The Unbroken Cord of Sin

21The king said to Joab, “Behold now, I have done this thing. Go therefore, and bring the young man Absalom back.” 22Joab fell to the ground on his face, showed respect, and blessed the king. Joab said, “Today your servant knows that I have found favor in your sight, my lord, king, in that the king has performed the request of his servant.” 23So Joab arose and went to Geshur, and brought Absalom to Jerusalem. 24The king said, “Let him return to his own house, but let him not see my face.” So Absalom returned to his own house, and didn’t see the king’s face. 25Now in all Israel there was no one to be so much praised as Absalom for his beauty. From the sole of his foot even to the crown of his head there was no defect in him. 26When he cut the hair of his head (now it was at every year’s end that he cut it; because it was heavy on him, therefore he cut it); he weighed the hair of his head at two hundred shekels, after the king’s weight. 27Three sons were born to Absalom, and one daughter, whose name was Tamar. She was a woman with a beautiful face. 28Absalom lived two full years in Jerusalem, and he didn’t see the king’s face. 29Then Absalom sent for Joab, to send him to the king, but he would not come to him. Then he sent again a second time, but he would not come. 30Therefore he said to his servants, “Behold, Joab’s field is near mine, and he has barley there. Go and set it on fire.” So Absalom’s servants set the field on fire. 31Then Joab arose, and came to Absalom to his house, and said to him, “Why have your servants set my field on fire?” 32Absalom answered Joab, “Behold, I sent to you, saying, ‘Come here, that I may send you to the king, to say, “Why have I come from Geshur? It would be better for me to be there still. Now therefore let me see the king’s face, and if there is iniquity in me, let him kill me.”’” 33So Joab came to the king, and told him; and when he had called for Absalom, he came to the king, and bowed himself on his face to the ground before the king; and the king kissed Absalom.

A parent’s love, people say, is a love that would not count even one’s own life too great a price, and my hope is that it truly is real love. If you feel ashamed or angry when your child falls short of other children, that love is not for your child; it is a wish to show yourself off. Though we are bound by blood, if we look at it honestly, we may be only pretending to love our children for the sake of our own needs and pride. Some parents, it is true, give themselves up for their children and ask nothing back; but there are also parents who treat their children as tools to make themselves shine, and such relationships are hard to sustain for long.

If even a family that shares the same blood is like this, the world, tangled up in its interests, must be worse still. The world draws near when you are of use and keeps its distance when you cost it something. It weighs every interest, and if you are of no help, it can betray you with cruel ease—reason enough for us to be always on our guard. Even so, foolish people flock around those who cheat others for gain and are full of tricks, hoping to learn their way of getting ahead.

Since the wisdom of the world begins in darkness, without eyes that see clearly in the spirit we cannot help but walk the way of the wicked. So if believers act sinfully in the world, they can damage not only their relationships with people but their relationship with God as well. If we know the high knowledge of God, we must work to think as God thinks.

Once David gave in to the evil spirit, he governed his people poorly and did not fulfill his part as a father, and his life became one hardship after another. As he grew spiritually numb, his heartfelt longing for God faded, and because it faded, the strength to fend off Satan’s attacks and even the wisdom to weigh his problems were lost.

Nothing is as unhappy as being spiritually numb. We must always watch where the Holy Spirit is leading our lives. We need to pray without ceasing to know God’s will, and to live by faith in order to understand the word. Then we become spiritually alert, keenly sensing when Satan draws near, and able to weigh things by the law of the word. We must be careful, for even David, wise and discerning as he had been, did foolish things without realizing it once he drifted from the word.

I hope you will not think yourself wise. The moment you think you are wiser and cleverer than others, you can no longer see God’s will clearly. David, too, had judged rightly until now, and everything he decided had gone smoothly, so it never occurred to him that he might be wrong. That is why he was shocked when the prophet Nathan said that he was the man who had taken the ewe lamb. He repented when he lost his son, but his spiritual state was already such that he could not see events clearly, and this is how he came to bring misery on Amnon and Tamar and make Absalom a murderer. Even then he did not stand before God as he should; as a result he failed to grasp the whole of what was happening, and trouble kept coming.

Friends, if we truly understand God’s will and strive to turn back, we will not go through the same trouble born of sin twice. One experience is enough for us to see through to God’s will, and with the wisdom the Holy Spirit gives, we can defeat Satan’s schemes. Yet because we are human, the pain in our hearts may remain, and there is no need to feel guilty about that. If we do not know that life’s troubles began in a darkness that seeks to shake our faith, we may flounder in a deep pit. But if we do not forget the feelings we learned through experience and the way we dealt with the matter, we can handle the same problem steadily when it comes again. Because David did not show himself a father who rebuked those who needed rebuke and comforted those who needed comfort, he kept creating the same problems.

2 Samuel 14:2

2Joab sent to Tekoa, and brought a wise woman from there, and said to her, “Please act like a mourner, and put on mourning clothing, please, and don’t anoint yourself with oil, but be as a woman who has mourned a long time for the dead.

Three years after Absalom murdered his brother Amnon and fled to his mother’s family, David’s longing for Absalom had grown. Had he then called Absalom, as a father or with a king’s authority, and opened his heart to him frankly, he would not have created yet another problem. But David did not handle the matter as he should have and wavered, and Joab, reading his heart, sent for a wise woman who lived in Tekoa, taught her a parable, and asked her to go and tell it to David. At Joab’s request, the woman went to David and said, “I have two sons. They quarreled in the field, and since there was no one to part them, the elder struck the younger and killed him. The whole clan says the elder son, who killed his brother, must be put to death; but if he dies, my house will be left without an heir. O king, save my son,” she pleaded. Her situation was so like his own pain that David understood her heart, and he readily agreed to help. “I will stop anyone from laying a hand on your elder son. Bring to me whoever seeks to kill your son,” he said. Hearing David’s answer, the woman finally revealed what was really on her mind. “You say you will spare another man’s son, though he has committed murder,” she said. “Why, then, will you not forgive your own son Absalom?” The people were waiting so eagerly for the return of Absalom, the heir; why would the king not forgive his own son? So she rebuked him. After hearing her, David realized it was Joab’s plot; but the David of old, shining in the Spirit, would have known it before the woman ever gave her counsel.

Joab could dare to act this way toward King David because he had no respect for him. This was not the David who had kept faith to the end while fleeing from King Saul; this was David the sinner, who had killed Uriah, a man Joab could treat as he pleased. Even so, Joab’s conduct was arrogant, for he did not know that God was still watching over David. The relationship between God and David had grown distant, but that was a matter between God and David; for Joab to treat David so carelessly was a sin.

Joab deliberately conveyed his intentions to David through the woman. If David heard her and gladly agreed, his plan had succeeded; if David grew angry, the woman would be the one rebuked, and Joab must have reckoned he could simply find another way.

When trouble arose, God sent the prophet Nathan to speak to David directly, and he handled the matter with goodness so that those around David would not be harmed. Joab, however, did not come to David and speak his own mind; he used the woman to deliver his thoughts for him. Hiding behind a woman like this, shifting all the responsibility onto her and refusing to bear any himself, is Satan’s way. My hope is that you will take a close look at what happens when David judges and decides unwisely and keeps beside him people he should never have let near.

When David was full of the Holy Spirit, he was not deceived even when someone tried to deceive him; but once he drifted from God, everything fooled him. This applies to your life as well: if you are full of the Holy Spirit, people cannot treat you lightly, because you shine spiritually. When you are spiritually dark, you cannot read a situation well, so you cannot tell those who would deceive you from those who despise you. If we stop trying to live by human wisdom and live full of the Holy Spirit, we will naturally be able to recognize who is good.

A good man like the prophet Nathan made David understand God’s will and brought him to repentance, and he helped him receive God’s forgiveness.

But wicked men like Joab and Jonadab devise schemes to get their own way, so David needed to think wisely about whom he kept beside him. Knowing that Joab was plotting through the woman, he should have handled things all the more wisely. Yet his wavering character invited Absalom’s rebellion, and he could not prevent the tragedy of treacherous Joab killing Absalom. Nor could he stop the rebellion of Adonijah, who greedily sought to become king in Solomon’s place, and the result was the tragedy of his children killing and being killed. David’s sins of greed, lust, and pleasure brought his household to ruin.

Who is beside you now? What influence is that person having on your life? Are they leading you on the good path, or on the world’s path? I hope there is someone good beside you who counsels you in faith so that you can walk in the way of truth. Even when their exhortation is hard to hear, if it is a true word, you must listen and act on it. May you keep firmly in mind that only then will you not stray from the truth.

If people like Jonadab, who set David’s children against one another, or Joab, who used David to seize power, are beside you, hard problems will keep arising without end, and your life will always be weary because of them. Outwardly, Joab may look like a good man who helped David. He may seem to have given himself to David’s service and laid down his life for the nation. But because he could not let go of his greed, he did not pursue what was good together with David, and he had no fear of sinning. I hope you will not be deceived by people like Joab, and that you will always pray, asking God to keep the wicked and evil spirits from hindering your life.

2 Samuel 14:21

21The king said to Joab, “Behold now, I have done this thing. Go therefore, and bring the young man Absalom back.”

David’s own indecision had created the painful situation in which Absalom could not help but commit murder; yet for three years he would not see Absalom, who had fled to Geshur. He knew that the woman’s plea to bring Absalom back was Joab’s doing, yet without taking any measures he told Joab to bring Absalom home. Calling Absalom back like this, with no plan at all, was irresponsible. The David of old, full of the Holy Spirit, would have weighed carefully what problems might arise when he met Absalom and how the people would treat Absalom, a murderer, before acting. But this time too David simply told Joab to bring Absalom back, with no plan whatever. As a father, he might naturally miss Absalom; but before he was a father, he was a king and one of God’s people, and there were laws he had to keep. This mattered because, if he forgave Absalom unconditionally before Absalom had been rebuked for murdering his brother and had repented, Absalom would cause even greater trouble.

Absalom came home with Joab at his father’s summons, but when his father would not see him for two years, he grew resentful. He must have wished instead that his father would rebuke him severely, so that he could truly understand what he had done wrong and turn back to God and to his father. But David took no action, and that only made things worse. Absalom was a sinner before he was a son, and Joab was a man ambitious to seize power; David knew all this, yet he disciplined neither of them. He did not coldly point out his son’s sin, nor did he forgive that sin and embrace him. He simply let time pass while resentment piled up in Absalom’s heart; as a result David was driven from his palace by Absalom’s rebellion and suffered the shame of having his concubines taken. David’s faith, unable to act decisively, brought great hardship upon him.

You must always live with this question before you: will God answer the outcome of your decisions with praise or with rebuke? Since Absalom was his son, David could certainly forgive him and take him in his arms at any time; but that aside, Absalom was a man who had committed murder on purpose. Only by dealing with him fairly according to God’s law, before treating him as a son, could David win back the people’s trust and properly train Absalom.

The church is no different. The world is ruled by the spirit of darkness, but in the church both the Holy Spirit and evil spirits are at work, so the problems are not simple. That is why believers must discern the spirits and stand on the rock of faith. People say the church must embrace everyone in love and forgive unconditionally. But Scripture tells us that only when sin is repented of does a person receive forgiveness through God’s mercy and the chance to begin again. However painful it is, only by rebuking more sharply in the Spirit and embracing with God’s love can people grow as God’s people. Satan will stop at nothing to deceive God’s people; with the help of the Holy Spirit, then, we must not waver to the right or to the left.

Churches today cannot properly discipline their members. Only when a church disciplines rightly can its people truly learn the law; but because of the sickness of churches that take members from other churches to grow their numbers, people can easily leave a church, which leaves it unable to discipline them. If the church disciplined its members by the law of the word, and members accepted that discipline, repented, and recovered their faith, Christianity would never become corrupt. In reality, however, churches and pastors must cater to people’s tastes, and people take it for granted that if they are disciplined they will move to another church; so the word is watered down, and church members do not properly learn God’s law. When I look at this reality, with pastors’ authority fallen to the ground and God’s word made a laughingstock of the world, it truly grieves me. As this has become common, a vicious circle has set in, with pastors preaching the blessings of the world rather than the word.

David should have acted more decisively to resolve things, but perhaps, content that he had looked back on his own sin and repented, he thought that none of what was happening in his household was his sin. Amnon had committed the sin of raping Tamar, David may have told himself; it had happened because Tamar did not resist strongly enough; Absalom had committed murder because he could not control his rage—so David would have thought of it as their sin rather than his own.

For a person of faith, this very way of thinking is a sin before God. Why? Because when one is full of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit gives wisdom, and with that wisdom one examines all these sins in oneself and repents.

Such a person can see that it is the sin of a father who did not teach his children the word as he should have, the sin of failing to watch closely over his children’s hearts, the sin of not looking ahead as head of the household, and then repent sincerely before God and recover their faith. Of course, David did not make Amnon and Absalom sin; but because he did not recognize before God that he was a sinner, he blamed others every time something happened, and that is how he came to act irresolutely. Had he come to see that he had only been blaming others for this hard situation, David would probably have realized that it happened because his own faith was not whole, and he would have repented deeply. But because it concerned his children, David could not deal with it coolly; he handled it by human reasoning and lost Absalom. Had David not forgotten the word Nathan delivered, and rebuked Joab and Absalom, he might even have prevented the tragedy of Solomon putting the rebel Adonijah to death. David, who had always handled matters knowing what lay ahead and what was in people’s hearts, kept stirring up trouble once he lost his spiritual wisdom.

We also see people of faith who live well by faith in ordinary times, yet act as if they had no sense at all once a problem with their children or a personal problem arises. We are taken aback that they had such a worldly side, or disappointed that their discernment was no better than this, so unable are they to get beyond their own thinking. Granted, such blind love may protect their children; but if they cannot let go of their own thinking, they also make the mistake of shutting out even the chance for God to help their child.

If you do not know God’s word and judge wisely, you will turn problems that could easily be solved into large ones. You must therefore weigh things with spiritual sensitivity. If you look at a problem as a whole and keep two or three steps ahead in checking how things are progressing, you will not make mistakes.

2 Samuel 14:25

25Now in all Israel there was no one to be so much praised as Absalom for his beauty. From the sole of his foot even to the crown of his head there was no defect in him.

Scripture is recounting how Joab schemed to bring Absalom back to David when it suddenly records Absalom’s appearance. It praises him: his hair was beautiful, and there was not a single defect in him. Scripture takes the trouble to record Absalom’s outstanding looks to show that the world cares more about outward appearance than character. Though Absalom was a sinner, people cared more about his looks than his sin; for that reason they praised Absalom, a murderer. When I see that the beautiful hair everyone praised so highly was the very reason Absalom died at Joab’s hand, I think how worthless human pride is.

Absalom, of course, would have much to say for himself. My sister was raped by Amnon, he might protest—was I, her brother, supposed to stand by and do nothing?

From the world’s point of view, it was certainly unjust. But we must not take revenge driven only by a sense of injustice. Had Absalom waited until God judged Amnon, God would not only have avenged him but would also have made Absalom and Tamar live free of shame.

Saul hunted David to kill him, but David endured to the end, and God vindicated him; in the same way, Absalom should have entrusted Amnon to God and waited. This is true forgiveness, and it is the power that moves God. Perhaps Saul tormented David all the more because he knew David was a good man who held life dear. David, who endured to the end though he knew Saul’s evil deeds, finally saw Saul die together with his sons and saw his house fall.

The truth is that in this life good people always suffer more. Ordinary people do as suits them without considering what lies ahead, but good people bear pain so as not to make trouble. Once David was held fast by sin, he did not teach his children that God delights in those who endure in faith and hates sin. David, once so wise, handled everything by his own reasoning and feelings after he drifted from God, making mistake after mistake.

Rather than criticizing David as foolish, I hope you will look back and ask whether you are doing the same thing now. May you keep no cunning, crafty people like Joab beside you, and stay far from worldly people like Absalom, who cannot get beyond their own thinking.

Because we must preach the gospel in the world, only by having the ability to discern wisely can we protect our faith and those we love. May you live in the goodness God desires, with a faith full of the Holy Spirit, as God’s wise people.