here and I went way too long but 2 Samuel 15 verses 13-37 the departure of the king.
[43:19] Thank you my brothers. Thank you.
[43:34] Thank you.